The Lighthearted Quest (18 page)

Next morning, over the familiar French breakfast of rolls and
butter, with chicory in the coffee, she wrote a note to Mr. St John enclosing Lady Tracy's letter, and saying that if it was not “a bore” she would so much like to see him—this the hotel undertook to send by hand at once. Señor Huerta at the Espagnola, and Lady Tracy too, had impressed on the girl that no European woman of
any
age could with propriety walk alone in the streets of Fez; anxious to lose no time—though the prices of her small hotel proved, mercifully, to be fairly moderate—Julia asked the management to lay on a French-speaking guide for eleven o'clock. When she went downstairs this individual was already waiting—a tall Arab in flowing robes, whose excessively handsome face was only slightly disfigured by a rather noticeable wart on one side of his high hawk-like nose. He spoke fair French, but in spite of his handsomeness—or perhaps because of it; there are women who instinctively distrust handsome men—Julia took against Abdul from the moment she set eyes on him, and she was really rather relieved when in the middle of their colloquy as to where she should go and what she should see, the hotel porter announced that a Monsieur Anglais desired to speak with Mademoiselle, and she found herself face to face with Mr. St John.

Mr. St John, Julia decided at once, could not possibly be as old as he looked, or he simply couldn't have walked about at all. He looked incredibly old. He was very short, not much over five feet, with bushy snow-white hair and a face so brown, leathery, and wrinkled that he strongly resembled a lizard—but a very
nice
lizard; his expression was charming, benevolent and intelligent, in spite of his disconcerting saurian face, with the little hooked poking nose, so like the nose of a questing tortoise. He spoke with extreme deliberateness and a curiously beautiful enunciation; his words came out like small carved beads of sound from his tight withered lips. Julia was fascinated by him, and by his brief way of dealing with Abdul, the guide.

“Another time,” he said in French, waving a small clawlike hand in dismissal. “Today it is
I
who escort Mademoiselle.” (The ‘moi' in this speech was even more elaborately carved than the other verbal beads.) Abdul, clearly intimidated, gave a deeply respectful Moslem salutation and took himself off.

“Now that we are rid of this
shameless
exploiter and profiteer, what do you want to see?” Mr. St John asked.

“Well, Fez,” said Julia. “But don't let me be a bore.”

“That were impossible. And if Fez could bore me—which it never has yet—I should console myself by looking at you,” the old man said, with a prehistoric twinkle from under his extraordinary dinosaur's eye-lids. “But do you, in the first place, wish to shop?”

“No, not really. You see I haven't much money for shopping—this hellish travel allowance!” said Julia. “But some time, when we've done the main sights, I should like to go to Bathyadis. I hear he has lovely things, and that one can look at them without buying too much.”

“Ah, this delightful Bathyadis! A great friend of mine. Who told you of him?” Mr. St John asked, with a keen glance.

“Lady Tracy,” Julia lied glibly. She had rather been caught on one foot by Mr. St John turning up so promptly, and with her customary deliberation she decided not to rush matters but to hold her fire and see what happened—she had intended to do a preliminary visit to Bathyadis alone and try out the ground before embarking on the Englishman at all. As it was, she would be passive today. Something might eventuate.

Quite a lot eventuated, as it turned out. Mr. St John, with a stout walking-stick, led Julia on a skilful round of Fez, which he accompanied by a learned and lively commentary: through
souks
full of leather, of copper, of pottery, of silks, of spices—each commodity in its separate street; past fountains with exquisite carved plaster above them, past the doors, equally ornate, of famous and forbidden mosques; under those vaulted echoing tunnels where the rushing noise of underground water
filled the air, and women tipped rubbish into the subterranean streams. He told her of the seven rivers, and their names.

“Yes, but where do all these Alphs come out?” Julia asked, “if they do come out? They must look pretty ghastly when they emerge, with all this garbage in them; they'd really do better to stick to caverns measureless to man, don't you think?”

Mr. St John laughed, a dry articulated laugh such as a tortoise might give, if tortoises laughed.

“Dear young lady, how practical and factual you are! Do you know, I have never observed them after they emerge—which they certainly do, ultimately.”

“Oh, well, I expect you're wise,” said Julia carelessly. She was beginning to get tired, young and strong as she was, after yesterday's journey and her short night; moreover Fez is built on two slopes of considerable steepness, so that when perambulating the old city half one's time seems to be spent in climbing Mount Everest, or descending something equally abrupt. She was much relieved when at last Mr. St John, turning into a courtyard with a fountain, and shops opening all round it, said—

“Here is Bathyadis's.”

The shop was really two, and was not in the least like a European shop. It consisted of a couple of rooms, with most of both their fronts open to their full width on the court, causing Julia to wonder how the place could be shut up at night. One half was given over solely to carpets, the other was full of curios of every sort—silverware, antique jewellery in cases, lamps, brass trays, exquisite embroideries, woven saddle-bags and djellabas, and fine old leather-work; the whole place glowed and gleamed with colour like Aladdin's cave.

Bathyadis, in spite of his Greek-sounding name, was to all appearance a complete Moor, dressed in a long woollen robe with a fez on top—Goodness, that's why they're called fezes, Julia thought to herself, now at last in the city that gives its meaning to the word; he had a splendid presence, a flowing
grey beard, and courtly manners. He greeted Mr. St John by name in passable French and with evident pleasure, and invited them to sit down and have mint tea; Mr. St John looked enquiringly at Julia.

“Oh, yes, do let's—I'm longing to take the weight off my feet,” the girl said in English. Mr. St John nodded to Bathyadis and introduced him to Julia, who figured in the introduction, she recalled afterwards, as “a friend of mine”.

They sat on a sort of bench covered with rich carpets. A youth in Arab garments brought the mint tea in glasses; it was sweet, scalding hot, and very minty—Julia thought it rather nasty, but sipped peacefully while Bathyadis and her escort talked. They spoke in French, and she listened idly, glad to be sitting down; Bathyadis was asking if Monsieur St John wanted to look at the tray again? No, not today, the old gentleman said—nevertheless the dealer had the tray brought out, a lovely antique one in wrought brass, of exquisite workmanship; Mr. St John continued to say No. Meanwhile Julia's eye, roving round the cave-like gloom of the shop, was caught by a little coffer or trunk covered in plum-coloured velvet studded in a graceful pattern with silver-headed nails, for all the world like the one which propped up the broken Chippendale chair in Lady Tracy's house in Tangier; she thought it quite enchanting, and presently she drew Mr. St John's attention to it. “Would that be fearfully expensive?” she asked. “I'd love to have it, if I have to starve for a week!”

“The little trousseau-trunk, do you mean? Oh no, they are not in the least costly—two pounds, or two pounds ten at the most. They have become a drug in the market.” He spoke to Bathyadis, and the little object was brought over by the youth who had fetched the tea, and opened for Julia's inspection; inside it was lined with some flowered material, there was a tiny lock and a delicate silver key.

“It's sweet,” said Julia. “I will reflect upon it,” she told Bathyadis in French, waving the pretty thing away.

“How wise you already are,” said Mr. St John approvingly. “One should always tell an Arab that one will reflect upon a purchase; the longer one reflects, the less a given object costs.”

“Why do you call them trousseau-trunks? And why are they a drug on the market?” Julia asked.

“For a sad reason, in answer to your second question. For centuries, here, the trousseau of a Moorish bride has always been carried in the wedding procession—on someone's head, usually—enclosed in one of these velvet coffers, varying in size of course according to the wealth and social status of the family; most of these little pieces of luggage are between two and three hundred years old, handed down with love and respect from mother to daughter from generation to generation. But recently,” said Mr. St John, emitting a whistling sigh which again reminded Julia of a tortoise of her childhood, “it has become dated, out-moded, arriéré, to use these beautiful things for this purpose; it is considered much more chic, more up-to-date, to send down to Casablanca, or to the New Town here, for some very dreadful modern suitcase in compressed fibre—if possible with an imitation of the skin of the lizard or the crocodile stamped on its surface—in which to carry the bride's trousseau to her new home.”

“God, how revolting!” said Julia fervently.

“You are right. The deity may with propriety be invoked to condemn this practice. However, it obtains; and that is why these lovely objects of art—for they are that—can now be bought at bargain prices.”

“Well, I'll buy one next time I come. If I wait, shall I perhaps get it for thirty-five shillings?” Julia asked.

“Oh, you are admirable! I daresay you may. I will speak to him about it,” Mr. St John said—and did so.

“Mademoiselle, my friend, desires a coffer, which you will sell her at the proper price—not at all the
prix de touristes,
you understand.” The immediate result was to cause Bathyadis to have half the contents of the crowded shop pulled aside in
order to display to Julia another trunk of the same sort, only in a more crimson shade of velvet, and five times bigger.
“Non, non”
Julia said, laughing and shaking her head—the old Englishman for some reason grinned broadly at this point.

However Mr. St John, still speaking French, now asked a question of Bathyadis which caused Julia to sit up and listen. How was his son doing in Casablanca?

Oh, marvellously—he was making a fortune. Such a place for money, Casablanca! “But he is here, just for a week—you would like to meet him?”

Mr. St John said he would, and the Arab youth, who had been quietly putting back the displaced objects in front of the vast velvet trunk, was sent to fetch young Mr. Bathyadis. Julia hugged herself in silence—as easy as all that.

The young man when he arrived proved to be much less picturesque than his father, since he wore neat European clothes; but his manners were equally good. He greeted Mr. St John with the utmost warmth, thanking him with all his heart—rather to Julia's surprise this—for having made that wonderful suggestion. “Only a year and a half I am there, and already such gains! It is formidable!” More mint tea was brought to celebrate the occasion; the young man was presented to Julia, who said she would be going to Casablanca later, and would so much like to visit his shop and take her friends there—young Bathyadis whipped out a card and handed it to her; she stowed it away in her purse with great satisfaction. A second article on the Moroccan financial sidelines was practically in the bag, if she could only get onto that business of the rare minerals, somehow or other.

As they left, bowed out by old Bathyadis and his rich son, Julia had a small, unpleasant shock. Leaning against the wall in the open courtyard, in conversation with the Arab youth who had fetched the tea, was—this time quite unmistakably—the seedy little man with the cast in his eye whom Julia thought she had recognised when she bumped into him at Petit-Jean
the night before. She walked quickly over, determined to tackle him; but with his beetle-like run he nipped out through the archway leading from the court to the street, and was gone.

“What is it?” Mr. St John asked, as she fell back, baffled, beside him.

“That revolting little man! I really believe he's following me,” said Julia indignantly.

“Dear young lady, it should no longer surprise you that men follow you, surely?” said Mr. St John, with calm and slightly mocking benevolence.

“Oh, well—“ said Julia; she was by nature all in favour of calm, and gave that up for the moment.

Mr. St John said that they would now visit the museum. The museum is at the top of Fez, or Everest, Bathyadis' shop is at the bottom; they toiled upwards. Julia began to feel extraordinarily tired—so tired that the sight of lush growths of plants on the tops of yellow plastered walls, and the trees that occasionally overhung them, could no longer charm her; she could think only of her back, which ached, of her feet, and the appalling cobble-stones in which her feet trod. But even in this near-coma of exhaustion, one thing drew and held her attention. Now and again, in fact quite often in their exhausting progress uphill they encountered some wonderful old man, swathed from head to foot in impeccable robes of creamy wool, a woollen hood covering his ice-white hair, and revealing his ice-white beard—they were the
cleanest
human beings that Julia had ever beheld, and moreover she observed that the crowds in the thronging alleys made way for them with reverent respect.

“What
is
that old man?” she was at last moved to ask Mr. St John, as they passed yet another of these ultra-clean white-clad figures.

“He is a leading member of one of the religious brotherhoods, which are such a feature of Muslim life here,” Mr. St John replied.

“Religious life? For charity and so on, like the Spanish
hermandads?”

“Originally, yes; and for that reason they are held in great veneration and wield a prodigious influence. But latterly, with the growth of nationalism and the disturbed state of public feeling, a good many of these brotherhoods, or the leaders of them, have begun to bend their organisations to political ends, alas!”—he ended with another of those whistling sighs. Julia was so much interested that she almost forgot her fatigue—this would be splendid for
Ebb and Flow.