Lulu in Marrakech Read Online Free PDF Page A

out.
    “Hullo, Rashid,” Tom said in English, “here’s Miss Sawyer.” The door opened the rest of the way and we went in, Amelie and I following Tom. Then Ian appeared in the dim foyer, arms outstretched. I felt a jolt of happiness.
    Ian is very English‐looking—a bit heavyset, lion-colored and handsome, hair worn longish—and his roundish face with its Byronic cleft chin in repose has an expression that can seem petulant, like that of the reprimanded soccer player who turns a suave and smiling face to the camera. To me he is always suave and smiling, but I have seen him snap at a messenger or office worker. He’s well-off, or his father is, so I had extra respect for his dedication to the work in Kosovo, his zeal for it even. Despite his disguise as a soul weighed down with the tediousness of life, he’d worked tirelessly, staying up with sick people and driving long distances to get them this or that medicine.
    We’d been lovers for some months. At first, by tacit agreement it was simply to sweeten our mutual exile, but since he’d gone back to Marrakech, I’d found myself thinking about him more than I had expected, and now the sudden start of joy at seeing him surprised me.
    But it was followed almost immediately with concerns. I felt rather dazed. Part of this first reaction to seeing him was due to the fact that he seemed different, more imposing and in command; another part of it was due to my amazement at the grandeur and size of his house. He had told me only that he had a large old Moroccan house that he had restored. Here, away from the grim Balkan winter, he seemed more substantial and more genial, a master and host, relaxed, his collarless shirt untucked, wearing jeans. I don’t know what I had expected.
    He kissed me rather formally on one cheek in the English fashion, not on both in the French way as he might have in Pristina, nor the ardent way he would have kissed me in private.
    “My dearest Lu, I’m so glad you’re here. You’ve forgiven me for not being at the airport? At least I sent the charming Tom. If this dog of a tree man, who’s stiffed me three times already, hadn’t chosen the moment of your flight—you see how crucial is the tree.” He was speaking of a gnarled, many-rooted cypress tree that dominated the space by the door. A brown man in a blue robe was painting a white ring around the trunk. “It’s more than a century old.” Ian kept my hand and slung an arm around Tom. “Thanks, friend, for fetching my fetching guest. Hullo, Amelie. Would you like to see the baby goat?” He smiled at Tom’s little girl, who plainly knew and liked him. A little goat was tethered near the driveway, and Amelie ran to pet it.
    A little farther off at the side of the house I now saw a swimming pool, with tables and lounges, and several people in bathing suits, seemingly dead, lying with towels over their faces. A very red man came to life, got up, waved cheerily, and crept off without coming over for an introduction. I was taken aback to see other people—was this a sort of hotel, perhaps not Ian’s house at all? Its size, and the presence of strangers, violated my idea of the love nest I was looking forward to. I had imagined us in passionate isolation, interrupting passages of love at intervals for touristic expeditions during which he would show me the marketplace, the famous square of Jemaa el Fna, the museums and public buildings, the ancient mosques and tombs of the Safavid kings.
    He kept one arm around me and with the other pounded Tom in a comradely way, and drew us farther into the hall, through a comfortable-looking living room furnished with several sofas and wicker chairs, and out into a vast inner court open to the sky, with another arcaded porch shading the walls of the enclosure. It was indeed a realm of beauty, pinkish ocher exterior walls decorated with blue and white tiles of intricate design, and another immense tree that presided over the space. Orange trees in