The Lost Letter from Morocco. Adrienne Chinn

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СКАЧАТЬ problem. I’ll make a good arrangement for you.’

      ‘I, but … I don’t want to be any trouble.’

      Omar says something to the driver, who tosses his cigarette out of the window and starts the ignition. The door’s still open and Omar hangs half in and half out, his feet wedged against the opening. As the tour bus cuts across the square towards a small rusty bridge, he calls out to acquaintances in a guttural language. Addy sucks in her breath as the bridge’s loose boards clatter beneath the bus’s tyres.

      The tour bus turns right down a narrow lane and stops in front of a squat mud house. A large inverted triangle is centred on the blue metal door and two tiny windows protected by black metal grilles have been cut into the orange pisé wall. Omar jumps out of the bus and bangs on the blue door. A woman’s voice calls out from behind the door.

      ‘Chkoun?’

      ‘Omar.’

      The door opens. A young woman in pink flannelette pyjamas and a lime green hijab stands on the threshold. She wears purple Crocs and carries a wooden spoon dripping with batter. She has the same full lips and high cheekbones as Omar in her dark-skinned face. Omar gestures at the bus, his guttural words flying at her like bullets. The girl waves her spoon at Omar, flinging batter over his blue gown as she volleys back a shrill response.

      Omar catches Addy’s eye. ‘One minute, one minute.’ He grabs the girl by the arm and they disappear behind the door.

      A few minutes later he emerges and beckons to Addy.

      ‘Come.’

      ‘This isn’t the house on the Internet.’

      ‘Don’t worry. It’s the house of my family. We’ll put the luggage here and you can come on the tour. I’ll bring you to your house later.’

      ‘But …’

      He presses his hand onto his chest. ‘I am Omar. Everybody knows me here. It’s no problem. Don’t worry.’

      Philippa’s voice echoes in her head: Whatever you do, Addy, don’t trust those Moroccan men. They’re only after one thing. A British passport.

      Omar shrugs. ‘Okay, so no problem. You don’t trust me, I can see it. It’s not a requirement for you to come to my house. We go to the waterfalls.’

      ‘No, it’s fine. I’m coming.’

      ‘About bloody time, too,’ a girl with a Geordie accent grumbles from the back of the bus. ‘We could’ve crossed the bloody Sahara by camel by now.’

      Omar stands in a dirt-floored courtyard with the girl and two older women. A woman who looks about fifty-five stands ramrod straight and wears a red gypsy headscarf, an orange blouse buttoned to her chin, and a red-and-white striped apron over layers of skirts and flannelette pyjamas. Silver coins hang from her pierced ears and the inner lids of her amber eyes are ringed with kohl.

      Beside her, an old woman in a flowered flannel housecoat and red bandana leans heavily on a knotty wooden stick. A thick silver ring marked with crosses and X’s slides around one of her gnarled fingers. Her left eye is closed and the right eye that peers out from her wrinkled face is a translucent blue. She has a blue arrow tattooed on her chin.

      ‘It’s my mum, my sister and my grandmother,’ Omar says, waving at the women.

      Addy sets down her camera bag and her overnight bag. A clothesline has been strung across the yard and fresh washing hangs on the line dripping onto the dirt floor. A couple of scrawny chickens scratch in the red dirt. Addy extends her hand to his mother.

      ‘Bonjour.’

      The woman takes hold of Addy’s hand in both of hers then smiles and nods. Her eyes sweep over Addy’s naked arms. She says something to Omar, who chuckles.

      A small boy barges in through the door dragging Addy’s suitcase and tripod bag and deposits them next to her other luggage. Omar retrieves a coin from the pocket of his blue robe and flips it to the boy, who catches it, shouting ‘Shukran’ as he runs out of the door. The metal door bangs against its loose hinges.

      The old woman waves her stick at the door and shuffles off through an archway, mumbling. Omar’s mother and sister pick up Addy’s luggage and follow the old woman into the next room.

      ‘Where are they going?’

      ‘Don’t worry. They put them in a safe place so the chickens and donkey don’t break them.’

      ‘Oh. Thank you.’

      ‘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.’

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