Tangier

by William Bayer

  The cry of "Burn" began again. The chant grew thunderous, and the mob began to stir toward the Mountain Road. Hamid's gun was still raised. He hated the rioters, and wanted to kill them, but though his hands were steady his mind was not. He began to tremble, knowing that it was impossible, that he could never fire at unarmed people out of hate. As he lowered his revolver they turned away from him, and a huge pack of them ran up the road. He watched helpless, crying out to them against the wind as they stormed the Mountain, dispersed among the villas. Then he lost his footing, slipped, felt himself falling, tumbling amidst wastes of cans and glass, smelled the stink of sewage as he rolled over and over, felt his head bounce against a rock as he fell into the slime.

  He lay there a long while, slipping in and out of consciousness, hearing an occasional shout and cry. Finally awakened by a siren whirring very close, he raised himself and stumbled along to the bridge. He found it occupied by militia and police. The fire trucks had gotten through; men were at work putting out the flames. Soldiers, armed with guns and staves, were restoring order to the Mountain and Dradeb.

  There had been a rampage—that much was clear the following day. It had lasted several hours. Great damage had been done. Mobs of Moroccans had attacked the Mountain, then been violently repelled by troops. Now Tangier, filled with soldiers from barracks around the town, was under military command, while the police directed traffic and a team of inspectors from the Ministry of the Interior began an investigation of "the events."

  Hamid, a bandage on his head, made an inventory of the damage with Aziz. They visited the smoldering ruins of the Freys', found that the electric driveway gates had been expertly cross-wired, and that all the Alsatian dogs had been shot. There was no trace of the inhabitants—Hamid assumed they'd been burned up inside. Out on the lawn he found an empty frame which, according to the servants, had contained the Freys' Renoir. The painting had not been burned but had been cut away. Hamid had no doubt it would reappear, exquisitely reframed, on the wall of some Israeli museum.

  La Colombe had burned to the ground, and with it all of Peter's accounts and stock. Peter's body was badly burned. Hamid identified it for the record at the morgue.

  Laurence Luscombe had died too, of a heart attack the medical examiner said. The only foreign resident of Dradeb, he'd been awakened by the noise. Emerging from his shanty, he'd been stricken on the street, then lying there, unnoticed, had been trampled by the mob.

  Françoise de Lauzon's "Camelot" had been totally destroyed by fire, as had the cottage of Lester Brown. Both had escaped and hidden in shrubbery nearby to watch the violent wind fan the flames and burn down their houses before their eyes.

  General Bresson's villa had been ransacked, his collection of Indochinese ceramics dashed to pieces against the floor. Percy Bainbridge had been a guest at Peter Barclay's house during the riot. In his absence the mob had broken into his cottage, looted all the models of his inventions, then moved along to the villa of Joop de Hoag, where they'd pushed Madame de Hoag's car into the sea.

  For some reason the pillagers had ignored Inigo's house—the painter, miraculously, had slept through the melee. They'd tried unsuccessfully to penetrate the iron gates that protected the palace of Patrick Wax. The old man had fled in one of his gold-trimmed robes. With the help of his loyal "houseboy," Kalem, he'd scaled down the cliffs to spend a fearful night shivering on the beach.

  The people at Barclay's dinner had been badly frightened, though they'd all escaped unharmed. The mob had struck there with their torches and their chains just as Barclay's guests were tasting cheese and port. Barclay, with an instinct for survival, had blown out the candles and turned off all his lights. Then he and his friends had huddled under his table, the big one that seated sixteen, watching the youths outside plunder the garden, their angry faces illuminated every now and then by flames.

  "It was like being surrounded by a pack of redskins," Barclay said. "Wild men, all of them, screaming around, slashing at my climbers and shrubs. I suppose we're lucky we're still alive. They would have burned us out if they hadn't been attracted by the fire at Françoise's."

  Hamid took note of all this, but still he was perplexed. Had it been the fire at the Freys' that had inspired the attack, or would the mobs have struck in any event, whipped to fury by the agitators on the bridge?

  Early the next morning Aziz came by to fetch him at his flat. A boy wandering the marshes of the Jew's River had found two bloated bodies there. Hamid recognized them at once as Kurt and Inge Frey. They'd been strangled with piano wire—the strands were still around their necks.

  Evidently, he decided, their bodies had been heaved into the ravine, then carried some distance by the river until they'd become stuck in the swamp. Hamid waited while they were carried out, then told Aziz to return to the Sûreté. There was something important he had to do, someone he had to see.

  "Ah, Hamid," said Achar, shaking his hand in the clinic waiting room. "I've been expecting you. I'm really glad you came."

  He gave instructions to one of his nurses, something about a prescription for a patient, then led Hamid down the corridor to his cluttered office in the back.

  "Your head all right?" he asked. "The wound properly cleaned?"

  "Just a bump," said Hamid. "The police doctor fixed me up."

  "Good. I'm tired, though I'll look at it if you want."

  Hamid shook his head.

  "Not much sleep these last forty-eight hours. We've been very busy. Lots of broken bones to set." He paused, lit a cigarette. "The repression was violent, you know. Those wooden staves can cause a lot of damage, especially when swung by pitiless people who don't care whom they hit."

  He smiled then, his ironic smile, which annoyed Hamid, though he wasn't sure exactly why.

  "Tea!" Achar yelled to an orderly in the hall. He leaned back behind his desk, his face tired, his features set and grim. "I see that you're displeased, Hamid. Perhaps you hold me responsible for what the Rabat papers are calling 'certain bizarre events that have transpired in a residential quarter of Tangier.' Tell me—is this an official visit? Or have you come here as a friend?"

  "Why do you use this tone with me, Mohammed? I've come in confidence, of course. I have nothing to do with the investigation. If I wanted to speak to you officially I'd summon you to the Sûreté."

  "Yes, yes—forgive me, Hamid. I've had very little sleep."

  The orderly brought in a pot of tea and two glasses on a tray.

  "Close the door when you leave," said Achar. "Tell the staff I'm not to be disturbed."

  He poured out half a glass, looked at it, then returned it to the pot. "About three more minutes, I think," he said. "I crave sugar all the time now, Hamid. Stress, perhaps, or some sort of psychological need." Their eyes met then, and Achar smiled. His steely gaze disappeared. "All right," he said. "Here we are. Ask me anything you want."

  "I didn't come here for a political discussion. A number of things have happened that disturb me very much."

  "Zvegintzov, for instance?"

  "Yes. Zvegintzov first of all."

  "That was regrettable, I agree, since he was of trifling consequence in the scheme of things. But these things happen when there's a mob. Of course Kalinka must be upset."

  "Actually she's taken it pretty well, but I didn't come here to talk about her. What disturbs me is the vicious way that he was killed. I was there. I saw it. So don't talk to me about pitiless soldiers. I saw Moroccans behave like animals, stand there and watch him burn."

  Achar fingered the teapot, then raised his eyes and sighed. "I know you were there, Hamid. Some friends of mine were on the bridge, inciting the people to use the torch. Well, there you are—I admit we're agitators, or perhaps just respected men who use our influence to channel rage."

  "Damn it, that's what I don't understand! Why channel it against Zvegintzov and a few pathetic foreigners on the hill? If there're grievances, correct them. Attack your oppressors if you feel oppressed. But you have
no right to send up bands against the Mountain, terrorizing people and taking lives."

  "So, you're angry, Hamid. Well, well—it's not so simple as you think." He poured another half glass of tea, nodded, then filled the glass. He handed it to Hamid, then filled another for himself.

  "Driss Bennani told me something he learned from Fischer, the old architect who was working here last year. When there were riots in the American slums a few years back, the black people there set fire to their homes. Well, I don't believe in that—turning one's rage against oneself. How much more logical and healthy that we should attack the world outside. I'm sorry about Zvegintzov—he meant nothing, was nothing but a stooge. The foreigners mean nothing—most of them are clowns. But they're symbols, Hamid, symbols of wealth and power, up there above us, in their big villas looking down, cultivating their gardens, relaxing in their pools, serviced by the Russian, furnishing themselves from his luxurious stock of goods. Should we have burned down this clinic? Ridiculous, of course! Attacked city hall so we could be shot like dogs? Well, that may happen one day too. The point, Hamid, is that the Mountain was not only the closest place at hand, it was the appropriate place. We really had no choice."

  He had spoken forcefully, and Hamid knew he believed everything he'd said. But there was something cold about Achar, something ruthless in his reasoning that caused Hamid to look at him with fear.

  "Don't be upset, Hamid. There's nothing new in any of this. There've been attacks before, in many parts of the world, enraged third-world hordes rising up against the smug, soft people of the West. It's a cliché by now, and the aftermath too, the repression, with the inevitable result that an even more powerful anger is instilled. Then more attacks, often in different forms. Not just boys with chains, ripping up gardens, putting a few villas to the torch, but armed guerrillas attacking barracks, assassinating officials, making war. It's an old story. Algeria. Cuba. Vietnam. We'll see it again in other places, and, I guarantee you, we'll see it here. Our regime, stupid as it is, will recognize the danger too. Watch out now for a combination of repression and superficial reform—increased food subsidies, phony land reforms, and, too, new detention laws, and American advisors to teach the tactics of counterinsurgency to you in the police. This little business in Dradeb will be forgotten very soon. We can look forward now to more outbreaks, a good deal more effective and severe. The children of the slums have seen and understood the efficacy of violence. But excuse me, Hamid. You didn't come here for a political discussion. Forgive me for rambling on. I get carried away these days."

  For a while Hamid stared at him, then finally he spoke. "You think I'm shocked by what you've said? Believe me—I'm not. I'm only amazed by your arrogance. And your righteous certainty, which makes me sick."

  Achar laughed. "Well, Hamid—perhaps you're right. I try not to be arrogant, at least not in the Dr. Schweitzer sense. But yes, I am certain that I'm right. How else can I sustain myself? However, let's lower the level of abstraction. I know that politics isn't your game. So let's talk about you. Let's see where you fit in."

  "I don't fit into any of this."

  "Maybe, but don't be too sure. I said you were observed by my friends during the burning of Peter's shop. You're well known in Dradeb. You're from our quarter. Most of the people here know you're an inspector of police. All right, there you were, standing up there on that ledge with a revolver in your hand. You were threatening the people down on the bridge, making it quite clear you didn't like what they were doing and were going to shoot them if they didn't stop. Well, they did stop. There was a little pause, the sort of moment that even a single man can use to turn a mob around. So, there you were, prepared to shoot, but then you lowered your gun, and suddenly they felt released. Yes, Hamid! That's what your action meant to them. It was a signal. It told them you wouldn't shoot. You, a policeman, releasing them to go on, an even more powerful trigger than the one on your gun."

  "What are you talking about? They'd burned the shop! Peter was already dead!"

  "Yes! And a few of them were already on the Mountain. But not the mob that ran up there later on."

  "You're crazy!"

  "Why didn't you shoot them, then?"

  "I don't know. I couldn't do it. I don't have the heart for things like that."

  "Ah! There you are! You didn't have the heart. It was your duty to do what you could to protect the Mountain. When you chose not to do your duty, you showed your heart was with the mob."

  "Well, Mohammed, it isn't as clear as that. You're simplifying everything, trying to catch me in a trap."

  "It is simple, Hamid. The people on that bridge were quite certain what they saw. At that moment you were the regime. You held a gun on them, and when you lowered it you announced that you stood with them."

  "I don't think so."

  "Well, I do. By the way, I hope this doesn't land you in trouble. It shouldn't if you brazen it out when you're called up to explain."

  "You're crazy, making me out as a collaborator. Anyone who knows me knows I could never be that."

  "All right, Hamid. Have it that way if you like. But think about it just the same. Maybe you'll change your mind."

  Hamid glared at him. He was angry now. "What do you want from me?" he asked. "What are you trying to do?"

  "There's no trap, Hamid, but I do want something. I want you. You could be such a help. Listen—there's a new era ahead, a new Morocco, a new society to be forged. You could have a place in it, play an important role. It isn't enough merely to understand the rage. One must feel it, and I know you do. I've seen you change over the last few months. I've seen you grow impatient with your work. Forget the foreigners. The logic is with us. I need you, Hamid. I want you to join me in this thing."

  Late that afternoon he and Kalinka stood alone in a corner of the European cemetery at Bourbana watching four Moroccan gravediggers lower the body of Peter Zvegintzov into the ground. Hamid had bought the coffin; Kalinka had commissioned a little granite marker on Hassan II. The text was simple and written in French: "Peter Zvegintzov, entrepreneur," it said, and then the date of his birth in Hanoi, and of his death in Tangier.

  "Poor Peter," Kalinka said when the grave was finally covered. "He had no friends here. No one at all."

  "Still he'll be missed," said Hamid. "He once told me that the Europeans on the Mountain couldn't survive here without his help. He was a cushion, he said, between us and them. Perhaps now they'll find it a harder town."

  "But still," she said, "they never liked him. He was not a sympathetic man."

  He glanced at her—they were walking between long narrow rows of graves. Peter had been her last connection with the past, but now to Hamid she seemed strong, perhaps stronger than she'd ever been.

  "They had a service for Luscombe at the British church," he said. " 'A good turnout,' as the British say. The new vicar, they tell me, speaks very well. As for the Freys—no one has come to claim them yet. I suppose we'll have to bury them at government expense."

  They walked on in silence, down the long rows where Europeans who had lived in Tangier were laid to rest. The cemetery was crowded; there was little room left in it now. Perhaps, he thought, this was a sign that the European presence was nearly at its end.

  "I keep asking myself," he said, starting up the car, "why I didn't shoot at those people, the real reason I lowered my gun. Achar says I was with them, but I'm not sure he's correct. It was just impossible for me to do it, even though I was furious. Watching Peter die—it was too terrible. I didn't care then about property or law."

  She gazed at him, and he saw admiration in her eyes. "You're gentle, Hamid, just and humane. You did what you did because of who you are."

  He drove to Ramon y Cahal, accompanied her to the flat. Then while she prepared their dinner he stared out across his terrace at Dradeb and the Mountain beyond.

  Achar was right, he thought. I've wasted my life on foreigners. It's no longer important that I understand them. Now I must understand myself.<
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  There came to him then the revelation that what had happened on the Mountain and his own role in it were things that would forever change his life. In that moment when he had stood there, faced with lawlessness and disorder beyond his wildest dreams, he had discovered something important about himself and the sort of man he might become.

  He didn't speak much at dinner, instead listened to Kalinka talk of Peter and her memories of him years before.

  "Hanoi was beautiful in the spring," she said, "the blossoms on the fruit trees, the laughter on the streets. On Sundays Peter took me for walks around the Petit Lac. Sometimes we'd enter the little Buddhist shrine on the island to take refuge from the rains. We'd stand in there, he'd hold my hand, we'd look at people running from the storm, turn to each other and smile."

  She smiled then herself, as Hamid met her eyes—the sad smile that he loved. In that smile was her refusal to ask for pity, her commitment to survive, whatever the shocks that touched her life.

  "Oh, Hamid," she said suddenly, "you must go and help Achar. You must keep your job with the police, of course, but you must help him too—you must. He needs you, your qualities, your sense of justice. He's too cold, and he knows it. He needs a warm man beside him like yourself."

  Yes, she was right, he knew, and her clarity amazed him—that she, once so confused, so befuddled, now saw things more clearly than himself. She'd said his vision of Tangier had been too narrow, and then she had helped him to see the city in a different way. Was it the example of her mother, he wondered, that extraordinary woman who'd fought so hard for what she thought was right, or was it simply an innate sense Kalinka had of the inequities of the world? He wasn't sure, but knew one thing: that it was her intuitive sense of life, and not the logic of Achar, that now made him want to change.