He went out into the garden. The rain had stopped, but the wind moved the trees, so that large scattered drops still fell as they swayed. He looked up at the huge white façade, marvelling that he ever could have thought it majestic. Now it looked like a pavilion left over from a long-forgotten exposition.
By the end of the afternoon he was thoroughly chilled. The house was too close to the sea. The wind came up over the cliff laden with the salt mist of the waves, and sprayed it against the windows. If he looked out at the garden he saw it only confusedly through the curtain of salt that had coated the panes. In the library closet he found an electric heater. It was ancient, but it gave off a modest glow. With the shutters bolted and the door closed, he seized a book at random from the bookshelves and threw himself into a chair. He read for a moment, then turned to the back of the book and on a blank page began to compose a telegram to his wife. CANCEL FLIGHT HOUSE DISASTROUS REPAIRS IMPERATIVE RETURNING FIRST WEEK JANUARY ALAS NO CHRISTMAS TOGETHER PLAN FOR EASTER HERE BETTER SEASON ALL LOVE. Early spring could be very cold, too, he suddenly remembered, but at least the fireplaces would be working.
He had instructed his Tangier bank to have the telephone connected; it was an agreeable surprise to hear the operator’s voice. The difficulties began as he tried to spell out the name and address. “M comme en Marseille? R comme en Robert?” There was an explosion of clicks, and the connection faded. He hung up and dialled the taxi service. The cab waited for him outside the post-office.
The first few nights he slept badly. The sheets were damp and there were not enough blankets. Even with the windows shut the sea wind raced through the big bedroom. Each morning well before dawn a pair of owls settled in the cypress trees beside the house and began to call back and forth. In his childhood he had heard the sound many times, but it never had kept him awake.
When the wind had turned and the days grew sunny, the workmen were able to start rebuilding the chimneys. The house was full of Moroccans in overalls and rubber boots. It was Ramadan; they worked without speaking, feeling their hunger and thirst in silence.
On the Sunday before Christmas the sky was bright blue and cloudless. The north wind had brought the mountains in Spain unusually near. Since no workmen would be coming, he decided to go out for a walk. The puddles in the road had dried. Plant odors and the scent of woodsmoke laced the wind. In a better mood, he conceived the idea of asking a few people to come by on Christmas Eve for drinks; it would be pleasanter than having to go out, and he could not envisage remaining alone in the house on that night.
A small white car came into view and drew up outside an irongrilled gate a hundred feet or so ahead of him. As he approached, he recognized Madame Dervaux. As soon as they had greeted one another, he mentioned Christmas Eve, suggesting that she bring along anyone she wished. She accepted immediately; she would try, she said, to be with interesting people. He was about to make a facetious reply, but seeing that she was perfectly serious, he held his tongue.
During the next few days he invited a few more people. Although he did not much care who came, since he wanted only to see someone in the house on Christmas Eve, he reflected with satisfaction that not one of the prospective guests would have been asked to the house by his mother.
Christmas Eve was clear and almost windless. The moon, directly overhead, filled the courtyard with its hard light. Amina had just carried the last tray of glasses into the hall when the doctor arrived. Once he was seated, a gin and tonic in his hand, he looked around the room and frowned.
“Your mother had a great deal to put up with here in this house,” he said. “It was far too damp for her to live in, and far too big for her to manage.”
He heard the sharpness in his voice as he replied. “It was her own choice to go on living here. She loved it. She wouldn’t have agreed to live anywhere else.”
The rector came in, out of breath and smiling. This was his first winter in Morocco, so the doctor described the climate to him.
Leaving the two talking, he went into the library and lighted the fire Mohammed had laid in the fireplace there. Then he had Amina bring more candles and set them around the room, knowing that the library was where the guests eventually would gather. The other rooms had very little furniture in them.
The sound of laughter came from the courtyard. Madame Dervaux entered, with several younger people in her wake. Going straight up to her host, she presented him with a huge bunch of narcissus. “Smell,” she told him. “I picked them this afternoon at Sidi Yamani. The fields are covered.”
He hurried to the kitchen to have Amina put the flowers into water. Madame Dervaux followed, talking rapidly. She had come, she said, with a poet, a painter and a philosopher, all of them Moroccans. As an afterthought she added: “And a very charming Indian girl from Paris. So you see?”
Understanding this as a reference to her promise to bring “interesting” people, he set his jaw. Finally he murmured: “Aha.”
When they returned to the salon. Vandeventer stood in the middle of the room, slightly the worse for having just come from another party. The rector had gone with the younger people into the library. Madame Dervaux, hearing their laughter, walked quickly in their direction.
He settled Vandeventer near the doctor, poured himself a neat Scotch, and wandered in the direction of the library. As he got to the doorway, the rector was saying playfully to one of the young Moroccans: “You’d better be careful. One of these mornings you may wake up and find yourself in Hell.”
“No, no,” the young man said easily. “Hell is only for people who haven’t suffered enough here.” The rector seemed taken aback.
Fearful that the conversation might be about to degenerate into a quasi-religious discussion among his guests, he went quickly toward the group. “And you,” he said, singling out the Moroccan, “you’ve suffered enough?”
“Too much,” he said simply.
Madame Dervaux rose to her feet and asked to be taken on a tour of inspection of the house. He protested that there was nothing to see but empty rooms.
“But we can see the rooms! And go up into the tower, and out onto the roof. The view is superb.”
“In the dark?”
“In the moonlight, in the moonlight,” she said rapturously. The Moroccans murmured with approval.
“Come,” he told them, and they all followed him out. A young Frenchman and his wife, both of whom taught at the Lycée Regnault, had arrived, bringing with them another couple from Casablanca. He had to leave his little party of sightseers at the foot of the stairs while he saw to it that the new arrivals were supplied with drinks. He poured himself another glass of whisky to take with him on the tour.
Some of the electric bulbs along the way failed to come on, so that there was more darkness than light on the stairways. Even before they got to the tower door they could hear the roar of the sea below.
He went ahead and opened one of the windows, so they could lean out and see the black cliffs of the coastline. The only lights in the landscape were a few twinkling points across the strait in Spain. “The end of the world,” the rector remarked as he drew in his head.
A moment later when they were back in the hallway, the young Moroccan with whom he had spoken in the library came up from behind and walked along beside him. “Letting me look at all these empty rooms is very bad,” he said. “Like showing food to a starving man.”
“How is that?” he asked absently.
“It’s only that I have to live with my family, and there’s no space anywhere, so what I want most is a room. Nearly every night I dream that I have a room of my own where I can paint. So of course when I see so many rooms with no one in them, the saliva runs in my mouth. It’s natural.”
“I suppose it is.” He found the young man’s confidences embarrassing; they emphasized the disparities between them, and gave him a vague sense of guilt.
Now Madame Dervaux was clamoring to be taken out onto the roof. He refused. “There’s no railing.”
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“We’ll just stand in the moonlight,” she insisted. “No one will go near the edge.”
He stopped walking and stared at her. “That’s exact, since no one is going onto the roof.”
She pouted for an instant, and then resumed her chatter.
On the way downstairs he turned to the painter, who was still beside him. “I ought to spend more time here,” he said, a note of apology in his voice. “But the truth is, the house isn’t very livable.”
“How can you say that? It’s a magnificent house.”
“The wind blows straight through it,” he went on, as though the other had not spoken. “There are rats in the walls, there’s no hot water, half the time the telephone doesn’t function.”
“But all houses here are like that. The difference is that this one has ten times as much space.”
So far he had pretended not to see where the painter was attempting to direct the conversation, but now he said: “I’d like nothing better than to be able to slice off a room for you and wrap it up, so you could take it home.”
The Moroccan smiled. “Why does it have to be taken home? It could be consumed on the premises just as well.”
He laughed, liking the Moroccan’s appropriation of his metaphor. “Ah yes, there’s that too,” he agreed as they arrived back at the library door. “Just pass by the bar,” he said to those behind him. “Mohammed will give you what you want.”
Beyond the library was a farther room, forming a separate wing of the house. In bygone days it had been referred to as the conservatory. Now there was nothing in it, and the door into it was kept shut because the many windows let in the sea-wind. When he returned from the bar presently, he caught sight of Madame Dervaux striking a theatrical pose as she flung open the door.
“Mon dieu!” she cried. “So this is where the corpses are buried!”
Now the library was crowded, so that he was unable to get to the door before she had led both the painter and poet into the dark room. He leaned in and called to them. “There’s no light in there, and we can’t have the door open. Please come back.” When they failed to answer, he shut the door.
He heard Madame Dervaux’s squeal, waited, then opened the door a crack and held it, so they could find their way back.
Madame Dervaux came out laughing, although she shot a resentful glance at him. The poet continued imperturbably to criticize Baudelaire, but the painter was not listening. “What a studio!” he murmured.
“It was terrifying, that horrible place, without a ray of light!” Madame Dervaux confided to the Indian girl.
She was insufferable. “But Madame,” he said. “Corpses are generally enjoyed in the dark.”
“A fantastic studio,” the painter went on. “North light, nothing but trees and the sea. A paradise!”
He faced the young man. “The ceiling is in shreds. The rain has come in everywhere. I doubt one could use it for anything.”
The doctor and the rector were leaving, and the two French couples were conferring on the shortest route to the site of the next party. Vandeventer, leaning against the wall for support, was arguing with the Indian girl. There was a general consulting of timepieces. “If we’re going to Midnight Mass we must leave now,” Madame Dervaux declared.
Vandeventer had begun to walk slowly toward the group. “Have you ever heard such nonsense?” he demanded of his host, indicating the others with his glass. “Three Moslems, one Hindu and one atheist, all running off to Midnight Mass? Ridiculous, no?”
He shrugged. “Ah, well, de gustibus. You know.” To himself he said fervently: “Thank God for Midnight Mass.” Without it they would have stayed indefinitely. The workmen were coming in the morning, the same as on other days, the holiday not being one of theirs.
Vandeventer seized his arm. “I must leave you. Delightful evening. Already I’m drunk, and now I must take my wife to the reveillon at the Minzah.”
He walked with him to the gate, to prevent him from stumbling in the courtyard. Once Vandeventer had managed to get into the car, he had no difficulty in driving it.
And now the remainder of his guests came filing out. The two French couples said good-night, and Mohammed shut the gate after them. As she slowly led her little group across the open space, Madame Dervaux suddenly announced that they must all take a quick glance at the kitchen, which she qualified as “superb.” The others followed her, all but the painter, who lagged behind and walked over to his host.
“I hope you enjoy the service,” his host told him.
“Oh, I’m not going with them. I live near here.”
The wind had risen somewhat. He heard Madame Dervaux’s shrill expletives and Amina’s easy laughter. He stared at the painter. “Good. Stay a minute after they’ve gone. I’d like to talk to you.” His mind was made up. “What difference does it make?” he thought. “Let him use the room. No one else is ever going to use it.”
The young man nodded, his face taking on an air of secrecy. When the others went out through the gate he said nothing. Instead of getting into the car with Madame Dervaux, he slammed the door shut and waved.
Immediately her head emerged. “Oh, le méchant!” she scolded. “Il va avoir unegueule de bois affreuse!”
The painter smiled and waved again.
He watched the scene standing in the open gateway. When the tail lights had disappeared up the dark road, he turned to the young man and said: “I simply wanted to say that I see no objection to letting you use the conservatory.”
The young man’s eyes glowed; he expressed his gratitude at some length. When they had shaken hands and he had gone out through the gate, he looked back and said: “Tonight I won’t have to dream of having a room to paint in.”
His host smiled fleetingly and bolted the door. The wind whipped around the banana plants, slapping their leaves one against the other. He was pleased with his decision. The house seemed more real now that he knew someone would be using even that small part of it. He went from room to room, blowing out the candles and switching off the lights. Then he went upstairs to bed. Amina had set a bowl of Madame Dervaux’s narcissus on the night table. Their scent reached him, borne on the sea air, as he fell into sleep.
He did not go to Tangier at Easter time, nor yet during the summer. In September he got word that the painter’s very rich and influential family had taken possession of the entire house. His lawyer was unable to evict them. Just before Christmas he received notice that the property, having been certified as agricultural land, no longer belonged to him. He reacted quietly to the loss, but his calm was shattered when, a few months later, he learned that the top floor and the tower had been rented by Madame Dervaux.
(1976)
Here to Learn
I
MALIKA NEEDED no one to tell her she was pretty. From the beginning of her memory people had murmured about her beauty, for even when she was a baby girl the symmetry of her head, neck and shoulders was remarkable. Before she was old enough to go to the spring to fetch water she knew she had eyes like a gazelle and that her head was like a lily on its stalk. At least, these were the things older people said about her.
On a hill above the town stood a large building with palm-shaded walks leading up to it. This belonged to the Hermanas Adoratrices. Certain of these nuns, upon catching sight of Malika, had gone to her father, offering to take her in charge and teach her to speak Spanish and to embroider. Enthusiastically he had agreed. Allah has sent us here to learn, he would say. Malika’s mother, who disapproved of her daughter’s spending her time with Nazarenes, did her utmost to make him change his mind. Nevertheless Malika stayed with the sisters for five years, until her father died.
Malika’s grandmother was fond of saying that when she had been Malika’s age she had looked exactly like her, and that if it were possible for her to become a little girl again and stand beside Malika, no one would be able to tell them apart. At first Malika found this impossible to believe; she studied the old woman’s ravaged fa
ce and straightway rejected the idea. After her grandmother had died, she began to understand what the old woman had meant when she said: Only Allah remains the same. One day she would no longer be pretty, but now she was. Thus, when she was able to go by herself to the spring and carry back two full pails of water, it meant nothing to her if the older boys and the young men called to her and tried to speak with her. They would do better, she thought, to say all those flattering things to girls who needed such reassurance.
A barracks full of soldiers stood just outside the town. The men were rough and brutal. When she caught sight of one of them, even in the distance, Malika would hide until he had disappeared. Fortunately the soldiers seldom strayed into the arroyo that lay between her house and the spring; they preferred to saunter in groups up and down the main road leading through the town.
There came a day when her mother insisted that she go to sell a hen at the market on the main highway. Her older sister always had done this, but she was at a neighbor’s house helping prepare for a wedding. Malika begged her mother to lend her her haïk so she could cover her face.
Your sister’s been a thousand times. She never wears a haïk.
Malika knew this was because no one paid any attention to her sister, but she could not say it to her mother. I’m afraid, she said, and burst into tears. Her mother had no patience with the silly behavior of girls, and refused to let her take the haïk. As Malika ran out of the house, holding the hen by its legs, she snatched up a soiled bathtowel. As soon as she was out of sight, she wrapped it loosely around her head, so that when she got to the highway she could pull it down and cover at least a part of her face.