Tangier (38 page)

"I'm sorry, Larry, but it's not so simple.
 
These club meetings have a way of running on.
 
Both of us need time to rest and dress, and Camilla's promised to do Henderson's bouquets."

"But you at least—"

"No. Sorry, Larry. It's not convenient.
 
I'm just not going to have the time."

"But
please
, you
must
—"

"It's not that we don't
want
to come, you see, but we're previously committed and now it's too late for us to wriggle free."

"One can't be rude, you know," Camilla said.
 
"I know this is important to you, but surely you're not asking that."

Luscombe slumped back, stunned by their refusal. They'd kicked the breath right out of him. Now he felt too weary to complain. "Convenient," "rude"—those were the things that were important to them. Everything had to be arranged for
their
convenience. They needed a guarantee they'd be
amused.
He looked at them sitting there, pitying him with smiles. What did they care, after all, that the actors had turned against him? What did it matter to them that Kelly would turn TP to trash? They didn't care—not the slightest bit. He realized how stupid he'd been to think they ever would.

"There
are
other voting patrons," Camilla said. "Surely you haven't been depending on us." It was more of a reproach than a helpful suggestion. He'd shown poor form, in her eyes, by placing the onus on them.

"I've tried Vanessa Bolton," he said, "but she's going to Perry's too. The Codds are invited to Countess de Lauzon's, and on to the Manchesters' as well."

"Ugh!" said Barclay, curling his lip. "The Manchesters—they're having some kind of leftover thing. But there it is, you see—Françoise is having a party too."

"What about Percy Bainbridge?" Camilla asked. "He's a patron. At least I think he is."

"I've been to see him, but he won't make a commitment. He's been waiting for you to take the lead."

"Waiting to be invited to Henderson's, you mean." Barclay laughed. "Poor Percy—he'll wait forever for that."

Camilla snickered, and then the two of them exchanged another glance. They were fascinated by gossip, who was invited, who was not.

"Oh, dear me," she said. "Isn't there anybody else?"

"There're the Whittles, but I haven't approached them yet."

"Don't!" commanded Barclay. "That wouldn't do at all. You must be sensitive, Larry. You must think before you impose. Everyone wants to help, of course, but if you're pushy, well, then—" He shrugged.

So that was it: he'd been too
pushy,
and he'd
imposed
on them much too long. He stood up abruptly. They'd given the signal. Now it was time for him to go.

"There's the Vicar, isn't there?"

"Yes, Camilla! And he just might be willing to come." Barclay looked up, clicked his teeth. "Tell you what—I'll have a word with him. Vicar always takes my advice."

"There," said Camilla with a sigh. "There—you'll have Vicar Wick. You can't say we didn't help you, Larry. I knew Peter would come up with something in the end."

It was hopeless. They didn't understand. Or perhaps they understood too well. Even if the Vicar came he'd have only three votes. They were both gazing at him now, impatient that he leave.

Suddenly he felt unsteady, afraid he was going to faint. Perhaps he'd stood up too quickly. Camilla took hold of his arm.

"Now, now, Larry," she said, guiding him across the room.

"Sorry, Larry," said Barclay, not bothering to rise. "Courage, old boy. Good luck!"

Camilla led him to the door, then most smoothly showed him out. "When the summer's over and things have quieted down," she said, "you must be sure and come around again. Some afternoon, perhaps, when everything's less frantic. We'll sit out in the garden and take some tea."

There was a moment of confusion. He was still clutching her glass. He thrust it into her hand, saw a weak, distant smile, then a nod of dismissal as she shut the door.

He stood alone outside, dazed by the whole exchange. She hadn't even invited him for lunch; all he rated was a cup of tea. It didn't matter really—at this point nothing did. The petty slights, the little glances and winks—what difference now if he was going to lose the club? He'd climbed the Mountain on the strength of a futile hope, and now everything was finished, all was lost. The Tangier Players, his creation, had slipped from his infirm grasp, on account, it seemed, of Peter Barclay's whim and a commitment by Mrs. Weltonwhist to prepare Henderson Perry's bouquets.

He walked away quivering, shoulders hunched, eyes smarting from the harshness of the light. He stopped every so often to wipe his brow, pant and gasp for breath. They'd resumed their backgammon game by now, or perhaps they were still dissecting him. He'd known such people all his life, knew the way they rolled their eyes, the tone they used to express disdain.

He walked as rapidly as he could in no particular direction, anxious to get as far as possible from the house. Time passed. He wandered aimlessly farther up the Mountain, past villas, then into meadows, up always toward the Mountain's crest. He followed narrow, rocky paths, passed ancient wells and children tending goats. There was an old mosque up there, a quiet place he'd stumbled upon years before. He climbed higher, searching, but couldn't find it. He lost track of where he was.

After a while he stopped, exhausted, feeling pain in all his joints. There was a band of burning across his chest. The walk had worn him out. He looked around, spied an outcropping of rock, went to it, sat down to rest. Life was so unfair. For ten years he'd struggled. And then—one humiliation after another had piled on since May, until now, in August, his world had turned to ash.

He gazed down upon Tangier. The city glowed miles below. It baked away beneath the brutal sun, a secret city, closed upon itself. How lonely it looks, he thought, that decaying town of ancient streets. For a decade his life there had been sweet. Now everything was over, and the city was growing mean.

Yes, it was more than TP that was over for him now. It was Tangier that was finished too. A way of life. A sweet embrace. That season had come now to its end. The Moroccans had turned against the Europeans. They didn't want to live with foreigners anymore. The era of the Mountain would soon be over, and those who'd just scorned him would soon be scorned themselves.

His eyes glazed as he began to think about himself, look back upon his life, take the measure of his worth. He'd spent years, he realized, in cheap theatrical hotels, hovels not much better than his shanty in Dradeb. He'd spent a lifetime trying to preserve his dignity in the face of all the humiliations an actor must endure. What had it meant—his life upon the stage?
Not much
, he thought—
barely anything at all
. He'd played uncles and butlers and inspectors from Scotland Yard, small, neat, lonely little men with a moment or two of grandeur, a line or two of wit. Theater, he'd told himself, was nothing if it was not an art, but he'd always known this wasn't so, that it was a shabby life, a glittering sham.

He had a revelation then of what he truly was: a discarded old actor, irrelevant, gone to grief, gazing down upon a foreign city that had never recognized his talent and had always been hostile to his dream. He was an extraneous, foolish old man, clutching tight to a ridiculous creation while others, equally foolish, pried hard to unloose his grasp. He lowered his head, covered his face, prepared to sob with pity for himself. But all he could conjure to express despair was a bone-dry bitter laugh.

And yet—he loved Tangier. Uncovering his eyes, looking down again, he was moved by its beauty, its whiteness through the August haze. Then he was overwhelmed by a sense of his own mortality: soon death would overtake him, though Tangier would survive.

Death
. He'd thought about that a lot of late, pausing at midday sometimes on the sweltering streets, staring off into space, or lying naked on his sagging bed at night praying for a cooling breeze. But still he was glad he'd climbed so high, had taken in this stunning view. He knew with utter certainty now that he would not live to see another summer in Tangier.

S
itting in his office one Sunday afternoon in August, waiting for Peter Zvegintzov, Lake felt that he was finally putting things in order, and that the climax of everything was near. For weeks he'd thought of his life as a film in which two opposing stories were intercut: his descent into a pit of sensuality with Jackie, and the execution of his plan for Z.

He'd tried to simplify, had taken certain steps. He'd sent his wife and sons back to Minnesota for the month, on the pretext that his mother needed company and that the boys would profit from a change of scene. Then he'd distracted Foster, inventing all sorts of time-consuming tasks. He'd sent him into the city to study social currents, and several weeks ago on an inspection tour of northern Morocco which, he hoped, would last at least a month.

Lake sat back in his swivel chair, smiled, and closed his eyes. Now finally rid of his wife and his lover's husband, he could concentrate on the great adventure of his life. In less than an hour the Russian would be closing up his shop. Lake had invited him to the empty air-conditioned Consulate to mount the final stage of his assault.

The telephone rang, harsh, abrupt. Lake was startled. He sat up straight. Who the hell was it, he wondered, reaching for the phone. Not some stranded tourist, he hoped, or Zvegintzov begging off.

"Hello."

"It's me."

It was Jackie, her voice mellow and breathy. She called him all the time now, day and night.

"Is that you?" she asked.

"Of course it's me," he said. "Who else would be here on a Sunday? Who'd you think it was?"

"Just wondered how the work's going," she said. "I'm lying here in bed now, absolutely stark. Gosh, I'm horny, Dan. My legs are thrashing. I'm just dying for you to come."

"Well," he said, pleased by the image of her spread out, tempestuous with desire, "you're going to have to wait quite a while, Jackie dear. I've still got a hell of a lot of paperwork to do."

"Okay, Dan. That's Okay. Just wanted you to know I'm waiting for you here." She made a squeaky little kissing noise just before hanging up.

Horny! Christ! When was she not?

She was a man-eater, insatiable. There were marks all over him that testified to her passion. When she was excited she clawed him like a tigress. Though she proclaimed herself a vegetarian, she devoured his flesh like meat. They'd screwed, he guessed, over every chair and table in the office, on top of his big State Department desk, even against the dictionary stand. Her gymnast's body was capable of incredible contortions. Sex to her was joyous exercise.

It was marvelous to be involved with such a creature, not much good for anything, he thought, except to screw. He'd been contemptuous of her at first, had found her utterly moronic, but after a while, when she'd reduced him to the state of a happy animal, he began to find great virtue in her guiltless pursuit of sex. He let her lead him then, turned his body over to her to use. And use it she did, pleasuring and exhausting him, restoring his vigor, curing his insomnia, sweeping away the worries that had been cluttering up his mind.

She even had him doing calisthenics now. ("Got to work off all the flab, Dan! Got to get yourself back in shape!") She taught him how to jog in place and stand on his head against the wall. He did a dozen pushups every morning and skipped rope nude at night.

At first her addiction to athletics put him off. They'd be screwing away, lost in a rhythmic daze, and then he'd begin to hear her counting off the strokes. "One, two, three, four!" Christ! It was like being in boot camp or training at a YMCA gym. But eventually he got used to it, and her athletic imagery too. The more he thought about it, the more impressed he was by her imaginative powers. Going to bed was "going to the mats." Afterward they'd "hit the showers," then have a "skull session" to figure out "new plays." When she wasn't ready, and needed more oral stimulation, she'd suggest he "take another lap."

She was full of tricks too, such as fondling his organ through the rough mesh of her pantyhose, or taking the rubber band off her ponytail and letting her long hair fall upon his genitals like a gentle, tickling rain. She'd shake her head slowly then, side to side, using her hair to arouse.

Sometimes she called him up at the office to ask if he was "horny" or to make an obscene suggestion in her cheerful, breathy voice. She was a maniac for oral sex, and would suggest it to him at the oddest times. "I want to give you head, Dan," she whispered once at a reception for the officers of a Sixth Fleet submarine. Christ—she was unbelievable. He couldn't think of anything but her golden pubic fleece. Once she came into La Colombe when he was down on his hands and knees helping Zvegintzov fix his ice cream freezer. At the sight of her calves (she was wearing shorts) he trembled so much he dropped his screwdriver on the floor.

From the beginning he'd been worried about Foster, and what he'd do if he found out. But Foster was obtuse. Or, as Jackie put it: "He doesn't know his ass." She said awful things about him, revealed intimate details that made Lake wince, such as how, after jogging, he "couldn't get it up," or describing how she'd caught him once "whacking off in the john." Their marriage sounded as rotten as his and Janet's, the difference being that they'd tried to spice it up. She told how the Codds had approached them about the possibilities of "doing a quartet," and then how negotiations had broken down when she and Foster had viewed them in bathing garb beside Percy Bainbridge's pool.