Torch of Tangier

by Aileen G. Baron

“Well, that’s done,” Drury said.

  All this time, Zaid hadn’t moved. He leaned against the pillar, his arms crossed across his chest and watched, thin-lipped and angry-eyed, from the corner of the garden.

  “What does Mekraj mean?” Lily asked.

  “The samovar we use to boil water for tea,” Zaid said. “You know why they call him the Mekraj? Because they use him to stir things up and boil them over.”

  “Zaid—” MacAlistair began.

  Zaid turned to face him. “You ridiculed him. You spoke to him as if he were a fool.”

  “He’s provincial,” Drury said. “He believes in miracles. Anyway, he’s getting fifty thousand francs.”

  “And a little kif to dream on,” added MacAlistair.

  Zaid turned to MacAlistair. “You’re just like the rest of them, aren’t you?” His voice was husky with anger.

  “I didn’t mean anything by it.”

  The glimmer of tears poised on the rim of Zaid’s eyes. “All these years I’ve trusted you. And you’ve been laughing behind my back with your cheerful British racism.”

  MacAlistair looked away.

  “We have to go upstairs to send the news,” Drury said. Come on, let’s go.

  When their footsteps sounded on the stairs, Zaid started toward the dining room. The button of his sleeve caught in the carved Arabesques of the pillar. He yanked at it, tearing his cuff.

  “Damn.” He pulled off the button, frowning, and glanced at Lily. “You heard what they said. You Americans want to take over Morocco. You can’t be trusted, any more than the British. You’re no better than the French,” he said. “No better than the Spaniards. You’re all here to steal our land.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “This time, we leave the hotel a different way,” Drury said.

  They took the elevator down to the Wine Bar and went through a long hallway to a back door and almost tripped over a heap of clothing and tins piled by the steps.

  “What’s this?” Lily asked.

  “The British Charitable Society,” Drury told her. “Once a week they collect clothing and canned goods for the bountiful English ladies to distribute to the poor.”

  They left by a narrow alley, pushed their way through the crowds of the fondouk market, went down a stepped street, across a square, and through the white arch that led to the Legation.

  “Much better,” Drury said.

  Lily settled at the desk in the musty little office at the Legation while Drury went down the hall to see Boyle.

  It was almost noon when Drury returned. “I’ve an appointment for lunch. Have to go. Back around two.”

  Before he left, he leaned over her shoulder to read a page of the pamphlet. “Looks pretty good,” he said. “We’ll be finished tomorrow.”

  “About Zaid.” Lily hesitated a moment before she went on. “I don’t think you can trust him.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Well, there’s Faridah, for one thing—”

  “She’s just a Berber from the Atlas Mountains. Forget about her.”

  “And Zaid resents colonialism.”

  “They all do. Wouldn’t you?” Drury ran his finger along his upper lip, then nodded. “We can use that, you know. Promise him a free Morocco when all this is over.”

  “You think he’ll believe you?”

  “What choice does he have?”

  Korian’s footsteps sounded in the corridor. He paused, scowling when he saw Drury. Korian’s left eye was swollen and discolored.

  Drury eyed him with overt delight. “See you ran into a door.”

  “I’ll get you for this.” Korian’s face flushed, and he choked with thin-lipped hatred. “You’ll be sorry you ever met me. I’ll get you for this.” He stomped down the hall and clattered into the stairwell.

  “If anyone’s not to be trusted, it’s him,” Drury said in his wake.

  Lily nodded. “You’re probably right,” she said and told Drury about seeing Korian with the German, and about finding him rummaging through her desk.

  “A few other things about him,” Drury said and sat down. “Did some checking about the effect of the propaganda in the Legation bulletin. According to Boyle, Korian is responsible for distribution. I asked Korian what he does. He said his staff makes a couple hundred copies, slips them under doors and in mailboxes during the night. I made inquiries among merchants and civil leaders, asked what they thought about the bulletin. No one in Tangier outside of the Legation ever heard of the bulletin.” He slapped his hand on the desk. “Korian pocketed the money. Never distributed the bulletin.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Already did it. Confronted Korian. He denied it, of course, said I just didn’t understand the locals. So I punched him in the nose, knocked him down.”

  “You what? That’s how he got the black eye?”

  Drury grinned, clapped Lily on the shoulder, and swaggered out.

  What’s wrong with that man? Lily wondered, and shrugged. None of my business. Time to get back to work.

  She sat at the desk and skimmed through the pages. The pamphlet was turning out better than she thought. She concentrated on the work, hunched over the desk, and didn’t notice Adam Pardo until he knocked on the open door and smiled his remarkable smile. “Want to go for lunch?”

  “Is it that late, Major Pardo?” Lily looked at her watch. She was beginning to get hungry. “I’ll get a sweater. Where do you want to go?”

  “I don’t know Tangier that well, just arrived a few days ago.”

  Lily gave it some thought, remembered he was G2. “I know just the cafe for you, Major. It’s in the Ville Nouvelle, the new city.”

  “My friends call me Adam.” He leaned forward with a puzzled look. He reached for something on Drury’s desk, glanced at it, and held it in his hand.

  “What’s that?” Lily asked.

  “Some playing cards.”

  Lily looked at the cards he held in his hand with a familiar blue and white pattern of circles and leaves and swirls. “How did they get here?”

  “They weren’t here before?” he asked.

  Had she been so engrossed in the pamphlet that she didn’t notice someone come into the office? “Not that I remember.”

  They’re only playing cards, she thought. Nothing sinister. They weren’t even exceptional playing cards.

  “When I was a child, we used to collect playing cards and trade them with each other. That’s the commonest pattern, that and the red one like it. They weren’t worth much. But some cards had beautiful scenes, paintings. They were worth more, sometimes as much as five or six of those in a trade.”

  “We collected baseball cards. They came in packs of bubble gum. We’d trade them, or flip them, match them against each other.”

  “Did you win?”

  “Sometimes. Sometimes the cards got bent.”

  He turned over the cards in his hand and fanned them out. Lily saw his eyes widen with concern.

  “What is it?”

  “A dead man’s hand.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A pair of eights and a pair of aces. It’s the hand Wild Bill Hickok was holding when he was killed. Shot in the back in a saloon in Deadwood, South Dakota.”

  “Wild Bill?”

  Adam clutched the cards closed and put them in his pocket. “Whoever left them here-”

  Lily finished it for him. “Knows about American folklore and knows Drury’s friend Donovan.”

  “I’ll get word to Drury,” Adam said, “soon as he comes back. Meanwhile, let’s get some lunch.”

  They left the Legation and climbed the steps of the fondouk market, snaking past vendors and fruit sellers.

  “You given any thought to what we talked about yesterday?” Pardo asked.

  “Curing smallpox?”

  “Anthropology. You come highly recommended.”

  “By whom?” Lily asked. “Recommended for what?”

  “You do that ve
ry well.” They had reached the Ville Nouvelle. “You know what I want to talk about.”

  They approached the Place de France, just a few blocks past the El Minzah. “Here it is,” Lily said. “The Cafe de Paris.” They settled at an outside table with a view of the bay. “I had to show you this. I think you’ll be amused.”

  Most of the tables at the cafe were taken. Even the woman with the poodle was there. Germans, Italians, Frenchmen, leaning close, murmuring in low voices, eyes shifting from side to side, scanning the tables over their wineglasses, furtively eavesdropping like the cast of a comic opera.

  They twisted their way to an empty table near the door of the cafe.

  “What is this place?” Pardo asked as they sat down. “A union hall for spies? They’re all looking into the soup of the man at the next table.”

  “That’s about it, Major. They all come here to make deals, pick up the odd rumor, sell it to whoever pays best.”

  “Adam. My name is Adam.”

  She inclined her head. “Adam.”

  A waiter approached and handed them a flyspecked menu, one side in French, the other in Arabic. Lily scanned the street. Herr Balloon came toward the square, crossing from El Minzah. The left side of his face was swollen and bruised. She watched while he took a seat at a nearby table. He hadn’t noticed her yet.

  “There’s an epidemic of black eyes in Tangier,” Lily said. “We’d better leave before we catch it. Let’s get out of here.”

  “The idiot behind me is reading your menu.” Pardo, on the verge of laughter, leaned back in his chair, enjoying himself too much to leave. “Look over there.” He indicated a man hiding his mouth while he whispered, his face moving in time to sibilant noises coming from behind his hand. “Trying to act like he’s just picking his teeth.”

  Lily smiled as the man’s little finger scratched along the side of his lip. She noticed Herr Balloon watching her.

  She put down the menu. “Let’s go.” She stood up.

  Adam was still looking around, grinning. “What’s the hurry?”

  But she was already wedging her way through the tables.

  Adam hurried to catch up. “Something bothering you?” he asked. “That German with the bruised face at the table over there?”

  “You said you wanted to talk.”

  She started down the street toward the El Minzah. Adam followed. She glanced back at the Cafe de Paris to Herr Balloon and his cohort speaking to the waiter.

  Beyond them, Lily caught sight of Suzannah strolling with an officer of the Guardia Civil, smiling, her arm linked in his. Suzannah’s face seemed lit with adoration. She nodded as she spoke, her head inclined, her eyes intent on her companion, seeming to dote on every word the officer said.

  Lily stopped. “Suzannah!”

  “What about Suzannah?”

  “Over there, with a Spanish officer.”

  “Where?”

  But they had turned the corner by the time Adam looked back and Suzannah and her escort were already gone.

  Herr Balloon still sat hunched over a table, his arms crossed in front of him, frowning at a menu.

  “You know him?” Adam asked. “The German, I mean.”

  “Not to speak to. He’s been following me.”

  “Drury mentioned him. The one who planted the microphone. He follow you yesterday to Lalla Emily’s?”

  “He tried. He didn’t get far. That’s how he got the bruises.”

  “You knocked him down?”

  “He ran into a donkey.”

  “And you convinced the donkey to stand still so he could run into it,” Adam said.

  “Something like that.”

  “Drury told me you have hidden talents.”

  “I’m more concerned about Suzannah. What was she doing with the Spaniard?”

  “Just plying her trade.”

  Adam strode ahead of her, clearing a path around the snake charmers and kebob chefs in the Grand Socco, passing the old cannons in the gardens of the Mendoubia.

  “Doesn’t it bother you that she’s in contact with the Guardia Civil?” Lily asked when she caught up with him.

  “What’s to be bothered?”

  They had reached the Bab el Kasbah and crossed over toward the beach.

  “We can walk along the sand.” Adam scanned the street behind them. “No one’s followed us. We can talk there, no one will hear.”

  The bright autumn air was brisk and clear with the smell of the sea. A breeze came off the Mediterranean.

  “No one will hear what?”

  “I’m recruiting you.”

  “For what, exactly?”

  “You’ll be working with Drury, have to deal with local French authorities across the border, Free French, Colons, Arabs, Berbers.”

  A whiff of excitement, a flush of anticipation, stirred her.

  “Colons?” she asked.

  “French, Spanish, Italians, Colonials. Think you can do it?”

  I have no idea, Lily thought.

  “Of course I can,” she answered.

  Don’t botch it.

  “You’ll operate secret radio networks, smuggle arms, build reliable connections with the natives.”

  I could do that. I could do that, she thought. Why else am I an archaeologist? Some people grow up and learn to live in quiet houses. Not me, she thought, not me. I can travel to mysterious places, live in lost times, and come away unscathed.

  “This is the Near East,” she said. “Will they trust a woman?”

  “That’s the point. You have the best cover. You look as innocent as a toy poodle.”

  She tried to hide her escaping smile. “You want me to play Mata Hari?”

  “Not exactly.”

  He stopped, faced her, and watched as the wind whipped against her skirt and blew back her hair. “But I’ll bet you’d be good at it.”

  “I’ve smuggled arms before.”

  “Don’t tell me about it.”

  “Just accidental. I did field work in Palestine. I had a friend in the Hagannah. We came across an arms cache, and—”

  Adam glanced at her. “You think that’s news?”

  “What else do you know about me?” she asked.

  “As much as I need to.”

  “Don’t I have to be interviewed?”

  “You’ve already been interviewed.”

  “By Drury’s friend Donovan?”

  Adam nodded.

  “It wasn’t much of an interview.”

  “It was enough. He knows all about you.”

  “Drury told me that Donovan is very persuasive, that nobody can refuse him.”

  “That’s about right.”

  Lily shrugged and spread out her fingers. “Who am I to break with tradition?”

  Lily and Adam sauntered toward the water’s edge, each step heavy in the clean sand. Seagulls soared past them, folding and unfolding their wings.

  “I don’t want you to get hurt,” Adam said. “I want you to succeed, not to take unnecessary chances. Not go for glory. Not like Drury.” He paused and kicked at the sand. “This is a job that must be done. Drury is like a child. Somebody asks, You want to get yourself killed?” and he answers, “Of course, of course.”“ He turned to face Lily. ”What’s wrong with him? An unhappy marriage?“

  “Maybe. He married the department secretary. The rumor was that after the wedding, his wife spent more time in the psychiatric ward of Cook County than she did at home. You know how gossip flies around in academia.”

  “She was a volunteer?”

  “She was a patient.”

  “I heard the same, but I wasn’t sure. It’s hard to picture him as Bronte’s Rochester. Any children?”

  “That’s another rumor. They say he has a mistress in Paris and had a child with her. It’s possible. He went to Paris every year and stayed in France a while, no matter where he was doing field work.”

  “Maybe just to change planes.” He gave a quizzical shrug. “Or buy some Brie at the airport.�
��

  “Sure. He’d stay for a month, sometimes two. That’s a lot of Brie.”

  “You think he’s a little crazy?”