Chapter 5
Aicha felt the tug of a small hand on her wrist. “Play with us Aicha, please!”
“One game!” she replied, raising her forefinger as she looked down at Alaat. “What are we playing?”
“Cach cach!” said simultaneous voices, as Aicha followed the children with only a fraction of reluctance.
Alaat, one of the small group of children that circled her, routinely played in the streets that just brushed against the Maghrebi borders by the town square the soldiers patrolled.
Though they were repeatedly instructed not to do so.
On a good day, a Maghrebi was able to pass the square without much interruption.
As long as they remained on their side of the street.
On a bad day, Maghrebi’s faced a beating.
The Portuguese usually ignored their presence while working in their market stalls, bartering their own produce and fabrics shipped in from their homeland, dominating half the square.
The other half belonged to the soldiers who held daily hangings, something that the Portuguese appeared thoroughly entertained by.
It wasn’t a place for Maghrebi children, and many learned that the hard way.
Aicha allowed herself to be dragged towards a wall in the narrow alley, resting her forearm against it as Alaat made sure she did not turn around to look.
“I’m counting?”
“Yes,” Alaat called out from the opposite end, “and do it slowly!”
The sun had passed its peak in the sky, yet despite that, sweat collected on the back of Aicha’s neck as she slowly counted to twenty, hearing the fading steps of each child as they ran to hide.
When she finished, and turned, surveying the empty alley, Aicha smiled to herself.
She began to head towards the street in the opposite direction of the town square.
Cach cach had been a game that Aicha loved to play as a child, but it was a long one.
While she counted, the rest of the group had hidden away wherever they could in the surrounding streets.
When she found one, it was a race back to the wall that she had counted at, whoever touched it first would yell “cach cach.” If you lost, you had to count again.
As she was in a hurry, she bypassed her usual habit of allowing each child to win.
She found the first, Anas, fairly easily.
As the youngest, his hiding place wasn’t exactly creative—behind the open metal door of a house in the first street.
Tagging him, Aicha ran back to the wall, slapping her hand onto the stone as he trailed behind her at a slower speed.
“Cach cach!” she yelled, laughing as he huffed in frustration.
“You’re bigger and faster than me, it’s not fair!”
“Don’t worry,” Aicha flicked his forehead, unaffected by the light shove of his hand into her hip, “when you’re older you’ll be faster.”
Impatience got the best of Aicha the further out from the wall she had to walk, wasting less time on feigning confusion for the children before tagging them, and her run speeding up.
Each time she returned to the wall, Anas sat against it with his elbows resting against his knees, a perpetual pout on his face.
She made a mental note to let him win next time.
Alaat was last to be found, and was particularly creative at choosing a hiding place.
Her competitiveness was unmatched, and she had a habit of changing where she hid each time another child was found to increase her chances of winning.
If Aicha was not in such a rush, she wouldn’t have found it so annoying.
It was impossible to stifle a laugh when she found Alaat two streets over, crouched atop the bars that arched over a window, gripping onto them as she attempted to balance.
It was one of the few in their neighbourhood that had protective bars around it—a feature that mainly the Portuguese side had the luxury of affording.
This one belonged to a Maghrebi who traded in wine for the Portuguese, and it provided a more lucrative income than that of her baba’s. “You’re going to hurt yourself, idiot.”
“I’ve done this countless times, I’m good at climbing.
” Alaat’s hair curtained her face as she looked down at Aicha, making her appear more menacing than usual.
The child shook her head with more violence than necessary to clear her vision.
She yelled out in protest as Aicha immediately climbed up the bars, at a fast pace, tagging Alaat on her bare foot before dropping back down.
“No, wait! That’s not fair!”
Alaat jumped down and landed with a grace that even Aicha did not possess after years of training.
Simultaneously, they erupted into sprints, Alaat hot on Aicha’s heels as she rounded the corner into the alley.
The sound of her short, quick breaths was audible to Aicha, as the remaining group cheered ahead for Alaat.
When Aicha reached the wall, her palm slapping onto the stone just as Alaat crashed into her from behind, she released a loud laugh. “Cach cach!”
“Rematch, now!” Alaat demanded.
“Do not be so bitter with your sportsmanship.” Aicha patted her shoulder lightly, which drew a scowl from Alaat. “It’s unbecoming of a young lady.”
“I’m not a young lady, I am a child!” Evidently with an attitude far worse than Aicha’s.
“Tomorrow, you can have the chance to challenge me,” she said.
Aicha fought off a smile as she walked away, feeling Alaat’s glare on her back.
The walk to the Gardens took little time.
Aicha’s fingers grazed the walls of the compact alleys she walked through—dirt tracked onto the pads of her fingertips, but she liked the sensation—until she emerged onto the street that straddled the territory of Maghrebi and Portuguese neighbourhoods.
The Gardens faced the west coast, ground-floor windows protected with steel bars, and walls painted with a red so deep that Aicha knew intimately how beautiful the building was at sunset.
The hues of red, pink and oranges behind it made it look almost ethereal.
Aicha knocked on the double doors with her fist, and it reverberated as if she beat upon a drum. Once allowed in, she discarded her shoes at the door, padding barefoot on the cool tiles, hidden in the shade.
The garden itself was in the central courtyard, used as a space to entertain large groups and to host lavish parties.
One of the few Riads in the citadels, a deep fountain was situated in the middle, built into the ground and wide enough that—at some of the parties Aicha had attended—people would swim in it.
The curved arches that surrounded the garden were lined with sidaris, bowls of fresh fruit and jugs of wine.
Her stomach growled, the grapes and apples looked so… fresh. She hadn’t had either in months.
Even then, in the brightness of day, the garden was occupied.
A musician sat on the steps that descended into the fountain.
Her bare feet beneath the water, delicate fingers plucking at the strings of her instrument as a soft melody played.
She sang in a language that Aicha had never been afforded the chance to learn: Shilha was the language her mother and her ancestors had used.
A language that predated Arabia and the invaders’ tongue, both of which she had grown up learning.
Samira held traces of it from the few years she had spent with their mother, but Aicha would never be so fortunate.
Save for the markings on her face; a rite of passage for when you became a woman.
Her baba had been at a loss when trying to teach her Shilha.
It wasn’t fair.
The musician smiled at her, taking note of the siyalas on Aicha’s chin and between her brows.
Hers were not so different, except more were tattooed into her jawline, dark green and uneven against her brown skin.
Paired with the green of her eyes, it made the musician look gorgeous.
Almost angelic. With a short wave of acknowledgement, Aicha continued through the garden, until reaching the stairwell and climbing up.
Naima, Aicha’s closest and oldest friend, resided and worked within the Gardens. Home to all of the citadel’s shawafas. Naima had once said that she had never known her mother, nor ever learned of where she had come from. Her world began and ended within the Gardens.
As Aicha reached the top floor, the sour mood she had originally been unable to pull herself out of—following her poor training session—had dimmed.
The balustrades that overlooked the courtyard were occupied with other shawafas, as they sat perched on the stone.
Over twenty women and girls lived in the Gardens, all given refuge by Ilham.
One, who had been meticulously etching henna patterns into the back of her hand, looked up. She was an elder whom Aicha was familiar enough with to offer a smile, earning a brighter one in return as Aicha passed her.
Another sat on the floor, beside the elder’s dangling feet.