Jealous of us

Today is March 13th, I believe, and I’ve just gotten away from K for the first time since last night at 11. It’s about 8 p.m. now. We got out of bed at 4:00 I think. Maybe it was 5. Because it wasn’t until 6:30 that he got out of the shower.

My welcome to Essaouira this time is absolutely positively fascinating. Unremarkable. Ok. Remarkable perhaps. I walked out of K’s last night to go to Toufik’s and was interrupted in the walk by “Ashkeed Hetta!” yelled out from the restaurant nearby. So I walked back by and in, was told to treat his place as home while he left for cigarettes, leaving the fort to me. Then into Toufiks where I must have seemed to the British couple like some Essaouira goddess the way K’s eyes got so big and he jumped up out of his chair over to me. And how Toufik yelled my name from the back of the restaurant to come kiss my forehead, my head, my cheeks over and over, telling me how happy he was to see me. And then to watch K push him out of the way, tell him to not ever touch his girlfriend again, and accidentally whack Toufik’s head against the wall.

We left to get fish tonight, K walking with someone and me in my own space on the street ahead of him, appearing to be alone. I love it.

At Toufik’s, he said, I’m jealous of us. That’s why we fight. I thought a lot about that these last twenty four hours and will have to agree. I, too, am jealous of us.