The Tenth Gift (21 page)

Triumphant. Successful. Bringing a shipload of Christian slaves, most of whom were bound, if the stories belowdecks were true, for the galleys and the slave markets, for ill use and beatings, for torture and enforced apostasy, and ultimately death in a strange land. Something
hardened in her heart against the confusing feelings he stirred in her. Words welled up and spewed out before she could stop them.

“You tell me about the terrible things the Spanish did to your family and say that you carry holy war to the Christians as just revenge and on behalf of the Mahometan people. But if your religion says it is right to treat anyone the way you have treated the innocent men, women, and children in the hold of this ship, who lie in filth and die of disease and ill treatment, then I say it is a wicked, cruel religion and that your god is not my god!”

She saw the fury in his eyes; she saw his hand make a fist, which trembled with the effort it took him not to strike her. Time seemed to stand still. She stared at him till she thought her knees would fail her, not knowing whether she had said a stupid thing that she would have a short lifetime to regret, or whether she had touched home a point that might give him pause. But just as she thought the latter might prevail, he shouted and seconds later she found herself seized by two crewmen who came running at his summons.

“I have not time to dispute with you. I have the Bou Regreg to navigate and ship to dock. Is not my habit to argue with women. You will be taken back to your people: Your fate shall be their fate. No one question my religion or my god. No one insult memory of my family. I thought you worth more, and not just money. But you same as rest, ignorant and faithless. You could have lived like queen in most beautiful house in qasba; now you take your place on blocks with rest.” And he waved the men away and turned his back on her.

C
ASABLANCA AIRPORT WAS BEWILDERING
. S
EAS OF
people engulfed me as soon as I stepped into the main concourse: travelers in expensive European designer clothes, men in sharply cut suits and sunglasses, others in flowing djellabas, West African women in bright prints and fabulously wound turbans, extended families herding children and trolleys, buckling under the strain of overstuffed trash bags, Saran-wrapped suitcases, and cardboard boxes. I passed a roomful of men kneeling on prayer mats, a football team in matching track suits, innumerable security staff in military uniforms and with outsized sidearms. All around me swirled a babel of languages. My schoolgirl French was not up to interpreting the muffled announcements over the loudspeaker nor the confusing signage; by the time I had waited in line for an hour at the correct security point, haltingly answered the immigration officer’s questions—
“Vous voyagez seule, sans votre mari?”
(“No, no husband …” His eyes bored into me.)
“Et pourquoi visitez-vous le Maroc? Vouz avez la famille ici, madame
[not
mademoiselle
, I noted sourly]
ou vous faisez le business?”
(No, just as a tourist.) “O
u restez-vous, qu’est-ce que c’est ‘Dar el-Beldi,’ c’est chez une famille que vous connaissiez?”
—located the baggage-claim hall and retrieved my bags, and at last stumbled out into the oven-hot air of the exterior, there was only one vehicle left in the taxi lane. It was a Mercedes, and not just any Mercedes, but an ancient stretch limo. I stared at it, disbelieving. Must be waiting for a local celebrity, I thought, but as soon as I laid eyes upon it, the driver fairly flew out of the door and seized my bags. I held on, equally determined.
“Combien á la gare de Casa Port?”

“For you, three hundred dirham, Madame,” he answered me in perfect English.

“I’ll give you two hundred.”

“Two hundred and fifty.”

“Two hundred.”

He looked pained. I thought he was about to lecture me on starving his children, but he merely gestured at the Merc. “Such beautiful car, how I can maintain on such little fare?”

There was no answer to that, so I just shrugged and smiled.

He sighed. “Such beautiful eyes. For your eyes I take you for two hundred.”

“My train for Rabat leaves at five. Will we make it?”

“Inch’ allah.
Is in the hands of God.”

Feeling distinctly nervous now, I watched my cases being swallowed by the trunk, then took a seat in the back. When a second and third man appeared at his call, I dug out my mobile phone and got ready to call Mme. Rachidi at the riad, hoping that she would have some useful advice for me, or at least alert the local police on my behalf. The driver took his place behind the wheel and his friends disappeared from sight around the back. I whipped my head around, paranoid—only to find them bump-starting the car. At the third attempt, it roared to life.

Great, I thought. I am alone in a foreign—a really foreign— country, with a man who’s already complimented my eyes, and now has two mates sitting up front with him, heading for a city I’ve never yet visited, in a car that may break down at any minute. Perhaps Alison was right; I was beginning to have qualms.

Qualms were on the way to full-blown panic by the time we approached the outskirts of the city and the driver swerved wildly across three lanes of traffic to take an abrupt detour into the suburbs. The typically bland motorway down which we sped at alarming speed into the city had offered no clue to the flavor of the country in which I had arrived, but suddenly we were in the
bidonvilles.

The driver must have seen my expression in his rearview mirror,
because he turned around, one hand still casually draped over the steering wheel at what felt like sixty-odd miles an hour, and told me cheerfully, “There is camera and police. Always they stop me, is very expensive!”

I tried not to imagine all the worst things that could happen to a woman on her own in the slums of Casablanca and applied myself to taking in the unfamiliar new environment that fled past the windows of the slewing car: crumbling adobe houses and tin shacks between which ran alleys of beaten red earth frequented by a Third World mé lange of little black goats, skinny chickens, bone-thin cats, and ragged children; cars rotting away under the blazing sun, weeds pushing up through the rusting carcasses of broken bicycles; lines of washing flapping in the dusty breeze; bright carpets hung over terrace walls; roofs of corrugated iron sprouting a forest of satellite dishes. Two men squatted beside an electricity pole playing a checkers-like game with colored bottle tops and stones; others sat on doorsteps, smoking and staring into empty air. A woman robed from head to toe in white cotton washed unfeasibly large garments in a small tin bath; she raised her head to watch our passage incuriously, then returned without any trace of reaction to her task: The stretch Merc was clearly a frequent visitor through this insalubrious quarter.

Then, just as abruptly, we were back on the main road again and the slums had vanished in a cloud of dust. Moments later we were speeding through a thoroughly modern city—creamy-white low-rise apartment blocks, shop windows, billboards, and traffic lights— not that anyone seemed to take any notice of them. The blare of car horns was deafening. It seemed that every jam, every hold-up, every awkward maneuver was someone else’s fault. Ten lanes of traffic converged in a lethal-looking knot at every major junction. If their horns weren’t working—or even if they were—motorists stuck their heads out of the window and helpfully offered to others gems of basic driving advice. Three-wheeled bicycles to whose front ends were appended unwieldy cartloads—of fish, of vegetables, of scrap
metal—wove a dangerously unstable path between the cars and buses. Sometimes suicidal pedestrians wandered into this appalling melee, but we passed too quickly for me to see whether or not they survived. We passed glittering hotels, chic boutiques, showrooms displaying top-of-the-line cars, designer kitchens, flat-screen televisions. The three men in the front of the Mercedes joined in the general rush-hour conversation, shouting oaths, shaking fists, and wagging fingers, and the charms and amulets hanging from the rearview mirror pirouetted wildly.

The will of Allah was that I should arrive at Casa Port station in one piece, and just in time to catch my train to Rabat. My driver, Hassan, proved to be a treasure, shoving his way to the head of the queue to buy my
billet simple
, persuaded the guard to allow him through the barrier, carried my bags right onto the train for me, found my designated seat, and stowed my luggage safely above my head. He shook my hand vigorously.
“Bes’ salama. Allah ihf’ dek. Dieu vouz protége
. God go with you.”

He absolutely refused to take a tip, leaving me staring after him openmouthed with amazement and gratitude.

The occupants of my carriage comprised largely businesspeople, judging by the number of briefcases and laptops on display, and a surprising percentage of these were women, some dressed entirely in Western clothing, others in full-length pastel robes complete with hijab, while others went bare-headed. Each one of them wore a quite extraordinary amount of makeup—full-cover foundation, powder, lipstick and pencil, blush, thick black eyeliner, eye shadow, highlighter, eyebrow pencil—all very expertly applied, and exquisite high-heeled shoes. Kohled eyes watched me covertly:
Poor woman, traveling on her own; no children, no sign of a wedding ring, and so inelegantly dressed, too—has she no pride in herself to be wearing such old jeans and ugly trainers, and not a trace of cosmetics?
No matter how swiftly they looked away, I could read their thoughts in an instant. The men smiled at me kindly; perhaps in their eyes, too, I
was worthy of pity. One young man, keen to show off his English, asked me if I was visiting his country for the first time, and what did I think of it, and did I need somewhere to stay in Rabat, because his family would happily take me into their home. I told him it was my first visit, that what little I had seen of Morocco so far seemed fascinating and I was looking forward to discovering much more, and that, yes, thank you, I had arranged my accommodation in Rabat. I watched his face fall.

“If you need a guide … ?”

“That, too, is arranged.”

He fixed me with an earnest look. “You must be very careful about guides here in Morocco. Sometimes they are not what they seem. I mean they are not to be trusted and may tell you many lies. It can be dangerous for a lady who travel on her own.”

The woman opposite me caught my eye and held my gaze for several heartbeats, then looked away.

“Thank you for your kind advice,” I said, smiling. To signal that our conversation was at an end, I dug out my
Rough Guide
and applied myself to it, nerves jumping. I felt his regard on me like a physical touch, and my skin began to crawl. He’s only being friendly, I told myself fiercely, he’s concerned for your welfare.

I went out into the corridor and phoned Alison.

“Hi. I’m here.”

“Where’s ‘here’?”

“On the train to Rabat. It gets in in about twenty minutes.”

“You okay?”

It was reassuring to hear her voice. I thought about her question for a split second, felt foolish at my paranoia; smiled. “Yes, fine, actually. People are really pleasant and helpful. How are you?”

“Great. I was going to phone you later. Something amazing’s happened. We’ve found something—you’ll never believe it, it ties up with Catherine’s book.”

I waited, pins and needles tingling at the base of my skull. Alison said something inaudible. “What? Say that again?”

“Sorry, it’s just that Michael’s here. I’m going to hand you over.” A pause.

“Julia?” Michael’s voice, a continent away.

I closed my eyes, remembering the last time we had spoken. “Go away,” I said softly.

“What? Julia, I can’t hear you. Look, you’ve got to come back— get a flight tomorrow, Anna and I will pay for it. We really need the book, you won’t believe what we’ve found—”

“Go away,” I said, and turned the phone off, my heart hammering.

A
PORTLY MIDDLE-AGED
man in a tunic and wide trousers waited for me in the concourse of Rabat’s main railway station holding a handwritten cardboard sign bearing the legend
Mme LOVEIT. I
walked right past him before it clicked. A fit of the giggles threatened to consume me. Mastering it, I retraced my steps. “Hello. I’m Julia Lovat.”

His face broke into a huge, gap-toothed grin.
“Enchanté, madame. Bienvenue
, welcome, welcome in Maroc.” He waddled up and pumped my hand effusively and at once relieved me of my suitcases.

“Are you Idriss el-Kharkouri?” I asked. He was not at all what I had been expecting. Somehow from the refined tones of Madame Rachidi, I had pictured an elegant cousin with a scholarly air and the ability to march me around the city at speed, filling my head with arcane knowledge. It did not look as if Idriss was in the habit of walking anywhere at all, nor did his lazy smile intimate the razor-sharp intellect of an expert guide. But I knew nothing of what might lie behind the facades of this culture. Perhaps I should not leap so swiftly to judgment.

He looked puzzled, so I repeated my question, adding:
“Idriss, le cousin de Madame Rachidi, mon guide?”

Now he shook his head vigorously.
“Ah, non, non, non, desolé,
madame. Idriss ne pouvait pas m’accompagner. Il est occupé ce soir. Moi, je suis Saïd el-Omari, aussi cousin de Madame Rachidi.”

Another of Madame Rachidi’s cousins, I slowly translated for myself, following in his wake as he staggered along with my cases, not realizing, or perhaps disdaining, the efficacy of the handle and wheels. Popping open the trunk of a small rusting blue Peugeot bearing an official taxi sign, he stowed my luggage, helped me into the back, performed an illegal U-turn, and headed at speed down the main road of a city that looked as blandly European as the center of Casablanca. Monumental government buildings, a vast post office, rows of modern shops, municipal gardens lush with color, office blocks, parking lots. As the nondescript trappings of a modern city sped past me, I allowed my mind to hover for a moment—like an insect over a Venus flytrap—over my brief conversation with Alison and Michael.

Whatever could they have found that was so important it would prompt Michael to return to Cornwall, let alone offer to pay my fare back? And what—my guts clenched—had he said to Anna about it all? Before I left London, aware of the many perils that can befall a traveler, I had taken the book to a copy shop in Putney and carefully photocopied every page, laying the book as flat as I could without damaging the spine, and using the most complicated graphics settings the machine offered to capture as best I could the soft pencil script. It had taken me several false starts, a great deal of finicky care, well over an hour, and cost the best part of ten pounds, but it was worth both cost and effort for some peace of mind. A more prudent person would probably have left the original at home and taken the copy with them, but I could not bear to be parted from the object itself, so I had lodged the copy with my lawyer.

My hand strayed to the bag on my knee. Delving inside, I caressed the cover of
The Needle-Woman’s Glorie.
I have often wondered whether pet owners stroke their animals for their own or the pet’s benefit; now the feeling of the soft calfskin under my fingers
calmed me, reassuringly solid and present, and I suspected it might be for the former reason. I held Catherine’s book pressed to my chest as we passed from the modern city through an archway in the crumbling terra-cotta pisé walls of the old medina.

Immediately I was craning my neck, all thoughts of England forgotten. This was truly foreign territory. People thronged the streets in a great melee—old men in hooded robes, veiled women, teenaged boys in a mixture of garbs from the downright medieval to the saggy jeans and bling of classic hip-hop culture. Music pervaded the air, percussive and insistent, traditional North African voices mingling with the occasional throb of drum and bass. The taxi dodged at a snail’s pace through the flow of people on bicycles, mopeds, and donkey carts, giving me a privileged view of market stalls overflowing with produce, narrow alleys bordered by tall, windowless houses with ornate doors of aged iron-bound wood, elegant towers topped by shining green tiles, and wrought-iron gateways offering a tantalizing glimpse of hidden courtyards verdant with orange trees and bougainvillea. We turned a corner and a great wailing voice shivered on the twilight air: the muezzin, the call to prayer. My spine shivered in counterpoint and I closed my eyes, listening—
“Allah akbar. Allah akbar. Achehadou ana illah illallah. Achehadou ana mohammed rasoul allah. Achehadou ana mohammed rasoul allah. Haya rala salah. Haya rala salah …”
—and felt myself suddenly inside the heart of western Islam.