Then we feel the heat emanating from the building. It is a magically set fire, so it doesn’t spread. We feel the moment the magic that was cast around the area breaks; it feels like a bubble popped. We can suddenly hear things that we couldn’t before. The sound of the TV, radios, and soon, someone’s scream. Doors open and people come streaming out, holding buckets of water.

Not that the water will help. This is not a fire set by humans, so it’s not a fire that can be put out by humans. Everything will burn, though not everything will turn into ashes.

We find an elderly woman sniffling outside the store, her large eyes reflecting the flames currently consuming the old building.

“Do you know the shopkeeper, Grandma?” I ask her.

“Yes, I do. Poor Mahmoud. First he lost his wife, and now he’s lost his store. He’s going to be devastated.” The old woman wipes her tears away.

“Do you know where he is at this moment?” I ask carefully. The old woman gives me a look at the question. Perhaps I look harmless, because she tells me.

“He’s with his son, Farroukh, in Marrakech. Farroukh runs a store in the old market, and the old man often makes trips to spend time with him and his grandchildren now that his wife is gone. Poor man.” The old woman sighs heavily and shakes her head.

“Do you have the contact for Mahmoud’s son, Grandmother?” I ask. The old woman shoots me a suspicious glare.

“It’s just that we think the fire was deliberately set with the intent to hurt the shopkeeper. We think it might be safer for him to stay at his son’s house for the time being instead of returning to Chefchaouen,” Valentina says in a gentle voice.

“I understand that you have no reason to trust anything we say, Grandmother, but we mean the old man no harm. In fact, we want to keep him out of harm’s way,” I tell her.

Perhaps we convince her, because she nods and leaves to make the call. We watch until we can no longer see her before we swiftly make our way back to the house. We need to be gone before the new day dawns and Baarish’s servants begin their hunt.

The Politics of a Body, the Politics of Pleasure

Once, in the early hours of a pale London morning, we ran into two girls fleeing their home. This was nothing out of the norm for us. Running into girls fleeing from places they called home is a specialty of ours. It is the reasons they run away that keep us listening, keep us shocked.

The elder of the girls was called Dawa and the younger one, Zainab.

Over cups of hot cocoa we brewed in the kitchen of our apartment, we listened to their story.