The Spider's House

  Stenham sat down, waited a moment before he spoke. “Do you think it matters what kind of a mood they’re in?”

  “I think common courtesy matters, yes. Always.”

  “Were they courteous with me, would you say?” Stenham demanded.

  “Oh, my dear man, one can scarcely put oneself on their level,” Moss said impatiently. “That’s a feeble excuse, my boy, most feeble. After all, they’re only patriots trying to help their country. One must look at the thing in that light. See their behavior in its proper perspective. No one is himself under the stress of passion, you know.”

  Stenham laughed shortly. “The only passion those cold fish know is hatred; I can tell you that. And they’re not patriots, anyway. I object.”

  “We won’t go into it,” Moss said hastily. “I’m far too exhausted to argue. I was almost asleep when the office telephoned to say those two were here to see me. I hadn’t a clue as to who they were, and of course I had to dress before having them down, and it was a bloody nuisance, I can tell you. Coming on the heels of my day with the police it was almost too much.”

  “You should be glad I got rid of them so quickly. Now you can get some sleep.”

  “Oh, I’m delighted with that side of it. But I do feel they have a right to their point of view. Then there’s another thing.” Moss’s face became thoughtful. “If there is to be the kind of trouble they predict, it’s quite obvious that we should be better off here if we were on friendly terms with them.”

  Stenham looked at him. “Friendly terms!” he repeated. “And the French?”

  Moss laughed indulgently. “I think my connections at the Résidence in Rabat are sufficient to place me above suspicion. You know as well as I that the French are not fools, whatever else they may be. They’d understand perfectly, no matter what I did, that I’d done it purely as a matter of tactics. Don’t be absurd.”

  “Well, I’m afraid I’ve got no such guarantee,” Stenham said.

  “You?” said Moss, and he waited a moment. “No,” he said finally, “I’m afraid you haven’t.”

  “And I don’t want one, either. The French can go to Hell, and so can the Nationalists. It’s as simple as that.”

  Moss smiled wryly. “Now that you’ve disposed of them all, what about us? Have you a helpful suggestion as to where we might go? Hugh, I meant to tell you, has gone to Tangier. He left directly after dinner.”

  “What?” Stenham cried; for some reason he felt that this was a desertion. “You mean he just suddenly packed up and left? But he was so determined not to let them scare him off. I don’t get it.”

  Now Moss sat down on the bed, removed his glasses wearily.

  Without them his face took on an expression of sadness. Stenham regarded him with vague curiosity.

  “My dear John,” Moss said, twirling the glasses by a stem, “I think if you had seen the things we saw today you’d understand better why he no longer cared. As he himself said at dinner, up until then he’d thought of the whole show as a kind of game and it was a part of the game to stick it out, obviously. But this afternoon—” he shook his head deliberately and paused—“I must confess I had never expected to be that close to brutality and suffering. One reads about such things in the newspapers and is horrified by them, but even with the most active imagination one falls far short of the actuality. It’s all the unexpected details, the expressions on the faces, the helpless little gestures, the senseless and unrelated words that come out of their mouths, things that one would never be able to invent, those are what does one in, when one is actually there.”

  “What did you see, for God’s sake?” Stenham demanded. Without Kenzie’s car available, the situation was different; he felt less easy in his mind, although he told himself it was illogical.

  “We merely saw hundreds of Arabs at the police station being brought in, being beaten, knocked down, kicked in the places where it would do the most damage, and tortured. Yes, tortured,” Moss repeated, raising his voice. “That’s the only word for it. When one says torture, one’s inclined to picture something refined and slow and diabolical, but I assure you, it can also be swift and brutal. If you’d merely seen the floor, slippery with blood, and with teeth lying here and there, I think you’d find it easier to understand why Hugh suddenly felt no desire to go on playing his game with the French. He couldn’t think of it in those terms any longer.”

  Moss was silent for a moment, listening to the wind in the poplars. “At first they had him locked up, and it took me about two hours of ranting even to get to see him. Then we had to wait on a bench in the corridor until almost four o’clock to see some monstrous little functionary who was to give the final official word that he was to be released. That was when we saw them being dragged in. But, John, the French have lost their minds! Those people had simply been taken in off the streets! Old men who hadn’t the slightest idea what was happening to them, boys of ten screaming for their mothers. The police simply clubbed them all without discrimination. They pounded them, kicked them in the face with their boots when they fell. I don’t know. It’s useless to think about it, and still more useless to talk about it, and I’m going to stop. But don’t judge Hugh too harshly for beating a retreat. I personally think he’s shown very good sense, and I can’t imagine what I’m doing staying on, as a matter of fact, except that with all my paraphernalia I couldn’t very well get packed in time to go with him, and in any case I don’t want to go to Tangier.” He put his spectacles on and stood up. “How curious the world is,” he said, as if to himself; then he turned and walked toward Stenham’s chair. “There’s no end to violence and bloodshed, is there? I had a peculiar presentiment today as I sat there speechless, watching it all, that it was only a prologue to a whole long period of suffering that hasn’t even begun. But I hope I shan’t see it.”

  “I hope not,” said Stenham.

  “Good night, John. I’m sorry to have dragged you down here at this hour, but they did ask for you, you know, and anyway, I needed a bit of moral support. Let’s see what tomorrow brings forth, and plan accordingly.”

  “Right,” said Stenham.

  The garden lay in darkness, bathed by a mild, damp wind. When he got to his room he opened the table drawer and stood a moment looking down at the pages of typescript lying there; he had a sudden desire to pick them up, crumple them into a ball, and throw them out the window. Instead, he undressed, brushed his teeth, and got into bed. But he could not sleep.

  CHAPTER 22

  And yet, he thought, when he entered again into the world, becoming conscious of the daylight out there beyond the window, he must have slept, because the ritual he was in the act of performing at the moment was the accustomed one of awakening. In his mind he had planted firmly the idea that he was not sleeping, had not slept, would not sleep, and he became aware only now that each time he had reminded himself: “I am still awake,” he had actually had to come back from sleep to do it. In spite of the long journey he had made through fantasy when he first lay down—“What if,” his mind had asked, and then the screen had lighted up and the projections had begun—at some point there had been a halt and sudden darkness, and, although he had not slept very long, because it was still scarcely later than dawn, he felt surprisingly lively. It could of course be the false energy that sometimes manifests itself at the moment of awakening after a short night’s sleep, only to change to lassitude after the first hot cup of coffee. As he stretched and yawned voluptuously, he suddenly remembered that he had slept all yesterday afternoon; the idea of this encouraged him to think that perhaps he had had enough sleep after all, and could risk looking at his watch, which in effect meant getting up, since once he knew the hour he almost never fell asleep again.

  It was a few minutes before ten; the gray, unaccustomed light above the Medina was that of a dark day—not of dawn. He sat up and rang the bell. It was Abdelmjid who knocked in answer. He ordered his breakfast by shouting from bed, without opening the door. Then he crossed the room t
o the washstand, dashed cold water over his face, and combed his hair. On his return to the bed he unlocked the door. He lay back against the pillows, waiting, looking out over the further edges of the city to the dim hills behind. The light rain falling blurred the air and removed the color from the landscape, giving it instead a gray luminosity which blotted out the familiar landmarks.

  Abdelmjid was a long time coming with the tray. When he entered, his face was set in a rigid mask which announced as well as words could have that he did not want to talk. And Stenham realized, when he looked at him, that as a matter of fact neither did he. They exchanged the brief commonplaces appropriate to the time of day, and Abdelmjid went out.

  It was as he was finishing his breakfast that Stenham always began to plot the course of his work for the morning. Today it was not even to be considered. It was impossible to spin fantasies about the past when the present was like a bomb lying outside the window, perhaps ready to explode any minute. This was the most cogent argument for leaving the place—not the warnings of the Nationalists or the threats of the French. If all prospects for work were withdrawn there was no point in staying; the only sensible thing was to move on to another place, in the Spanish Zone this time, where he would still be in Morocco, but in a Morocco not yet assailed by the poison of the present. He did not want to leave; he dreaded going to Moss and discussing it, but there was the undeniable fact in front of him. This was the moment of the day when he saw things most clearly, while his breakfast tray was still across his lap. A judgment reached later in the day could go wide of the mark because then he had the use of his equipment for self-deception, whereas at this hour it had not begun to function.

  “Good. Then it’s decided. I get out.” Moss could stay or go as he liked; his own mind was at rest. When, as he was dressing, he looked out the window at the grayness, he was thankful for the rain, for it made his decision seem less painful. It was easier to renounce the city when it was colorless and wet, and the outer hills were hidden from view, and he knew that the mud was in the streets.

  He packed methodically for about an hour, putting the filled valises one by one at the door, ready to be carried downstairs. Instead of notifying the desk to prepare his bill he decided to demand it in person at the last possible moment: they would have less time to work out the false extras with which they so loved to pad their factures. As he was stuffing some soiled shirts into a duffle bag full of books, the telephone rang.

  “Hi,” said a lively, matter-of-fact voice.

  He opened his mouth to speak, but said nothing—merely held the receiver in his hand and looked at the wall a few inches in front of him.

  Then the voice said: “Hello?”

  “Lee?” he asked, although there was no need for that.

  “Good morning.”

  “Well, my God! Where have you been? Where are you now?”

  “I’ve been everywhere, and I’m in my room here at the hotel, this hotel, your hotel, the Mérinides Palace, Fez, Morocco.”

  “You’re here in the hotel?” he said. “When did you come?” He had almost said: “Why did you come?” turning his head to look at the row of valises by the door. “When can I see you? I want to see you right away. We can’t talk on the phone.”

  Her answer was a short, satisfied laugh. Then she said: “I’d love to see you. Suppose I meet you in the writing room, that room upstairs with the big window.”

  “When?”

  “Any time. Now, if you like.”

  “I’ll be right down.”

  He got there first, but she came in half a minute later, looking just as he had remembered her, only better. She was deeply tanned, and in places the sun had lightened the brown of her hair to gold. They sat down on the cushions against the window. He made her do most of the talking. She had simply decided to go to Meknès, she said, and from there she had gone on to Rabat, and then she had wired a friend of hers from Paris, a French girl who had married an army man, stationed down in Foum el Kheneg, on the edge of the Sahara, and they had invited her down there, and so she had gone, and everything had been marvelous. Why she had left Fez, and above all, why she had returned—when he came to ask her those two questions, he found he could not.

  “You know,” he told her, “I nearly went to Meknès after you did.”

  “You did?” she said curiously. “Why?”

  He brought out his wallet and pulled the folded telegram from it. “Look at this wire you sent me,” he said, spreading it on the cushion in front of her. “Look. Doesn’t it say: JOING MEKNES? For a while I was sure it was the final ‘G’ that was the mistake. Wistful thinking.”

  She laughed. “It’s lucky you didn’t come. You’d never have found me.”

  “I’ll bet I would. Weren’t you at the Transatlantique?”

  “I was not. I was in a little native hotel called the Régina. It was pretty grim, too.”

  He looked at her incredulously, and felt all the uncomfortable suspicions surge again in him. This time, even if it destroyed their friendship, he would find out.

  “I don’t know,” he said unhappily. “I think you’re crazy,”

  Apparently she was aware that something was amiss with him, for she was studying his face with an expression of curiosity. “Why, do you think it’s improper or something for me to put up at cheap hotels? Moving around costs money, you know. We can’t all stay in the Mérinides Palaces and Transatlantiques all the time.”

  It was not good enough. “Lee, you know damned well what I mean.” But of course he could not go all the way. “There’s an undeclared war on here, people are being shot and blown up every day all over the place, and you calmly wander around in a way nobody would do, even in normal times. What’s the answer?”

  Again she laughed. “The answer is that you only live once.”

  “Haven’t you got a better one than that? I mean, a more truthful one?” he said, staring at her intently.

  “More truthful?” she repeated, puzzled.

  He was assailed by doubt, decided to laugh. “Now I’m in deep,” he said ruefully. “I mean, are you sure you’re not snooping around down here for somebody?”

  “What a peculiar thing to say!” she exclaimed, drawing her head up and back in surprise. “What a funny man you are!”

  His laughter continued, lame and unconvincing. “Just skip it. It was just an idea that came to me.”

  But now she was indignant; her eyes blazed. “I certainly won’t skip it! What did you mean? You must have meant something. Why would such an idea just ‘come’ to you?”

  “Consider it unsaid and accept my sincere and profound apologies,” he suggested with mock contrition. And before she could answer again: “Look!” he cried, pointing out the window, “the rain has stopped. The sun’s coming out. Let’s hope it’s a good omen.”

  “For what?” Her voice sounded angry still, and instead of heeding his exhortation to look out into the garden, she had opened her compact and was studying herself in its mirror.

  “For today. For the trouble here.”

  “Why? Is it so much worse now? Is it really bad?”

  “What do you mean, is it bad? It’s terrible! Didn’t you see anything at the station when you came in? Soldiers or crowds?”

  “I didn’t come by train. I hired a car in Rabat and came straight through.”

  He was delighted to have found a way out of the impasse of an instant ago, and he went ahead to recount the story Moss had told him last night, leaving out the visit of the two young men to the hotel. She listened, an increasingly horrified expression on her face. When he had finished, she said: “I wondered why Hugh had suddenly left like that. It wasn’t like him not to leave at least a note.”

  “You mean for you? But how would he know you were coming back to Fez?”

  “I wired him from Marrakech,” she said.

  “Oh. I see.” For the moment he had forgotten that she was Kenzie’s friend, that it was he who had introduced them. “Yes.” After a pause
he said: “Are you sure he didn’t leave some word for you? They might easily have mislaid it in the office.”

  “No, he didn’t.”

  “Are you very much upset to have missed him?”

  “Oh, it’s too bad. But perhaps I’ll see him in Tangier on my way up. I’m only going to stay a day or so here. I’ve got to get back to Paris.”

  He was thinking: You may not find it that easy. She seemed still not to have envisaged the possible effects of the conflict should it break out into violence, and this puzzled him; however, he did not feel that it was his duty to try to make her aware by alarming her.

  They went down to lunch. The empty dining-room astonished her. “You mean there’s not a soul in the hotel but you and Mr. Moss?” she exclaimed.

  “And you and the staff. That’s right.”

  Their table was by the window; they watched the sun slowly devour the mist that steamed upward from the Medina.

  “This may be a historic day in the annals of Fez,” he said. “I’m damned if I’m going to sit here in the hotel all afternoon. I’d like to get out and see something. At least see if there’s anything to see.”

  “Well, then, let’s go out.”

  “Fine. Let’s. But first I’ve got to leave a note for Mr. Moss. We’d been more or less planning on leaving if things got bad” (he thought with surprise, almost with disbelief, of the luggage stacked inside his door upstairs) “and we were going to have a sort of council of war today at some point.”

  “Don’t you think you ought to go and see him?” she suggested.

  “I’ll drop in later, when we get back. I don’t think he’s all that eager to go. He’s very conscious of the whole situation, as far as any outsider can be, and I don’t think he thinks it’s too dangerous. The trouble is, nobody really knows anything except a handful of Arabs and maybe a still smaller handful of French.”