The Saffron Gate

  Suddenly I shivered, overcome with melancholy and somehow chilled, although the air coming in the open window was balmy, smelling of the sea. It was unexpected, this odd sense of isolation. I didn’t like crowds, and avoided situations where I would have to make simple, unimportant conversation, yet now I didn’t want to sit alone in my room. And, most importantly, I had to speak to someone about renting a car and driver to take me to Marrakesh.

  I went back down the winding staircase to the lobby, remembering the lounge I had passed. I hesitated at the doorway, the old sense of discomfort at meeting strangers arising as I surveyed the shadowy room. There were people at different tables, some with heads together in corners, other laughing loudly as they sat at the bar. I took a deep breath and stepped in.

  I had never before gone into a drinking lounge. I sat at one of the small round tables. Almost immediately a man in a short white jacket bowed before me, setting a tray with a glass of reddish liquid and a small carafe of what appeared to be aerated water on to my table. Even in dim light, filtered by the tall half-opened shutters, I could see three black insects in the water.

  ‘Non, non, monsieur,’ I said, shaking my head at the man. I had planned to order a mineral water.

  ‘Campari, madame,’ he said, firmly, as though I’d asked him what it was, or had expected him to serve it to me. He pointed to a line on the paper he handed me, and rather than argue further, I signed my name. Then he left. I stared at the water, watching the insects trying to escape the carafe. One had made it part-way up, clinging desperately to the, side of the glass, while, the other two were moving in a sort of swimming walk, although very slowly, as though the water was molasses. Surely all three would soon perish.

  Nobody noticed me, and in an attempt to appear that I was used to these situations, I breathed deeply, sitting back and taking a tiny sip of the Campari. It was bitter and had an almost medicinal quality. I thought the strong flavour would have been lessened by the addition of the fizzy water. But I wasn’t sure what to do about the insects.

  A shadow fell over the carafe as a woman passed my table. She walked in long, easy strides in flat leather shoes, and wore a rather mannish shirt tucked into a simple skirt. She had her hair bobbed, and it curled on to her nape. She glanced at me, and then away. I watched her go to a table and join four others — another woman and three men. They all greeted her with a burst of enthusiasm.

  She looked like the type of woman who would know about hiring a car.

  I touched my fingertips to my lips; they were burning from the Campari. I rose from my chair and went to the group, aware, as I grew close, that they had turned to watch me. I stumbled, slightly, on the heavy carpet in the high-ceilinged room, lit by long rays of light from the arched windows. A silence fell as I stood to one side of the raw-boned woman.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I said.

  ‘Yes?’ There was something slightly unfriendly in her manner. She openly studied my hair and my face, her eyes lingering on the scar on my cheek. I fought not to raise my palm to cover it.

  ‘I … I’m newly arrived in Tangier. Just a few hours ago, in fact. And I’m in need of hiring a car. I thought perhaps you could help.’

  As I spoke, her demeanour changed. ‘Well, hello,’ she said, extending her hand as if we were men. I responded, putting my hand in hers; it was big boned and strong. She squeezed my fingers in a firm grip, making my knuckles ache as she gave my hand one abrupt shake and then let it go. ‘Elizabeth Pandy,’ she said, adding, ‘from Newport, Maine. And you?’

  ‘I’m Sidonie O’Shea.’

  ‘O’Shea. Hmmmm. Of the Boston O’Sheas? I knew old Robbie. And his daughter Piper.’

  ‘No. No,’ I repeated, shaking my head. ‘I’m from Albany.’ I stuttered on the last word, aware they were all watching me. My forehead felt damp.

  Now she smiled. She had a short upper lip, and a great deal of her gum showed. ‘Well. New York. I wouldn’t have—’ She stopped herself. ‘Look, when I first saw you I thought you were French. You—’ She stopped for the second time.

  I knew why she had made this distinction. But the way she spoke — her tone, especially — made me realise that it might be better not to tell her about my mother’s background.

  ‘Join us, why don’t you, and have a drink.’

  ‘Oh, I already have one, thank you. A …’ I looked back at my table.‘A Campari.’ Again I touched my stinging lips. ‘Although I didn’t order it.’

  She nodded in a knowing way. ‘I don’t know why these bloody boys think that every foreigner in Tangier drinks Campari. Come now, and have a proper drink with us.’

  She raised her chin at one of the men, who immediately stood and pulled a chair from the next table in beside hers. Elizabeth Pandy was unmistakably a woman used to telling others what to do.

  ‘I …’ I looked behind me, at the doorway of the lounge. How could I leave without appearing impolite? But these confident men and women made me so uncomfortable, so aware that my life was nothing like theirs. That I didn’t fit in. ‘I really … I’m hoping to hire a car, as quickly as possible. And a driver, of course. I was wondering if you knew how I could go about this. I need to get to Marrakesh. I was told …’ I thought of the American, ‘that it would be best to first get to Rabat.’

  Elizabeth Pandy dismissed my question with a wave of her hand. ‘Marrakesh? Don’t be silly. I’m sure there’s nothing to see there. Come, now,’ she demanded, ‘do have a drink. Marcus, order Miss O’Shea a whisky sour. Isn’t it lovely being away from the tedium of Prohibition back home? All that silly clandestine behaviour. So tiresome.’

  There seemed no alternative without appearing horribly rude to Miss — or was it Mrs? — Pandy. As I manoeuvred myself into the chair, she glanced down. ‘Have you turned your ankle on the terrible streets here? I noticed you limping heavily.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘No, I haven’t. It’s …’ I stopped, unsure of how to continue.

  ‘Well, never mind, sit down and take a load off. And look, here’s your drink.’

  Elizabeth Pandy introduced me to the men and one woman, although the only name I remembered was Marcus. His hair was slicked back with shining oil, and was an artificial shade of dark red. All of them, including Elizabeth, were in various stages of intoxication, and it appeared, from their casualness with each other, that this was not an unusual circumstance..

  One of the men asked me which room I’d been given, and the other woman — wearing a short pleated skirt and striped jersey, her hair in the same style as Elizabeth’s — interrupted him, asking in a demanding voice how long I was planning on staying, but I had no time to answer before the conversation swung away from me. A glass was set in front of me; upon trying it I decided it was more pleasurable than the Campari, and occasionally took a very small sip.

  The talk and laughter grew louder, and after a while it took on the quality of quacking, punctuated by animal roars. My temples throbbed and finally, when my glass was empty, I stood to leave.

  The alcohol had gone to my head; I wasn’t used to it, and for a moment I felt as though l were back on the sea, swaying the slightest and bracing my legs.

  Elizabeth grabbed my wrist. ‘Don’t go. We haven’t learned anything about you yet. Always good to have new blood from home,’ she said, her mouth opening in a soundless laugh, and I thought of the excitable yawning of some large African beast.

  I sat down again, partly because of Elizabeth’s tugging on my wrist, and partly because I feared I might topple over.

  ‘Well?’ she demanded. ‘What has brought you to Tangier? Nobody comes to Tangier without a story.’ Again, the open mouth. A string of saliva stretched between her eyetooth and a bottom tooth. The others laughed as well, too loud, too loud.

  ‘Story?’ I repeated, sudden panic coming over me as all their eyes turned in my direction.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Marcus encouraged. ‘What’s your story, then, Mrs O’Malley?’

  ‘It’s O’Shea. And Miss. Miss
O’Shea,’ I told him.

  He barely appeared to notice the correction. ‘Come, then. What brings you to Tangier?’

  I looked at him, and then back at Elizabeth. The other faces receded into pale ovals and inverted triangles. ‘I’m going to Marrakesh.’

  ‘I’ve told you, my dear, it’s nonsense. No point going way down there. Stay up here; Tangier is rather mongrel at the moment, but it certainly has its intrigue. Or at least go to Casablanca,’ Elizabeth said. ‘Now Marrakesh, well, it’s such an outpost. Nothing of interest, I’m sure,’ she said again. ‘Although who was it — Matisse, I believe — who worked there some years back? And there are a few odd artist types — painters and writers and so on — who seem to find inspiration away from civilisation. But on the whole, Tangier has much more to offer in terms of entertainment. There are all sorts — as well as being into all types of things —’

  Here she was interrupted by someone’s coy murmur: ‘What with it being so ungoverned.’

  The others joined in, a rumbling chorus of agreement.

  ‘No. I must. I’m …’ I stopped. In the momentary silence Marcus snapped his fingers, and a boy with a tray appeared. Marcus whispered into his ear. ‘I’m looking for someone. In Marrakesh,’ I said, unnecessarily.

  ‘Ah. I see,’ Elizabeth said, her eyebrows arching. ‘Gone off and left you, has he? Perhaps he’s a spy. Is he a spy, Miss O’Shea? The country is awash with them, you know. Spies and touts. Everybody looking for someone or something.’

  I stood so suddenly, pushing back my chair in one swift movement, that it caught the passing waiter in the hip. He uttered a small, surprised yelp, but kept going.

  ‘No. No. He’s not a spy. Nor a …’

  ‘A tout, darling. You know, the endless pedlars who won’t leave you alone. The Tangerines are quite forceful. Everyone wants something from you,’ she repeated. ‘We must be quite firm.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Well. Thank you. For the drink,’ I added, and then left the lounge, feeling that all eyes were on my limp, surely more pronounced by the unfamiliar sensation of the alcohol swirling in my empty stomach.

  I lay on my bed in the shadowed coolness, my head still pounding from the whisky, annoyed by the idiotic way I must have come across to Elizabeth Pandy and her friends. I didn’t know how to share the easy camaraderie they possessed, nor how to make small talk so openly.

  I remembered standing on the deck of the ship that had taken me from New York to Marseilles such a short while ago, and the similar feeling that had come over me.

  It had required all my mental and physical strength to remain composed as I waited for the ship to pull away from the dock. I watched the crowd below, mostly waving, smiling, calling out bon voyage and safe journey to those, like me, sailing abroad. I noticed a few more sombre people in the crowd: a woman with a handkerchief against her mouth, another young man and woman supporting each other as they watched with furrowed brows, a few crying children. But in general the ambience surrounding the dock, and the ship, was one of joy, of holidaying and exciting adventures.

  My own sensation, standing on that planked deck, watching the receding faces of the well-wishers, was sheer panic. I had never dreamed that I would step foot on a ship. I had never thought of leaving America. I had never been outside of the state of New York. I was thirty years old, and as anxious as if I were a child on my first day at school.

  Panic had given way to sudden fear. The distance between the ship and the dock gaped like an abyss. It was loss I was feeling, loss of all I knew, all that was familiar. But I knew I had to go.

  As the ship slowly moved further from the dock, I could still see waving arms and open mouths, but the sound faded. My heartbeat slowed. I grew aware of someone beside me; an elderly woman, her hands, in yellowed, crocheted gloves, gripping the railing.

  ‘Is this your first time at sea?’ she asked me, in halting English, and I wondered if all I was feeling was so clearly written on my face.

  ‘Oui,’ I told her, recognising her accent. ‘La première fois.’

  She smiled, showing large, badly fitting dentures. ‘Ah, you speak French, although of course not my French. Paris is my home,’ she said. ‘Do you go on to Paris from Marseilles?’

  I shook my head, but didn’t say where I was going. I saw her looking at my ungloved hands, resting on the railing.

  ‘You have family in France?’

  Again I shook my head.

  ‘You travel to meet a lover, then?’ she asked, with a smile that verged on slyness.

  At that I blinked, and my mouth opened, but I was at a loss for words.

  She nodded, looking pleased with herself. ‘I see it. Yes, you are meeting a lover.’

  I stared at her for another moment, and then, surprising myself, said, ‘Well, yes. I am travelling to … to find someone.’

  The woman nodded, studying me. Her eyes lingered on my cheek, then dropped down my body. That morning while brushing my hair with trembling hands in front of the mirror, I saw that my face had an unfamiliar hollowness.

  ‘Ah. La grande passion. Of course, my dear. A woman always must follow the undeniable. I myself have experienced a number of grand passions.’

  Now her smile was roguish — her head tilted and her chin tucked down. In spite of the powder caught in the creases of the deep wrinkles around her eyes, and the thinness of her lips pulled back over the dentures, I knew she would have, when much younger, possessed an attraction to men. And yes, certainly she would have inspired passion in them.

  Surely she could see I was not such a woman.

  I smiled politely at her and excused myself, going to my cabin, not waiting to see America — my home — growing ever smaller in the distance. I had stayed in my tiny cabin for most of that week of sailing, not feeling well enough to eat much or even walk about the deck, not wanting to have to talk to anyone, afraid that if I ran into the old woman she would pressure me for answers. I had no answers, only questions.

  I had trays of plain food brought to my cabin, and spent my time alternately trying to sleep or read. I had little success with either; I was too distraught to sleep deeply or concentrate on the printed page.

  I felt a deep sense of relief when we docked at Marseilles. I had made a promise that once I was across the Atlantic there could be no turning back. To have come this far spoke of determination, I told myself. I would not use the word desperation.

  But now, in Tangier, I didn’t want to think of Marseilles, or anything that had happened before then. I couldn’t.

  I rose swiftly, pressing my fingers to my temples for a moment. I drank a glass of the bottled water on the dressing table, and then, despite the boy’s earlier warning, went out into the hallway, looking for the stairs to the roof. I wanted to see Tangier from above; my vision of it, feeling ill and disoriented as we went through the narrow streets from the docks, had been as if I observed this new world through a long tunnel. I may well have had the same blinkered view as the donkey who pulled the cart, unable to see left or right, only straight ahead.

  I found the stairs at the end of the hall, behind a closed door with a simple latch. They were steep, with no handrail. Such steps usually presented difficulty for me, but still I set off up them, thankful the passageway was so narrow that I could help pull myself along by planting my hands firmly on each side of me. There was a strong smell of sewage wafting from somewhere, but when I reached the top and stepped up into blinding light, the darkness and odour were washed away, and I could smell the sea.

  The climb had left me panting, and I had to lean over, my hands on my knees. But when I straightened, what I saw threatened to again take away my breath. On one side of me the sea tilted away, glinting in the sun, and on the other I saw mountains. The glorious Rif mountains, the setting sun staining them a blood red.

  Standing alone in the sweet breeze, Tangier encircled me, the buildings blinding white in the late afternoon sun. Unfamiliar feathery and broad-leafed trees, as well as palms, sto
od in variegated shades of green. There was a clarity to the scene in the play of light that made me think of the most brilliant of paintings — the colours were not blue and red and yellow and green, but cerulean, indigo, they were vermilion and crimson, amber and saffron, celadon and olive and lime.

  My leg ached; I looked for a place to sit down, but there was only the narrow edge of the roof. I understood the boy’s earlier cautioning; one small misstep would be disaster. Had someone else, perhaps someone like those in Elizabeth Pandy’s group, come up here after too many glasses of alcohol, and tumbled to certain death?

  I closed my eyes and opened them, each time letting the small thrill run through me. I thought of Pine Bush, the barrens a few miles from my home, or the nearby lake, or simply the countryside in Albany County. I had spent so much time in those places, walking and sketching the flora and the wildlife. I thought of my own botanical watercolours, the muted greens of the shade-loving ferns and mosses, the delicate lavender of the speedwell, the shy, nodding pink of the moccasin flower, the modest jack-in-the-pulpit. But here! I knew my box of paints, stored away on the bedroom shelf of my small house across the ocean, could never create such colours.

  When the ache in my leg abated I walked, slowly, to the far end of the roof and peered down into a shadowy labyrinth of streets, surely the medina, the oldest part of the city. There the crowds milled in a kind of frenzy; there were calls and shouts and the braying of donkeys and barking of dogs and the occasional roar of a camel.

  And then came a sound I hadn’t before heard; a high and yet carrying voice, coming from somewhere behind me. I turned to see the spire of a minaret, and knew it was a muezzin, calling the Muslim believers to prayer. Suddenly another voice joined in, and then another, as voices from the various minarets throughout Tangier called out. I stood on that roof, surrounded by the sonorous, rhythmic phrase that to me sounded like Allah Akbar, watching the scarlet-stained mountains.

  Was Etienne hearing these same sounds? Was he looking at the sky, at mountains, at the sea? Was he thinking of me, at this lonely hour, as I was of him?