The Storyteller of Casablanca (43)
We pull up outside a makeshift building, with walls of bare breeze blocks and a corrugated tin roof. On one of the walls, someone has painted a mural of sunflowers. They look determinedly cheerful in the midst of so much bleakness, where the real thing would struggle to survive in the dust.
‘Please,’ says Madame Habib. ‘Follow me.’
I stand back to allow Monsieur Habib to go first but he shakes his head. ‘I don’t go in. This centre is run by women for women and children.’
His wife stands holding the door open for me. ‘Many of the people here have been traumatised at the hands of men,’ she says quietly. ‘We feel it’s better that they know this is a completely safe place, where they won’t be exploited or abused, where there is nothing that could retrigger their trauma. No men are allowed in.’
Inside, the large space has been subdivided by makeshift screens into different areas. There’s a canteen where they are just finishing clearing and wiping the trestle tables, having served bowls of thick soup for lunch. In another corner is an area where medical examinations can take place, Madame Habib explains. Many of the women are pregnant, but a large proportion of those pregnancies are the result of rape. ‘The counselling and mental health services we try to provide are as important as the physical care on offer. And then there are the extra complications of HIV, hepatitis B and syphilis. These women have been through hell and there are still many challenges ahead of them. We can only do so much here. They start off pursuing a dream – the “Dream of Europe”, they call it. But it rapidly turns into a nightmare from which there is no escape.’
Madame Habib introduces me to another of the volunteers, sitting behind a makeshift desk. A long queue of women are waiting to speak to her. ‘Latifa is trying to help sort out applications for replacement papers. If the women manage to make it as far as Melilla and try to get across the fences, very often they are caught by the Spanish Guardia Civil and handed back to the Moroccan security forces. They do not fare well at their hands, I’m ashamed to say. They are usually taken at night and dumped back on the Algerian side of the border. There are gangs there, waiting to prey on the vulnerable. That is where some of the worst things happen. Having their passports, money and phones stolen is often the final act of abuse after a long and traumatic ordeal. And then so many of these children also get lost along the way.’
The space is busy, filled with movement and activity, but there’s something missing. As I watch, I realise what it is. There’s very little noise. In a community centre like this back in Britain, filled with so many women and children, the sounds of chatter and laughter and kids at play would echo from the rafters. But here the atmosphere is oddly subdued. Children sit on the floor with paper and crayons, silently drawing pictures, each contained within their own bubble of wariness. They glance up at regular intervals, watching the room with big, dark eyes. I catch the attention of one little girl and smile encouragingly at her but she avoids my gaze and there is no answering smile in response, just a carefully blank look that renders her thoughts inscrutable. I guess it’s a form of self-preservation, but it’s one no child should have to learn to cultivate.
The women huddle in small groups, talking softly together or simply sitting and staring into space.
‘Where do they all live?’
Madame Habib shrugs. ‘The lucky ones share rooms in the bidonville that we passed on our way here.’ It’s not a word I’m familiar with and she notices my look of bewilderment.
‘A bidonville is the word for a slum – you saw those shacks? Well, they are made of scraps of rubbish, bits and pieces of whatever can be found. A bidon is a tin can or an oil drum, so it literally means a tin-can-town. But not all the women and children here are fortunate enough to have the shelter of a shack to sleep in. Some camp out on the beach or in the sand dunes. Some are working in brothels and will sleep there. We can only provide a safe place and a meal for them during the daytime here. Their nights are filled with dangers.’
When I squat down alongside some of the children, the sour, stale smell of the fear that they wear on their skin is pungent in my nostrils. I look at their pictures. At first glance, they look like the kind of thing any child in my primary school classes back home would draw – stick families standing in front of houses with a scribble of blue sky overhead and a big yellow sun in one corner. But then I look more closely and the blood freezes in my veins, despite the stuffy heat of the room. The houses are burning. The people are bleeding and broken. There are soldiers with guns and knives. The colours the children have used are brutal – violent red, a blaze of orange, the black of despair, muddy brown. The pastel pink and pale blue crayons have scarcely been touched, their points still neat, whereas the darker shades are worn to stubs.
The little girl who’d looked up at me before reaches out and hands me her piece of paper. She still doesn’t smile, but she does meet my eyes at last and I sense that she’s offering me a gift, the only thing she has to give. I take it carefully and try not to flinch at the image of a body in pieces beneath a tree. She’s drawn herself, too, a smaller figure with close-cropped hair, running away, her mouth open in a scream. She watches me carefully again, those big dark eyes taking everything in. And then, very gently, she reaches out a finger and touches my hand where the skin has cracked open in the crevices between my fingers. She looks at me enquiringly for a moment and then pulls back the sleeve of the dirt-smeared T-shirt she wears. At the top of her arm, near her shoulder, is a ragged scar, pink and raw-looking against the dark mahogany of her own flesh.