Eighty-nine

Standing at the heart of Marrakech, itself the beating heart of the desert, lay the great square of Jma al Fna.

Its name, meaning ‘The Place of Execution’, hinted at a macabre sliver of history. Nudged up at the side of the medina, the square was peopled by tourists and by storytellers, by healers and by acrobats, the one corner in the kingdom owned by everyone whose feet passed through.

Ghita led the way between the knots of entertainers drawing crowds in the late afternoon. She didn’t like the square, thought it stank, and regarded it as a place where thieves and conmen vied for business beneath the African winter sun.

She pointed to a medicine man decked out in pale blue Tuareg robes, a trace of gold embroidery running around the line of his collar. Laid out on a carpet before him was an array of home-made potions and tonics, and all manner of curious ingredients.

There were dried chameleons and ostrich eggs, lumps of charred black bark, red beetles, sulphur, mercury, and an assortment of mauve-coloured stones.

‘Look at him,’ Ghita grunted. ‘He’s more likely to kill you than cure you.’

‘And that said by the woman who went to a witch in the name of revenge.’

‘That was different. It was magic, real magic, the kind that works.’

As Blaine looked at the Tuareg’s ingredients, he got the feeling that someone was watching him.

He turned around quickly.

‘What is it?’

‘I don’t know. I just feel kinda uncomfortable.’

‘It’s the thieves, they’re everywhere,’ Ghita said.

They made their way through hordes of people, past the food stalls that were being set up for the night, and into the gaping jaws of the medina.

From the first step inside its labyrinth, Blaine sensed a thousand layers of life, laid down through centuries.

Wherever he looked there were objects on sale – giant brass trays and ewers on ornate stands, rough woollen carpets from the Middle Atlas, boxes of fossils and little phials of perfume, saffron and antimony, plastic buckets, tortoises, and jars of mixed spice.

There were water-sellers, too, in flame-red shirts, and old men on crutches begging for alms, children selling chewing gum a stick at a time, fortune-tellers and donkey carts.

‘This is incredible,’ Blaine called out. ‘It’s just like Casablanca!’

Ghita rolled her eyes.

‘But this is no movie set,’ she said.

They stopped for a glass of tea at a café so small that there was only space for them. As they sipped the straw-coloured liquid, the owner’s little son played for them on his flute.

‘In the US we’d call this VIP treatment,’ Blaine said.

Ghita wasn’t listening. Her mind was on rooting out the go-between.

‘We have to find the house of the goldsmith,’ she said.

‘You’ve got the address, right?’

‘Yes, but this is Marrakech and things aren’t that simple. It’s a matter of bouncing through the maze until you get lucky.’

All of a sudden, Blaine reached out and touched Ghita’s arm.

‘Call me crazy, but I’m getting that feeling again.’

‘That you’re being watched?’

‘Yeah. It’s so strange. I can feel someone watching us.’

Leaving the café for another couple to enjoy, they strolled on through the labyrinth. Dodging oncoming obstacles and droves of bewildered tourists, they made slow progress.

From time to time Ghita would show the paper Saed had given her to a shopkeeper, and would be waved on a little further into the mayhem.

At a hammam to the right of the main thoroughfare, she was directed down a smaller street, then another.

‘This is more like it,’ said Blaine. ‘It’s as if all the people have been vaporized.’

Just as Ghita was about to reply, a figure stepped from the shadows of an arched doorway. In his hand was a knife, poised at waist-height.

As he moved into the light, Blaine caught sight of his face. Poised on a neckless head, it was emaciated and dark, his cheeks hollow, his front teeth missing.

‘Give me the papers!’ the man demanded in English.

‘What papers? You’ve got the wrong people!’ Blaine replied.

‘We’re tourists!’ Ghita cried.

‘No, you have come from Casablanca. I know who you are!’

‘Oh my God,’ said Blaine, his stomach knotting.

‘Give me the papers!’ the man ordered again.

He stepped forward and, as he did so, a donkey cart rattled past from the right. It was laden with firewood destined for the hammam.

Without thinking, Blaine seized a plank and struck the man with all his strength just below the shoulder.

Then, grabbing Ghita’s hand, he pulled her in the direction from which they had come.

They ran through the medina’s twisting streets.

Past carpenters’ workshops and tailors, and communal bakeries, down streets where boys were playing marbles in the dust, up slopes, and along the slenderest of passages.

‘They’ll find us,’ said Ghita, as they ran.

‘So what do we do? Go to the police?’

‘Hah!’

‘Then?’

‘We need to blend in with everyone else,’ Ghita said quickly, as she ducked into a clothes shop. Five minutes later she and Blaine emerged wearing jelabas, the hooded robes favoured by all Moroccans.

They slipped into a quiet alleyway to talk things over.

‘I don’t understand why they want me,’ said Blaine. ‘The Chinese guy didn’t give me anything.’

‘Are you sure he didn’t slip something into your bag?’

‘I’m positive.’ Weaving his fingers together, the American cracked his knuckles. ‘The only person who gave me anything was Saed.’

‘What?’

‘A little packet. More of an envelope, really. He asked me to keep it for a few days.’

‘Where is it?’

‘At the Mamounia.’

‘Even though he’s helping us, I never trusted that kid!’ Ghita said angrily. ‘Those boys are all the same.’

‘I’d defend him,’ Blaine replied. ‘But I’m the one who’s had my passport stolen.’

Ghita leaned forward and touched his hand.

‘I have a tiny confession to make.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Your passport...’

‘Huh?’

‘Your passport... it was I who took it.’

Ferreting a hand down into her underwear, she produced it.

The American’s face flushed with rage.

‘How dare you?!’

‘I’m sorry. I’m so incredibly sorry. It’s just that I needed you. I needed your help.’

Fuming, Blaine turned his back.

‘I’m going to Casablanca tonight,’ he said. ‘Gonna take the late train.’

Ghita took half a step towards him. She was very close.

‘I feel so alone,’ she said. ‘As though the world is lined up against me.’

‘Yeah, well, if you steal people’s passports you don’t deserve much better.’

Resting an arm on his shoulder, she coaxed him around.

‘Please forgive me,’ she said. ‘I don’t deserve it, but I am begging you, from the bottom of my heart.’

Blaine gritted his teeth. He tried to think of something hurtful to say, but nothing came. So instead, he took a step backwards, towards the wall.

‘I find myself liking you less and less,’ he told her, ‘which is quite impressive because I never liked you much at all.’

Ghita smiled, her smile erupting into a fit of laughter.

‘You’re so silly,’ she said.

An hour later, after clinging to the shadows, Blaine and Ghita were directed to a narrow doorway, a stone’s throw from Dar el Glaoui, one of the city’s great ancestral palaces.

On the ground floor a pair of young boys were learning their prayers. Their sister was doing her homework, huddled over a textbook, a blunt pencil in her hand.

Ghita asked where they might find the goldsmith.

The girl seemed uneasy at seeing strangers. Closing the book, she slipped into a back room, and spoke quietly to someone behind a curtain.

A man appeared.

He had a sympathetic face, a long brow, his grey-blue eyes hidden behind wire-rimmed frames. He must have been seventy but could have passed for someone much younger, the only tell-tale sign of age being a patch of grey hair at the side of his head.

‘As salam wa alaikum,’ he said, as soon as he saw them. ‘Peace be upon you.’

‘And peace upon you,’ Ghita replied. ‘We have come to meet El Hajj Abdelkarim Hamoudi, the goldsmith, sent here by a mutual friend.’

‘I am Abdelkarim,’ he said, holding still as though waiting for the name of the mutual contact.

Ghita took a step towards him. She wanted to whisper, and needed to be close.

‘I greet you in the name of Buraq,’ she said. ‘In the name of the Prophet’s steed.’

The goldsmith didn’t move. His expression was taut and unflinching, as though a pause button had been pressed.

It was a full minute before he moved.

Then, very slowly, he looked down at the floorboards, touched a hand to his mouth.

‘Come with me,’ he said.