Tangier July 1978
Tangier
The suitcase banged against his leg as he hurried through the dark streets of the casbah, the writing case tucked under his arm.
He felt like a fugitive, fleeing with his possessions, convinced that a figure would step out of the shadows into his path, that footsteps would echo after him, that a voice would shout and torchlight dazzle him into blindness.
He took the most twisting way he knew back to Madame Sarah’s – a sharp left, a sudden right – as if trying to shake off a pursuer who didn’t exist.
Mohamed had helped him pull out the case from under a stack of six others. It had come free in a cloud of grit and decaying leather, and for one second, they had both held the handle. Then, Sam was swinging it away.
‘My uncle’s luggage!’ he’d exclaimed. ‘And look, it matches the writing case he left me. Who’d have believed it? How lucky, thank you …’
He’d talked his way out of the storeroom, gabbling about his uncle and the possessions.
Mohamed had tried to interrupt, said he should go and fetch the manager, but Sam had just clapped him on the shoulder and hurried out of the hotel, breaking into a half-run as he fled down the steps and into the shadows of the casbah.
What was he doing? This is theft, he told himself, heart beating faster than his footsteps, this is stealing. All the same, he was reeling with excitement. This was the feeling he’d come halfway across the world for. This, he thought, is brilliant.
By the time he reached Madame Sarah’s he was sweating, despite the sudden gusts of wind that had propelled him along.
He let himself in as furtively as he could, and crept up the stairs.
Only when the door of his room was locked behind him did he sink down to catch his breath, and allow himself to look closer at the suitcase.
It sat on the floor in front of him, real and aged and impossible. He stared, fearing he’d made a mistake, that in the strange, dim atmosphere of the storeroom he’d misread the initials. But there they were, in the same faded gold as the writing case.
A. L.
A corresponding leather cloakroom tag hung from the handle, looped on by someone who would never have dreamed that, half a century later, it would still be there, curled and crusted with salt-damp.
Sam reached for the writing case, for the key that was inside, before stopping.
He couldn’t just go rushing into this; he had to document every moment, every detail.
He rolled a cigarette, making a bad job of it, before taking out a sheet of paper.
Scrappily, he wrote down everything that had happened that evening: talking with Bet at The Hold, running through the casbah chased by the wind, the smell of the Hotel Continental, a piece of luggage that had lain forgotten for fifty long years …
His eyes drifted to the suitcase. Its presence filled the room.
He could feel it, even smell it beneath the pungent smoke of his cigarette, burning down in the ashtray.
Finally, he let the pencil drop, and reached for the small silver key.
Please work, he asked silently, as he fitted it to the lock, and closed his eyes.
It grated, before turning with a gentle thunk. He held his breath and, slowly, lifted the lid.
Decay, that was what he smelled. Dank and oddly organic, as if the objects inside – glass and paper and fabrics – had reverted back to bone and sand and flesh.
He peered down. The inside of the case looked orderly, despite his run from the hotel.
Clothes, neatly folded, small glass bottles clipped in place by leather straps.
He leaned in closer and the stink of age seemed to lessen, giving way to other scents: a faint trace of sandalwood and something he wanted to call ambergris without any idea of what ambergris might be.
He let his fingers trail over the bottles, before reaching in, and lifting out the top layer of cloth.
It was a jacket, a man’s suit jacket, which clung to its folds. It was made of linen, fawn brown, tailored for another era. Mould bloomed in its creases. Gingerly, he checked the pockets, but found nothing.
Matching trousers came next, mutated by long-storage, shirts fine but yellowed, and collars, their starch turned to crusted powder.
Underwear and silk socks lay curled like strange boneless fish in the darkness of the case.
So far there was nothing to tell him anything about A.
L. except that he was a man – someone who could afford personalized cases and silk and scent.
As he lifted out the last bundle of socks and handkerchiefs, he saw an extra pocket, half-concealed down one side. Immediately, he reached in.
Heavy paper met his fingers. With a stab of excitement, he pulled it free, expecting a letter, or perhaps money, but it was neither. Instead, he was holding a rectangle of green card.
PASAPORTE
Consulado de Espana de Tánger
Certifico de Don: Alejandro del Potro
Profesión: Secretario
Natural de: Sevilla, Espana
Edad: 21 anos
Sam frowned. Alejandro del Potro? But the suitcase said A.
L. He looked eagerly at the face on the passport.
It showed a young man – younger than he’d expected, with dark hair and eyes and a wary, scowling expression, at odds with the stylish hat pulled down over his forehead.
He didn’t look wealthy enough to own personalized luggage.
So then, who was he? Someone who had bought the case second-hand, like himself?
Someone who was borrowing it? Or – Sam’s fingers tightened on the passport – a thief?
He began to search the case again, convinced he’d missed something. Finally, tangled amongst the socks, he found another object. A book, pocket-sized. At first he thought it might be a diary or a journal, until he saw a title printed on its worn blue cover.
THE GENTLEMAN’S GUIDE
If anything, it was even stranger than the passport. Why would someone pack a book on etiquette when they were obviously travelling light? Still frowning, he flicked the book open and saw a scrawl of handwriting. A dedication, written in English:
If you’re going to play the game, you have to learn the rules.
The hairs on the back of Sam’s neck stood up.
No initials, no date, just that sentence, almost a warning …
He turned the page, hoping to find more writing, but there was nothing, only chapters of advice on dressing and deportment, luncheon menus and which type of hat was appropriate for a picnic.
Occasionally, words and phrases had been underlined in pencil, as if the book had been diligently studied.
Sam kept turning the pages. About a quarter of the way through, the spine felt looser, the leaves coming away from the binding, as if the section had been read many times.
It contained recipes for cocktails, for punches and sodas, and – left to itself – fell open on one particular entry.
Blood and Sand
Take a quarter glass of fresh blood orange juice and the same of good Scotch whisky. Add into this a quarter glass of Cherry Heering and half a glass of sweet Italian vermouth. Shake violently enough to break a sweat and strain into a coupe glass.
Blood and Sand. He’d never heard of it before.
It was probably the kind of thing people had drunk long ago, when spirits were plentiful and a pocketful of dollars could take a person across a continent in luxury.
Not like now. He traced the title. Was this A.
L.’s favourite drink? Or del Potro’s? Fifty years ago, would he have ordered one at a party, among a crowd of ex-pats and wanderers, all searching, drinking, writing music and painting and pouring out work that was considered new and vital … ?
Sam dropped the book, and stared into the case once again.
What had happened to A. L., to make him leave a suitcase behind, to make him lose a writing case?
And who the hell was Alejandro del Potro?
Sam’s hands began to twitch. He wished he still had the Hermes.
Ideas were jostling at the ends of his fingertips.
A. L. could have been a rich British gentleman or a poor young man from America.
Alejandro del Potro could have been a friend, a colleague, a lover, a criminal.
I’ll write them, Sam thought, looking at the passport, the book, the clothes. If I can’t find out who they were, I’ll write them into life. A. L. and Alejandro del Potro, they can be characters in my story, one that starts in the casbah, with the sale of a typewriter …