The Forgiven (6 page)

“It’s so damn hot,” David moaned.

“Yes, it’s the Sahara, old boy.”

“I know. But it’s
so
hot.”

His teeth chattered.

“Have you told me everything, David? You might as well tell me everything so I can help you.”

“I have.”

“Have you really?”

David tried to get up, then sat down again. “I’m very sorry for the trouble. We both are. Incredibly sorry.”

“It’s not something to apologize for. As long as I know you’ve remembered everything correctly.”

“I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

“You’re okay to be grilled by this fat slob of a policeman? Do you speak any French?”

“Of course I speak French. And why would I not be okay?”

Richard got up and suddenly felt claustrophobic. A few stray thoughts rushed through his mind. The DJ from London, the people who wanted to arrive by helicopter—Lord Swann—the supply of dates and sugar from Errachidia, the pool party they were going to throw the following night. There was too much to remember. And the paparazzi they had turned away at the gates. It was all going awry and he was getting a headache.

The shower stopped and David began organizing a fresh shirt. He dithered and his fingers struggled with buttons. “Come down to dinner, both of you. No one will know anything. And if they do, what have you done wrong? You’re as much victims as that poor kid.” Again, Richard’s brisk tone to keep up morale.

David nodded, and tied up his shoes. He had nothing more to say and his shoulders slumped forward. He was like a Pinocchio with snipped wires, and it would take a miracle to get him rewired before the weekend was out. For the first time, Richard felt sorry for him. He leaned down and whispered, “David, did you have a drink earlier?”

“Rubbish.”

BEFORE RICHARD COULD ASK AGAIN, JO EMERGED. SHE WAS
now noticeably less tense. Her skin had revived, and soon the three of them were upright, ready to roll. They sauntered back to the house in a chattering of egrets. By the opulently lit doors, the staff stood awkwardly, their nervousness written large on their faces, while bats wheeled close to their heads.

“Never mind the bats,” Richard drawled. “They only live for twenty-four hours.”

There was a look of terror on Jo’s face. It had suddenly dawned
on her that this was a very elegant party and she didn’t know anyone there. She faltered at the threshold as the sound of massed voices no longer in control of themselves swept through the opening doors and the candlelight burst on their eyes. She looked around at Richard and said, “Aren’t you coming in?”

“I have to go to the garage. That’s where the boy is.”

“Couldn’t you stay?”

“Not now. David will be next to you.”

She didn’t seem very reassured.

“
Entrez
,” one of the staff said gently, holding open the door for her. The air-conditioning was a shock, and she hesitated.

“Go on,” Richard said. “Be brave.”

But what did braveness have to do with it?

THE BOY HAD BEEN LAID OUT ON ONE OF THE WORKTABLES
in the garages—former stables that had been converted into a space for five cars. Between two jeeps, the mangled body lay in its stained
djellaba
with three oil lamps standing around it. Disturbed by the sight, the staff had turned off the overhead neon light and stood around the corpse, not knowing what to think. Dally was with them, pacing around the table without looking at it, and Hamid was there with him, observing him anxiously. Dally, he was thinking, was not a cool head. He overreacted to everything. He was not a commanding man. He cursed under his breath and kept asking Hamid when the police were arriving.

“They arrive when they arrive,” Hamid replied icily.

“It’s a fucking disaster,” the American muttered.

The boy’s hands were spread out on either side of him, and the eyes had been closed; the blood had come to a standstill. The staff whispered among themselves. Before them lay the considerable mystery of his identity.

Different tribes dealt in different fossils, and only black market
dealers crossed the lines. The Aït Atta, for example, dealt in crinoids. That much they knew. But was he Aït Atta? Some of the staff claimed that he might be from the north-facing mountains, those who called themselves “the Atta of the shadow.” Some thought he might be Aït Iazzer or even Aït Merad. But they had no way of saying. They were merely speculating to dispel their unease.

Richard came in finally, at half past one. He was flustered and his face was damp, and when he saw the body, he went cold and officious.

“I want to know if we emptied his pockets thoroughly?”

“It was illegal,” Hamid whispered, “but we did it anyway.”

“There was nothing in them,” Dally snapped. “Which is not really possible. Where are the Hennigers?”

“They’re at dinner. I think I calmed them down.”

“Was he drunk?”

“Not at all. I don’t know what happened.”

“Not drunk
now
,” Dally sneered. “He ran right over him. The kid wasn’t just hit. Am I right, Hamid?”

They thought for a while. Richard stepped slowly around the table. The boy had cropped hair, dark bronze skin with blue tattoos. A high, perfect, aristocratic nose and wide, sensual lips. It was a tragic waste of an exquisite boy, he thought airily.

Dally took his arm, going into a rapid English that would make their words private in front of the staff. He was visibly upset.

“What are we going to do, Richard? You’ve called the
flics
. So now it’s going to be a circus.”

“What would you suggest?”

“I think we should get it settled tonight. We can pay them.”

“Settled? They have to find out who he is first. When they find that out, it might change.”

“Jesus, are you kidding?”

“I don’t think we have anything to worry about. It’s clear what happened.”

“Oh, is it? Is it clear that he has nothing on him? It’s like he’s been
robbed. I don’t think anything is clear at all. I think that limey is hiding something. Any chance to fuck with us, and they will.”

“They?” Richard opened his eyes wide.

“The Moroccans. They
will
, too. They will fuck with us.”

“He must have a family,” Richard said quietly, nodding at the body.

“That’s what I mean. The family will show up—and then they’ll fuck with us. They’ll say the infidels killed their boy.”

“They might, yes. Which would be true.”

Then he added, “Dally, you really should calm down a bit. They’re not going to fuck with us.”

Hamid looked at them intently, since he understood at least half of what they were saying, and his eyes seemed to pluck words out of the air and devour them. He understood that they were discussing fear of Moroccans. It was only natural. The rumors would spread like wildfire, and he wanted to touch them on the shoulder and tell them how little liked they were by the
indigènes
. Or rather, how little trusted they were. He was inclined to offer them some help, but he also enjoyed their sudden helplessness. It was interesting, to say the least. Truly, there was no line of people waiting at the gate of Patience.

“What do you think, Hamid?”

“I think, Monsieur, we should tell the staff to not tell anyone in Tafnet.”

And he smiled, because it was impossible.

“Yes,” Richard said dutifully. “Can you ask them?”

Suddenly there were tears in Dally’s big brown eyes, and a cow look ruined his superbness.

“How?” he moaned.

The staff stirred, and they pulled out a chair for him. Richard asked them to close the doors to the garage and keep them shut. The guests’ cars were all parked in the open inside the
ksour
walls. It was childish, because of course they would find out, and it was not as if they would come storming down to the garage in a mob. It was more to calm Dally and help him retain his sanity.

“Get us some drinks from the house, will you?” Richard said to Hamid. “Two Scotches. We’ll take them outside.”

The weather had been stifling lately. The Chergui was blowing, with its saline taste and its withering scorn. Living things scattered before it.

They went outside to the gate, and the light of the stars cooled their minds by emptying them. The river echoed below, with its promise of cool, and gradually Dally stopped crying. “That poor fucking kid,” he kept saying, as if he wanted to pound something with his fist. His brown silk shirt looked self-mocking now and faintly ridiculous.

The moon lit the rolling intermediate mountains the Moroccans called the
dir
, “the belt,” and which spanned the desert and the High Atlas. Hamid brought the drinks on a tray and set it on the low wall by the road. They were going to wait for Captain Yassine Benihadd here, apparently, though, in his opinion, it did not show good form in front of the local police. He could sense that they were both panicking. Was their beautiful way of life, their partial exile, so detailed and meticulously planned, now in danger of being destroyed?

Two pairs of headlights shot up from the road below.

“Monsieur,” Hamid said gravely, “it is the police. I will take away the drinks.”

Four

E WERE SAYING YOU MUST HAVE HAD AN ACCIDENT
, but Mohammed said it was a flat tire—they always get flats out in the desert—and we all felt sorry for you. A flat tire, and in the dark! What a drag. Was it?”

“Don’t ask them now,” Day said to the tiresome French girl. “Can’t you see they want to eat?”

“It’s all right,” Jo said, her mouth trembling. “We just need to recover.”

“People disappear here.” The girl laughed. “They just vanish. Did the Arabs molest you?”

“I didn’t catch your name,” David said stonily.

“Isabelle. I’m taking photographs of villages around here.”

“She’s a nomad,” Day said. “Her name’s really Fatima Baba.”

“Je suis photographe.”

“She says she’s a photograph.”

“Oh,” said David, not getting the joke.

The lamb and prune
tagine
appeared before the Hennigers. They didn’t react, and then the beet salad and some warmed-up bread, and the room was so loud that soon they were almost forgotten, and Jo was relieved. To be forgotten is dinner party bliss. She ate too quickly and then the wine came, the cold, familiar Tempier that brought her back to memories of Europe, and she thought, “I’ll just get drunk, too, it’s a way out.” Gradually her nervousness dulled and her head cleared. The lilies suddenly caught her eye, and then the German crystal, the hard brightness that money buys and taste arranges, like waking up in a place in which you went to sleep but don’t remember.

A few other guests called down the table. “Welcome!” “Sorry you had a hassle!” “Remember us from Rome?” But she didn’t recognize any of them. They were all remarkably dressed up for a desert dinner, with their buttonholes and linen suits and strapless dresses, and the man across from her, the American, was wearing a
poppy
in his lapel. He looked at her for long periods, unblinking, concentrating on her. She shot a look back at him and for a second, their suspicions tangled, wrestling each other in midair.

“Did you pass Beni Mellal?” asked the Dutch lady whom Day had talked to earlier. David tried to be peppy.

“We came through Midelt. It’s a different road, you see. Very scenic.”

“But that’s a main road. Did you get lost, then?”

“We didn’t get lost,” David said determinedly. “It was just a long slog of a drive. It’s through the high mountains.”

“It’s the road most of us came on,” Day said.

“Yes, but we didn’t know it.”

The room mellowed a little, and without anyone noticing, the
oud
player left the room with his instrument. Jo swung back her head to
empty her glass. She didn’t want to lie anymore. She found the women down the table looking at her with humorous disbelief. A marital quarrel, they were thinking; a roadside row that must have looked funny to passers-by. The men looked at her with a different interest. Was she tellingly detached from her glowering husband?