ﭑ
Eva was awakened to the amber dawn by a lurching voice from beyond the open balcony, calling the city to prayer. “Allahu akbar,” was all she could understand of the muezzin’s impassioned melody, God is the greatest, before he broke into an increasingly familiar cry that stirs the city of Casablanca five times daily.
Casablanca was otherwise silent, peacefully waking. Within their modest apartment, thick white sheets had been tossed upon the tile floor. Eva grabbed the sheets to cover her bare stomach and legs as she strolled over to the fourth floor balcony. She yawned, intoxicated by the empty dirt streets and the explosion of whitewashed buildings before her eyes.
Zahir, still lying in bed, perfectly understood the prayers. He doubted regularly and foremost the second to last line: “prayer is better than sleep.” He had heard the prayers nearly every day for twenty-four years, yet in the past few years he was increasingly unconvinced, especially in the early mornings when forced spirituality invaded his vivid dreams. He sat up on the side of the bed for a few moments, slipped his feet into pointed leather slippers, and went to accompany Eva upon the balcony in the humid morning heat.
His boyish figure and long tanned arms engulfed the mass of femininity now wrapped self-consciously in his mother’s old Egyptian sheets. Better than prayer and sleep was embracing his new wife, he thought, as he gazed at her faded green eyes that visibly fought the urge to return to sleep. Eva smiled, her blonde hair sparkling as sunlight crept unsteadily through the neighbor’s jasmine trees.
Zahir considered whether to propose tea to Eva in French or Arabic. Her French was nearly perfect, yet her Arabic remained awkward and overly eloquent, a broken dialect that Moroccans struggled to comprehend.
“You take tea?” Zahir teasingly attempted Eva’s Arabic, although he knew she preferred his French.
“Sure, I’ll have our usual, thanks ya habibi.” Eva responded in French, except for her predictable habibi--my beloved--which the Casablancans use to trail every other phrase.
Zahir lit the stove with a match, tolerating the heat for a split second before watching it fade out from underneath the pot. Eva looked on dutifully, noting the meticulousness of this process. She vowed to eventually brew Moroccan tea as naturally as he did, effortlessly for relatives or any new guests she would one day have over.
Soon, Eva would return the sheets to their bed, and begin awkwardly wrapping herself in a pastel-colored silk robe they had picked out together in the markets. She would momentarily slip her humble wedding ring off, and stare into a faded mirror for a few moments before washing her hands and face.
Zahir peered from the kitchen. “It’s ready, the tea. I thought mint tea would be the perfect way to begin such a warm morning.” Eva slipped on her ring and walked to the kitchen.
The heat was already trailing through the open balcony, carrying both the scent of jasmine and a chorus of rushed voices of the neighborhood’s most ambitious shopkeepers. Another daily ritual, the men would set up tables of incense, Qur’ans, and kebabs on each side of the winding streets below.
Eva smiled, exchanging an impromptu kiss for Zahir’s hospitality, and returned to the balcony. She sipped from the glass, the saccharine mint liquid warm upon her lips, and listened to the cacophony of voices from below, incomprehensible yet unmistakably entrepreneurial. She strained her eyes to see boats of all sizes resting serenely upon the green surface of the Atlantic Ocean. When she felt a light kick, Eva placed a hand on her bulging stomach.
“I feel the baby’s kicking,” she called out to Zahir. Zahir momentarily recalled his interrupted dream from the night before. Images of twin babies flashed before his eyes. He was unsure why, but they bore striking similarities to his parents, who were killed in a car accident in the outskirts of Casablanca when he was nineteen.
ب
Eva arrived in Casablanca seven and a half months ago, initially planning to realize her childhood dream of hiking the Atlas Mountains. She first decided to visit some of the Moroccan cities her professor, who was also her lover, earnestly suggested she see the final year she was studying photography back home in Idaho.
She met Zahir her first week at a small francophone school where she was temporarily hired to teach English to local children. Zahir taught and gave tours of the old city to adults, mainly English, German, and American tourists, who came to Casablanca to learn Arabic at the school.
The two began speaking in between their respective classes, and decided one day to go for tea at a nearby café overlooking the bustling docks. Over the course of a month, their rendezvous’ became a ritual on Tuesdays and Fridays. Late one afternoon, when they were still lost in conversation after several hours, when the orange sun was already sinking into the horizon, Zahir invited Eva to smoke rose-flavored hookah on his terrace.
She stayed in his arms the rest of the weekend, mesmerized by the view. He had never before imagined falling for someone so different from him, but Eva’s mystery was intriguing, and her worldly sophistication blended well with his idea of the passion of a thirty-year-old American woman. He had given her his virginity that weekend, and yet in spite of his frustration, she refused to answer whether or not she had given him her’s.
They had not yet come close to considering a future together, but one evening in the months that followed, as they shared lamb couscous at a nearby restaurant, Eva broke down crying. She assured him that she knew she was pregnant, and that Zahir was without a doubt the father. Over time, Zahir’s disbelief evolved into dutiful support.
Eva considered flying to Holland for an abortion, but she recalled her youthful, naive promises that if ever faced with such a decision, she would keep her baby. Because of his own ethics, Zahir promised he would be there for her and their child, and urged Eva not to consider abortion.
Each night, he experienced powerful dreams which unlocked their future together, living in a large open villa closer to the ocean. Zahir relished images of Eva pouring tea as two blonde toddlers sat playfully upon his knees. The creeping sounds of the muezzin’s morning prayers would interrupt the recurring dreams, snapping him back into his conscious state, a mélange of apprehension and excitement.
He proposed when the signs of Eva’s pregnancy were strikingly obvious. She was slowly gaining weight, often fighting queasiness, and was in an ongoing futile search for oriental pastries and something called peanut butter, which Zahir failed to find in even the most exotic of Casablanca’s markets.
So as to avoid rumors of Eva’s pregnancy, they had a simple marriage, before an imam in the neighboring mosque among a small gathering of Zahir’s childhood friends and distant relatives. Apart from her mother, a free-spirited bohemian of sorts who visited the week of the marriage from Idaho, Zahir was surprised that Eva had only phoned a few friends about the marriage. He understood little of the English she used with her loved ones, and was often curious about how she described her new life in Casablanca.
ت
Zahir returned to the balcony. Morning had fully captured the city, the still heat overcome by breezes that swept in from the ocean. The contrast of his tanned hand was striking upon Eva’s rounded, porcelain stomach.
“I know it sounds crazy, but I have this feeling there’s more than one baby,” Zahir said.
“I can’t understand where you came up with that idea,” Eva said. “I do have a couple of twin cousins in my family, though. On my father’s side…we’ve all lost touched.”
Zahir gave Eva a satisfied look, his eyes tinted like tiger-eye, long eyelashes and deep brown curls softening an otherwise intense face. He still knew very little about her family, her life in general.
“One day I want to hear these stories. Of course, we have all the time in the world,” Zahir said. Eva smiled, her eyes soon trailing off.
Zahir sensed that Eva was still adapting to being the center of someone else’s world. Over the years, she had habituated herself to self-reliance, to distance and a cynical outlook on love. Sipping the tea Zahir had offered, she looked out beyond the jasmine trees, the bustling markets beneath their balcony, the mélange of French and Arab architecture, the humbling mosques that peppered the city, and the backdrop of an infinite ocean. She wondered if she would ever have the chance to hike the Atlas Mountains.
*
(I wrote the above for a creative writing project in the Spring of 2007. No, I've never actually been to Morocco. Yes, I claim all creative rights...except for the gorgeous ::let's run off to Casablanca:: photo...)
