The Tenth Gift (29 page)

“I’m sorry, my English is not really up to this task—it is difficult for me to read. But if I understand it at all, it seems to be the account of a female captive taken by the corsairs, written by her own hand?”

I nodded.

“Is it real?”

“It depends what you mean by real. I believe it’s authentic, but I need an expert opinion.”

His eyes were shining. “But this is extraordinary. If it is real, you have here a piece of the true history of Morocco in your hands, Julia
Lovat. It’s a miracle, a magical window into the past.
L’histoire perdue.
I never heard of such a thing, not so early as 1625, and certainly not by a woman.
C’est absolument incroyable!”

He kissed the book; then, as if by oversight, he crossed the room and kissed me, four times, on both cheeks. I could still feel the impressions of his fingers on my upper arms when he sprang away again.

“I am sorry, forgive me, please.”

I forced a laugh. “There is really nothing to forgive. It really is an amazing thing, isn’t it?”

“Truly. But one thing I do not understand—what are these pictures?” He indicated one of the embroidery patterns, a pair of pretty birds with their necks twined about one another, enclosed by a bower of leaves and roses.

“They’re slips, embroidery slips,” I explained, taking the book back from him. “Simple patterns for girls to follow in their needlework.” I mimed the act. “To decorate their dresses, or things for the home—bed hangings, tablecloths, that sort of thing. English women spent a lot of time on this art through the ages. Some of us still do.” I retrieved my bag from the floor, placed Catherine’s book inside, and then drew out the piece of embroidery I was currently working on— the scarf at three of whose four corners peacocks’ feathers flared in gorgeous emeralds and aquamarines. I thought I might change the motif for the last corner, but inspiration had not yet struck me.

“You did this?”

“You needn’t sound so surprised.”

He smiled. “It’s just … well, I thought women like you were too busy, too modern, to spend time on such things. It’s the sort of thing my grandmother might embroider. You must show her when she comes back from her visit. She loves the feathers of this bird, the
paon
—she has some in a vase in her room.”

“The peacock?”

“Peacock, yes.
Jeddah
will be here tomorrow evening, or maybe the next day. Rachid is driving to fetch her.”

I frowned. “I’m not sure I’ll still be here then. If we can see your
expert tomorrow and get his view on the book so that I know what I’m dealing with, I’ll probably take the train back to Casablanca immediately after and fly home the next day.”

An unreadable expression crossed his face. Then he said, “Wait here.”

He returned a short time later with something draped over his arm.

“I thought tomorrow you might like to wear this, in case we pass your … Michael? in the street.”

It was a djellaba of midnight blue, very plain, but of good-quality cotton, though the embroidered cuffs and hems were machine-stitched and unremarkable in style. With it came a length of white cotton to use as a hijab.

I laughed. “I’ll look like a nun if I wear that.”

He frowned. “A nun?”

“Like a monk, a f
rère
but a woman … a
soeur?”

Now it was Idriss’s turn to laugh. “I do not think you could look like a
soeur
if you tried. Not with eyes like yours.”

I didn’t know what to say to this, so I said nothing. Seeing that he had embarrassed me, Idriss bowed his head. “I must go now and see my brother before he retires. There is something I would like my grandmother to bring with her from the mountains. I wish you good night, Julia.
Timinciwin. Ollah”
He covered his face with his hands, kissed the palms, then drew them down to his heart. “Sleep well.” And he was gone.

I
OPENED THE
shutters and sat on the little prayer mat to watch the moon sail over the rooftops of the medina. How long I sat there I do not know. The muezzin rang out and the stars wheeled and I thought about Michael and how life had brought us to such a strange pass that he should have pursued me across continents to take back the gift that symbolized the end of our liaison. After a time it occurred to me that I could not picture him anymore. I could imagine his eyes,
his mouth, the shape of his skull, but I couldn’t imagine them all together, couldn’t picture his whole face, or a single expression. Just who was it I had been having a relationship with all this time? The harder I tried to think of Michael, the more he eluded me, and after a while I began to think that this in itself was significant, that I had spent the last seven years living inside my own fantasies, acting out a role with a man who came and went only when it suited him.

With all this playing through my head, I went to bed. It felt odd to be lying in a single bed for the first time since I was a teenager, odd but somehow comforting to be so constrained. Even so, I tossed and turned, my sleep interrupted by fragments of imagery from a day spent walking around Rabat and Salé, filled with veiled and hooded figures who chased me through narrow streets where I became lost in a maze of alleyways, or trapped in dead ends past doors that wouldn’t open.

In the dead of the night I suddenly became convinced that someone had followed me all the way to Idriss’s home, that they had come into the house and entered the very bedroom in which I slept. I sat up, sweat running between my breasts and my pulse racing. There was no one there. Of course there wasn’t. I lay back down with my heart hammering and willed myself to relax, but try as I might, sleep would not come.

At last I swung my legs out of bed, padded across the room, and lit the candle. The sky showing through the slats of the shutter was a deep, rich black: Dawn was still a long way off. I decided that I would read some more of Catherine’s journal, and perhaps that would help me sleep again. I positioned the candle on the bedside table so that it would provide a pool of light in which I might hold the book, then pulled my bag toward me and reached inside. My fingers felt blindly around among the contents: wallet, passport, mobile phone, hairbrush, makeup bag, tissues, chewing gum. In the second compartment I found only my embroidery, a notebook, and a pen.

But of
The Needle-Woman’s Glorie
there was no trace.

I went cold all over. My immediate thought was that my dream had been no dream. But that was surely crazy. I got out, smoothing
the blanket in case I had suffered a failure of memory and left the book on the bed before falling asleep. Of course, it wasn’t there. Neither was it on the floor, the chair, or the bookcase. Given the sparsity of the room, there really was nowhere else to look, and I was left with no alternative scenario than that someone—Michael?—had indeed come into this room and stolen it while I slept.

I threw the djellaba over the T-shirt and knickers in which I had slept and made my way downstairs through the still, dark house. Anger carried me down two flights of stairs, but by the time I reached the third, it was giving way to uncertainty. As I reached the ground floor, something made my heart skip a beat. Flickering light danced across the tiled corridor and threw sinister shadows against the wall, making me think, unwillingly, of the tales of the djinn I had come upon in the
Arabian Nights
, spirits formed of subtle fire, bent on torment and destruction, or leading astray the unwary and the foolish. I took a deep breath, pushed down my superstitious fears, and approached the source of the light.

It came from the open door of the salon, wherein a single candle burned, casting a golden circle over the head of a figure hunched over a book. My book: Catherine’s book.

As preternaturally aware as a drowsing cat, Idriss turned just as I stepped over the threshold. We both spoke at once.

“What are you—”

“I am sorry—”

We stopped and gazed at each other, each of us mirroring the other’s dismay. Idriss beckoned me in. “Come, sit with me, and listen to this.” And he showed me the page he read from.

“‘They putte mee on the blocke and parted my robe to shew my red haire and white skin. They mayde much of my blew eyes and towlde how I was virgine and pure and many men made bidde for mee just lyke I was a prize yew untill I was sowlde and taken aside. That was the last tyme I saw my mother or my aunte which was a crewel partyng, but the worst separation was from my goode Matty and wee both wept sorely as they tooke me away …’”

C
ATHERINE

T
HEY COVERED HER IN A DARK ROBE FROM
head to foot and took her by mule from the marketplace through the streets of Old Salé. With only her eyes exposed, none could look upon her; she moved through the crowds, an anonymous woman on a starved mule led by a silent man. The silent man had a hard, fierce face and a bald head that gleamed with sweat in the sullen afternoon light. His hands were burned almost black by the sun and he wore a dirty white robe tucked up between his legs and looped over his belt. When she asked him who had bought her and where they were going, he did not so much as turn his head. If it had not been for the chafing of the mule’s sharp bones against her own, she would have felt as insubstantial as a ghost.

She looked to left and right—but what was the sense in seeking an escape? There was nowhere to run to, no one to help her. The thought of being sold into the hands of some stranger was terrible to her, but what was the alternative? To run through a strange city, only to be captured by a vengeful mob whose language she could neither speak nor understand? Or to throw herself off the city walls into the sea? She shivered. She had no wish to die yet.

They left the medina and came at last to the wide river’s bank, and there a boat waited, the oarsman leaning on his pole, silhouetted against the somber waters of the Father of Reflection. As Cat stepped into the boat, she thought of the tales Lady Harris had told her of Charon, who ferried the souls of the ancient dead across the black
river into Hades, a passage marking the relinquishing of their old life and the beginning of a new, grim existence. All she lacked was the coin in her mouth, Cat thought, that and the loss of her memories. As the ferryman poled the boat away from the bank of Slă el Bali, Cat gazed into the water that spooled away behind them and thought of her old life at Kenegie, with its easy duties among people whom she might not always have liked, but largely understood. She thought of the green and gold landscape of Cornwall, the grass and trees and gorse, the soft rain and hazy sunshine. She thought about her lost family: her dead father, her dead nephews, her mother gray and stripped naked. Turning her thoughts sharply from that painful image, she thought instead of her cousin Robert Bolitho, whose heart she had spurned, and wondered if she could ever have reconciled herself to the little life he had promised her. It was, she thought bitterly, a question she need never ask herself now, for that was her old life, and ahead lay another, and that was the way of things. Better be like the dead and accept one’s crossing over and not torture oneself with a future that could never be. Cat set her jaw and turned to watch the walls of Slă el Djedid looming before her.

On the water’s edge waited another man holding the reins of another beast, but these two were of quite different type from the pair she had left on the riverbank of Old Salé. This man was tall and garbed in a long red robe trimmed with gold; a scarlet turban covered his head and most of his face. From a gilded bandolier across his body hung a jeweled dagger, and silver bracelets clattered on his wrist as he raised his hand to greet the ferryman. Beside him stood a tall horse, its head small-boned, its legs long and delicate; a purebred horse that would have shown a clean pair of hooves to the hunters in Kenegie’s stable. Its crimson saddlecloth was worked with gold, as were the bright tassels of its harness. If this man and horse belonged to her buyer, Cat reflected, he must be a man of great wealth, and one who wished that others know it.

As the ferryman drew the boat up onto the shore, the horse
stamped and tossed its head, but the turbaned man laid a hand on its muzzle and it quieted. He stepped forward and pressed a coin into the boatman’s waiting hand.

Ah, thought Cat humorlessly, there it is, the payment for my soul.

Then the man turned to her, picked her up as if she were no heavier than a child, and set her on the horse’s back. As wordless as his counterpart on the other side of the river, he led her through the streets of New Salé, beneath a great arched gate, and into the Qasba Andalus.

They made their way through a maze of narrow streets that wound up a steep hill, and the sound of the horse’s hoofs rang on the stone and echoed off the walls on either side until it sounded as if a small army were ascending. At last they arrived at a long blank wall broken only by a tall wooden door. Here, the man came to a halt and, without knocking or otherwise announcing his presence, pushed open the door and led the horse inside. What had outside been dry and dusty and dead gave way to sudden verdant life: palm trees, fruit trees, earthenware pots overflowing with bright flowers. A boy as black as ink came running over, bowed to the man in scarlet, and held the horse’s reins as he helped Cat down. Two women emerged from a side door of a tall house and they, too, bowed to the man. Words passed among the three of them, guttural and harsh to Cat’s ears; then the women took hold of Cat, not unkindly, and bore her away with them into the cool shade.

The next few hours passed as in a dream. She was bathed in a room thick with steam, rinsed in another chamber lined with cold white tile, and rubbed with perfumed ointments; her hair was washed and a sweet-smelling oil was applied to it by careful hands. Someone brought her a silk shift, which felt so cool and smooth against her skin that she almost wept. Over this, they added an embroidered robe and a head scarf in which to wrap her wet hair and gave her a pair of soft, red leather babouches for her feet, and then they took her to a tall-ceilinged room with a canopied bed and here,
spreading their hands as if to say,
This is for you
, they left her, closing the door quietly behind them.

What now? Cat wondered. She had been so cleansed and seasoned with perfume that she felt like meat that had been prepared for a rich man’s table. Was that what she was to become now, a rich man’s plaything, a creature of the bedchamber? She shuddered, and waited.

No one came. After a time she got up and opened the tall carved armoire against the left wall and found therein neatly folded cotton shifts, head-cloths, three more robes in rich fabrics, and another pair of leather shoes. She closed it again, frowning. Was she in some other woman’s room? She wandered to the window. Through the curlicues of its wrought-iron grille she could look down into a courtyard bright with marble and trees. Its geometrical design was soothing to the mind: A fountain in the center sat within an eight-pointed reservoir from which four channels carried water to the corners and around the edges of the courtyard. Pots extravagant with blue and white flowers sat at counterpoint to the fountain, and at the outer corners in raised square beds stood four orange trees, their fruits glowing among the gleaming dark foliage. It reminded her in design of the courtyard at the house across the river where she had been taken to write the ransom demand—but this house was larger and finer by far.

What manner of man had bought her? Again, her mind returned to this question. That he was wealthy seemed evident, but she knew the sort of enterprise that made men rich here, and probably the world over: Being rich was clearly not commensurate with goodness or decency. But the house spoke of moderation and taste, of style and elegance. Everywhere she gazed there was evidence of the work of master craftsmen. Every possible surface and substance was decorated—such as the carved plasterwork that marked the transition between the gleaming walls and the high, coffered cedarwood ceiling. The walls were tiled to half height with stylized starbursts, a motif that was echoed in the carving of the door, the tiles on the
floor, in the brass top of the table and the decorated glasses set upon it. It was, she had to admit, a pretty prison. But surely a prison, all the same.

At last, exhausted, she lay down and slept. When she woke again, the sun was low in the sky and she was very hungry. She went to the window. Three women, including the two who had bathed her, were at work down in the courtyard. One swept the paving, another watered the pots of flowers, while the third scooped rose petals out of the fountain. When they saw her looking out, one of the women beckoned her down. Cat went to the door, turned the great iron ring set therein, and found to her surprise that it opened.

She made her way down a winding staircase and through the narrow corridor, following the light until she emerged in the courtyard. The women paused, then all of them started to talk at once— none, unfortunately, in a language she could understand. At last they seemed to realize this. One touched her bunched fingers to her mouth and mimed chewing. Cat nodded. Yes, she was hungry.

They brought her fresh-baked bread and honey, a bowl of sticky dates and nut-studded cakes, a silver pot of sweet green tea. She ate and drank it all and the women exclaimed and brought more until she protested and waved her hands. They sat with her and shared out the second pot into tiny delicate glasses. The tallest of the three was Yasmina, the youngest Habiba, and the plump one Hasna, they told her. They had difficulty pronouncing her own name, so she settled for Cat.

“Where is the man who owns this house?” she asked. She drew an invisible turban around her head, got up and mimed a man’s walk across the courtyard until the women cried out with laughter. All she understood of their response was that he was away somewhere—one of them mimed a horse, or it might have been a boat; they would never make mummers, Cat thought to herself. But he was a rich man, a merchant and a soldier, she ascertained at long last from their acted bargaining and swordplay; handsome, too, according to Hasna, who blushed, though the others waved their hands in denial. Too solemn,
Yasmina mimed, making her face grim and angry; too old, Habiba suggested, and too sad, pulling her mouth down in the universal expression of sorrow.

“When will he come back?”

No one knew.

“What am I to do here?”

They didn’t know that, either. But the next day she opened her door and found outside a reed basket containing a roll of white linen, a dozen skeins of colored silks, and several fine needles of Spanish steel stuck through a book of red felt. So the raïs must have advertised her skills as an embroiderer, and her buyer had decided to test her ability. Perhaps her new master did not want her as a mere concubine after all.

Downstairs, she found Hasna and another woman waiting in the courtyard. Cat nodded to them.

“Good day,” said the other woman, bobbing her head. Cat stared at her. “You’re English.”

“Dutch, in actual fact, but I speak your language well enough that your master pay me to translate with you.”

Cat noticed now that she spoke with an odd lilt and clipped the words in an unfamiliar way. She held out her hand. “My name is Catherine Anne Tregenna. I was brought here as a captive from English shores.”

The other grinned, showing three gold teeth among the rest. “Oh yes, that I know. I am called Leila Brink, brought here by my pig of a husband, God rest his soul.”

“Oh, I’m sorry—” Cat began.

“No need for ‘sorry.’ None miss him, least of all I.” Her eyes were merry enough amid the black kohl she had applied in the local style. “So, Catherine, what do you think of our city?”

“I don’t know. I don’t understand your ways here. It is all too strange to take in. A … a man tried to kill me, on the slave blocks,” Cat said. “He cast a dagger at me.”

Leila raised her eyebrows, sighed. “Another attack. There are
many fundamentalists here, to whom the presence of a living Christian is an eternal insult. Please do not judge us all by such mad creatures.”

That was a small relief at least. Then, “Can you tell me the name and nature of the man who has bought me?” she asked. “I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting him.”

Leila gave her an odd look. “His name is Sidi Qasem bin Hamed bin Moussa Dib, a great benefactor and well-respected man, if somewhat grim of demeanor.”

“They tell me he is a merchant and a soldier.”

“That is right enough. He is a man with a good nose for a bargain and an eye to the main chance. He is also great patron of arts and such, not having a wife and children to spend his fortune on. He will be a good master to you if you do what he wishes of you.”

“Which is what?”

“He says you are a master embroiderer.”

Cat colored. “It was my aim in England to be such, but I never had the chance to train formally.”

“I have some knowledge of the craft. My father was a guild master in Amsterdam. Some of the finest work in Europe passed through his hands.”

Cat bit her lip. “What does he expect of me?” “Come, you will see.”

Cat hoisted her basket and followed the Dutchwoman and Hasna through dark corridors and up a set of stairs that wound around and about until they emerged into a cool, bright workroom in which a dozen or more women and girls were gathered. Around the room a number of low wooden frames had been set at intervals and women sat at them cross-legged, fitting them with lengths of linen cloth. On a wide circular table had been arranged a bale of thick white linen, more colored silks, a pair of shears, several rolls of paper, and some thin sticks of charcoal. Everything was very ordered, and the room was as quiet as a schoolroom.