The Saffron Gate (63 page)

^{The Europeans and British and Americans in North Africa were the opposite of this. We each kept our polite space; we apologised over an accidental touch.}

^{Lying there in the utter darkness, I heard the murmur of the men still around the fire, and the far-off bleating of a goat. The girl nestled more tightly against me. She smelled of cooking oil and perspiration and something else, an unidentifiable spice. I tried to still my mind, but it was alive, whirling with what I had experienced under the night sky. With the way Aszulay had looked at me. I thought of him going up the terraced walk into one of the mud houses, lifting a rug or skin and lying beside his wife. Thoughts of her turning to him, of him wrapping his arms around her, came to me, and I put my own arm over my eyes, not wanting to visualise such things.}

^{But, just as unbidden, now visions of Etienne, beside me in my bed on Juniper Road, flooded my head. I had known one man in my life, for such a brief time. At the memories of what it felt like to have a man's body against mine, I grew too warm, and, at the same time, was overcome with loneliness and yearning.}

^{I turned on to my side, my back against the girl's, trying to find comfort on the hard bed, and wishing for sleep so that I could escape from the unexpected desires of my body.}

^{Etienne. What was I feeling for him now, knowing what I knew? What would my life have been if he'd stayed with me in Albany, and had married me? What would my life have been if I hadn't lost the baby, and had one day been a mother?}

^{What would my life have been if I had never come to Morocco?}

^{But then . . . didn't I still wish that Etienne would marry me? Once he returned to Marrakesh, and I convinced him that his illness wouldn't stop me from loving him, he would surely agree to marry me.}

^{I tried to remember how it felt to make love with Etienne.}

^{But instead, my thoughts went to Aszulay and his wife.}

^{What it would be like to make love with Aszulay. His sensitive mouth. His hands.}

^{I couldn't sleep. I got up and pulled a heavy blanket from the bed. I wrapped it around my shoulders and went out into the night air.}

^{The fire had died down, although it was still glowing. Without its high flames or the flares of torches, it was easier to see in the starlit night. My feet bare, I limped only a few feet from my tent, afraid I would become lost if I went further. The air cooled my body, and I drew deep breaths. And then I realised that there was a single figure still sitting in front of the fire.}

^{Did I simply want it to be Aszulay, or was it really him? He sat in the place I had last seen Aszulay, but that didn't mean anything. Did I only imagine I recognised the set of his shoulders, the length of his hair? As I watched, the man wrapped himself in a blanket, and lay down by the glowing embers.}

^{I returned to my tent, somehow comforted. It was wrong to feel pleasure at thinking that perhaps Aszulay didn't wish to be with his wife. And yet there it was.}

^{I was glad.}

^{I awoke at some point in the night, stiff and cold. I heard snuffling — a camel, a goat, a dog; what was it? — along the outside wall of the tent. Perhaps that was what woke me. I shivered, clenching my teeth to keep them still, and from the cold and the tea my bladder was uncomfortable. But I couldn't bear to get out of bed and leave the tent to crouch in the dust behind it. I pressed closer to the girl beside me for warmth; her slightly huffy breathing halted, and she sat up and coughed. And then, so unexpectedly that I didn't even have time to wonder at it, there was a rush of air and an animal smell and a heavy weight was placed upon me. Immediately I felt warmer. There was more rustling, and the girl snuggled against me, her rhythmic breathing resuming in minutes.}

^{I was awakened, warm and relaxed, by the flap of the rug over the doorway pulled back so that clear morning light flooded into the tent. There was a large goatskin over my blanket, and although the girl beside me was gone, I was grateful to her for covering me when she felt me shivering in the night.}

^{Outside the tent, women sat around a large brass kettle and a tin pan, taking turns pouring fresh water into the pan from the kettle, splashing the water over their faces. I did the same; then one of the women produced a tiny mirror and handed it to me. I thanked her with a smile, holding it up and then frowning and shaking my head at my wild reflection. Rabia came up behind me and, on her knees, combed through my hair, then braided it with fingers swift as swallows. She made one long braid, securing it with something. I reached back to feel it, pulling it over my shoulder and seeing the braid was tied with a twist of goat hair.}

^{Then she came in front of me, again kneeling, and held up a long, thin stick, gesturing towards her eyes, and then mine. Kohl. She wanted to line my eyes with kohl. I had never worn any form of make-up, but I nodded.}

^{She held my chin with her left hand and outlined my eyes with the stick she held in her right. When she was done, she nodded, again smiling.}

^{I followed her up the footpath to the house where she and her mother and sister and their husbands and children lived. When I entered the one windowless room, the only light coming through the open doorway, it was difficult to see. I smelled something meaty, and there was the sizzle from a pan over heat.}

^{I eventually made out piles of carpets with beautiful Berber designs covering the walls and floor; more were stacked in one corner to be used as beds. I recognised the design on my hands in one of the weavings. In the middle of the floor was a fire enclosed by stones, and a chimney made of pipe led out of an opening in the roof. The men must have left; there was only Aszulay's mother and Zohra, and a number of children of different ages. Aszulay's mother squatted on the floor next to a cluster of pots, stirring one of them.}

^{Badou ran to me; I hadn't discerned him immediately in the tangle of children milling about the small room. His hair stood out at wild angles, and his mouth was smeared with what looked like honey. He again had on his red
babouches. 'Bonjour
, Badou. Did you sleep well?' I asked him, and he didn't respond, but held out his open hand.}

^{On his dirty palm was his tooth.}

^{'Badou,' I said, raising my eyebrows, and he grinned at me, showing me the little empty space in his smile.}

^{'Keep it for me, to show Falida,' he said, giving it to me, and I put it into the bottom of my bag.}

^{One of the girls took his hand, and he left the hut with her. He seemed a different child today. I watched him go, and then looked at Zohra.}

^{'Bonjour
,' I said, and she laughed in a delighted way, returning the greeting, gesturing for me to sit down. I sat on one of the beautiful rugs, and she handed me an earthenware plate. I ate a spicy sausage and what appeared to be fried pancakes made from something grainy. It was all delicious.}

^{Just as I had finished, Aszulay spoke my name. I looked behind me, and saw him in the doorway. I was unable to speak. I couldn't let him see, in my face, what I had been thinking about last night. The images of him and me, the things we did . . .}

^{He didn't smile, and I realised he was studying my kohl-lined eyes. Then he said, 'I'm going to look at some of the crops. I'll take Badou. We'll leave later.'}

^{All I could do was nod.}

^{I spent the next few hours with Zohra and her daughters. The little girls were shy at first, but eventually spoke to me in questioning voices. I kept looking at Zohra, but she seemed unable to translate anything for me. We went to the river, Zohra carrying a basket of clothing on her head, and I watched as she and the children pounded the laundry against the rocks. I offered to help, but Zohra shook her head. She chatted with the other women, and I simply sat on a rock, looking around me at the terraced hills.}

^{The light was pure, with the sense of a shimmering mirage as I looked at the waving green of the fields. Here and there men moved about; they were too distant to distinguish, but I knew one was Aszulay. The scene had a magical quality, and I could understand how the village people lived a totally different reality than what I'd always known.}

^{We returned to the house, the wet clothing left behind to dry on the rocks. Aszulay's mother sat in the sun with her back against the wall, sorting olives in a basket. When she saw us she stood and went inside, returning with a beautiful shawl, its edges deeply embroidered with delicate twining vines and multicoloured flowers. She held it out to me.}

^{I looked at it, running my hands over the designs. 'Very beautiful,' I said, knowing she couldn't understand, but, by my smile and gestures, surely understanding.}

^{She pushed it towards me now.}

^{'Pour vous
,' Zohra said. For you. '
Cadeau.'}

^{Refusing the gift would be an insult. I accepted it from the older woman's hands, clasping it against me and smiling at her. Then I draped it over my head and around my shoulders, and she nodded, pleased.}

^{Aszulay came from inside the hut. He stopped, studying me, and then nodded in the same way his mother had, with only the beginning of a smile, and that small hint of pleasure playing about his mouth gave me a strange sensation. I immediately told myself I couldn't think of his mouth.}

^{He was married, although he hadn't introduced me to his wife, the young woman with the slender wrists who had sat beside him around the fire. Only the night before I had imagined their heated bodies under their blankets and animal skins, him whispering to her as they moved together.}

^{The way he held me when it was over. No, held her, I thought. Held his wife, not me.}

^{Of course it hadn't been him sleeping by the fire.}

^{I turned from his smile.}

^'Aszulay?'

^{We'd left the village and had been driving, silently, for over an hour. Something had shifted between us since we'd come to the village. The way Aszulay had looked at me at the fire, and at my kohl-lined eyes, as I stood wrapped in the shawl his mother had given me . . . I knew, with certainty, that it wasn't just me feeling the change. The easy talk we had shared on the drive here had fled. I wanted to say something, but didn't know what. I wanted him to say something.}

^{Badou had climbed into the back of the truck, separated from us by the opened curtain of canvas. I had brought more French picture books with me, and had handed them back to Badou. He was slowly turning the pages of one of them.}

^{Aszulay looked over at me when I finally said his name.}

^{I couldn't avoid speaking of her any longer. 'Your wife. I saw her sitting with you around the fire. She's very pretty.'}

^{Something flitted across his face, turning into something odd now, some unreadable expression. His jaw clenched, and suddenly I was afraid that I had, unknowingly, made a mistake with my simple statement.}

^{'I'm sorry, Aszulay. Have I . . . did I say something wrong?'}

^{He took his eyes from the
piste
to look at me. 'The woman — she was just one of the village women. I have known her many years.' I saw his throat move as he swallowed. 'I have no wife,' he said.}

^{My mouth opened. 'But Manon . . . Manon told me you had a wife. She told me . . . when I saw her last.'}