The Saffron Gate (24 page)

^'Yes.'

^{'Well, you certainly must experience the medina during your visit. This part of Marrakesh we're in — La Ville Nouvelle — is vastly different from the old city. All new, built since the French took over. But D'jemma el Fna, well . . .' He looked at my single table setting, then back to my face. 'It's purported to be the greatest souk in Morocco, centuries old. But I wouldn't recommend going there — or even venturing into the old city — without an escort. Allow me to introduce myself, and my wife.' He stood, giving a small, dignified bow from his waist. 'Mr Clive Russell,' he said. 'And Mrs Russell.' He extended his hand towards the tall, slender woman with alabaster skin sitting across from him. A thin strand of brilliant rubies encased in gold stood out against her long and flawless neck.}

^{I introduced myself, and Mrs Russell nodded. 'Mr Russell is right. The medina is frightening. And that square — oh, terribly bold. I've seen things there I've seen nowhere else. Snakes and their charmers, aggressive monkeys, fire-and glass-eaters. Ghastly beggars pulling at you. And the way the men stare . . . it positively gave me shivers. Once was enough for me, even with Mr Russell at my side,' she said.}

^{'Its name — D'jemma el Fna — means Assembly of the Dead, or Congregation of the Departed — some such grisly thing,' Mr Russell went on, sitting down again but turning in his chair to continue speaking to me. 'They used to display decapitated heads throughout the square, warnings of some sort. The French put an end to that when they arrived.'}

^{'Thankfully,' Mrs Russell added.}

^{'Have you been here long — in Marrakesh?' I asked.}

^{'A few weeks,' Mr Russell answered. 'But it's far too hot now. We're leaving next week. Off to Essouria, where we can enjoy the sea breezes. Have you been yet?'}

^{I shook my head. The name gave me an unpleasant start; it had been there, in Essouria, where Etienne's brother Guillaume had drowned in the Atlantic.}

^{‘Charming seaside town. Charming,' Mrs Russell added. 'Famous for its
thuya
carvings and furniture. The aroma of the wood can fill a whole house. I hope to find a small table to have sent home. Don't you love the design here? I feel as though I'm in a pasha's palace.'}

^{'You haven't, in your time here, run into a Dr Duverger, have you?' I asked, not answering Mrs Russell's question. The hotel was obviously full of wealthy foreigners; perhaps Etienne had stayed here. Or was here now. My heart gave one low, heavy thud, and I quickly surveyed the room again.}

^{'What was the name of that doctor we met on the train?' I heard Mrs Russell say to her husband, and I looked back at them.}

^{Mr Russell shook his head. 'It was Dr Willows. I'm sorry. We don't know a Dr Duverger. But you should ask at the desk if you think he may be here.'}

^{'Thank you,' I said. 'I will.' It hadn't occurred to me to ask the pompous Monsieur Henri if Dr Duverger had stayed here recently. How could I not have thought of such a simple question? And yet I'd been in a small state of shock when we arrived. Perhaps I still was.}

^{'The garden . . .' I waved my hand towards the window.}

^{'It used to be some sort of park, ages ago,' Mrs Russell said, before I had a chance to comment further. 'There are lovely gardens like this all throughout Marrakesh, outside the medina walls. Apparently it was the custom for the reigning sultan to give his sons a house and garden outside the medina, as a wedding gift. Many of the French hotels have been built in the midst of what were once these royal gardens. This one goes on for a number of acres. You must take a walk through it, later, as the scents of the flowers appear to become stronger in the evening, when the heat has lifted. And it's walled, so quite safe.'}

^{I nodded. 'Yes. I will.'}

^{'I'd suggest you try the Napoleon for dessert. It's crafted beautifully; the hotel has a very talented French pastry chef,' Mr Russell said, then, turning in his chair ever so slightly, so that I knew the conversation was over, 'We do enjoy it, don't we, darling?' he said to Mrs Russell.}

^{After I'd finished my dinner, which sat uneasily in my stomach in spite of the fact that it was lightly prepared, I wandered out through huge glass doors into the garden. Many of the guests were now dancing in one of the ballrooms I had passed, and the empty paths of the garden were lit by flaming torches. There were orange and lemon trees and thousands of rose bushes amassed with bright red roses. I thought of the petals everywhere in my room. Nightingales and turtledoves nested in the palm trees that lined the pathways. There was an abundance of sweet-smelling mimosa, and plants that were surprisingly like many I knew from my own garden at home: geraniums, stock, snapdragons, impatiens, salvia, pansies and hollyhocks.}

^{Suddenly my memories of home — and my former life there — were so distant. It was as though the woman who had lived that simple life, so out of touch with the world beyond Juniper Road, couldn't possibly have been me.}

^{Under new skies, I was no longer that Sidonie O'Shea. Since I'd left Albany, the things I saw, that I heard and smelled, touched and tasted, had been unexpected, unpredictable. Some had been beautiful, others frightening. Some tumultuous and disturbing, some serene and moving. It was as if all the new scenes were photographs in a book, photographs I'd captured within my mind. I could look at them as if slowly turning pages.}

^{I carefully passed the images of the hotel room in Marseilles. It was too soon to look back on those images. Far too soon.}

^{And the enormity of my final challenge — the
one I had journeyed this distance to confront — still lay ahead. The thought of how I might face it, perhaps as soon as tomorrow, filled me with such anxiety that I had to sit on one of the benches.}

^{After a while I looked up at the night sky, listening to the quiet rustling sway of the palms in the sweet night breeze, and the distant, yet insistent, sounds from the square.}

^{The Assembly of the Dead. I had a sudden dark premonition, and shivered in the warmth of the air.}

^{And then I hurried back through the paths towards the hotel, wanting to return to the safety of my room.}

^THIRTEEN

^{I
t was in early February, eleven months after my father died, that I realised what had happened. By then, Etienne and I had been lovers for five months.}

^{I waited an extra week to make certain before I shared the news with Etienne. I didn't know how he'd react; he had made a point of assuring me that I wasn't to worry about any consequences of our lovemaking. I understood. He was a doctor; he knew how to prevent it. But somehow, in spite of his reassurances, his precautions had failed.}

^{I was excited and nervous, wanting to find the right moment to tell him this unexpected news. We lay facing each other in my bed, our bodies still heated, although our breathing had resumed the normal rhythm. It was the perfect time, I knew then, a moment of openness and emotion. I smiled, running my hand up and down Etienne's bare chest, and said, 'Etienne. I have something to tell you.'}

^{He leaned over and kissed my forehead, murmuring sleepily, 'What is it, Sido?'}

^{I licked my lips, and perhaps my hesitation made him lean up on one elbow and study my face. 'What do you have to tell me, with this expression? You look pleased, and yet shy.'}

^{I nodded, taking his hand. 'It's unexpected, I know, Etienne, but . . .' I could barely say it, such was my joy and wonder. 'It's a baby, Etienne. I'm expecting a baby.'}

^{I held my breath, waiting for his reaction. But it was not as I expected. In the pale shafts traced on his face by the cold winter moon through the windowpane, he lost all expression. His skin took on the texture and colour of a bleached fossil. He pulled his hand from mine and sat straight up, looking down at me with his mouth slightly open.}

^{'Etienne?' I said, sitting up to face him.}

^{'You're certain?' he asked. Cinnabar, still surprisingly nimble in spite of her age, jumped on to the bed beside Etienne; he pushed her off with an uncharacteristically brusque sweep of his arm. I heard the soft thump as she landed on the carpet, and knew she would twitch her tail in indignation and slink under the bed.}

^{I nodded.}

^{'But I use the . . . what
. . . la capote,
the rubber, prophylactic,' he said. 'Always I use it.' He was still frightfully pale, and, for a completely unknown reason, had switched to English.}

^{I was stunned. 'Etienne?' I finally said, a terrible sensation growing in me. 'Etienne? Aren't you . . . don't you . . .' I stopped, not knowing how to continue.}

^{Now he stared over my head at the window and the darkness beyond, as if he couldn't bear to look into my face. 'You see a doctor? 'Without waiting for an answer he turned in the other direction, reaching for the pill bottle on the bedside table; he said he suffered headaches, and he also had difficulties sleeping. I hated when he took pills to make him sleep. Only the first two times he spent the night with me did he not take them, and although neither of us fell into a deep sleep, I thought this was only because we weren't used to sleeping together. I was so aware of his touch and was so full of awe at having him beside me that I revelled in the feel of his body pressing against mine when he shifted and turned in my narrow bed. After the second time, he took his pills, and slept a hard, empty sleep, with no movement except for the slight muscling of his jaw, the tiny rasp as he ground his back teeth. Those drug induced sleeps left me feeling alone, even when lying beside him.}

^{He opened one of the bottles and dumped three capsules into his hand. They would be for a headache; he wouldn't take a sleeping tablet now, surely, not with what I had just told him. He tossed them in his mouth and washed them down with the remains of the bourbon still in his glass.}

^{I didn't know whether it was worse having him look at me or busy himself with his pills and drink.}

^{'I ask you, you have see the doctor?' he repeated, turning back to me but again looking over my head at the window, still speaking that stilted English.}

^{'No. But I know it's true, Etienne. I know my body, and the signs are unmistakable.'}

^{Finally he looked at me, and there was a heavy, dull thud in my stomach. 'No.
C'est impossible.
Perhaps there is other reason for the symptoms. On Thursday — one day behind the next day — I have the late . . . what is it . . . the shift. I take you, in the morning, to the clinic I know, in the next . . . next place, county . . . and you will be examine,' he said, his tongue tripping on every word. It was as though he had forgotten how to speak the proper and rather formal English diction he had used until he'd switched to speaking French with me. 'Not at my hospital.'}

^{His strange way of speaking, combined with his almost blank stare, made me feel that I might be sick. This wasn't what I had envisioned, the hundreds of times over the last few weeks I'd imagined myself telling him this remarkable news.}

^{He was the man — the only man — I had ever shared myself with. My life was entwined with his. Until Etienne had come into my life, I had assumed and accepted that I would live out my days alone. Of course my adolescent promise to God and the Virgin Mary about keeping myself pure was just that — a youthful, naïve promise, made out of desperation. And in the life I had carved out for myself there were few opportunities to meet a man I might look at with a certain curiosity, and I had never before sensed that a man might be attracted to me.}