“I bought you a present, un cadeau.” he said. “Come, I will take you to it.” He grabbed her hand and took her back into the Medina. Against the tide of people they made their way up through the narrow laneways, twisting and turning until she had quite lost all sense of direction.
“There.” he said, and pointed to the birdcage, sitting in the shadows of a doorway, next to a red doormat that said “welcome”. She stared at it for a quite a while, not knowing what to say. She was shocked that he had got it so wrong, that he knew her so little. Sure the cage was pretty and the birds the colour of her eyes. But it just made her feel sad. He stood there beaming, so proud of his find, thinking that it would make everything right again. She looked at his dark eyes and shuddered.
The birds were as far from their homeland as she was, it made her homesick to look at them. Two birds, a symbol of love, just tugged harder at her broken heart and the sight of the fragile creatures trapped forever in a cage sent her reeling.
It was hot and airless in the Medina and she longed see the sky. The smell of tobacco and honeyed sweets was making her nauseous. She wanted to run away, far from him, and far from the closeness of the walled-city. She wanted to be near the sea, the wind blasting its way along the coast and the sand stinging her legs. She wanted to gulp in the cold salt air and breathe it in so deeply it hurt. And above all else she wanted to be alone ...