The Strange Land

by Hammond Innes

  The difference in the man was extraordinary. He’d waited for my train in an all-night cafe near the station, but, though he was hollow-eyed, he didn’t seem tired. And without the beard he looked somehow younger. But it Wasn’t just his appearance. His whole attitude to life had changed. His mind looked forward now, not backwards, and he was no longer frightened. It was as though the ordeal of passing through the immigration check at Casablanca had destroyed all the nerves in his system. He had arrived in Morocco. His papers were in order. All the past seemed to have been swept out of his mind, except for one thing.

  We had barely settled down to our breakfast in a nearby cafe when he began talking of Kasbah Foum. ‘I must go down there and see the place,’ he said, and he pulled a map from his pocket. It was Michelin Map No. 171, covering the area of Marrakech and south to the Sahara. ‘I got it last night,’ he said. ‘But it doesn’t mark Kasbah Foum.’

  ‘I think you’d better forget all about Kasbah Foum.’ He reacted at once to the sharpness of my tone.

  ‘Why? Did something happen after I left? Was it Kostos?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I had a meeting with him and Ali d’Es-Skhira.’

  ‘You mean you actually met Ali d’Es-Skhira?’ He was suddenly excited. ‘What was he like? What happened? What did they say?’ I started to tell him, but he interrupted me. ‘First, is Caid Hassan of Foum-Skhira still alive?’

  It irritated me to have him thinking of nothing but this confounded Wade business. He had come out to be a doctor at Enfida. He should have been thinking about that. ‘How the devil do you know the Caid’s name? I thought you said Wade didn’t talk about his affairs?’

  ‘Wade?’ He sounded surprised. ‘Oh, I see. No, he didn’t talk about his affairs, but…’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘It doesn’t matter.’ He hesitated and then, as though he couldn’t leave the subject alone, he said, ‘Well, is he alive?’

  ‘As far as I know. Why?’

  ‘Nothing, nothing. But go on. Tell me what they said.’

  To satisfy him I gave a brief summary of that meeting in the Boulevard Pasteur. When I had finished he said, ‘So Kostos thinks I won’t be able to get out of the Zone, eh?’ He was smiling to himself. And then he looked at me, still smiling, and said, ‘What do you think he’ll do when he finds I’ve disappeared?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said shortly. ‘Nothing, probably.’

  ‘Yes, he must do something. Ali, anyway. I think they’ll go straight to Foum-Skhira.’ He nodded his head thoughtfully, peering down at the map. ‘Yes, that’s what I think they’ll do. Look. Here is Foum Skhira.’ He twisted the map round for me to see, pointing to a spot about 150 miles south-west of Marrakech. ‘Kasbah Foum will be quite near it, I imagine.’

  ‘Now just listen to me,’ I said, pushing the map aside angrily. ‘I don’t know what Wade told you. Something obviously. But whatever it was that’s got you so interested in the place, forget about it. You’re not Wade any longer. You’re Jan Kavan again. You ceased to have any connection with Wade the moment you stepped on that plane. From what you’ve told me, you’ve got quite enough worries without getting involved in another man’s affairs.’

  ‘But if Kostos follows me — ‘

  ‘Why should he? He’s not interested in you. He’s only interested in Wade. Now just try and understand who you are. You’re coming with me to Enfida to act as Mission doctor. That should be enough to occupy your mind. And your wife’s going to join you there later. Now just shut up about Kasbah Foum. Okay?’

  He nodded slowly. ‘Yes, of course. I understand.’ He folded the map up, but his eyes kept straying towards it as we ate our food in silence, and when we were on the train and steaming out of Casablanca he opened it up again and sat with it spread out on his knees, staring out of the window at the brown, rolling country where . camels and mules, harnessed together, pulled primitive ploughs across the arid landscape.

  ‘It’s like the Old Testament come to life,’ he said, and then added, ‘And I suppose it gets even more Biblical as you go south towards the desert.’

  ‘You’ll find all you want of the Old Testament in the souks of Marrakech,’ I told him.

  We didn’t talk much after that and I drowsed off. When I woke we were running out of the Djebilet hills, down into the flat plain of Marrakech, and there, ahead of us, were the Atlas Mountains. An hour later we were sitting at a table, drinking coffee and looking out at the teeming mass of humanity that packed the Djemaa el Fna. The mountains and the plain had gone. We were swallowed up in the dusty hubbub of the great, red-walled Berber city. We went to the bank and then found a cheap little French hotel in the rue Bab Aguenaou.

  In the late afternoon I took Jan to the roof-top of the Cafe de France. The place was full of tourists, rich people from all over the world who had come to drink mint tea on that roof and watch the sky flare to Technicolor and to look down on the seething acres of tribesmen packed into the great square of the Djemaa el Fna. The tide of humanity ebbed and flowed out of the narrow, covered alleys of the souks and the noise of it came up to us in a steady roar of sound. It was evening now and the flat, white roof tops and the red walls and the graceful tower of the Katoubia were flushed with the pink of the sunset and all the sky was an incredible spectrum of pastel shades. Away to the south the Atlas Mountains glistened like sugar icing, a towering rampart of fairy beauty.

  ‘And that’s where we’re going?’ Jan asked. He was staring towards the mountains.

  I nodded.

  ‘It’s unbelievable,’ he murmured. ‘Marcel described all this to me so often. And now I am really here — ‘

  ‘Marcel?’

  He glanced at me quickly. ‘A man I met during the war.’ He turned back towards the mountains and added, ‘It was when I was working with Krupps. I was on secret work and I was getting information out to the British. I used the French forced labour battalions and Marcel was my chief contact. He’d lived out here and he talked of nothing but this country and the people. He was a fine man. He believed in victory always, right from the beginning.’ He .paused and then added, ‘He died of pneumonia in a cellar in Essen. I was sorry when he went.’ His tone was sad as though he were speaking of somebody who had died only yesterday. ‘And now I am here and it’s all just as he described it to me. It doesn’t seem possible.’ His voice was almost awed. He hunched his shoulders and leaned forward, staring down into the huge square.

  I was used to it now, but I could remember how I had felt when I first saw it. There were thousands of people down there; people from all over South Morocco - from the desert and the palmeries and from the most inaccessible villages of the Atlas. They crowded in circles round story-tellers and the snake charmers and the troops of dancers, or wandered hand-in-hand among the booths of doctors and barbers and letter-writers. Among them moved the water-boys, festooned with brass cups, their bells ringing an insistent water-note of sound. It was a shifting pattern of colour that sent up a continuous, inhuman roar. And over all the hubbub of the crowds there rose the ceaseless beat of the tam-tams - rhythmic and urgent; the sound that beats like the pulsing of the blood through the high mountains and along all the valley arteries of the south.

  ‘It’s wonderful,’ Jan breathed. ‘Wonderful. Karen will love it.’

  I laughed. ‘The glamour of it doesn’t last,’ I said. ‘Not when you discover the poverty and disease and inert stupidity that lies behind it all. This is the thousand and one nights, the city of delight, the sweets of a year’s labour in a hard, naked land. And the place is rotten with venereal disease, with tuberculosis, dysentery and conjunctivitis, with every running sore that Job was plagued with.’

  ‘You want I show you souks?’ A young Arab boy was standing at our table, his dark eager eyes watching us hopefully. ‘You come. Jus’ look. No buy. Jus’ look.’

  I glanced at Jan. ‘Would you like to see the markets?’

  His eyes went momentarily to the tinted crystal of the mountains and then he nodded and
got to his feet. A gleam of triumph showed in the little Arab’s eyes as he turned away towards the stairs. ‘Do we need him to guide us round?’ Jan asked.

  ‘Not necessarily,’ I said. ‘But these boys are good value. It’s getting late, too, and you can easily get lost.’ We went down the concrete steps and out into the roar of the Djemaa el Fna, skirting the crowds.

  ‘Philip!’

  Jan had stopped, his head turned, staring towards the CTM bus terminal building. ‘What is it?’ I asked.

  ‘Look!’ He pointed. ‘Do you see? That man.’ His tone was urgent.

  I followed the line of his outstretched hand, but all I could see was the shifting pattern of the human tide. ‘What man?’

  ‘He’s gone now.’ He lowered his arm slowly.

  ‘Who was it?’ I asked.

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t know. Maybe it was the light. I thought for a moment it was Kostos.’

  I laughed. ‘Nonsense,’ I said. ‘Kostos is a Tangerois. There’s nothing for him in Marrakech.’

  The boy tugged at my sleeve. ‘Quick, m’soor. Is late. You come quick.’

  ‘Come on,’ I said to Jan. ‘It’ll be dark soon. If you want to see the souks…’

  He nodded and we plunged into the maelstrom that swirled around the dark mouth of the covered way that led down into the first of the souks. Here were dates and dried fruit and herbs and spices piled in little pyramids on open counters and Arab merchants squatting behind mountains of nuts in the gloom of their stalls. We went through the meat market and then we were in a long, narrow street thatched with palm fronds. The crowds were moving homewards from the souks now and we were fighting our way through a packed mass of people that flowed steadily towards the Djemaa el Fna. ‘What you want, eh?’ our guide asked, grinning up at us, eyes sparkling and his teeth showing white against the shadowed darkness of his small face. ‘You like Berber silver? I show you bracelets. All good work. Very cheap.’

  ‘You speak Arab, don’t you?’ Jan said. ‘Tell him we just want to have a quick look round.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘You tell him in English. I’m just going to be a tourist for once. Besides it’s not many boys of his age speak English.’

  ‘Ess, spik good English.’ The boy grinned at us. ‘I show you fine silver. Is not dear, m’soor. I fix.’

  ‘We don’t want to buy,’ I said. ‘We just want to look around.’

  His mouth puckered sulkily and he shrugged his shoulders. ‘Okay. You look. I take you good leather shop. No cheat.’ We forged ahead slowly against the mass of people. There were only a few Europeans. Night was closing in and already the lights were on in the bigger shops, the shops that were marble-floored and had their walls covered with Moroccan rugs or finely stamped leather pouffes. ‘You like carpet? Real Persian. I fix good price for you.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Take us to the street of the silversmiths.’

  ‘You want silver, eh? Okay.’ His eyes brightened.

  The crowds were thinning now. A bicycle flashed past us, its bell ringing furiously as the Berber boy with a woolly cap on his head weaved dexterously in and out amongst the people. We turned into the little street where men sat cross-legged in workshops no bigger than cubby-holes stamping out the intricate designs of the bracelets, pouring the inlay from little iron pots of molten metal. There were still a few plump Arab women there, well dressed in grey or brown gabardine djellabas with silk veils over nose and mouth and naughty little gold-embroidered slippers peeping from beneath their voluminous skirts. Some of them already wore an armload of gold and silver bracelets, but they still stood and stared with longing.

  As we left the street of the silversmiths, we met five blind beggars weaving their way home through the crowds, loosely linked like a sightless chain gang. They had the tortured, cadaverous features of the crucified and they were singing tonelessly, bobbing along with their shaven heads drawn back as though they’d all been hanged by ropes battened under the chin. They were led by a man with a wooden bowl who had the pitiless eyes of the professional beggar. His five freaks, strung out behind him, were all of them mutilated by disease besides having the blank, staring eyes of the blind. I stopped to put money in the bowl. As I did so there was a cry of warning, the crowd opened out and a small donkey piled high with Moroccan rugs went trotting past. The crowd closed up and surged forward. I was pushed to the wall and when at last I could make headway, I couldn’t see Jan or our guide.

  I hurried then, fighting my way through the crush and craning my neck to see ahead. But there wasn’t a sign of him. I couldn’t see a single European.

  I began to get worried. He didn’t know the language and I wasn’t sure about the boy. It’s easy to get lost in the souks. The place is an absolute rabbit warren. I fought my way through the silk market to the point where the souks divided. A narrow alley forked right. It was the street of the shoe makers, a dark tunnel crammed with people. I turned back then. The boy must have led him off into one of the side markets. I cut through a wide souk where silks were displayed in the few shops that weren’t already shuttered and came out into the parallel street, where the makers of brass had their stalls. But it was impossible to find anybody in the brush of people going home.

  For a while I rushed madly up every side alley, searching for him in the intermittent patches of lighting. But in the end I gave it up and made my way slowly back towards the centre of the city, moving with the steadily-flowing tide of humanity, the murmur of the great square acting as a guide. He couldn’t really get lost. He’d only to follow the crowd. It was annoying, that was all.

  It was quite dark when I reached the Djemaa el Fna and the booths were lit by the smoking jets of a hundred acetylene flares. The whole place, with its milling thousands of tribesmen and its tented booths, had the appearance of an army encamped for the night. The hotel was opposite the Tazi cinema where harsh Arab music blared at the packed crowd waiting to see an American Western.

  As I approached the alleyway leading to the hotel, the little Arab boy who had been our guide came out of it. He stopped at the sight of me and his eyes widened. He looked scared and I caught hold of his arm before he could run away. ‘Why didn’t you wait for me?’ I asked angrily, speaking to him in Arabic.

  He stared at me with hurt brown eyes, shocked into immobility by the realisation that I spoke his language.

  ‘Allah ishet elik!’ I cried, shaking him. ‘Speak, boy. Why didn’t you wait for me?’

  ‘You no come, m’soor,’ he said, sticking obstinately to his English. ‘We look all souks, but no see. Is late, very late for souks.’ His voice sounded scared and his eyes searched the street as though looking for somebody to help him. ‘Is no good staying in souk.’ He suddenly jerked away from me, wriggling out of my grasp, and with one frightened look at my face, disappeared into the crowd across the road, a small, scampering figure in a brown djellaba and heel-less slippers.

  I went straight up to the room we were sharing and found Jan sitting on the bed staring down at the suitcase full of clothes that he’d bought that afternoon. He looked up quickly at my entrance. ‘Oh, here you are. Thank God!’ His voice sounded nervous. ‘I was getting worried about you. Do you think that boy did it on purpose?’

  ‘How do you mean?’ I asked, too surprised at his question to express the annoyance I had felt at finding him back here in the hotel ahead of me when I’d been getting worried and searching all through the souks.

  ‘When we got separated by those beggars, he wouldn’t go back for you,’ he said. ‘He insisted you’d cut down one of the side alleys. We went through it and came out into the brass market. But you weren’t there and he got very excited, jabbering away at me in Arab, and led me into a maze of streets so that I didn’t know where I was. All I knew was that he was leading me deeper and deeper into the souks.’

  ‘Well, at least he brought you back,’ I said, sinking into a chair.

  ‘He certainly didn’t. I had to find my own way back.’

>   I stared at him. ‘Do you mean to say the boy just left you?’

  ‘Well, not quite. It was really the other way round. I left him.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘It was in an alley full of those gold-embroidered slippers. He kept on trying to drag me along the whole length of it. But by then I knew the only sensible thing was to come back to the hotel. I told him that and he tried to convince me the best way back was straight down that alley. I knew it wasn’t. That way we should have been going against the crowd and I was certain they were making for the Djemaa el Fna.’

  ‘And the boy left you to make your own way?’

  ‘He came a little way with me. Then he gave it up.’

  ‘But I’ve just seen him outside the hotel.’

  Jan shrugged his shoulders. ‘Then he must have followed me, that’s all.’

  ‘You’re certain he was trying to lead you the wrong way?’

  ‘Yes, I’m pretty certain. I always have a shrewd idea where I am in a strange city.’ He hesitated and then said, ‘There’s another thing, too. The room has been searched whilst we’ve been out.’

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ I said. I felt tired. ‘How do you know?’

  ‘The hasps of my case were undone. I didn’t leave them like that. And when I got here, the Arab porter couldn’t find the key. He was gone about five minutes before he produced it.’ He was wrought up about it, his nerves on edge.

  I pulled myself to my feet and examined my case. As far as I could tell everything was just as I’d left it. ‘Let’s go down and have some food,’ I said.

  He stared at me angrily for a moment and then he turned away. ‘Perhaps you’re right.’ But he said it without conviction.

  However, he seemed to relax in the warmth of the restaurant, and next day, after a long night’s sleep, he was quite a different person. In fact, he was almost exuberant when we were finally seated in the Enfida bus, packed in like sardines amongst a crowd of Berber men returning from a night out in the great city. He talked excitedly, asking questions, and when we drove out past the traceried gateway of the Bab Aguenaou on to the road that runs out into the flat plain, he sat quite still without talking, staring at the mountains. Behind us Marrakech, with its nine kilometres of red mud walls and its flat-roofed houses dotted with storks’ nests, lay sprawled out in the clear morning sunlight, a sleepy pattern of red and brown and white.