Garment of Shadows (5 page)

I found many things during the course of the day. My first goal was food and drink, followed by thick stockings and a heavy woollen burnoose to keep out the penetrating cold. As I walked, the chorus of muezzins woke the town, and soon the streets burst into life, shutters opening to displays of colour and enticing aromas—not the least of which was the damp soap-smell that wafted from a
hammam
, a place I dared not even think of entering, no matter how much the pores of my skin craved a scrub-brush.

By mid-morning, I was warm, fed, and gaining in confidence: I had negotiated several transactions without arousing suspicions, I had passed two more pairs of patrolling armed soldiers, and my tongue was producing a reasonable facsimile of the local accent. Yes, a restoration of memory would be nice, but as the immediate needs of survival became less pressing, the
suq
provided an endless variety of distractions, for all the senses: I saw tailors and carpenters, carpet-makers and silk-weavers, book-binders and jewellers, purveyors of leather footwear and ceramic pots and elaborate wedding head-dresses, men embroidering the fronts of robes or trimming the beards of reclining customers. My nostrils were teased by the odours of frying onions and baking bread and the cloud of aromas from the spice merchants, in between being repelled by the miasma from butchers’ shops and malfunctioning sewers, entertained by the sharpened-pencil smell of fresh cedar and the musk of sandalwood, caught by the clean reek of fresh leather or the dark richness of roasting coffee beans, and educated by the contrasts of wet plaster with crushed mint, donkey’s droppings overlaid by fresh lavender. My ears similarly passed from one aural environment to another: a chorus of schoolboys from over the walls of a
madrassa
and the sound of a grain mill grinding below street level; the rhythm of soft-soled footwear against compacted dirt beside the ceaseless, many-noted
ting
of brass hammers from a dark den; a pure voice raised in song giving way to the rasp of small saws from an inner courtyard.

The populace ran the spectrum from African black to Mediterranean olive, with the occasional Nordic features and even blue eyes looking out of Arab brown skin. Jews, Arabs, Europeans, Sufis, each in a different form of dress. Transportation was mostly tiny sweet-faced donkeys and sullen mules, but I also saw a few horses, a handful of wheel-barrows, two camels (at a distance, not within the
suq
streets), and one heavy-laden, flat-tyred bicycle being used to deliver lengths of bamboo.

And the wares on offer! One street held shops displaying tall cones of varicoloured powder, from the deep red of paprika to brilliant yellow turmeric, interspersed with vendors selling bags of sticks, leaves, seeds, and what appeared to be sand, bowls of dusty blue chunks of indigo, and carefully arranged hillocks of mice skulls and desiccated lizards. One shop displayed hundreds of prayer beads on its three walls—ivory and amber, lapis and coral, sandalwood and ebony. Its neighbour held teetering stacks of cylindrical
tarbooshes
, or
fezzes
, mostly red, with tassels of every colour imaginable.

Few of the shops had signs. I took care to read any that did, and once spotted the word
horloge
on a display of timepieces near a gate at the southern edge of the
suq
, but there was no mention of sorcerers.

Apart from the absence of magicians’ timepieces, the town held a richness of sensory stimulation and information, when a person had nothing to do but wander and listen. And as the morning wore on, I found that the previous day’s sense of confusion had settled considerably.

I was, I determined, in Fez, a walled Moroccan town built where the hills meet the plains. Water was all around; wherever I walked I could hear a rush or a trickle, and decorative fountains in various states of repair and cleanliness were on many corners. Now that daily life was under way again, the flow of traffic (all either pedestrian or four-legged) led me from one neighbourhood to another, each centre composed of a mosque and its attendant religious buildings, food markets, a baker’s oven, and the ever-tempting
hammam
baths. Specialised craftsmen clustered in given areas. As I made my way north out of the central mosque district, I found that even the more general tradesmen—grocers, tailors—tended to gather together, interspersed with stretches that were largely residential.

Some of the streets were packed with furious activity—men bearing loads, women haggling for greens, and artisans creating tools for daily life; other streets stood in a state of suspended animation, with nothing more lively than a sleeping cat (I saw no dogs, but then, this was a Moslem country). Earlier, the rooftops had brought to mind a honeycomb; now, the streets around me evoked the life within a hive, some corners almost deserted, others bustling with the same sense of incomprehensible purpose.

I continued north until I came to the city walls, and another gate. There I spooned up a bowl of
harira
that tasted entirely different from yesterday’s, followed it with a bowl of spicy fava beans swimming in oil, made my dessert out of three sugary dried figs, then bought a handful of pistachios and perched on a bit of collapsing wall in front of a Moroccan druggist’s shop, tossing away the shells and watching the French guards.

Sitting before the gates brought an odd sensation. I did not think that I had ever been there before—certainly there was no sense of memory attached to the scene—yet it was deeply familiar: the wall, the gate, and the guards; the aged olive tree overhead, under which women sat with their children and rested before carrying their burdens to homes outside the walls. A water-seller with tiny tinkling bells filled cups with water from a swollen goatskin slung across his shoulder (the sight stimulated another sensory rush:
taste of metal/mouth filled with warm and musty water/two dark companions
and then it was gone). A fortune-teller drowsed on one side of the gate, waiting for customers; on the other side, a blind storyteller sat in a patch of sun against the wall with a dozen children at his feet. The storyteller was too far away to hear, but still a voice seemed to murmur in my ears, in another language …

Hebrew.
In the square before the Water Gate … those who sit at the gate … at the threshing floor by the entrance to the Samarian gate … in the gateways of the city, Wisdom makes speech
.

I found myself smiling at this transferred image of city gates where, since time immemorial, the people of a town gathered, for news and flirtation, sanctuary and entertainment, food, drink, and the dispensation of justice, all under the close watch of the guard.

And these guards were attentive, give them that. The soldiers eyed every person going in or out. Those with loads, on their heads or strapped to beasts, were examined more closely. A man with a donkey laden high with greenery from the fields—at least, I assumed there was a donkey beneath the green mountain, though all I could see were hooves and an ear—had to pull bits off before he was permitted to drive his beast onward. The only time the guards relented was when a weary and travel-stained family came to the gate: a pregnant woman, her mother, and a very old man, with three children, the oldest a boy of perhaps ten. The ancient man was balanced on a donkey that looked as old as he; the family’s worldly goods were carried in ragged bundles by even the youngest, a child no more than three. This group of travellers the guards treated gently, with a nod of respect for the ten-year-old head of the family, a pat on the head-scarf of the little girl. The family went by, their eyes locked into the faraway stare of those who have watched more than they could take in. Refugees?

After a time, as I sat shelling and chewing and watching the crowds, I became aware of a nearby conversation in French. Four young men, Moroccans in European clothing, were drinking coffee outside a nearby café. Two of the three facing my direction bore on their foreheads the distinctive dark circle indicating regular prayer, but apart from that, their dress, their manufactured cigarettes, and their attitude of studied indolence declared them representatives of the local intellectual class. The hive drones, as it were. They did not care much for the French soldiers, although French writers, artists, and philosophers seemed to be acceptable. Short of joining them at their table, I could not overhear all they said, but I heard enough to suggest a degree of political turmoil, even anger, amongst the Fasi intelligentsia.

The word
reef
(rif?) was used, the names Abd el-Krim and Lyautey, the Sherif and the Sultan:
Lyautey
was said with scorn (though lowered voices suggested a degree of authority there) and
the Sultan
with caution, while
the Sherif
and
Abd el-Krim
seemed equally divided between support and doubt.

One of the quartet in particular was growing increasingly hot under the collar. It came to a head when one of the others said something I did not hear, and he slapped his glass down on the table and made a loud declaration in which the only clear word was
Raisuni
.

The others instantly hushed him, glancing towards the gate. When they saw one of the soldiers looking their way, the four made haste to toss down some coins, and the little salon faded away into the city.

Political intrigue amongst the Mediaeval stone-work.

I finished my pistachios, and watched a trio of donkeys laden high with brightly coloured hides leave the city, as laden donkeys had been leaving cities for thousands of years. I studied the glimpse of land through the gate. There was no reason to believe that any French soldier cared a
sou
for my existence; on the other hand, walking through that carved archway might prove my final act as a free woman. Best to feel my way around the
suq
a while longer.

My clockwise route along the city walls was hit and miss, the public routes often losing sight of them entirely. As I turned south, the air began to smell less and less salubrious; indeed, had it not been for the studied nonchalance of the locals, the stench would have tempted me to cover my face.

It was a tannery, built along the river. A trio of peculiar-looking women went by, under the care of a French-speaking Moroccan, and only when they had passed did the reason for their bizarre appearance occur to me: They were Europeans. I turned immediately to follow, meandering along in their wake, where I thus learned that the stink was indeed a tannery, the source of all that gorgeously coloured Moroccan leather, and the reason for its stink was the pigeon droppings used as part of the process.

Or so the guide claimed.

But then, he also claimed that his very brother was the shopkeeper selling leather goods, and that the prices were especially low just for his clients, and that the Prince of Wales had bought a cigar-case of precisely that design, Madame.

But I ambled along within hearing for two reasons. First, their language. Since coming to this place, I had heard several tongues. Some were a closed book to me. My Arabic had been rusty, although it was improving rapidly, and in French I was relatively fluent. But the language these ladies spoke amongst themselves slid over me like a well-worn glove: English.

The other reason was a pair of names one of the ladies said after a couple of aeroplanes flew noisily over our heads, headed north like a pair of worker bees tracking a source of nectar.

“Oh look!” the stout grey-haired lady exclaimed. “It’s the French RAF!”

“Ivy,” the tallest of the trio said, “I don’t believe the French have a royal anything.”

“Oh, you know what I mean. Are they bombing someone?” she asked the guide. The tall one translated, then gave Ivy his answer. “He says, they’re not bombing yet, just watching. What they call ‘aerial surveillance.’ ”

“Oh, is it Raisuli?”

“No, Ivy, it’ll be that Krim fellow. Now, what do you say we ask the fellow to take us to lunch?”

“Here in the medina? Do we dare?”

“We should go back to the hotel, where we know it’s safe,” the third one worried.

But I did not listen to the debate. I wanted to seize the tall one and demand further information: the name Raisuli—or Raisuni—made the guide as uncomfortable as it had the three café intellectuals. But since physical assault on an Englishwoman was not a good idea, I had to make do with following—close enough to hear, but distant enough not to alert their guide.

Fortunately, they turned back towards the crowded parts, pushing past the big mosque and
madrassa
that swelled into the myriad of tiny lanes like a pair of queen cells distorting the rigid lines of the comb—I caught my thoughts. What was this fascination my poor brain had with bees?

In any event, the mosque was banned to the three Unbelievers (indeed, even I would not care to risk an entrance, despite my present dress), although all three went past as slowly as possible, craning their heads at the forbidden land. While in those crowded lanes I decided that I had probably not in fact been a pick-pocket—or if so, a raw amateur at the game. Surely an experienced professional would not have been able to resist the rich pickings available, literally brushing her fingertips?