Tangier July 1978
Tangier
Outside, night fell as the man talked. He didn’t switch on a light. Better that way, Sam thought. In the shadows he could imagine himself back there, to the Tangiers of fifty years before: a place of French champagne and Moroccan rosewater, Indian opium and cold, dry Plymouth gin.
He heard stories about parties and thrilling flights to Gibraltar, night cruises on the strait, where the lanterns and flares of smugglers lit up the three-mile limit.
The man spoke of a city built from the materiel of the Great War – the bones of the old world wetted with the blood of the new.
Sam gulped the man’s words like the cocktail in his glass.
If he’d been there, if he only could’ve been there …
In that moment, he would have given anything.
Finally, when it was completely dark, the man stopped talking. Sam couldn’t see his face; he could barely see his own hands that rested on the writing case.
There was a knock at the door. When neither of them answered, it creaked open, letting in a sliver of warm, yellow light and the smell of toasted spices.
‘Dinner’s ready,’ the young woman said, breaking the web of words around them. ‘Is he staying?’
The man said nothing, as if he had exhausted himself. Sam hesitated. He did want to stay for dinner. He wanted to desperately. And yet … His head was bursting with what he had heard. He needed to remember it, write it all down.
‘No.’ His voice sounded clumsy in the dark room. ‘Thanks, but I’ve got to get back.’ Too late he realized he hadn’t actually been invited. ‘Another time?’
‘Another time,’ the man murmured. ‘Yes. Come back tomorrow, around five. Bring that old suitcase.’ The chair creaked as he leaned back. ‘Zahrah will show you out.’
Awkwardly, Sam put the glass down on a side table. He paused, the writing case in his hand. Should he give it back? The man hadn’t asked for it. He decided not to.
‘Thank you, Mr Langham,’ he murmured.
He received no response.
In a daze, he followed the young woman back into the kitchen. On the table he saw a platter of meat scattered with pomegranate seeds and herbs; rounds of bread wrapped in cloths. He began to regret his decision not to stay.
She showed him out a different way, through the garden, where plants and vines dragged at his shoulders, releasing their scent.
He caught a glimpse of water through the trees; a swimming pool, tiled blue and white.
The stones around it were cracked but clean, as if still in use.
Dar Portuna only pretended to be abandoned, he realized.
Like a rich man dressed in pauper’s clothes. But why?
‘Tomorrow come this way,’ the girl told him shortly. ‘Don’t use the front gate. It’s always locked.’
‘It wasn’t today,’ he said. ‘I walked straight in.’
The girl made a noise. ‘I forgot to lock it. I was distracted. Some idiot chased me through the medina.’
‘Sorry.’
They’d reached the far end of the garden. Hidden behind a tree was a short flight of steps, and a second door, whitewashed like the wall.
‘Tomorrow, wait for the end of Asr, the call to afternoon prayer, then come here and knock. Don’t let anyone see you. Don’t be late. I won’t wait around.’ She turned away.
‘Wait, Miss … is it Zahrah?’ She nodded curtly. ‘Listen, I’m not going to cause any trouble, I promise. I’m just a writer who wants to talk to your –’ he hesitated ‘– grandfather? Uncle?’
The woman snorted and held open the gate. ‘We’re not related. Remember, be here, right after the call.’
Sam stepped through, and turned, meaning to apologize again, only to find himself facing a locked door.
From this side, it blended almost imperceptibly with the wall, weathered dust-grey wood, tucked into an alcove.
He looked up and found himself standing on a narrow, trash-strewn walkway below the Bab al-Bahr.
Stone steps disappeared down into the darkness, hugging the curve of the old fortifications. He’d never seen them marked on any map.
An escape route, he realized. But for who?
That night, he wrote feverishly, trying to remember every sensation, every smell and sound of Dar Portuna. He wrote about the woman – Zahrah – and about the exquisite villa with its gentle decay. He wrote about the strange figure at the heart of it all, who had drawn him there.
He used the final piece of the writing paper, and had to scrabble about under the bed for the old, half-typed sheets he had discarded from the Hermes.
First, he wrote on their backs. Then, when he ran out of space, he wrote around the letters that were already there, until they merged, ink on ink, new story on old, becoming something that was both, and neither. Like the city, he thought.
He didn’t remember falling asleep, but when he awoke it was with ink-stained fingers and a page beneath his face, every inch covered with writing.
He didn’t read it – worried it wouldn’t make sense in daylight – only stacked it with the others. The pile was growing now. He laid a hand on top of them. As long as he could keep going, he was sure those pages could become something. A new start, perhaps.
There was now only one sheet of paper that remained almost blank. He lifted out the strange pencil-written note. Why hadn’t he mentioned it to Langham?
A,
I am sorry.
One day, I hope you’ll understand.
He sat back, uneasy. What did it mean, and why had it never been sent? Why had it remained, hidden in the writing case, when it was obviously so important?
I was there, the night it happened. I saw him. I saw them both.
Could he believe Lillian, old and ill as she was?
Something had happened at the grand house, back in 1928, Sam was certain of that.
His skin prickled. Alejandro del Potro’s fate was still unknown.
All Sam knew was that he had left a passport behind.
What if Alejandro was A, and Langham had done something terrible?
Sighing, he slid the letter back into the writing case and closed the lid.
He felt as if he was chasing phantoms around the city; A.
L. had become Arthur Langham, the strange figure he had pursued through the medina had become a young woman.
When would Alejandro del Potro reveal himself, step from the passport photograph into life?
He itched to get back to Dar Portuna. By two o’clock in the afternoon, he couldn’t stand waiting any more, and headed towards the medina.
His feet took their usual route, past the pigeon-haunted wreck of the Cinema Rif, up towards the Place de France and the Gran Café.
Outside the El Minzah, he stopped. Norton usually took a nap at his hotel before returning to work after lunch.
Sam had hours yet to kill, and a cool drink in the bar wouldn’t go amiss. Maybe he could even borrow a tie …
‘Hack!’ Norton exclaimed, striding from the elevators. ‘What a nice surprise.’ His face was puffy from sleep, eyes a little reddened. They widened at the sight of the suitcase in Sam’s hand. ‘Don’t tell me you’re leaving?’
Sam smiled. ‘No. I’m just …’ He hesitated. He hadn’t told Norton about the suitcase yet, or what it contained.
‘Does that belong to your old man?’ Norton asked.
‘Yeah. How’d you know?’
‘Same leather, same initials.’ Norton pointed at the top of the case. ‘Obviously part of a set. You pick that up from your kif broker, too?’
Sam nodded slowly, unsure about why he was lying. It seemed easier than trying to explain the bizarre series of events at the Hotel Continental. That was his story, part of what he was writing, still private.
‘Anything good inside?’
‘Just clothes.’ He tried to sound casual.
‘And your old man wants them back?’
‘It’s sentimental, I think,’ Sam said, turning away. ‘Time for a quick drink?’
‘’Fraid not.’ Norton looked towards the bar mournfully. ‘But walk me to the office?’
They crossed the busy street and went along in silence for a while.
‘This old chap,’ Norton said. ‘You met him then?’
Sam nodded. ‘I worked out where he lived. A huge old place in the casbah called Dar Portuna. It looks abandoned, but it isn’t.’
‘And you’re going to take that back to him?’
‘Yes. This evening.’ He walked on, thinking about it all again. Langham had talked for hours yesterday, but he hadn’t actually answered anything. Was he hiding something? Was there another way to find out?
‘You all right?’ Norton said, when they arrived outside a modern-looking building near the American Embassy. ‘You’ve hardly said a word.’
Sam nodded vaguely. ‘I was just thinking … how long has there been an Interpress office here in Tangier? Do you know?’
Norton chucked the end of his cigarette into the gutter. ‘I do, in fact. We’ve been here since nineteen twenty-one, venerable establishment that we are. They told me that at orientation last week. Don’t say I never listen.’
1921. Sam tried to keep the excitement from his voice, but it was no good. ‘Do you have archives, in there? You must, right?’
‘Of course, in the basement.’ Norton narrowed his eyes. ‘Why, what are you after?’
Sam felt as if his skin was fizzing. If something had happened at Dar Portuna back in July 1928, there was every chance it might have made the papers, especially in a town like Tangier.
‘I don’t know. I’ve been writing about the twenties, right? Nineteen twenty-eight. Is there any way I could look through your archives?’
‘They’re off-limits to civilians, staff members only, I’m afraid.’ Norton paused. ‘I mean, I could look for you, if it was for something specific.’
‘You could? Today? That would be—’
Norton cut him off with a snort. ‘Not today. I do actually have to work sometimes. It’d take me an age to trawl through a whole year’s worth of papers.
’ Sam’s disappointment must have shown, because Norton sighed.
‘Look, if you could narrow it down to a particular week, it would be easier. And if I knew what to keep an eye out for …’
Sam was barely listening. His mind was flying back to his room at Madame Sarah’s, where he’d left the writing case and the strange, undelivered letter.
I am sorry.
‘What about a date? An exact date?’
Norton raised his eyebrows.
‘28th July 1928,’ Sam said quickly, the date escaping his lips before he could stop it. He felt as if he was spilling a secret, but he wasn’t, was he? He hadn’t really said anything.
‘I’m guessing you want me to look now,’ Norton said, ‘before you see your old man?’
Sam swallowed. ‘If you could. I’m due there at five.’
‘All right, I’ll do my best.’ Norton looked down at the suitcase. ‘Want to leave that here for a few hours, rather than dragging it around? I can ask them to keep it behind reception, if you like. Don’t want it getting nicked.’
Sam followed Norton through the glass doors, his mind jumping, trying to ignore a vague sense of guilt.
28th July. The date at the top of that desperate letter; perhaps the date when everything changed.
One day, I hope you’ll understand.