Excerpt from "Do You Think They Know About Love?
The car was an
old Fiat with a broken radio and a speedometer that often got stuck at zero.
They took the road out of Marrakech into the open country, talking politely
and then trailing off into silence. He did not care much for conversation.
The heat overtook them, and they resigned themselves to looking out the windows.
On his side, dried mud fields, run-down tractors, a few deserted buildings;
on her side, orange groves stretching to the horizon, and sometimes men riding
bicycles along the road. He drove without thinking, leaving her with the map
folded neatly in her lap. They rolled the windows down to air out the smell
of gasoline, and a hot dry wind blew against them.
When they reached
the Atlas Mountains, the road became narrow and dangerous, the switchbacks
changing directions without notice. Loose rock fell occasionally from above.
They ascended, winding through the mountains, the landscape changing furiously
around them: layers of dirt red hills turned suddenly into green masses of
trees rising up toward a slate sky; sparse vegetation gave way to lush flowers
and bright masses of buttercups speckled grass meadows; the sky changed colors,
white dashes on the road disappeared.Their
bodies responded, the heat making them perspire.
He hardly wondered
about her at all, caught up with all that he was seeing, until she asked about
his occupation.
"You must
work, don't you?" she said.
"It's not
important," he said, afraid she would ask about his life back home. This
much he told her: a house in Ohio, in a barren suburb; he golfed frequently;
he had traveled to a few countries for his job, though this was not one of
those occasions. He tried to sound casual, as if talking about his life did
not tear constantly at his insides with loneliness-he was single. It would
have been easier for him to say he was married, had children, and that his
wife, for some ridiculous reason, had left but still wore a ring on her finger.
All of this information was false and he said nothing of the sort, asking
instead when she wanted to stop for food.
They drove up
and then down into a valley where a small river ran through a grove of trees
with red fruit hanging from its limbs. Looking up toward higher ground, they
saw dry dirt and above the dirt large gray rocks jutting into a white sky.
Red square buildings appeared from out of the ground, whole villages taking
shape with sudden clarity.
They rode in
silence, the heat waving at them from afar and the sun high above. They met
children selling alfalfa on the side of the mountain roads, men selling colored
rocks, passed wandering dogs and several Land Cruisers that took tourists
through the mountains while the Fiat struggled up steep inclines.
At certain points they passed through villages and the children ran after
them and pounded on the car, all of them asking for money.
"Should
we give them something?" she asked.
"I don't
think it will do much good," he said. "Look at them."
The boys wore
tattered pants and ran barefoot in the gravel. They looked hopeful, crying,
monsieur, monsieur. Some kicked the car as they drove by.
She reached for her wallet but he grabbed her hand and said, "Don't."
She wrenched her arm free, but he had meant only that he wanted to give his
own money, and he pulled out a handful of coins and tossed them out the window
to the swarm of children who tripped over each other to snatch the gleaming
things in the dust.
"I'm sorry,"
she said. "I just thought…."
"Don't,"
he said. "It's not important."
"The only
reason," she pressed on, "is that I know what it feels like."
"Don't,"
he said, and she seemed to understand that he had drawn a line between them.
She turned to look out the window.
continued...
__Do You Think They Know About Love?____