Stamping Butterflies

CHAPTER 29 Marrakech, Summer 1977 [Then]

In the days of the old Pasha a French general had been trapped in a Saharan fort under attack by Berber tribesmen. At lunch, when this attack began, the General was interrupted by an aide-de-camp who wanted to know his commander's orders.

"What are they armed with?"

"Cannon," said the Lieutenant, his face sombre. "And rifles. New model Martini-Henrys." This was a time when most tribesmen still carried muskets and swords, against which the stamped earth walls of the fort would have been completely secure.

"Thank God," the General announced. "I thought you were going to say fire hoses."

When Moz came by the house in Derb Yassin to make his peace with Malika he told the joke to Corporal ould Kasim and the old man had called it stupid. So Moz told it to Malika on their way across the street to Dar el Beida, where Moz was painting the entire place, very cheaply, for German boys who'd bought it from the dog woman's family and were moving out without ever having really bothered to move in.

Unfortunately Malika had needed the joke explained, which was embarrassing for both of them. And then, while Moz stirred paint in a plastic trough, Malika asked Moz who'd told him the joke.

"It was that Englishman, wasn't it?"

This was a sore subject. Almost as sore a subject as it was between Moz and Sidi ould Kasim, who'd announced that this friendship with the foreigners was exactly what he'd expect from the son of a whore. Moz still wore a split lip from the brief and fruitless altercation which followed.

"What do you want from them?" asked Malika, and her voice was so strained that Moz wondered exactly what ould Kasim had been saying about him. "Look at you!"

Moz wore a pair of bondage pants from Seditionaries, with the straps cut so they didn't interfere with his work. Celia had been about to throw them out. And Moz's hair was now dyed black and spiked on top, the way Jake wore his.

"I like it," said Moz.

"Well, I don't." Malika scowled. "And those shoes are silly."

The shoes had crepe soles, fat laces and were made from red suede, brothel creepers, Jake called them. Neither of them mentioned the watch. The gold Seamaster was something else. Something beyond Moz's dreams. For a start Celia had given it to him.

"So," said Malika. "I suppose you want to say sorry?"

"That's unfair."

"No it's not," Malika said. She'd come with her red hair tied back, although she'd tied it so clumsily that it made her...

"And what are you staring at?" Malika added crossly.

"Just looking," said Moz.

"At what?"

"That ribbon, the shirt, your eyes..." Moz sighed. "And you're right," he said. "My shoes are silly. They're meant to be silly. They used to belong to Jake."

Malika wanted to say something about Jake, about Moz's story that Celia was Jake's sister because Malika didn't believe that for a minute. Only Malika didn't say anything because her mind was still stumbling over the first part of Moz's reply.

"What about the ribbon?"

He said nothing.

"Come to that," said Malika, "what about my eyes?"

Moz shrugged inside his ripped, oversized T-shirt and turned back to his trough of paint. Hassan would be coming before evening prayers to check how the job was going.

"I know what you want," said Malika. "And I'm not going to do it." She put down her broom and kicked a dustpan out of the way. "You don't really need me here anyway."

"Wait." Moz winced at the way his voice shot up. Although he was too anxious even to be embarrassed for long. "Don't go." He needed her help to do what Hassan demanded. Taking the parcel was the only way for Moz to make peace after his fight with Hassan yesterday and even that might not be enough.

"My eyes," Malika demanded, feet planted wide apart. "What about them?"

You have the eyes of a cat, Moz wanted to say. Eyes so amber one could look for the whole of history to be trapped inside them. They were many things, her eyes, but there were those in the Mellah who thought human was not one of them.

"Tell me..."

Malika was already too grown up to be wearing what she was, one of her father's old shirts as a dress. Pretty soon they'd stop being friends. At least the kind of friends they used to be. And this was probably the last summer they'd be able to talk like this. He'd seen the way Hassan stared at her. Moz knew what was coming and Malika knew also. Moz could see it every day in those eyes.

What Hassan wanted, Hassan got.

"They're beautiful, all right?" Moz said without giving himself time to think about the words or take them back. "And I haven't changed," he added crossly. "You only think so." Somehow it really mattered to Moz that Malika believed this.

"Yes, you have," Malika insisted. She didn't make it an accusation. Just a statement of fact. "As I said, look at you..."

"That's not me," Moz said. "Just clothes."

"Jake's clothes," Malika said. "I don't like Jake and I don't think Jake likes me." And suddenly the problem was out in the open.

Moz thought about it.

"You've only met him a couple of times," he protested.

"I don't need to meet people more than once to know I don't trust them," Malika said firmly and Moz had to smile. That wasn't entirely true. She'd changed her mind about him in the months after his mother died and stood up for Moz then, when Corporal ould Kasim tried to throw Moz out of the house.

She'd put on proper clothes, wrapped her head in an old scarf and gone to the little local mosque to talk to Hajj Rahman's daughter who dealt with family problems. Whatever the old Sufi said to the Corporal, Moz stayed, his world reduced to one upstairs room, the smallest. The beating Malika received from Sidi ould Kasim was terrible.

"Look," said Moz, "this is the truth."

Reaching for Malika's hand, Moz was slightly surprised when she didn't immediately pull away. "I'm not sure I trust Jake either, but he..." Moz hesitated. "Jake has books and a radio that gets stations from everywhere and he has newspapers every day. And a video."

Malika looked blank.

"Like film," Moz explained, "but it works on TV and the films come in a little box... It's Japanese."

"What films?" Malika demanded.

"‘The ancient sages say,’" said Moz, "‘Do not despise the snake...’"

He grinned. "It's from Nine Dozen Heroes and One Wicked Man. About a hero called Lin Chung... Jake's got films about himself too. He's a musician. Well," Moz qualified that, "he plays electric guitar and sings. He's famous. I'm sure you could watch them if I asked."

"So you're using him?" Malika's voice was thoughtful.

Moz didn't like the way that sounded. "Not exactly," he said. "We're using each other."

"Are you lovers?"

"Lovers?"

"The old man says Jake's fucking you. He says..." Malika hesitated. "That's why men like Jake come to Morocco."

Moz let go of her hand.

Malika was the one who talked to Idries when he arrived to see if Moz meant what he said in his message. That he and Malika really were going to do what Hassan wanted after all.

"When did Marzaq start going to the mosque?" Idries demanded, when Malika explained why Moz wasn't there.

"He wanted to talk to an imam."

Idries's smile was incredulous. "He's told you where we're to meet?"

She nodded.

"And Moz is definitely going to do this?"

"He'll be here any minute," Malika said, manoeuvring Idries towards the open door of the dog woman's house.

"See you later then," said Idries.

Malika found Moz where she expected to find him, still sitting on the roof. His back was to a wooden crate and his gaze was fixed on a stork's nest on top of what had once been a palace wall.

That the Jewish quarter bordered an area once occupied by the Sultans made sense because the craftsmen it contained were a valuable asset and the original wall around the Mellah had been as much to protect those inside as to lock them away.

"I brought some cakes." Malika held up a square of newspaper, the bottom of which had gone translucent with grease from the pastries inside.

"So?"

Dark glasses regarded her flatly.

"Where did those come from?" Malika demanded, realizing as soon as she saw Moz scowl how he'd take the question. Moz knew his anger was dishonest. Made worse by how close she'd come to the truth.

"From Jake, obviously enough. All I had to do was suck him off." Moz used the crudest term he knew.

"Look..."

"What?"

"I don't believe you fuck the foreigner."

"So why mention it?"

How could Malika tell him that ould Kasim was so certain Moz was selling his arse that he'd already told half the street? That the new imam had told the old Corporal to attend Friday mosque so that the subject of what to do with Moz could be raised and that even the police had come by...

It was the Major from the station asking for Moz by name which convinced Sidi ould Kasim that his suspicions were right. When even the police wanted to talk to Moz then it was obvious the boy was in trouble.

"People talk," she said.

"And they get it wrong," said Moz.

"Do they?"

Moz looked up at Malika and saw a girl in an old shirt backlit by sunlight. A hot sky the colour of his mother's eyes and Malika's hair burning like a halo. He knew, without knowing how, that in some way this was goodbye to their childhood.

Things change and they just had, he'd felt them shift.

"Sit," Moz said.

And when Malika began to settle herself beside him, Moz shook his head. "Not there," he said. "Here." And he patted his lap.

Hitching up her shirt a little, so her knees were free to go either side of him, Malika sat where he said and when their lips touched it was faltering, almost innocent. Not at all like the kiss with which Celia had set the precedent for Moz's nightly visits to her bed.

"We shouldn't," Malika said.

"You want to stop?"

Malika shook her head.

The next time they kissed, Moz's hand came up to grip the back of the girl's neck, pulling her closer. She stank like an animal, her reddish hair dirty with sweat and the lemon juice he'd combed into it earlier.

"What are you thinking?" Malika asked.

"That you're beautiful."

She felt him go hard as she kissed him back. Moz could see that in her eyes, which touched on his own and then slid away. He could see the doubt in her face and sense it in the way she shifted uneasily on his lap, not realizing that made matters worse.

Part of Moz wanted to help Malika to her feet and reassure her that everything was fine, maybe she should go home now and they'd meet later. Instead he just kissed her harder and yanked Malika's hips against him.

When she shut her eyes, Moz let one of his hands smooth its way down her leg until his fingers reached her bare knee and then he began to creep under the tails of her shirt.

"Moz," she said, then said nothing more.

What Moz wanted to do was lean her backwards slightly and slide his fingers between her legs. Instead he made do with reaching round to the small of her back, feeling her spine sharp beneath his fingers.

"You okay?" he asked.

Malika's nod was as brief as his happiness.

"You're crying."

The girl shrugged.

"I can stop," said Moz.

Malika shook her head, "No need."

On the ruined palace opposite, the solitary stork was preparing to bathe in the last of the afternoon's sun, shifting itself out of the shadow now that evening had begun to blunt the worst of the day's heat.

Moz kissed her again, more softly this time. And as Moz tasted Malika's tears on his own lips her hands reached up to twist into his hair, locking him into a long salt embrace.

Somewhere between the sadness and the settling to sleep of that solitary stork, Moz's fingers dropped from the small of Malika's back to the waistband of her white knickers and crept under the tired elastic.

She let his hand go where it would.

"Enough," Malika said finally. "We'd better get ready." And with that she stood, leaving Moz with a stain spreading across the front of his new trousers. He tried not to mind that she turned her back on him to adjust herself, fingers hooking between her legs to free crumpled cotton.