Posy and me. Ian and Robin greeted us perfunctorily, and if they were irritated that we’d defied Ian’s injunction, they didn’t say so. Ian said several times, as he stared, “Luckily there was no one inside.”
It seemed odd that they were not worried about the fire spreading, but Ian explained that the dirt road, which led to distant buildings, created a natural firebreak. In the dry brush, there was nothing else to burn except the brush itself. Ian said again that there was no one inside—the explosion had come at a moment of a prayer interval and tea break, when people had gone outside. The main question was, how had it started? Ian’s manner now was concerned but not surprised, was almost resigned, as if explosion and loss were overdue.
Later he explained that his factory was a building that, though he owned it, was leased to a manufacturer of fertilizer, a product by its nature explosive, and such an accident was always to be feared and provided against. I knew that Ian had a number of such projects; in Kosovo, he had talked about his four compact but efficient industrial buildings, built on tracts in the Atlas foothills with his own private funds and a development loan from the World Bank. These buildings were leased to Moroccan entrepreneurs for developing light manufactures of various kinds. In another place, he had built a coeducational school for young children of farmers, in practice attended by only a few of the more forward-looking locals in the area. He supervised and managed these properties—I don’t know who had managed them while he was in Bosnia; it was strange that he’d go off and leave them.
“What exactly were they making?” Posy asked.
“Well, in effect, explosives. That is, fertilizer, ammonium nitrate, a perfectly stable compound unless it’s set off. As it can be—one reason it’s manufactured up here. There’s a lot of security. Ammonium nitrate plants have been detonated a few times—in Toulouse in 2001, another once in Texas, with hundreds of deaths.”
“I thought Toulouse was an accident.” I probably shouldn’t have known that.
“They would say that, wouldn’t they?” Ian said. “The French authorities. They didn’t want to give anyone credit, or cause panic either, so soon after 9/11. But it takes a trigger—a rocket or torch. They don’t see evidence of anything like that here, but they haven’t ruled it out. We won’t know for days, till it cools down.”
It seemed inappropriate to think of love in a violent situation like this, but my heart stirred with love to see Ian that day. Whereas in Kosovo he had been an attractive compatriot and confidant, in Morocco, in his own grand house, and even at the ruins of his factory, he was the personification of lordly colonial master, someone before whom a man asleep on a mat on the floor would leap up and bow, as I had seen with my own eyes. No different from other women, I liked this powerful, preoccupied Ian even better and, after the transports of last night, was prepared to be more deeply committed to him than ever.
Only one thing disturbed: From the perspective of my being here, now that I’d seen its comforts and luxe, in retrospect, it was Ian’s sojourn in Bosnia that seemed slightly odd. He had always said he was “wanting to give something back,” volunteering with Oxfam to do what amounted to rather simple work, loading and unloading things, passing out supplies, pretty much like the stuff we were doing at AmerAID. At the time, this had seemed a handsome, humanitarian thing for him to do, but now I could see that Ian was a highly skilled manager of things like factories—even if they did blow up—and had been considerably overqualified for his work there. I was willing to subscribe to theories about British eccentricities, however, and chalk his priorities up to those. But it was slightly odd.
As we stood there, faces flayed by the mounting gusts of intense heat, something unlikely happened to
It seemed odd that they were not worried about the fire spreading, but Ian explained that the dirt road, which led to distant buildings, created a natural firebreak. In the dry brush, there was nothing else to burn except the brush itself. Ian said again that there was no one inside—the explosion had come at a moment of a prayer interval and tea break, when people had gone outside. The main question was, how had it started? Ian’s manner now was concerned but not surprised, was almost resigned, as if explosion and loss were overdue.
Later he explained that his factory was a building that, though he owned it, was leased to a manufacturer of fertilizer, a product by its nature explosive, and such an accident was always to be feared and provided against. I knew that Ian had a number of such projects; in Kosovo, he had talked about his four compact but efficient industrial buildings, built on tracts in the Atlas foothills with his own private funds and a development loan from the World Bank. These buildings were leased to Moroccan entrepreneurs for developing light manufactures of various kinds. In another place, he had built a coeducational school for young children of farmers, in practice attended by only a few of the more forward-looking locals in the area. He supervised and managed these properties—I don’t know who had managed them while he was in Bosnia; it was strange that he’d go off and leave them.
“What exactly were they making?” Posy asked.
“Well, in effect, explosives. That is, fertilizer, ammonium nitrate, a perfectly stable compound unless it’s set off. As it can be—one reason it’s manufactured up here. There’s a lot of security. Ammonium nitrate plants have been detonated a few times—in Toulouse in 2001, another once in Texas, with hundreds of deaths.”
“I thought Toulouse was an accident.” I probably shouldn’t have known that.
“They would say that, wouldn’t they?” Ian said. “The French authorities. They didn’t want to give anyone credit, or cause panic either, so soon after 9/11. But it takes a trigger—a rocket or torch. They don’t see evidence of anything like that here, but they haven’t ruled it out. We won’t know for days, till it cools down.”
It seemed inappropriate to think of love in a violent situation like this, but my heart stirred with love to see Ian that day. Whereas in Kosovo he had been an attractive compatriot and confidant, in Morocco, in his own grand house, and even at the ruins of his factory, he was the personification of lordly colonial master, someone before whom a man asleep on a mat on the floor would leap up and bow, as I had seen with my own eyes. No different from other women, I liked this powerful, preoccupied Ian even better and, after the transports of last night, was prepared to be more deeply committed to him than ever.
Only one thing disturbed: From the perspective of my being here, now that I’d seen its comforts and luxe, in retrospect, it was Ian’s sojourn in Bosnia that seemed slightly odd. He had always said he was “wanting to give something back,” volunteering with Oxfam to do what amounted to rather simple work, loading and unloading things, passing out supplies, pretty much like the stuff we were doing at AmerAID. At the time, this had seemed a handsome, humanitarian thing for him to do, but now I could see that Ian was a highly skilled manager of things like factories—even if they did blow up—and had been considerably overqualified for his work there. I was willing to subscribe to theories about British eccentricities, however, and chalk his priorities up to those. But it was slightly odd.
As we stood there, faces flayed by the mounting gusts of intense heat, something unlikely happened to
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