Meet the Sun Halfway

by Jane Arbor

  no one the key - not even me.”

  Alice told her, “I think you must know that I had heard already how completely he has embraced Moroccan life. And I have seen it for myself. But has he the right to impose it totally on you too, Seiyida? Isn’t that - in a way - rather disloyal to his father?”

  The Seiyida shook her head. “There I must put you right, my dear. Karim imposes no rules upon me that I do not impose myself -for his sake. I continue in the Moroccan way, not because he orders it or expects it of me, but of my own will while, not knowing what drives him, I must not judge him.”

  She rose then and went to look out over the inner court-yard, ablaze with its exotic colour. With her back to Alice she went on, “Also, while I see this house, these gardens, these lands, all the people he helps and employs so contentedly placed, then I know he is doing a good thing, making a good life for more than himself or for me. And then-” She turned back towards the room, but stayed where she was. There was a nimbus of light around the silhouette of her piled hair as she repeated, “And then I remind myself of an old Moroccan saying which I think you may not have heard. It goes - ‘When the sun is not shining on your side of the mountain, you must go round to meet it halfway.’ You understand this meaning, child? Or perhaps you can guess it?”

  “I think,” Alice said slowly, “it means that when all is not as you

  would have it, you must compromise ... come to terms ... accept. Which you have done generously in relation to Karim, haven’t you?” “Which I have done - am doing - for love. It is as simple as that, as you will find, if anything of the sort is ever asked of you,” the Seiyida claimed proudly, as she came back into the room.

  She did not sit again but suggested showing Alice the rest of the house. This was another unique experience for Alice, for whom the intimate luxury she had so far enjoyed proved to be only a taste of the whole.

  The rooms were gracious and richly colourful, many of the walls alcoved where European walls would be plain, and rising to meet the ceilings in fluid arched lines. There was much leather and brocade and filigreed wrought iron; as well as its double doors, each reception room had its double gateway of the latter.

  Mounting the curving staircase to the upper floor Alice said, “Do you know Gounod’s Faust, Seiyida? I feel rather like Marguerite, singing the Jewel Song, ‘This Is Not I.’ I can hardly believe that I am still who I am, yet being entertained in all this. Your house is like a palace in miniature, no less.”

  Seiyida Charles laughed. “Not too much like a palace, one hopes. It is a home too, and has been for generations of my family. Why, do you feel you could not adapt to it if you had to?”

  “If I had to! I am never likely to get the chance!” Alice laughed back.

  The Seiyida shrugged. “It happens. My own great-grandmother as a Parisienne, without a drop of Moroccan blood, and she was happy. But you mean that, as an English girl wooed by one of our men, you would not be willing to take the chance of a comparable Moroccan home?” They had reached the wide landing now. Alice fingered the smooth cool iron of the newel-post before she spoke. “If I loved the man and he loved me, I don’t think the question of my accepting his home or not would arise, do you?” she said at last.

  “Ah, it would, my dear - as a question which only you could answer, one way or the other. Had I not to answer the converse myself, when I married my husband? But love made it easy, and you believe too that, given enough shared love, you could, as it were, go round your mountain - willingly?”

  “I - think so. I hope so,” said Alice seriously (Though could fantasy go further than that she should ever have to make the choice?)

  They went first to the Seiyida’s rooms, the guest rooms and Karim’s suite of bedroom, dressing-room and study. Both the former were furnished and equipped in shades of blue - “Our own Moroccan colour,” the Seiyida pointed out. “Our Blue Men of the South wrap themselves literally to the eyes in robes of it. Blue - the constant colour of our skies. Our talisman, our symbol, you might say.”

  When they returned to the head of the staircase she indicated the branch of the corridor to the right. “These rooms you might also like to see, though they are not used now and have not been for very many years,” she said as she led the way through another grilled gate and double doors. “The harem quarters as they were once, though not within any modern times. If my mother had outlived my father and they had had a son, she would have retired here when he married. As I shall retire when Karim marries. You have, I think, much the same in England in your country houses?”

  “Yes, dower houses, though I think the French have them more commonly,” said Alice.

  “Yes. Dower houses for dowager ladies. For mothers-in-law! And a proper fate for the breed, I expect you young people would say, cut off, as I shall be here, by cold iron and stout wood” - The Seiyida cut short her gay laugh at her own expense and turned about to address in Arabic the boy whose slippered feet had brought him silently behind him.

  In their exchange Alice heard Karim’s name once or twice, then the boy salaamed and left and his mistress explained in English,

  “Visitors for Karim - two English ladies and a man. I am puzzled. Karim said nothing - But I must go to them. Abdul says they chose to wait in the garden.”

  “Would you like me to leave?” Alice asked as they went downstairs. “No, child, no. Karim cannot be long. I know these people very slightly - two of them, at least. Captain and Mrs. Rout are English

  residents here. Abdul did not hear the name of the woman with them - a friend, I expect. Though why they should call on us-”

  The three unexpected visitors were seated under the lebanon cedar. The man, a middle-aged soldierly figure, rose as the Seiyida, gracious and collected, went forward, her hand outstretched.

  “Captain Rout ... And Mrs. Rout. What a pleasant surprise!” Her glance slid to the other woman, inviting an introduction, which the Captain took up.

  “May I present Miss Elaine Kent, Seiyida Charles? She is staying with us for the summer. We met on a cruise to Greece last year and have kept in touch. And if I may say so, she is our excuse for intruding on you now. We happened to be discussing our neighbours, as one does in a small place like Tazenir, and it came out that she knows your son well.”

  “Knew, Maurice. Knew - past tense, please!” The interruption came in a low-pitched voice from Elaine Kent as she took the hand which the Seiyida offered her. Retaining it in her own, she looked up with limpid blue eyes at her hostess, as she went on, “To claim that I know Karim would be quite, quite wrong. I did know him - very well, oh, all of seven or eight years ago. But he may not even remember me now. Believe me, I’m entirely prepared for that!”

  The Seiyida withdrew her hand. “Impossible,” she said. “To a real friendship, seven years need be no time at all, and I am sure Karim will be very glad you have looked him up. It would be in England, of course, that you knew each other?”

  “Yes. For quite a time. We last met shortly before he came back to Morocco.”

  “And he hasn’t been back to England since then.”

  “And I have always holidayed elsewhere - Florida, Cannes, the Tyrol, Greece.”

  Alice, standing aside and feeling slightly de trop, sensed a hidden undercurrent to the exchange. Both women were using the surface words of acquaintanceship, but both were asking, though not answering, unspoken things. Alice felt that, for all her modest claims,

  Elaine Kent was establishing that it was unlikely Karim had forgotten her, while his mother, if indeed the other woman’s name was unknown to her, was seeking some reason for his not having told her of so exquisite a creature.

  For Elaine Kent was certainly lovely. Silver-blonde hair, smoothly centre-parted, then frothing into loose, heavy curls, swinging from ear-level to shoulder — compensating width for a narrow, sculptured face and jawline above a smooth tanned throat. The tan of her graceful body was offset by the white playsuit she wore - halter-top, dipping at the back to her
waist, leaving shoulders and arms bare; brief mini-skirt at rest over rounded thighs; long slim legs; sandal-shod feet demurely crossed at the ankles; the toenails of the feet painted silver to match that of her fingernails and the sprawl of heavy silver rings on several fingers. Alice debated her age. Seven years ago? In her mid-twenties now, then? Or older? Yes, perhaps.

  But now the Seiyida was beckoning Alice forward, introducing her, then suggesting tea. “At this hour Karim and I usually drink mint tea, Moroccan-fashion. But I can offer you China instead if you prefer it?” she said.

  Her three guests looked at each other, and Mrs. Rout said, “I’m afraid Maurice and I have never taken much to Moroccan ways. So China, please, if it is just as convenient.”

  “Of course.” The Seiyida went back towards the house, clapped her hands and spoke to the young girl who answered the summons. She came back to the group beneath the cedar. “Tea will be served to us here,” she said. “My maid says that Karim has just come in, so I have told her to ask him to join us at once.”

  No one spoke for a moment. The Captain gestured towards a bed of glowing cannas and went to inspect it. Mrs. Rout said, “He is a very keen gardener. He loves his flowers.” Elaine Kent shifted position, half turned, so that one graceful arm drooped over the back of her chair. Alice took a spare chair and sat. Their hostess shaded her eyes with a hand, looking back at the house. It struck Alice that they made a kind of tableau, waiting for Karim to appear.

  And then he did. Today he was wearing a white djellabah, white babouches on his feet, white tarbush with a crimson tassel on his head, held at its customary proud angle which served to emphasise his height. As he approached the others with a look of enquiry his profile, aquiline, aristocratic, Eastern, was turned to Alice, and for some odd reason she found herself sharing his mother’s pride in him.

  He was so thoroughly himself; so completely of his chosen world. She might still disagree with him, think his convictions wrong. But he was whole and real and dedicated, and when next they crossed swords, as they probably would, she must try to remember that ... remember too that today, however little or much the meeting with Elaine Kent might mean to him, she herself was ranged passionately on his side.

  He and the Captain nodded acknowledgement of each other and he bowed to Mrs. Rout. Alice watched recognition flash between him and Elaine Kent, but neither spoke as she rose slowly with catlike grace and went to stand close in front of him, isolating the two of them a little.

  Then she smiled. Her glance travelled over him from head to foot. “Well, well!” she drawled. “Of course I’d heard - people had told me that you had gone native in a big way. But really, Karim, really! For pity’s sake, why the fancy dress?”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Later Alice was to realise that in choosing to ignore that question, Karim must have gained stature with everyone present except with the woman who had put its ill-bred insolence to him. For as if she had not spoken first, he had bowed, had taken her hand briefly and had said, “A great surprise - to meet you again after so long, Elaine. Welcome to Tazenir,” making his greeting cool and so devoi d of further invitation that even she, Alice had felt, must be aware of rebuff.

  But she had recovered her poise at once, adroitly twisting his words to agree, “As you say, it’s been too long, and we’ve grown so far apart that it’s just not true! But tell me -?” And there, taking his arm, turning beside him and moving further apart with him, she had claimed his attention just for herself, leaving the others to the movement and small talk which had served to cover their embarrassment at her lapse from taste.

  Presently tea had been brought and the conversation had been general until Alice told the Seiyida that she ought to leave, which had been the signal for the other three to leave too, without any plans for future rendezvous having been made, so far as Alice knew. And on the drive back to the Home Karim had only remarked on the apparent coincidence which, with all Morocco open to her, had brought Elaine Kent (“whom I met and knew well during the last year I spent in England,”) to spend the summer in as remote a place as Tazenir.

  At which Alice had asked, “Then Miss Kent didn’t know before she came to stay with the Routs that you lived here too?” Whereupon he had answered with a shrug, “Ah, she would have known once. But I’d have expected the tact to have had no significance for her after I left England. Just as she had to tell me today where she was living now, what doing. We had completely lost touch. In seven years one - moves on.”

  And yet, and yet, thought Alice when again she was alone, Elaine Kent, if not he, had publicly claimed an intimacy which she assumed had lasted. Even her opening insult to him had been that of someone who believed she dared offer it with impunity. And though he had snubbed the rudeness of it, she hadn’t been daunted. That familiar taking of his arm and drawing him aside had been, to Alice, a kind of statement of her right to his interest. And after seven years of silence and absence how had she known she could still ask it of him, unless they had been closer in those days than he was willing to allow? Somehow Alice thought they had. Elaine Kent had had such an air of picking up dropped threads, not doubting that they were still there for her gathering...

  Meanwhile Alice’s working days had taken on a rhythm and busyness which she enjoyed, the more she got used to it. She and the girls, particularly Sorab, worked in harmony. Young as they were, Miriam

  and Rachma were extraordinarily responsible, and Alice was coming to look on Sorab as a friend rather than as a deputy. From her and the radio to which they listened together most evenings, Alice was learning a little Arabic, and they had an endless fount of talk in comparing English and Moroccan ways of life for people of their generation.

  But for all their intimacy Sorab had offered no confidence about her friendship with Benoit Paul and his mother after her defence of him to Sister Bernadine until one evening when, finding her unusually silent and preoccupied, Alice ventured to suggest,

  “You are very quiet tonight, Sorab. Is anything wrong?”

  Head bent over the knitted table-mat she was unraveling -somebody’s task which had come to grief in a tangle of dropped stitches and knotted wool - Sorab did not answer at once. Then she echoed, “Wrong? With me? No. Nothing.”

  “But you are disturbed? Worried perhaps? If you’d care to, tell me?” Alice invited.

  Sorab looked up then, dropping the sorry mess of wool into her lap. “I should like to,” she admitted. “But it is not my trouble, you understand? It is that of a friend.”

  “Do I know him ... her?” Alice asked.

  “Only, I think, from Doctor Renair. It is Benoit Paul, the doctor’s landlord, the forest-ranger.”

  Alice nodded. “Yes, I remember. Sister Bernadine asked you about him and about his mother, and you said -”

  Sorab broke in, “Yes, I go to help them both whenever I am able. She is sick and almost helpless, and he, for all they say of him, is a good man. When Sister Bernadine spoke of him as - as she did, she was not being uncharitable. She was only repeating what she had heard from those who do not know him as I do - for a man who for a long time has had too much on his shoulders and now is to have more.” “Such as?” Alice wondered whether, from what Yves Renair had told her, she could guess.

  Sorab said dully, “He is a Frenchman, and the Government wants his post as Ranger to go to a Moroccan. This is right, of course, but wrong for Benoit, with his mother dependent on him and a house as well as a job which he will lose. In the autumn, they say he is to go. But how? And where?”

  Alice reflected that even in her distress, Sorab’s sweet nature could not be unjust. Sister Bernadine had not been “uncharitable” and the Government was “right” in its policy. Pitying her, Alice said, “But is this final? Didn’t Sister Bernadine suggest that if this should happen, Seiyid Karim would have to speak for Monsieur Paul?”

  “Ah, but he will not.”

  “Why not? Has anyone asked him?”

  “He would not help. You see, it is th
e Caid who tells Benoit he must go, and it would be from Seiyid Karim that the Caid would hear of —” Sorab broke off painfully, biting her lip. “Well, that Benoit does not always do his work as he should when he has taken too much wine. This is known of him. Even I who — Even I know it. But it happens only when he despairs, and it would not happen at all if he had someone behind him, someone who loved him, someone he would not willingly hurt.”

  Alice took a long shot. “You mean he needs someone even more to him than his mother? A wife?”

  Sorab flushed. “I have told you - he is an upright man, and he says he must not take a wife whom he might not be able to keep.”

  “Though if some woman loved him, mightn’t she be willing to take the risk?” Alice hinted, and then plunged. “Would you marry him, Sorab, if he asked you?”

  Sorab’s answer was in her quivering lip as she looked away. “He must know I would. But he will not ask me.”

  “Then I think you should do something about it,” said Alice briskly. “If you know that marrying you would help him, couldn’t you go to the Caid and tell him so?”

  “I? Go to the Caid? I could not!” Sorab sounded as horrified as if Alice had suggested she cut all protocol and approached the Sultan himself.

  “Well then, to Seiyid Karim, if, as you say, he has influence with the Caid?”

  “Nor to Seiyid Karim.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I, a woman, could not go to a man to plead for someone to whom I am neither sister, nor mother, nor wife. It would not be -modest. Not right,” the girl explained faintly.

  “Oh.” Baffled for the moment by protocol of a different sort — that of the East which she did not understand - Alice withdrew to muster fresh argument.