Stewart, Angus (15 page)

On an impulse Jay had stepped into a remote Moorish café buried in the outer wall of the Kasbah and found himself confronted by Brodie Chalmers. Chalmers was in fact sitting shoeless on the straw matting, with his back propped against the wall. A group of Arabs was playing cards. After the brightness outside, the darkened room, probed by fingers of sunlight, and drowsy with the aromas of
kif
and mint tea, been consecrated to reflection and quiet. Jay had a strange sense of having stumbled upon the ultimate sanctuary, or of stepping into the heart of an ordered philosophy. He suddenly felt like a penitent, and as if his very breathing must be made inconspicuous. The feeling persisted even after Chalmers had motioned him over to where he sat, and they had been talking for some time.

Did Brodie suppose the Saharan war was only a border skirmish, Jay wanted
to know. He thought of it only as an aesthetic insult, spoiling the giant solitude of an area of the desert he had glimpsed and loved. It was also a political insult, Brodie insisted; and one that could only benefit the communists, despite the fact that the Moroccans didn't even know they were fighting a war. The great irony was that the people induced to fight one another were one and the same. The politicians had somehow persuaded them they weren't Of course, there were local tribal rivalries. But these had slumbered for years. The politicians aggravated them. It was the old story. The participants had no understanding of the rival ideologies that motivated his masters; although, on the Moroccan side, he'd except the élite Officer Corps, who were more proud and fascist than anything that ever came out of East Prussia, or even West Point.

Jay laughed, and recalled his having met with two newly passed-out officers in Marrakesh. They had struck him as quite alarmingly well educated, but also cultured men.

'Perhaps you should take over the government,' Chalmers suggested. 'You ought to have Arabs in your blood. Or else detest them all. It wouldn't be unreasonable after that assassination in Amman.'

Jay smiled faintly. 'I'm apolitical—and certainly no confidant of kings.'

'Well, this one's going to be broken one day,' Chalmers said, with the vagueness he used to obscure both knowledge and compassion. 'The Minister of Labour was here this morning. He was petitioned by about a thousand people as he was about to leave his car to go in to the local ministry, so he stood up on the running-board and cried, "What do I care for you dogs! Go away and eat earth!" '

That's carrying the autocracy of the Old Guard a bit far, isn't it?' Jay asked incredulously.

'Oh, he's Old Guard, all right.'

'You or I would at least have judged the distance across the pavement in terms of baffled seconds before yelling, "Eat
cake
!" '
Jay said after a moment.

Chalmers laughed.

'What happened?'

'Oh, they got him. Left him unconscious in the road before the police could prevent it.'

Jay shook his head in bewilderment. The insane situation made him angry for Achmed. Yet the people were solidly behind the king, to whom alone such a minister was responsible. Where there were pockets of disaffection the police acted ruthlessly.

'Have you caught up with your slave yet?' Chalmers asked, as if divining a part of his thought.

Jay looked at him. 'I've got someone searching now. It seems he was under the impression I was no longer here.'

'Wouldn't it be best to
keep
it that
way? If he turns up, tell him your wife's coming—tell him anything.'

Jay smiled. 'I don't think I can do that.' He was tired of making qualifications to himself, let alone aloud, and to someone else. A political utterance from Brodie Chalmers surprised him. Jay had never met a man whose concerns were more jealously spiritual, nor one in whom inner sovereignty was more carefully guarded. There were plenty of other things to talk about

  *  *  *  *  *

Caroline Adam decided she must get out of Tangier for a couple of days. Lom was clearly mad. Worse, she had lost her secondary job with the film unit. Her choice fell upon the small, Atlantic coast town of Arzila.

She made her way to Tangier's bus station, carrying only a rucksack. A
rapido
was about to depart for Larache. She had no sooner taken her seat than the small by of the previous night's episode clambered aboard and began questioning an old man who dozed beside the door. Assured as to the bus's destination, Achmed came down the gangway, and then checked, smiling uncertainly, as he recognised Caroline. Caroline smiled back, and with this encouragement, Achmed settled into the seat opposite her, heaving his bundle up on to the overhead rack. Now he asked her whether the bus went to Larache. She told him it did, and then asked whether that was where he was going.

'No,' he said, 'to my family in the hills.' At that moment a sweet-vendor entered the bus and Achmed became involved with him. When he had obtained what he wanted, he leaned out of the window and attracted the attention of a water-seller. He swallowed three brass cupfuls without a word being exchanged between them; the water-seller continuing meanwhile to tinkle his bell. Achmed then turned back to Caroline and extended a palm-full of sweets for her to choose from. He seemed completely changed from the brazen creature of the night before, and she readily accepted one. Achmed now lit a cigarette in defiance of the prohibiting notices.

'Where are you going?' he enquired politely.

'Arzila—I think.'

Ahmed considered this for a moment. 'Why do you only "think"?'

Caroline laughed. 'I'm just going for a few days' holiday. If I like Arzila I will stay there. If not, I will go on to Larache perhaps.'

'You have no friends to go to? You are travelling alone?' Achmed asked incredulously.

'Don't you think I'll be safe?'

At this the boy gave such a comically unconcerned shrug that Caroline had to laugh again.

'It's strange,' was all Achmed said.

The bus had now set off, making its way with much rattling and honking along the sea front, before swinging inland towards the back of the town. It was nearly empty, and Caroline thought she could reasonably flout the 'no smoking' notice herself. Achmed now looked at her in alarm. Could it be that this was a Nazarene prostitute? He could think of no other explanation for such behaviour, particularly as she was travelling alone. Yet she spoke Arabic just well enough for him to understand. He decided for the moment to ignore the fact that she was smoking. He compared her with his mental image of Frederick's sister. By contrast this girl was young and pretty. She was also kind, because the night before it was she who had been instrumental in obtaining the money for him.

On an impulse Achmed said, 'I know two Englishmen. One is young, and is called Jay, but he has gone back to England without even telling me. The other is old, and called Frederick. I was living at his house as if he was my father, but he was killed in the Medina last night by a man with knife.' It was a comprehensive mouthful to have uttered. Caroline looked at him with a mixture of doubt and astonishment. As if to prove he was not lying, Achmed held out one of his feet towards her. 'These are English shoes' he said. Caroline recognised that they were.

'So you lived with the man who was killed in the riot last night?' she said, still uncertain that the
boy was not romancing, but at the same time ashamed of her doubt. 'What did this man do for his living?'

'The two of us sold books,' Achmed said with some dignity. He sensed that this woman was trying to test him. He would not tell her that he was waiting for Frederick's sister. It was always unwise to volunteer the whole truth of any situation.

Caroline now found herself in the position of wanting to offer a natural sympathy, but of feeling restrained by a pride and independence in the boy's bearing. Certainly he was no more than a child, thirteen or fourteen at the most, and extremely attractive at that. Yet whether it was lack of facts, her own inhibitions as a stranger, or the cultural gap that necessarily separated them, it seemed inappropriate to give expression to the shock she felt. Instead, she merely asked the obvious question. 'If you have a family in the hills, why were you living with an Englishman in Tangier? Do you go to school there?'

'Bah Of course I don't go to school!' Achmed said, nettled. 'What good is school? The hills are not a good place to live. There is no
plage
,'
he added, almost as an afterthought. 'There is no place to swim. People die in the hills. Who has the money for food? The
Tanjoua
.
But the corn is good in the
bled
,'
he added, suddenly remembering Frederick. He shrugged and smiled. 'Unless it snows.'

'Are there Spirits in Tanja?' Caroline asked curiously.

'
Djnoun
?' Achmed looked at her sharply. 'I can tell you there are no
djnoun
in Tanja!'

Caroline smiled to herself in relief. The country boy was evidently emancipated from superstition.

'No!' Achmed interrupted her thought severely. 'Do you think there'd be
djnoun
in Tanja? With all those people? And the traffic? Oh, no! They, gone up into the hills.'

'So you came to Tanja to seek your fortune?' Caroline said, swallowing this. The question sounded silly, but was presumably apt.

Achmed looked studiously vague again. It seemed to him that the question challenged his right to live where he chose. Both Frederick and Jay had suggested that he somehow had no right in Tangier. Of course he had come to the city for other reasons besides the beach But it would no more occur to him to analyse the reasons for his staying than it would have occurred to him to feel aggrieved or impatient when it rained. Things were always happening in the city, whereas in the country nothing happened at all. To be of the city was to have an importance which you did not have in the country. 'How long are you planning to stay with your family?' Caroline asked, feeling now that the boy's independence should be respected, even flattered.

'Two or three days,' Achmed said.

'Then back to Tanja?'

'Yes, I will go back to Tanja.' Ever since, a few moments before, when he had decided that this woman could not be a prostitute after all, an idea had been forming in Achmed's mind. The more he considered it the more attractive it became. Frederick had never visited his home, nor had Jay—although Jay had always been meaning to. Why should he not now ask this woman to come? Certainly nothing like it would ever have happened in the village before. Achmed had not lived with two Nazarenes, and particularly with Jay, without gaining some intuitive knowledge as to where their weaknesses lay. He had found amongst other things that, if necessary, capital could be made out of his being a child. And so it was, if almost unconsciously, that he was prepared to back his case pretty insistently when he asked 'Would you like to visit my family with me? You have no friends to go to? You said so?' To his surprise, the woman said at once that she would like to. Achmed felt very pleased with his success. He grinned happily and moved across to the seat beside her.

'Where is it exactly?' Caroline asked.

'We get off the bus beyond Arzila,' Achmed said. 'Then we have to walk.'

'How far?'

'An hour.'

Anything up to three, Caroline thought. But the idea of accompanying this odd child to an unknown destination appealed to her. Aloud she said, "Then I should probably have to spend the night. Could I do that?'

'Of course,' Achmed said. Some doubts now occurred to him both as to the propriety of the undertaking and as to the amenities his home provided 'That will he all right.' The bus stopped in Arzila. Caroline seized the ten minutes' pause to dash into a
becerra.
She bought two conical pyramids of solid sugar, sealed in blue paper, and looking like particularly large fireworks; and several packets of the best green tea. It had occurred to her that the hill people were unlikely to have any choice of teas
available to them. Now she simply bought the three most expensive brands, and was relieved to set that these also had the most ornate wrappers. Achmed, meanwhile, had abandoned sweets for roasted peanuts. He too, perhaps, was inspired to eat and provision while civilisation still surrounded them. Periodically he fed himself from a tricorn paper bag.

In fact, Achmed was wondering what he should talk about to the Englishwoman. He didn't tell her the story of his thirteen-year-old brother's dramatically taking his own life with a dagger on the death of their mother. He had described it, with varying response to both Frederick and Jay Gadston, but as she was coming to meet his father it might be disproved. Not perhaps that that would matter very much. Instead he told her other stories, though with restraint, because she was still all but a stranger.

The bus drew in to the roadside, Achmed having signalled his intention of disembarking by pulling the cord which jangled a brass bell beside the driver's ear. They left the road at right angles, climbing up a steep, sandy bank into a wilderness of gorse and wind-flattened patches of sharp esparto grass. Motionless cattle egrets watched their passage with boredom. Sometimes their feet started a rabbit, when Achmed would raise an imaginary rifle to his shoulder, and say, '
Paff! Paff!
' He had taken Caroline's rucksack, leaving her burdened only with the sugar and tea in a stout paper bag. Soon this became intolerable: each pyramid of sugar must have weighed two or three kilos. Eventually she gave in to Achmed's insistence, and he plodded on before her with the sugar cradled like an infant in his arms. The terrain they were passing through was rough; gorse and thorn snatched at their legs, and Caroline commended her foresight in having worn jeans. Above them, the sky's integument expanded and paled like a dangerously over-inflated balloon. When night came, it would be suddenly. Small creatures rustled in the scrub, and Caroline thought apprehensively of snakes.

They had paused for a cigarette when something totally unexpected happened. A lorry appeared behind them, making its way
precariously between the thicker growths of scrub. At one moment it seemed to stand on its radiator; the next, its tailboard was ploughing the barren earth, while its front wheels came clear of the ground. Still it came towards them like a coaster in enormous seas. Achmed hailed it wildly.