The Secret Bunker

My father died suddenly at the age of 57. We had lost our mother several years before and now my sister Yasmine and I abruptly found ourselves as the grown-ups, responsible for running the Marrakesh riad which had been operated as a guesthouse by four generations of our family.

The funeral took place within the statutory 24 hours. As women do not attend Muslim burials, Yasmine found herself having to deal with the needs of the riad guests while I was at the graveside. Our three-day mourning period was also repeatedly interrupted by the arrival and departure of guests and requests for tea-bags, hairdryers and tourist information. The frequent changes of gear felt surreal. At the end of the three days, Yasmine and I sat looking at each other blankly across the kitchen table. My phone rang: not another condolence call, but a riad guest due the following week, wanting to know whether we had a lift and whether we could give her gluten-free bread for breakfast. Then another call came in, this time from the American woman Sadie, who was nervously travelling solo for the first time and had got lost in the Medina.

My father had managed the riad largely single-handed, employing cleaners but no office staff. Yasmine had been in charge of breakfast and the spa. Meanwhile I, the privileged son of the family, had been studying architecture at the École Nationale d’Architecture de Marrakech – I had graduated just two months earlier.

Yasmine and I took a deep breath and went into our father’s study, a room which he regarded as his private domain, where we had generally been unwelcome. We needed to know what bookings he had accepted for the coming weeks. Baba’s “filing system” consisted of three large baskets woven from palm leaves. Papers were piled in them, approximately in the order in which they were received, but that bore no relation to the dates of bookings. We discovered that one basket was for bookings which had been made directly with the riad, either online or by phone. The second was for bookings made through easyjet and the third for clients of Booking.com. Fortunately, we also found a year-planner on which Baba had scribbled clients’ names, the dates they were coming and the rooms he had allocated to them. Over the following weeks, we had to put our grief on hold as we struggled to meet the commitments which he had made, trying to remain smiling and helpful as we fielded our clients’ complaints about the noisy and erratic plumbing, the broken tiles and the uncomfortable mattresses.

I informed easyjet and Booking.com that we would not be taking any new bookings for a while. On a whim, I told them that the riad would be closed for refurbishment until further notice. Yasmine saw the email and asked me if that was true. Could we afford it? We looked at the paternal bank accounts and investments and were surprised by how much money our habitually frugal father had left us. I realised that refurbishing the guesthouse was exactly what I wanted to do, both as my first real architecture project since graduation and as a way of honouring my father.

“What about you, Yasmine?” I asked. “What do you want to do?”

She paused, then said carefully,

“You went to university, Adam, but I didn’t get the chance, just because I’m a girl. I think I can honour our family best by going to study Hotel Management and then running this place properly once you have refurbished it. We need modern methods now, not baskets full of random pieces of paper.”

“Where would you go?” I asked.

“There is a really good course in Casablanca – and I could probably stay with Auntie Fatima there.”

And so our direction was set.

I started my new project with a detailed inspection of the premises, starting in the cellar. This was a large, chaotic space, the only lit section of which was used for storing bottles of water, tinned food and household products. I picked my way through the rest of the cellar with the aid of a torch, stepping over piles of rubble and half-walls which builders seemed to have started and then abandoned. There was a lot of unused space, which pained me, given the pressure on space in the medina, but it could not be used for guest accommodation as there were no windows. Then it hit me: my father had used the riad office as his den – why shouldn’t I build myself a den down here in the basement? It would be my secret place to which I could retreat when I didn’t want anyone to bother me. It could also be an excellent way to try out ideas for the lay-out, furnishing and décor of the guest-rooms upstairs.

I spent hours planning and replanning my secret lair, debating with myself over the best way to install electricity, water, sewerage and ventilation. Then I went one further and turned the room into a bunker which would withstand earthquakes, bombs or the forces of some future repressive regime. As challenges for a fledgeling architect go, this one was magnificent! I eventually let Yasmine in on my plan, insisting that she must not tell anyone as it would lose much of its point if others knew about it. She looked at me rather as though I had told her I was building myself a wendy house and swearing her to secrecy over it!

I worked and worked on the transformation of the cellar, incorporating a sizeable amount of the storage area into my den, so that it had its own reserves of food, water and such items as toilet paper. When at last it was finished, I lay on the bed in a state of exhausted bliss, a huge grin on my face.

Yasmine got a place on the Hotel Management course. On the day she was leaving for Casablanca, I walked to the station with her, to help her with her luggage. As we waited for her train, she looked down at her feet and said,

“Adam, you know my friend Soraya? I’m sorry, but I have told her about your den and explained how to get in if she needs to.” She saw my face and added quickly, “Her husband is beating her, Adam! I told her to run away, but she said she had nowhere to go – that he’d find her and kill her. I told her that, if she needed a safe space, she could hide there.”

For a moment, I felt aggrieved at losing the privacy of my hideout, but then I felt ashamed of my selfishness as I recognised that saving Soraya from the brutality of her husband was far more important. I smiled at Yasmine:

“Thanks for telling me. Now off you go and enjoy being a student!”

Just two days later, I decided to go down to my den for a siesta. When I flicked on the light, there was a scream from a young woman lying in the bed – my bed. I choked back an answering scream of my own and stared at her. The flesh around one of her eyes was purple and puffy and there was dried blood around her mouth. She was shaking with fear. As gently as I could, I said,

“Salam alaikum. You must be Soraya. My sister Yasmine told me about you. I’m Adam. Don’t be afraid: you’re safe now.”

How I delivered on that promise is a whole other story!