Stamping Butterflies

CHAPTER 35 Marrakech, Summer 1977 [Then]

"Come here."

Moz almost asked, Why? But acting the fool around Major Abbas was not clever so instead he smiled, nodded to Hassan and sauntered towards the grande taxi that had drawn up on the other side of the railings.

A rolling, I'm-not-worried kind of walk.

It fooled neither of them.

"Excellency?"

The police officer didn't return his smile and when Moz saw the Frenchman in the back of the taxi he understood why.

"I need some information," said Major Abbas.

Moz nodded. "As Your Excellency wishes."

"Don't question him here," said the Frenchman. "Get him inside." Claude de Greuze's voice was brusque, slightly impatient until he glanced at Moz and then it went hard and cold. "Tell him to take a good look," he told the Major, indicating La Koutoubia and the overgrown gardens where Hassan and Moz had agreed to meet. "This is probably the last he'll see of it or his friends."

Without meaning to, Moz glanced across to where Hassan and Idries leant against a concrete bench in the shade of a palm, one broken frond hanging limp and pale like a lock of badly bleached hair. At their back were the ragged remains of an earlier mosque, which had been destroyed when an imam discovered the prayer hall was not truly aligned with Mecca.

Or so Moz had always believed. Only Celia's Michelin Guide to Morocco told a different story. It said the original mosque had been built by one ruling family and its replacement by another. The imam had merely said what expediency required.

"Is he listening?"

The answer was obvious.

Pushing open the passenger door, Major Abbas patted the seat beside him. "Get in," he said. The Major wore a cheap suit with the cap of a taxi driver and looked more uncomfortable in this than Moz had ever seen him look in full uniform.

Moz did what he was told.

They drove in silence, turning north onto Mohammed V. And though the sun hammered down onto the taxi's blue roof, Major Abbas kept the windows stubbornly shut, as if ignoring the rank corruption coming from the old man's body counted as some kind of courage.

"Where are we going?"

Moz meant his question for the Major but it was Claude de Greuze who answered and his answer was that the little Arab shit should shut the fuck up because he was in more trouble than anyone could imagine. Something Moz had begun to work out for himself.

"Turn here," demanded Claude de Greuze and Major Abbas glanced with surprise at the driver's mirror.

"Where did you think we were taking him?"

Their destination was a large if nondescript colonial villa on the corner of Rue Bernard and Avenue Foche. Stucco crumbled from underlying red brick and one of the pantiles lay broken between dead roses on a flowerbed that had dried to the consistency of rock. A peeling board read ECOLE PRIVÉE.

The only new thing about the old school was a rusting steel door that looked out of place between fat white pillars. If Moz hadn't known better he'd have said the place was deserted.

"Tell him to get out," said Claude de Greuze.

"Do what he says," Major Abbas ordered, leaning over Moz to push open the side door. "Don't keep the man waiting."

There were a dozen things about that moment which Moz was to remember in the months and years to come. And though sometimes he managed to forget the school altogether, he would never again hear gears grinding at an intersection without his footsteps faltering and his soul shrivelling a little inside.

Roses would bring him out in tears. The sound of any small child being dragged along the pavement by a scolding adult knotted his stomach until it hurt. Sun on his shoulders and the raw tang of fresh dog shit, the afternoon cry of the muezzin, all worked their way inside his memory like splinters of glass. But what Moz really remembered was warm piss running down his leg when he was hit.

The covering of his face with his hands was entirely instinctive, as was curling into a tight ball, and it probably helped that he'd been facing away when the old Frenchman slammed a cosh into his skull.

"Pick him up," said Claude de Greuze and Major Abbas lifted Moz from behind.

"Now turn him round." The spring-loaded cosh slapped between the boy's legs, hard and fast. "Come on." The Frenchman's voice was impatient. "Get him up again."

"Stand," said the Major, sounding almost sad.

Moz tried. He really did.

Glitter off gravel, so many lights that Moz forgot what he was meant to be doing. A foot caught him between his buttocks and its owner started demanding answers about Malika, only it was hard to hear what the Frenchman was saying over the sound of Moz's own gasping and the numbing waves of darkness.

"We should get him inside."

"Why?"

"Because," said the Major, "someone might see."

Claude de Greuze nodded scornfully at the colonial villas on either side. One had either been turned into flats or was divided between generations of the same family, sheets drying from wires strung across three huge balconies. The other had boarded-up windows and looked abandoned.

"What are they going to do?" demanded de Greuze. "Call the police?"

"All the same," Major Abbas said. "There's no point creating trouble." Wiping blood from Moz's jaw, he lifted the boy from where he lay curled on the gravel and carried him up three steps and in through the metal door.

It was dark inside the school, with shuttered windows. A single unlit bulb hung from a small ceiling rose in the middle of the hall and the floor was covered with dark linoleum. There were five doors and all were closed.

"Okay," said Major Abbas. "Now you must stand." He tipped Moz onto his feet and steadied his shoulders for a few seconds. When he let go the boy swayed but remained upright, staring mutely around him.

Sounds came from behind most doors.

"Take him to three."

"No." Major Abbas shook his head. "Not yet. It's not necessary."

Claude de Greuze just looked at him.

"It... is... not... necessary," the Major said, stressing every syllable. For the first time, Moz heard quiet anger in his voice.

"Do you want to tell me why? Or should I call the General?"

Moz had no idea who the General might be but that didn't matter. There was always a general or a pasha, someone who made decisions.

"Call him," said Major Abbas. "Tell him you want to question one of my best informers. Someone I've spent five years developing." There was heavy emphasis on the word "question" and the Major's voice sounded more furious than ever.

"Is that true?" It was the first time the one-time advisor to the Pasha had spoken directly to the boy. "Well?"

Moz shrugged.

He'd told Major Abbas some stuff, repeated a few rumours and occasionally followed some foreigner to see where he went. That was it really, not what Moz thought of as being an informer. Informers were sinister figures. Shadows of the men Malika talked about, the Pasha's eyes and ears back in the days when Thami el Glaoui ruled the Red City.

"You don't know?" The Frenchman sounded incredulous.

"He knows nothing," said Major Abbas. "I've told you that already. Are you going to make that call or not?"

Moz was surprised that the Major kept pushing de Greuze but something had changed between the two men, and it wasn't that Major Abbas felt more at home in this strange place because he looked almost as uncomfortable as Moz felt.

It was something else. A challenge of some sort.

The two men stared at each other, both ignoring the boy who stood sticky with blood that showed only as glossy camouflage against the red lettering and black cotton background of his Ramones T-shirt.

"Okay," de Greuze said finally. "We'll do it your way."

"Yeah," said Major Abbas. "We will. Give me an hour."