The Blue Hour (33 page)

The toilet was a bucket, with a pail of water nearby. The young girl pulled up my djellaba. But when I attempted to inspect what I suspected was severe sun damage to my legs, her mother repeated the same procedure as the elderly woman. She placed her hand under my chin to keep my gaze upward.

They settled me on the bucket, and I let go. The stinging that accompanied the urination was frightful. The young woman gripped my shoulder, helping me through it. When I finished, the little girl went over to the pail, dipped a rag into the water, and handed it to me. I cleaned myself with it, noticing that when I touched my vulva it was instant agony. The mother saw this and gripped my shoulder, her hand gestures indicating that I needed to be patient, to not be afraid, to give it time.

They got me back to the tent. The elderly woman helped me off with the niqab and the djellaba. Once I was naked they laid me down again on the cot, the little girl keeping my gaze upward by standing over me and touching my chin with her index finger anytime my gaze wandered away from hers. I felt oils being rubbed into my legs and thighs, and some sort of balm being applied to my cheekbones and the areas around my eyes. Then I smelled that strange herbal beverage being brewed again—the one that ensured a deep slumber. They were knocking me out again. The elderly woman raised my head and put the mug beneath my lips, and I drank down the brew in several gulps. Moments later, as the darkness recaptured me, I wondered: Will I ever leave this place . . . and do I even care?

I SLOWLY BECAME
cognizant of minutes, hours, days—whenever I was awake. Which wasn't very often, as my rehabilitation involved drinking that herbal dram twice a day and sleeping almost nine hours each time.

The curious thing about this tisane was that it was ferociously potent, but also left me feeling peculiarly clearheaded when I reemerged into the world.

Not that I was in any way “clearheaded.” On the contrary, the battering that my head and eardrum had received meant that I was suffering from some sort of serious concussion and inner ear damage. Only sometime later did I realize why the elderly woman who took charge of my recovery had insisted on having me knocked out. This was her way of keeping me sedated and allowing the brain to heal.

The elderly woman was named Maika. Her daughter—the beautiful young woman who had been at my side throughout—was Aicha. And the little girl who came upon me and saved my life . . . that was Naima.

I discovered their names on the day that Maika decided I was ready to come off the eighteen-hour sleep cure. Before then the herbal medicine had kept me so drugged that only the basic sort of information seeped through. But on the morning when Maika did not give me another dose of the tisane, a certain fog lifted by the early afternoon. Gesturing to myself I explained that my name was Robin.

“And your names?”

Naima understood immediately—and pointed to her grandmother and mother, informing me of their names before pointing to herself and saying, in a wonderfully bold and forthright voice, “Naima!”

Her grandmother rolled her eyes, as if to indicate that such exuberance would be tolerated only for a certain number of years. But when I gave Naima the thumbs-up she mimicked the gesture, delighting in it, showing her mother and grandmother with amused pride how well she could do it. Though Aicha encouraged her, clapping and laughing as her daughter marched around, Maika called time on this little escapade when she gestured for me to stand up, indicating I should walk toward her, unaided. For the first time since Naima had found me in the desert I was being permitted to take steps without the three women being there to help me. I was uncertain at first, wondering if I could actually make it across the floor of the tent—which wasn't more than four feet—without stumbling. When I tried to rush at first, Maika held up her hands and indicated that slowness was key. I followed her advice, carefully putting one foot in front of the other, testing my balance, so conscious of my fragile state. But I did make it over to the far side of the tent, and was rewarded with applause from Aicha and Naima and a curt nod from Maika.

The tent. There was the cot on which I had spent so much time sleeping. There was a dirt floor. There was a gas lamp. Two buckets. One for washing, one for drinking water. There were two stools for guests to sit on. That had been my world for at least a week, maybe ten days, perhaps longer.

When I reached the other side I had to sit down on one of the little stools for a few moments, as I had started to feel woozy. Maika touched my head, made a flapping gesture with one hand, then held both up. I took this to mean that I was still not completely recovered. Then she got me to stand up and ordered Aicha and Naima to help me out of the simple white nightgown Aicha had brought to me several nights before and in which I had been recently sleeping. My legs and thighs were still wrapped in white cloths, prepared with oils that gave off an herbal, medicinal aroma. The bloodied bandage covering my vulva had been changed daily. Though the bleeding had long since stopped, Maika had insisted on using what seemed to be a salve on both lips and deep into the vagina itself, administering this on a twice-daily basis.

Maika decided the moment had arrived for me to inspect the damage done to me . . . or perhaps to see how its recovery was progressing. As they began to undress me, and to remove the cloths from my legs, I instinctively looked away. Whereas earlier on I had been curious, now that I was finding my way back to some sort of skewed norm, the last thing I wanted to contemplate was how badly disfigured I was. I knew that would raise the question of my life beyond this tent—and whether I could ever get back to it. Or, if the injuries were so severe, whether I would ever want to.

Maika—shrewd old bird that she was—worked out my fear on the spot. Being someone who clearly did not believe in the art of mollycoddling, she disappeared outside for a moment as Aicha and Naima undressed me, returning with a mirror in hand. She began to remove all the cloth bandages around my legs and thighs. Having been left for dead, half naked in the sun, meant my lower extremities had been exposed unprotected for several hours. So too my face. When the bandages were finally off—and I refused to look down—she gently but firmly forced my head south. My thighs had long red welts on them, some truly virulent, others already starting to fade. My legs also displayed several nasty burned blotches. But what was most alarming were the clusters of tiny off-white and red welts everywhere, up and down both legs and very much concentrated around my right thigh.

“What are these?” I said, pointing to these dozens of microblisters. Immediately Maika began to lecture me in a reassuring way, explaining (by tapping her thumb rapidly against her middle finger and then diving with it against my thigh) that while unconscious I had been attacked by some sort of insect. She tried in French: “
Des puces
.”

Fleas. Sand fleas. Which I had read about in one of the many Moroccan guides I'd devoured prior to my trip. They were prevalent in the desert. They came out at sunrise and were merciless whenever any sort of human or animal flesh was in their immediate vicinity. The density of blistering welts was shocking. Maika saw my distress. Through the usual elaborate pantomime of hand gestures, she indicated that, in time, they would diminish.

“And the burns,” I said, pointing to the deep red welts, some still blistering. Maika motioned downward with her hands, as if to say,
They will lessen
. Then she touched my shoulder in a firm but comforting way, and said one word:
“Shaja'a.”

When I looked baffled as to its meaning she tapped my heart, my head, and then forced my chin up with her index finger. The penny dropped.

“Courage?” I asked, trying to give it a French pronunciation. Aicha immediately nodded her head several times, saying something to Maika who also concurred. Waving her finger in my face, like a corrective Mother Superior, she repeated, “
Shaja'a
.”

Immediately Naima was imitating her grandmother, wagging her finger at me, saying several times over: “
Shaja'a, shaja'a, shaja'a
,” even causing her usually grim-faced grandmother to smile for a moment or so.

Maika now moved the mirror directly in front of my vulva, making me see that the lips were mostly healed. She then asked Aicha to bring over the tin of homemade salve with which she had been treating my ripped insides. Then, indicating that I should spread my legs a bit, she dipped her fingers into the salve and began to explore within me. The way these women treated me in such a kind, knowing, and direct way was both surprising and necessary for my still-fragile state of mind. The fact that they were involving Naima in all this—without, I'm certain, going into the reasons why I had been injured—struck me as canny and demystifying. Here, the young girl watched while her grandmother prodded and probed within me. That I wasn't going insane with pain—just a small amount of discomfort—I took to be a positive sign. Withdrawing her fingers, Maika put her thumb up (she too had adopted this gesture). She made assorted hand movements to indicate that, in her expert opinion, all was repaired within.

Now it was time for the revelation I was most dreading: the state of my face. What's that old line about it being the mirror of the soul? If that was the truth, then my soul was still battered and scarred. As Maika presented me with the mirror I could see her daughter looking distinctly uneasy, as if expecting me to fall apart at first glimpse of the lingering impairments. I closed my eyes, took a deep steadying breath, and opened them.

What I first noticed were the sunburned red patches on my forehead and cheeks, and a plethora of small bites. All those hours with my face in the sand had allowed the fleas to run riot. Again Maika signaled that, in time, they would diminish. So too the blistering welt that covered my chin. But what shocked me even more was the deeply discolored bruise that covered my right cheek, spreading up to the blackened ring beneath my eye. My left ear was slightly cauliflowered from the punch that the little shit had landed on me, a punch that left me with an ongoing echo. And my lips were still severely chapped. I lowered the mirror. I tried to stifle a sob and failed. I was a disfigured freak show. Seeing my battered self brought back the monstrosity wreaked on me—and the insanity of the pursuit of a man whom I should have simply cast aside as soon as the nature of his treachery had become clear.

When I started to break down, Aicha immediately put her arms around me, letting me bury my head in her shoulder. But Maika wouldn't stand for such a show of self-pity. Literally pulling me away from her daughter, she bore down on me with that bony exclamation point of a finger, almost shouting at me as she gave me a fast and furious lecture in a language completely beyond my comprehension, but which, by this point, I could somehow understand. Following her broad gestures I intuited the central gist of her sermon:

“Don't you dare feel sorry for yourself. What has happened has happened. You have survived. You are not dead. You will be able to walk. You will be able to have babies. Your face will heal. So too your legs. There may be scars, but they will not be disfiguring ones. We all have scars. But now your duty to yourself is to get back to your life when you are ready. But no more self-pity. That is not allowed here. I will not accept it. Understand?”

Maika's vehemence was so forthright (and loud) that Naima hid in her mother's skirts. I stood there with my head lowered, fighting back tears, feeling very much like a censured child, while also knowing that everything she had just told me made complete sense, that I had no choice but to somehow get beyond the horror of it all.

But Maika also made it clear that there was no way I was able to travel yet. She held up ten fingers, then four, indicating that she might consider letting me go in two weeks. That's when I had—courtesy of my hands and gestures—the conversation that I had been dreading. I explained that the men who had raped me had also robbed me. I had no money, nothing. Maika shrugged as if to say,
Why do you need money here? You are our guest
.

I acted out and said at the same time, “But I feel bad about taking your hospitality and giving you nothing for it.”

Maika understood immediately what I was saying and got even more vehement, telling me (or, at least, this is what I was thinking she was telling me), “There is absolutely no need to consider money. You are our guest. We will look after you. We will continue to help you get better. When you are ready we will figure out a way for you to get home.”

I thanked her profusely. She held up her hand, as if to indicate
You're welcome . . . now stop.
Then she ordered me back on the cot, and got Aicha and Naima to begin readministering the cold compresses and the oils and balms to my injuries and scars.

The next ten days marked a time when, on so many levels, a certain clarity descended upon me. I was still being given the soporific tisane every evening around eight o'clock. Though she was not knocking me out twice a day, Maika had upped the nightly dose so that I was sleeping twelve hours a night. I understood that this was her ongoing induced-coma cure for head injuries. I was largely restricted to my little tent and had nothing in the way of reading material or writing paper and pen to fill up my waking hours (let alone any of those modern distractions—the internet, nine-hundred-channel television, a humble radio). For the most part I was being kept separate from the life of this encampment. So I found myself very much thrown back onto my own thoughts, my own reflections. What's that line from Pascal about all of man's problems owing to the fact that he cannot abide sitting alone by himself in a room? As the concussive fog began to lift, as I became ambulatory again, as the terrible shock in which I had been living transformed into a functional numbness, I found myself alone for nine hours a day with little to do except try to sort through the inventory of my life.