Notorious

by Roberta Lowing

  ‘Succouring the local women,’ said the Monsignor. ‘Clearly a toll on you.’

  ‘Is the Church displeased?’

  Laforche smiled. The dark coin in the Monsignor’s face became a falling crescent. ‘Of course not. But boundaries must be kept. For your own good.’

  She waited. Laforche examined his nails. She saw they were polished; manicured professionally. A gold bracelet slid down beneath the starched cuffs, past the mother-of-pearl cuff links. He pushed it back, saw she was watching him and raised his eyebrow again.

  She said to the Monsignor, ‘I would not disappoint the Fathers.’

  ‘Your way of dress offends,’ he said. ‘This robe and headscarf, not the veil and surplice. This shroud the local women wear.’

  ‘The djellabah,’ she said. ‘It gives me protection.’

  ‘Your habit should be enough protection.’

  ‘Sometimes it is not.’

  He breathed heavily through his nose but said, mildly enough, ‘And the markings on your hands? There is no adornment before God.’

  She looked at his gold buckles. ‘I won’t accept money from the local women. So they pay me with small gifts, services.’

  He stared at the intricate circles and dotted stars etched on her wrists, the blue crosses on her knuckles. ‘You cannot be inked like a native.’

  ‘Are you telling me not to help them?’

  ‘Our duty is not to encourage the more backward superstitions.’

  She spread her hands. ‘What can I do, Monsignor, if the women keep coming? They think I have luck with finding things. Small things, yes, but valued. I cannot turn them away. That would not be Christian.’

  ‘Yes,’ said the Monsignor. ‘Well.’

  ‘The Arab women will not come to the Church,’ said Agnieska gently. ‘Not after the revelations of Father Thomas’s visits to Quartier Rouge.’

  There was a small sound. Laforche’s face was impassive. But she was sure he had sniggered. She wondered what he was thinking. The trickling water seemed louder – steel pins in the throat of God – drops here and there struck the wet air in hard blows. She saw a faint black shadow at the base of the cherub. The turtle with the scarred shell peered out. She could see its dark eyes, the small bubble at its mouth. One of her flock.

  The Monsignor’s flesh had finally escaped him. His robe slid over the stone rim into the water. A damp stain climbed steadily towards the red silk sash around his middle.

  ‘It is still not known,’ said the Monsignor sharply, ‘how the Father’s visits – ’ He stopped, blew out his cheeks so they were shiny balls pricked with red. ‘It seems strange that the Prefect was misdirected to that street at the very same hour.’

  ‘It must have been God’s will,’ said Laforche.

  ‘Don’t be sarcastic, Laforche,’ said the Monsignor, and for a moment the harsh flat vowels of the Bronx sawed beneath the phlegm. ‘And now this,’ he said to Agnieska. ‘Your remarkable ability to find these things: a lost chicken, stolen clothing.’

  Agnieska bowed her head. He must know, she thought. These ambitious public men always had minds like accountants.

  But he said, ‘I hope you do not think you are special in some way?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Yet you set out to embarrass the Church?’

  ‘No, Monsignor.’ Her surprise was genuine.

  ‘You give money, shoes, to the orphans in Quartier Negro.’

  ‘Yes, but – ’

  ‘Why should we not think that you consider yourself above us? You no longer carry the Word. You have no Bible in your room. That alone could see you dismissed from the Church.’

  She raised her head. At last, they had reached the heart of the matter. Had cut into the heart of the cactus. She looked at Laforche. She wondered whether he had been the one to rifle through her belongings. She said, ‘I sold the book which tells me to sell everything and give money to the poor. So I gave the money to the poor.’

  The Monsignor stared. Red rose in waves from his white jowls.

  ‘Jesus walked out into the desert,’ said Agnieska. ‘He surrendered in the tradition of the desert fathers. He reduced himself to absolute poverty, made himself as blank as the desert, as the unwritten page.’

  ‘How dare you lecture me,’ said the Monsignor, his voice breaking up into choppy waves which became part of the loud rushing in her ears. But she forced herself to look at him and saw the sun had shifted; the shadows on his face had gone. She thought, Finally, you have come into the light.

  She said, ‘Jesus’s body was his text and his visions in the desert were written on his body and in his heart. He became the living book. The only book that matters.’

  ‘The Holy Book was not yours to give away, Sister,’ said the Monsignor loudly.

  Agnieska looked up to the sky; chalk marks smeared the flat sheet of blue. She bowed her head. She saw the crosses inscribed in the tiles in the floor. She was compelled to go on. ‘In trying to be different I have become myself.’ His knuckles were white on his knees. She said, ‘I must shed my old identity.’

  ‘You can’t dispense what the Church decides,’ said the Monsignor, his voice swelling.

  ‘Saint Antony went into the desert and built the first great community – ’

  ‘There are protocols – ’

  ‘I cannot accomplish what I need to accomplish – ’

  ‘Devil talk,’ shouted the Monsignor. He heaved himself to his feet. ‘Devil talk.’

  Blue shadows fell over the courtyard. Now the rushing water sounded like hummingbird wings in mist. Days I have held, she thought. Days I have lost.

  ‘Know this, Sister,’ said the Monsignor, beginning in a near bellow but quickly reining his voice in, so the noise descended like piano scales. ‘Some say you have been given a gris-gris by these local women. So you are compelled to give away everything you own.’ He raised a finger. ‘Possessed.’

  Behind him, Laforche frowned.

  ‘Possession,’ said the Monsignor. ‘The only known cure is exorcism.’

  ‘Dangerous,’ said Laforche, standing up. ‘The Van Kleipers tragedy, still in the news – ’

  ‘Silence!’ shouted the Monsignor.

  Agnieska shook her head at Laforche and said, ‘I want to be known as Sister Antony.’ When there was no sound from the Monsignor, she got up, slowly. They faced each other, she the taller by half a head, he oblivious to the wet robe clinging to his bowed and meaty thigh.

  She wondered how he saw her, whether he ever pondered what she was like under her robe, whether he imagined her body. She couldn’t believe that the black cloth cut off all imaginings. She wondered whether secretly it sent them crazy – these men who thought they ruled the world – this act of denial, of refusing to be viewed. Whether they hated the women who denied them, the way they hated the desert when the dust storms rose. Maybe wearing the robe, the shroud, was power of a sort. A refusal to interact.

  She clasped her hands before her. ‘I will be sure to apologise for my blasphemy,’ she said. ‘To Rome.’

  The Monsignor gripped his ring. ‘Don’t even think of threatening me.’

  ‘And to my family.’

  ‘You gave yourself over to the Church. Your family cannot interfere in our decisions.’

  ‘I’m sure they would feel it necessary to inform His Holiness.’

  The wheel creaked in the silence. The Monsignor became aware of

  his wet skirt. He slapped at his leg, sending water drops flying. He straightened. ‘You have ambitions. Why should the Church indulge them?’

  She bowed her head. ‘I am happy to stay here, working – ’

  He held up a hand. ‘Don’t bullshit me. You think you can do better. But there is no mission available. Fès, Rabat, Taghourit are taken.’

  ‘I had hoped for a small – ’

  ‘No,’ said the Monsignor. He stretched out his hand, admired the falling planes of light caught in the ruby.

  ‘May I make a sugge
stion?’ said Laforche. ‘There is a derelict fort, a retreat for unfortunates, out past the Kabir plateau. A near ruin, early Islamic, maybe the Almoravids, but it has been occupied by the Spanish and French at one time or another. Now the Church has title.’ He bowed apologetically to Agnieska. ‘It is very isolated.’

  ‘Isolated,’ said the Monsignor.

  ‘Isolated,’ said Agnieska. She tightened the scarf across her face, withdrawing into its shadow. She thought of the way the turtle in the fountain withdrew into its shell. She tried not to smile. ‘Oh dear.’

  ‘I am sure it is possible for supplies to reach you regularly,’ said Laforche. ‘There has been talk of making the fort a rehabilitation centre. The King is very appreciative of our Casablanca drug clinic.’

  ‘Such a long way,’ said Agnieska, sighing into her scarf.

  The Monsignor stared at her. ‘I think I will think about this. It is far, you said?’

  ‘Very,’ said Laforche.

  Agnieska sighed again.

  ‘Yes, well,’ said the Monsignor. ‘We all make sacrifices.’ He gathered up a fold of his black skirt and rubbed the ruby with it, watching Agnieska with unblinking eyes. She thought it was taking all his strength not to rip the scarf from her face. ‘Perhaps you will fail,’ he said. ‘The times are in love with endings.’

  ‘Maybe I should stay here,’ said Agnieska. ‘To learn more.’

  ‘The Church doesn’t take kindly to masqueraders,’ said the Monsignor. ‘Those without a clear conscience.’

  ‘A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory,’ said Agnieska. She saw Laforche wince.

  ‘You should learn humility,’ said the Monsignor.

  ‘You can teach me, Monsignor.’ She stepped forward and dropped to her knees. He gasped and backed away from her but was trapped by the rim of the fountain. She raised her palms. His toes curled in his sandals.

  She said, ‘I know I have sinned. I should pay public penance. Saint John of the Cross was imprisoned for nine months – ’

  ‘I hardly think – ’ said the Monsignor.

  ‘Nine months in a cell with no room to stand up.’

  The Monsignor dragged his sleeve across his flushed cheeks.

  Agnieska said, ‘I am not worthy. Maybe an iron box. In front of the Grande Mosque.’

  ‘Enough,’ shouted the Monsignor.

  Agnieska said, ‘Others could join me.’

  He stared at her, breathing heavily. A thin hard word escaped through the rattling air. ‘Mad,’ he said. ‘Mad.’ He gathered his skirts and pushed past her.

  She looked out of the corner of her eye. The Monsignor jerked his head at Laforche and turned. Laforche raised a forefinger at her and said loudly, ‘You are a dangerous fanatic.’

  She stayed where she was, hands clasped.

  As the Monsignor stepped through the doorway, she heard him say, ‘What is the place called again?’

  ‘Abu N’af,’ said Laforche. ‘The Asylum at Abu N’af.’

  Agnieska stood on the chair and looked over the courtyard wall and down to the street. There was a small café on the corner, a few chairs and tables on the pavement, lunch just being served. The smell of spiced chicken and roasted dates and thick silted coffee wafted up.

  The Sicilian was sitting with his back to the wall, directly opposite the entrance to her building. After a moment, the Monsignor walked past, taking short angry steps, smoking a cigarette, his hand moving back and forth, pummelling the air. The Sicilian did not move. There was no recognition that she could see, no glances between the two men.

  Agnieska rested her chin on the hot stone. The flies were easier up here and she lifted her face. The smeared blue was giving way to an uncertain white, the sky breaking up into torn paper.

  The noon prayers began. She closed her eyes against the sun. Always music here, she thought, always a celebration of God. It should be enough but it wasn’t.

  The soothing repetitious phrases undulated through the bright air, climbing and falling, washing over the stone rooftops and patios, rooms within rooms, houses designed like puzzle boxes. Everything was designed to shut out the light: the narrow alleys, stairways, the material draped across doors and windows, the sheets hung over beds. Yet the rooms were never truly dark.

  She opened her eyes and looked beyond the city, beyond the mountains, to the Western Sahara swathed in its blue veils. She remembered flying across the desert, low against the saffron moon. She flew over dark and jagged peaks, descended to the granite ground. She saw women walking in the shadows of their burdens, holy men moving backwards against the wind, their robes lifting as though plucked like flowers. I flew into the eternal silence, she thought. Landing, the plane’s vibrations merged with the rising heat. Night and day were reversed here: night was solace in the desert, the bright day deadly.

  Years later, when she had discovered what Father Thomas had done to Betsoul, she had taken the car Jürgen gave her – a small Renault so buckled with rust that the floor hit every large stone – and she drove east through twilight like a half-erased dream. When the car had inevitably sputtered to a stop, she had put the book and a canteen of water in her backpack and walked away into the desert, so busy looking up at the stars that she stumbled and fell over a small rock. Near her, a low-slung cactus sensed movement and wept white poison. She thought, Liquid can be a weapon in the desert.

  She had walked through the spiralling heat. A yellow cloud passed across the broken-faced moon: a wheeling bowl of locusts. She saw the night trapped in hollows, felt every grain of sand beneath her. I have been blinded all my life, she thought. First by the counterfeit columns of my family. Then by the silk couches of the opium dens. And now by the hypocrisies in the Church I thought would save me. No God left even in a city of churches and mosques.

  But here, a hundred other tribes surround me. I walk through an alphabet of sand, the vast silence of the desert cloaks me. The silence beyond the silence of death. She touched the scar on her left cheek. I see my way home between the dark marks left by the Mammon sun on my flesh. On the purity of the page. She kneeled by the pool in front of her, heat biting into her bones.

  I see my way home.

  Agnieska waited by the fountain, her hand in the cold water. She moved her fingers to try to encourage the turtle to come out. But it stayed, a shadow near the seashells which lined the white plaster. As she walked her hand over the tiled bottom, the blue crosses moving like pitchforks, she heard the front door open and close.

  Footsteps – a man’s boots – came across the tiles.

  There was a pause. She knew why. He was smoothing his hair, straightening his tie. Then, the sound of whistling. The familiar notes: Edith Piaf’s ‘Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien’.

  A shadow in the doorway. Laforche winked at her and went to his chair and picked up his hat. ‘Yes, my dear Capitaine, I did not work hard to stay where I belong.’ He flourished the hat at her. ‘Especially not as a mere assistant director at an obscure Catholic outpost.’

  She said, ‘Will I get Abu N’af?’

  Laforche sat down, took out a white handkerchief and wiped the dust off his shoes. ‘The Monsignor would make you Pope to be rid of you. As we predicted.’

  He looked at his shoes but again, she thought that he was looking up at her under his lashes. ‘Your family must be influential. It would be easy enough for the irate priests to make you disappear into one of the brothels in Quartier Rouge.’

  She said, ‘My family has always ensured that in troubled times the Church’s possessions are returned.’

  ‘Blackmail,’ said Laforche without surprise. ‘Useful.’ He put away his handkerchief and took a pearl necklace and a painted headband from his pocket. ‘And they pay you to pay me to steal these objects?’

  ‘The objects are always returned,’ she said sharply.

  ‘And your reputation enhanced.’

  ‘For the greater good. No-one suffers.’

  ‘Hmmm.’

  ‘My family p
ays, for this.’ She touched the scar on her left cheek.

  ‘And they’ll keep sending money to you, out in the desert?’

  ‘They don’t care where I go. The further the better.’

  Laforche said, ‘What a shame you won’t listen to Piaf with me. What is good enough to be the anthem of the French Foreign Legion should be good enough for all. It is the message of the hours and the times: we must regret nothing.’

  ‘You don’t regret helping me?’

  ‘I would have helped you just to see the look on the Monsignor’s fat face,’ said Laforche.

  ‘He’s a fool.’

  ‘Even the broken clock is right twice a day.’ He frowned. ‘The Monsignor may be furious enough to go ahead with an exorcism. There is hatred there – ’

  ‘Hatred of women.’

  ‘Or hatred of the future, his shrinking influence.’

  ‘He knows the Church has always been a business first.’

  ‘Even more so,’ said Laforche, ‘now the Americans have set up shop on Hafid Street. Casa is becoming a garrison town. Again.’

  ‘And you spend your time dicing with legionnaires who look like criminals.’

  ‘At least the legionnaires are too drunk to smoke kif. They don’t hallucinate like madmen. Besides,’ he saw he had creased the hat slightly in his hands and smoothed it out, ‘I never realised how much I loved my country until I left it.’ He laughed but the notes almost immediately collapsed.

  ‘At 3 am when your heart is breaking loose, you surround yourself with the sounds of France,’ said Agnieska softly, watching him.

  He shrugged. ‘All speech before l’heure bleue is lying. I still wake every morning in Rimbaud’s city of black roses.’

  ‘You would find your true self in the desert,’ said Agnieska. ‘All your false identities are erased.’

  ‘The desert always smells of old rope to me.’ He flicked a speck of dust from his hat. ‘I have no desire to go beyond the south gate of Medina Ancienne.’ He caught Agnieska’s sharp look. ‘Don’t worry. I can still send your stores each week.’

  He stood. ‘Well . . . ’ For the first time since she had met him, she saw he was uncertain what to say next. ‘As a Moroccan I must tell you that it has been Allah’s will we have conducted such good business. But it is my duty as a Frenchman to be gallant. So,’ he bowed, with unusual awkwardness, ‘I must say that if I was allowed a second wife . . . ’