The Lost Letter from Morocco. Adrienne Chinn
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.
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.