The Lost Letter

Addy stoops down to pick up the offensive shoes. ‘Who was that?’

‘Zaina,’ Omar says as he takes the shoes from Addy and hands them to Fatima. ‘She’s a friend of Fatima.’

Addy watches Fatima disappear into the kitchen with her loafers. ‘I don’t think Zaina likes me.’

‘She don’t like foreign ladies. It’s normal.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘Amazigh ladies don’t like foreign ladies because they go with Amazigh men. They’re jealous.’

Fatima rests her chin on Addy’s shoulder and wraps her arms around her waist. ‘Come, sister,’ she says in French. ‘It’s the time of supper. I make delicious brochettes of chicken for my sister, Adi.’

‘You go eat, honey.’ Omar turns and heads towards the front door.

‘Where are you going? Aren’t you eating?’

‘Later. I’ll go to find the plumber. Enjoy.’

Fatima reaches for Addy’s hand and leads her into the living room. Aicha smiles her white smile and pats a place for Addy beside her on the flowery banquette. The low table is laid out with stacks of glistening chicken brochettes, a salad of chopped tomatoes, onions and olives dressed with olive oil, and fragrant discs of warm bread dusted with semolina.

Aicha grabs a disc of bread out of the blue plastic basket and tears off a large chunk. She offers it to Addy. ‘Eesh, Adi. Marhaba.’

‘Shukran.’

Addy tears off another piece and bites into its warm yeastiness. As she chews, she looks around the narrow whitewashed room. A poster of a girl praying at Mecca is tacked over the banquette on the opposite wall. Beside it a framed photograph, garlanded with pink and yellow plastic flowers, shows a sharp-suited King Mohammed VI. At the far end of the room, a large flat-screen television hangs on the wall, the dark screen filmy with pink dust.

Fatima picks up the remote. The television screen springs to life. She flips through the channels until she comes to a Turkish soap opera. Addy wonders where Jedda is. The black-and-white cat slinks into the room and settles on the mat by Addy’s feet.

They’re silent as they climb the steps to Addy’s veranda. She’s conscious of his warmth behind her, the gentle pressure of his hand on her waist when she stumbles on the final step. She walks over to the railing and gazes out at the night-cloaked mountains. The air is cool and stars cluster like glass chips in the black sky. A low buzz of cicadas underpins the silence.

Omar joins her and looks out at the inky outline of the High Atlas Mountains in the far distance.

‘It’s dark tonight, honey. No moon.’

‘Yes. But you can see the stars really well.’

‘The plumber called me when I was at Mohammed’s restaurant watching the football. He said he fixed your water. It might be I should check it for you.’

‘No, it’s okay. I’m sure it’ll be fine.’

‘Adi …’

It happens before she knows she’s done it. Her lips on his neck. Softness. A pulse. His moan. A kiss. His body warm against hers. Her arms around his neck.

‘Adi …’

No. She can’t. She mustn’t. It’s too complicated. Her life’s already a mess. She drops her arms and steps back from his embrace. She presses her fingers against her burning lips.

‘I’m so sorry, Omar. I shouldn’t have done that. Please forget I’ve done that.’

He reaches out to her. ‘Adi, what happened? Don’t worry.’

She hurries to the blue door and into the house. Her heart’s in her throat, pounding, pounding. Oh, my God. What was I thinking?

Chapter Eleven

Zitoune, Morocco – December 1983

Hanane skids through a slick of thick blood-red mud.

She laughs. ‘Omar, the surprise had better be worth it. I’m getting splattered with mud.’

The boy waves his hand in the air on the path in front of her. ‘Mashi mushkil. It’s not so far now.’

Hanane stops to catch her breath. Wisps of her thick black hair escape the purple scarf draped loosely over her head. The sky is a canopy of blue over the damp red earth. Nothing but rocks and mud. A few leafless bushes. The river, about ten metres below, courses roughly on its path through the canyon walls.

‘If I’d known we’d be walking to Oushane, I’d never have come.’

Omar turns around, smiling broadly as he opens his arms wide. ‘So, why would I have told you, then?’ He flicks his eyes over her shoulder.

Hanane glances back but sees nothing but the narrow goat path they’ve just descended.

‘What is it, Omar?’

‘Nothing.’ Breaking into a jog, he waves at her to follow him. ‘Not far now, Hanane. Yalla.’

‘I’m not running, Omar.’ She steps gingerly along the muddy plateau. ‘I’ll break my leg.’

‘Stop.’ Omar shoots his right palm into the air like the traffic police she’s seen in Azaghar. ‘Stop. There, just there. Where you are.’

‘What? Why?’

He points at the muddy path in front of her. ‘Look down.’

Pressed into the mud is a huge, three-toed footprint.

‘What is it?’

‘Dinosaur.’ Omar curls his hands under his armpits, staggering around the ground like a cross between a monkey and a wounded chicken. He lets out a howl.

Hanane looks around nervously. ‘Be quiet. There might be another one.’

Omar bursts out laughing, slapping the knees of his dirty jeans. ‘Don’t be stupid, Hanane. The dinosaurs are all dead now. I learned about it in school.’ He points to the ground ahead of him. ‘Yalla, there are more. Lots of them. Big and little. A whole family.’

‘Seriously?’

‘Yes, seriously.’

Hanane spins around. The Irishman with the black hair jogs down the final metre of the goat path, the big black camera on its strap slapping against his chest.

‘Be carefu—’

Too late. His foot slips and the man’s booted feet fly out from under him, sending him sprawling on his back into the red mud.

Hanane giggles then, remembering her manners, composes her face into a frown of concern. ‘Are you all right?’ she asks in French.

Gus sits up, holding up palms coated in thick red goo. ‘Fine. I’ve only hurt my pride.’ He holds out a hand to Omar. ‘Here, boss. Give us a hand.’

Omar picks his way across the mud to the Irishman. Holding out a skinny hand, he yanks Gus to his knees.

‘Thanks, boss.’ Gus winks at Omar as he gets to his feet. ‘I can take it from here.’

‘Mister Gus, show her the other footprints, over there.’ Omar points to the ground a few metres away.

Hanane raises an arched black eyebrow at Omar. ‘So, this is your surprise.’

Omar’s right cheek dimples. ‘The dinosaur footprints were the surprise.’ He points at Gus. ‘He’s just extra. He promised me not to tell you.’

‘Boss,’ Gus says as he adjusts the camera strap around his neck, ‘did anyone ever tell you that you talk too much?’

Hanane shifts on her feet, sinking deeper into the mud. ‘I really have to get back. I need to feed the chickens.’

‘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

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.

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 different path. He stops in front of a red mud wall of petrified tree roots. He stumbles over his words, forgetting his English.

The path leads to a pool of clear water fed by mini-waterfalls. Addy peers down the river towards sun-baked canyon walls in the distance and sees half a dozen pools, feeding lazily into each other, veiled by pink oleander bushes and branches of the old olive trees on the riverbanks. The freshness of the early morning has succumbed to a dry heat and sweat trickles down her neck. She fans herself with her hat.

Omar leans her tripod against the grey trunk of an olive tree and leaps onto a rock in the pool.

‘Everybody, it’s very, very hot even if it’s not summer yet. So, you can swim if you would like. We will stay here thirty minutes. It’s very safe, no problem. The water is very clean. Enjoy.’

The older tourists roll up their trousers and Bermuda shorts and wade cautiously into the water. The Spanish students strip off their clothes in a burst of Latin enthusiasm, revealing surfing shorts and bikinis. They clamber across the rocks to the mini-waterfalls and leap into the pool, screaming as they slam into the cold water. The girls are tanned and slim in their bikinis. Addy runs her hand along the waist of her jeans, conscious of her white skin and the roundness of her belly, hips and breasts under her clothes.

Omar laughs and shouts at the Spanish boys as he unwinds his tagelmust. He jumps back to the riverbank and loops the blue cloth around Addy’s waist.

‘So, I capture you, Adi.’ He leans over and plants a quick kiss on her lips.

A Spanish boy shouts out a catcall. Omar answers him in Spanish, putting off the boy’s timing, and he belly-flops into the pool. The boy’s friends erupt into peals of glee.

‘What did he say?’

‘He say I am a robber of the ladies. I tell him I am the robber of one lady only.’ Omar laughs. ‘I tell him he have to make a good dive because all the Spanish ladies watch him. So, he is nervous and he made a bad dive.’

The students’ carefree spirits are infectious and Addy ignores the alarm going off in her head.

‘What are you going to do now that you’ve trapped me? Carry me off?’

‘It’s so, so hot, darling. There’s no way for me to carry you.’

‘Maybe you’d like one of the Spanish girls instead. They’ve been eyeing you.’

‘I don’t mind for Spanish ladies.’ Omar drapes the tagelmust around them like a blanket and slides his hand under Addy’s T-shirt, cupping her right breast. He runs his fingers over the lace of her bra and expels a whisper of breath. ‘Come with me, Adi.’

For a moment they stare at each other. Addy drapes the blue cloth around her shoulders.

‘Where are we going?’

‘To be alone, darling. We can swim.’

‘I didn’t bring a swimsuit.’

‘Mashi mushkil. You can wear your underwear. It’ll dry quick in the sun. No one will see. It’s a private place.’

He leads Addy along the riverbank until they reach a flat rock jutting into a quiet pool. It’s hidden from view of the others by a screen of oleander bushes. He pulls off his blue gown and white T-shirt. His faded Levis cling to his hips. His naked chest is lean like a swimmer’s, tanned to the colour of milky coffee.

Addy lifts the camera strap from around her neck and sets the camera down on a rock, covering it with her straw hat. She begins to undo her belt, but Omar brushes her hands away.

‘It is for me to do it.’

He unfastens the belt and discards it on the riverbank. Slowly, he peels off her jeans, running his hands over her body as her skin is revealed to the sun. She stops him as he is about to lift her T-shirt over her head.

‘I think I’ll keep this on, if you don’t mind.’ She ties the T-shirt into a knot under her bra.

He smiles, his teeth gleaming against his brown skin. ‘As you like, Adi. Anyway, it’s better to imagine. It’s more spicy.’

Omar shrugs out of his jeans and sandals until he wears only red jockey shorts, which cling to the contours of his body. He climbs over rocks to the top of the cascade feeding the pool. He looks over at Addy to see that she’s watching, then he executes a perfect dive into the centre of the pool.

Addy scans the surface of the pool, waiting for his head to surface.

‘Omar?’ She searches for a sign – bubbles on the pool’s mirror-like surface, the gleam of skin under the water. ‘Omar?’

His hands grab her ankles. He surfaces, spouting water.

‘You been worried, weren’t you, darling? I watched you underneath the water.’

Addy splashes his face with water. ‘I was worried about how I was going to get the tourists back to the village if you drowned.’

‘That’s not nice.’ He pulls at her ankles and she loses her balance, splashing into the pool. She surfaces next to him, spewing water and blinking.

‘Bastard! I’ve got contact lenses.’

‘What you say?’

She slaps the water, spraying Omar’s face. ‘Bastard.’

‘It’s rude, Adi.’ He dives underneath.

Addy treads water, scanning the surface for where he’ll reappear. The tight wool of his head brushes between her legs. He slides up the front of her body, running his lips over her naked belly as he rises to the surface.

He bursts through the water, gasping. ‘I forgot to breathe, darling. I wanted to stay to kiss you under the water and I lost my air.’

Addy reaches her arms around his neck and folds her legs around his body. He leans his head back, closing his eyes as she kisses her way across his neck. His hand cups her head and he kisses her. She’s hungry, ravenous, wanting to taste him, to devour him, until there’s no Addy and no Omar. Only their essences, together, in a pool of water under the hot Moroccan sun.