She did like it very much and she put it on the little shelf in her room where she keeps her most precious treasures – a beaten silver bangle and an amethyst geode.
I always find the geode fascinating. The first time I saw it, I thought it looked like half of an eggshell made from very plain and rather dull-coloured stone. But then, like a magician performing an astonishing trick, Nina turned it over and in the hollow centre of the rock was a cluster of gleaming purple crystals. I couldn’t believe that something could look so very ordinary and unremarkable on the outside and hide such a beautiful treasure within.
When I said that to Nina she replied that many things in her culture are like the geode. For example, Moroccan houses often present a windowless stone fa?ade to the street and it’s only when you enter through a narrow doorway that you discover a hidden courtyard within, richly decorated with colourful tiles and filled with flowers and fountains. Because rich people and poor people can live side by side in the medina – unlike the nouvelle ville, where everyone is wealthy, or the mellah, where everyone seems to be quite poor – those who are wealthier here like to keep things plain on the outside and hide their good fortune on the inside so as not to rub their poorer neighbours’ noses in it.
Nina also said that people can be like that too – sometimes the ones who look the plainest are the ones with hearts of gold. I thought of Felix, and Madame Bénatar, and I knew that she was right.
For Nina’s birthday, Kenza had made gazelle horn pastries and a honey cake covered in caramel-gold almonds. Several other members of the family popped in to give Nina their birthday wishes, including the dreamseller. Once she’d finished hugging Nina, she smiled at me, showing the gaps in her teeth, and then wrapped me up in a hug too. Her arms felt as fragile as the bones of a bird, although there was a deceptive strength in them. Her skin smelled of patchouli oil and spices and I thought about the geode and what Nina had said. I could tell the dreamseller had a heart of gold beneath the tattoos and her toothless smile and the wrinkles of her leathery skin.
Kenza gave us each a slice of honey cake and we settled ourselves on piles of cushions to enjoy it. Then Nina asked her auntie to tell us one of her stories. She looked at us both for a few moments, those fierce, bright eyes darting from Nina’s face to mine and back again as if she was looking into our souls and reading what she found there, choosing the right story from the whole library that she carries in her head. And then she began:
‘Once upon a time, when the world was very much younger, the waters of the sea were sweet and fresh. The sea itself was very proud of this and it grew too arrogant. It decided it would flood the whole world. But a tiny mosquito saw this and began to drink the sea. It drank and drank until every drop of water was gone and it was drinking sand. Then it threw up all the water again. And because the smallest creature in the world had drunk it up and humbled it, the sea became calm. From that time on, the waters of the sea have been salty since they’ve passed through the stomach of a mosquito.’
I liked the story very much but it was only later, when I got home, that I thought about it some more and understood the message in it. Sometimes the war and everything else that’s happening in the world, like the bad things that are being said about Jewish people, can feel like they are huge and overwhelming. But even tiny mosquitoes like me and Nina have the power to do something about it.
I like the way the dreamseller’s stories have the knack of helping you to feel so much better about things that feel impossible. I think that is a truly magical talent.
Zoe – 2010
Bit by bit, my confidence in being able to navigate my way around Casa is growing. I’ve met Kate at local cafés on a couple of occasions and now know to ask for a nuss-nuss – a half-and-half – if I want to order a milky coffee. We both enjoy chatting about Bristol, reminiscing about the Clifton coffee shops and the rows of pastel-coloured houses in Montpelier, where Tom and I used to live and Kate had rented a room as a student.
We both worked as primary school teachers back in the UK too – another thing we’ve discovered we have in common. It’s not easy to find work in Morocco with our foreign qualifications, but Kate has a part-time job at a language school, giving English lessons to businessmen and students. She says she loves having the opportunity to break out of the expat bubble now and then and meet Casawis. ‘I miss the kids, though,’ she said, and I agreed.
‘All those hilarious things they say and do . . . I once asked my class if anyone could name the four seasons and one little boy stuck his hand up and said, in all seriousness, “Salt, pepper, vinegar and tomato ketchup.” His mum was one of the dinner ladies.’