Tangier July 1978
Tangier
Birdsong, that was what he heard, sweet and scattered and echoing back from high walls.
Sam opened his eyes. Sunlight was spilling past the heavy velvet curtains, revealing a blaze of greenery beyond.
He blinked hard, and a low bronze table came into focus, covered in empty glasses and plates and oil-slicked dishes.
Dar Portuna, he realized. He was still at Dar Portuna, waking on one of the old, sagging sofas.
He pushed himself up to sitting, massaging his stiff neck, and a thin embroidered blanket fell to the floor.
Someone must have covered him with it in the night.
He had no memory of falling asleep. He remembered talking until very late – or rather listening – to a story of another time.
He’d drunk brandy at the border of Gibraltar, starving and sun-struck.
He’d been a terrified smuggler’s accomplice, then a fierce young cook trawling the markets of the medina, spinning truth potions out of spice and liquor.
He’d met Langham all over again, this time through Alejandro’s eyes.
He’d fought to build a new life amongst the splendour and squalor of this city.
Of all the Tangiers tales he’d heard, it was the best.
But now, his head was pounding as he eyed the empty glasses on the table.
It had all been too much, a wild concoction, as many flavours as words.
He rubbed at his eyes, trying to remember the last thing he heard before he fell asleep.
Something about a discovery, two women seeing each other clearly for the first time.
He clambered to his feet, swaying, and made for the garden door.
The sun made his eyes water, but the air was a balm, each tree clinging to a faint halo of coolness. Water droplets still lingered in the shade. He was brushing his hands through them when a figure emerged at the other end of the veranda.
It was Zahrah. She was scattering handfuls of crumbs out into the garden. A little brown bird flew down and started to peck up the bits of bread.
‘Hello,’ he called, his throat dry. ‘I – fell asleep.’
‘I know.’ She dusted off her hands as the bird flew away and, for the first time, looked at him with something like a smile.
‘We talked all night,’ Sam said, embarrassed, walking across the cracked tiles. He glanced up at the house. ‘Is …?’ He still wasn’t sure what to call the person he’d spent so many hours listening to.
‘Ale’s asleep,’ Zahrah said, turning away. ‘Will be for a few hours yet.’
Ale. Sam tested the name … Alejandro. Alejandra.
‘You must have thought I was pretty stupid,’ he said, remembering his demands to see ‘Langham’, his insistence on talking to the ‘old man’.
She shrugged. ‘People see what they want to see. You came here with an expectation.’
He winced. ‘That’s true.’
She smiled a little more. ‘Ale has fooled smarter people than you, Mr Hackett.’
He didn’t take offence. He deserved it. ‘It’s Sam,’ he said, closing one eye, as his headache surfaced again.
‘I know.’ She jerked her chin at the kitchen. ‘Do you want some breakfast?’
At the huge old table, she set him to picking mint leaves from the stems while she made coffee.
He watched her move around the kitchen, easily, quickly, a little carelessly.
She was in control here, he realized. Ale had talked last night of the safety that could be found in kitchens, the power and control that came with feeding people. Had this young woman learned the same?
For all her new friendliness, Zahrah didn’t look at him again.
By the time he’d got through half the mint stems, she’d shoved a basket of bread and a jar of honey on to the table, a bowl of plums and a dish of what looked like soft, white cheese, drizzled in oil and fresh herbs.
Last came the coffee, very strong, poured into tiny, chipped cups.
She dropped on to a stool opposite him and didn’t wait, but scooped up a bit of cheese with a wedge of bread. Foggy-headed, he did the same.
‘So,’ she said as she chewed, spooning out some honey. ‘How are you going to fix the mess you’ve made?’
Sam almost choked on the bread. ‘What?’
‘The mess you have made with the journalist,’ she said. ‘Telling him about this place, letting him think that there is some scandal to be dug up about Langham and Ale.’ She looked him in the eye. ‘What are you going to do about it?’
His stomach twisted with guilt all over again. She must have eavesdropped on the conversation, or else Ale must have told her. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘First I’ll go and find Norton, try to persuade him to drop it.’
‘You have to do better than try.’ Her face was serious.
‘Listen, there’s a reason why we are so private.
No one, apart from a few trusted people, knows that this is where Ale lives.
’ She twisted her coffee cup around, obviously wondering how much to tell him.
‘Ale has had an … interesting career. And the name Alejandro del Potro is linked to certain kinds of trouble. If the authorities found out about this place, they would come and look for Ale, search the house at the very least. And if they thought they could tie Ale to a murder, however long ago it happened,’ she shook her head, ‘they’d use it as an excuse for an arrest, an investigation. You understand?’
He blinked, trying to process it all. ‘I think so.’ He looked at her, but she was stirring sugar into her coffee, avoiding his gaze.
What did she mean, certain kinds of trouble?
He remembered Abdelhamid’s furtive glance at Mouad.
Both of them knew something of Tangier’s underbelly.
Had they heard of Ale? Not for the first time, he felt as if there was a whole other world he couldn’t see, operating in plain sight.
‘You know I’m writing about Langham and Ale and this house too, don’t you?
’ he asked cautiously. ‘Not an article, a book. A novel, maybe.’
She took a piece of bread. ‘That’s different.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it’s fiction.’ She smiled at him then, in a way he couldn’t quite decipher.
He opened his mouth to ask her what she meant, but she was pulling the bowl of fruit towards her.
‘Anyway, that doesn’t matter. What matters is that you stop this newspaperman from letting half the world know where to find Ale. Can you do it, Sam?’
It was the first time she had said his name. He fought the urge to smile stupidly.
‘I’ll try everything I can, I promise.’
She nodded, and carried on eating.
They were both silent as they worked their way through the bread and fruit. Sam couldn’t stop himself from sneaking glances at Zahrah’s face, and eventually, she caught his eye. He looked back to his plate hurriedly. Another mystery to unravel.
He made short work of the food, despite the rich meal he had eaten with Ale the night before. There had been bowls of olives marinated in herbs, a rich potato tortilla, a dish of softly stewed aubergines and pomegranate that he couldn’t get enough of.
‘The food last night,’ he said, breaking the silence. ‘Did you make it?’
‘Of course.’
‘It was wonderful.’
A hint of a smile returned to her face. ‘Ale always says that food is important, that if you can cook, you can discover what people want, and then, you can know them for what they are.’
Sam stopped, in the middle of mopping up all the traces of oil and soft cheese from the bowl with his finger, and swallowed, wondering what she thought he was.
Together, they tidied up, putting the plates into the huge chipped sink.
Maybe it was the food, but Sam felt a glow of warmth, completing that simple chore alongside Zahrah.
Abruptly, he wanted to stay, wanted to ask if she would teach him how to cook something, so that he could remain in her company in that bright, worn kitchen.
But eventually they were done, and she was stepping into a pair of sandals, taking a djellaba down from a hook behind the door and dragging it over her head, to cover her faded t-shirt and shorts. ‘Ready to go?’ she asked.
She was the mysterious figure again, the one he had first seen, emerging from the Gran Café de Paris.
‘You don’t need your disguise, there won’t be any letters today,’ he said.
She gave him a sarcastic smile in return. ‘You try being a woman and walking around this city in shorts.’
She was right, he thought, as he followed her out of the kitchen door.
He’d never considered how Tangier might be a different city for her than it was for him – another experience, a different face.
One that was less permissive, less open.
Just as the streets of La Atunara had been for Ale, without a man’s suit.
‘Ale wants you to come back,’ Zahrah said, as they crossed the garden. ‘Later, after you have spoken to the journalist.’
The thought of confronting Norton made Sam feel sick. But Zahrah was right. It was his fault; he had to try and fix it.
They used the front gate this time. He held aside the fall of jasmine while Zahrah unlocked it with a huge, old key.
‘Not the most convenient entrance, is it?’ he said.
‘I told you, we don’t want people to know about this place.’ She locked the gate behind her. ‘It’s Ale’s safe haven.’
They stopped on the nearest corner.
‘Well.’ For the first time, Zahrah seemed awkward. ‘I will see you later.’
‘Wait!’ he called before she had even taken a step. ‘Can I walk with you, for a while? Where are you headed?’
‘To the library.’ She glanced at his face. ‘It’s not on your way, but you can walk, if you like.’
They set off together. Abruptly, Sam felt more real than he had for weeks. The sun that shone into his eyes and made his headache worse was today’s sun, not yesterday’s, not the sun of five decades ago. He glanced over at Zahrah, smiling foolishly. She caught his look.
‘Now what?’ she asked, as they passed into the shade of an alleyway.
‘Nothing. I was just wondering whether you are as secretive as Ale.’
‘I’m not secretive,’ she said coolly. ‘What do you want to know?’
‘Have you always lived here?’
She shook her head. ‘I was born in Melilla. You know where that is?’
‘Isn’t that a Spanish city, down the coast?’
‘An enclave, yes.’ She quickened her step as they passed a group of men who sat smoking on a doorstep. ‘My father was Spanish. He was a soldier in the Legion.’
‘And your mother?’ He had to hurry to keep up with her.
‘She was from the Rif. They were not married.’
‘Oh.’ He glanced at her, but her face was unreadable as she navigated her way out of the casbah. ‘Where are they now?’
She shrugged. ‘My father is probably back in Spain. I’m not even sure of his name. My mother couldn’t read or write. She left me at a mission when I was a baby. That’s all I know.’
He shook his head, his cheeks burning.
‘It must have been hard,’ he said, idiotically.
She let out a breath of laughter. ‘Being on my own was harder. I left the mission when I was sixteen. They found me a job as a child-minder in Tetouan. It didn’t work out.
’ She looked away from him, into the bustle of the medina.
‘So I came here. I thought there’d be more work.
But I didn’t know anyone, and my Darija wasn’t very good. ’
The market was in full swing, not only with its fruit and spice and food, but with people at the fringes scraping money from stolen goods and scavenged items, with children who watched and hustled for cash, with women who never moved from one spot all day, too tired to lift their hands from their laps.
Abruptly, he remembered what Abdelhamid had once said – that there was always more money for an American like him.
He hadn’t meant physical cash, Sam realized, but the presence of safety.
Even when he claimed to have nothing, there had always been that ticket back to the States, where four walls and a bed and a meal on the table would be waiting.
However hard he found it at home, however much he tried to outrun it, it was safety.
‘I’m sorry,’ he muttered to Zahrah.
She only shook her head at him, knowing, as he did, that the apology was of no use.
‘So when did you meet Ale?’ he asked, trying to push away the feeling of guilt.
She smiled at that. ‘In a café in the Petit Socco, one night about five years ago. I thought I saw an old foreign man, an easy mark. Eventually I realized my mistake, but we were talking by then. Ale spoke English and Spanish and somehow, I ended up spilling everything. Then, Ale bought me a glass of tea and offered me a deal.’ She stopped at the edge of the medina.
‘I could live and work at Dar Portuna. In exchange, Ale would teach me things, help me study. I only had to promise one thing.’
‘What was that?’
She looked at him, her face serious.
‘Loyalty.’