The Heat of Betrayal (32 page)

The tent. There was the cot on which I had spent so much time sleeping. There was a dirt floor. There was a gas lamp. Two buckets: one for washing, one for drinking water. There were two stools for guests to sit on, and a single mattress on the floor. That had been my world for at least a week, maybe ten days, perhaps longer.

When I reached the other side I had to sit down on one of the little stools for a few moments, as I had started to feel woozy. Maika touched my head, made a flapping gesture with one hand, then held both up. I took this to mean:
You are still not completely well in there. The head injury is going to leave you rather shaky, and we will take things slowly.
Then she got me to stand up and ordered Titrit and Naima to help me out of the simple white nightgown which Titrit had brought several nights before and in which I had recently been sleeping. My legs and thighs were still wrapped in white cloths, prepared with oils that gave off a herbal, medicinal aroma. The bloodied bandage wrapped between my legs had been changed daily, but though the bleeding had long since stopped, Maika had insisted on using what seemed to be a salve on the lips of my vulva and deep inside, administering this on a twice-daily basis in a matter-of-fact way.

Maika had now decided the moment had arrived for me to inspect the damage done to me . . . or perhaps to see how its recovery was progressing. As they began to undress me, and to remove the cloths from my legs, I instinctively looked away. Whereas earlier on I had wanted to see how bad it all was, now that I was finding my way back to some sort of skewed norm the last thing I wanted to contemplate was how badly disfigured I might be. That would begin to raise the question of my life beyond this tent – and whether I could ever get back to it. Or, if the injuries were so severe, whether I would ever want to.

Maika – shrewd old bird that she was – worked out my fear on the spot. Being someone who clearly did not believe in the art of mollycoddling, she disappeared outside for a moment as Titrit and Naima undressed me, returning with a mirror in hand. Now that I was naked she started to remove all the cloth bandages around my legs. As I had been left for dead, half-naked in the sun, my lower extremities had been exposed unprotected for several hours. So too my face. When the bandages were finally off – and I refused to look – she gently but firmly forced my head downwards. My thighs had long red welts on them, some truly virulent, others already starting to fade. My lower legs also displayed several nasty burnt blotches. But what was most alarming were the clusters of tiny off-white and red welts everywhere, up and down both legs and concentrated around my right thigh.

‘What are these?' I said, pointing to these dozens of micro-blisters, very alarmed.

Maika began to lecture me in a reassuring way, explaining (by tapping her thumb rapidly against her middle finger and then diving with it against my thigh) that while unconscious I had been attacked by some sort of insect. She even tried out a word of French:

‘
Des puces
.'

Fleas. Sand fleas. Which I had read about in one of the many Moroccan guides I'd devoured prior to my trip. They were prevalent in the desert. They came out at sunrise, merciless whenever any sort of human or animal flesh was in their immediate vicinity. The density of bites was shocking. Maika saw my distress. Through the usual elaborate pantomime of hand gestures, she indicated that, in time, they would diminish.

‘And the burns,' I said, pointing to the deep red welts, some still blistering. Maika motioned downwards with her hands, as if to say:
They will lessen.
Then she touched my shoulder in a firm but comforting way, and said one word:

‘
Shaja'a
.'

When I looked baffled as to its meaning she tapped my heart, my head, and then forced my chin up with her index finger. The penny dropped.

‘
Courage?
' I asked, trying to give it a French pronunciation. Titrit immediately nodded her head several times, saying something to Maika who concurred. Waving her finger in my face like a corrective Mother Superior, she repeated that word again:

‘
Shaja'a
.'

Immediately Naima was imitating her grandmother, wagging her finger at me, saying several times over: ‘
Shaja'a, shaja'a, shaja'a
,' even causing her usually grim-faced grandmother to smile for a moment or so.

Maika now moved the mirror directly in front of my vulva, making me see that the lips were largely healed. She asked Titrit to bring over the tin of homemade salve with which she had been treating my ripped insides. Then, indicating that I should spread my legs a bit, she dipped her fingers into the salve and began to explore within me. Again I wasn't just struck by the matter-of-fact way she examined me, but also the fact that Naima wasn't shooed away as this internal inspection took place. On the contrary she came close up to her grandmother, fascinated. The way these women treated what is euphemistically called ‘female matters' in such a utilitarian, non-prudish way was both surprising and necessary for my still-fragile state of mind. The fact that they were involving the young girl in all this – without, I'm certain, going into the reasons why I had been injured – struck me as canny and demystifying. Here, Naima watched while her grandmother prodded and probed within me. That I wasn't frantic with pain – just a small amount of discomfort – I took to be a positive sign. Withdrawing her fingers Maika put her thumb up (she too had adopted this gesture after seeing me show Naima how to do it). She made assorted hand movements to indicate that, in her expert opinion, all was repaired within.

Now it was time for the revelation I was most dreading: the state of my face. What's that old line about it being the mirror of the soul? If that was the truth then my soul was a still-battered and scarred one. As Maika presented me with the mirror I could see her daughter looking distinctly uneasy, as if expecting me to fall apart at first glimpse of the lingering impairments. I closed my eyes, took a deep steadying breath, and opened them.

What I first noticed were the sunburnt red patches on my forehead and cheeks, and a plethora of small bites. All those hours with my face in the sand had allowed the fleas to run riot. Again Maika signalled that, in time, they would diminish. So too the blistering welt that covered my chin. But what shocked me even more was the deeply discoloured bruise that covered my left cheek, spreading upwards to the blackened ring beneath my eye. My left ear was slightly cauliflowered from the punch that the little shit had landed on me; a punch which left me with an ongoing echo. And my lips were still severely chapped, almost fractured.

I lowered the mirror. I tried to stifle a sob. I failed. I was a disfigured freak show. Seeing my battered self brought back the monstrosity wreaked on me – and the insanity of my pursuit of a man whom I should have cast aside as soon as the nature of his treachery became clear.

When I started to break down Titrit put her arms around me, letting me bury my head in her shoulder. But Maika wouldn't stand for such a show of self-pity. Literally pulling me away from her daughter she bore down on me with that bony, exclamation point of a finger of hers, almost shouting at me as she gave me a fast and furious lecture in a language completely beyond my comprehension, but which, by this point, I could somehow understand. Following her broad gestures I understood the central gist of her sermon:

Don't you dare feel sorry for yourself. What has happened has happened. You have survived. You are not dead. You will be able to walk. You will be able to have babies. Your face will heal. So too your legs. There may be scars, but they will not be disfiguring ones. We all have scars. But now your duty to yourself is to get back to your life when you are ready. But no more self-pity. That is not allowed here. I will not accept it – because I know you are better than that. Understand?

Maika's vehemence was so forthright (and loud) that Naima hid in her mother's skirts. I stood there with my head lowered, fighting back tears, feeling like a censured child, while also knowing that everything she was saying made complete sense; that I had no choice but to somehow get beyond the horror of it all.

But Maika also made it clear that there was no way I could travel yet. She held up ten fingers, then four, indicating that she might consider letting me go in two weeks. That's when I had – courtesy of my hand gestures – the conversation that I had for some time been dreading; when I explained that the men who had raped me had also robbed me. I had no money, nothing. Maika shrugged as if to say:
Why do you need money here? You are our guest.
I acted out and said at the same time:

‘But I feel bad about taking your hospitality and giving you nothing for it.'

Maika understood immediately what I was saying and got even more vehement, telling me (or, at least, this is what I was thinking she was telling me):

There is absolutely no need to consider money. You are our guest. We will look after you. We will continue to help you get better. When you are ready we will figure out a way for you to get home.

I thanked her profusely. She held up her hand, as if to indicate:
You're welcome . . . now stop.
Then she ordered me back on the cot, and got Titrit and Naima to begin re-administering the cold compresses and the oils and balms to my injuries and scars.

The next ten days marked a time when, on so many levels, a certain clarity descended upon me. I was still being given the soporific tisane every evening around eight p.m. Though she was no longer knocking me out twice a day Maika had upped this nightly dose so that I was sleeping twelve hours. I understood that this was her ongoing cure for head injuries. I was largely restricted to my little tent and had nothing in the way of reading material or writing paper and pen to fill my waking hours, let alone any of those modern distractions – the Internet, television, even a humble radio – with which we all seem to pass the time. For the most part I was being kept separate from the life of this encampment. So I found myself very much thrown back on my own thoughts, my own reflections. As the concussive fog began to lift, as I became mobile again, as the terrible shock in which I had been living transformed into a functional numbness, I found myself alone for nine hours a day with little to do except try to sort through the inventory of my life.

Maika – having taken charge of my recovery – was also insisting that I begin to eat normally again, as I had lost (I could tell) a shocking amount of weight since the attack. One day I tried on the tan pants which I'd been wearing when the two men grabbed me, and which Titrit had laundered for me. I wasn't more than 120 pounds when I arrived in Morocco. Even trying to tie the drawstring as tightly as possible the pants still all but fell off me. All that time in a semi-comatose state, existing on small amounts of bread and couscous and vegetables, had resulted in me losing so many pounds that Titrit – who was quite wide-hipped and clearly liked her food – indicated that I needed to be fattened up.

The heat outside was maniacal. I was finally able to leave my tent on my own to use the toilet. I was also invited to join the family for group meals. Maika made it clear that, as their guest, I needed to abide by their customs. Wearing the burqa when outside the tent was obligatory and I was certainly not going to express my feminist distaste for this practice. These people had saved my life. They had taken me in. They had nursed me back to health. They were not asking a penny for all the immense kindness and generosity shown to me. How could I question their request that I cover my face when outside?

Once inside, however, I was allowed to be as unmasked as all the other women in this little village.

I was, I came to understand, among Berbers. It was Idir – Titrit's husband, Naima's father – who explained a bit about the Berbers to me. Idir was one of the men who'd returned with Naima to rescue me. I wanted to ask her what she'd been doing out in the desert alone. I could only surmise that she was allowed to roam the Sahara, and that I hadn't seen the oasis – which, I came to discover, was behind a stone wall that, when seen from the desert, blended in with the dusty horizon. You would only know of the little world existing behind that wall if you could find the wall – which was so camouflaged that it was impossible to spot from any distance. Idir was somewhat older than Titrit – his heavily grooved face and bad teeth made him look as though he was in his early fifties, though I sensed that the harshness of life in this great sandy nowhere aged everyone considerably. From the freshness of her outlook and the flawlessness of her skin I guessed that Titrit was, at most, in her early thirties. Idir wasn't a great conversationalist – but it turned out he did speak a smattering of French, enough for the two of us to understand each other. He explained that the Berbers weren't a tribe but a people; that there were Berbers in Algeria, Tunisia, even Egypt, with the greatest concentration here in Morocco, specifically south of Ouarzazate.

‘Here you are in our country,' he explained. ‘We may be officially governed by Rabat, by the King . . . but we see this as our own kingdom.'

The other man in this encampment was Immeldine. He was Maika's husband and, like his wife, showed the wear and tear of a life lived under a fierce Saharan sun. He was a compulsive smoker – he always had a cigarette on the go. In the two weeks during which I ate with the family nightly he spoke very little and I often wondered if he considered me an imposition. I discovered that he and Idir farmed a bit in the oasis, growing herbs and a few vegetables that they sold at a market once a month in Tata. They also raised a few goats for milk. The women had a loom on which they made simple rugs of traditional design. They also made small lace items and knitted skullcaps of the type worn by Idir and Immeldine.

‘They do very good work,' Idir told me in his basic French. ‘Every month we have a friend, Aatif – he drives a lorry to Marrakesh. He takes everything our women make and sells them to a dealer. Last month he returned with two thousand dirhams for us! Most money ever! A fortune!'