A Meeting at a Fountain in Fez
by Bethan Owen
I don’t know how I’m going to tell people what happened to you.
None of our friends or family are going to be able to think about Morocco the same way after this. They’ll always think of it as that exotic, dangerous place where you went missing. They’ll imagine a desert background, and stalls selling heaps of strange spices, and hidden dangers that we were naive about. It’s more satisfying, in a way. More interesting than it would be if you had disappeared in Illinois. And it’s all correct, isn’t it? I can’t explain what happened to you any better than a postcard of mystical North Africa could.
I can remember everything about the day you disappeared. It was our second day in Fez, and I was already proud of my ability to navigate the maze of the old city. I led you down the hill toward the tannery with only a few missteps, feeling superior to the other tourists clumped around the shopping stalls selling the same keychains and wallets as every other stall.
We walked past an alleyway done out in an explosion of rainbow colors, lined with paintings of city walls and women in swirling robes and dresses, and I stopped to look. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a teenage boy lift his head, like an alert went out to all the young men in the area the instant I stopped moving, and I immediately regretted slowing down. I could never completely become the confident navigator I wanted to, or even just the casual walker that I wanted to be, because of the boys. The streets of Fez’s old city were full of all kinds of people—women in headscarves and women in strappy tops and sunglasses, men on donkeys and men on motorcycles—but only the boys gravitated toward me. They were lanky teenagers and twentysomethings, always with cocky smiles and rude eyes, winking and whistling with aggressive questions and reaching hands when they thought they had a chance. I know it wasn’t anything personal. It was the color of my skin and hair, my clothes, everything about me that glowed brightly with the word tourist.
Having you around kept the worst of them at bay, but they still came. You were a tourist, too.
“Where are you going?” one of them asked, and suddenly four of them were loping alongside us, turning our pair into a pack.
“Bonjour!”
“The tannery?”
“You’re going the wrong way.”
“We can show you, come.”
“It’s this way.”
I set my jaw, ducked my head, and tried to press on like they weren’t there at all, but you were trying to politely answer their questions, telling them that yes, actually, we were trying to find the tannery and were they sure this wasn’t the way?
I reached back and grabbed your hand.
“We know where to go,” I said without looking at them. They acted hurt and shocked and tried to lead us anyway, so insistently that I was forced to backtrack, determined to go the wrong direction rather than let these boys lead me. They called after us as we left, jeering in Arabic, English, and French all mixed together.
“Why didn’t you want them to show us the way to the tannery?” you asked. You didn’t look like the interaction had bothered you at all. You kept pace with my angry footsteps easily. “It’s kind of their job, isn’t it? They try to show tourists around for tips. Just trying to make some money, like everyone else.”
I could tell you thought I was overreacting, just like I could tell you didn’t understand the stinging undercurrent of anxiety I felt when these boys appeared and walked next to me so casually, so confidently. It was the potential that came with them: where would their mood take them, what could they do here in a city where they were at home and I was a stranger?
When evening came, I found that the narrow roads that had been so colorful and busy by day were losing their charm in the dark. The shops were closing, putting up corrugated metal doors where overflowing stalls used to be. The colors I had admired by day were seeping away with the sunlight, overwhelmed by the sickly orange glow of streetlights. I didn’t want to be there anymore; I wanted to find our hostel, lay on the cool sheets, and put something on to watch while I fell asleep pressed against you.
“Be right back,” you said.
Just behind me, you stepped into one of the little corner stores illuminated by a soft drink fridge, that red American Coke can shining like a beacon in the night.
“I’m going up there a little ways,” I told you without looking back. I had realized that I wasn’t completely certain whether this was the street that led to our hostel or not and wanted to find out for sure before you returned with your Coke. I wanted to impress you, although I know you didn’t need impressing.
I went up there a little ways and then a little farther, but still nothing looked familiar. I was frustrated. I wished that you could see me as that flawless navigator I wanted to be. I wanted to be the kind of person that could feel at ease in a strange place.
“Hello! Where are you going?”
There were three or four long, leggy shapes skipping and gliding toward me from the nearest alleyway, one of a dozen little side streets that connected to the main thoroughfare where I had been walking, head up, neck craned, trying to find a familiar landmark. Now that the sun was down, I couldn’t see their faces at all. They were just flashes of long limbs as they turned their bodies toward mine.
I walked on without looking at them, picking up speed and realizing a second too late that this was prey behavior and now they were not only following me but chasing me, just a little, just in a fast walk that still felt uncomfortably animal. I wished you were there.
I turned a corner and felt heavy with the realization that I was still going the wrong way, and the shadows were only getting longer. There was an elaborate tile fountain set into the wall made of delicate geometric patterns that radiated out from a little brass spigot, and a basin below to catch the water as it fell. It was the kind of discovery I would have taken photos in front of during the day, but now it looked gloomy in the weak streetlights, the white tiles turned to oranges and the greens and blues to oily shades of black and gray.
And there was a person sitting on the edge of the basin. I thought that it must have been a trick of the light; I hadn’t noticed anyone when I turned the corner and saw the fountain, but someone was certainly there now, leaning lightly against the wall and watching me. The spigot dripped steadily into the basin below.
“Are they bothering you?”
The woman was sitting in the shadows, hunched forward slightly. I could see the glitter of her eyes in the weak light, but not much else. I didn’t have the energy to really look at her at the time; I was thinking about how far away those boys were, and what their voices sounded like, and when you were going to reappear with your Coke. I was too busy calculating threats to spare more than a glance at the small woman in front of me.
“Yes,” I said brusquely, because although they hadn’t yet, I knew they would. I could hear them behind me, getting closer as they laughed back and forth with each other and squawked and yelled.
“I’ll make them go away if you like,” the woman said. She spoke completely matter-of-factly, in perfect English. She spoke like she was selling me something, but it didn’t really matter to her whether she made the sale or not. “Just ask me by name. Aisha Kandisha.”
“Aisha Kandisha?” I repeated. The woman tilted her head and smiled, and the shadows stretched across her face. The air clung to my skin like damp cloth in that alleyway. I remember that.
“Three times,” the woman said.
I laughed a little at the fairy tale quality of her request. That was my first mistake, but who would have taken her seriously? You wouldn’t have. I can picture the delighted smile you would have worn. I’ve asked myself how I would have reacted if we had been in the U.S., and I don’t know what the answer is. I think I might have given her more credit. I probably would have walked away, quickly. But this was Morocco and I was so used to being pandered to that I thought this was just another tourist trick; maybe she’d chase the boys away and then demand that I pay her.
I thought it was worth it. I wouldn’t pay the boys themselves off, but I would pay someone to chase them away.
“Aisha Kandisha, Aisha Kandisha, Aisha Kandisha,” I said dramatically, like I was in on the joke, like I didn’t really believe anything would happen. Because I didn’t. I really didn’t. And the woman seemed to have more teeth when she said “thank you,” and those teeth seemed longer and I couldn’t see quite where they ended because Aisha’s face was cast in shadows now, but suddenly I knew they were sharp.
I remember the sudden impression that Aisha was absorbing all the light because the dull orange glow was even weaker now, and the shadows were longer and darker than ever. Aisha smiled and stretched. When she did, I could see that her hair cascaded down her back in lazy curls, and her loose clothing was nearly sheer under the streetlights.
Her skin was perfect, her mouth was soft, her eyes were dark. The woman was beautiful, but the word wasn’t enough. She looked as though she had been designed to be looked at, like every inch of her had been agonized over and made perfect for one specific purpose.
She moved her skirts as she shifted her weight, and I saw that the shapes of her legs and feet were all wrong. I looked again, closer, and I swear to God, Eric, she had hooves where her feet should be, like an old painting of the devil, and I took a step backwards without knowing I was doing it. I looked over my shoulder, praying you would be there, because I wanted someone to tell me that this was real and I wasn’t seeing things. You weren’t there, of course. I was alone, watching the way the skirts fell strangely over Aisha’s legs because they bent the wrong way.
That was my first real warning. That was the point when I knew that there was something happening that I didn’t understand. Something felt wrong, and I should have left. But I didn’t leave. It felt like magic was happening, magic that I had caused, somehow, and I wanted to see what would happen. I was afraid, but I was standing behind Aisha and she was aimed towards someone else.
They came around the corner and stopped like they’d struck a wall. One of them made a sound, a high-pitched whine, but the other two were silent. They looked young, especially with fear on their faces, much younger than I had realized.
“Come,” the woman said, and held out one long, graceful hand. And then the boys weren’t terrified anymore. Their expressions drained away. They were blankly relaxed, they were content, they were falling over themselves to take her hand. They followed her into a narrow alleyway, one with no lights at all that oozed its own darkness out onto the larger road.
Their footsteps were gone quickly, extinguished by the total silence of the alleyway. No shuffling feet, no raised voices, none of the little human sounds that I had taken for granted until that moment. They disappeared so suddenly and so completely that I stood there for a while, peering into the dark, expecting something and receiving nothing. When I thought she was just a woman, I had expected her to scold the boys; when I saw her feet, I only felt swept up in the astonishment of it, of having some kind of story book character who was willing to help me. As I stood there I was thinking of other old stories, the ones with weird endings and no Disney movies. I remembered the brief panic on the boys’ faces, and wondered what kind of fairy tales and ghost stories they had in Morocco.
I was just turning to leave when someone came out of the alley. They were moving quietly, slowly, and I could see right away that it was not Aisha. It was one of the boys, wearing his black Adidas tracksuit, and something was wrong with him. He was curled into himself, holding himself with both arms. There was a vacant look on his face like every part of his personality, everything that had made him that obnoxious teenager who’d been bounding through the streets a minute ago, had been burned out of him.
I walked towards him. He stopped and stared at me. I had the thought that I had killed him, but I pushed it away. He was alive. He was right there. But something was wrong with him.
“Can I help you?” I whispered. Stupid question, but what else was there? He only stared at me. I couldn’t look at him for more than a few seconds. I ran back the way I’d come from. I was bewildered by what I’d done. Frightened. But I felt a little justified. I wouldn’t ever say that out loud, but now I’ve written it down.
I heard you before I saw you. I knew exactly what your posture would be as you turned the corner in a slow jog, a little exasperated at having to search for me late at night in a foreign city, and you did not disappoint as you turned the corner into that pool of garish orange streetlight.
“Found you,” you said, and I ran to you on my toes, moving so fast I barely skimmed the ground. Seeing you felt like crossing the finish line, like I’d made it through something bizarre and horrible and was finally safe.
“Eric!” I said, and I caught you in my arms and paused just long enough to shake my head, to shake my thoughts into place, and because I paused that was probably the last word you ever heard me say.
Because Aisha Kandisha was there. I felt it in the skin on the back of my neck before I turned around and before your face took on that confused look that quickly turned empty. It was horrible seeing you like that. I would give anything not to have seen you like that.
I said “no, come on, be serious,” and grabbed your hand. But you pulled away from me like it was nothing. You went to Aisha. Her arms were out to welcome you.
I said “Eric. Eric. Eric!” and I grabbed at your arm and her shirt with my fingernails and all the strength in my arms, but you pushed me away, hard. I fell to the ground and it was filthy, something wet slid under my palm and there was a smell of rot in the air. I could feel my breath riding up ragged in my chest and a hot panic in my throat as Aisha slid an arm around your back. I stood and tried again to hold you as you slipped away, but you hit me with your elbow without even looking back.
Aisha raked her fingers through your hair and you closed your eyes. Aisha ran her curved teeth along your cheek and you groaned, lost forever. I grabbed you, I grabbed her, and when she turned to shake me off, she looked surprised. Why did you think he would be different? Aisha asked me with her eyes. Why did you think you would be different?
And I didn’t know. I still don’t know. I couldn’t answer as the two of you left together, disappearing completely into the darkness and the terrible silence of the alley. I was alone on an empty street in a country I did not understand at all.
I’m still here, Eric. I’m going to find you. I’ve been sitting by Aisha Kandisha’s well for days now, waiting. I don’t think she’s going to come back, but I will wait anyway. I’ve written this letter in case I ever have to leave. In case something happens, and I’m not here when you come back. I don’t mind if you come back with her. Just come back. You never even got to hear the whole story.
Sometimes groups of boys come by the fountain, which always drips, drips, drips. When I ask them if they’ve seen you, they edge past me without speaking. I’m not taking very good care of myself right now, and I can see what I must look like in the way they scoff or avoid me completely. I still see them, the groups of boys that wander the streets, whatever their intentions might be. I’m still aware of them. But it’s strange to me now that I used to be so preoccupied with what they might or might not do. After meeting Aisha Kandisha, I’m not afraid of them at all anymore.
Bethan Owen (she/her) lives in Morocco, where she writes and runs around after her toddler.