The Lighthearted Quest (13 page)

Turning back into the
place,
she looked about her. The
square slanted downhill in two directions, so that the buildings on her left lay below those on her right; they mostly presented blank whitewashed walls pierced by a single door, over each of which, incongruously, a blue-and-white enamel plaque carried a number. At the lower end a heterogeneous crowd was already gathered; Julia strolled down towards it over the hot stones, looking for a point of vantage from which to watch the proceedings, and if possible somewhere to sit. Both these requirements, she observed, were met by a short flight of steps leading up to a building with iron-barred windows; climbing the steps she perched on the parapet at the top. Almost immediately, however, an official in a green uniform followed by an Arab carrying a kitchen chair came over, planted the chair on the top step, and bowing politely urged Julia in French to sit on it. The official seemed too grand to tip, so Julia gave a coin to the Arab; then she lit a cigarette and settled down to see the fun.

There was plenty to look at. Immediately in front of her on the lower side of the
place,
which at this end extended still further down the slope in a sort of rectangular bulge, the Mendoub's guard was already drawn up, a line of Moorish horsemen on beautiful little barbs; the men had various weapons stuck and slung about their wild dress, and carried long staves with fanions a-top; the little horses were as be-tasselled as Geoffrey had led her to expect—tassels depended from saddles, from bridles, and wherever a tassel could be hung, all in bright colours in which red predominated. The guard was smaller than she had expected; only fifteen in all, but it was by no means the only part of the show. There were also two rows of elderly men dressed in robes of spotless cream, with hoods or cowls thrown back to reveal maroon skullcaps bound round with narrow snowy turbans; they stood on either side of the paved road which bisected the cobbles of the
place
from top to bottom, talking among themselves—beyond them a gaggle of populace and children, all strangely
garbed, shouted and ran about, constantly harried and called to order by several policemen, and the official in green who had brought her the chair.

All this was amusing enough at first, but presently it began to pall. Half-an-hour passed, three-quarters of an hour, and still no Mendoub. Several Americans, shepherded by two rather officious Arab guides, arrived, and also took up their stance on the steps, crowding these uncomfortably; they had cameras which they held to their eyes as they photographed the Mendoub's guard, but they were restrained by the official in green from photographing the old men in white burnouses. They grumbled about that, and about the unpunctuality of the planes which were carrying them about Morocco and Spain; it was very hot; Julia began to get bored. And then something very peculiar happened.

Out onto the flat roof of one of the Moorish houses which bounded the bulge at the lower end of the square came two men, carrying canvas chairs which they proceeded to set up in the small shade cast by two bay-trees growing in tubs. They then disappeared, to re-appear after a moment, each carrying a large cocktail-glass. The houses below the bulge were so much lower than the northern side of the
place
that their roofs were practically on a level with Julia, and she could see clearly all that took place; for a moment or two she watched the two men idly, envying them the deckchairs in which they presently sat down, the shade of the bay-trees, and above all their cocktails. Then suddenly she sat up very straight, as both rose and came and stood by the low parapet, looking down onto the crowd below. One was the red-haired man whom she had twice seen in Purcell's Bar, wearing as usual his white flannel trousers and dark blue blazer. But the other? The other was much younger, very tall and very dark; and Julia, incredulously, thought that she recognised Colin Monro. She stared and stared, through the glittering blinding sunshine; the range was about seventy yards, and moreover Colin
had been four years younger when she last saw him, and this was a grown man. But the loose easy walk, the slouch—so like Edina's slouch—were exactly as she remembered the charming youth at Glentoran; and what she could discern of the face at that distance was Colin's face.

She sprang up from her kitchen chair, and started to go down the steps, disturbing the Americans, who protested loudly—not without reason. For at that very moment a vast cream-coloured motor-car nearly as long as a bus appeared at the upper end of the
place,
and moved slowly down it; the Arab guard sprang to attention, the two rows of old men hurriedly pulled the hoods of their white robes over their heads and stood in reverent attitudes; the police chivvied the crowding children away and awed them into silence, and then stood at the salute as the Mendoub, the local representative of the Sultan, who is Allah's representative on earth as far as Morocco is concerned, drove up to pay his devotions to Allah on high. Helpless, fuming, hemmed in by the eager transatlantic tourists, and in spite of herself awed by the moment, Julia stood, one eye on the two men on the roof, while she watched the proceedings. There was little enough to see—several elderly men in long robes emerged from the car, were surrounded and masked by the police, and shuffled off up a cobbled alley to the mosque. By the time they disappeared the two men on the roof opposite had also vanished, taking their chairs with them.

The moment that it was possible do so Julia ran down the steps and tried to push her way through the crowd of women and children in order to find the entrance to the house on whose roof she thought she had seen Colin; but it was some moments before she could reach her objective, and when she did she was completely frustrated. Only one house had a door giving onto the lower, bulging corner of the square, and that was away to one side; she knocked at it, and after a long pause a veiled Arab woman with cross-eyes opened to her. The
inner court revealed by the open door was dirty and filthy to a degree which really precluded that house being lived in by the red-haired man, with his immaculate trousers; nor could Julia exchange a word with the woman, who looked equally blank at the sound of English, Spanish, or French. Julia gave it up. Some distance away an archway led through into a cobbled alley, which was in fact the entrance from the Kasbah; Julia tried this. Here there was a plethora of doors—closed doors in blank walls; not only on both sides of the main alley, but in a sort of court leading off it—she counted at least eight. But in the confused rabbit-warren which an old Moorish city usually is it was impossible to determine which of the eight was the door of the house she wanted. She tried one, haphazard—it opened on another filthy little courtyard, on another Arab woman, though this time not cross-eyed; but she too understood nothing but Arabic. Poor Julia began to feel desperate. It was frightful to think of Colin perhaps being within a few yards of her, and not to be able to reach him. She went out again into the
place,
noted the position of the house with the bay-trees as well as she could, and returned to the alley. One house in the court leading off it seemed to correspond best to that position—moreover the door was of clean-grained wood, not covered with peeling paint, and the knocker was tidily blacked; Julia used this to knock loudly.

The door was opened almost immediately; through it, past the smartly-dressed Moor in a braided jacket who stood in the opening, she caught a glimpse of a neat courtyard with whitewashed walls and geraniums growing in big earthenware jars. This was much more the style, Julia thought, and it was quite hopefully that she addressed the elegant man-servant.

It is always a question in Morocco, and in Tangier especially, whether servants will respond best to Spanish or to French—on this occasion Julia opted for French.

“Monsieur is at home?” she asked.

“I will enquire, Mademoiselle,” the Moor replied politely;
he spoke excellent French. “Might I have Mademoiselle's card?”

Now visiting cards are one of the many things that have practically disappeared from England since the Second World War, when they could only be bought, with permits, by diplomats and officials—Julia, brought up without such things, had none. She said so, but gave her name; the servant bowed elegantly as he repeated it carefully—evidently a well-trained man, she thought. And then a still stranger thing happened. It struck her that she might as well ask for Colin at once and she said, quietly—
“En effet,
the person whom I desire to see is Monsieur Monro. I believe he is staying here.”

When she said that, this well-trained Moorish man-servant, with no diminution of the elegance of his manners, and without uttering a single word, very quietly shut the door in her face.

For a moment or two Julia stood in that shadowed but nevertheless hot little court, utterly taken aback. One very seldom has a door shut in one's face by a servant unless one is a beggar, or in some other obvious way unsuitable for polite society—which Julia knew she was not. She had a moment of fury, an impulse to hammer savagely with that black-painted knocker on the tidy well-grained door. But she pulled herself together, and did neither. Slowly she turned away—and then turned back to see if there was one of those blue-and-white plaques with numbers over the door. There was not. And there was no street-name at the entrance to the little court; when she turned the corner and stood where she could see up the alley into the
place,
there was none there either. But at the angle where the court and the alley met she nearly bumped into a small lurking figure, European, with a hang-dog look—she recognised the seedy little man who had come into Purcell's Bar the first time she went there, by the cast in his eye. He glanced at her curiously before he scuttled off, silently, on rubber-soled feet, and was lost to sight among the gradually dissolving crowd in the square.

This tiny encounter rather upset Julia, coming on top of what had gone before. Had he
seen
that door shut in her face? The thought was disagreeable; somehow the whole thing was eminently disagreeable. She walked out into the square, suddenly extremely aware of heat, hunger, and fatigue—and how on earth was she to get back to the Espagnola? She really
couldn't
walk it. However this problem solved itself, rapidly. The Americans with whom she had shared those steps had gone, but one of their Arab guides, whom she recognised, promptly accosted her; he conjured up a taxi out of space and escorted her to the Place Pasteur, all the address she would vouchsafe. There, in English, he demanded an exorbitant tip—Julia said
“Par exemple!”
and gave him a very modest one; whereat he smirked, bowed, and took himself off.

The Espagnola being under Spanish management really preferred its patrons to lunch about half-past two, so Julia did not have to worry about being late; this was as well, for she felt a little unnerved. Seeing Colin, if it was Colin, was startling enough—and she felt pretty sure that it must have been him, or why had the mere mention of his name caused that door to be shut? She was troubled. The whole thing was so extraordinary, and seeing the seedy little man from the underworld there, at that precise moment, was somehow the last, most disconcerting touch.
How
was she to get hold of Colin?

Julia, finishing her tortilla and refusing cheese—after all she was not as hungry as she thought, she found—fell back on her usual principle of there being always some sensible thing to do: in this case, she decided after reflection, the sensible thing was to take a nap. She did so, and awoke refreshed and mentally restored; she had tea sent to her room, made a leisurely toilet, and set off in good time for Purcell's Bar; if she went early enough she would be sure to find him alone and—well, one never knew.

Purcell was alone when she went in, sure enough; he greeted
her with a minute degree of extra friendliness, a sort of delicate accent on the gradual progress in their acquaintanceship which really charmed Julia—it occurred to her that she knew no one, in any walk of life, who would have done this better, if indeed as well. Purcell observed that it was a hot day, and while he shook her cocktail for her, neat and small behind his bar, asked if she would like a piece of ice in it? Julia said she would, and when he brought her drink with the clear cube swimming in the liquid he also brought the bottle of Gordon's, and slipped in an extra dash, observing that in his view a washy cocktail was a horrible thing. These agreeable attentions cheered Julia up considerably, and restored her nerve; nevertheless, she resisted the gin-born impulse to ask Purcell some questions, and instead did a sort of mental summing-up. If she had really seen Colin up in the Kasbah today he couldn't be on the
Frivolity,
so
that
was out; and if it wasn't him that she had seen, why the closed door at the sound of his name? Damn!—why hadn't she longer sight?

Purcell broke in on these reflections with a friendly query from behind the bar—had she, he asked, been up today to see the Mendoub? This struck Julia as being a sort of pointer for further action. Yes, she had gone, she said; very interesting and very picturesque. Then she drawled out a question—“Who is that tall man with red hair whom I've seen in here once or twice? You know—he always wears white flannel trousers and a blue blazer.”

Purcell hesitated for a moment before replying—did his fascinating Anglo-negro face bear for a moment something of the same withdrawn expression that she had seen on Mr. Panoukian's face down in Casablanca? She couldn't be sure, but there certainly was a perceptible hesitation before he replied.

“I know the person you mean,” the bar proprietor said, “but I don't know his name.”

“Oh, you must!” Julia protested. “He came in with all
that bunch of pansies!” she added unguardedly—“They're locals.”

Purcell gave a little laugh.

“Still I do not know his name. I do not know the names of everyone who comes here—not yours, for example! In any case this particular gentleman left Tangier early this afternoon; he came in to get supplies of whisky and gin before going off to the interior.”