Free A House in Fez: Building a Life in the Ancient Heart of Morocco by Suzanna Clarke Page A

enough. ‘
Imchi
,’ I said, an Arabic word which I thought meant ‘keep walking’.
    His reaction was explosive. A stream of Darija spat from his mouth. I didn’t know their meaning but I had a feeling they detailed sexual acts involving donkeys and the origins of my birth. At least what I’d said had the intended effect, and he disappeared up a side alley. The girls were grateful but I remained disturbed.
    I told David about the incident over dinner. We were at a formal, French-style restaurant in the Ville Nouvelle, which was empty when we arrived at seven o’clock, an early hour to eat in Fez.
    ‘What does
imchi
mean exactly?’ I asked.
    ‘It’s the Egyptian Arabic equivalent of “fuck you”,’ David said with a smile.
    No wonder the guy was angry. ‘Great. So I’m doing well making friends in the neighbourhood,’ I said. ‘That’s healthy.’ I had a vision of being knifed in some dark alley on my way home, or coming back to find my laptop and camera gear gone.
    ‘Look, the Medina is generally pretty safe,’ David said. ‘But something did happen last year.’ He proceeded to tell me about a French couple who’d been walking past a mosque with their son and had exchanged a kiss right outside. Enraged at such Western sacrilege, some nutter ran out with a knife and tried to kill the woman. When the son defended her he was stabbed to death instead. ‘The whole thing was hushed up,’ said David. ‘They didn’t want it to impact on tourism. Anyway, the guy who did it was deranged.’
    I knew he was right. Murders and assaults were rare in Fez; most crime was property-related, a result of poverty. David knew of a British couple, new to the Medina, whose house had been robbed. A neighbour had seen the burglars, and although reluctant to go to the police, he had given the names of the offenders to the couple. The police had already caught one of them, a fifteen-year-old who’d immediately confessed.
    This was what came of living in a close community, I thought, where everyone knows everyone else’s business. My house in Australia had been robbed a couple of times, and when the police eventually turned up they as good as admitted they were going through the motions, and there was little prospect of catching anyone.
    The British couple were concerned about what would happen to the boy who’d been caught, and had considered not pressing charges. David assured them that Morocco had French and not Sharia law, so the boy wouldn’t have his hand cut off. (While some Moroccan fundamentalist groups advocate the introduction of Sharia law, the French system is so well entrenched that this is unlikely.) David thought it was better to let the police do what they had to, or word would get around that there were no consequences for stealing from foreigners.
    Our food arrived – gurnard, a delicious fish – and the conversation moved on to Larbi and the ghost guardian. David looked speculative.
    ‘Do you know something I don’t?’ I asked.
    ‘Last year a couple paid him a deposit for a house. In the end the sale didn’t go through, and of course they wanted their money back. Eventually Larbi came up with half of it, but he still hasn’t returned the rest. He claims he gave it to the owners but he doesn’t have any proof. He keeps saying he’ll pay, then puts them off.’
    So Larbi had money troubles. A small light shone on my own situation. It seemed that he’d pretended to employ a guardian in order to keep the payment for himself.
    I told David my thoughts and he shrugged. ‘I think Larbi is trustworthy up to a point, but I’d never tempt him. A few years ago I gave him the keys to my house to take care of it while I was away. When I came back I found a bottle of women’s perfume next to my bed.’
    ‘So he used it for a tryst?’
    ‘There’s nowhere here for couples to go,’ David said. ‘So they make use of wherever they can. I changed my locks after I got my keys back. Have you done