Black Ink And Flailing Limbs

November 4, 2019, in the town of Essaouira, Morocco.

I open my journal for the first time in five days and begin to write down my thoughts and observations about Morocco so far. There are four of us sitting at the kitchen table in Jamil’s place. Jamil, our host and tour guide around Essaouira, is allowing Simon and I to stay in two of the three rooms in the flat below his.

He invites me over for evening tea with him and his friend after exploring Essaouira for the day, and I accepted, leaving Simon to watch videos on his own downstairs. I’m wearing my black and gold djellaba, and Jamil and his law school friend also wear their djellabas. Nickie, the fourth person, is the odd one out wearing a spaghetti-strap tank top and jean shorts small enough that her butt spills out and over them.

Nickie asks me where I’m from and how I like Morocco. I share for a few seconds and politely ask her the same–I want to know more about my flat mate. Instead of reciprocating, she shuts her laptop and says she has office hours to attend to downstairs in the third bedroom of the flat we’re all sharing.

Up to this point, I don’t know much about her. From what I understand, she’s around 35 in age, from America, frequently travels to India and the Middle East, and she used to have a Moroccan husband. She stomps her way down the stairs, and the three of us remaining in the kitchen start talking.

We get to chatting about the types of people we meet through hosting them from Couchsurfing and Airbnb. I struggle to codeswitch between French and English and throw in the occasional Arabic word. Jamil and his friend both politely correct me when I make a mistake. He has just finished pouring mint tea with sugar into three small glass cups when we hear a thunderous noise coming from the staircase.

Nickie bursts in and blocks the doorway with her entire body. She’s staring at the wall between me and Jamil as she begins yelling, almost on the verge of screaming. She exclaims, “How dare you talk to me like that! I waited for you for three hours while you were in town with your friends, and now you bring this bitch up here with you?!,” she points her finger at me and continues, “Next time I’m going to call the cops!”

I’m now wide-eyed and flushed. I don’t understand the situation at hand or why I am suddenly being pulled into the drama. I look down at my journal to see that I have been writing “oeoeoeoe” over and over. She storms her way back through the door and slams it shut behind her.

Jamil begins talking to me, telling me more about her. He goes on to tell me while drinking his tea that she was evicted from her last Airbnb place and had no money to stay anywhere. He makes it sound like he pities her and is allowing her to stay for free. I begin to question his relationship with her. Why would he let her, and American lady, stay at his flat for free when earlier he claimed that he barely makes enough money to support him and his six siblings back home in the Sahara?

A few minutes later, she returns and once more blocks the doorway with her body. She stares at Jamil and shouts, “And don’t you dare think about sleeping with her too!” My shoulders tense, and I try to fixate my attention on my journal, but I glance up for a second and lock eyes with hers by accident. She says to me, “Do you know he has sex with minors?” I give her no verbal response, but write on my paper, “You’re certainly not a minor.”

Jamil finally gets up and walks to her telling her that they can talk it out in the next room. She loudly exclaims, “Don’t you fucking touch me!” I begin to write rapidly and break the tip of my new black pen. The ink bleeds all over my hands and the paper. At the doorway, Nickie throws punches and kicks at Jamil. Her fists and knees repeatedly impact Jamil’s face and upper body and Jamil refuses to fight back. His friend moves to stand between them, attempting to break up the fight.

Abruptly, Nickie once again looks at me and asks, “Elizabeth, honey, do you think you should stay here or leave?” with a fake smile plastered on her face. I look at her with complete apathy and say, “I’m indifferent,” and resume writing with my broken pen. She then says, “I think it’s best if you leave.” I quickly close my journal and slowly walk out of the room heading back down to the flat downstairs. I hear more yelling and quarreling commence above me as I make my descent.

So many questions race through my mind. So much has been said and exchanged between Nickie and Jamil in the upstairs flat, and I can’t make any sense of Nickie or her behavior. It suddenly occurs to me though why Jamil was restless and anxious while showing me and Simon around Essaouira today. The sounds of their fighting permeate throughout the building for most of the night. I quietly crawl into bed with a small pocketknife under my pillow, in case she decides to attack me next.