“It is very beautiful. They have made many Hollywood movies there.”
“Yes, I’m looking forward to it.”
“Please come back here after your trip.”
Over my dead body, Mike thought to herself and then regretted it.
Karolina went on processing the credit card payment, but she quickly raised her eyes to Mike.
“Where are you from, Karolina?”
“Poland.”
“I’m Czech,” Mike replied.
“Your passport is American,” Hassan said it as a flat statement.
“Yes … do you have many Americans staying here?” Mike asked.
“Occasionally, but none at the moment. They have all left.” Karolina looked up into Mike’s eyes as she tore off the printout from the card machine for Mike to sign.
Hassan called to the boy lurking in the dark of the entrance hall to escort Mike up to the main road and the waiting taxi, which he did, not expecting a tip.
As she slid into the backseat of the small, yellow cab a short while later, Mike was still trying to work out what Karolina meant by her final look as they had said goodbye. Thereafter, for the short journey to the bus station, Mike was oddly obsessed with the creases in the weather-beaten face of her driver and his frightening habit of turning around to smile at her, despite the taxi being the centre of an attack by every moped, donkey cart and pickup truck in Marrakech.
Major arguments were taking place as she got out of the taxi on its arrival and boarded the bus to Essaouira, such that she was left standing there waiting while some problem with luggage was sorted out. Fortunately, she only had a rucksack and the smallest of cases. She took her seat and found she was resting her head against the window, counting down until the departure time. But more than that, she wasn’t just looking at her reflection, as her eyes were inches away from the glass. The cropped, brown wig made her look frumpy, and the North African sun had made the pitted skin on her face turn pink. As if staring deep inside herself, she excluded the world beyond the window and wondered what the hell she was doing. Almost exactly one week ago, she had been in her cabin, where her biggest problem was that water had been leaking from her gable window when the wind direction was from the south. A week later she was, well, what? Where was she? What was she doing?
She was honest enough to acknowledge that she was flying by the seat of her pants. The brutal crash – which had killed her beloved Dylan, wrecked her left leg and traumatised her such that her hair had fallen out in clumps until it had eventually disappeared entirely – had given her a purpose beyond her love of sitting at a computer undertaking a database search. She was a desk-jockey, as they had politely called her in Chiswick when she had arrived from Washington, DC. However, why she was sitting on a bus on her way to a port on the west coast of Africa probably needed a little more examination. Actually, it didn’t. Whatever she thought, and she had strong opinions on many things, the one person who seemed always to be the hidden conductor in her life was Leonard de Vries.
She had already noticed from her first hour in Morocco that the country was predominately brown (actually, a hundred varieties of brown, ranging from pinkish to dark chocolate), and the first hour of the journey had not dissuaded her from this opinion. She was sitting next to an old man wrapped up in brown robes that smelt of wood smoke. He seemed in a trance and didn’t speak once.
About halfway to the coast, Mike began to feel a strange sensation in her stomach. She thought back to her mint tea and deeply regretted making it. She grabbed her rucksack, retrieved and swallowed an Imodium tablet, and then, as a distraction, proceeded to count telegraph poles for the next fifteen minutes while it took its effect. The last hour of the journey seemed interminable to her, and she felt every pothole and grimaced each time the driver braked.
When she finally arrived and stepped down from the bus in Essaouira, she was expecting the smell of the sea. Instead, she was immediately overwhelmed by the diesel exhausts of the buses. Her stomach had calmed down a little, but finding a taxi to the riad was top of her list of priorities. The Riad Brouette de Ma Tante was near the port and, she hoped, it would be central enough for whatever she ended up doing in Essaouira.
“Are you going into the centre? Do you want to share a cab?” a female voice came from behind.
Mike turned around to see a thin woman, perhaps in her thirties or forties, who rather surprisingly had long, greying hair. She was wearing a long, sleeveless dress and had a rucksack on her back. The woman had clearly tried to fight the sun for most of her life and lost badly. Mike had not seen a brown, lined face like that since, well, her taxi driver earlier that day, if she were honest.
“Sure, why not?” Mike accepted.
“Great. I’m Josie, by the way.”
“And I need to get to a restroom, but that’s another story.”
“Where are you staying?”
As Mike was telling Josie the name of the riad, she wondered whether having a fellow traveller might be a good idea. Dylan would have been proud of her. He was big on ‘tradecraft’, as he called it.
“I have a large twin room for two nights. It was all they had available. Actually, it was ridiculously cheap. Would you like the other bed? It’s paid for,” Mike said.
“Bonzer,” came the reply.
“That’s a yes, I think?”
“Sorry, yes. I’m Australian. ‘Bonzer’ means that it would be great.”
“I’ve worked with Australians. Let’s get a cab.” Mike looked around the bus station. “I’m not going to use the restroom here.”
The journey to the riad was uneventful and quick. It took six minutes. Mike did glimpse the port and fishing harbour out of her window, but she had already planned to play the role of ‘American tourist’ later in the afternoon as she investigated the harbour before the anticipated meeting tomorrow. She might take Josie with her on her investigative tour as part of the deception.
On their arrival, the riad turned out to be a more modern interpretation of the traditional ones, built around a courtyard with a single Phoenix date palm. The bedroom walls were white, adorned with fishing scenes in wooden frames. Shutters rather than curtains over the windows closed off any views into the atrium. Mike noticed the smallest kettle she had ever seen and a box of mint teabags. She supressed a retch and continued looking for a place to hide her small but important bits of computer hardware.
After freshening up, Mike changed her wig, put on a loose dress like Josie’s and picked out a sun hat. She immediately looked very different.
Josie had described herself as a ‘seasoned traveller’, using the word ‘seasoned’ in the ‘like an old bit of wood’ sense of the word. She was easy company, having been all over the world since something traumatic happened in her teens. She readily accepted Mike’s suggestion to walk down to the harbour and fish market, where they might grab a coffee.
They were standing by the ticket office that was promoting sightseeing trips aboard some of the blue wooden boats, when a tourist coach pulled up in front of them.
The tour guide, who it transpired was called Tanya, stepped down from the coach and invited everyone to leave the air conditioning and to experience Morocco in the raw.
Tanya began pointing out the boxes of silvery fish and the sharp knives in a monotonous voice.
Who could ever forget that splash?
“Oh my God!” Josie exclaimed.
A woman had tripped over her kaftan and had fallen head first into the large concrete channel used to collect the fish guts and various foul-smelling liquids. Several people off the coach had stepped forwards, but they had stopped short of offering a helping hand. She had clambered out with as much dignity as is possible when you have a fish head sticking out between your bum bag and ample stomach.
