Free The Road to McCarthy by Pete McCarthy Page A

four streets here, Mohammed. Which one?” “Yes. One of these. Or very close to here. We find it now, Peter. Come.” And the whole thing happens again. This way. That way. Past orange stalls and fish stalls and a cybercafé, misdirected by two people who clearly haven’t heard of it but don’t want to disappoint us, until a man in a fabric shop sends us back to where we first got out of the taxi, and I notice a sign on the wall that I hadn’t seen before. And it’s in French. Perhaps someone stuck it up as we walked away from the taxi. rue des postes, it says. I point it out to Mohammed, who’s looking the other way.
    “Yes,” he says. “Ah, yes. Des Postes. I am good guide, yes?”
    In the cybercafé we ask if they know of a pension run by an Irish lady, which they don’t, or if they’ve seen two Irish men in here, which they haven’t. A man washing a car on the street also knows nothing. I feel like a secret policeman trying to find the Resistance among a patriotic and tightlippedpopulation. On the off-chance that I’ve remembered the number on the scrap of paper correctly we approach number twelve, a detached Spanish-style villa with colorful tile work, and ring the bell. After a couple of minutes a Moroccan woman in a veil comes to the door, denies all knowledge of pensions, Irishmen and anything else we want to know, and sends us packing. Mohammed shrugs and smiles.
    “You like to drink mint tea? In Morocco, everyone drink mint tea.”
    We go to a café, where I order mint tea and he orders Coke. Not to worry, he says, soon I will find my friends. In the meantime would I like to see the casbah? Would I like to visit the beach? Perhaps we go out of town, see the caves of Hercules? And all the time I’m feeling like a fool for letting him insinuate himself so easily, yet guilty for coming from an affluent country so that to him I’m impossibly wealthy, even though to me I’m not. And now he’s asking can I help him? After all, he found the street for me, he knew it was near here but he is poor, hasn’t showered for many days, needs fingernails cutting, needs scissors. Well, what can you say? Of course I’ll help. I give him twenty dirhams. He laughs disdainfully and asks for more. I give him another five. He winces, shrugs, smiles.
    “I meet you tomorrow at ten, Peter, same place, by the cannons on Boulevard Pasteur?”
    I disappear into the cushioned lounges and exquisite tiled courtyards of the hotel, knowing that the becloaked pantalooned flunky will bar Mohammed’s way if he should try to follow. Part of me feels bad for letting him attach himself and fleece me in this way, while the other part feels guilty for not giving the poor guy much more money.
    One thing is certain though.
    At ten tomorrow morning I’ll be as far from Boulevard Pasteur as I can get.
    Later in the afternoon , after a short hallucinatory nap, I try and get to the bottom of the mystery of the Rue des Postes. I’ve decided to confront the concierge with the fact that it does exist, because I’ve just been there. He is charming and personable, while sticking firmly to the alternativereality that there is no such place. It stands to reason therefore that the alleged pension I am seeking cannot exist either. The clear implication is that I am either mistaken or mad. I can take my pick.
    While we’ve been talking a man with an air of elegantly crumpled Frenchness has been sitting in a chair in the lobby. He’s got a small cell phone in his hand and is gazing at it fixedly as people do all over the world these days, as if in an act of worship. As I turn from the desk he catches my eye and smiles.
    “Monsieur, there is something you should know.”
    He explains that most streets have now been renamed in Arabic, though a few still have their old French names; and to complicate matters further some have two entirely different names, one in each language, that do not translate as each other. What a fantastic system. It’s as