Page 9 of The Last Postcard

‘What can I help you with, my friend?’ the man himself asked, finally. He raised his eyebrows. ‘Hash, kif?’

‘In a minute,’ Sam said, trying to sound offhand. ‘I was wondering … what would you give me for this?’ He opened the case. The typewriter sat within, its orange body glossy in the evening light, the keys a little discoloured from years of his fingertips. ‘I’m tired of lugging it around.’

Abdelhamid lifted the case on to his lap. ‘No money from America yet?’ he asked, testing a few keys.

Sam rubbed at his head. It was the reason he had given last week, after selling the shades.

‘No.’ He tried to think up some excuse, but couldn’t. He was tired and his head hurt. It would probably cost him. ‘No more money,’ he sighed. ‘A ticket home, but no more money.’

Abdel made a noise. ‘For you, there is always more.’

‘Not this time. Not from my parents. They mean it.’

‘But you have other family?’

‘They won’t help. My sister refused last time. My brother’s never given me a cent and he won’t start now. I told them all that I have nothing and this was their answer. No more.’

Abdelhamid shook his head, and peered into the case. ‘I do not know if I can sell this here. There are not many people who would buy it, only foreigners, and they will want one that is new—’

Sam shoved himself to his feet. Abruptly, it was too much. He couldn’t sit there while the Hermes was torpedoed, couldn’t be told that it was a worthless thing and nod in agreement.

‘Forget it,’ he said, holding out his hand. ‘Forget I brought it, it was a stupid idea, I …’

The world began to fuzz, turning blue and yellow before his eyes. His head squeezed and his ears rang, as though he’d dived underwater. He heard a clatter and the next thing he knew he was sitting on Abdelhamid’s step again, blinking hard. There was bustle around him; he’d knocked over a stack of brass bowls. Abdelhamid’s neighbour was helping to retrieve them, before they rolled away into the socco.

‘Sorry,’ Sam mumbled. ‘My head.’

Abdelhamid just waved a hand, smiling a little. He yelled to a passing boy, and pointed up the road.

‘You Americans,’ he said then, sitting down. ‘You smoke and you drink and you forget to eat.’

Sam managed a husk of a laugh.

‘How much money do you have?’ Abdelhamid demanded.

‘Twenty-seven dirhams.’ It felt pointless to lie. ‘And I owe twenty-five to Madame Sarah for the rent.’

Abdelhamid picked up his workings. His fingers moved calmly, but with every movement back and forth Sam knew he would be calculating exactly how much money Sam would need to buy kif, and pay the rent, and eat besides.

He’d met Abdelhamid in the Petit Socco soon after he’d arrived in the city. A young man had approached him in one of the cafés and sold him a pouch of kif, which turned out to be just tea dust and dried weeds. Abdelhamid had been sitting a few tables away, watching the whole exchange. He had burst out laughing at the look on Sam’s face when he realized the con, and told him not to take it to heart, that Yassine hooked every new American the same way. They’d talked a little, and after sharing a few of Sam’s cigarettes, Abdelhamid had slapped him on the shoulder, and told him to follow. They’d found Yassine in one of the other cafés, illicitly drinking a bottle of brandy with a friend. After a bit of shouting, he’d handed Sam most of his money back, which Abdelhamid then appropriated, plus a finder’s fee of course, in exchange for some real and excellent kif. Over the weeks, Sam had come to think of him as a friend; if he was going to be fleeced by anyone, he’d prefer it to be Abdel.

‘OK.’ Abdelhamid finished his roll-up. ‘I can give you sixty dirhams for the machine.’

Sam’s eyes felt hot. He couldn’t complain about the low offer. He was desperate, and he’d shown it.

‘I won’t take anything under two hundred.’

‘Bzzaf.’ Abdelhamid looked disappointed in him. ‘No one will buy it for that.’ He held out the cigarette, laced with kif. ‘Perhaps one hundred.’

‘Come on, have a heart. One fifty at least.’

‘Impossible, my friend.’ A moment later Abdel’s face brightened at the sound of a shout.

The boy from earlier had returned with two bowls in his hands, and a chunk of bread stuffed in each pocket. Abdelhamid gave him a few coins.

‘Here,’ he said, passing Sam a bowl. ‘You need to eat.’

Sam looked down into the soup. Harira; the smell of tomatoes and sweet onion and spices told him so. There was chopped hard-boiled egg on top, its pale surface sprinkled with salt and cumin. He was so hungry he could have unhinged his jaw and swallowed the bowl in one.