Shadows of Marrakech by Tim Kindberg
“There, there,” she said, “we’ll soon have you processed. Mummy’s going to love her new one, she’s going to love him to bits!”
Akimbe gently removed her arms from around his neck. “And what exactly does ‘processed’ mean?” said Akimbe.
“Well, you’ll be assigned to Mishun793 here,” said the man, “so that she’ll be your parent and show you our ways and we’ll learn about you until no-one knows the difference. The important thing is we’ll learn what you are missing and arrange things so you won’t miss it anymore. Even some of the people you think about we’ll make appear for you! The rest you’ll forget. Can’t have you thinking about anything that doesn’t exist here. Oh no! Soon we’ll be exactly the same thing as your thoughts.”
“What do you mean, you’ll make the people I’m missing appear? Like my family?”
“Maybe them. Maybe. It depends,” said the man.
“On what? In any case, they won’t be my family. Will they?”
“How would you know the difference? They’ll be exactly your thoughts.”
Akimbe snorted with anger. “And what will I be doing in this world where everything is the same as my thoughts?”
“You’ll shop, of course! My, how you’ll shop!”
“Did you really mean to tell me all of this,” said Akimbe. “Why would I go along with it? It sounds horrendous. Fake.”
“Oh, silly, of course you’ll go along with it!” said the woman. “You’ll see. Whether you’re with me or not.”
Suddenly she didn’t look so mothering anymore. What had been ridiculous took on a sinister note. Akimbe felt played with. “Look, I have a mother and a father. I just want them back, and my sister, The real ones. Thanks but I don’t need you,” he looked at Mishun793, “to be my parent. Don’t you have any children here? Any babies to be parents of?”
“Any what?”
“Little … you know … tiny humans? Just been born?” Akimbe was now full of sarcasm.
“I haven’t a clue what you’re on about. Lots of different sizes but tiny? No. Never seen tiny.”
“And were you ever a new one?”
“Me, don’t be silly! Who would have done my paperwork!”
“We should go,” said Deobia.
Akimbe said, “ I know someone here. A man who lives in a house by himself and teaches. There’s nothing but desert around his house. I stayed with him.”
The man and woman looked blankly back at him.
“You’re just like that girl, Erewhon9. She wouldn’t do the paperwork, either. Had a lot to say for herself, she did. A lot of mouth.” The man opened and closed his fingers for emphasis. “Asked if I’d heard of someone, she did. Mork.. Morch..”
“Morchid?” said Akimbe.
“Yes, that’s the one. We told her: it doesn’t sound like anyone on my list. Just like the funny names you say you have — no numbers on the end. She asked if there was a place here called the Criée Berbère. So I told her, yes of course there is, the place where they sell carpets. She didn’t say a word, just marched off, out that door. Like she knew where she was going.” He chuckled.
“We must go after her,” said Deobia.
Akimbe led him a few paces away from the desk and whispered in his ear. “Where is this place? In the name of the spirits —”.
“It’s the souks of Marrakech. Except that it’s not. Don’t look at me like that. How was I supposed to explain?”
“It doesn’t seem like where I was when I was in the under-carpet world, though. Not a big place like this. I was isolated. It may have been in one of those other fragments sitting out in the desert.”
“Let’s go.”
“No, I need to find out what I can from these people. Perhaps they know something of my family. They said they could make them appear.”
“They know nothing, believe me.”
“I must try.” He turned back to the man and woman. “Tell me, do you always take new ones here? What about all those other places in the desert?”
“Well I can’t speak for where the others take their new ones,” said the man.
“Others?”
“Yes, we’re not the only ones who go and check the gates, you know.”
Deobia shook his head. “This is folly. Let’s go through that door and find your Chemchi. At least we can do that for now. And then she may help you find your family.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
AND THERE, ON opening the door, was the insect swarm and noise of an old city. The mopeds like bumblebees, the bicycle butterflies, the people ambling like daddy long-legs, swarming and bumping down the alleys. It was loud, too loud not to have penetrated into the office where those nincompoops had taken her after the gates in the desert. And yet it had been silent from the other side.
None of the details were exact but Chemchi began to feel as she watched this world go by that it was Marrakech, at least a semblance of it. “Pass and return,” the voice in the carpet had said — her voice, but separated off from her — “return from this place.” Is that what the voice had meant, that this was Marrakech too, in some sense? There were differences Chemchi couldn’t put her finger on. Not to mention that the souks had been cut off cleanly, giving way to the desert. Here inside, people were carrying on as though nothing was bizarre about that — which was bizarre in itself.
She pulled her headscarf to cover not only her hair but as much of her face as possible, hating its constraint. In the riad she walked around with her black hair uncovered. Was there someone here who might recognise her? It was best to take precautions. Brushing her braid from her forehead and tucking it into the headscarf to hide it, she pushed into the crowd.
At a nearby stall, she bought a notebook and pen, to record what happened to her. Her handwriting was poor, thanks to Ali taking her out of school after just a few years. But she could draw a little. She knew she might forget everything, as Akimbe had. The purchase went perfectly normally. The stallholder understood her, accepted her money. There were no questions.
She visited several more stalls, feigning interest in the merchandise. And much continued to seem normal at first, the people behaving the same, going about their business.
“Where did you go on holiday this year? To the mountains?” she asked a stallholder.
“Why, yes we did, we stayed by the river.” But she had seen the desert everywhere around, apart from other fragments of places off in the distance. There were no mountains.
“And how long have you lived here?” she continued.
“I’ve always lived here.”
“When did the rest of Marrakech get chopped off?”
“Chopped off?”
“Yes, everything just disappears and there are dunes where there should be alleys, stalls, mosques.”
“You are funny. You new ones! Honestly, you say the strangest things!”
“Were you a new one or were you born here?”
“Born? What is that?”
She took her leave of the stallholder and walked along through the crowds, taking a long draught of the scents around her in the heat. The familiar spices and fruits, meats and vegetables, even the cloths, it all smelled exactly as it was supposed to smell. The stallholder hadn’t balked when she called it Marrakech. She looked at her watch. Back where she had come from, it was the dark of very early morning. Here the sun was high above.
Chemchi considered how she was supposed to look for a baby that might not exist, in a place where people acted as though the abnormal didn’t exist. She had no idea. She decided to continue to walk around, flashing her torch wherever and whenever there was an opportunity without arousing suspicion, and hope for the best. It wasn’t a system but it was something.
After a while, a man approached her. “Please, where is the Mouassine mosque?” he asked. “I need to go there to pray and the time is soon.”
“Ah, you are a stranger too.”
“No, I live here.”
“You live in Marrakech but you
“I’ve always lived here. I just happen not to know where that particular mosque is.” He was looking a little offended but he hadn’t batted an eyelid when she referred to Marrakech.
“Allow me to accompany you. I’m going that way myself.” Now they were headed for her usual haunts.
But when they passed through the Souk des Teintures, where the dyers workshops lay as they should have done, and where the fountain should be on the approach to the mosque, Marrakech just stopped. The walls ceased and Chemchi looked out over sand. Through a gap in the enormous dunes she could see another fragment of a city off in the distance, its sides chopped off abruptly. Apparently directly above it was a sun. Another sun, burning, which disappeared and re-appeared, flickering.
“Why have we stopped?” The man looked at his watch. “It’s almost time for prayers.”
“But it’s not there!”
“What do you mean? You said you knew the way.”
“I do. But the mosque is not there. Look, there is only sand where it should be. And that other place. And that other sun.”
He looked where she looked. And back at her.
“If you’ve wasted my time, my girl… You’re a new one, aren’t you. Why didn’t you say? Where are your parents? I’ve never seen a new one without parents before.”
He walked off to ask a nearby stall owner. The owner left his stall, stood close to the man and put his hand on his shoulder, saying something in a low voice that Chemchi couldn’t hear. The man seemed to understand and to accept whatever he was told. He went back the way they had come. The stall owner caught her stare.
“May I help you?” Everyone seemed placid here, even the man who wanted the mosque had looked peaceful again as he left. They were like clockwork toys, she thought, not real people. Suddenly she felt angry. Why should she respond to an automaton? She turned and walked away.
He called to her “Hello! Come back!”
Did he simply want to sell her something, or had he spotted something different about her? She also wondered what he had whispered in the other man’s ear. Chemchi walked on into the crowds without answer. Everything seemed to be about shopping here, and all the trading and calling and bargaining going on started to oppress her in the heat. To her left was the eeriness of the periphery with the desert beyond, and she decided to trace a path near to it. Again and again as she walked and then stopped to watch, she saw people headed for places beyond the edge, but they always became confused as they drew near, asked someone, and turned back, apparently forgetting whatever they had been headed for.
After a while, she came across a stall selling kaftans, one she frequented in Marrakech, and where she knew the owner well. Only it was not he who was running this stall, and neither was it anyone she had seen helping out before.
“Do you know Morchid?” It was worth a try. Supposing he’d misled her?
“I don’t know what you mean. Do I know what?”
“How about a butcher?”
“Ah, the butcher in the Rue el-Gza!”
“Does he have a son?”
“A what?”
In Marrakech, there was no butcher on the Rue el-Gza, which should lie beyond where she stood, but where only desert lay. She repeated her question at several more stalls, with similar results.
The sun still burned high in the sky, where it had stayed throughout the hours she had spent here. It wasn’t moving. She hadn’t been able to fully comprehend this before. The heat, she thought, has got to me. But now she couldn’t deny it. She took a table at the back of a cool café to try to collect herself. She was here to find a baby, not to solve the mystery of this place. These clockwork people couldn’t help her. They didn’t know what a son was, let alone a baby. The mixture of strangeness and familiarity had confused her. She hadn’t yet been to the obvious places: where the Criée Berbère should be, or the places where Morchid might have been, if only he existed here.
She set off. Nearest was the square where Morchid’s gang operated in Marrakech, where she had stood with him before she escaped.
CHAPTER THIRTY
WHEN SHE ARRIVED, no one was around but a white van stood in the corner. Someone had written in the dust that clung to the van’s doors: “Slaves asleep. Do not disturb.”
She couldn’t count on remaining alone for long. And the enslavers here might be clockwork but still turn out to be just as brutal as their counterparts back home.
The van rocked slightly on its springs. Her heart stopped. There was no one in the front cab and no windows in the rear compartment, which was separated off. Then a child’s faint wail came from inside. Someone quickly shushed her. Chemchi took out her torch and shone it on the bodywork, concentrating as hard as she could. Thinking of Morchid’s boxes, she prepared herself to see scorpion tails. But there was nothing, just the dirty white of the van’s paintwork.
Voices appeared from a building just yards away, muffled behind closed doors and shutters, a gruff question and an equally gruff answer. The van stood in shade but the air was searingly hot and she saw only a vent in the roof for ventilation. The monster who had left them there was probably nearby.
If this was Marrakech, her horror at the plight of those inside would have been beyond question. For a moment, though, she wondered whether this whole place was an illusion to trick and confuse her. In this unreal counterpart, this unfathomable island of broken Marrakech in the desert, a doubt gnawed at her. Were these simply more clockwork souls who, for all she knew, felt nothing? Was this a trap? But she looked inside herself, at her own fear, and thought of what Akimbe must have felt when he arrived here. Of course she must help them. What was she thinking?
There was more slight rocking, as though someone was walking inside the van. For all her care, her footsteps sounded slightly as she walked round to the other side. The rocking stopped. The rear door was locked with a chain and padlock around its handles.
The driver’s door was slightly ajar. She opened it. The keys were in the ignition. She climbed inside. Chemchi didn’t know how to drive, not really, despite carefully watching Ali whenever he had hired a car to take them to the mountains for brief holidays. It wouldn’t be long after she started the engine before the monsters came. There was a wrench on the floor by the passenger seat.
“Who are you?” The whispered voice came from a grille behind the driver’s seat, a woman’s face close up to it.
Another woman’s face appeared at the grille for a look at her, then a man. They all looked exhausted. Chemchi put her face to the grille and let her eyes adjust to the darkness inside. She thought she could also see three young girls.
“I’m trying to help you but I can’t drive,” said Chemchi.
“If I pass you this,” she held up the wrench for them to see. “Force the lock from inside, but quietly.” Chemchi’s heart was beating so fast, it thumped against her ribcage. There were murmerings inside.
“Pass it,” the man said. His voice was high like a woman’s. He was a eunuch, a man who wouldn’t desire the females he accompanied. Chemchi didn’t like the way he spoke to her — as though she were a stupid girl — but now was not the time to argue. She got out and pressed herself by the rear of the van, which was close to a wall and made a reasonable hiding place. There was a scraping sound of metal being forced, but not too loud. And again. Then someone pushed from inside and the doors opened an inch or two, only for the chain to hold them.
“Where are you?” the man hissed. She moved to the crack in the doors, where his eye appeared. She could smell sweat and fear and urine.
The chain was not so heavy. No one had thought someone would dare — or care — to try and free their captives. The lock and chain served only to prevent them from escaping from inside.
He shoved the wrench through the crack. “Twist the chain off.” She passed one end through the chain, held the wrench with both hands, and tw
There was a crack as a link gave. The laughter stopped. Chemchi stood aside as the captives poured out of the van, gasping for air and blinking in the sunlight. They ran, following her.
****
Filth- and sweat-covered, they all crouched, panting, in a hidden gap between stalls. It was the first chance for the women to embrace the girls, desperately clinging to one another for dear life. They seemed to have forgotten that Chemchi was there as they hugged and kissed. But not the man, who watched her. The girls were around twelve or thirteen. She felt so much older at sixteen.
“Where have you come from?” she put her hand on a mother’s shoulder.
“Thank you, thank you oh thank you,” she touched Chemchi’s cheek.
“We have to move on,” Chemchi said. “Where do you need to go?” The gang would be combing the area, probably enjoying the sport of it.
“Who are you, girl?” The man had a hard face that contrasted with the falsetto of his voice. His stare made her want to squirm.
“Never mind me. How will you get home — where is home?”
“We’ll return over the mountains,” said the woman who had touched her cheek. All of them were examining her by now.
Chemchi’s heart sank. “What mountains?! For goodness’ sake, what’s wrong with you people! This isn’t Marrakech. It’s a little piece of somewhere like it but it’s broken, cracked. Why can’t you see?”
“Come with us.” The woman reached to touch her cheek again but thought better of it. Chemchi had pulled her headscarf down. Her green eyes and black braid gave her a wild look.
Chemchi closed her eyes and shook her head. “I’ll take you to the edge and we’ll see. You’ll see. Or maybe you won’t. Let’s go.” They moved off towards the street.
The clockwork people barely seemed to notice this odd assortment, despite their filthy and desperate countenances. Chemchi led them through a twisting path, searching in front and behind in case they were being followed.
They reached the entrance to a square that was actually a triangle, for it stopped at a diagonal and the dunes lay beyond. It was empty but for an old beggar-woman, like Rime and so many others in Marrakech. She was perfectly still, crouched half-way along a wall, hunched so low, she looked as though she could never get up again. Where did all these people go to or come from, Chemchi wondered — in Marrakech, let alone this cracked version of it? The old woman hadn’t appeared to notice them.