Jon Evans - Dark Places

We weren't up for wandering about the medina looking for a lodge so we took rooms on Boulevard Mohammed V, which was the main drag, just as it was in all the other towns in Morocco. It's always good civic policy to name the most significant street after your eternally-beloved king. It was a very Westernized lodge, with clean sheets and wallpaper, very boring after the crumbling courtyard and ornate filigree of the Pension Palace last night. We had a beer apiece in the common room, more out of habit than need, and crashed.

I was woken by a loud banging on my door and I started out of bed, alarmed, and was frantically looking around for a weapon when Nicole called out from the other side of the door: "Time for your OJ, Mr. Wood! Stall Number Nine awaits!"

I groggily pulled some clothes on and joined the others in the hall. We crossed the street and headed straight for the heart of Marrakesh, the Djamme el-Fnaa, the great central square between the medina and the modern city. I was amazed by how well we all remembered the geography here. None of us had been here since our visit two years ago, which had only lasted ninety-six hours, most of which had been spent very drunk.

By night the Djamme was an intoxicating melange of food stalls, sword swallowers, henna tattooists, snake charmers, dancers, gamblers, hashish salesmen, and buskers who were odd even by Moroccan standards — I wondered if Cigarette Eating Man was still performing. But in the morning it was crowded by some thirty stalls selling fresh orange juice for about a quarter per glass. Stall Number Nine, we all remembered well, gave you an extra half-glass for your ten dirhams. Unspeakable luxury. We added some fresh-baked baguettes and pain au chocolat, and breakfasted like emperors.

This was the day that Morgan was due to fly into Casablanca. Nicole's mate was supposed to watch for him at Stansted to see whether or not he was on the plane.

We went to the bus station and bought overnight bus tickets to Todra Gorge, which would give us a full day to prepare for him there. We spent the intervening time wandering around the medina, which as always reminded me of a line from that old video game Zork: "You are in a maze of narrow, twisting passages, all alike." Narrow, high-walled, cobblestoned streets, lined by countless alcove-sized shops selling leather, ornaments, carpets, spices, textiles, hats, daggers, food, medicine, musical instruments, live animals, every article imaginable. Kids played soccer, shopkeepers hawked their wares, hustlers attached themselves to us like leeches. It was dizzying and fascinating and a little bit frightening in its teeming, noisy, unmappable confusion.

We didn't talk much. I think we were all thinking mostly about what it was we had come here to do. We didn't want to talk about it directly, and it didn't leave room for much levity. Nobody bought anything or even tried to have some fun haggling with a shopkeeper. Mostly we just talked about things that we observed or nostalgically called each other's attention to some reminder from two years before. I felt impatient. I wanted today and tomorrow to be over with, and I particularly wanted the day after that to have ended. I think the others felt the same. I smoked more cigarettes than I ever had in a single day, and Steve and Hallam and Nicole were puffing away at a record pace too. At this rate we'll all die of lung cancer before he even shows up, I thought.

At one point we passed a tall pretty dark-haired European girl in the medina, and for one crazy moment I thought it was Talena here to join me. I couldn't help thinking that she might come to find me here the same way she had in Indonesia. I imagined her sneaking up on me from behind as I walked through the medina, tapping me on the shoulder, me turning around to see her there with a fondly amused smile beneath those mesmerising blue eyes. A nice fantasy. But I knew it would never happen. She had made it very clear that she wanted no part of this. I wished I had some excuse to call her. But I didn't really have anything to say, and I was far from certain that she wanted to hear from me. Later, I told myself. When it's all over. When I get home.

Laura and I had our first actual one-on-one conversation on a rooftop cafe overlooking the Djamme el-Fnaa. I was sipping a Coke and writing postcards, after which I planned to go meet a gang of the others in the nearest hotel that served beer. My subconscious must have recognized her when she walked in, because I looked up for no reason and saw her enter the cafe. She saw me, smiled, and sat down at my table.

"Hi," she said. "What are you writing?"

I looked down at the postcard and pretended to read. "Dear Mom. I have been kidnapped by a strange cult of African nomads who are starving me of meat and forcing me to wash dishes and dig toilets. Please send military assistance. PS I need more money."

She laughed. "Is that a dig at my strictly vegetarian cook group?"

"It might be."

"I didn't notice any steaks the last time your group cooked."

"That's different. We're vegetarian out of sheer laziness. You guys do it out of principle. That's just wrong."

"It's not my fault," she protested. "Melanie's the only real veggie in our group. The problem is she's also the only one who knows how to cook."

"And whose fault is that?"

"My lazy parents."

"Well, as long as laziness is involved in some way all is forgiven," I said. "Where's Lawrence?"

She grimaced and waved her hands in a curt who-knows-who-cares-I-wash-my-hands manner.

"Uh-oh. Trouble in paradise?"

She sighed. "It's not… well. He's a good man. And, it seemed like a good idea at the time… and… and I vote we change the subject."

"Sure thing," I said, though I was very interested in the subject. I looked out at the Djamme for inspiration and saw one of the snake charmers. "You know what I think?" I asked. "I think the truck needs a pet. You know, a truck mascot. One of those big snakes ought to do nicely."

"That's a really good idea," she said seriously. "It can ride under the floorboards. Or in the locker space. We can feed it rats. I don't know if we have any rats yet but we could start a rat farm, too, where they keep the spare engine parts."

"Also we could feed it Michelle if she starts giving us any trouble."

"Good point. And I bet she will. That girl has trouble written all over her. Or at least she will when the henna-tattoo salesmen are finished with her."

"Let's do it," I said. "Sure, we could talk to everyone about it and have a vote, but like they say, easier to ask forgiveness than permission. We can go buy the snake right now and bring it back to the truck. I think Steve's on guard tonight. He'll never notice."

"Even if he does he'll probably just think it's Michael," Laura said, and I barely managed to keep my expression rigid. "But what if it's shy? Then it will have to meet all these other people tomorrow. Poor thing will be psychologically scarred for life. I bet it's better off with small groups, so we should probably just go around tonight introducing it to people in ones and twos. You know, set it loose inside people's tents and hotel rooms."

"That's an even better idea," I agreed.

We nodded at each other in a serious, self-satisfied way before allowing two wide grins to creep onto our faces.

"Thanks," she said. "I needed that."

"No, no," I said, "thank you."

She stood up. "I guess I've wasted enough time. Not that this was a waste of time. But… I need to go find Lawrence and have The Talk." The capitals were clearly audible.

"Good luck with that."

"Thanks," she said. "And if I find a snake in my room tonight? You're a dead man."

At eight o'clock Nicole called London from a pay phone. She talked to Rebecca briefly, nodded, hung up, and emerged to give us the news that was supposed to be what we wanted. "Morgan was on the plane," she reported.