Stamping Butterflies

CHAPTER 59 Marrakech, Summer 1977 [Then]

Hassan sat back in his chair and pulled out a wallet, counting ten-dollar bills onto the table. The total got to forty dollars before he hesitated, added one more to the pile and slipped his wallet back inside his jacket.

"Fifty dollars," he said.

It was an incredible sum for a boy who once scraped a living delivering bread and now survived on trading odd snippets of information with the police. For a girl who kept house, swept, cooked and spent most evenings persuading the drunk who was not her father that he didn't want to hit her it was enough money to fund an escape.

"Half now," said Hassan, "and half later." Pulling a small cigarillo from a leather case, he waited for Idries to produce a lighter. It was brass overlaid with chrome, the name of some Essaouria nightclub in enamel along one side. "We can meet at Café Lux afterwards."

"After what?" Malika demanded.

"After you deliver this." Hassan lifted a plastic bag onto the café table.

"What's in it?" said Malika.

Idries snorted. "You don't want to know."

"We do," said Malika, "don't we?" She stared at Moz, who looked doubtful.

"It's fifty dollars," he said.

"Well." Malika's voice was firm. "I want to know." Moz and Malika looked at each other, Idries and Hassan temporarily forgotten.

"Can we talk?" Moz said.

"Talk all you like," said Malika. There were tears in her eyes and her bottom lip jutted so far that she looked like a petulant child.

"Give me a minute," Moz said and Hassan raised his eyebrows, then shrugged and lolled back in his chair.

"Don't take all night."

"We've been through this," said Moz, as soon as they turned the corner into a palm-lined side street. "I owe Hassan."

The eyes watching him were huge, magnified by a lifetime of unspilt tears. "Owe him what?" Malika asked.

"I don't know," Moz said. "I'm just tired," he added. "Tired of the fights and tired of watching my back. I'm tired of being locked into something I can't win."

"And this will end it?"

Moz shrugged. "It's a start," he said.

When they got back inside, Moz sat and Malika stood behind him, her hands clasped demurely in front of her. Only Hassan and Idries were fooled.

"Okay," said Moz, "we'll deliver the package."

"Good choice," said Hassan.

"Only first Malika and I get to look inside."

Hassan stopped smiling.

"Why?" demanded Idries.

"If we're going to take the risk," said Moz, "then we want to know it's really kif and not opium. That's fair." He could see from Hassan's face that the older boy thought it was anything but.

"If you refuse to take it," Hassan said, "Caid Hammou will be very cross."

Placing his hand over his heart, Moz bowed his head. "I'm not refusing," he said seriously. "And I swear to carry the kif wherever Caid Hammou wants as soon as Malika and I have checked inside."

"It's already packed," complained Idries. "My uncle said it's not to be unwrapped."

"Why not?"

Only Moz could hear the told-you-so in Malika's question.

Hassan looked from Malika to Moz. "You really going to let a girl tell you what to do?" he asked.

"She doesn't," Moz said with a smile. "She makes suggestions. I make suggestions. We do something in the middle. That's how life works." Celia would have been proud of him, if somewhat surprised at his wholesale stealing of her lines.

They left Idries arguing with Hassan, probably for the first time ever. It seemed Idries was not keen to take the parcel either.

"I need to get home now," Malika said, wrapping her haik tight about her. She was finally learning what society required of those growing up. Lies and prevarication, hypocrisy and long sleeves.

"Not yet," said Moz. "We should go to Riad al-Razor. It's time you met Jake properly." It was on their way that Moz made his suggestion to Malika. He made it without having talked to Jake or Celia, although he didn't think this would be a problem.

Celia came to his room less often now that Jake had taken to visiting hers. There was undoubtedly a raw element of jealousy behind Jake's decision to repair his relationship with his manager, but then there was an element of jealousy in everything Jake did. It was the dark side to his genius and Moz doubted he'd ever be any different.

"It's going to be okay," Moz said. "They'll like you."

He suspected that he'd have to explain to Jake that Malika was different and that girls from the Mellah weren't like girls in New York and London, but then he realized that Celia would undoubtedly explain this for him. And anyway Jake would be returning to London soon. His notebook was full and he had taken to rereading the articles about himself in Sounds and NME every day now.

And if Jake went then Celia would go too and they'd need people to look after the riad for them.

"What are you thinking?" Malika said.

Moz smiled. It was such a Malika question. Usually he'd have said "Nothing" because that's what boys always replied, but Moz felt he owed her the truth. "Things," he said. "You know, the future. Stuff like that."