A dead man in Tangier

Chapter Ten

The next morning he went to find Mr Bahnini. The cafe across the road was empty.

‘Not there yet, then?’ he said to Mr Bahnini.

‘Sadiq and his friends? They’re still in bed. They think they’re still at university.’

Seymour followed him into his office. He took out the scraps of paper he had found in Bossu’s filing cabinet and laid them before him.

‘Azrou, Immauzer and Tafilalet. Notice anything about these places?’

‘They’re all in the south.’

‘And scattered. Not in a line, as I thought at first they might be. I thought they might be along the line of the projected railway and that Bossu might be going ahead fixing things. As he should have done in Casablanca. But, no, it couldn’t be that. So what then?’

Mr Bahnini shook his head.

‘Why might you go to them?’

‘I’m afraid I don’t-’

‘People. They’re about the only places in the interior with people, aren’t they?’

‘Tafilalet is really just an oasis,’ said Mr Bahnini.

‘But you’d need to go there, wouldn’t you, if you were travelling around? And looking for people?’

‘I’m afraid I don’t see why Monsieur Bossu should be looking for-’

‘Not Bossu. Someone else. Someone who is already down in the south. And wants people on his side.’

‘You’re suggesting-?’

‘Moulay Hafiz. The Sultan’s rebellious half-brother. Going from place to place, to all the big places, anyway, trying to build up support.’

‘And Bossu?’

‘Taking him something that he would need. Money. It would fit, wouldn’t it? The dates show that Bossu visited the places at different times. Why? Because Moulay was there at different times — he was moving around. That would make sense, wouldn’t it? He would want to talk to the local chieftains. He would need to stay in each place for a time, he would need time to persuade people. And he would need money. That’s what Bossu was taking him.’

‘Money from the north?’

‘From people who sympathized with him. Or, perhaps, people who knew he would need to give something in return. Concessions, railway concessions, say, a building concession. People with a financial interest in the development of the south. And not just an interest in the south. If Moulay succeeded in gaining power, the whole of Morocco would be open to things. This was big. Big rewards, and, probably, big interests, in search of them. Whom, possibly, Bossu had been working for since Casablanca.’

Mr Bahnini considered.

‘It is possible,’ he conceded. ‘Moulay Hafiz is certainly trying to build up support.’

‘For which he would need money.’

‘For which, yes, he would need money.’

‘Which Bossu might have been taking him.’

‘He might indeed.’ Mr Bahnini hesitated. ‘But, sir…’

‘Yes?’

‘How are you going to confirm it? And — forgive me, sir — there is another thing. Even if you did confirm it — perhaps you will think it not my place to make this observation? — but, even if you did confirm it, what bearing would that have on Mr Bossu’s death? Which, I take it, sir, is what you are really interested in?’

‘It might explain why someone wanted to kill him: to stop him.’

By the time he left the committee’s offices, Sadiq and his friends had taken up their usual position in the cafe. They waved to him to join them.

‘Just for a moment, perhaps…’

But he rather enjoyed being with them. He liked the splendid conversation about ideas of the young and envied them their opportunities at university. Nothing like that for him. And in the East End, if you were at all bright, you were rather conscious of that. It was a poor area and no one from there went to Oxford or Cambridge. Yet many of the immigrants from the Continent had had some sort of education, even been to university, and they brought with them an immense interest in ideas. There was plenty of intellectual discussion in the East End, in the Working Men’s Clubs and the anarchist discussion groups.

Not so much in his own family. His grandfather had been agin the government in Russia and Poland but that had been an emotional matter rather than an intellectual one. Seymour’s mother, who had learned the hard way in Austro-Hungarian prisons what the discussion of ideas could lead to, shrank now from engaging with them too closely. His father, who had learnt the same lesson, now kept resolutely away from politics of any kind and concentrated on business. Only in Seymour’s sister did the revolutionary passion of their grandparents burn on. She was a member of every dotty organization the East End could provide, and there were many of them: feminist, socialist, trade union, teachers’ — she was a teacher herself, and had dragged Seymour as a young boy, not altogether unwillingly, from one meeting to another. And then been crushingly disappointed when he had joined the police.

Not much intellectual discussion in the Mile End police station! But Seymour’s linguistic gifts had led to him being put in the Special Branch and used principally with the East End’s many dissident groups. Frightening to some, and especially the government: but when you got to know them, frightening to no one else.

So Seymour was used to groups like the present one and not alarmed, amused by them, rather, and tender towards them as to the young.

The conversation was on lines similar to the one they had been having the last time he had met them. They questioned him eagerly about the revolution in Istanbul and were interested, and a little depressed, when he told them that his impression was that the people most instrumental in making it were the young officers in the army.

‘No chance of that happening here,’ they said dejectedly. ‘The army’s French.’

At one point he realized that they were all speaking in French. He thought at first that this might be out of consideration for him but then understood that this was how they habitually spoke. It seemed odd, a bunch of young Moroccan nationalists and yet all speaking French. Then he saw that this was part of their problem.

‘It will have to come from someone else,’ someone said.

Awad banged his hand on the table.

‘We shouldn’t be talking like this!’ he said. ‘“It will have to come.” That’s no way to talk. It’s too passive. We should be saying, “This is the way we’re going to do it!” We shouldn’t be leaving it to others. We should be doing something.’

There were mutters of agreement. Then ‘Well, we are, aren’t we?’ said someone.

There was a sudden awkward silence.

Seymour began to get up.

‘Perhaps I’d better leave you to carry on your discussion.’

‘No, no, please…’

But the discussion was ending anyway.

Sadiq got up from the table, too.

‘I’ve got to go and see Benchennouf,’ he said. ‘I promised I’d call in this morning. There are some proofs he wants me to correct.’

He went round the group shaking hands, in the French way: and then, when he came to Seymour, he hesitated, a little shyly.

‘Would you like to come with me?’ he blurted out.

‘Who is Benchennouf?’

‘He’s an editor.’

‘He’s Sadiq’s editor!’

‘You work for a newspaper?’ said Seymour curiously.

‘Well, not exactly work — I don’t get paid, or anything. But I do things for them.’

‘And sometimes he gets a piece in!’ said someone proudly.

‘Well…’

‘Do come!’ said Sadiq. ‘You’d like Benchennouf. He’s very knowledgeable.’

‘And very interesting.’

‘Yes, do go!’ they urged.

‘He was in Casablanca,’ someone said.

‘Yes, I’d like to,’ said Seymour.

Sadiq led him through ever narrower and increasingly dingy streets.

Mustapha and Idris closed in.

‘Hey, where are you taking him?’

‘It’s all right,’ said Seymour. ‘They’re friends of mine.’

Sadiq looked at them doubtfully.

‘We’re going to a newspaper office,’ he said, however, sturdily.

‘What, here?’ said Mustapha disbelievingly.

‘That’s right. In Al-Abbassiya Street.’

‘Look, I know Al-Abbassiya Street and there aren’t any newspaper offices there.’

‘Yes, there are. New Dawn, it’s called.’

‘I know Ali’s, and Mother Mina’s and then there’s the baker at the end — but newspaper?’

‘It’s not one of those… is it?’ said Idris. ‘Hey, you’re not taking him to one of those indecent places?’

‘Certainly not!’ said Sadiq indignantly.

‘It’s not Mother Mina’s, is it?’ said Mustapha.

‘I wouldn’t have thought she was into that sort of thing,’ said Idris. ‘Plain and simple is more her line.’

‘It’s not a place like that!’ cried Sadiq furiously. ‘It’s a newspaper office. An important newspaper. New Dawn is what it’s called.’

‘ New…?’

Seymour, when they got there, could understand how Mustapha and Idris might have missed it. It was a single small room in a dilapidated building with one desk and a typewriter. Dawn, it appeared, had still some way to go.

Mustapha and Idris exchanged glances.

‘We’ll be just outside,’ they told Seymour, and took up position on either side of the door.

A man was sitting at the desk, smoking.

‘I’ve brought a friend, Benchennouf,’ said Sadiq. ‘Monsieur Seymour, from England.’

‘I am pleased to meet you, Mr Seymour,’ said Benchennouf, in English, extending a hand. He seemed relieved, however, when Seymour replied in French.

Everything in the place was familiar to Seymour, the small, dingy office, the single typewriter on the desk, the political pamphlets around the walls. The East End was full of such places. Many of the people there had a background in radical politics on the Continent and not a few of them had been journalists. When they had arrived in London they had seen no reason why they should not continue their activities and had set up small presses from which they could continue the good fight.

Seymour was always being sent to such places and took a relaxed view of them. His own sister worked in about four of them. New Dawn was no different. It was, he soon worked out, a radical nationalist journal: anti-French but also anti-Sultan. It advocated things that in other countries would be taken for granted: an elected Parliament, for instance, and freedom from arbitrary imprisonment.

Benchennouf, too, he thought he had worked out. He was an educated man (educated at a French university, Sadiq told him later, with some pride) and had the interest in ideas typical of the French intellectual. Seymour could see his appeal to young, university-educated men like Sadiq.

‘So how do you come to be in Morocco, Mr Seymour?’ Benchennouf asked.

Seymour told him.

‘Police!’ said Benchennouf, looking accusingly at Sadiq.

‘The English police,’ said Seymour quickly. ‘And don’t ask me,’ he said, laughing, ‘why an Englishman should be investigating a Frenchman’s death. In a country which is neither France nor England!’

He shrugged.

‘I suppose,’ he said, ‘it is because Bossu’s death is, in a way, an international matter, since he was Secretary of that committee. And maybe they didn’t want it investigated by a Frenchman.’

‘Nor the Mahzen,’ said Benchennouf. ‘Well, I can understand that.’

‘You know about the committee, of course?’

‘Of course. In fact, when it was set up, I wrote to it. I said that the committee was improper and illegal and that Morocco could not accept any decision that it might make. I got no reply. Naturally.’

‘Have you ever met Bossu?’

‘I didn’t meet him over this but I’d come across him earlier. But I didn’t trust him. Not after Casablanca.’

He turned to Sadiq.

‘I went for him then, you know, really went for him. Of course, a lot of people did, but I flatter myself that it was New Dawn that really made an impact. We were able to publish details, you see. Details of the contracts. Of course, by themselves they didn’t tell much but I was able to point out the understandings that lay behind them. I demanded that they be made explicit. Of course, they wouldn’t do that. They said that it was all in the contracts. It wasn’t, of course. As we pointed out. And then we told everybody what wasn’t in the contracts.

‘They didn’t like that, I can tell you. Not one little bit. We had the police round, and then some other men who weren’t exactly the police. We were never quite sure who they were. We asked, but they wouldn’t tell us. But they spoke French.

‘So in our next number we asked who were these foreigners who broke into Moroccan property and knocked people about. But then they came back and really smashed the place up and I had to get out in a hurry. I went to Rabat for a year. And by the time I got back it was all over.’

He looked at Seymour.

‘That was how I first came across Bossu. Actually, I didn’t know at the time how much he was involved. It only came out later. If I had known then, what a story it would have made! But it didn’t come out until later, years later, and then only in dribs and drabs. It never quite all came together and I could never quite make use of it.

‘But then when they announced his appointment as Secretary of that outrageous committee, then I could see how to do it. So I wrote that piece. Did you see it? No, of course you wouldn’t have done, you weren’t even in the country. I put it in New Dawn and splashed it around all over the place and I think it had quite an impact.

‘I wouldn’t be surprised if — well, you should never make such claims, I know, but — if it might not have had some bearing on what happened to him. It brought it all back to people’s minds. And maybe it put it into someone’s head to…’

He gave a little, self-satisfied smile.

‘You are looking for the person who killed Bossu, Monsieur Seymour. Well,’ he leaned forward and placed his hand theatrically on his breast, ‘I think I can claim some of the credit at least for that particular service.’

When he came out of the office with Sadiq, Mustapha and Idris closed in again.

Sadiq was alarmed.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Looking after him,’ said Mustapha. ‘Which is more than you’re doing bringing him to a place like this.’

‘It’s a newspaper office!’ protested Sadiq indignantly.

‘Oh, yes!’

They walked on a little way in silence. Then ‘What’s your newspaper like, then?’ asked Idris.

‘It’s sort of… political.’

‘Political!’

‘Then he has been taking you to the wrong sort of place!’ said Idris. ‘You want to keep away from anything like that.’

‘Have you no shame?’ cried Sadiq, touched nearly and aroused despite himself. ‘Keep away from politics? At a time like this!’

‘What’s this about the time?’

‘When the French have imposed a Protectorate on us?’

‘What’s that?’

‘Protectorate. You know about the Protectorate. Don’t you?’

‘I think I’ve heard something,’ said Mustapha vaguely.

‘They’re taking over Morocco!’

‘The French?’

‘Yes.’

‘I thought they had taken over Morocco?’

‘Look, it’ll make no difference to us,’ said Idris.

‘Oh, yes, it will. There’ll be soldiers everywhere.’

‘There are now,’ said Mustapha.

‘There’ll be more!’ promised Sadiq. ‘And police.’

‘Police?’

‘Real police. French police!’

‘That could be a problem,’ admitted Mustapha.

‘Naow,’ said Idris. ‘Just offer them more.’

‘You don’t understand!’ cried Sadiq. ‘It will be different. The French will be running everything. Everything!’

‘Good luck to them.’

‘They’ll be in control!’

‘Not a chance!’ said Idris dismissively.

‘We’ll be all right,’ said Mustapha.

‘Is that all you think of?’ said Sadiq hotly. ‘Have you no pride? Have you no thought for Morocco?’

‘Morocco?’

‘You’re a Moroccan, aren’t you?’

‘Not me,’ said Mustapha. ‘I’m from the Rif.’

‘But that is — ’

‘And I’m a Berber,’ said Idris.

‘We’re all Moroccans!’ cried Sadiq desperately. ‘And we must stand together and fight the French.’

‘Fight the…?’

‘French, yes.’

‘Soldiers?’

‘If necessary.’

‘He’s mad!’ said Mustapha.

There was a silence. Then ‘Is that what this newspaper of yours is all about?’

‘Well, yes.’

‘Stand up against the French? And get your heads blown off? Thank you very much!’

‘If we don’t fight now, we’ll never-’

‘Listen, laddie: do you know what fighting is?’

‘Well-’

‘Me,’ said Idris virtuously, ‘I don’t want to fight anybody. I just want to get on with my work.’

‘Well, of course, everyone — But… What is your work?’

‘Well, we do a bit in kif-’

‘Kif!’

‘Yes. Run the occasional load. Spread it around. That sort of thing.’

Sadiq was silenced for a moment. Then, as they walked on, he whispered to Seymour:

‘These are not good people, Mr Seymour. I feel I should tell you.’

They were going through a particularly squalid part of the city, a warren of narrow little twisting streets, and for the first time Seymour was glad that he had Mustapha and Idris with him. They closed in on him so that they stood touching shoulder to shoulder. Sadiq was plainly uneasy and pressed in on them too.

It soon became apparent, however, that his uneasiness was prompted by a different cause than theirs. The houses in this part of the city were old and decaying. Their walls were crumbling and scarred as if attacked by leprosy and they had no windows. They had doors, however, and in the doorways people were standing. More precisely, and this was the source of Sadiq’s discomfort, women were standing.

These, too, were not ‘good people’. They moved forward as the three men passed and muttered something presumably inviting but from which Sadiq shrank back. He kept his eyes fixed straight before him as if a look or a touch or even a listen was polluting.

From behind the women in the open doorways came the fumes of cooking fat. Even here, thought Seymour, they were preparing the end-of-fast Ramadan meal. The smell of the burning fat blended with the strong smell of excrement which assailed him whenever they went past one of the putrid alleyways, strewn with refuse and rotting vegetables, which went off the street at irregular intervals.

Yet you could get it wrong. Sometimes when you looked up the alleyway you caught a glimpse of a beautiful old facade, a piece of exquisite wood carving, or even a tiny, perfect Moorish patio with delicate balconies and colonnades.

Some of the doorways had quaint inscriptions painted above them. Several of them, for instance, had printed the words: ‘ Maison honnete ’, a decent house. Strange, that people should so feel the need to proclaim their virtue. And in French, too!

They were going through a warren of particularly filthy, dark, narrow, twisting streets when suddenly, high above them, something flashed. He looked up and saw to his surprise the glinting, coloured tiles of the minaret of a mosque catching the sun and realized that they were just behind the Kasbah.

Sadiq saw his surprise and misinterpreted it.

‘It is wrong,’ he said indignantly, ‘that such people should be allowed to be so near the Kasbah! We have complained about it but nothing has been done. We went to the Prefet again only last week demanding that those dreadful women be removed. Perhaps they should be put in a reserved quarter near the barracks, not near a holy place. But every day another house is turned over to one of those places where they work. It is disgraceful! Think how it must be for the children, and how humiliating it is for decent people to have such neighbours.’

And now Seymour understood the significance of the inscriptions he had seen above the doors: ‘ Maison honnete ’, a valiant attempt by the ‘decent people’ to distinguish themselves from their indecent neighbours!

The puritanical Sadiq compressed his lips and walked on, keeping his eyes fixed straight ahead.

He brought Seymour dutifully back to the spot from which they had set out and then hung around for a moment.

‘I hope you found Benchennouf interesting,’ he said awkwardly.

‘Oh, I did. Thank you for taking me.’

‘He’s not — not to everyone’s liking. But he’s different, don’t you think? He stands out against opinion. We need people like him in Morocco today.’

‘Indeed, yes. Perhaps, yes.’

‘I count myself fortunate to be among his friends. And he’s given me my chance, you know. A start. As a journalist.’

‘I wish you every success.’

‘Some say that New Dawn is nothing much-’ he looked daggers at Mustapha and Idris — ‘but I think it is a good place to be. It is not like the other newspapers. They’re all prisoners, prisoners of the French. New Dawn stands out against them. Against the French, and against the Sultan. And for Morocco. My father thinks that New Dawn is just a joke. But he doesn’t understand. We need papers like that if Morocco is to survive. And journalists like Benchennouf. I hope to be one,’ he confided.

‘A small newspaper is a good place to learn the ropes,’ said Seymour.

‘Yes, it is. I think so. That’s just what I said to my father. And what is so good, what is so useful, is that Benchennouf brings wider perspectives. He worked on a paper in France, you know. After he had finished at university. He went to a university in France, you know. A lot of people who do that don’t come back here. But he did, and all credit to him. I’ve thought about going to a university in France. To do something post-graduate. But if I did, I would come back here afterwards. Morocco must not be abandoned.’

‘No, indeed.’

Sadiq seemed pleased by Seymour’s encouragement.

‘That’s what Benchennouf always says. “Morocco must not be abandoned.” Awad sometimes talks about going abroad but Benchennouf says he shouldn’t. “Your place is here,” he says. And he’s got a right to say that because he came back himself.

‘ “If you’re here,” he says, “you can respond at once when you’re needed.” As he was in Casablanca. That was an awful time. The French were all screaming at us. Only Benchennouf stood up against them. I used to read every number of his paper as soon as it came out. I was at school at the time. And when they arrested the man who was selling New Dawn just outside the school, I took over. I was so angry, so angry at what they were doing, that I wanted to do something. And did until Benchennouf was chased out.’

‘Tell me about Casablanca at the time.’

‘It was horrible. They weren’t just beating people, they were shooting them! I saw two people once and they were dead! They had called the army in and they were shooting. And no one said anything! Apart from Benchennouf.’

‘And Chantale’s father, I gather.’

‘Captain de Lissac. Oh, he was wonderful. I so admired him! In fact, for a time I hero-worshipped him. We all did, at school. We thought he was so brave. To stand up like that! Even though he was a Frenchman and a soldier. But then they hounded him out, too.’

‘Well, I can understand that,’ said Seymour. ‘He was, after all, a soldier and soldiers have to do what they’re told. Or else you don’t have an army.’

‘Yes, but you can’t just do what you’re told. Sometimes you have to go by, well, bigger things. Well, I think that, anyway,’ he said, suddenly overcome by embarrassment.

‘I think it does you credit,’ said Seymour.

‘Thank you. Well, thank you…’

Sadiq lapsed into tongue-tied silence.

But then he burst out again.

‘But what I can’t see is why they had to be so nasty to him. You ought to be able to disagree without being nasty. But they couldn’t. And it went on and on. They couldn’t leave him alone. Even after he had stopped speaking out. “Come on,” some people said. “That’s enough!” And the army began to say that, too. At least, that’s what people said. People began to say that there must be something more in it, something personal. Something personal between de Lissac and Bossu.’

‘Why did Bossu come into it?’

‘Well, he had been organizing things on the company side. I don’t really understand that bit, you’d have to ask Benchennouf. But I suppose that brought them up against each other and maybe that was enough. But it seemed to go further than that. There was a sort of campaign against Captain de Lissac, and people said that Bossu was organizing it. We tried to organize a counter-campaign, but, of course, we were just schoolboys…

‘The headmaster spoke to our parents, and my father said it had to stop. I didn’t want to but my mother said it would only make things worse for Captain de Lissac.

‘It was a terrible time in our household, too. My mother was strongly in favour of Captain de Lissac. All Moroccans were. But, of course, my father worked for Bossu! Our friends, neighbours, stopped speaking to us. I realize now that it was very hard for my father. I suppose that, deep down, he admired Captain de Lissac as much as anybody. But he couldn’t say anything, he had to remain loyal to Bossu. Or, at least, quiet. And I don’t suppose I made things any easier for him.

‘But it wasn’t just Moroccans who objected to this campaign against him. A lot of the French did, too. This is going too far, they said. That’s when people began to mutter that there must be something personal in it. “There’s more in this than meets the eye,” they said. Because Bossu seemed almost demented. People said that it was because Bossu liked to have his own way and the Captain had tried to put a spoke in his wheel. But others said no, that there was bad blood between the two, that there was a history of this.

‘Well, I don’t know about that. All I know is that I thought the Captain was a hero. And Benchennouf, too. He was willing to stand up for Morocco. Unlike some,’ said Sadiq with a baleful glance at Mustapha and Idris.