Tarte Citron

Oh, to be as cocksure as the sassy 10-year-old tart that’s become our neighborhood escort. For the past few days, this leggy girl with the pro-baseball swagger is everywhere we turn. She lives in our neighborhood, Sidi Ben Slimane, and attends the local school. We’ve seen her in her blue school smock, toting a notebook, looking like a cross between Audrey Hepburn and Lolita. Whether we’re stepping out for groceries or off on an errand to buy electrical tape, she inevitably turns up at our side with a charming, “Ca va?” delivered with a lopsided smile and a shake of her ponytail. She’s quite irresistible and knows it. A few dirhams is what she’s after, but she plays the gamine game to a tee and we’ve come to enjoy her routine.

Last night, late and hungry, we were on a search for fresh cream to cut our tomato sauce. Cream is not an easy thing to find in the Medina, especially at 9 p.m. when everyone is reveling in a post-fast feeding frenzy. Tarte Citron, as we’ve taken to referring to her, caught us trolling the local bogedas and asked what we were after. Any time a kid dispenses helpful directions, a tip is expected, something we’ve been warned against by Hamoud and have, for the most part, been judicious in avoiding. “Show us some cream and we’ll give you five dirhams,” we tease TC. “No problem,” she responds and grabs our hand, leading us on a windy route to a shop a few minutes from our house. When we arrive, however, the store, like all the others, has no idea what cream even is. Our “it’s between milk and butter,” gets us nowhere. Failure doesn’t faze Tarte Citron, though, and she shrugs her shoulders and skips off to join her friends. We trudge home to pasta with red, not pink, sauce.

This evening, Tarte Citron is more brazen than ever. Catching us on our way home, she greets us and then leads us to OUR door, where she proceeds to beg entry. “No, no, no,” I say, to little effect as she muscles past me. “But it’s not finished,” I cry as she cases the place, scrambling upstairs to our bedroom and then plunking herself beside Samuel on the dining room banquette. “Not bad, the riad,” she says, popping an olive into her mouth and stretching comfortably back in her chair. Arms looped behind her head, legs outstretched, ankles crossed. I expect her to ask for a Scotch and soda and change the music to HER favorite Duke Ellington tune. The kid is too much.

Not ten minutes after ushering her out, our doorbell rings. It’s Tarte Citron come to offer us some of her mother’s harira. The offer of food is an important gesture in Moroccan society, and we’re loath to insult the girl or her mother. We take the soup and promise to return the tureen shortly. Tarte Citron grabs my face in her small, rough hands and plants a cool kiss on both of my cheeks before sauntering off. Not ten minutes later, the buzzer rings again. “Tell her I’m on the phone,” I plead. Am I really afraid of this girl? Has she gotten under my skin to the extent that I can’t muster a “buzz off”?

The problem, as any parent or grade-school teacher will tell you, is we were taken with the little vixen and I made the fatal mistake of giving her a few dirhams the other day for an ice cream. It was bloody hot and she’d been at school all day like a good girl and the ice cream man was right there with a nice selection of popsicles. I was feeling buoyant about some small success at the house and was enjoying her blithe chatter. Guard down. Small change easily accessible in pocket. Forced error by defendant. Goal for pre-teen antagonist. The worst part was that I was caught in the act by Hint, Hamoud’s wife, who was motoring by on her scooter just as I was reaching into my jeans for the dirhams. She beeped her horn and then turned in her seat to wag an admonishing finger at me. “When will you ever wise up, American,” read the bubble above her head.