EXCERPT FROM SARA’S JOURNALJune
12, 1999
From Tangier to Meknes, Morocco
A Book By Its Cover
There’s a woman on the train like no other I’ve seen. She wears a traditional
robe, tattered and grubby, a tawny rust, with a delicate trim down the front where the
zipper is. The robe has a large, droopy hood at the back and at the tip of the hood is a
tassel. The woman steps into the train car with several bags. The bags have designer names
on them but are worn and cheaply made. The woman has faint, green tattoos on her chin and
between her eyebrows, pressed into the creases of brown, porous skin.
She sits across, and unpacks her bags. She unpacks several book-sized packages wrapped
in black plastic garbage bags secured with clear packing tape. The packages look like
those I’ve seen on drug smuggling busts on television. She pulls out a roll of
packing tape and hides it behind her on the seat. Then she takes her packages and gets
down on the floor and shoves them under our seat. She gets up and down several times,
pushing the packages as far back under our seat as she can manage. Her face, tattooed,
straining, bearing a keyboard of large, discoloured teeth, is peering up at and beyond me
from between my knees. We make eye contact for a second, but she seems considerably less
embarrassed than I am.
The conductor opens the door and asks for everybody’s tickets. A businessman then
returns to his reading. Stephanie and Sebastien, the Quebecois, keep to the corner and
munch stale bread bought in Seville. A woman in full Muslim dress sips drinkable yogurt
from beneath her face covering. The tattooed lady acts casual. Rich and I sit aloft the
hidden packages, wondering. The conductor takes no notice and closes the door behind him.
She leaves the car for a few moments. Then she comes back.
At the change for Rabat, Morocco’s capitol, everyone gathers their stuff and the
packages are retrieved without incident. She’s stuffing them back into the designer
bags and I’m worried she might forget something. She’s under me again, reaching
and stretching and cranking her neck sideways so that she can feel around under there.
Then before the station, a discussion mounts about the time of the next train and where
the transfer will be. The tattooed lady addresses the businessman. She has a soft,
feminine, enchanting voice. The train stops and the passengers leave, and we’re left
alone for the duration of our journey into the Middle Atlas.
