An Echo of Scandal

by Laura Madeleine

  The girl smiled. ‘Black hat, beard like a mule’s ass?’

  That made me smile too, despite myself, and I nodded.

  ‘That’s Bautista. He’s got the biggest racket round here. Runs the show. Usually pays well.’ She glanced about the street. ‘If he had them working tonight, I might have some luck after all.’ She tugged at her blouse, pushed a few hairs back from her face. ‘Wait till they’ve had a few. They’re less picky then.’ With that she began to walk away.

  ‘Wait,’ I called. ‘I … don’t have anywhere to sleep. Do you know a place?’

  She turned. In the light of a flickering electric bulb that hung outside a bar, I saw that beneath the kohl and the weariness, she was younger than I’d thought. ‘You got any money?’ she asked.

  I shook my head.

  She sighed. ‘There’s an empty warehouse, border end of the beach. People sleep there, sometimes. Anything worth nicking?’

  ‘Only a knife.’

  She gave me a sort-of smile. ‘Watch your back, chica.’

  I wandered, no idea of where to go, or what to do with myself. The girl was right about other women, there were two to every corner of the main street. I saw the tell-tale signs of their profession everywhere; a chair sitting empty outside a house, a bit of bright rag tied to a window, the smell of violet perfume, liberally doused. Finally, at the end of a quiet street, I found a water pump, and stuck my head beneath it, rinsing the salt spray and sweat from my face, drinking until the pieces of fish swam in my belly.

  When I looked up, the streets were dark. I began to feel afraid. The water had washed away a film of grogginess and reminded me of the truth: that I would have to spend the night in the open. It struck me then just how protected I had been at the inn, despite Morales’ threats. Road or room, that had been her offer in the past. Now I knew for certain what I had only suspected before: that she knew first-hand the realities of both and had once made the choice herself. Perhaps her fierceness came from the knowledge of what lay beyond the gates for a woman like her. Like me.

  As I pushed the hair back from my face, I became aware of someone watching me. A man, leaning heavily on a wall in the shadows, his lips slack, his eyes fixed on my chest, where the water had soaked through my blouse. I didn’t smile, though I knew what the girls would have done. I knew the tricks and bits of business they used, to secure their clients.

  ‘Like what you see?’ I asked, my voice hardly audible. The man looked on without moving. Remembering the Señor’s dog-like stare, I almost turned and ran, but then the man was grunting and lurching forward. When he got within a few feet of me I realized he was sopping drunk. In a dark corner of my mind, an idea began to form.

  ‘How much?’ he slurred. I don’t believe he could see me properly, for his eyes were drifting out of focus. All the better, I told myself, before I swallowed hard, and answered with a price.

  He began to fumble with his belt.

  ‘Not here.’ He turned his vacant gaze on me. ‘There,’ I pointed to a dark alley.

  It was a dead end. In that moment, exhausted and half-feral with fear, I don’t believe I had much notion of what I was about to do. I could hear the man behind me breathing harder. We reached the wall and he stepped close, his hands going to his belt again. My own hands went to my waist, to where my guts were coming to life, trying to protect me, to give me strength.

  ‘All right,’ the man said, his trousers loose, ‘you—’

  I turned, and drove my knee into his groin. The air went out of him, and he made a strangled noise of pain as he fell, choking and retching. Before I could think twice, I began to wrestle the trousers from his legs.

  When he felt that, he kicked and flailed. I took the knife from my belt and held it against his thigh.

  ‘Stop,’ I hissed. ‘Take the jacket off.’ When he hesitated, I pressed the blade closer. He yelped as blood began to well. After that, he did as I said. In a matter of seconds, I grabbed up the jacket, and the trousers and his cloth cap for good measure. Before he could utter another word, I fled into the night.

  Tangier

  July 1978

  The suitcase banged against his leg as he hurried through the dark streets of the casbah, the writing case tucked under his arm. He felt like a fugitive, fleeing with his possessions, convinced that a figure would step out of the shadows into his path, that footsteps would echo after him, that a voice would shout and torchlight dazzle him into blindness. He took the most twisting way he knew back to Madame Sarah’s – a sharp left, a sudden right – as if trying to shake off a pursuer who didn’t exist.

  Mohamed had helped him pull out the case from under a stack of six others. It had come free in a cloud of grit and decaying leather, and for one second, they had both held the handle. Then, Sam was swinging it away.

  ‘My uncle’s luggage!’ he’d exclaimed. ‘And look, it matches the writing case he left me. Who’d have believed it? How lucky, thank you …’

  He’d talked his way out of the storeroom, gabbling about his uncle and the possessions. Mohamed had tried to interrupt, said he should go and fetch the manager, but Sam had just clapped him on the shoulder and hurried out of the hotel, breaking into a half-run as he fled down the steps and into the shadows of the casbah.

  What was he doing? This is theft, he told himself, heart beating faster than his footsteps, this is stealing. All the same, he was reeling with excitement. This was the feeling he’d come halfway across the world for. This, he thought, is brilliant.

  By the time he reached Madame Sarah’s he was sweating, despite the sudden gusts of wind that had propelled him along. He let himself in as furtively as he could, and crept up the stairs. Only when the door of his room was locked behind him did he sink down to catch his breath, and allow himself to look closer at the suitcase.

  It sat on the floor in front of him, real and aged and impossible. He stared, fearing he’d made a mistake, that in the strange, dim atmosphere of the storeroom he’d misread the initials. But there they were, in the same faded gold as the writing case.

  A. L.

  A corresponding leather cloakroom tag hung from the handle, looped on by someone who would never have dreamed that, half a century later, it would still be there, curled and crusted with salt-damp.

  Sam reached for the writing case, for the key that was inside, before stopping. He couldn’t just go rushing into this; he had to document every moment, every detail. He rolled a cigarette, making a bad job of it, before taking out a sheet of paper. Scrappily, he wrote down everything that had happened that evening: talking with Bet at The Hold, running through the casbah chased by the wind, the smell of the Hotel Continental, a piece of luggage that had lain forgotten for fifty long years …

  His eyes drifted to the suitcase. Its presence filled the room. He could feel it, even smell it beneath the pungent smoke of his cigarette, burning down in the ashtray. Finally, he let the pencil drop, and reached for the small silver key. Please work, he asked silently, as he fitted it to the lock, and closed his eyes.

  It grated, before turning with a gentle thunk. He held his breath and, slowly, lifted the lid.

  Decay, that was what he smelled. Dank and oddly organic, as if the objects inside – glass and paper and fabrics – had reverted back to bone and sand and flesh. He peered down. The inside of the case looked orderly, despite his run from the hotel. Clothes, neatly folded, small glass bottles clipped in place by leather straps. He leaned in closer and the stink of age seemed to lessen, giving way to other scents: a faint trace of sandalwood and something he wanted to call ambergris without any idea of what ambergris might be. He let his fingers trail over the bottles, before reaching in, and lifting out the top layer of cloth.

  It was a jacket, a man’s suit jacket, which clung to its folds. It was made of linen, fawn brown, tailored for another era. Mould bloomed in its creases. Gingerly, he checked the pockets, but found nothing.

  Matching trousers came next, mutated by long-storage, shirts fine bu
t yellowed, and collars, their starch turned to crusted powder. Underwear and silk socks lay curled like strange boneless fish in the darkness of the case. So far there was nothing to tell him anything about A. L. except that he was a man – someone who could afford personalized cases and silk and scent. As he lifted out the last bundle of socks and handkerchiefs, he saw an extra pocket, half-concealed down one side. Immediately, he reached in.

  Heavy paper met his fingers. With a stab of excitement, he pulled it free, expecting a letter, or perhaps money, but it was neither. Instead, he was holding a rectangle of green card.

  PASAPORTE

  Consulado de España de Tánger

  Certifico de Don: Alejandro del Potro

  Profesión: Secretario

  Natural de: Sevilla, España

  Edad: 21 años

  Sam frowned. Alejandro del Potro? But the suitcase said A. L. He looked eagerly at the face on the passport. It showed a young man – younger than he’d expected, with dark hair and eyes and a wary, scowling expression, at odds with the stylish hat pulled down over his forehead. He didn’t look wealthy enough to own personalized luggage. So then, who was he? Someone who had bought the case second-hand, like himself? Someone who was borrowing it? Or – Sam’s fingers tightened on the passport – a thief?

  He began to search the case again, convinced he’d missed something. Finally, tangled amongst the socks, he found another object. A book, pocket-sized. At first he thought it might be a diary or a journal, until he saw a title printed on its worn blue cover.

  THE GENTLEMAN’S GUIDE

  If anything, it was even stranger than the passport. Why would someone pack a book on etiquette when they were obviously travelling light? Still frowning, he flicked the book open and saw a scrawl of handwriting. A dedication, written in English:

  If you’re going to play the game, you have to learn the rules.

  The hairs on the back of Sam’s neck stood up. No initials, no date, just that sentence, almost a warning … He turned the page, hoping to find more writing, but there was nothing, only chapters of advice on dressing and deportment, luncheon menus and which type of hat was appropriate for a picnic. Occasionally, words and phrases had been underlined in pencil, as if the book had been diligently studied. Sam kept turning the pages. About a quarter of the way through, the spine felt looser, the leaves coming away from the binding, as if the section had been read many times. It contained recipes for cocktails, for punches and sodas, and – left to itself – fell open on one particular entry.

  Blood and Sand

  Take a quarter glass of fresh blood orange juice and the same of good Scotch whisky. Add into this a quarter glass of Cherry Heering and half a glass of sweet Italian vermouth. Shake violently enough to break a sweat and strain into a coupe glass.

  Blood and Sand. He’d never heard of it before. It was probably the kind of thing people had drunk long ago, when spirits were plentiful and a pocketful of dollars could take a person across a continent in luxury. Not like now. He traced the title. Was this A. L.’s favourite drink? Or del Potro’s? Fifty years ago, would he have ordered one at a party, among a crowd of ex-pats and wanderers, all searching, drinking, writing music and painting and pouring out work that was considered new and vital …?

  Sam dropped the book, and stared into the case once again. What had happened to A. L., to make him leave a suitcase behind, to make him lose a writing case? And who the hell was Alejandro del Potro? Sam’s hands began to twitch. He wished he still had the Hermes. Ideas were jostling at the ends of his fingertips. A. L. could have been a rich British gentleman or a poor young man from America. Alejandro del Potro could have been a friend, a colleague, a lover, a criminal.

  I’ll write them, Sam thought, looking at the passport, the book, the clothes. If I can’t find out who they were, I’ll write them into life. A. L. and Alejandro del Potro, they can be characters in my story, one that starts in the casbah, with the sale of a typewriter …

  Affinity

  Take a pony of French vermouth, a pony of Italian vermouth and a pony of good Scotch. Stir into this two dashes of Angostura Aromatic Bitters. Strain into a chilled glass with some lemon peel. A drink of brine and smoke.

  I ran until I reached the darkness of the beach, the stolen clothes clasped in my arms. They were grimy and badly needed washing, but I didn’t care. My whole body was fizzing with a cocktail of fear and elation about what I’d done. Another crime, to add to the one I didn’t commit. A murderess, now a thief.

  No use thinking about it, I told myself, as I crouched in the shadows to search the pockets of the jacket. Three battered cigarettes, a box of matches, a length of string and nothing else. I spat out the saliva that clogged my throat. So that was why the man had been roaming the alleyways; no doubt the other whores, who could tell a good mark from a bad, had already rejected him. He wouldn’t have been able to pay me at all.

  Still, the clothes were more valuable to me. They offered the safety I had once found in Ifrahim’s old trousers and the apron that shielded my body. Hopefully, they would make men’s eyes slide across me without seeing, tell them I was just another grubby lad, and not a young woman with a body that could be bought. Not a young woman who was wanted for murder.

  There, hidden amongst the boats on the dark beach, with the sea as my only witness, I began to shed who I had been. I used the knife to hack the stained kitchen apron into strips, and then pulled the blouse and chemise over my head to bare my chest. I could barely see myself as I wrapped the fabric tight over my breasts, cinching it, knotting it firm. The blouse had a scrap of lace at the collar. I hacked it off. Without that, it looked enough like a man’s shirt. The old work trousers would serve as drawers, and to bulk out the stolen pair. Next the jacket, too big, but all the better to hide in.

  Finally, in the darkness, I dragged the scarf from my head and shook out my tangled mass of hair. At the edge of the shore I knelt, and sawed through handfuls of it, letting it fall like black weed into the surf. Take her away, I told the waves, the woman they’re looking for, take her away.

  My head felt light, my neck naked and prickling in the sea breeze. I ran a hand across the uneven tufts, then knotted the scarf around my neck, for comfort, as much as anything. Last came the man’s cap. It was just as well it was dark, or I might have lost courage and wept to see those scraps of myself, hair and lace, being washed out to sea.

  The beach was silent, but from what I’d seen that evening, there was no guarantee it would stay that way. I didn’t want to be caught up in the darkness by a gang of smugglers, wanted nothing more than shelter.

  At the border end of the beach, a campfire trembled in the night. With one hand on the knife in my pocket, I walked towards it. The light from the flames illuminated the edge of an empty warehouse where shadows moved and people muttered and coughed. No one said a word as I crouched down before the fire, though some looked. Mostly men, one woman, her face lined too young. She began to speak to me but when I glanced at her from beneath the hat’s brim, her gaze was vague, her speech a meandering string of English and Spanish that made no sense at all. Some boys, perhaps only ten or eleven, laughed at her and eyed me appraisingly before going back to scraping at crab shells with their teeth when they saw I had nothing to steal.

  Inside, the warehouse smelled of unwashed flesh and old urine, the stench of stale alcohol seeping from pores, and a sweetness that I recognized as cheap opium. Crumpled shapes lay here and there in the darkness. I found a corner that didn’t smell too bad, where the earth seemed dry, and lay down.

  I don’t believe I slept, at least not for more than a few moments, waking again with a lurch of fear every time I drifted off. I thought about the kitchen at the inn, the food I had once made, rich with oil and wine and spices, the smell of Ifrahim’s pipe and the cats that would purr against my belly, and I had to stifle my face in the rank collar of the jacket, so that the sound of tears did not give me away.

  At one point, startled by footste
ps, I opened my eyes to find a figure leaning over me. Without a word, I drew the knife. The figure stopped then, and moved away. I passed the rest of the night with the knife in my hand, glinting in response to the eyes I was certain were watching.

  By the time dawn came I felt even weaker than the day before. Hunger and weariness made my ears ring, my eyes glaze, turned my thoughts into a mass of tangled threads. I knew I had to do something, but I couldn’t fathom what. If I could only get a meal, if I could only fill my belly, I might be able to think.

  When I stepped out of the warehouse, the rising sun nearly felled me. It was so bright, so generous, spilling radiance over the sea. I wanted to drink that light. It would taste of pomegranates and cold butter, strawberries wet with dew and honey dripping from a comb. I followed the light down to the water’s edge, dipped my hands into the surf, deliciously cool, and drank.

  Of course, it made me sick, and the dream faded, leaving me shivering and wretched. I suppose it must have cleared my head a bit though, for when a shadow fell across me, I was able to look up.

  An old man – or a man who had been made old – was side-eyeing me as he rinsed a shirt in the water. His ribs stuck clear of his chest like a dog’s, and there were scars across his abdomen. He might have been the one who had come near me in the night. I didn’t know.

  ‘Tap’s behind the boats,’ he said, jerking his head.

  I muttered thanks to him, before remembering the crumpled cigarettes in my jacket. When I took one out the man’s face turned almost as bright as the sun. I held it out to him and we smoked it together, crouched at the shore.

  ‘Border’s good picking, around breakfast time,’ he said, after a while. ‘Show you if you want.’

  With that, he pulled the wet shirt over his head, and set off up the beach.