Rising Tides (21 page)

When the club was dark at last, and he was sure no one was nearby, he circled back through alleys, then through the service gate she had left unlatched for him.

She was waiting, smoking a Gauloises beside an open window. She hadn’t had time to change, and her black dress,
years old but still seductive, was an open invitation to a man’s caresses. “So you made it.” She snuffed out the cigarette and went into his arms. “Are you here for business or pleasure?”

“Pleasure first.” He kissed her, tasting French tobacco and the unique essence of her lips and skin. He skimmed her sides, the narrow tapering of her waist, the lush invitation of her hips. He dreamed of her each night, dreamed that there were no barriers between them, not clothes, not war, not a world that insisted their love was forbidden. Now his body responded as it did in sleep. A moment, a touch, and he was ready to sink into her forever.

In his first years out of the seminary, disillusioned and rebellious, he had found a woman in Marseilles who willingly taught him about his body and desires. He had thought he was above satisfying the cravings of the flesh, but in Annamarie’s arms he had learned he was a man like every other. Still, he was a man who wouldn’t hurt the woman he loved as his father had hurt his mother.

“Business.” He backed away from her, holding her shoulders. Once she had told him that he was torturing them both by not making love to her. He could feel her tension now. She didn’t understand his need to protect her.
He
didn’t understand his need to make everything right for them first. He only knew that he couldn’t take her to bed. Not yet.

“I’m not surprised.” She shook off his hands. “I don’t have anything significant to tell you. I’ve planted a few seeds, but I haven’t reaped any harvests.”

He sensed her hurt, but there was nothing he could do about it. “Nicky.” He caressed her with his voice—a poor substitute.

“Is that what you came to hear?”

“No, I came to ask you for Phillip’s help. I need him to be my ears.”

“Phillip?”

“He’s brilliant at languages. His Arabic is already nearly as good as a native’s—”

“Mustafa’s been teaching him.”

“I know. He’s also taught him some Berber.”

“A little Tarrifit, maybe, but he’s not fluent.”

“He may not be any help.” He shrugged. “Then again…”

“What and where?”

“On the eve of the festival of Aid es Seghir.” The festival was at the end of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting. The celebration lasted three days, and he knew Nicky and Phillip were looking forward to attending. The end of Ramadan was proclaimed when the new moon was sighted, and that night was fast approaching.

“In the medina?”

“Everyone will be out, including the men I want Phillip to follow. They’ve been hard to get close to. We’ve had others following them, but Phillip might have the best chance. They won’t suspect an English-speaking child.”

“Who are they? Is he going to be in any danger?”

“Would I do anything that would harm him?”

“He’s all I have, Hap.”

He pulled her close. “Not anymore.”

The two men were Berbers from the Rif Mountains. Until recently they had supplied the OSS officers in Tangier with information about Spanish troop movements and fortifications. Then, without warning or explanation, they had disappeared and resurfaced in Casablanca. There was concern that they had transferred or sold their allegiance. Phillip’s job was to eavesdrop on their conversation and report whatever they said.

The plan was simple. Phillip and Nicky were to visit the medina and mingle with the crowds. Hugh would be there, too, keeping them in sight, but he would follow from a distance so that no one would suspect they were together.

On the night that the moon returned, Nicky thought of Mardi Gras as she wandered through the old medina streets with Phillip. Tomorrow Ramadan would end, but the celebration was already under way. The costumes were different from those she remembered from child hood, but no less exotic. People wore their newest or best clothes, and everything was freshly washed. Henna glistened in the women’s hair and on their palms, and their eyes were artfully rimmed with kohl. Men with their heads wrapped in clean white turbans walked together in laughing groups. Vendors peddled chick-pea paste and spicy beef sausages fresh from charcoal braziers. Phillip supped as they pushed through the streets, but Nicky had no appetite.

Hugh had brought Phillip to the medina yesterday afternoon and pointed out the men in a crowded café. They were distinctive, taller than the average Moroccan and lighter-skinned. One had red hair and blue eyes, not uncommon among the Berbers. The other, as Phillip had described him, had a face like a camel—a hooked nose, hooded dark eyes and a wispy, drooping mustache. Phillip was sure he would recognize them again.

Nicky almost hoped he wouldn’t. Hugh had assured her that the men would suspect nothing. Phillip and Nicky were to speak to each other in English. The men wouldn’t suspect that Phillip understood their language, since few, if any, Americans did. They were to act like the many foreigners stuck in Casablanca because of the war, a little preoccupied, a little anxious.

The men had been spotted most often in an interior section of the medina not far from the residence of the German consulate general. The old medina was small—only a kilometer tip to tip—compared to those in most Moroccan cities. It was a historic reminder of the days, not too many generations before, when Casa had been a fishing village.

Despite the medina’s small size, the twists and turns were confusing on a crowded night. Nicky and Phillip got lost once, and she looked up to see Hugh through a gap in the wave of humanity. She started in his direction; when she got to the place he had been, he was gone, but she was back on track again.

Phillip played his role to the hilt. He sauntered nonchalantly, eating and chatting. He stopped to watch everything of interest, as if he were storing up exotic memories to take home. But she saw the way he searched the crowd. He had taken on this mission with his usual intelligence and intensity. She thought of Gerard and wished that he could have known his son. She had forgiven him long ago; she could see and remember the best of him in the child they had created together.

“I think I see them,” Phillip said, grabbing her hand.

“Look carefully.”

“See the tall men up ahead, watching the dancers?” He pointed to a small open space where two alleyways merged.

The women performing the
ahouache
were Chleuh dancers, Berbers costumed in richly embroidered tunics with blue turbans and dangling silver bands adorning their hair. They swayed and chanted in a circle, shuffling their feet to the beating of drums. The men were watching the women with little interest. They were deep in conversation with a third man.

“I want to see the dancers up close,” Phillip told her.

She almost forbade it. Hugh was nowhere in sight, and in person, the men were more threatening than she had imagined.
She was reminded of a trip to Rashida’s home village, near Fez, during a festival to honor a local saint. There she had witnessed the
fantasia,
a line of dozens of white-turbaned men on spirited horses charging toward the crowd of spectators. At the end, as the crowd shouted and cheered—and as she sat in paralyzed terror—the horses had reared, the men had risen in their stirrups, and twenty rifles had exploded in salute. She felt that same paralysis now.

She did nothing and, untainted by her fears, Phillip plunged into the crowd to find a place near the men. She searched the crowd again for Hugh, but he was nowhere in sight. She fought her way toward Phillip, calling his name.

“Excuse me,” she said in English. Voices responded in Arabic and French, but she acted as if she couldn’t comprehend. Closer to the front, she could see Phillip behind the men. She called his name, but he didn’t respond. He edged nearer to them. All she could do now was pretend to scold him, as any mother from any culture might.

“I told you not to get so close,” she called. “There are too many people here. It’s dangerous.”

“Aw…I’m not hurting anything. I just want to see.”

“All right, but don’t get any closer. I don’t want the dancers trampling you.”

He was close enough now that she guessed he could hear whatever the men were saying. They were still deep in conversation. Phillip didn’t look at them. He swayed to the drums and tambourines. The tempo quickened. The women divided into two lines, one going left, the other to the right. They circled again, until they came face-to-face.

The man with the red hair turned and glanced at Phillip. Nicky saw Phillip give him a big smile and say something to him. The man frowned and gave the simultaneous
lift of eyebrows and shoulders that was so common to Moroccans, then turned back to the others and continued the conversation.

The dance seemed to go on forever. The crowd surged around Nicky and forced her back. Feet stomped and hands clapped. Children squeezed past her and propelled her farther from the front. A woman pushed in front of her with a wailing baby draped in a scarf slung over her back, and relatives crowded around to comfort the child, further blocking Nicky’s view.

Nicky sidestepped and searched for an opening. Finally she pushed her way through the wall of humanity to find Phillip. She had lost sight of him for only a minute. But in that time, Phillip and the three men had disappeared.

N
icky searched the crowd for Phillip. The dancers had long since dispersed, and the drummers had collected their coins. Jugglers had replaced them, somber men in white djellabas tossing oranges and pomegranates through the air.

“Phillip!”

She had been calling his name for nearly an hour, moving farther and farther from the marketplace where the dancers had performed, then doubling back to see if he had returned. The jugglers were gone now, and musicians had set up a small orchestra of
gimbris,
lutes and zithers. Even from a distance, she could hear the droning and plucking of their instruments.

Phillip had never been a foolhardy child. He was wise beyond his years, courageous but careful. She didn’t believe that he had left the
souk
on his own. He had been taken. Panic, which she had tried to smother, overwhelmed her. Now what had always seemed colorful was sinister. She hated the foreign smells and babble of languages. She was terrified by the countless hovels, the families crowded into flyblown quarters no larger than a stable stall, the labyrinths of squalid rooms. Phillip could be lost forever and never find his way out.

And a worse thought, so much worse. Phillip could die here, and who would notice the smell of hidden, rot ting flesh until there was nothing left to identify?

Shoving her way through the throngs, she thought she saw Hugh on the corner. She forced a path in his direction, but he disappeared. She slipped into an alley where he might have gone. It was quiet here, sealed off and surrounded by pigeonhole shops that were closed for the evening. She passed one row and came back down the other side, praying that Hugh was here.

She stifled a scream as a hand gripped her arm and pulled her into a doorway. “Hap!” She fell sobbing into his arms. “Where’s Phillip?”

She slapped her hands ineffectually against his shoulders. “You promised nothing would happen to him! You promised!”

“Nicky.” He hugged her, even as she struggled to free herself. “Stop it. Calm down. Tell me what happened.”

She told him. “You said you’d be watching!”

“I was spotted. I pulled back. You were gone by the time I could return.”

“You lied to me! You said he’d be safe.”

“Cut it out! Tell me about the men.”

“They were talking to a third man.”

“Can you describe him?”

“He looked like an Arab! What do you want me to tell you? He looked like a thousand other people in the street!”

“Think. Is there anything else you could tell me?”

She tried to remember. “He was wearing a plain djellaba….” But even as she said it, she remembered more. “No, it had silver threads woven into it. It sparkled.”

“Hat?”

“A fez. The other men had turbans, wrapped low over their
foreheads.” As upset as she was, she realized the fez might have some significance. To some degree, headwear was an indicator of social class. “His hair was dark, but his skin was light, like the man with the red beard, and he was clean-shaven.”

“Anything else?”

“He was smoking a cigarette. I saw him take it from a pack. Gauloises, like I smoke.”

“Was he wearing a suit under the djellaba? Did you notice a collar, the knot of a tie?”

“I wasn’t paying that much attention to him.”

“He could be the key.”

She shut her eyes. She saw the man’s hands, long-fingered and slender. “I don’t think he had the hands of a workingman. They looked well cared for, a bureaucrat’s hands. Maybe an office worker’s.”

“Were you close enough to hear anything?”

“No. There were drums. Phillip moved up, and I stayed behind. I don’t know how they could have taken him so quickly without a fuss! There were people all around.”

He released her. “They probably moved off, and Phillip followed. Then, when they were out of the worst of the crowd, they grabbed him.”

For the first time, she realized that Hugh was as agonized as she was. That terrified her more. “What’s going to happen to him? How could they have known he was listening?”

“They couldn’t have, unless…”

“What?”

“Unless someone had seen Phillip with me and pieced it together. I told you, I was spotted. I saw two Abwehr agents at the other side of the marketplace. The man the Riffis were talking to could have been with them.”

“You don’t know if any of that’s true. You’re guessing.”

“That’s all we can do right now. But it fits. The man you saw could have been a European. He wasn’t smoking Moroccan tobacco, and he was clean-shaven except for his head, light-skinned.”

“And what if you’re right? What if he’s a Frenchman or, worse, a German or an Italian? That narrows it to thousands!”

“Not if he was connected to the men who spotted me.”

She stepped away from him. She hated him at that moment, hated everyone in the world exºcept her son. She had known better than to get involved with the OSS, but she had let her convictions override her good sense. And what were convictions now? Why did it matter if the world was a better place, if Phillip wasn’t there to reap its benefits?

“I want you to find him,” she said. “I don’t care if you have to call out every agent, every lousy informer living under every rock in Africa! You find my son.”

“Go home—”

“Are you crazy?”

“And call these numbers.” He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and scrawled two numbers on the back. Tell whoever answers to meet me at the Mosque of Sidi Allah Karaouani in two hours. Don’t tell them anything else, do you understand? Don’t even give your name. Tell them to make whatever inquiries they can before then. They’ll know what to do.”

“I’m not leaving this medina.”

He gripped her arms. “Do everything I’ve said, and don’t argue! I’m trying to get help.”

She had no choice. She had to depend on him. This time she couldn’t manage alone.

During the hot September days of Ramadan, the Muslims of Morocco had dozed and counted the hours until they could quiet their rumbling stomachs. But when the sun went down
and a black thread could no longer be distinguished from a white, they ate their
harira,
drank endless glasses of syrupy mint tea and revived for visiting until dawn. Even a war that seemed increasingly close hadn’t changed the pattern of centuries.

As the eve of Aid es Seghir progressed, the throngs multiplied in the old medina streets. Hugh, in a djellaba covered by a dark blue cloak, squatted in the dirt out side a malodorous coffee stall and sipped his purchase. Despite his facility for languages, he had picked up only enough Arabic to get the gist of what was said to him. He had barked out the necessary order to the man tending the stall, but he had ignored his attempts at conversation, as if, despite his roughly woven cloak and dirty face and hands, he were somehow above it. He wore a fez with strips of muslin wrapped around it. His mouth was nearly covered, and his side vision was obscured. But unless someone examined him too closely, he could pass for a Moor.

He had stolen the clothes from a stableyard, and they smelled like the donkeys their owner tended. The other customers, in their clean, festive clothing, gave him a wide berth, but he could still hear the drone of their conversations. As he sipped, he pretended to watch the parade of humanity, but his gaze went beyond the street, to the low buildings across it. They flanked an alleyway growing more sinister as the night deepened.

He had heard that the red-haired Riffi was staying in one of the snaking rows of eighteenth-century hovels there. Most of them consisted of one or two cramped rooms sectioned off by blankets or rugs. A ditch ran the length of the alley, and flies swarmed over everything, living and dead. The dwellings were some of the poorest in the medina, housing for beggars and prostitutes. Desperate men and women were easily bought, and the Riffi could probably guarantee his safety here with a few francs and a dagger that was sharper than his host’s.

Hugh watched and waited. He was terrified for Phillip, and
each minute that passed narrowed the boy’s chances of survival. But even if his espionage training had been minimal, years at the seminary had taught him the wisdom of action based on reflection. He didn’t have time to search each room nor, most likely, would he survive if he tried, despite the stiletto sheathed against his leg. Instead, he prayed that one of the men suspected of collaborating with the Riffi would lead him to the right place.

He had not told Nicky the whole truth about Phillip’s mission. The eve of Aid es Seghir was not just an excuse for eavesdropping. The American agents believed that a meeting had been called for later that night. The Riffis were just two of a group led by a man Hugh only knew by the code name Tassels. Everyone in the group was skilled at guerrilla warfare, and until now their services had been invaluable. But there was a strong de sire for independence from France in the native community, and loyalties weren’t clear-cut. The Allies were trying to balance their respect for that desire with practical considerations. They needed the cooperation of the Vichy government.

The Allies had no love for Vichy France, but its navy, despite an earlier attack by the British at Mers el-Kebir, still included battleships and cruisers that could inflict grave damage. If the Allies were thought to support a Moroccan bid for independence after the war, their tentative bonds with Vichy would be severed, and the invasion—and there was going to be an invasion very soon, and not in Dakar—would become more dangerous.

The Riffis who had come to Casablanca were influential men among their tribe, more interested in what they might gain after the war than in the war itself. They were disenchanted with the double-talk of the Allies and ready to strike bargains elsewhere. Phillip might die because of those bargains.

If the meeting was tonight, it might be at the Riffi’s room. If it wasn’t, it was still possible that one or both of the Riffis could pass this way first. The possibility was nearly infinitesimal, but at the moment, it was all Hugh had.

Something glinted under the dim light of the lone street lamp. A woman was passing, and the metal beads adorning her caftan winked like tiny stars before she continued on her way.

Phillip must have overheard something important. Hugh was almost sure he hadn’t been taken in retaliation. He must have heard something before he was identified. Now the question was whether he would be returned when the information was no longer important. More likely, since he could certainly identify his captors, his life would end in some wretched hovel.

A family with several small children passed near the alleyway, then continued without turning. The mother wore the family’s wealth in necklaces and bracelets, and they sparkled briefly in the lamplight. Hugh measured the passing of time with every heartbeat.

A man in a fez passed under the streetlamp, and his white djellaba blazed briefly under the light. Hugh expected him to continue on, but at the last possible second he turned and started down the alley.

His djellaba had silver threads woven into it. It sparkled.

Hugh got to his feet. He pulled his hood over his fez, then, keeping close to walls, he started after the man. He could glimpse him up ahead, moving quickly through the alley. The man was no fool; the alley wasn’t a place to linger. The gaiety of the crowds hadn’t spilled over to this place. Naked children with listless eyes watched from doorways; an old man with sores on his legs sprawled in what only the charitable would call a garden, as if he had given up before reaching his door.

Hugh kept his eyes on his prey. The alley was too dimly lit for him to see the man’s face, even if he turned, and nothing was familiar about the way he moved. He could be anyone hurrying home to be with his family. But why would a man in expensive clothing live in this place? The price of his djellaba alone could have paid for several months in other, better, quarters.

The alley twisted and forked, but the man didn’t hesitate. His destination was obviously familiar. His head never turned to search to the left. He chose the right fork and disappeared. Hugh chose it, too, crossed and followed the man’s path, but by the time he got there, the man was gone.

Hugh flattened himself against the wall and listened intently. Children wailed in the house directly across from him. The one closest was silent, perhaps empty.

Dozens of houses were in immediate view, but he concentrated on those nearest him, since the man had disappeared so suddenly. He slid along the wall, then moved past the nearest doorway. The interior of the house was dark, and nothing appeared to move as he passed. The next house was dark, too, but as he listened he heard the squalling of a cat from the roof of the low second story.

He noted a window just off the roof, small and arched with remnants of arabesques chiseled in the surrounding stone. Both the window—rare in the medina—and the second story implied that at one time this home had surpassed its neighbors, despite its condition now. On the ground floor there was a wooden door that was slightly ajar, and what might have been a courtyard behind a wall.

He listened intently. From behind the wall there was a murmuring, the liquid sound of a fountain, gentle and soothing. The man who built this house had dared to dream of greater
things, and he had flaunted his vision before those whose dreams had long since been extinguished.

He saw no one in the alley, and no indication that anyone was watching. The stone wall was crumbling, and footholds were easy. Hugh climbed to the top and peered over it. No one was visible. In a moment he was inside the courtyard.

Once there had been a fountain; now it was only a broken pipe turning centuries of dust to mud. More interesting, fresh footprints were clearly visible around it.

An olive tree with spindly branches shaded the side entrance. He glimpsed stairs to the second story, but as he debated whether to take them, he heard a noise from inside. He had already chosen a hiding place. Now he stepped back into a jagged line of overgrown shrubs and squatted against the wall with his cloak drawn around him.

A man spoke, then another. The voices grew louder. Hugh’s range of vision was as narrow as the space between one fully leafed branch and the next, but he could make out two white shapes moving through the garden. He strained to hear what the men were saying, but even as they drew nearer, he could distinguish only the occasional word, spoken in a halting French.