Tangier

The Raid

Often in the mornings on his way to work Hamid would drive about Tangier, moving slowly down narrow streets into obscure quarters of the town. He was not sure why he did this, since it delayed his arrival at the Surete, but he supposed he was searching for coherence in this complicated, shimmering city that he loved.

One morning at the beginning of the summer he parked on Esperanza Orellana in front of a carpentry shop. This spot delighted him. He liked the smell of cedar shavings that filled his car, the buzz of the saws in the background as they bit into wood. Sitting here, he thought back to the difficult night before, the row he'd had with Kalinka. He'd come home late, found her out of the house, and later, when she'd returned, she'd confessed she'd been with Zvegintzov at La Colombe.

Peter had summoned her with a long, imploring letter, she'd said, and she'd felt she'd no choice but to go to him and talk. She'd found him pathetic, friendless and alone, afraid that Hamid was out to drive him from Tangier. Peter had begged her not to say anything, to keep secret all she knew, and to persuade Hamid to stay away and leave the past alone.

How could she deny him that, she'd asked. She was filled with pity for this man she believed they'd both destroyed.

Hamid was moved, but then, when he'd asked her to produce the letter so that he too could measure the Russian's despair, she'd replied she'd burned it to spare Zvegintzov his shame. They'd argued then. Hamid had tried to make her understand. She'd said that only the future mattered, and that she didn't care about the past. Later, when they'd gone to bed, he'd lain awake for hours trying to reason his feelings out. He knew she hadn't deceived him, but there was something she shared with Zvegintzov that she still refused to reveal. What was it? What strange things had they discussed in their sing-song tongue? Why did she want to protect him? Why?

Tormented as he lay in bed, he'd thought for a moment that there was someone in the other room. An intruder, perhaps Peter, prowling, waiting to stab him in his sleep. He'd felt ridiculous but still he'd gotten up, and of course he'd found no one there.

It was then, the following morning, sitting in his car in front of the carpentry shop, that he began to notice certain strange goings-on at the entrance of the Hotel Americain. This dingy pension a few doors down the street specialized in impecunious tourists who could not afford a room on Avenue d'Espagne. What struck Hamid, and suddenly caught his interest, was a group of European males huddling in the doorway with Moroccan boys.

No question of what was happening-the men were slipping money to the boys, who then ran off gaily toward the beach. Payoffs, no doubt, for business transacted in the night. Hamid watched, incredulous, then drove down to the Grand Socco, where he parked in an area reserved for the police. He strode into the medina, into the lobby of the Oriental Hotel, and mounted the steps to Robin's room.

He flung open the door. "Get up!" he yelled, yanking off Robin's sheets. "On your feet, you bastard! Put on your clothes!"

He paused then. He was too angry. He needed time to regain control. "I'll wait for you in the Centrale," he said. "Get your ass down there! You've got things to explain."

A few minutes later Robin appeared in the Socco Chico, picking at the corners of his eyes. "Christ, Hamid-what have I done?"

"You've betrayed me. Sit down and talk."

Robin squinted, shook his head.

"Don't play dumb," said Hamid. "I'm in a lousy mood."

"I see that. What's wrong?"

"The Hotel Americain-that's what's wrong. You're supposed to keep me informed about places like that."

"I didn't know, I swear." He spoke too quickly. Hamid could always tell when Robin lied.

"Don't pretend," he said. "You know the place is swimming in queers."

"OK, Hamid. Stop shouting, please. You shut down one and another opens up."

"I'm talking about our arrangement, Robin. Your job is to fill me about these places. Mine is to keep them from getting out of hand."

"Oh, come on. Is that the real nature of our relationship? Wait! Don't answer!" Robin shook his head. "Look," he said, "people come to Tangier in the summer, they come down here to get laid. They want boys, boys who offer themselves, you understand-because they surely aren't seduced. All right, they need a place to find them. If you close the Americain, it'll just be someplace else."

"You still don't understand."

"What?"

"That I've been relying on you, and you've been holding back."

"Oh, for Christ's sake, Hamid. An informer has to save things up, keep the policeman's interest. It's in the nature of my work as your devoted snitch that I feed you information in little bits. That way you like me better, and I get to see you every week. Honestly, Hamid-I was going to deliver on this. Maybe even today."

"You make me sick."

"You're not angry anymore?"

"Thank Allah, you bastard. Now start talking. I want it all."

"Here? In public? Just being seen with you is bad enough."

"Embarrassed? Good. I don't care-it serves you right."

Robin ordered coffee and then began to talk, rubbing every so often at his crusted eyes and unshaven cheeks. "Gottshalk owns the place. Not the building-les fonds de commerce. You know him-he wears dark specs and a ratty djellaba like a cape. He's an American, been here for years. He's got an 'arrangement' with the American Consulate. I thought you knew about that."

"I try not to remember the details about every seedy foreigner in town. What 'arrangement'? Damn it, Robin, don't spin out a tale."

"Well, Gottshalk's got this deal with the Consulate that when they have an American who's lost his passport or who's out of money and waiting for funds, they stash him temporarily in his hotel. Gottshalk lodges him, feeds him on credit, and doesn't bother to register him with the police. He gets reimbursed, of course, and a service fee besides. For this the Americans think he's great. He's very close over there to Lake and Knowles, which gives him status, because otherwise he's just a bum. Anyway, he's had hot and cold running boys for a while-"

"How long?"

"I don't know."

"Years?"

"A season or two. It's known now in London and Amsterdam. When the queens come down here they know where they can go."

"Disgusting! What's he like?"

"A bastard. Hard as nails. Charges too much and rakes it in from the boys. If they don't kick back seventy-five percent he's got a couple of goons who mess them up. But he guarantees them a place to sleep, and for a lot of boys that's good enough. It would be a pity if you closed him down, Hamid. Put a lot of kids out of work."

"Do you really care?"

"Well, I'm human."

"Yes, Robin, I suppose you are." Hamid pushed back his chair. "Not a word of this," he said. "I'm going to move on Gottshalk. I'll know who to blame if he's been warned."

As he walked back to his car, he allowed his anger to seep away. Robin's just an informer, he thought. How much can I expect? But he knew perfectly well that Robin was more than that-that over the years he'd become a friend.

He found Aziz waiting in his office, a glass of tea in hand. Hamid looked over the reports that had piled up through the night, then announced that they were going to raid the Hotel Americain. Aziz was delighted, and seeing his pleasure Hamid explained what he had in mind. They'd mount the kind of operation he'd seen in European films-flawless, cool, sleek.

"Midnight," he said, "we'll move in. Empty the place, every room, every closet, every bed. Anyone who isn't registered we'll bring here and interrogate. Photograph them, fingerprint them, warn them, and let them go. Same with the Moroccan boys-no point in holding them. What I want is a case against Gottshalk, enough to kick him out. After we close down his bordello we'll start a cleanup along the beach."

"Magnificent, Hamid. But why have we waited so long?"

"I don't know. Lethargy, I suppose. Now it pains me the way Tangier's turning into a dump. Every June the beach becomes a meat rack. We must change it back into a place to take a swim."

He spent the morning with the state prosecutor discussing pending cases, plowing through dossiers. When, finally, he returned to his office, he found a message from Farid.

The bazaar was closed when he arrived, so he parked and walked up the Boulevard looking for his brother in each of the cafes. He found him at Claridge reading a newspaper, eating lunch.

"Ah, here you are." He slid into a chair.

"I knew you'd find me, Hamid. How are you today?"

"Terrible. I've got too many cases. It's summer, and the town's gone mad."

He ordered swordfish. After the waiter left Farid put his newspaper down.

"I found the book you wanted."

"Good. Thanks."

"At the French library. They have a shelf on Indochina there. This one, about colonial Hanoi, was covered by half an inch of dust."

"Did you look at it?"

"Yes. After I cleaned it up. It's interesting, Hamid. I was quite surprised. Hanoi was something like Tangier."

"That is interesting. Tell me more."

"Well, it was an odd sort of place, like a provincial French town, but cosmopolitan too. Lots of nationalities like here-Indians, Chinese, Russians, French. And of course the natives, our equivalents-the Vietnamese, the Tonkinois."

Hamid smiled.

"A foreign quarter. Big villas. French doctors, lawyers, churches, lycees. Even a tennis club in the middle of town, and then antique shops like mine, and little shops selling native wares. Buddhist temples too-the equivalent of our mosques, at least as far as the French could see. It's very interesting. I left it at the shop. I'll give it to you after lunch." He paused. "Tell me, Hamid, why are you interested in such a book?"

"Kalinka, of course."

"I guessed that."

"I want to know everything about her. And about all the places that she's lived."

"She's telling you things now?"

Hamid nodded. "Last night, however, we hit a snag. She went to see the Russian. He told her not to tell me any more. He's afraid I'm after him, building up a case to kick him out. She knows that isn't true, but now she's hesitant to go on."

"Why's he afraid?"

"That's what I want to know. It's very curious, Farid-it seems our little Peter was once something of a spy."

His swordfish came and as he ate it he began to describe to Farid the Russian community of Hanoi. And then the childhood of Peter Zvegintzov, the only son of a middle-class Russian couple, brought up in a little room behind their shop.

"There were all these children of different nationalities," he said, "so Peter learned lots of languages early on. There was also another Russian boy approximately the same age named Stephen Zhukovsky. He and Peter became best friends.

"As I reconstruct things, they grew up together in the 1920s and 1930s just about the time the first Communists began to surface in Hanoi. There were Russians, Soviet agents, sent down to set up networks in Indochina. Possibly it was one of these who recruited Peter and Stephen at the Hanoi lycee. Anyway, Kalinka says Peter always was a Communist, not, probably, out of deep conviction but to be different, to stand out. It's easy to imagine him thinking of his recruitment as a game. Secret meetings, a cell, fun with his best friend. But then, in 1940, with the fall of France, the Indochinese administration sided with Vichy, and the Japanese arrived.

"The Vietnamese Communists, directed from China by Ho Chi Minh, decided to side with the Allies. Peter and Stephen received their orders-to link up with the Viet Minh. Now here the politics become a little murky, but I don't think it's important to follow all the twists and turns. Just think of Peter, eighteen then, already stout, wearing spectacles, full of energy, eager, and alive, embarking with his friend Stephen Zhukovsky upon a dangerous double life.

"They were drafted, both of them, into the Vichy army, where they snooped around, collected information, then passed it along to the Viet Minh. It was dangerous work, of course, but to them still something of a game. It was a while before they realized how serious it was."

Hamid finished eating, paid his and Farid's bills. Then they walked out onto the Boulevard to Farid's shop to retrieve the book. After that they turned down Rue Marco Polo, crossed the tracks that ran parallel to Avenue d'Espagne, and walked onto the beach. Hamid talked the whole way, stopping every so often to make a point. Farid listened, fascinated, head bowed, eyes always on the sand.

"Here," said Hamid, "a Vietnamese lady enters the scene, a great beauty, the contact agent for Peter and Stephen's cell. They both fall in love with her-madly in love. She is so attractive, even a seductress, and like Kalinka, I imagine, mysterious and subtle, the sort of woman who can break your heart. Her name was Pham Thi Nha, but the boys both called her Marguerite. Both of them courted her. They could speak to each other of nothing else. They were best friends and rivals too. A friendly triangle was formed.

"Stephen Zhukovsky was the one, finally, chosen to be her lover. Peter, accepting her decision, gracefully stepped aside. Meanwhile the spying went on. The boys collected intelligence, carried messages, even helped divert a shipment of Japanese arms to guerrillas waiting in the swamps. Lots of adventures, a few close calls, bonds of fraternity between them, and all that. Peter even got hold of a photo of De Gaulle and put it with the one of Stalin he kept hidden in his boot. He still has it, Kalinka says-somewhere among his papers in the back room of La Colombe. Anyway, in 1943 Marguerite and Stephen Zhukovsky had a child. They named her Pham Thi Phoung. Peter, her godfather, suggested 'Kalinka' as her European name."

Hamid stopped. Farid glanced up.

"Go on," he said. "Go on. Go on!"

"Well, here I must rely upon research-Kalinka has no sense of politics, of course. Toward the end of the war Indochina went into turmoil. It had been run by the Vichy French, but in March of 1945 the Japanese turned suddenly against them. Perhaps because they knew they were going to lose the war, maybe because they hated people who were white-whatever the reason, they disbanded the Vichy army, and then their police started making mass arrests. It was terrible. Every Frenchman in the Langson garrison was beheaded with a ritual sword. Some of the French units made a dash for the Chinese frontier, hoping to find sanctuary with Chiang Kai-shek. Stephen and Peter managed to escape, leaving Marguerite and the baby behind. They hid out in the jungle for a while, then tried to come back. They were caught on the outskirts of Hanoi, arrested by the Japanese.

"They were tortured, both of them, hideously tortured in the summer of 1945. Peter was wounded in such a way that he would be impotent the remainder of his life. Stephen Zhukovsky was not so fortunate. He was tortured to death.

"On August 6 the Americans bombed Hiroshima. On August 16 the Japanese released all their prisoners in the colony. On August 17 Peter Zvegintzov, twenty-three years old, ruined in his manhood, wandered the rain-swept streets of Hanoi. His parents had been killed. Their shop was boarded up. Marguerite and the child had disappeared. Stephen Zhukovsky was dead. Dazed and afraid, he watched mobs of exultant Vietnamese rally before the Municipal Theater. From a staff on its main balcony the Communist party flag was finally raised.

"That's all I have so far, but you see the sort of background that's involved. It'll all come out, little by little. She'll tell it to me if Peter hasn't persuaded her to stop. He's hiding something, you see-perhaps something Kalinka doesn't know herself."

"But what, Hamid?"

He shrugged. "There've always been rumors about Peter, that he was a Communist, even some sort of Soviet spy. I heard them years ago but never found anything to back them up. But now I wonder. How did he end up here? When you mentioned that Hanoi was something like Tangier-well, I got an interesting idea."

They walked together in silence for a time, among people lying in bathing garments in the sun, children running this way and that, Europeans lounging on the terraces of the bathing clubs. They passed the Shepherd's Pie, the Packwoods' little restaurant. Hamid saw Joe Kelly sitting shirtless there, drinking, surrounded by a coterie.

"Hello, Farid!"

It was the hustler Pumpkin Pie in a tight bikini bathing suit, strutting on the sand. Hamid noticed he gave a certain sort of smile as he walked by, and that Farid responded with a signal of his own.

"You know that trash?"

Farid nodded uncomfortably, and Hamid immediately regretted what he'd said. They always avoided the subject of homosexuality, though Farid knew it was part of Hamid's job to rid the city of its reputation as a gay resort.

"Well, I must get back, Hamid. Time now to reopen my store."

They embraced, then Farid walked away. Hamid watched until he'd crossed the tracks.

He enjoyed the minutes just before midnight, sitting in his car up the street from Gottshalk's hotel. There was something almost sensuous about the wait-the prospect of action, the tension building up.

Then it all happened, precisely as he'd planned: a hushed, whirring siren; police whistles strangely soft; commands in Arabic; muffled screams; the thud of shoulders against wooden doors with feeble locks.

His men, moving with sleek precision, gracefully sprung his trap. Everyone in the hotel was caught by surprise. Soon the lobby was filled with frightened guests. Some of the Moroccan boys tried to escape across the roof, but Hamid had people posted there who snatched them as they fled. Others, wriggling under beds, were pulled out squirming by their heels. Men who were arrested nude or who'd left their passports in their rooms were politely escorted back upstairs. Aziz paired off those he'd found together, then, calling off their names, tried to match them to the registration list.

Hamid wandered about the lobby, pleased by the size of his catch and the cool, understated way the raid had been carried out. The night clerk was shaking, and Gottshalk, in his tattered djellaba, stood helpless, wrists cuffed behind his back. Hamid circled him in wonder. This disgusting man worked with the Americans; he was received by Lake and Knowles.

When Aziz had everybody sorted out, he motioned Hamid aside.

"About a dozen," he said, "caught with underage boys. And one Dutchman in bed with a girl who doesn't appear to be his wife."

Aziz blew a whistle then, and when the lobby became silent Hamid stood up on a chair. He looked around at the faces staring up at him. I know these men, he thought, have seen them every summer of my life. Rigid stances, sharp eyes, a certain anguished preying look, pursed lips, beckoning smiles-suddenly he thought of Farid. They were frightened, he could see, and flawed. For a moment he was touched. He certainly didn't hate them, but he disliked the corruption of their lust.

"Good evening," he said in French. "My name is Ouazzani. I'm chief inspector of the foreign section of the Tangier police. There have been grave violations of registration laws in this hotel, and violations of our vice laws too. Those of you who are improperly registered, or who were discovered in bed with underage Moroccan youths, will be taken now to headquarters in our bus. There you'll be interrogated, and your consular representatives will be called if you wish. The rest of you may return to your rooms. We apologize for disturbing you and wish you a pleasant sleep. We ask, however, that you leave in the morning and seek other accommodations in town. The manager of this hotel is under arrest. Tomorrow, at noon, this building will be closed."

He repeated his announcement in English, then stepped down from the chair. Aziz released the guests entitled to return to sleep, and led the rest outside.

Hamid followed them to the Surete, watched them herded into a communal cell. A team of interrogators began work. Fingerprints were taken and everyone was photographed. It was a madhouse, the Moroccan prisoners gaping at the newcomers, the boys getting a stern lecture from Aziz.

Hamid stopped at the police canteen, drank a cup of coffee, telephoned Kalinka, told her he'd soon be home. Back upstairs, from the corridor outside his office, he looked in at Gottshalk manacled to a chair.

"Mr. Gottshalk," he said, briskly walking in, "with you I have an airtight case. There're six or seven boys downstairs swearing out depositions right now. They say you corrupted their morals, turned them into prostitutes, and forced them to perform unnatural acts for money paid to you by foreign guests." He paced around Gottshalk, speaking calmly, pausing now and then to emphasize a word. "No question what's going to happen-you'll do ten years at least. What shall we do for you? Call a lawyer? Get hold of Vice-Consul Knowles? Get you pen and paper so you can write out your confession? Find you a knife so you can slit your throat?"

Gottshalk's face was twitching. His bald spot was pumping sweat.

"Inspector-could I please speak to you alone?"

"You want me to dismiss the guards?"

Gottshalk nodded.

Hamid smiled. "No bribes, my friend. Save your breath. You're finished here. The only question is whether we send you to prison or put you on a plane and ship you out."

A glimmer of hope appeared in Gottshalk's frightened eyes.

"I might expel you," said Hamid. "Permanently. Tomorrow. With all your assets frozen here. To make an example of you. To let everyone know there's no profit anymore in running a boys' hotel. Give me a complete confession, submit in writing to a confiscation of everything you own, and tomorrow you'll be put on the early plane for Madrid. Otherwise-ten years."

"You don't give me much choice."

"I give you more than you deserve."

Gottshalk looked at him in sorrow and despair.

"Quick," said Hamid, "make up your mind."

He felt quite pleased a quarter hour later as he drove home through the night streets. At last, he thought, he'd begun to act. He'd rid the town of one of its least attractive residents, and now he wondered how much longer it would take him to finally clean it out.

Kalinka was waiting up. She'd been sketching. The table where they ate was covered with drawings and pastels. He told her what he'd done, his management of the raid.

"Oh, Hamid," she said. "I had no idea you had that kind of power."

She was silent then, and he thought: She's thinking of Peter, wondering whether I might do the same to him.

"You wouldn't do that to Peter," she said. "I knew he was wrong when he said you would."

She was amazing, could read his mind, just as he was learning to read hers. He moved beside her, placed an arm around her shoulder, hugged her, kissed her face, her hair.

She began to talk then, after a little while, of her memories of Poland, showing him her drawings, her words pouring out. There was a school. She'd sketched it. Hamid looked at her pictures, then closed his eyes. Gray buildings. A gravel playground surrounded by a fringe of badly tended grass. Kind teachers. A long, narrow attic dormitory room. Bare light bulbs. A row of beds. When it rained she lay awake listening to the raindrops on the roof.

Singing-he saw her in an assembly hall, her eyes fixed on foreign flags. It was a school for orphans, sons and daughters of martyred revolutionaries. Many Asian faces, Koreans and Vietnamese. They were stirred, all of them, by the verses of the Internationale.

Gym class-he could see the children dressed in matching tunics doing calisthenics in time to a revolutionary march. Outside it is cold and gray. Snow piled on the ground. The gurgling of old steam radiators in the gym. A sour smell. Ropes to climb. A horse to vault.

Peter comes on Sundays muffled in a heavy woolen coat. He works at a factory in Warsaw. It takes him hours to reach the school. Sometimes he is gay and brings her gifts-a piece of chocolate, a ball, a doll. Other times he's sad, and she thinks he'll weep. But he doesn't. He can only stay an hour. The bus trip back, he tells her, is long and dark.

Two years pass. Hamid sees Kalinka sitting in her classes, exercising in the gym, lying with eyes open in her bed while the other girls sleep. Leaves fall. The winters are cold. She wears mittens and a little woolen cap that covers up her ears. The girls help one another, cut one another's hair. She has friends, but she can no longer remember their names. Nor her teachers. Nor what they taught.

She works with clay, makes pottery. She glazes her little bowls and is pleased by how well they look. She withdraws into herself. Her character becomes oddly formed. The traits Hamid knows so well, her dreaminess, her detachment-they take over as she sits alone for hours, sketching or staring into space. When the teachers talk of politics she falls asleep. There are pictures of Marx and Lenin in every room. Sometimes when the others sing she stands with them and mouths the words. Her teachers become concerned. They regard her as troubled and strange. They try to draw her out. They discuss her in an office while she sits alone on a hard bench outside.

One day some men come-Vietnamese. They speak gently to all the Vietnamese children, tell them a great victory has been won. Soon, they say, you will go back to your country. The children smile. Kalinka feels glad. But she doesn't really understand.

Peter tells her that her mother is dead, that she died a great heroine at Dien Bien Phu. "Now," he says, "it's just the two of us alone. There are people who want to send you back to Vietnam, but I want you to stay with me." He kisses her, whispers to her. She nods to show him she is reassured.

Peter comes to say goodby. There is snow outside. He is bundled in his black wool coat. He kisses her, tells her they'll be reunited soon, that they'll live together in a place where the air is always warm. Then he is gone and her life becomes vague, a long, uninterrupted dream. Seasons change. She receives letters. Peter writes that he is well. When she writes back she must give her letters to authorities at the school. They mail them for her. She does not know where Peter lives.

Leaves fall. Winter comes. Then summer, and autumn, and winter, and around again. One day they bring her a suitcase, tell her to pack her clothes. They give her papers, a passport. She rides an airplane to Paris. Someone meets her, puts her on another plane. When it lands Peter is waiting, ready to carry her in his arms.

That night, for the first time, she sleeps in the back room of La Colombe.

It was strange, her story, so very strange, and full, Hamid felt, of things she didn't say. Long after she fell asleep he lay awake thinking of Peter as a boy in colonial Hanoi, and Kalinka trudging through the snow between gray buildings at the Polish school. It seemed more real to him, all of that, than his raid on Gottshalk's hotel.

A week later he felt depressed. He'd been working long, hard hours in the city, resolving cases at a frightening speed. Frantic to clear up a backlog of dossiers, he'd begun to dispense justice with an iron hand. His staff was amazed. It wasn't like him to be so fierce. "Hamid is turning against the foreigners," he heard Aziz explain. "He has steeled himself against pity. He is cutting out the rot."

Was that true? He didn't know. He only wanted to reclaim Tangier. But the city was intractable. The harder he tried to reclaim it, the more deeply he felt himself engulfed. When he returned home in the evenings he listened to Kalinka, spieling out her story, snatching details here and there from the dreamy past. It was a strange existence for him, passing back and forth between two incoherent worlds. He felt a need to talk to someone decisive. He went to see Mohammed Achar.

They arranged to meet in the doctor's office behind the clinic late on a weekday night. Hamid passed through the usual squabbling water lines on his way up Rue de Chypre, through the odor of disinfectant that hung about the clinic like a fog. There was a nervous young man with Achar who was just leaving as he arrived-Driss Bennani, an architect who worked in city hall. Hamid knew him by sight, nodded to him. Bennani nodded back, then ran out.

"So, Hamid," said Achar after they embraced, "I hear you're cleaning up the beach."

"I thought you'd approve."

"I do, but still I'm surprised. My old easygoing friend, live-and-let-live Hamid, who's been so cozy with the foreigners all these years. Suddenly I hear he's getting tough. What's happened? Why the change?" The doctor poured out two glasses of herbal tea.

"I don't know," said Hamid. "The summers here make me sick."

"As well they should. But why has it taken you so long?"

Hamid shrugged. "Suddenly I detest the disorder of Tangier. I try to impose myself upon it but, of course, I fail. A funny thing, though-I'm beginning to enjoy my power. What do you think? Have I finally become corrupt?"

"Possibly. It happens to policemen. We're not living in a democracy, after all. But in your case I prefer a political explanation. I think you've become disgusted, as I've always been, by the antics of the foreigners here, and it's that disgust that's finally touched you viscerally and driven you into acting tough. I know you're not a political man, Hamid, but you take things very much to heart. You can't fail to be moved by injustice-full pools on the Mountain while our people swelter without water in Dradeb. For years I've heard people say you weren't affected by this. I always defended you. I always thought you felt it. And I always thought one day you'd make a good ally."

"Allied with whom? Is there a conspiracy going on?"

Achar smiled. "Let's not talk about conspiracies, unless we talk about the official ones being plotted in Rabat. Anyway, I wouldn't dream of trying to undermine your loyalty to the regime. But we're old friends. I'm watching your development. You're changing, Hamid, acquiring a will for order. One day you'll come to talk to me about the future, and not just the decadence of the beach."

"Actually I didn't come here to talk about that."

He described the intelligence report that an Israeli agent was coming to Tangier, his theory that he might be coming to kill a European, and Zvegintzov's tip about the Freys. "It's strange," he said. "There's a dilemma in all of this."

"I don't see one."

"Oh-of course there is. Here I have, perhaps, a perfectly fiendish pair-the Freys, Kurt and Inge Becker-people who don't deserve to stay alive. And on the other hand I have, perhaps, a killer, a man coming to murder them in Tangier. I can't sit back and allow someone to commit a crime, particularly a person who works for the secret service of an enemy state. But then who else will execute them? If the Israeli turns up, what am I to do?"

"To me, Hamid, there's no dilemma at all. Israelis and Nazis are all the same-they're foreigners. I'd say keep an eye on both of them and see who kills the other first. Then wrap up your case by killing the one who's left."

Hamid laughed. He knew Achar wasn't serious, but still his joke revealed coldness, the coldness of a surgeon who could become an executioner one day.

Achar refilled his glass. "You know," he said, "this is an exciting time to be alive in the Arab world."

"You really think so?"

"Oh, yes. There's a mood spreading, across Africa to the Persian Gulf. We Arabs, those of us who comprehend our destiny, must recognize that our revival is near at hand. Look at Europe and America, squirming before the oil cartel. It's coming for us, Hamid. A new era. You can even see it in Tangier-your friends on the Mountain reveling in decadence while down here we prepare the antibodies to extinguish their disease. Don't you feel it-the anger? We have an explosive situation here, and though I hate to say it, it's you in the police who are holding on the lid."

"This is dangerous talk, Mohammed. You shouldn't say such things to me."

"Perhaps not. But I trust you. And I hope you're interested in what I say."

"Better to change the subject. Someday, if you should happen to get yourself in trouble, it'll be good if you have a friend in the police."

"All right, Hamid-enough. How are things now at home?"

"Much better. She's stopped smoking finally. Thank you very much for that."

"You know she's been by here several times." Achar brushed his fingers across his mustache. "Actually, Hamid, she's been by quite a bit. I'm busy most of the time, though occasionally she's caught my eye. She's come here on her own it seems, approached my people and volunteered to help."

Suddenly Hamid could feel a thumping in his chest. It was the same feeling he'd had when she'd told him Zvegintzov had followed her home from the British play.

"You didn't know, then?"

Hamid banged his fist against his forehead. "Why does she do this? I'll never understand."

"Well, it's not as if-"

"What the hell have you got her doing? Scrubbing bedpans? Emptying slops?"

"Of course not, Hamid. Calm down. She's just come by a few times and helped us with our census. Driss Bennani is impressed with her, says she's been a terrific help. He's seen an interesting side to Kalinka. He says-well, I hesitate to tell you this-"

"What?"

"Well-he says she's 'a revolutionary at heart.'"

"My God!"

"That's not so bad, Hamid."

"Yes, I know. You think the same of me." He stood up. "I'm going." He walked to the door. "Good night!"

Outside the clinic he started toward his car, then stopped, turned around, and walked back up Rue de Chypre. He spent an hour strolling through the slum, following the little paths between shanties which glowed with candlelight. He listened to radios that wailed, music that overlapped and fused. He caught glimpses through split walls of people eating, quarreling, scratching their bodies. It was so squalid, Dradeb-he could hardly believe he'd been brought up in such a place. And all the time he kept thinking: a revolutionary at heart.

He really didn't think she'd meant to deceive him; it was vagueness, not secretiveness, that had made her neglect to tell him about her work. But then, in the back of his mind, there was a suspicion (and he despised himself for feeling it) that perhaps there was something happening between Kalinka and Achar. Or maybe even with Bennani, who'd run out so quickly when he'd walked in. Ridiculous, of course! Bennani was only a boy, and Achar was his oldest friend. But still there were things such as that time, months before, when he'd observed her sipping tea with a smuggler near the bus station, or that day he and Aziz had found her smoking with the Chinese on the laundry-strewn medina roof. How could he ever marry a woman whose past and present actions were so difficult to understand, who constantly eluded him, who was so foreign and so strange?

He paused, stood still, then violently shook his head. He had to get her into focus, had to get her clear. But then he realized that it wasn't just Kalinka. It was all the foreigners, everyone: Zvegintzov, Lake, Robin, the Freys-names gushed in, the names on all his dossiers, the names that filled the filing cabinets in his office, and constantly shuttled through his brain. For some reason he recalled a fleeting vision of Inigo sobbing, or perhaps laughing, parked one night outside Heidi's Bar. The mysteries of Tangier-there seemed no end to them. There are as many, he thought, as there are people in the town. And now Kalinka-just as I'm getting close to her a stranger glimpses something which, through all the months we've slept together, I never saw at all.