Alexandra Singer (27 page)

“In fact I am consoled,” Maia continued, “because I have refused to depict the faces of the women in my paintings.” She pointed out the blank, beige faces of the women
staring out from the canvas.

“And why is that?” asked the journalist.

“In showing the faces of the nude women, I would open them up to further surveillance. The viewing audience would invade their privacy. In this way, the woman shuns and rejects the
overpowering viewer, and retains her mystery, her safety.”

“Is that your concern?”

“To show their features would be to contradict my values.”

“What difference does it make? You have shown them nude in any case.”

In a short space of time she was already taking a rabid dislike to this journalist, but the interview was vital. After so long, finally she was poised on the very edge of success.

“A true artist can paint faces,” the journalist said, trying to rile her. “Do you perhaps feel that you are not competent to depict them?”

“No, I never said that, I can paint faces; of course I can paint them!” she protested. In her head she heard the Historian’s voice telling her, ‘You will betray those
ideals of yours.’

Later on in the exhibition, it emerged that it was not the nudes that were the most popular, but another painting that was lauded. It was her favourite work; a painting she had done of Safira, a
nude woman holding a mirror to her face. The face in the mirror image was blank, whilst the nude woman on the rooftop was surrounded by veiled women absorbed in their daily tasks, and a café
below, crowded with men, staring up at the scene. This painting, Maia considered, was indicative of how strongly she had come to view life, and to depict people with irony. The very limbs, the
hands and feet of the men in the café trailed off to convey their listlessness and despair; the despondency she had experienced with the men in the café in the Atlas mountains.

Her agent had named the painting, ‘From the Erotic to the Mundane,’ and people worked themselves into a frenzy attempting to discover what Maia had intended to say when she had
painted the scene. The truth was that Maia had not intended to say anything; it was simply a personal memoir to herself. She enjoyed the attention, took the money, and satisfied herself with the
fact that she was now recognised as a successful woman in the eyes of her peers, even if she did feel some residual guilt for exploiting her own sex. But this, she comforted herself, was what women
always did, and if she did not do it, then another woman certainly would. This, she realised, was not the only truth. Men act, and women appear and watch themselves being looked at. She had been
handed the opportunity to freely express her sensuality.

Close to the end of her exhibition, Maia was appalled to receive a letter from the Historian. She read the scrawled handwriting, ‘Did you obtain what you wanted? So this is your sacrifice.
One does not escape. MF.’

Her success had made her bold; she knew of his private despair, his academic failure, his financial ruin. She no longer had time to mourn for her lost integrity. He could never touch her
now.

As time went on, memories of the Historian no longer made her shudder, she began to find it difficult to even remember his face. Surely, when she failed to recall details about him,
forgetfulness was the ultimate revenge. She was free from her cravings, from the Historian, from Armand, from George.

Years later, Maia returned to the city. Everything had shifted; nothing was in its right place. Its air of authenticity and dissoluteness had disappeared. There were more foreigners, greater
openness and more openly distasteful behaviour, but there was greater transparency, too. The hotel where she stayed was so bland it might as well have been in London. She wandered the streets,
almost hoping to at least catch a glimpse of her former associates.

When Maia looked back upon all the wretched deceivers she knew that summer, amongst all the liars and the false sophisticates desperately hawking their false histories to disbelieving
acquaintances, the only character that Maia was able to recall with anything approaching fondness was Konstantin, who maintained his constant vigil in the private bar at the Grand Tazi.

As she sat and looked at the boarded up building, she forgave herself for the vulnerability that had once made her so attractive. She turned to face the sky. She had spoiled this city for
herself.

But an unbearable truth stole up on her, a truth so unpalateable that she could hardly bear to entertain it; the fact that she had been shown her most authentic self. They had shown her who she
was.

Sitting outside a café in the clear freshness of a November morning, Maia asked the waiter if he had heard of the Historian and his work.

“Yes. I know he used to live in the medina. Everybody knew him. He was friendly with the owner of this place. Before the scandal.”

The Historian merely aroused a quiet horror in her. Once he had terrified her, but ultimately he had revealed himself as powerless. As Maia listened to the waiter, she considered him and thought
how friendly he was, how polite, so different to the men she had once known here.

“What scandal?” she asked sharply, wondering if the Historian’s involvement had been discovered. But it was evident that the Historian had friends in high places, for the
waiter was referring only to the Historian’s death.

“It was a strange time. I was a boy, but I still remember it. A two headed cow was found wandering the Bab Agnou gate and the streets were in uproar.” The polite waiter was eager to
tell her about the rumour of madness that contributed to the Historian’s death. “The owner of the Grand Tazi had disappeared.”

“Mahmoud.”

The waiter was surprised. “You knew him?”

“We were acquainted. Go on.”

“The police didn’t pursue him, he had some friends. But the Historian, this man you talk of, he died insane. He was a recluse, I hear, and after the Grand Tazi went, people left. The
foreigners you see here now, they are all new. None of the old lot we used to see. But the appearance of the cow caused a terrible stampede, and this man was caught up in it.”

“And that was how he died?” An image came to Maia of a frail, white Historian, caught in the excited stampede.

“Yes, horrible isn’t it?”

“You really were there? Surely though, it was just a rumour?”

“Exactly! But people still believed such things happened. They still do. But I never came face to face with the man you talk of,” the waiter said.

“He was a miserable man,” said Maia.

The waiter said nothing, and he just stood there, looking at her as if waiting for her instructions.

“I know the gate, it reads ‘Enter with blessing, serene people’.” Again she imagined the Historian, flailing around desparately in the crowd, crying out and no-one paying
attention. His face came to her mind; the knitted eyebrows, his voice, precise and low, his maliciousness. His only gift to her had been a terrifying glimpse of degradation.

“That’s the one,” said the waiter.

“It was a fitting end for him,” she said, and smiled brightly at the waiter.

The waiter looked down at Maia strangely as he poured the tea into her glass and hurried away. For hours Maia stayed sitting there, sipping her tea, looking down into the glowing street.

Alexandra Singer was runner up in the 2010 Luke Bitmead Bursary Award for her debut novel,
Tea at the Grand Tazi
.

Andrew Blackman in 2008 for
On the Holloway Road

Ruth Dugdall in 2009 for
The Woman Before Me

Sophie Duffy in 2010 for
The Generation Game

J.R. Crook in 2011 for
Sleeping Patterns

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