The Saffron Gate (66 page)

^{'The rest of that story, the part about Etienne, is Manon's,' Aszulay said. 'I cannot tell it.'}

^{'But you remained friends with Manon all this time,' I said.}

^{'We were apart for some years. When her mother died and Manon went to live with the French family she worked for, I left Morocco.'}

^{'You left? Where did you go?'}

^{'Many places. I was young, and strong. I had saved what I could, and gave it to my mother. I went first to Algeria, later to Mauritania and Mali. When I was younger, I liked moving from place to place. I am a nomad at heart,' he said, and smiled.}

^{I looked at the candle, and its reflection in the windshield.}

^{'And then I went to Spain,' he said.}

^{'Spain?' I turned to him}

^{He nodded. 'I lived first in Malaga, then Seville, and finally in Barcelona. I learned to speak Spanish easily; it's not so different from French. When I lived in Barcelona, I often crossed the border into France. It was a good time for me. I discovered so much about the world. And about people. I made arrangements with a friend in Marrakesh to give the money I sent him to my mother and sisters. I made more money in Spain than I would have in Morocco in many years. There was much work there.'}

^{He could have passed as a Spaniard, with his thick, wavy black hair, his narrow nose and strong white teeth, his dusky skin. I thought of him in European clothes.}

^{Who he was, as I knew him, became clearer. 'How long did you live there?'}

^{He was silent for a long moment. 'I was there five years,' he said.}

^{'That's a long time. Did you ever think you would stay permanently?'}

^{He reached out and ran his fingers over the tip of the flame. 'I was in the prison in Barcelona for two years.'}

^{I didn't respond.}

^{'I was headstrong. I was in a fight with a group of men. One of the others was hurt very badly,' he said, with no emotion, still watching his hand passing over the flame. 'I don't know who struck the worst blows. None of us knew; it was a terrible and senseless fight, in the way of young men who lose control. But we were all put into prison because of the injury to the victim.'}

^{'For two years,' I repeated.}

^{'Prison gives one time to think. When I was there, I could only imagine returning to Morocco. I thought that if I should live to see my homeland, I would go back to the desert, and go on the caravans again, and live in a tent. Life is simple in the desert, I told myself. I wanted only that simple life after what I experienced in the prison. I knew my mother didn't know what had happened to me; nobody did. I hated thinking of her imagining me dead. I was filled with guilt for my wasted life — those two years.'}

^{'And so when you were released . . . that's what you did?'}

^{He nodded. 'First I went to the village. I saw my mother and my sisters and their families. Then I went back to the Sahara, as I had promised myself.'}

^{'But . . .' I said, because I heard it in his voice.}

^{'I had come back from Spain with no money. I couldn't afford to buy my own caravan of camels, and I found it difficult to work under another caravan leader. Of course it wasn't as it had been when I was a child, with my father. I had changed too much. After one long and unsatisfactory caravan to Timbuktu, I returned to the village. I needed — I wanted — to settle down. I wanted my own family, a permanent home. I married Iliana, and in three years we had two children. A son and a daughter.' He stopped, suddenly, as though his voice had been cut off.}

^{I waited.}

^{He cleared his throat. 'I loved my wife, and my children, but it was the same as when I had tried to make a new life in the desert; I had been away too long. I had known the life of cities, and had seen too much in my travels. I tried hard to accept the village life, working in the fields with the other men, but I didn't belong to this life. It wasn't the work; I'll do any work. It was the isolation. Even though — as you saw — it's beautiful, and the people are friendly, it reminded me, in a strange way, of the prison. I felt as if the mountains were walls. I couldn't see over them, or around them. I spoke to Iliana about moving into Marrakesh, about raising our children there, but she was frightened at the idea; she had always lived in the Ourika valley. So I resigned myself to my choice, and I tried to make a good life for us for those few years. But after . . .' He stopped again, then continued. 'After I lost Iliana and the children, there seemed no point in staying in the village. There was no happiness for me there any longer.'}

^{We sat in silence for a few moments, listening to the wind, now just murmuring.}

^{'I came back to Marrakesh and found work. Of course I saw Manon again, and the life she had chosen. She had left the French family, and lived on the kindness of men.'}

^{I could imagine how he would have viewed Manon at that point. Women became wives, or they became concubines, prostitutes by another name. There was no in between. There was no name for a woman like Manon.}

^{'But she couldn't find happiness either,' he continued. 'We were both unhappy then, but for me it was the sadness of grief. And I knew that grief would, some day, pass, or at least lessen to where it was not a daily and deep pain.'}

^{It was difficult to watch Aszulay speak; I had never before seen his face like this. It was always honest, but now it was vulnerable, too vulnerable.}

^{'Manon's unhappiness was different from mine; it was caused by her anger. She felt she had been cheated out of a happy life, and didn't know how to find it — or make it — for herself. In this way she has something missing inside her. She held on to an old resentment — that she was not given what she thought she deserved — until it crippled her.'}

^{Aszulay had used the word
crippled
unconsciously; obviously he didn't view me in this way, nor did he know that what he was saying was affecting me, making me think about my own life. My own resentments.}

^{'But when she had Badou — something she hadn't expected or, I believe, ever wanted — I saw her change.'}

^{'And his father? Badou's father?'}

^{He looked away from the flame, and at me. 'What of him?'}

^{'She didn't find any happiness with him?' I asked.}

^{Aszulay shook his head. 'It appeared to me that with Badou's birth Manon became more desperate. She was not young, and had a fatherless child. She has found it difficult to be a mother. She simply tolerates him, but she doesn't harm him.'}

^{Watching Badou's chest rise and fall as he breathed, softly, in sleep, I thought of Falida and her bruises. 'She ignores him. Sometimes he's hungry, and dirty,' I said, not liking that Aszulay was defending Manon and her treatment of Badou.}

^{'I don't think Manon is capable of the kind of love a woman should have — naturally — for a child,' he said. 'As I told you, something is missing inside her. When I think how my . . .' He stopped, and I imagined he was remembering his own wife with their children. He still held the boy's little feet in his large hands, and I watched his hands close, so gently, around them.}

^{Surely Badou filled a tiny bit of the emptiness he had after losing his own children.}

^{The wind changed direction, whispering slyly through the tiny crack at the top of the window, and the candle was extinguished in one sudden whoosh.}

^{'And now you,' Aszulay said.}

^{'Me?' I repeated. I could see nothing in the blackness.}

^{'Your story,' he said. 'I've told you my story. Now you tell yours.'}

^{'But . . . mine has nothing of interest,' I said. 'Nothing at all. Compared to yours . . .'}

^{'What makes you think this?'}

^{'I have lived . . . a small life.'}

^{There was a rustling sound, and the seat between us dipped as he laid Badou down. My hands touched the boy's hair. I gently lifted his head into my lap. I envisioned Aszulay still holding his feet, the child's body a bridge between us. I pulled the blanket on the seat up over Badou.}

^{'No life is small,' Aszulay said, his voice low. 'The life of the bird is as important as the life of the king. Just different.'}

^{And then there was a lift of air, and I felt, rather than saw, Aszulay's face close to mine. I put my hands out, and felt his cheekbones under my fingers, and then his lips were upon mine.}

^{Badou stirred, and we moved apart.}

^{'Tell me your story,' Aszulay whispered in the darkness.}

^{I was silent for a moment, and then began.}

^{THIRTY SIX}

^{I
awoke slowly, my neck stiff from leaning into the corner. I twisted my head from side to side as I looked through the windshield. The wind had blown itself out, and the morning was still.}

^{Aszulay and Badou crouched around a small fire; a steaming black tin pot sat in a pile of burning twigs.}

^{I got out of the truck, aware of the new intimacy Aszulay and I had shared. It wasn't only our kiss, but even more so the telling each other the details of our lives in the long night.}

^{'We've already had our breakfast,' Aszulay said, watching me as I came to the fire. 'Sit, and eat.' He spoke as always, but the way he looked at me told me something else.}

^{'You had food with you?' I asked, smiling, starting to lower myself to the ground, awkwardly, because of my leg, but Aszulay gestured to a large stone. He'd folded the blanket over it. I went to it, grateful for his thoughtfulness.}

^{'The people of Morocco never trust the weather,' he said, smiling at me as though we shared a joke. I remembered how Mustapha and Aziz had carried supplies in the trunk of the Citroën. Using the end of his turban, Aszulay lifted the pot from the flames and poured it into a tin can that I could see held crushed mint and sugar. Then, still using his turban, he set the can on the ground in front of me. 'Badou, give Sidonie some bread.'}

^{Badou handed me a thick round he held in his lap. I tore a chunk from it and dipped it into the tea to soften it. I ate it all, suddenly ravenous, and by then the tea was cool enough to drink.}

^{Badou was playing with pebbles, stacking them and knocking them over. When he looked up at me I smiled at him, finishing the last of my tea.}

^{'Aren't your feet hot, Sidonie?' he asked, and I thought
of Zohra, curious in the same way.}

^{'Sometimes,' I said.}

^{'Why do you always wear such big shoes? Why don't you wear
babouches?'}

^{'I have to. This leg,' I said, touching my knee, 'doesn't walk right without the shoe.' I pointed to the built-up sole. 'I need that, or my leg is too short.'}