The Lost Letter from Morocco

‘You never feed the chickens, Hanane. Mohammed’s wife does that.’

Hanane glares at Omar. ‘Well, today I need to feed the chickens.’

‘I’m sure the chickens can wait half an hour,’ Gus says. ‘Since we’re here, why don’t we have a look? Think about it. A whole herd of dinosaurs walking over this very ground millions of years ago.’ He tromps through the mud in the direction Omar had pointed. He hunkers down to look at something in the ground. ‘Hanane, come and look. They really are amazing. You must come and see.’

He beckons Omar over and points out some detail to the boy. He has so much enthusiasm, Hanane thinks. So much energy. He seems so much younger than the older men of the village. All of them have somehow shrunk from their prime, like dates left to dry in the sun. But this Irishman still looks at the world with the eyes of a curious boy. Still bears himself like a man in the prime of his life. Still glows with the vitality of a man half his age. But with an assurance missing in the village boys she’s grown up with.

The two black-haired heads lean together as they inspect the marks in the ground. Man and boy. The Irishman looks over at her. His blue eyes are the colour of the sky. He smiles at her, lines carving themselves into the fine skin around his eyes.

‘Come, Hanane. Come and have a look. It’s marvellous. Obviously some large theropods. I’ve seen something similar in the Kem Kem Beds by the Algerian border.’

Marvellous. Such a beautiful word. A word of treasures beyond imagination. She takes a step forwards, knowing, as she does, that she’s walking into her future.

Chapter Twelve (#ulink_4889fceb-e8c9-5e7e-8a25-26258cabd2b9)

Zitoune, Morocco – April 2009

A knock on Addy’s front door.

‘Come in,’ she calls as she tinkers with a close-up of a grey-furred macaque on her laptop.

The blue wooden door squeaks open and Omar sticks his blue-turbaned head around the door, smiling broadly. ‘Good morning. It’s okay for me to come in?’

Addy glances over at him then turns back quickly to the laptop. ‘Yes, okay. Fine. I’m editing the pictures I took of the monkeys the other day. I’ve got some good images of the shop sellers, too. I’ve made a start on the text.’

Omar leans over her shoulder, his breath warm on her neck as she manipulates the mouse to add a richer grey tone to the monkey’s fur.

‘It’s clever what you do.’ He brushes his fingers along Addy’s neck.

She shifts away from his fingers and rubs at her neck where he’s touched her. ‘Just lots of practice.’

Omar drops his hand. From the corner of her eye, Addy watches him wander over to the kitchen. He turns on the tap over the sink. The pipes groan and ping. A fan of water sprays out across his gown, turning the bright blue a deep navy. Omar flaps the wet fabric in the air.

‘The plumber didn’t fix it well.’

‘I thought it would be fine. The shower’s a nightmare, too. The water’s cold and it stopped just when I put the shampoo in my hair. I used up all my bottled water rinsing it out.’

He flops into a wooden chair. ‘It’s a rubbish situation. Did you tell Mohammed?’

‘He said he’ll get it fixed “next tomorrow”.’

Omar grunts. ‘I’ll arrange it for you. Don’t worry. I’ll take you to the public shower later so you can have a hot shower. Or you can have a hammam with my sister and my mother.’

Addy looks up from her laptop. ‘A hammam?’

‘It’s like a room for steam. I showed it to you when I made the tour the first time. The buildings like the beehive behind the houses.’

‘Oh. Like a sauna.’

Omar shrugs. ‘It might be.’

‘Maybe I’ll try it another time. A proper hot shower would be great.’

She stares at the blinking cursor on her laptop screen, her concentration dissolving like sugar in hot tea. She’ll be back in London at the end of June. There’s no point getting involved with Omar. Tempting, but … it would be stupid. Someone would end up getting hurt, and she was damned if it was going to be her.

She was getting nowhere in her search for Hanane here in Zitoune. With every squint through her camera lens, she’d been searching for a hint of a mature Hanane, or a glimpse of her father’s features in the faces of the young men swimming under the bridge, or in a passing young woman’s shy smile. Hanane’s child would be twenty-three now. Not a child, even though all Addy could picture was a baby swaddled in white blankets.

No one she’s shown the Polaroid to recognises her father and Hanane. If was as though Hanane had never existed. What happened to her? Where’s her child now? Maybe Hanane wasn’t from Zitoune or one of the nearby villages, after all. But then why did her father’s photos ‘with H’ start in Zitoune?

Omar picks up a pencil and drums it on the table. ‘You would like to come to the waterfalls today, Adi? A driver called me from Marrakech. He has twenty tourists on his bus. It’s good business for me.’

Addy looks over at Omar and chews her lip. She’d like to take some more photos around the waterfalls. What harm could it be? She’d be with a group of tourists. Safety in numbers.

‘Adi, you don’t have to worry for me. If you don’t like me, I can accept it, even though it hurts my heart.’

She nods. ‘Okay. I’ll bring my camera and the tripod.’

Omar drops the pencil onto the table and stands, tipping the chair over in his haste. ‘Sorry. Sorry.’ He rights the chair and slides it under the table. ‘Come to the bridge in half an hour. You can test me to see if I’m a good tour guide or not.’ He turns to Addy, his hand on the door handle. ‘Fatima don’t let me eat the crêpes she made this morning. She say they are for you, full stop.’ He shakes his head. ‘It’s difficult to be the man in my house since you came to Zitoune. Soon I will be starving.’

‘Poor you. She brought me the crêpes for breakfast. They were delicious.’

‘Never mind, Adi. I took some already this morning from the kitchen. Even if she say no, I take them anyway. Nobody can say no to me.’

‘Oh, really?’

‘It’s true.’

‘Maybe one day I’ll say no to you.’

Omar steps out onto the veranda. ‘It’s impossible.’

‘Why’s it so impossible?’

The dimple appears in his cheek. ‘Because I’m so charming.’

Addy smiles as she reaches for her camera and loops the strap around her neck. ‘Que sera sera.’

‘What you said?’

‘What will be, will be. It’s Latin.’

Omar nods. ‘It’s like fate. Even so, you’ll never say no to me. I’m sure about it.’

Half an hour later, Addy’s on the old iron bridge, stepping carefully over the loose wooden boards. Resting the tripod against an iron girder, she leans her elbows on the rusting railing and watches the river sliding past, underneath her feet. She can see through the clear water to the pebbles and stones on the sandy bottom. It’s still early, and the village boys haven’t yet congregated on the riverbanks to dive and swim in the cool water. Only boys, never girls. The girls are in their homes, Addy guesses, helping with the cooking and cleaning. Being dutiful while the boys have all the fun.

Addy gazes up the hill towards the mosque’s thick minaret. A sheep’s carcass hangs from a hook in front of the butcher’s stall next door to the new concrete tower. The butcher leans against a bamboo post holding up an awning constructed from an old Méditel hoarding advertising cell phones. He swats at the flies buzzing around the carcass with a goat tail.

Leaning her chin in her hand on the rusted iron railing, Addy watches three women carry baskets of laundry down a path to the river. They stop at a flat rock, set down their baskets, and tuck the hems of their skirts and aprons into their pyjama bottoms. They roll their pyjamas over their knees and lay out T-shirts on the rock. A tall, slender, black-skinned woman showers the shirts with a snowy sprinkling of laundry detergent. When the T-shirts are sufficiently soap-laden, the women wade out into the river and dunk the shirts into the water. They scrub and pummel the cloth until Addy feels her own knuckles burn.