A dead man in Tangier

Chapter Seven

The bank was a modern one, European in style, with glassed-in counters and besuited men all over the place. Not entirely European, though: the men were wearing fezzes and great fans were whirring overhead. The manager was Moroccan but you would have taken him for French. He spoke French naturally and fluently and looked French with his natty dark suit and carefully cut hair. He had Macfarlane’s letter of introduction on the desk in front of him.

‘Monsieur Seymour?’ They shook hands. ‘And what can I do for you?’

Seymour explained why he was in Tangier and said that the investigation was of some importance to the international community and in particular the international financial community and that he hoped therefore that the bank would be able to help him. The manager said that it certainly would.

‘We knew Bossu, of course.’

‘I gather he banked with you?’

‘That is true, yes.’

Seymour put a piece of paper in front of him.

‘I wonder if you would mind checking if these sums were paid from his account?’

The manager summoned a minion and gave the paper to him. The man went off.

‘They may well not have been,’ said Seymour, ‘since I think it quite likely that the payments were made to people in the interior.’

‘I doubt if they would have been made by cheque then. Unless the cheques were going to be brought back here. There are no banks in the south and I doubt if the moneylenders down there would accept cheques.’

‘That is what I thought. I gather that in the interior payment is usually made in hard form.’

‘They even still use Maria Theresa dollars!’

‘So even if he had originally drawn the money from here, he would probably have changed it into coin or bullion?’

‘Very probably.’

‘I wonder if you could tell me how he would go about doing that?’

‘He would probably have gone to one of the big moneylenders in the medina.’

Monsieur Seymour must understand that the Moroccan economy was, well, a mixed one, a mixture of old and new. Many people, particularly those in the countryside, preferred the traditional ways and still went to the moneylender in the souk rather than to a modern bank. And in some ways that suited the banks. They didn’t want to be bothered with handing out often small sums to people they didn’t know and — probably wisely — didn’t trust. Whereas the moneylenders had their own contacts and so their own ways of assessing creditworthiness. They were used to such transactions and kept their own reserves of hard form money. So if you were planning a business venture to the interior, say, to buy salt, the moneylender was the man to go to.

And did the manager have any idea of the moneylender that Monsieur Bossu might have gone to?

The manager thought. The sums Monsieur Seymour had mentioned were quite large so it would have been one of the big ones. He would give Monsieur Seymour three names…

The minion returned. There was no record, he said, of the sums mentioned being paid from Monsieur Bossu’s account. In any case, the balance in Monsieur Bossu’s account would have been far too small.

In the medina, like businesses were gathered together. Here, for example, was the leather-making quarter, consisting of little box-like shops where the proprietor sat on the usual counter with his wares spread around him. Behind him in dark inner rooms squatting figures traced intricate designs on saddles and bags and slippers, and the strong smell of leather spread out into the street. Here, now, were the copper workers and from inside came the sounds of hammering and beating and sometimes the hot breath of a fire. And here were the herbalists, their shops heralded by subtle and pungent odours, and often with huge pyramids of fresh green mint on the ground outside.

So it was no surprise to find the moneylenders grouped together, too. No counters in the shops here. Customers sat against the walls, on worn leather cushions if it looked as if their business might be worth it, and in the space in the middle were sets of scales. Some were small and into their cups coins were counted out in two and threes. Others were large and into their bowls were put heavy bags. The bags were always opened before being weighed and often borrowers would thrust their hands in and feel deep. Everything had to be seen; if possible, touched.

Mustapha and Idris, listless from their Ramadan fasting, brightened up when they came to the Street of the Moneylenders. The sight of the coins had a stimulating effect on them and they were inclined to linger outside the shops, looking in, drooling.

‘All right for some,’ said Idris wistfully.

They stopped outside a small, exceptionally dirty shop.

‘This is the one to go to!’ they said firmly.

‘No, I don’t think so,’ said Seymour.

‘Babikar’s all right!’ they insisted.

‘No, I want a big one.’

‘It’ll cost you!’ they warned.

‘I want-’ he consulted the list the bank manager had given him — ‘Mohammed Noor.’

‘Mohammed Noor!’ They reeled back. ‘Well, if you say so…’

They found the shop and went in. Mohammed Noor, seeing a European and deducing therefore that he was wealthy, came forward. Mustapha and Idris slipped back against the wall.

‘I come on behalf of a friend,’ said Seymour.

‘Of course!’ said Mohammed smoothly, and clapped his hands.

An attendant brought tea.

None was offered to Mustapha and Idris. However, their presence was accepted; as if the kind of people Mohammed Noor sometimes dealt with were the kind of people who naturally brought their own bodyguards.

Mohammed Noor did not force the pace. They talked of this and that, how long Seymour had been in the country, how he found Tangier. The moneylender spoke French, with the same fluency and ease as the bank manager and, indeed, many of the Moroccans Seymour had met. It transpired, from something he said to Idris, that he also spoke Berber; and, probably, English and Italian and Senussi and a dozen other languages as well.

Gradually they got round to business. Seymour explained that he was acting on behalf of a friend who wanted to make a trading expedition into the interior. The price of salt was rising in Algeria and his friend wished to buy a lot of it; for that, of course, he would need a lot of money, and in appropriate form. Might Mohammed Noor be able to accommodate him?

Mohammed Noor, who, of course, believed none of it, spread his hands and said that nothing could be easier.

Seymour named a sum. Mustapha and Idris, who might have fallen over if the wall had not been behind them, gasped. Mohammed Noor did not turn a hair.

There would be no difficulty, he said.

And what might be the interest charged, asked Seymour.

This time it was Seymour who gasped.

Mohammed Noor spread his hands apologetically.

Of course, he didn’t like to impose such charges, he said, and normally wouldn’t. But things were deteriorating in the interior, there were rumours of war. The local tribes were unreliable, there were bandits…

He could come down just a little, perhaps, in view of the extra security that someone like a friend of Monsieur Seymour would be able, he was sure, to offer. But…

And so it went on. And on. In the end Seymour said he would have to consult his friend.

Mohammed Noor, who had not expected otherwise, smiled and said he was always there.

As they were going out, Seymour said that Mohammed Noor’s name had been mentioned to him by an acquaintance, a Frenchman, a Monsieur Bossu, who had himself made use of Mohammed’s services not long ago. Did Mohammed Noor recall him, he wondered?

Mohammed Noor pondered, but shook his head.

And Seymour moved on to the next one.

Mustapha and Idris had cottoned on by this time and restrained their gasps, although they continued to look slightly alarmed. Even the distant contemplation of such sums disturbed them.

The third moneylender they went to was Abdulla Latif. By this time Seymour had drunk so much mint tea that he was feeling a strain on the system. Abdulla Latif was as prepared to be obliging as the others; so much so that Seymour asked a supplementary question, whether by chance Abdulla knew of any sturdy men who might be willing to accompany his friend into the south. Abdulla Latif said that there were always such men around but that he could supply Seymour with some names if he wished.

As they left, Seymour stopped and turned. Did Abdulla Latif by any chance recall a Frenchman…?

Abdulla Latif frowned and then said he thought he did. Seymour said that in matters of this sort it was as well to go by recommendation and his acquaintance — a Monsieur Bossu, was it? — had spoken highly of Abdulla’s services. Abdulla bowed and said that he recalled his client perfectly. He had been able to be of use to him on several occasions.

‘Twenty per cent!’ said Mustapha, as they walked away. ‘Twenty per cent!’

Seymour thought he was registering the enormity of the charge. But he wasn’t.

‘See, that’s what those big blokes can get away with. Someone like our friend can go in and they’re all over him. “It’s just twenty per cent for you, sir.” Whereas it’s bloody forty per cent for someone like you or me, Idris!’

‘What was that about a bodyguard?’ asked Idris. ‘Your friend’s not planning a trip down south, is he? Because if he is, we could fix him up.’

‘No, no. There isn’t any friend. It was just a trick to get the information out of him.’

‘Pity!’ said Idris.

‘The journey’s already been made,’ said Seymour. ‘By Bossu.’

And then ‘Just a minute!’ he said. ‘Do you do this sort of thing? Sometimes?’

‘If the money’s right, yes. Why not?’

‘Down south?’

‘Well, probably not far. We’re city people, really.’

‘You didn’t, by any chance, go down with someone to Azrou and Immauzer?’

‘No, no. Miles away.’

‘Too hot!’

‘Bloody camels!’

‘Not our sort of thing.’

‘We have been down occasionally, of course. But that would have been on a run.’

‘And in a truck. I mean, camels!’

‘Okay, not you, then. But you know people who do that sort of thing? Act as a bodyguard?’

‘Oh, sure,’ said Mustapha casually.

‘Listen, do you know anyone who’s made a trip down to those places? Azrou and Immauzer? And Tafilalet?’

‘Don’t think so. Could ask around, I suppose.’

‘Would you? It would have been several months ago. I’ve got the dates here. A Frenchman. Carrying money. Quite a lot. Probably would have paid well.’

‘Sounds interesting,’ said Idris.

‘It was bad,’ said Chantale, cast down. ‘It was bad.’

And it was bound to get back to her mother.

Seymour was amused. Here was this woman, who seemed so supremely competent, informed, it appeared, on just about everything. On good terms with all and sundry, able to fix practically anything — and alarmed, like a schoolgirl, that her mother might hear of her transgressions!

‘Your mother?’

‘It was in the quarter,’ said Chantale gloomily. ‘You don’t know our quarter. And you don’t know my mother. Everything in the quarter gets back to her sooner or later.’

‘And that matters?’

‘It does. Apart from everything else it is an offence against the caida. You know about the caida? No? Well, you ought to, because it runs through and affects everything you do in Morocco. It is — well, I suppose the French word for it is etiquette. But it is more than that. It is a sort of web which touches everything. It enters into all a Moroccan does… into the way you conduct yourself to others. Not just politeness but tact, sensitivity, respect. And I’m pretty certain that my mother’s not going to feel I showed a lot of that towards Madame Poiret.’

‘She asked for it!’

‘No, no, that’s a Western thing to say. It’s too brusque, harsh. It sounds aggressive. And that’s part of the problem for Westerners. Whenever they speak, it sounds wrong. It sounds like that. We Westerners-’ She caught herself and laughed. ‘We. Me! In our clumsy way we are always offending against the caida. And when we do, the Moroccan shrinks back. He withdraws. And so the West never quite meets the East. They never quite come into contact. The Moroccans are terribly polite to them but somehow there is no engagement. You have to be sensitive to the requirements of the caida or else you can never really quite speak to a Moroccan.

‘And, of course, if you are a Moroccan, it’s worse. My mother will be shocked and hurt at what I’ve done. She will say that I’ve put her to shame — that everyone will say she’s not brought me up properly. She will think I’ve let her down.’

‘Oh, come on! My impression was that everyone in the crowd agreed with you.’

But Chantale was not convinced.

‘She will feel that even if Madame Poiret was in the wrong, I still ought not to have struck her. She will think it lowering on my part. A lapse of standards. You have to behave properly even to people who don’t behave properly to you. It’s a question of — well, I suppose it’s like noblesse oblige. If you’re part of the caida, you’re like noblesse. That’s the way I ought to think and behave and if I don’t, she will feel she has failed.’

‘But, look-’

Chantale shook her head.

‘You don’t know what it means to my mother. She has struggled to bring me up. And most of the time on her own. And part of that is being true to the way a well-bred Moroccan should behave. The Moroccan bit is important. She doesn’t want me to lose touch with — well, the Moroccan side of me. And now look what I’ve done!’

She looked at him tragically with her large, tear-stained eyes and Seymour found his knees turning to jelly.

‘Put it down to the French side of you!’ he said, in an attempt to lighten things.

She shook her head again.

‘She wouldn’t like that either. She also wants me to be true to my father. And to that side, the French side, as well. She has rather an idealized picture of that, too. He always had such beautiful manners. I mean, to everyone, high or low, the meanest beggar. He always treated them with respect. You could feel it when he spoke to anyone. It was a bit like the caida. Or that’s how she would understand it. So she would feel I’ve let her down on that, too.’

He could see that it was very important to her and that an attempt to jolly her would be wrong.

‘You’re caught between both sides, I see that,’ he said. ‘And perhaps between unrealistic expectations on both sides?’

She shook her head fiercely.

‘No!’ she said. ‘Don’t say that! She is right. I must be true to both sides of me. The best of both sides. That was what my father would have wanted. My mother knows that. And she has tried to bring me up to be like that. Only, sometimes — sometimes it’s not easy.’

‘I think you’re terrific,’ said Seymour. ‘And I think it’s a terrific ideal. And I’m not surprised if you can’t always live up to it.’

He heard a door close somewhere nearby in the house behind the counter and wondered if someone was coming.

‘Look,’ he said, ‘why don’t I take you out to dinner? Or would that be another Western breach of caida?’

She sat back, as if slightly shocked.

Then she smiled.

‘No decent Moroccan girl would allow herself to be seen out at night alone with a man. Even in a restaurant. However-’ she pretended to consider — ‘a French one would, I suppose. Think of me, for the purposes of this evening, as French. I will ask my mother to cover the desk.’

She suggested a place near the Kasbah and a little later they were making their way through some of the streets he’d passed through earlier. Then they had struck him as seedy. Now, however, the darkness concealed the grime and dilapidation and the moonlight picked out things he’d not previously noticed; carved doorways, ornamental arches, delicate columns.

They went through one of the arches into a small patio with a fountain and trees. One of the trees must have been an orange tree for they suddenly walked into a heavy waft of orange blossom. A spiral staircase wound up out of the patio and they found themselves on an upper balcony on which men were sitting on leather cushions around low tables.

They chose a table at one end of the balcony, from which they could look down on to the patio. The evening was heavily warm but the fountain freshened the air. A waiter brought small bowls of olives and nuts and little plates of salted cakes.

Chantale hesitated.

‘They do serve alcohol,’ she said, ‘but perhaps that had better wait until the meat.’

Instead, they drank fruit juice, freshly made and deliciously cool.

‘It’s what most Moroccans stick to,’ she said. ‘But the French — and a lot of French come here — can’t get through a whole evening without wine.’

‘This is a Moroccan evening, is it?’ he said.

‘Do you mind?’

‘Not at all. I find it…’ He searched for the word and found that only the French one would do. ‘… sympathique.’

She seemed pleased.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That is the right thing to feel.’

Everything was relaxed, soft, gentle. The voices were low and courteous. There was no loud laughter as there probably would have been in England. The people smiled and touched each other affectionately, intimate but without any sexual connotations, simply enjoying the social contact. This was Arab, he thought, at its best.

Yes, sympathique was the word. But it was an odd one to use after the way he had been spending his time. It wasn’t his preoccupation with Bossu but everywhere he had had the sense of strain, of tension barely contained. It had been there on the street that first night when he had intervened on behalf of Mustapha, there in the pig-sticking and in the presence of the soldiers, everywhere. There, too, in people’s conversations: in the conversation with Sadiq and Mr Bahnini, and with the Resident-General and Mr Suleiman, with Juliette and with Monique, running all the time like an undercurrent.

He said this to Chantale and she nodded.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘ that is Morocco, too.’

She was the only woman on the balcony. He wondered if that, too, was Morocco.

It didn’t seem to bother Chantale. But was there a hint of defiance in her assurance? A deliberate, un-Moroccan assertiveness? He wouldn’t put it past her. But if there was, it co-existed with the lack of assertiveness that he had found before in Arab women. Or was that just a question of manners, something shared with the men, a quintessential difference from Western culture?

Later, they went up another flight of stairs to another balcony, where again people were sitting at low tables and where the ripple of the fountain was even more gentle, but where they had the compensation of being more exposed to the moon so that the whole balcony was bathed in its soft light.

Some of the people up there were clearly French, and there were women among them. So far as he could see there was no sense of strain.

Waiters brought silver bowls, towels and kettles of cold water so that they could rinse their hands before eating. That, said Chantale, was absolutely required because the food was eaten with the fingers only and also because the polite thing to do was pluck out tasty morsels from the dish in front of you and offer them to your neighbour.

She reached out a hand, took up some couscous, moulded it with her fingers into a little ball and placed it on Seymour’s plate.

‘ Bismillah,’ she said. ‘That means: In the name of God. But it is not just religious, it is part of the caida. It makes the food more than just food. Not exactly holy, but special.’

Later when the main dish came, a kind of pastrilla, with layers of different meats underneath a crust of delicious flaky pastry, he reached into the dish, took out some pigeon, and put it on her plate.

‘ Bismillah,’ he said.

Sitting at the receptionist’s desk when they returned to the hotel was a middle-aged Moroccan lady.

‘My mother,’ said Chantale.

She smiled at Seymour and there was something in her smile that reminded him of her daughter. She was still a beautiful woman but the face was thin and drawn, as if it had seen harsh times, and the large, dark eyes were wary. They appraised Seymour in much the same way, he thought, as his own mother’s eyes appraised any woman he brought home for the evening. He thought he would say this to Chantale later. It might comfort her.

‘One of the pleasures of Tangier, Madame,’ he said, ‘has been meeting your daughter.’

‘Tangier has many pleasures,’ she said neutrally.

Just at that moment the front door of the hotel opened and Mustapha came in.

He stopped when he saw Chantale’s mother.

‘Madame!’ he said.

‘Why, Mustapha!’ said Chantale’s mother, with unaffected pleasure. ‘How are you keeping? And your wife?’

‘Well, Madame.’

‘And the child?’

‘Well, too, Madame. He has had chickenpox.’

‘But better now, I hope?’

‘Oh, yes, he has put it behind him. Another one is on the way.’

‘Another child? Oh, how nice for you both! Congratulations, Mustapha! And to your wife as well.’

She suddenly looked anxious.

‘Mustapha…’

‘Madame?’

‘Which midwife are you going to use?’

‘Maryam, we thought.’

Chantale’s mother pursed her lips.

‘Maryam is getting old now, Mustapha. And your wife had difficulties the last time.’

‘I know, but-’

‘Why not try Aisha?’

‘Well…’

‘If it’s money, Mustapha, we can help.’

‘It’s not money, Madame. Though thank you very much. It’s…’ He twisted awkwardly. ‘Well, the fact is, we had a little to-do with her husband a few weeks ago and he got hurt. Not badly, not badly,’ he hastened to add. ‘But things have not been the same between the families since, and I don’t like to ask her.’

‘But this is ridiculous! She’s very fond of you all, and, you know, these days, Mustapha, she would be a much better bet. You want the child to be all right, don’t you?’

‘Oh, Madame!’

‘Of course, you do. And you want your wife to be all right, too. You mustn’t let these foolish quarrels get in your way. Aisha would be much the safest choice.’

‘Yes, Madame. I know. But…’

‘But what, Mustapha?’

Mustapha hesitated.

‘I–I don’t like to go, Madame.’

‘Mustapha!’

‘Madame?’

‘Mustapha, you’re not scared, are you?’

‘Scared? Me?’

‘No, no, of course you’re not scared. I didn’t mean that. I meant that — it’s not easy for you to climb down, is it?’

‘Well, no, Madame. Not with Hussein.’

‘Would you like me to have a word with Aisha?’

Mustapha crossed the foyer and then, with unexpected grace, kissed her hand.

‘I will speak to her tomorrow.’

‘Mustapha,’ said Chantale, ‘did you come in for something?’

‘Well, yes, Chantale, as a matter of fact I did. It’s like this. We’ve heard that Ali Khadr and some of his boys are coming over tomorrow night and, knowing how you feel about these things, we wanted to tell you ahead. Knowing how you feel about these things.’

‘There is to be no fighting,’ said Chantale peremptorily.

‘No, no, there won’t be. It’s just a case of getting a few of our lads together to defend ourselves.’

‘No fighting!’

‘Yes, but they’re coming over. And we can’t just stand there, can we? I mean, it would look bad, wouldn’t it?’

‘Where does Ali Khadr come from, Mustapha?’ asked Chantale’s mother.

‘The Sukhariya.’

‘Oh, I know that part. Why don’t I go over and talk to him?’

‘Oh, no, no!’ said Mustapha, appalled. ‘You can’t do that!’

‘Oh, yes, I can. I know that part. I used to go to the mosque there. I know, why don’t I go to the mosque? They’ll soon put a stop to it.’

‘No, no, really. Madame! Really! It’s just a bit of harmless fun. We don’t want to get the mosque mixed up in this. I don’t think religion and — well, not religion — ought to mix.’

‘I’ll go this evening,’ said Chantale’s mother with decision. ‘After seeing Aisha.’

Mustapha left, unhappy. In the moment before the door closed Seymour heard Idris’s voice.

‘Well, you really mucked that up, didn’t you?’