The Lost Letter from Morocco

‘No problem. Mashi mushkil.’

‘Mashy mushkey.’

‘It’s a good accent. It’s Darija. Arabic of Morocco.’

‘It sounds different here from what I heard in Marrakech.’

‘Here we speak Tamazight mostly. It’s Amazigh language.’

‘Amazigh?’

‘Yes. We say Amazigh for one person and Imazighen for many people. Everybody else says Berber, but we don’t like it so well, even though we say it for tourists because it’s more easy. The Romans called us that because they say we were like barbarians. It’s because we fight them well. We are the first people of North Africa. We’re free people. It’s what Imazighen means. We’re not Arab in the mountains.’

‘Oh. I didn’t know that.’

‘So, I’m a good teacher, isn’t it? My sister speaks Darija and some French from her school, but my mum and grandmother speak Tamazight only.’

‘And your father?’

‘My father, he’s died.’

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean …’

Omar shrugs. ‘Don’t mind. It’s life.’ Omar pinches the fabric of his blue gown between his fingers. ‘It’s the special blue colour of the Imazighen. It used to be that the Tuareg Berbers in the Sahara crushed indigo powder into white clothes to make them blue to be safe from the djinn. But when it was very hot the blue colour make their faces blue as well. People called them the blue men of the desert.’

Omar drapes the loose end of his blue turban across his face, covering his nose and mouth. ‘It’s a tagelmust. It’s for the desert, but the tourists love it so we wear it everywhere now. For us, it’s the man who covers his face, not the ladies.’ He folds his arms across his chest and spreads his feet apart. ‘I’m handsome, isn’t it?’

‘I’m sure you break the hearts of all the women tourists.’

Omar tugs at the cloth covering his face. ‘I never go with the tourist ladies. It’s many ladies in Zitoune who want to marry me, but I say no. My mum don’t like it. She want many grandchildren.’

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend …’

Omar tucks the tail of the tagelmust into his turban. ‘Mashi mushkil.’

A black-and-white cat brushes against her legs and Addy reaches down to brush its tail.

‘What a pretty cat.’

Omar shifts on his feet. ‘It’s the cat of my grandmother. It’s very, very old.’

‘Really? It doesn’t look old.’

‘She had it a long time anyway. It always follows her. It’s very curious all the time.’

Omar clears his throat. ‘It must be that I know your name.’

She stands up quickly and thrusts out her hand. ‘Addy.’

A wet pant leg wraps around her wrist like a damp leaf. She tries to shake it loose but the clothesline collapses, throwing the damp laundry into heaps on the dusty ground. The cat shoots across the courtyard and out through a crack in a thick wooden door.

Addy stares at the dust turning to red mud on the clothes. She stoops to pick up the dirty laundry.

‘I’m so sorry. I’ve messed up your mother’s laundry.’

Omar lifts the wet bundle out of Addy’s hands. ‘No mind, Adi.’ The vowels of her name curl and roll off his tongue, the accent on the last syllable. Omar stacks the wet laundry on top of a low wooden table. ‘It’s a boy’s name in Morocco. You have short hair like a boy anyway.’

Addy runs her fingers over her cropped hair. The softness still surprises her. Hair like a baby’s. A side effect of the Red Devil.

Omar wipes his muddy hands on his gown. ‘So, Adi of England. Yalla. We go.’

Chapter Five (#u7f6f9bce-79cc-52de-a56f-637c5f0780c9)

Zitoune, Morocco – March 2009

The tour group trails behind Omar as he leads them on a path through an olive grove beside the river. Stopping, Omar points out donkeys saddled with bright-coloured blankets, eating the fresh spring grass in the dappled shade.

‘These are Berber four-by-fours. They fill up on the gasoline when the drivers go to the market. The donkeys eat the marijuana there. You can see?’

Addy squints at the donkeys. ‘That’s not marijuana.’

Omar slaps his leg and laughs. ‘You know marijuana, Adi?’

The tourists laugh and the colour rises in Addy’s face. ‘I didn’t mean it like that. Everyone knows what marijuana looks like.’ She searches the faces of the other tourists for affirmation. Surely she wasn’t the only one who’d gone to university in the Eighties.

‘Mashi mushkil. It’s so nice to know if a lady like marijuana.’

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘Don’t be mad. I’m joking with you.’

‘Fine.’ Addy looks over at Omar and frowns. Was he chatting her up? He was handsome, there was no denying that. But, so what? She was here to work and to find Hanane and the baby. The last thing she needed was to get involved with a cocky Moroccan ten years younger than herself.

Omar presses a hand against his heart. ‘Now the lady of England is angry at me, I can tell it well. My heart is crushed like an egg for the Berber omelette. I must apologise.’

He wades out into the green meadow grass and picks a red poppy. He makes his way back to the path and holds out the flower to Addy.

Addy’s irritation dissipates. A sweet gesture. She reaches for the flower and Omar closes his hand around hers. She meets his gaze. A waft of memory. She looks away in confusion. His hand slides from hers. When she looks back, he’s on the path, the tourists clustered around him.

Around a bend in the river they come across several local women washing clothes in the clear water. Jeans and T-shirts in the colours of European football teams hang to dry over pink flowering oleander bushes. The women laugh and chatter, their skirts and aprons tucked into the waistbands of their flannelette pyjama bottoms, which are rolled up over their knees. Their hair is hidden by colourful bandanas. Many of them have blue arrow-like tattoos on their chins like Omar’s grandmother.

‘This is the manner the ladies wash the clothes in the village,’ Omar explains as the group stops to take photos.

Addy rests her camera on top of a large boulder and peers into the viewfinder. What do the women think of us, stealing their souls with our cameras? She presses the shutter then loops the strap around her neck, letting the camera flop against her chest as she replaces the lens cap.

She looks over at Omar, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. ‘So, where do the men wash their clothes?’

Omar laughs. ‘I’m very clean, even if I don’t wash my own clothes.’ He raises his arms and approaches her. ‘You can smell me.’