Alexandra Singer

by Tea at the Grand Tazi

  Stands were placed around the periphery of the garden on which photographs were perched. The women in the photos stared blankly back at her, or their eyes were filled with pain. Not one of them exuded joy.

  As the Historian approached, Maia looked around for a place, for someone to escape to. But she resolved herself, and her resentment made her cold, hard and angry. “I saw Konstantin just now.”

  “What, here?”

  “I am sorry to disappoint you. No. Not here. Outside, into the garden.”

  “I must find him,” said the Historian.

  “He is very upset with you. What’s going on?”

  “I knew he would react like this.”

  “Like what? You have done something to him too! What have you done?”

  He was silent and walked away from her, leaving her rooted to the spot. Only when he had disappeared around the corner did she hear him laugh.

  “Like waxworks,” said a low voice in her ear.

  Maia turned to look at Armand.

  “The people, not just the photos.”

  “Why is Florian showing them out here, not at the party?”

  “Florian told me he likes the subterranean atmosphere for people to view the photographs. What he really means is that he doesn’t like to detract attention from Florian.”

  “Abracadabra!” A scrawny, sly faced man jumped out in front of them. “A beautiful couple!” he shouted, and then there was a bright flash before Maia could cover her face.

  “Get him to stop it!” yelled Maia before she realised.

  “Don’t be so ridiculous.”

  The man didn’t acknowledge her. “Your girlfriend is very drunk.”

  “Ignore her. I’m Armand.”

  “Rodger.” The two men shook hands and Florian rushed over.

  “Are you enjoying yourselves? Isn’t my house fabulous? Don’t you love the photographs?”

  “Not really,” Maia interrupted. “I don’t know why you think they are so good.”

  “Shut up.” Armand shoved her in the small of her back and Florian looked down his nose at her, as if staring at some sort of strange curiosity.

  “Blake Cram has plenty of other talents as well as photography,” Florian lisped.

  “I can’t wait to find out what they are.”

  “I’m afraid you can’t tonight Maia. He had to fly back to New York for a shoot.”

  “Now that is a shame. I would have loved to have met him.”

  “Blake Cram has a talent for revealing things as they are, for enlightening us about personal situations.”

  Maia looked at a series of photographs, of a well dressed women washing at a kitchen sink whilst holding a baby. There was nothing original there. Maia drank some more, and the photographs blurred before her eyes.

  “The images are not to be taken at face value,” Florian was saying. “Space creates a gap, a dislocation between how we are meant to view these photographs and what they actually represent.”

  The nature of the photographs was ambivalent. Maia resented the fact that the women in the photos were made to look so available for consumption. They should have been lounging as if they were there of their own choice, not only at Blake Cram’s demand. Maia did, however, admire how the artist had managed to capture the sky, a hint of freedom, a clear blue with a few whispers of clouds. Through the high windows, the sky filtered open and limitless, and the harsh geometrical tiles on the walls were dappled with sunlight, as if reflecting the fissures and gaps available to those women who might escape.

  “Look at these photos!” Florian screeched. “When we stalk the streets for clientele, the person is conditioned by social class, job, culture and nationality. There are several personas we use to suit different occasions. Yet we adopt a general persona based on our own superior functional type. Don’t deny it. We all do it!” People began to look uncomfortable and they began murmuring amongst themselves again.

  Maia was curious, “What do you mean, Florian?’

  “It is obvious! These things condition the persona. We can use several different personas to suit our own superior functional type, like thinking – whatever comes easiest to us.”

  “But... ”

  “You all know, for example, that the unconscious side of the persona is the soul image, which is represented by the opposite gender of the individual.”

  Here, Florian turned and gave her an unwavering stare. Maia strongly suspected that Florian did not much care for the opposite sex. She knew the theory about soul image; how it is an archetype, which can represent the whole of the unconscious, and is modified by one’s actual experience of the opposite sex. In her blurry state of mind, she relished the idea of a debate.

  “Do you identify with the anima, Florian?” She smiled at him, but he understood her underlying inference, that the complete identification with the anima can lead to effeminate homosexuality.

  Florian ignored Maia’s question, and continued with his monologue.

  “Listen to me, don’t you understand? Here we are all the same! Here we can be whatever we wish! The persona is a theatre mask. It is the face we wear for society. It is conditioned by many factors, and we adopt varying personas for different situations... ”

  Now, Florian pointed his finger directly at Maia.

  “But note, guests, friends, the danger is identifying totally with the persona, being nothing but the role you play. And what role do you play, Maia? What is your role? I know who all these people are, but I don’t know you. Who are you?” His voice was getting louder, until it was almost a scream.

  “Calm down, Florian, you’re wearing yourself out,” said Paola, who had wondered over at the sound of raised voices.

  “Now, the perfect persona can lead to a one sided personality. You are alienated, Maia. You are afraid of dropping the mask and being revealed as hollow. You are a mask. A mask!” He reached for her face and flung himself upon her, shrieking, “I want to rip off your mask, Maia. Let me rip it off!”

  Armand grabbed him and tore him away from her. “Take him away. He’s completely out of it.”

  “You drop your mask!” For a moment he seemed calm, and then he began shouting again. “The magic hour is approaching!”

  “What the hell is he shouting about now?” asked Armand.

  Paola shrugged. “He’s just very exhausted.”

  Armand was laughing at his hysterics. “Like I said, waxworks. Let’s get away from them.” Armand took Maia’s arm and they walked until they were alone. Her heart beat frantically against her breast. In the corridor they passed Florian’s cat, and without thinking she reached out and stroked it’s soft white coat. But suddenly it’s paw lashed out, and she realised she’d been scratched.

  “Come with me, I’ll clean you up.”

  Maia looked up at him. “I don’t want to come with you.” Instinctively she shrank away from him. He scared and revolted her at the same time.

  Armand ignore her dramatics, and lead her through the crowd.

  Maia tried to look at Armand properly, but she couldn’t focus. “What do you know about all these people Armand?”

  Armand was silent for a moment. “You know he was struck off for irregular experiments in Amsterdam?”

  “Florian?”

  “Yes, of course. Who else? He is completely obsessed by the persona of the soul image, and the face we wear for society. You know he used to be a rent-boy himself? He had a powerful mentor here. And he thinks his cat used to be one too.”

  “His cat Mabouche? Florian is completely cracked.”

  Armand sat down beside her. “Oh, he appears so. But he cultivates the image. He is more astute than he wants others to believe. It suits him for people to think he’s mad. He is actually quite logical.”

  He went to kiss her, but her lips were now set and hard against him and she pushed him away. But he kissed her anyway; he would decide when things started, and when they would end. A rush of sobs choked her, and he looked at her crumpled face.
>
  “Control yourself.”

  “What do you want with me? Why won’t you leave me alone?”

  Armand smirked. “You never really wanted to be left alone. You really are disappointed, and that is amusing.” He stroked her face. “You know, you are really quite sweet. But you like the idea of this older eccentric rambling around his renovated riad, showing photographic exhibitions, the bar you can go to every night and hear stories. It is our real life, not just entertainment for you. This ridiculous impression you have of expatriate life here can’t be allowed to continue.”

  “What impression?”

  “That we are all here to amuse you. Characters that you can paint. Your mistaken view of the women here. Your preconceptions. This extended holiday you’re having. Go home.”

  “I can’t. I may never go home.”

  “But you must. You cannot stay here.”

  “I want to be in peace. I like this life.”

  “You will never belong here. Life here will always be impenetrable to you, for however long you stay. You want to be known for your painting. Here you will only achieve obscurity.”

  “I don’t want that life.”

  “You are not in peace here and you never will be.”

  “You set me on this path!”

  “I never forced you to continue on it.”

  “I never had a choice!”

  “But you did. You wanted everything we have shown you.”

  “I have nothing now to go back to.”

  “And how is that our responsibility?”

  She looked at the rough face, the powerful body. She took out from her small evening bag a verdant green trinket of a fertile green and held it up to the light. With her slim fingers, she steadily adjusted the tantalising vessel of her craving, and taking a small length of leather from the bag, unwound and tied it neatly around her arm. Taking up the syringe, she thrust it in, and sank back onto the tiles.

  Maia awoke several hours later, Armand was long gone. Her head was draped over the toilet seat and her arm was bleeding, her dress was undone. It was all unnaturally familiar to her.

  She walked along the corridor until she heard discrete voices muttering through a half open door.

  “I hope Tangier went well. For all our benefit,” she heard the Historian say.

  “They were difficult, but I brought them round.”

  “Very good, my good men. Now, I must get back to this party,” said Mahmoud.

  The Historian’s voice cut the air. “You aren’t at the Grand Tazi now, Mahmoud. You owe us a share.”

  “You do like to make money from the misery of others, don’t you, Mihai?” said Armand.

  “Do not pretend you don’t appreciate my work. You benefit from my profits. It is very interesting,” he continued, stroking his chin, “that now the girl perceives you as controlling her very survival itself.”

  “What has she said to you?” said Armand.

  The Historian sighed. “I wish you had been more careful. She nearly threatened me. But she will not do anything. How can she? Where will she go?” He laughed. “She cannot travel the way she is now. She is isolated. She is stuck here with you, a man who does not want her. She mistakes any attention from you as kindness, even cruelty. You must tell me how you managed it.”

  “Do you hear me complaining about these trivial matters?” Maia saw Mahmoud’s fist bang down on the table. “This is a very good business we have here.”

  “Yes, Mihai. Life is cheap,” Armand said. For a moment Maia wondered if that was a tinge of regret in Armand’s voice, but she knew it was impossible.

  “Perhaps, if you want power... ”

  “I did not want power, Mihai. That is your field. I wanted the money.”

  “And I need the rest of the money for my hotel. Do you really want to see me lose it?” Maia was surprised to hear Mahmoud pleading desperately with the men. “You could go anywhere, do anything. Go home.”

  The Historian laughed; it was a low, tense noise, full of bitterness. “Do you really imagine, Mahmoud, that I want to go home? Understand this. I do not care about your problems. You concern yourself only with your hotel. Then you expect a huge share of the profits.”

  “Please. I have put myself at risk also.”

  “I will give you what I owe you. But don’t try anything Mahmoud. I hold just a little too much power here for that now.”

  “And you are far, far too wise,” Armand said, mockingly.

  “I am on your side, Armand,” the Historian said. “The girl is irrelevant and you have my support. But do not push me.”

  Maia stood at the slit in the door. Only now did the relationships between the men begin to clarify themselves in her mind. She was frightened, but the urge to stay and listen was compelling. It was only Mahmoud who belonged here, and she felt a strange flash of sympathy for him. Despite his huge bulk, he was powerless before the Historian. She wanted him to lighten the mood, to make another of his awful jokes, but he just sat there. Mahmoud and Armand were watching the Historian intently as he wandered about the room muttering to himself. She watched Mahmoud heave his bulk into a low chair, and with a surge of fear, she listened.

  “I long to dispatch her,” said the Historian, “but she is all too visible.”

  Maia was sick to the pit of her stomach at the vision of the three men sitting around a table, discussing her corruption. She had allowed herself to be carried along, and could no longer remain dependent upon their whims. Her longing to escape them all struck her with a sudden and elemental force.

  Chapter 17

  Maia left the building and walked down through black glades. The land dipped and the garden swept away from her. At the foot of the slope, she reached the shallow, rectangular pool. She observed the different people as they paraded around in front of each other.

  “What a shame,” Lucy Bambage was whining. “The pool isn’t filled in properly.”

  Maia looked down. It was true, the pool was very shallow.

  “I’ve just had no time this year,” lisped Florian. He was very particular in his manner of speaking, talking in an oddly breathy voice. One had to strain to listen to him, although he often punctured this illusion with his ill timed shrieks of excitement.

  Armand was now in a corner with Paola. The revolting woman was rubbing herself up against Armand like a desperate alley cat.

  There was Mahmoud, coming through the great doors towards her, and taking a drink from a waiter’s silver tray. Mahmoud was in a discussion with three men, he was recounting a conversation he had had that afternoon with some trouble that had come to visit him at the hotel.

  “One of them said to me, ‘Are you clever Mahmoud?’ Yes, I am, I told that bald one. I am very clever!”

  “Do you think they will bother you again?” asked the thin man with an emphatic moustache.

  “No!” Mahmoud shouted. “I gave them many dirhams and some female knickers as a going away present!” He began to chuckle, and turned to Maia, “Why don’t you come to my bar anymore?” he leered.

  “I was there just a few nights ago, Mahmoud!”

  But he had already fallen back into discussion with the men and chose to ignore her answer.

  Lucy Bambage was asking her something. “Have you been to the souk here?”

  Mahmoud had fallen into an animated discussion, flailing his arms around so wildly that they hit a passing female guest on the chin. The men were standing back from him, as to keep his anger at bay.

  “Tout simple!” yelled Mahmoud, and he strode vigorously from the room. From the corner of her eye, Maia watched him go, but Lucy Bambage continued to twitter.

  “I can’t blame you for how you behaved that evening. It all turned out to be very disagreeable. Quite unpleasant. I wouldn’t want you to imagine that we think badly of you. Martin was a little shocked, but he can be very uptight. I like to let myself go when we’re abroad.”

  “Don’t worry, Lucy. I don’t,” said Maia, wondering if Lucy Bamba
ge really understood what a difficult situation she had rescued them from.

  Martin Bambage was staring at her fastidiously. He now seemed fascinated by Maia and her erratic behaviour. She looked at their sumptuous surroundings and wondered why they were filled with such dreadful people. She heard the trickle from the fountain, saw the pine trees stretched up to the sky and quickly made her exit from the present company.

  The doctor approached her, “Where is this Jacopo you spoke of? I have failed to find him anywhere.”

  “He was in the garden... ” before she could finish her sentence, she was shocked to see the doctor’s leering face drifting far too close.

  “I know your type,” he said.

  Maia pulled back from him. “You know nothing.”

  She took a sip of her whisky and the man pushed her down against the side of the wall before Maia started to retch. When she looked up, the doctor had left her. Beside the garden wall Paola was watching them, a strange look in her eyes.

  Maia realised that she was more intoxicated than she thought. Around her, the faces of the guests whirled. The urge to vomit overtook her and then Armand was standing next to her once again.

  “I can’t leave you alone for even five minutes, can I?”

  “You can leave me alone now.”

  “I want you to hear about something, Maia,” Paola said as she simpered over to them. She took Maia by the elbow, and led her towards the exhibition. “I want you to know that I knew the Historian you work for. A long time ago, I went to his wedding, as a guest of my Uncle Morris.”

  “I wasn’t aware the Historian had ever been married.”

  “Oh, but of course he was. I had Armand too.”

  Maia was shocked at her frankness.

  Paola was looking at her, “So he makes you feel that way too, does he? He ruined it all, you know. He was a very secretive man... he did things that no-one would ever have expected of him,” she said, completely oblivious to the inner turbulence that Maia was suffering. “Yes, I knew him very well. He was very different.”