The Utopia Experiment

5

Gerhard Eichmann slid his chair farther into the shade and tried again to wave off a shoeshine boy who wouldn’t take no for an answer. A few stern Arabic words from a waiter finally got the job done and the boy retreated into the road, dodging the chaotic traffic in search of a less resistant customer.

Despite having lived in Marrakech for more than a decade, Eichmann had never been to this particular outdoor café. Most of the tables were surrounded by local men drinking tea. The only other white faces belonged to a French couple battling the midday heat with bottles of overpriced local beer.

Eichmann nervously examined the people flowing by on the sidewalk, occasionally making eye contact that gave him hope this would soon be over. Every time, though, he ended up watching them hurry off toward the walls of the old city and the crowded markets beyond.

It was the constant motion, the tumult, the mix of modern and ancient that had convinced him to make Marrakech his home. It offered anonymity to those who craved it, without stripping away all the trappings and conveniences of the civilized world. It allowed him to be a ghost suspended between the past, present, and future.

A man in a sweat-stained linen shirt and blue slacks emerged from behind a cart piled with oranges and jogged onto the sidewalk. This time the eye contact was more than fleeting.

“Can I join you?” he said, pointing to an empty chair pushed up against the tiny table. “I twisted my ankle shopping in the souks.”

Eichmann’s mouth went so dry, he found it difficult to respond. “Of…of course. The cobblestones here can be treacherous.”

He hated this — leaving the tiny world he’d so carefully closed around himself, coming into contact with these types of men. But he’d been forbidden to use the Internet. It was too uncontrollable, too populated by clever and curious eyes.

“Do you have it?

The man — Claude Géroux — waved a muscular arm in the waiter’s direction and used French to order a sparkling water.

“Do you have it?” Eichmann repeated, hiding his fear but letting his irritation come through. He was scheduled to leave for North Korea in less than three hours and after everything he’d gone through to get permission for the trip, he would not let this meeting delay him.

“Of course,” Géroux said, switching to accented English. “And you?”

“Yes.”

The Frenchman didn’t display his fear either, but in his case that was likely because he felt none. Why would he? Eichmann knew he looked like exactly what he was: an academic reaching an age when thin became frail and pale became sickly. Géroux would look on him with little more than amusement.

Comfortable that he had the upper hand, the Frenchman casually handed a thumb drive across the table. Eichmann pulled a small laptop from its case and slid the drive into the USB port. After a quick glance to confirm that the only thing behind him was a cracked wall and the feral cat perched on top of it, he entered the agreed-upon password and opened the video file that appeared.

Skipping through the violent footage for a few moments, he felt the strange mix of fascination and revulsion that had become so familiar to him over the last quarter century.

“I didn’t think there was anything new under the sun,” Géroux said, accepting a bottle of water from the waiter and falling silent until he’d moved on. “They didn’t fight back or even try to save themselves. The Afghans always fight. In fact, you could say that it’s all they do.”

Eichmann ignored him, connecting the laptop to the Internet and pulling up a bank account in Yemen.

“Was it the plastic boxes they had strapped to their waists — the ones that were taken from them? Was it drugs?”

Eichmann continued to concentrate on what he was doing, acting as though he hadn’t heard. The boxes Géroux was referring to did not contain drugs; nor did they still exist. He had confirmation that they’d been delivered to an obscure military outpost and incinerated more than twelve hours ago.

“It’s done,” Eichmann said, shutting down the laptop and slamming the lid shut.

Géroux kept his dead eyes on him and took another sip of his water before pulling a smartphone from his pocket. A nearly imperceptible smile broke across his lips as the screen registered the funds transferred into his account.

“You’ll have to excuse my curiosity,” he said, beginning to rise. “I’ve fought in many wars, in many places. And this…”

He shook his head and threw down a hundred-dirham note before standing and weaving through the busy tables. Eichmann watched him wade into traffic, jogging athletically past a rusting cab as he made his way toward a median crowded with people waiting for an opportunity to cross the remaining lanes.

He was almost there when a truck piled with mattresses lost control and swerved out of its lane. It crossed into the median, catching him dead center in its grille with enough force that his head shattered the windshield. The entire vehicle listed right as terrified people dove out of the way and oncoming traffic veered onto sidewalks crowded with pedestrians.

Everyone in the café was on their feet, surging toward the accident and then retreating when a pickup slammed into a car parked at the curb. Eichmann, now completely forgotten by everyone around him, stood, fighting off a wave of nausea and slipping the precious flash drive into his pocket.

He stayed close to the wall, clutching his laptop to his chest until he was able to slip into an empty, urine-scented alleyway. He increased his pace, daring a glance behind him at the frantic people swarming the road and the bloodstained front of the mattress van.

Apparently, Géroux’s curiosity had not been excused.