The Tour Guide

by Anastasia Campbell

The light dances in these streets, bounces from building to building. Loud Moroccan sun, loud even in December, has been beating on this intersection like on a drum, and is now leaving. Pedestrians are picking up their pace; cars look as if they hiccup while attempting to move. The whole town of Tangier is just like this light; it is just like the sea it abuts –after a day of escapade it looks for a flat surface to retreat to. 

Ahmed is trying to spot three people, a couple in their thirties with a young boy. She, Catherine, had messaged him earlier through one of the apps asking about a cooking class they are advertising. He does all the messaging, guiding, walking, speaking, and smiling. He is the tour guide but has no license. Mohamed has a license, and he is with Ahmed when they greet tourists, displaying his laminated badge like a medal of honor.

Today they will take Catherine and her family to Roula’s house for a cooking class. And then Mohamed will leave. Yes, Ahmed tried to get the license many times and didn’t. He has no connections or status.

Ahmed finally sees them standing in front of the Syrian café. She is touching her husband’s blonde hair tied in a ponytail, tucking a loose strand behind his ear and smiles, while her husband is looking around. He is tall and masculine and broad-shouldered.

“I think it’s them,” Ahmed says to Mohamed and points to the couple with the boy. The boy peers into the café through the window and watches the owner’s daughter write in her school notebook. Ahmed knows the owner. He speaks his Syrian Arabic as if he is singing, his words float in the air. Not like Moroccans who speak as if lay their words down on the table like cards.

“They are Americans,” Mohamed says looking at the couple.

“How do you know?”

“The smiling.”

“Don’t we all smile differently?” Ahmed asks, but Mohamed is already crossing the road and Ahmed trails him.

They confirm they are the right tourists. As Mohamed predicted, they are Americans. As Ahmed predicted, they all smile differently. Catherine smiles with her eyes, and her husband smiles with his mouth, his cheeks, his shoulders, everything gets wider. Their son smiles with his whole face and then hides it behind his mother’s arm.

They shake hands. Her hand is small, but it feels weighted, it pulls Ahmed’s hand down.

Mohamed asks them to follow him and ducks into a narrow street behind the café. Her husband hesitates for a moment, but she glides forward like a boat.

They pass the evening row of sellers, all still here. Parsley, cilantro, garlic, kitchen towels, sweets. Ahmed walks behind this Catherine and catches her perfume, citrusy, like a mandarin tree. She is foreign, yet she smells like something from here. Then he remembers that he has a small sample bottle of vodka in his pocket. He makes a mental note to transfer it to the inside pocket of his jacket later when no one is looking.

Catherine turns to Ahmed, waits for him to catch up, and says,

“I am hungry. I am looking forward to this class.”

“We will have plenty of food today,” Ahmed says and looks ahead. When he asked her in the message if couscous was okay to cook for the class, because today is a Friday, and it’s a couscous day in Morocco, she said she wanted to eat his favorite food that was not couscous. They are going to cook chicken pastilla.

“Are you going to help with the cooking class?” she asks and looks at the small brown tile around the door they are passing. She pauses for a second and plants her toes into the ground and lifts her heel. His gaze follows her leg line, then her torso. She wears tight skinny jeans and a tight black unzipped cardigan.

“I will be there to help, yes. I will translate. But I mostly do other guided tours. If you are interested.”

She continues to walk and looks at him as if she is measuring his height. She is slightly taller than him. He feels like a seedling, short and weak.

Her curly brown hair is pinned up, her posture is straight, her chin points forward. The naked triangle of skin below her throat is exposed, un-innocently and unapologetically. Men and women pass her, and she owns their eyes.

“I am not interested in guided tours,” she says. “I wanted a cooking class, and I wanted to go to somebody’s home in Tangier. And then I found this. This is perfect.” When her mouth speaks, he can glimpse her tongue as she pronounces those perfect English “th” sounds.

He says nothing and looks at her hair, a few loose curls falling onto her neck. He keeps his hands in his pockets the whole time and avoids her space.

*

Roula’s husband opens the door. With his big tight watermelon belly, his knitted hat folded above the ears, he smiles and puts his hands together.

“Come in, come in,” he mutters.

Mohamed waves his hand and disappears from the tour, the way he usually does.

When they enter this apartment that feels like a crammed tall box to Ahmed, Catherine looks at the tall ceilings as if it were a palace.

They shuffle their feet into the square of space – the entry way. The small bedroom is squashed to the right. The bathroom door to the left is open and Catherine’s son points to the ceramic squat toilet and looks at his mother. Catherine tells him it’s just a different toilet, shrugs off his puzzled look.

They are invited to enter the living room: an upholstered narrow corner bench at one end and a small kitchen at the other. Small stools on wheels will later become a table. Catherine opens her arms to hug Roula, Roula’s husband and their thirty-year-old daughter Sima.

“You have a beautiful home,” Catherine says as she looks at the corner bench and the row of orange and brown pillows with geometric patterns neatly propped against the wall.

Roula nods, and her face relaxes, and she looks at Ahmed with relief. Ahmed explains thar Roula only speaks a little English, and Ahmed and Sima can both translate. Catherine nods.

Roula points to the chicken they are going to use for the pastilla. The pink breasts lay side to side uniformly on a big plate like naked bodies. She takes the flour bag from the shelf and transfers it to the counter: they will make the crust too. Roula says that pastilla dish takes a long time to cook, but it is also a favorite in their family.

Catherine, her husband and her son all stand propped up against the wall in this tiny kitchen, next to each other, like the chicken breasts; Roula is orchestrating with her hands at the stove. Sima translates. Roula’s husband retreats to the bedroom, and Ahmed whispers to Sima,

“I have to go. You got this? I will be back.”

Sima boils, her smile turns into an irritated curve.

“Are you serious? You just got here.”

“You will be ok.”

He leaves unannounced, in a hurry, while Catherine looks at the spices on Roula’s fridge.

*

Ahmed almost runs from the old neighborhood to the quay, to the juice stand where he will meet Nadia. Wind slaps his body, his ears fill up with cold, he feels submerged.

Nadia stands next to the road impatient to cross it so she can walk to the narrow strip of the beach. Her dark blue hijab clings to her cheeks. Her white sneakers look clumsy.

“I don’t have much time,” he says.

“You didn’t have to come,” she replies and looks annoyed. Then she leans to kiss him. Her warm lips taste like mint. He grabs her hand and crosses the busy road, almost dragging her.

The orange sun slides down to the skyline of the Spanish land; this curvy chunk of the continent looks like flesh, like a stretched arm, with its hand pointed to the ocean. The fiery sky flames up into the indigo above. The sea water looks as if it has absorbed all the heat and melted and became a flat shiny copper plate.

Nadia squeezes his hand and descends onto the sand, crosses her legs, pushes her backpack to the side of her, and stares at Spain. She is short and she has a round face that smiles most of the time and effortlessly. Her robe smells like onions and cinnamon.

“Did you work all day today?” Ahmed asks.

“Both shifts. Lunch and dinner. Can’t look at the food at this point.”

“You don’t have to work there if you don’t like it.”

She sighs and doesn’t look at him.

“I love the hotel. The architecture. The kitchen is so big. I always look at the garden and the mandarin trees through those big arched windows. And I pretend I am cooking in my own future house.”

She touches her chest, rubs it gently as she talks. She does this often. She peers at the sky and asks him why he hasn’t been texting or calling her.

“I work all the time,” he says.

“What do you work for? What do you want in the end?” she asks with a smirk.

“Nothing,” he says. “I don’t know what I work for.”

Two big gulls land in front of them and scavenge the ground. Nadia reaches her hand to touch them, and they jump away on their skinny legs and then fly away to the sea.

Nadia sits up straight, her palms rest on her knees. She looks at the sea and inhales.

“Water is a road,” she says softly.

“Money is a road,” Ahmed replies.

She doesn’t turn to him.

“For you it is.”

“You will never go there,” he says and motions to Spain awkwardly.

“I will. One day I will,” she says. “It’s right there!”

“We are stuck here.”

“It’s not a bad place to be stuck,” she says and smiles. Turns to the lights of Tangier behind her, her eyes reflect the glitter of evening lights.

“I love this,” she says. “The lines of the building. The plants. It’s ancient and it’s modern.” She points to the port. “Maybe it’s dirty. And at the same time, it is clean.”

The sunset call to prayer begins; the voices from different speakers rise like clouds. The singers empty their lungs as if they are excavating the sun with their breath. Ahmed looks behind him and the echoes flood the town, the buildings, the people, banish all other sounds.

Nadia adjusts the line of hijab around her face delicately, her small red fingers feeling every millimeter of the fabric.

“I think my heart is here,” she says.

He tells her he has to go back soon, the tourists are waiting. He needs a good review. He left because everybody was crammed in the kitchen. He doesn’t tell Nadia that the woman’s presence was pushing him out of his body.

Nadia leans toward him. She unzips his jacket and hugs his cold and skinny body with both arms, presses her warmth against him.

“Hug me,” she whispers.

He feels her hands pressing against his back. She tells him she misses him, misses touching him. Her hand circles around his chest and glides down his stomach, his pants and stops on the knee.

“I miss you too. But I am so busy,” Ahmed says. “The messages are constantly coming. And it’s the tourist season. I answer and schedule everything. On all the apps.” He removes her hands and sits up. “Do you want me to walk you back?”

“No. I will meet my brother here and then we will go home together. I waited to come here all day. I am not done.”

She looks at the remains of the orange glow left in the sky and slowly gets up while pressing on the sand with her hands.

*

Roula’s kitchen already smells like dinner, like pastilla, like raisins and cumin. It is all in the oven. Roula makes more mint tea with Catherine’s husband and the boy on the tiny square of counter space jammed between the stove and the refrigerator.

Catherine and Sima lean against the colorful cushions on the bench, and Sima is showing her the pictures of other places in Morrocco she had visited.

Black tea with fresh mint in tall glasses in front of them. The small wall mount TV is on, with camels sliding their hooves in the sand, and nobody paying any attention to their effort. Sima doesn’t lift her eyes from the phone.

Catherine looks up and says she is glad that Ahmed is back. Ahmed mutters that he had to meet somebody urgently.

Sima adjusts her beige hijab, pats her thighs, she wears skinny jeans too, puts the purse with golden chain handles on her shoulder, hugs Catherine and says she is going home to her husband. Her mother fusses at her in Arabic and Sima fusses back as she is headed for the door.

Ahmed gets an unupholstered stool and sits in front of Catherine. His hands are interlaced, he feels cold.

Catherine sips her tea and asks him if he has siblings.

“I do,” he says. “A little brother. He is ten. Probably like your son’s age.” He takes off his baseball hat and pats his short curls.

“What does this inscription say?” Catherine points to a small canvass with Arabic letters on the wall above Ahmed’s head.

“You are already a winner if you believe in God,” Ahmed says.

“Do you believe in God?” she asks and points her chin up.

“I don’t know. Do you?” He reclines his back against the wall.

“I believe in stories about Gods,” she says. “In the wisdom. There is some truth in all of them.”

“So, you believe in all religions?” Ahmed asks.

“I select what I believe in.”

She stares at him with her light brown eyes. They look infused with gold. He feels as if a spoon is scraping him on the inside of his stomach.

She touches her fingertips with her thumb, one by one. Ahmed doesn’t move.

“Do you go to mosque?” She gets the glass and sips more tea, trying not to touch the fresh mint with her mouth. Then she sets the glass back on the table with a clink and presses her wet lips together.

“I don’t go to the mosque anymore. My dad wants me too. It makes him sad. But my little brother goes with him every Friday. And that’s good. That makes my dad happy.”

Ahmed turns to Catherine’s husband and her son. They stand right next to Roula and watch her every move as she opens the spice jars and pronounces the names in Arabic, and they repeat.

“And what’s up with all those bars and nightclubs over there by the sea front?” Catherine asks. “We biked there today. All the young people go there now instead of mosques?”

“Europeans who come from Spain on the ferry go there. Local people go there too. They have alcohol.”

“Do you drink alcohol?” she asks.

Ahmed pauses.

“Sometimes.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. It relaxes me. I am too stressed from work.”

She says nothing and studies his eyes.

“Maybe I shouldn’t drink so much,” he says. “It’s just a waste of money. I could give that money to my mom.” Ahmed feels his face turn pink, his heart pumping blood upward to his face, flooding it. He looks at her tea.

“Maybe you shouldn’t drink so much. And maybe you should re-connect with your dad too. Sounds like he misses you,” she says very gently, soothingly.

Her husband brings her a jar of cinnamon to smell and comments on how the scent is richer here. He looks even taller to Ahmed now from where Ahmed is sitting on the stool. He looks like an ancient Greek statute in the Kasbah Museum.

She motions to his face and gently rubs the flour off his unshaven chin with the back side of her palm.

“Have you been to Spain?” Catherine asks Ahmed after smiling at her husband and sending him off to the kitchen.

“No. It’s almost impossible for a Moroccan to go to Spain. You need to prove you have a lot of money in your account and a stable job, and then maybe they will give you a visa.”

“Do you know anyone who has gone?”

“Yes. And when they go to Europe, they never come back.”

“Why?”

“Because this is Africa.”

“Hmm,” she mutters softly and looks at Roula.

“Not everyone is lucky like you to have a blue passport,” Ahmed almost whispers and stares at the table.

Her hands push down on the upholstered bench, and she looks at the TV. A woman says something on the screen, her hair is uncovered, her wavy curls are free, she is wearing bright clothes and makeup and smiles ecstatically.

“I think we are all lucky in different ways,” Catherine says.

The front door lock clicks, and Roula’s two other adult children arrive home from work together, stumbling through the tiny entryway, taking their shoes off, talking loudly and laughing. They greet Catherine and her family and sit around the small table. They tell Catherine they still live with their parents, while Sima is married and lives with her husband.

Catherine asks them where they work and the daughter tells her she is a nurse, and her brother is a guard at the museum. They converse with Catherine and her husband about Morrocco, and food, and Netflix series; they pay no attention to Ahmed and Ahmed scrolls through his phone.

Then Roula finally brings out a round pastilla from the oven, wrapping the hot dish with a red kitchen towel. She calls her husband to the table and when he enters, he rubs his eyes. Roula asks Catherine if they want plates or they can all share the meal, and Catherine shakes her head and says, “Of course, we will share.”

The big round pastry is stuffed with chicken and golden onions and raisins; they all take modest nibbles from their respective cut-up slices, trying to be polite and maximize the space between the forks. Roula praises Catherine’s son for helping and for being so interested in cooking. He beams with joy as he opens his mouth for another bite, a raisin pierced by the fork’s tine.

“Why do you travel so much?” Roula asks Catherine after hearing that they had travelled all over the Americas and Europe. Ahmed translates; his fork barely touched the dish.

“I love learning about the nature, and history. And people.”

“What was the most important thing you learned?” Roula’s daughter asks her in English.

“This,” Catherine points to everyone around the table with her hand. “People. Kindness. And family. I think family is the most beautiful thing about humanity.”

Ahmed translates and avoids looking at Catherine and looks at the raisins in his piece of pastilla.

When the meal is over, Catherine again hugs everyone in Roula’s family, pulling people into her chest, almost squeezing their shoulder blades.

As Ahmed leads them outside it is already dark and the narrow streets look like tunnels.  Ahmed offers Catherine to take them back to the same intersection, so they can find their way to the apartment they rented.

“I think we are good, we will find it, thank you,” her husband says and shakes Ahmed’s hand briefly, absently; her son gives Ahmed a high five.

Ahmed looks at Catherine and his hands clutch his cap.

“Good luck to you in everything,” Catherine says to him and looks at his forehead, at his eyebrows, his eyes.  She places her hand on his shoulder gently as if he were a trunk of a tree, and then she lets her hand go.

They leave. She leads their family of three and she still glides forward like a boat. Maybe water is her road too. Ahmed listens to the fragments of her voice until it vanishes.

He lingers by Roula’s door and finally remembers about the small bottle in the inside pocket of his jacket. He looks up at rooftops and feels like he is in a hole.

*

The next day, with his hands fisted inside his jacket pockets, Ahmed walks briskly through the crammed streets of the Old Medina neighborhood where Nadia lives. It’s early afternoon and the air smells like damp walls and salt. A mix of tall ancient stone buildings stuffed with small apartments, a balancing act of narrow streets, wooden doors with oversized brass knockers and locks, clean corners, potted plants and transparent trash bags full of food scraps near the entryways. When he brings the tourists here to show them the Ibn Battuta tomb he is always embarrassed by these bags. Nobody ever says anything, but everybody looks at them. And then he lies and says “sure” when a tourist asks if the bones of Ibn Battuta are really in this tomb. Lately he has been saying that “most likely” his bones are in this tomb. But it doesn’t matter as much as the story itself. Battuta, the Moroccan guy who travelled the world seven hundred years ago in the way Ahmed can’t nowadays. Ahmed spits on the ground.

He saw Nadia here for the first time when he brought the tourists to this possibly fake tomb. She opened the door, locked eyes with him, smiled and bit her lower lip. Her brown eyes looked dark grey, velvety. Then she tried to hide the trash bag behind her robe. He made a point of not looking at the bag and only looking at her eyes.

Ahmed thinks about Nadia’s father, worries about him saying no to Ahmed, to the tour-guide’s helper who can’t take care of a young woman. That grumpy old man, he will say no and laugh at him. He will tell Ahmed to grow up. And it’s not a way to propose, but Ahmed can’t bring his parents here. He wants to do this alone first, talk to Nadia’s father, then talk to his parents. And he will not drink as much. Maybe he won’t drink at all. And he will start a family. Because it’s the most beautiful thing about humanity.

He walks up to the light brown solid wood door and knocks. He keeps his hands in his pockets and glances down at his black tennis shoes. Nadia opens the door and tilts her head to the side.

“Hey. Why are you here? We just saw each other.”

“I know. I want to speak with your father.”

The TV from their kitchen expels voices yelling, followed by sounds of breaking and falling.

“Why?” She holds on to the door and presses against the wood with her thin fingers.

“We should get married,” he says quietly. “You said you wanted to live like an adult. We are both adults. We will figure it out.”

She looks at the hands that he keeps in the pockets of his oversized jacket. She sighs and leans her forehead on the doorframe. Her silence stops time. She looks at the ground then directly at him. Her brown eyes are brave and subtle.

“I like you. I even love you at times. But I don’t want you to be my husband.”

She slides her palm down the edge of the door and closes it with both hands.

He looks at the old door’s smooth surface and with his eyes traces the lines in the wood grain, parallel and weak lines. The call to prayer begins slowly slicing the air and the volume rises, and he feels as if this deep and long singing empties him.

He turns and starts walking down the steps, his right hand gently touching the ancient stone wall.

 

 

Anastasia Campbell grew up in Moldova and Russia, and immigrated to the United States solo at the age of eighteen. After graduating from college and law school, working as an attorney, running a forest school playgroup and raising four children, she moved and lived outside of the US with her family for six years (in Mexico, Marshall Islands, and Portugal). She is now settled with her husband and children in Hawai`i and writes fiction and poetry to understand the world.