The Saffron Gate (16 page)

^{As we drove away, I asked Aziz if they'd slept in the car all night.}

^{'Some time, madame,' he said. 'First we sell skins. We get petrol, we eat, we visit friends. Is good night,' he said. 'Lalla Huma is good? Your night is good?'}

^{'Yes,' I said, smiling. 'Yes, thank you, Aziz.'}

^{I had been able to wash off the worst of the dust and grime from the road, I'd eaten a hearty meal, and had a deep sleep. I'd been lonely, and sad, but I had felt that every night since the last one I'd shared with Etienne.}

^{'Where does your family live, Aziz?' I asked him.}

^{'Settat,' he said. 'Same Mustapha.'}

^{I didn't know how big Settat was, and wondered if there would be another house like Lalla Huma's for me to stay at, or whether I would stay with Aziz or Mustapha's family.}

^{'Today I see wifes, children. I don't see one month. I am driving many places with Mustapha.'}

^{Had he said wifes? Did he mean wife, or wives? I knew from Etienne that Muslims could have up to four wives. 'How many children do you have?' I asked him then.}

^{He smiled proudly. 'Six. Four from wife one. Two from second wife. But she is young, second wife. More will come,
Inshallah.'}

^{'And Mustapha?' I asked, looking from Aziz to the driver. 'Mustapha? You have two wives?'}

^{Mustapha understood me, shaking his head, his lips turned down, and held up his index finger.}

^{'Mustapha has bad luck. No money for second wife. But maybe soon fate gives him another wife.' Aziz said something to Mustapha in Arabic, and Mustapha gave a wry smile.}

^{'Your husband,' Aziz said to me then, 'why he lets wife go alone to Marrakesh?'}

^{'I don't have a husband,' I told him.}

^{He frowned, shaking his head. '
Quoi?'
he said, drawing out the word, sounding incredulous. 'What?' he repeated. 'Why no husband?'}

^{I took a deep breath. 'Maybe . . . maybe bad luck, like Mustapha,' I said. It was a question I'd never been asked outright before.}

^{Aziz nodded, sadly. 'This is not good. I pray for you, madame. I pray for you for husband. You like we take you to shrine? We pass shrines on the way to Marrakesh.'}

^{'No. But thank you, Aziz,' I said, and turned my head to look out the side window. Aziz understood the gesture, and sat back, not saying anything more.}

^{We drove downwards from Sale, the road sloping to the mouth of the river, where I could see what looked like a steam ferry moored.}

^{'We must cross Boug-Regreg,' Aziz said, and as we inched towards the landing stage for the ferry, I stared around at the crowds who had also gathered to cross the river to Rabat. There were the usual camels and donkeys and goats, as well as crowds of women in their voluminous robes, babies peeping from the front or the back, small children clutching their mothers' skirts. A large man, in splendid robes of burgundy and blue silk, sat on a donkey far too small for his weight, and a tall man with skin black and glistening, in a simple white robe, held the donkey's bridle.}

^{When the steam ferry was packed so tightly there wasn't room for another man or even goat, we were transported across the brown river. The short trip was noisy with the babble of animal roars and grunts and brays and bleating, mingled with the cries of children, the high, quick voices of the women and the lower rumbling of the men. We were the only car on the ferry, and I was viewed, much like at Larache, with open stares. One woman stooped to look in the window and hissed something through her covering, her dark eyes narrowed.}

^{I drew back, leaning to one side, so that I was away from the open window and closer to Mustapha. 'What did she say?' I asked Aziz.}

^{'Womens think you bad, show face to all men,' he said, and after that I kept my eyes fixed straight ahead, looking neither right nor left, and was relieved when we docked on the other side of the river and headed on the road to Casablanca.}

^{The Rif mountains had died away before we reached Sale, but now I saw the outline of others far to the east.}

^{'Atlas mountains,' Aziz told me. 'But not big Atlas. Smaller. Big is later, near Marrakesh. High Atlas,' he said.}

^{The road continued to run alongside the Atlantic. I watched the sun dance on the water, the gulls swooping. There were more olive gardens and orange trees, and the smells were fresh and clean. The plains looked fertile.}

^{'Will we go in to Casablanca?' I asked, and Aziz shook his head.}

^{'No Casa. Too big, too many peoples, hard to drive,' he said. 'The road is beside city.'}

^{We passed Casablanca on the edge of the sea, white, huge and glorious, all spires and towers and ramparts. We left the magnificent white city, turning away from it and the Atlantic, ready to move inland towards my destination, Marrakesh.}

^{An hour past Casablanca we stopped beside the walls of a tiny mud village. 'We eat,' Aziz said, gesturing for me to get out of the car.}

^{It was only then that I saw a small structure with a corrugated tin roof. Two men stood over a grill; going closer, I saw eggs bubbling in an inch of grease in a blackened pan. Clouds of blue flies flitted dangerously close to the heat. An old camel sat on its callused knees nearby, gazing at us with a look of haughty grandeur, occasionally grumbling and spitting. His smell was stronger than that of the frying eggs.}

^{I stood beside Mustapha and Aziz, holding my tin plate and sopping up the grease-laden eggs with tough wedges of unleavened bread. Mustapha went back to the car and brought out a bag of sticky figs and another of dry olives. The men at the grill made us mint tea; I drank it from a dented tin cup. Then we were back in the car. Mustapha and Aziz appeared to have greatly enjoyed the meal, patting their stomachs and burping. I couldn't lose the oily taste of the eggs, even though I ate all of my olives and figs.}

^{'Now in three hours, maybe four, we come Settat,' Aziz said, smiling, and I knew how anxious he was to see his family.}

^{But a few miles from the village where we'd had lunch, the macadam road came to an abrupt end, blocked off by stacks of uprooted, rotting cacti and rusting barrels. Beyond the blockade the road had caved in, and there were jumbled chunks of macadam as far as I could see.}

^{'Aaaaahhhh,' Aziz breathed. 'Not good. Road is broken,' he said, and then spoke to Mustapha in Arabic.}

^{Mustapha turned the wheel sharply, on to simple hardened tracks that ran away from the macadam. The tracks were sandy soil woven with some sort of tough vegetation. Without the cooling ocean breezes, the hot wind blew through the car as though an oven door had opened, covering us in a thin film of dust. Mustapha pointed to the narrow ruts that led into what appeared to be a blank canvas of earth and sky.}

^{'Piste,
madame,' he said.}

^{I turned to him.' Pardonnez-moi?'
I said.}

^{'
Piste, piste.
No road.
Piste'}

^{I shook my head, looking back at Aziz.}

^{'We drive the
piste
' he said. 'The tracks of caravans. Roads no good, drive
piste
through the
bled.
Maybe road come back, maybe not.'}

^{'
Bled?
' I repeated.}

^{'
Bled,
' he said.
'
Bled
,
madame. No city. Country. Big.'}

^{I nodded, thinking how lucky I was that Aziz could speak French well enough to explain the features of the landscape and to tell me, in the most basic terms, where we were and what we would do next.}

^{We rattled along the rough
piste.
Here the land was occasionally dotted with circles of mud huts with roofs made of woven rush. There was always a well and corrals of a sort — defined by low hedges of cacti or wattled thorn — containing hundreds of piteously bleating goats. Under their shade a group of swathed figures sat; I assumed them to be men, as there were no children about. These villages, Aziz said, were called
nourwal.
When, some miles further along the road, we passed dozens of tents made of dark hair — goat or camel — perched on a rocky slope, Aziz said
douar.
After the different forms of habitat had sprung up a few more times and Aziz had again named them, I understood that the mud hut villages were permanent, with the wells and the ancient trees, while the skin tents, with children guarding small groups of camels and goats, were nomadic villages.}

^{When we had first started on the
piste
it had appeared that the countryside was flat. But I was mistaken. We suddenly plunged downwards, and then almost immediately upwards again. This went on for what felt like an interminable time. I clutched the dashboard, aware that my hairline and collar were damp with perspiration and gritty with sand. My stomach rolled with the landscape. It was almost like being at sea again, sailing up and down on the waves. Had this land once been under water? Were we indeed driving on the bottom of some ancient ocean?}

^{I closed my eyes, grimacing as my stomach heaved. I tasted the oily eggs in my throat. Finally I opened my eyes and turned to Mustapha, letting go of the dashboard and sitting up straight, clearing my throat. I didn't want to let these men think me weak. They already pitied me because I was unmarried.}

^{'Mustapha,' I said, 'will we be able to get back on the road soon? So that we can reach Settat before nightfall?'}

^{Mustapha didn't answer.}

^{'Too far from road now,' Aziz said. 'Better we stay on
piste.
And tonight, sleep in
bled.}

^{'Here?' I asked, looking around at the empty expanse.}

^{'Sleep in
bled',
he simply repeated, and I stared straight ahead, willing my stomach to remain still. I thought of how disappointed Aziz and Mustapha would be, so close and yet unable to get home after a month away from their families.}

^{But I was also thinking about a long Moroccan night in a small car with two men, in the middle of nowhere.}