FEDORA
Take a pony each of brandy and Curacao. Add to this half a pony of good Jamaica rum and half a pony of Bourbon. Stir into this half a teaspoon of powdered sugar and a slice of lemon. Shake with ice and serve ornamented.
The devil knows how I fell asleep. Perhaps it was the exhaustion or the pain, the heat of the brandy in my empty belly or the assault of so many new things upon my senses that made my mind close the shutters for a while, sending me into nothingness.
When I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was the hat. It was sitting upon the table before me, quiet and elegant, the colour of cream with a dark brown band. A piece of paper was resting beneath.
I hoisted myself on to an elbow. Only then did I realize that the room was empty. For a moment, I stayed very still. Someone had half closed the shutters to keep out the heat. A clock ticked, a fly droned and the tock of croquet balls floated up from the hotel’s lawn.
They were gone, the gentleman and the lady.
There was nothing in the room to suggest that anyone would return, no suitcases or valises, no kicked-off shoes or robes hanging on doors.
Even more worrying, I found that my trouser leg had been rolled up; the cut on my shin had been washed with livid yellow iodine and dressed with a bandage.
When had that happened? Uneasy, I felt at my chest, but everything seemed the same, the bindings in place.
Had they found me out? Were they keeping me here while they called for the police?
I listened again, and heard nothing. For a minute or two I became convinced that if I went outside, I would find the world deserted, every motor-car abandoned, the dining room full of half-eaten plates and no one but me left to wander through it all.
Hands a little unsteady, I took up the note, to reassure myself that this was not a dream:
This should keep the sun from your eyes.
With compliments,
A
A. Arthur. The man with the saint’s face and the cryptic smile was giving me one of his hats?
It seemed too much, a strange, personal gift.
I lifted it gently to touch the inside band, which must have rested against his forehead and lapped the sweat of his brow, only to stop, as another piece of paper fluttered into my lap.
A twenty-five peseta note. I could only stare.
Twenty-five pesetas … it was more money than I had ever held in my life.
It would buy me a room in La Atunara for weeks, even a good one.
It would buy me fifty meals, a hundred drinks.
I touched the corner of the note, afraid that I would turn it over and find it one-sided and false.
But it was real. What did it mean? Had the man tucked the money into his hatband and forgotten it there?
Who would forget twenty-five pesetas? The man must be richer than I thought.
I picked up the note again. With compliments.
It was hush money, I realized, like Morales used to pay to the guardia and the city inspectors.
It was a reward for my silence, a request for me to leave Gibraltar quietly and without fuss.
I shoved the note into the wrappings around my chest, blinking hard.
It was more than I’d anticipated getting from this encounter. Far more. So why was I disappointed?
Carefully, I picked up the hat and pushed myself to my feet.
There was a mirror on the wall near by, large and gilded.
The reflection in it was still a shock. A boy, that was what I saw.
A moody gitano boy who’d been in a scuffle.
I placed the hat upon my head. It was bigger on me than it had been on the man, but it fitted.
The cream colour suited my skin, but combined with the grubby suit, it looked absurd.
I felt a pulse of envy for the man who had left it, for his wardrobe of beautiful, pristine clothes, for the way he had carried himself without a care.
And at the same time, something rushed through me that I couldn’t name, something like excitement, a shiver of possibility that made me raise my chin just a fraction …
There was a noise at the door. I swiped the hat from my head and held it tight.
‘Who’s there?’ I called.
It was a hotel man in a dinner jacket, a stiff collar around his turkey neck. His mouth was tight with distaste, and I dropped my chin, not wanting him to look too closely.
‘I see you are awake,’ he said. ‘In that case, we will have you taken back to the border.’
‘To the policía?’ I backed a pace into the room. ‘I have done nothing wrong.’
‘You are not in trouble,’ he said, irritable. ‘But neither can you stay in Gibraltar.’ His eyes flicked to the hat in my hand, and he frowned.
‘Where are they?’ I asked, gripping the hat’s brim. ‘The man and the lady? I’d like to thank them.’ Really, I didn’t want to do anything of the sort. I only wanted to know who they were, whether they were still in the hotel.
The man’s face hardened. ‘Mr Langham and Lady de Luca Bailey departed after luncheon. You are very lucky. There are not many who would have treated you so well.’
Langham. The word caught my attention, like a thorn snagging cloth. Arthur Langham.
‘What do you mean “departed”?’ I asked, forgetting any pretence at manners. ‘Departed where? Will they be back?’
The man’s face was turning sourer by the second. I saw now that he held the piece of stamped paper in his hand, the one that had been issued by the soldiers at the border.
‘They took the afternoon boat for Tangiers,’ he snapped. ‘Whether they will be back is their own business, and none of yours.’ He held out an arm, to funnel me towards the door. ‘Now, I must insist …’
Thirty minutes later, I found myself ejected from Gibraltar, back into the dust of La Atunara.
Thankfully, the British soldiers didn’t ask any questions, only ripped up the temporary pass, pleased to see me back where I belonged.
I stared up at the great, gnarled rock from the wrong side of the checkpoint.
I wanted to walk freely there, among the stiff English men and ladies, wanted to feel the power of a suit that smelled of starch and cologne, that didn’t bag and chafe, that wasn’t ingrained with dirt.
I wanted to plant a cane into that ground that was neither England nor Spain and stare out to sea, the way the man – Arthur Langham – had done.
Tangiers, the hotel man said. Tangiers. The name was familiar.
Was it from one of Ifrahim’s stories? I squinted in the late afternoon sun, trying to find the dark shape of land on the horizon.
The name brought an idea of hot sun, of a port full of ships from every country of the world, of money and spices and danger, where anything was possible, where a person might pull a brand-new name out of the air.
Tangiers. Beneath the bindings, my heart began to quicken. I turned towards the town, the peseta note crinkling against my skin.
Money can buy many things. In La Atunara it was possible to find a suit of passable quality amongst the clothes stalls of the market, a tailor to shorten the trousers, to unpick the initials of the person it had once belonged to.
It was possible to find a pair of second-hand shoes, a bundle of men’s socks and linens, a roll of bandage stolen from a military hospital.
It was possible to find a barber who would trim uneven clumps of hair into better shape, without commenting on a young man’s lack of stubble.
It was possible for a person to transform themselves over a couple of days, all for the cost of ten pesetas.
I bundled up the stolen clothes, the torn apron, everything that remained of my old existence. The only thing I kept was the knife, its handle worn smooth by years of use. I did not want to walk the streets of La Atunara without it, in case someone saw through my disguise.
Langham’s hat was the final piece. Holding it before my face, I caught a wisp of his scent. Wax from rose-scented hair pomade, musk from cologne and a faint, elusive note I recognized as sweat. I settled it upon my head, and looked at myself.
I looked young, too young, almost a boy still.
The suit hung loose on my frame, the hat looming over my lean cheeks and the fading bruise.
And yet, I might pass in a crowd for a semi-respectable young man.
The suit, the leather shoes, and most importantly, Langham’s fine hat, would hopefully be enough to fool people.
In a stuffy, locked room of a cheap hotel, I began to knot Alejandro del Potro and myself together, tooth by tooth, eyelash by eyelash.
‘Senor Langham,’ I murmured, dropping my voice a few tones lower, ‘I am delighted to see you again.’
I put the remaining pesetas into the pocket of my jacket.
There was one last thing I needed, and it would be the hardest to obtain, even in a place like this.
I could declare that my name was Alejandro del Potro until I was blue in the face, but no one would believe me.
What I needed was proof; a piece of paper to vouch for my existence.
I had an idea of where to go, though it made me nervous.
I waited until dusk to leave the hotel. Even so, the second I stepped from the door, I felt a surge of fear.
My head was clearer now than it had been when I had slept among the beggars.
People in La Atunara were sharp-eyed; what if they saw through my suit to the truth beneath?
What if they could tell by the way I walked, how I held myself?
I kept my head lowered beneath the hat, my hands in my pockets, and slouched along, my guts twitching, my heart squeezing itself against my ribs.
A few times, people called to me, women from their corners or bartenders but I didn’t stop, not even when I became out of breath thanks to the tight bindings.
From a kiosk near the beach, I bought a newspaper, and a packet of cigarettes. Props, to occupy my trembling hands.