The Spider's House

  “That’s it,” said Amar, still wondering if the man might not be making fun of him.

  “You must know a lot about your religion,” the man said dreamily. “I wish you’d tell me something about it.”

  Now Amar was convinced that he was being baited. He gave a short, bitter laugh. “I don’t know anything,” he said. “I’m like an animal.”

  The man raised his eyebrows. “Nothing at all? But you should. It’s a very good religion.”

  Amar was displeased. He studied the face of this patronizing infidel for a moment. “It’s the only one,” he said evenly. Then he smiled. “But now we are all like animals. Just look in the streets, see what’s happening here. Don’t you think it’s the Moslems’ fault?”

  The man’s swift glance told him that he was awakening some sort of respect. “The Moslems have some blame,” he said quietly, “but I think the great blame goes to the French. You don’t judge a man too harshly for what he does to an intruder he finds in his house, do you?”

  Now Amar was about to reply: “Allah sees everything,” but a voice in his head was whispering to him that it was not the sort of remark the Nazarene would really hear. If he wanted to keep alive the spark of respect he felt he had kindled, he must work hard inside himself. “The French are thieves in our house, you’re right,” he agreed. “We invited them in because we wanted to take lessons from them. We thought they’d teach us. They haven’t taught us anything—not even how to be good thieves. So we want to put them out. But now they think the house is theirs, and that we’re only servants in it. What can we do except fight? It is written.”

  “Do you hate them?” the man asked; he was leaning forward, looking at Amar with intensity. There was no one there but the two of them; if the man turned out to be a spy he would at least have no witnesses. But that was an extreme consideration: Amar was positive he was only an onlooker. “Yes, I hate them,” he said simply. “That’s written, too.”

  “You have to hate them, you mean? You can’t decide: I will or I won’t hate them?”

  Amar did not completely understand. “But I hate them now,” he explained. “The day Allah wants me to stop hating them, He’ll change my heart.”

  The man was smiling, as if to himself. “If the world’s really like that, it’s very easy to be in it,” he said.

  “It will never be easy to be in the world,” Amar said firmly. “Er tabi mabrhach. God doesn’t want it easy.”

  The man did not answer. Soon he rose, went to the open window, and stood looking down at the dark Medina below. When he turned back into the room, he began to speak as though there had been no break in the conversation. “So you hate them,” he mused. “Would you like to kill them?”

  This immediately put Amar on his guard. “Why do you ask me all these questions?” he said aggrievedly. “Why do you want to know about me? That’s not good at a time like now.” He tried to keep his face empty of expression, so that it would not look as though he were indignant, but apparently his effort was not completely successful, for the man sat back and launched into a long apology, making a good many errors in Arabic, so that Amar often was not certain what it was he was trying to tell him. The recurrent motif of this speech, however, was that the Nazarene was not attempting to pry into Amar’s life in any way, but only to learn about what was happening in the city. To Amar this was a most implausible explanation; if it were the truth, why did the man keep asking him for his personal opinion?

  “What I think about the trouble is less than the wind,” he finally said with a certain bitterness. “I can’t even read or write my own name. What good could I be to anybody?” But even this confession, with all it cost him to make it, seemed not to convince the man, who, rather than accepting it and letting the matter drop, seemed positively delighted to learn of Amar’s shame. “Aha!” he cried. “I see! I see! Very good! Then you have nothing to fear from anyone.”

  This remark Amar found particularly disturbing, for it must mean that he was going to send him away. The Nazarene had understood nothing at all; Amar’s spirits sank as he perceived the gap that lay between them. If a Nazarene with so much good will and such a knowledge of Arabic was unable to grasp even the basic facts of such a simple state of affairs, then was there any hope that any Nazarene would ever aid any Moslem? And yet a part of his mind kept repeating to him that the man could be counted on, that he could be a true friend and protector if only he would let himself be shown how.

  They continued to talk, but the conversation was now like a game in which the players, through fatigue or lack of interest, have ceased to keep the score, or even to pay attention to the sequence of plays. The point of contact was gone; they seemed to be looking in different directions, trying to say separate things, giving different meanings to words. Mercifully, a knock came at the door, and the man sprang to open it. The woman stood there, dressed in a more seemly manner this time, and looking very pleased with herself. In she came, down she sat, and then on and on she talked, while Amar’s boredom and hunger grew. When there was another knock at the door, he rose, swiftly crossed the room, and managed to be at the window, leaning over the balcony, when the servant came in carrying his tray, and he remained there until he had heard him go out and shut the door behind him. His eyes having grown used to the dark as he stood there, he was able to find, among the thousands of cubes which were the houses in the dimness below, the mosque that stood on the hill at the back of his house. And off in the east, behind the barren mountains, there was a glow in the clear sky which meant that the moon would shortly be arriving.

  In the room the man and the woman made clinking sounds with their glasses, and talked, and went on talking. He wondered how the man found the patience to go on making conversation with her. After all, he reflected, if Allah had meant women to talk to men, He would have made them men, and given them intelligence and discernment. But in His infinite wisdom He had created them to serve men and be commanded by them. The man who, forgetting this, allowed one of them to addle his brain to such an extent that he was willing to meet her on equal terms, sooner or later would bitterly regret his weakness. For women, no matter how delightful they might seem, were basically evil, savage creatures who desired nothing better than to pull men down to their own low state, merely to watch them suffer. In Fez it was often said, half jokingly, that if the Moroccans had been really civilized men, they would have devised cages in which to keep their women. As it was, the women enjoyed far too much freedom of movement; and yet the Nationalists actually wanted to give them more, wanted to allow them to walk alone in the street, go to the cinema, sit in cafés, even swim in public places. And most unthinkable of all, they hoped to induce them to discard the litham, and show their faces openly, like Jewesses or Christians. Of course this could never really happen; even the prostitutes wore veils when they went out to shop, but it was characteristic of the times that some Nationalists dared speak openly of such things.

  Soon the man called: “Fik ej jeuhor? Hungry?” Amar turned. On the tray there was a plate with pieces of white bread on it. “These are for you,” the man said. “That’s your dinner.”

  Determined not to show his disappointment at finding that the man held him in such low esteem as to offer him nothing but these few mouthfuls of bread, he smiled, went over to the table, and took a piece. Then he discovered that each one was two pieces, and that they had butter and chicken inside. This was partly consoling. The tray also held a bottle of Coca-Cola.

  He sipped a little, but it was too cold. “We’re going down and eat,” the man said. “This is enough for you?”

  Amar said it would be. He was now terrified that someone might come to the room while he was in it alone. “Please lock the door,” he said.

  “Lock the door?”

  “Lock the door, please, and take the key with you.”

  The man repeated this to the woman; he seemed to think it an amusing request. When she heard the words her face assumed a bewildered expression, as thou
gh it were an unheard-of idea to lock anyone into a room. Then the man, in passing him, tousled his hair, saying: “Nchoufou menbad.” Amar’s mouth was full of bread and chicken, but he nodded his head vigorously. After the man had shut the door, he went over and tried the knob, just to be sure. Then he set the tray on the floor, sat down beside it, and began to eat in earnest.

  CHAPTER 25

  They sat opposite each other at a small table in the farthest corner of the bright dining-room. Lee was thinking: How white the French waiters look, and how dark the Moroccans. But it was more than that. The French stood in apathetic postures, without even whispering among themselves, staring morosely or self-consciously at the floor, and the Moroccans were stiffer than usual, with set, inexpressive faces. The room seethed with an abnormal silence; it was difficult to talk above it.

  Suddenly she laughed. Stenham looked inquiringly at her. “This is really very funny, I think,” she said, aware that it was a lame explanation; but she could find no other immediate one.

  She knew he was going to say: “What is?” which was exactly what he did say. And then of course she had nothing to answer, because if he didn’t see it, nothing could make him see it.

  “You know you never called Mr. Moss,” she told him, as though she had just thought of it, although it had occurred to her nearly an hour before, while they were having soup.

  “There’s no point in calling him now, because he’s out.”

  This was typical of Stenham; she was faintly piqued without knowing exactly why.

  “He is! But how do you know?”

  “They gave me a message from him when I phoned down for the drinks.”

  “Oh? You didn’t tell me.”

  “I didn’t think you’d be interested.”

  “But what’s he doing out, tonight of all nights?”

  “He could get in and out of the Medina during a full-scale war, that one. He could see the leader of the Istiqlal for tea and have the Résident for dinner.”

  She was amused at his evident resentment. “You don’t like that, do you?” she said.

  “What man does like to see another enjoying privileges he’ll never have?”

  “Well!” She laughed. You’d better be careful with that subversive talk! You sound almost like me.”

  “After all,” he continued, pretending to ignore her sarcasm, “he’s got millions, so his motives are above suspicion. While who knows what we might be up to? We might be seeing the wrong kind of native. Like the kid upstairs, who’d never join any group, but would do anything at all if the right person gave the order. And that right person could be anybody he chanced to meet and admire. Those are the dangerous ones—not the joiners. You can keep tabs on the joiners easily enough. I can see why the French are going crazy. The only natives under control are the few thousand party members. The other nine million fanatics are anybody’s guess.”

  Now Lee’s voice became thin and sharp, her accent a parody of the accent of the typical New York stenographer: “Is there any comment on Comrade Stenham’s report? If not, we will proceed to the next point on the agenda. In the absence of Comrade Lipschitz—” He stopped her with a well-aimed snap of his napkin in her face. The Moroccans stared in astonishment; the French remained sunk in their collective lethargy. Lee snickered. She was in a good mood. The day had not been without its adventure, and the future was just unpredictable enough to be exciting. Then, the dinner had been better than usual, since, with only two guests to cook for, the chef had not bothered to attempt any of his more complex creations. In addition, she was just a little tipsy from the wine, to which she had kept helping herself because it was so good, being chilled to exactly the right temperature. She had just ordered another half bottle, and was looking forward to having coffee on the terrace.

  “I don’t know what I’ll do when I leave Morocco and have to give up this marvelous Algerian rosé,” she said.

  “You can get it in France,” he told her.

  It was at that instant that the lower garden sneezed. They looked at each other as the echoes shuddered from wall to wall; in another second there was only the sound of a fine rain of earth and stones falling. Now they were on their feet, running to the window, but there was nothing to see below save the dark interlacing of branches and the tile walks reflecting the early moonlight.

  “Why would they do that?” Stenham said, his voice sounding unrecognizable after that racket; or perhaps it was his imagination.

  “It’s a French hotel,” she answered, her teeth together, as though she had a gun in her hands and were saying it over her shoulder between shots.

  He laughed briefly. “Let’s go back and finish dinner.” The waiters had rushed out onto the balcony and were peering over the railing down into the garden, French first, and Moroccans craning to see over their heads.

  The rest of the meal was not a success. In some indefinable manner one would have said that the air had changed in density, that the room had altered its proportions. The acoustics seemed different, the lights shone too brightly and the shadows were too dark. And the mechanism of the service appeared to have been thrown hopelessly out of order. They were each brought two custards by mistake, but no spoons with which to eat them. The waiters gave the impression of being in a great hurry, but they had forgotten where things were.

  “Did it upset you?” he asked her.

  “No more than any other sudden noise would have,” she said. “I hate sudden noises. You’re always waiting for them to repeat themselves.”

  “I know. Why don’t we have coffee in the bar? I think it’d be a little too reckless to have it on the terrace at this point.”

  “Let’s have it up in your room. We ought to get back to that poor kid.”

  They found him sitting in the middle of the floor facing a semicircle of shoes; he had a shoe in his hand, and was examining it.

  “These are good shoes,” he announced, pointing to the one he held. “You should always give them polish. The leather is going to crack, and then they’ll be finished. Safi!”

  “If I’m not mistaken, he’s found my shoeshine and rag, and polished all these shoes before he put them out to admire,” Stenham said. “It’s the sort of thing I never have time to do, and would never remember if I had.”

  “Ask him what he thought of all the noise.”

  A moment later, Stenham told her: “He doesn’t seem to have given it much thought. He says the boys in Casablanca make the bombs, and they’re not much good, and they throw them haphazardly. What the French call des bombes de fabrication domestique. In any case, he says it’s a new thing here in Fez. It’s been mostly individual stabbings and shootings.”

  Even as Stenham spoke, there was another loud explosion below in the Medina, not very far away. Amar ran to the window, stood there awhile looking down. When he turned his head back toward the room he said: “I think that was at the bank.”

  “He’s so calm about it,” said Lee. “You’d think it happened every day of the year.”

  “It’s all a game to them.”

  The coffee came, Stenham taking the tray from the waiter’s hands in the doorway to prevent his entering the room. Then they sat discussing the trouble, while from time to time Stenham, in a manner slightly more oblique, made further efforts to elicit information and personal reactions from Amar. But it was clear even to Lee, on the outside of all this, that the boy was not in a confiding mood. Under his mask of polite reserve he was hesitant and reluctant to answer Stenham’s questions, and, she thought, at times even outraged by them. Finally she decided to interrupt, for the boy was looking increasingly confused and unhappy.

  “Oh, let the poor kid alone!” she exclaimed. “He’ll end up thinking we’re as bad as the French. I don’t think it’s right to grill him that way.”

  Stenham did not seem to have heard her. “This kid is split right down the middle,” he said. “You’ve got all Morocco right here in him. He says one thing one minute and the opposite the next, and doesn?
??t even realize he’s contradicted himself. He can’t even tell you where his sympathies are.”

  Lee snorted. “Don’t be ridiculous. I never saw a face with more character. If he doesn’t talk, it’s only because he’s decided not to.”

  “What’s character got to do with it? He’s in a situation. He’s on the spot. It has nothing to do with him. Whether he manages it one way or another, it’ll be the same for him.”

  She got up, walked to the window, and walked back again. “I’m awfully fed up with that kind of mysticism,” she declared. “It’s such a bore, and it’s so false. Every little thing makes a difference, whether you decide it yourself or whether it’s pure accident. So many people have had the whole course of their lives changed by something perfectly simple like, let’s say, crossing the street at one point instead of another.”

  “Yes, yes, yes, I know,” Stenham said with exaggerated weariness. “As far as I’m concerned that’s just as boring, and a lot more false, by the way. The point I’m trying to make is that he loves his world of Koranic law because it’s his, and at the same time he hates it because his intuition tells him it’s at the end of its rope. He can’t expect anything more from it. And our world, he hates that too, just on general principles, and yet it’s his only hope, the only way out—if there is one for him personally, which I doubt.”

  Lee poured herself half a cup of coffee, sipped it, and finding it cold, set it down. “You talk as though it were his own private little set of circumstances, something that had to do with him as a person. My God! I’d like to know how many millions of people there are in that identical situation at this minute, all over the world. And they’re all going to do the same thing, too. They’re all going to throw over their old way of thinking and adopt ours, without any hesitation. It’s not even a problem. There’s simply no question about it in their minds. And they’re right, right, right, because our way happens to work, and they know it.”