The Caliph's House (16 page)

“It's only straw,” I said.

“No, it is not!”

The guardian tossed down the shovel and dipped his hands into the straw. He pulled out an ostrich egg. I looked at him, at the oversized egg, and then the hole, hoping a natural connection would present itself. Hamza smiled.

“The two hundred dirhams,” he said shrewdly, “I spent it on this.”

“An ostrich egg?” I said. “The act of charity?”

“Yes, yes, that's it!”

Hamza placed a nest of straw into the hole, put the egg on it, and filled it in with soil. I waited for an explanation. It didn't come.

“How will that help anyone?” I asked.

“You gave me the money without asking what it was for,” the guardian said. “You trusted me. Your trust will be repaid on Judgment Day.”

“But who is the egg going to help?”

“You, of course!” said Hamza. “It's to help you.”

         

THERE IS NO SUCH
thing as building renovation that runs on time. But I find it hard to believe there has ever been a project more delayed than our own. We continued to camp in one room on the ground floor of a large house. The rest of Dar Khalifa was unfit for human habitation or was downright unsafe.

The architect's teams had done some passable building work, but they left a wake of destruction and chaos. Despite Kamal's promises, his master craftsman didn't turn up until the third week of December. Whenever I asked what had happened to the new team, he enthused that they were led by the maddest, and therefore the most gifted, moualem this side of Marrakech. And, as he declared very frequently, a madman could not be rushed.

The craftsman's small, ordinary pickup arrived three days before Christmas. There was a soft scratch at the front door, and a minute later, Hamza was leading the artisan into the house. He was very reserved, with the build of a sumo wrestler, a great hulk of a body poised above a pair of nimble feet. He didn't look very mad to me.

I drew this point to Kamal's attention later in the day.

“Don't be fooled,” he said. “Aziz is madder than a rabid dog. But he channels his madness into his work.”

I sat for an entire afternoon drinking mint tea, discussing the various types of bejmat and the patterns to be used. A box of tiles was brought out and a handful of samples laid out on the floor. Aziz talked about the color and consistency of the different clays.

“This is the red clay from Meknes,” he said, holding up a square of rose-tinted terracotta. “And this is the clay from Fès, much paler, the color of fresh-baked bread.”

The master's assistant delved his rough hand into the box again.

“The bejmat can either be used like this in its raw state,” Aziz continued, “or it can be fired again with one of a hundred glazes—blues, greens, yellows, reds.” Aziz paused to sip his tea. “Until recently,” he said, “unglazed terracotta was not used inside a home. It was considered too crude. But now there is something of a fashion for it.”

The simple terracotta reminded me of Mexico, where haciendas are tiled with them on the inside and roofed with them on the outside. This is no coincidence, of course, as the know-how to make terracotta was transported to the New World by Spanish conquistadores five centuries ago. The Spanish had themselves acquired the techniques from the Moors of Andalucía, who had brought it to Europe from Morocco.

Visit any important building in the kingdom, and you will never see unglazed terracotta used anywhere but on the outside, where it adorns verandahs and garden paths. For Rachana and me, there was something very wonderful about it, a stark beauty whose simplicity could be complemented with a scattering of zelij mosaics.

Aziz and his team may have been mad, but they were not stupid. They encouraged me in ever more piercing tones to let them demonstrate the limits of their skill. Naturally, the more intricate the work, the more elaborate the price.

“We can create for you a labyrinth of color and design,” Aziz said. “You will be blinded when you enter your bedroom, dazzled when you go into the salon. By the end of each day, your head will pound like a steam train charging through the night!”

The first day of discussions ended very late, and talk began again the next afternoon. Aziz sat before me, his portly form shrouded in a pure white jelaba, his head covered by the hood. Apart from the odd outburst of tempered enthusiasm, he was a calm man who took his work very seriously indeed. We talked all through the second afternoon, considering the many samples of tile. When the time for decisions came, we decided on the simplest patterns, which would be enhanced by a chiseled border around each room. Through the many hours of conversation, money had not been mentioned once. There was something very civilized about choosing work because you wanted it, rather than because it is all you can afford. But as always, I was racked with fear at what it would cost.

I prodded Kamal. “Ask him for the price.”

“Hush,” he said.

“I'm sure I can't afford Aziz,” I whispered. “Should we find a man a little less mad?”

My assistant didn't reply. But when the matter of money was eventually brought up, as if it were a final detail, Aziz gave me a scribbled list of figures. The sum was surprisingly affordable.

“Try and get the price down anyway,” I said to Kamal.

He and Aziz deliberated for a moment or two.

“Aziz is an honest moualem,” he said. “And as such his price is his price. He will not raise it, nor will he lower it.”

The master craftsman gulped down his tea, and we shook hands, before placing them on our hearts.

         

EVERY TIME I REMINDED
Kamal we had to get the money back from the architect, he brushed the subject aside. I began to get the feeling he didn't care. I pleaded with him. Without the money, I said, I would have to cut his salary. Kamal looked worried. A single bead of sweat welled up on his forehead and rolled down his nose.

I suggested we hire a lawyer to write an official-looking letter.

“The architect will drop dead laughing,” he said. “There's only one way to get the money.”

“How?”

“We'll hold a feast.”

         

THAT NIGHT, THERE WAS
the rumble of thunder. I rushed to the window, only to find the sky quite clear. The sound came again, low and deep. On its tail were screams, then shouts, from the bidonville. The shouts were followed by the scurry of a man's feet and a pounding at our bedroom door.

“The bulldozers are back! Come quickly!” said the voice.

It was Hamza. He was hysterical. His house was being torn to pieces. I put on my shoes and ran with him to the far side of the shantytown. A crowd had gathered—men and women, small children held tight in their arms. A pair of yellow bulldozers had started to demolish a wall against which shacks had been built. There was rubble everywhere, clouds of dust, and hastily gathered possessions tied up in sacks.

I had not met Hamza's family before, even though we were neighbors. The customary formality between employer and employee had kept us apart. His wife and five children were ferrying a lifetime of belongings into an open space at the side of the crowd. Hamza's face was ashen, his head stooped, his self-assurance shattered. I tried to comfort him.

“It will be all right,” I said pathetically.

The guardian was far too polite to strike me with his fist. But had I been in his position, I would have felt tempted to do just that. I owned an oasis an acre in size, and he a modest two-room shanty, now being torn up by government machines.

My friend François had warned me time and again about being too helpful to the guardians. He recounted endless tales in which a naive expatriate gave shelter to a forlorn Moroccan family. The stories always had the same punch line—“So-and-so made the biggest mistake of his life.”

We stood there, the cold winter night cloaking us like a burial shroud, Hamza's belongings stacked up in a heap nearby. I breathed in hard. As the employer, I was more than the man who handed out cash every Friday. I was the man expected to come to their aid when his own men were in need. I saw François's face in my mind. He was wagging a finger, shouting cautions. I brushed him away. Only an expatriate would shy from his responsibilities, I thought.

Within an hour, Hamza and his family were installed in the guesthouse at the far end of the vegetable patch. There were two bedrooms, a toilet, and a shower. The place was rundown, but no more so than the main house. I welcomed the family and said they were free to stay until they found their feet. Hamza's face broke into an ample smile. He jerked my hand up and down, pulled me to his chest, and pressed his lips to my cheeks.

         

ACROSS THE ARAB WORLD,
Friday prayers are followed by the heaviest lunch of the week. Moroccan families come together, cluster around communal platters of couscous and lamb, and feast. It's the one time when all employers are generous, treating their workers to great salvers of food. Those without families or jobs hurry to the mosques in search of charity.

On Friday morning, Kamal asked me for money to buy ingredients. He bought three sacks of assorted vegetables, fifteen chickens, couscous, and fresh fruit. The food was taken to his grandmother, who prepared a banquet fit for a king. The platters were loaded into my car, which was then parked outside a mosque near Maarif, in time for Friday prayers.

At the end of the service, as the worshippers exited, Kamal approached a huddle of beggars with outstretched hands. He talked to them for a few minutes, motioned directions, and came back to the Jeep. We sped into the traffic.

“Where are we going with all this food?” I said.

“To the architect's office,” he replied.

At the gallery, a fresh exhibition of abstract art had been hung—giant canvases splattered with multicolored spots. The prim receptionist was sitting alone, filing her nails. She said the architect was not there.

“We are not looking for him,” said Kamal as he blustered in with the food.

He ferried the platters into the main gallery and put them down in the middle of the floor. The receptionist asked what was going on. Kamal smiled.

“A feast,” he said.

Five minutes later, the first of the beggars turned up. They bustled in nervously, thanked God, and dug into the food. Fifteen minutes after that, there were sixty or more, gorging themselves, tossing the chicken bones on the ground. The architect's assistant chattered to her boss excitedly on the phone. As word of the banquet spread, more and more homeless souls arrived to eat.

Kamal seemed pleased. “He'll be here any minute,” he said.

A second later, we made out the architect's Range Rover, and the sound of Italian shoes moving swiftly to the door. A string of insults followed, then threats. The architect's face became so ferociously red that I feared he might keel over.

I asked for my money. He fired off a salvo of excuses.

“Our friends want to touch the paintings,” Kamal said.

The architect glanced at the beggars' oily fingers, the mess on the floor, and clapped his hands to his cheeks. He strode over to his desk and wrote me out a check.

         

CHRISTMAS WAS COMING. I
was not brought up as a Christian, but I was raised to appreciate the consumerist trappings of the holiday season. Now that Ariane was almost three, I wanted to buy her a Christmas tree. Kamal was solemn when he heard of the plan.

“This is an Islamic country,” he said, “Santa doesn't come here.”

I held Ariane's ears and gave him a cold look.

“Santa comes to all boys and girls,” I quipped. “It doesn't matter where they live!”

We set off in search of a Christmas tree. First we drove to fashionable Maarif. If Christmas was going to happen anywhere, it would surely be there. The week before the holiday, the Western world is a frenzied meltdown of gift buying, dangerously large meals, and endless TV reruns. During Christmas week, the streets of London are usually so crowded that you can't even get into the stores. If you do manage to prise your way inside one, you find everything's been picked clean, as if vultures have descended.

I braced myself for some of the same in Maarif. To my surprise, there was nothing in the way of festive cheer—no synthetic snow or carol singers, no Santa or reindeer, or turkeys hanging in butcher's windows, and absolutely no Christmas trees in sight. The streets were empty.

“If you want Christmas,” said Kamal, “go back to Europe.”

“I'm not going home without a tree,” I said. “I'd never be able to look Ariane in the eye again.”

Kamal swung the wheel and stepped hard on the gas. We rolled out of Maarif and into a plush residential area. A few minutes later, Kamal was leading me into a haphazard garden nursery, where a man with one hand was sleeping in a chair.

“Do you have any Christmas trees?” Kamal asked, prodding him awake.

The man opened one eye, rubbed his nose with his stump, and motioned toward a clutch of frail young trees.

“That one,” he said. “That one's a Christmas tree.”

I followed the line of the man's stump. He was pointing to a palm tree.

“That's not a Christmas tree,” I said. “It's a date palm. I'm desperate, but I'm not that desperate!”

The man closed his eyes, and by the time we were out the door, he was snoring again.

Back in the Jeep, the tension was rising. I had promised Ariane a tall, fragrant fir tree. She was young but her tiny mind had already been corrupted concerning the whole concept of Christmas. As far as she was concerned, the tree was the center of it all. Without it, there could be no reindeer, no stockings, no Santa, no gifts.

“There is a place,” said Kamal, forcing the accelerator down again. “It's a last chance.”