by Jane Johnson
‘Real?’
‘Or is it a clever forgery, a fake?’
‘Ma chère Julia, it’s as real as you or I.’
By this stage, light-headed with hunger and dread, I was feeling so insubstantial as to not be very real at all. ‘Sorry, can you explain?’
‘There is, as far as I am aware, no other account in any language by a female captive from the early days of the Salé corsairs, even before their independent divan was established; and the fact that it appears to be in her own hand makes it a unique artefact. The Sidi Mohammed al-Ayyachi is a well-documented character, and in the course of my own research I have come across references to a lieutenant of his called Qasem bin Hamed bin Moussa Dib, so to see him featured here is quite fascinating.’
‘Who?’ I frowned.
‘Qasem bin Hamed bin Moussa Dib, known variously in the legends as the Djinn or the Jackal – dib means fox or jackal in Arabic – or the man of Andalusia. He appears to have been one of the Hornacheros, Andalusian Moors expelled from Spain by Philip III. According to the stories his family was butchered by the Inquisition, and he returned to Rabat. He supposedly learned his corsair skills under the tutelage of the infamous Dutchman Jan Jansz, otherwise known as Murad Raïs. Qasem was Admiral of the Salé Fleet, after which he was elected a raïs – a captain of the fleet – and fought as an al-ghuzat: a holy warrior in the war against the enemies of the Prophet. This tells us things about Qasem no one ever knew: that he was more closely allied to the notorious English pirate John Ward than to Jan Jansz, that he led the fleet to the English coast in 1625, that he was more cultured and more complex than any of the legends infer.’
‘You speak about him with far more respect than I’d have thought due to a pirate chief.’
Khaled smiled. ‘I might say the same of your Robin Hood or your Francis Drake; and certainly of your Richard the Lionheart. One culture’s hero is another culture’s villain: it all depends whose side you’re on. History is a very malleable thing, usually written by the victors.’
‘I always preferred Saladin,’ I said softly.
‘Another great al-ghuzat: and, unlike your Richard, merciful in victory.’
‘And all this about the embroidery: can it be true that Catherine taught the local women her skills?’
Khaled spread his hands. ‘About that I fear I am no expert.’ He leaned forward. ‘But it ends very suddenly, this journal. Do you know what happened to her, to this Catherine Tregenna?’
‘There is more to her tale.’ I showed him the photocopies Michael had left at the riad for me.
He read the sheets, then turned them over, searching for more. ‘But where is the rest? You cannot leave me in such suspense. The young man followed her here: was he successful in his ransom bid, did she return to your country with him?’
‘I don’t know,’ I admitted.
‘But we must find out! I very much want to read the account of this’ – he scanned the first page again – ‘this Robert Bolitho.’
‘A friend has the letters,’ I said uncomfortably.
‘Well, then, that’s simple enough. Excellent. I shall very much look forward to reading them. Now, in the meantime, Julia, tell me: what are you going to do with your book?’
I hesitated. ‘I’m not sure. What do you think I should do with it?’
The professor’s eyes gleamed. ‘It is a magnificent treasure containing unique insights into the history of my country. It would be a tragedy for it to disappear. I would truly love to do some further research on it, to produce a paper… maybe even a book of my own.’
He was candid at least. ‘For now,’ I said carefully, ‘you could have a photocopy. While I decide what I am going to do with it.’
He beamed at me. ‘That would be wonderful.’
We found a copy shop around the corner from the Ministry of Justice, and I went outside and sat on the pavement in the late-afternoon sun while Khaled, with the infinite care of a man used to handling old books, made a copy. Idriss came out and leaned up against the door, smoked another cigarette in an agitated fashion, glanced at me once and looked as if he were about to say something, then went back inside without a word.
At last Khaled gave me back Catherine’s book, and we shook hands. ‘Let me give you my telephone number,’ he said. ‘So that you can call me when you make your decision, yes?’
I smiled. ‘OK.’ We both took out our mobiles, and I gave Khaled my number while I turned mine on. Méditel came up on the screen after a few seconds, followed by a powerful beep.
You have seven missed calls
Oh, hell. There were also three messages: two from Michael and one – my heart thudded – from Anna. Avoiding the messages, I keyed Khaled’s number into the phone, locked the keypad and stowed it in my bag. ‘I will phone you,’ I promised the professor, and stood back as he and Idriss embraced and bade each other farewell.
When he had disappeared from view, Idriss turned and looked at me. ‘What now?’ he asked suddenly.
It was the first time he had addressed me since we had left his brother’s place of work. The sun beat down on me, and my head pounded unpleasantly. We had walked to the corner which gave on to the Avenue Mohammed V and were approaching the Gare de la Ville before I could find the words to reply. ‘I’ve really messed everything up,’ I said miserably. I felt sick. ‘And I know you despise me for it, and I don’t blame you. But I’m going to try to put everything right, I am.’
I looked up at him, but the sun was behind him and I couldn’t see his face. The next thing I knew, the world spun and I was on the ground, black stars dancing before my eyes.
‘Julia!’
He hauled me upright and fairly carried me up the steps and into the shade of the station concourse. Soon I found myself sitting on an orange plastic chair with a huge pastry and a bottle of mineral water in front of me.
‘You haven’t eaten anything all day,’ he said sternly.
‘Neither have you.’
‘I am used to going without, and to the sun here, which you are not. I thought the hijab would help, but the heat today is unforgiving.’
Much like you, I thought, but did not say.
I bit into the pastry, and little flakes of almond cascaded on to the plate. Over his shoulder I could see on the board that the next train to Casablanca had been announced, leaving in fifteen minutes. Just enough time to buy a ticket and run away again. The thought was tempting: I had my passport and ticket with me, and there was nothing in the bag at Idriss’s house I could not live without. I could spend the night in an anonymous hotel in Casa and catch a flight back to London the following day, and bury my head in my new apartment. And then what? And then… my future stretched before me like a gaping black void. Lucky Catherine, I thought. Someone had loved her enough to cross oceans for her, to risk his life to bring her home to be his bride. Rather than chasing her across continents with his wife in tow in order to take back a gift he had given her to seal the end of their love affair.
‘I owe you an apology,’ Idriss said suddenly.
‘Heatstroke,’ I laughed feebly. ‘Not your fault.’
‘Not that. For today, for not talking to you after you shared your story with me. I should have said something, but I did not know what to say. You brought some painful memories back, and you shamed me by your honesty.’
I thought for a moment his grasp of English had failed him and he meant he was ashamed of me, but, by the time I realized this was not what he had said, he was talking fast and I had to struggle to keep up.
‘When Francesca’s contract came to an end and she left, I was devastated. I wanted to die. For a while I thought I would, and that would be the best solution to the mess I was in, but somehow I kept living and eating and breathing, and, although I was a lesser man for a long time afterwards, I was still me and still alive and my family stopped me from falling apart completely. We kept in touch for a while after she went back to the States. She told me that she was going to divorce he
r husband, and asked if I would leave Morocco to be with her. I even went to their consulate to see about a visa, but of course they wouldn’t give me one: a single Muslim man from a country which had generated a number of wanted radical Islamists, heading for the US for no apparently good reason just after 9/11? I wouldn’t have given me a visa either. And of course I couldn’t say anything about my relationship with Francesca: she had been my university tutor, and she was married: our relationship was scandalous on both fronts. They could have imprisoned me for it, and banned her from ever returning. So after that I gave up my studies and worked the taxi full time, every day around the clock, just to forget, and to pay my family back in money what they had given me in support. That was six years ago. So you see, Julia: I do not despise you because I too know what it is to lose my heart, and in the worst of circumstances.’
I didn’t know what to say. I wasn’t shocked – but I was surprised, for Idriss did not strike me as a man who would give himself over to passion: he had seemed calm and restrained, a man in control of himself, at peace with his world. How deceptive appearances can be. I leaned across the table, forgetting where I was, and put my hand on his arm. He leaped back, as if I had burned him.
People were looking at us now. It was obviously one thing to carry in a heatstruck woman; but quite another for that woman to show even the least physical affection in public.
‘You said, before you fainted, “I’m going to try to put everything right.” What did you mean by that?’
I took out my phone and laid it on the table between us. ‘I can’t keep running away. There are things I must face up to, amends I must make, if I can.
Michael’s first text message read: Why did u leave yr hotel? Where r u? Pls call. M
The second was more frantic: Need to spk to u urgently. Call me.
I deleted them both. Anna’s message was the third. I didn’t much want to read it, but I knew I must. Swallowing hard, I opened her message: Julia, I know everything, but you are still my friend & I need to see you. There is something I must tell you, & something to show you. Will you call me? Love, Anna.
Tears sprang to my eyes, and I dashed them away with the back of my hand. I know everything, but you are still my friend… Love, Anna. She knew it all. She knew Michael was cheating on her, and that it was with me. And yet, after all that I had done to her, she had the grace to say something that touched my heart and reminded me of the girls we had once been. Abruptly I realized that all this time I had been afraid not of losing Michael but of the thought that Anna would discover what I had done to her. Michael and I had tied ourselves together with bonds forged of our guilt; now that what we had done lay exposed to the light, I could see it for the paltry thing it was. A weight seemed to be lifted from me. I was free at last; for all my failings, I understood that I deserved better than a man who could turn a smiling face to his wife every morning, every night, for seven long years, and lie and lie and lie.
There and then, with Idriss looking on, I made a phone call and set up a meeting.
‘Anna?’
‘Julia? Good grief, is that really you?’
My hand flew up to the hijab. I grinned. ‘Yes, it’s really me. And this is my friend Idriss.’
I saw her eyes widen as Idriss stepped forward and bent his head to kiss her hand. ‘Ravi de faire votre connaissance. Bienvenue à Rabat, madame,’ he said, then turned to me. ‘I’ll wait for you in the bar, shall I?’ And with a flourish of his robe he swept through the modern hotel lobby, exchanging friendly Arabic greetings with the staff, looking for all the world like a medieval camel trader. I shook my head, grinning. Did he know everyone in Rabat?
Anna ordered some tea to be sent up to the room. ‘English tea,’ she told the man at the front desk firmly. ‘Thé anglais not the mint stuff. Twinings English Breakfast if you’ve got it.’ Then she took me by the arm and led me upstairs. I had half expected to find Michael waiting there, but the room was empty, which was a relief.
‘That chap you were with,’ Anna said, closing the door. ‘Incredibly handsome. Amazing profile – like a male Nefertiti. Wherever did you find him?’
‘He found me,’ I replied evasively. An awkward silence fell. I forced myself to break it. ‘Anna, look, I have to say this. I am so, so sorry. I know it’s a completely inadequate thing to say after what I’ve done, and for all this time, but I do mean it.’
‘It’s not really something you can say sorry for, is it?’
‘No. I’ve got no excuses, none at all. I know it has destroyed our friendship.’
‘To say nothing of my marriage.’
I hung my head.
‘Julia, I’ve been through it all with Michael, and I really don’t want to go over it again. It’s over now, isn’t it?’
I nodded, tight-lipped.
‘Then there’s very little point in raking over the ashes. I think I knew it, right from the start. In fact, when I married him, I felt weirdly guilty, as if I’d taken him away from you. Left alone, you’d probably have made each other a lot happier than Michael and I have made one another.’ She gave a bitter little laugh. ‘Which wouldn’t be difficult. But in the end I’ve managed to salvage something positive out of the situation.’
‘Fresh start?’
She nodded. ‘You could say that. I’m not sure I’d go that far. But after all this time I’m finally pregnant. It’s made me wretchedly ill, but I really want this baby, have wanted it for a long time.’
I remembered her now on the platform at Penzance Station looking pale and grim. Pregnant. With Michael’s child. And of course he, the eternal coward, had not had the guts to tell me that part of the story. I almost laughed. Michael hated children – the noise, the mess, the endless need for attention. He was obsessive about birth control with me, always checking condoms for defects, and had once marched me to the pharmacist after we’d broken one and demanded a morning-after pill. A wicked little voice inside me whispered, serves you right. Anna, with her trademark determination, had got her way in the end.
‘Congratulations, Anna. That’s wonderful news.’ And I actually meant it.
‘I’m giving up the job, going freelance. I’ve got a year’s contract from the magazine, and after that who knows? Michael’s in a frightful state about it all.’
‘Money,’ I said succinctly.
She gave a short, humourless laugh. ‘To a large extent, yes.’
‘So that’s why you want the book. I expect it’s worth a small fortune if you know the right people.’
‘No, no, it’s not that –’ She was interrupted by a knock at the door and got up to open it. ‘Oh… it’s you.’ She sounded surprised. ‘Thank you, how very kind…’
‘It is no trouble,’ Idriss said, bringing the tea tray in. He looked across at me. ‘I just wanted to be sure everything was all right.’
I smiled at him, so tall and grave in his turban and robe. Under other circumstances I would have hugged him. It was probably just as well Anna was there. ‘Everything is fine.’
He set the tray down. ‘Lipton’s, I’m afraid,’ he said to Anna, ‘though they’d probably have told you it was Twinings.’ He gave me a barely perceptible wink, then bowed and swept out of the room.
Anna watched him go. ‘Does he work here?’ she asked, puzzled.
‘No,’ I said, grinning.
‘He seems concerned about you.’
‘He’s a very… good man.’
‘Do be careful, Julia. You hear dreadful stories about women getting involved with Moroccans who are just after a British passport and their money.’
‘It’s not always about money, Anna.’
She gave me a quick, nervous smile. ‘I know. Sorry. Look, let’s allow the tea to steep a little. I want to show you something.’
She got up and crossed the room to where a smart Mulberry carry-on lay on a valise stand against the wall. After opening this, she unzipped an inner compartment and brought out a small parcel wrapped in white tissue paper tha
t she laid upon the bed.
‘When Alison told us about the mention of a Tree of Knowledge design in the book Michael gave you, I remembered the family heirloom my great-aunt left me along with the Suffolk house. She said that it had been commissioned for the church at Framlingham, St Michael’s, but that it was never finished and never used. Something about the Puritans not favouring figurative art or any kind of decoration that might distract attention during prayer. So I went up to fetch it…’
She opened the tissue to reveal a long piece of white linen, yellowing from age, touched here and there with muted autumn colours.
I could not speak. I reached across her and touched it reverently, unfolding the final part until Catherine’s Tree of Knowledge lay before us, ancient and incongruous against the bright synthetic of the hotel bedspread. Only part of the embroidery was completed – the intricate border of interwoven leaves and flowers, a rabbit, a couple of doves and an apple, all beautifully and realistically delineated, and above these the tree itself, wreathed in leaves, with the serpent winding down its trunk towards the figure of Eve, her long hair covering her slim white nakedness. Adam was outlined faintly on the other side of her, but his features were blank and blurred, and the rest remained unfinished. Even so, it was magnificent. I sank to my knees, overcome.
‘The Countess of Salisbury’s altar frontal,’ I said at last.
‘Is it? Are you sure?’
I dug in my handbag and brought out Catherine’s book, turned to the sketch she had made and held it out alongside the cloth.
Anna looked from one to the other, delighted. Her fingers traced the outline of Eve in Cat’s sketch, then on the fabric. ‘Fantastic. How incredible: it really is, then. The Countess of Salisbury’s altar frontal. A genuine seventeenth-century tapestry.’
‘It’s embroidery, not tapestry,’ I corrected her. ‘And I can’t believe you flew to Morocco with such a valuable thing in your hand luggage!’
She shrugged. ‘I knew I had to persuade you to do something for me, and that it would be hard to do that with just a photo: besides, all this has come together through so many bizarre circumstances that I have to believe fate has a hand in it.’
