The Lost Letter from Morocco. Adrienne Chinn

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СКАЧАТЬ 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.

      Fatima and her friend, Zaina, emerge, chatting and laughing, from the shadows of the olive trees, carrying brightly coloured plastic baskets spilling over with clothes. Addy waves at them, calling out Fatima’s name. Fatima smiles and waves back. Zaina stares up at Addy, the humour erasing from her pretty face.

      Addy leans back against the rail and inhales the fresh spring air with a deep breath. So Zaina doesn’t like her. So what? But the others – Aicha, Jedda, Fatima, Omar … Why do the people here touch her in a way no one in London touches her? Certainly not Philippa, who loves to play the role of her disapproving and long-suffering older sister. She loves Philippa, of course. She’s her sister. She just doesn’t like her very much most of the time.

      And Nigel? Addy tries to dredge up the memory of her ex-fiancé, but his face is like a puzzle whose pieces she can’t quite fit together. Nigel got close. She’d let her guard down because he could make her laugh with his dry humour. Then he’d left her heart as torn and bloodied as the raccoon she’d once seen caught in a hunter’s trap in the Québec woods. Another selfish man. Wrapped up in his career. What did Philippa say? Always falling for inaccessible men. Selfish and inaccessible. Just like her father.

      ‘Adi!’ Omar waves at her from the road leading down from the car park.

      She watches him stride down the dusty road, trailed by a crowd of sunburnt tourists in floppy sun hats and baseball caps, cameras bumping on their chests. Despite herself, her heart flutters.

      Omar points out the donkeys tethered to the olive trees, saying something she can’t hear. The tourists laugh. In his turban, Omar towers over them. As he approaches, she follows the line of his neck to the point where it meets his angular jaw. The soft spot just under his jaw where she’d kissed him last night, in the moonlight on her veranda. She remembers his quiet moan, and her cheeks flush. But that was before she came to her senses. Retreating back into her shell, like a turtle hiding from the world.

      ‘Everybody, this is a tourist lady who’ll join us for the tour.’

      Addy waves at the group. A few middle-aged European couples and a clique of Spanish students. The girls flick their eyes over her. She’s of no interest to the boys. Omar collects her tripod and tucks it under his arm. He heads through the olive grove to the river path. Addy follows at the rear of the group, just like the first time.

      Omar stops on the riverbank by the women washing clothes. The tourists congregate around him and snap photos of the toiling women.

      ‘This is the manner we do wash the clothes in the village.’

      ‘So, it’s only the women who are clean, then?’

      Omar snaps his head around and stares at Addy. The dimple appears in his cheek. A Scottish man asks him a question, but Omar doesn’t answer. The man repeats his question. Omar shakes his head as if to wake up.

      ‘I’m sorry. I been sleeping.’

      The group trails Omar through the twisting trunks of the olive trees, past the lookout by Yassine’s café. Rather than heading to the bottom of the waterfalls where the rafts bob in the pool, Omar veers right onto a СКАЧАТЬ