Mrs. Pollifax and the Whirling Dervish

by Dorothy Gilman

  She sighed. "Yes. And it was all so simple at first, I was sent here with seven photographs and addresses to join a Max Janko in Fez, and he and I were to travel down through the country— making no contact, you understand but just making certain that each photo matched the man—and if we found one that didn't we were to cable and call and report this at once."

  Puzzled, he said, "But Saleh implied that this man Max Janko has been killed?"

  "No," she told him, and pointed to the sleeping Max. "He's Max Janko .., the Janko I met was—oh he was arrogant," she said, remembering. "He insisted I deliver the photos to him and leave, not go with him, and he made me so angry I refused

  to give the photos to him." She added in surprise, "Which I suppose saved my life. Certainly it turned out to be very fortunate because when his moustache fell off in Erfoud—"

  Startled, Sidi Tahar glanced toward Max.

  She shook her head. "No, you're looking now at the real one."

  "But how—?"

  "You heard him speak of an elevator shaft," she said, and she began at the beginning, telling him in detail of her strange journey.

  When she had finished Sidi Tahar said simply, "Praise be to Allah, who has preserved you!"

  "Yes but Sidi Tahar," she asked, "how did this Saleh learn of you?"

  He sighed. "I have thought much on this and I believe it must have happened on the day of the flood six weeks ago, when the Oued Draa was in spate." Seeing her blank look he said, "I speak of the river Draa, which in summer is nearly dry. This year the rains came and the water came rushing down the wadis and there was destruction, but who was to know? I had sent a delivery of carpets to Ourzazate, as was my way, and the young man—a good man, Hafed by name—was to bring back for my souk some carpets made by the Ouzguita tribe. The very smallest carpet I sent with him was to be delivered to a— shall we say a certain person in the marketplace? The name was blessedly not written, but wrapped inside the small carpet was a waterproof package with certain documents and reports."

  Sadly he shook his head. "Hafed never reached Ourzazate, he was caught in the flood and was drowned. His truck was returned to his family here in Zagora but the carpets—" He sighed again.

  "They were recovered but never returned to you?"

  "What else could explain it? It is enough to have lost Hafed, and then suddenly one day neighbors told me questions were being asked about me, and I became aware I was being watched, I made preparations, quite small, to go away for a little while, but that is when Saleh arrived in my souk with his

  questions and his gun and his threats and—for a little while—the beatings, and he has been here ever since, listening, waiting, calling himself a cousin of mine."

  She nodded. "The waterproof package was found, then." When he only shrugged she asked what had to be asked. "And has he made you tell him about our friends in Ourzazate and Rouida?"

  His fine eyes examined her without expression. "We have a proverb that says flies do not enter a closed mouth." He said gently, "No, he was told nothing, he could not make me speak. But they are patient, and now—"

  She winced. "Now there are three of us." Three to question, she thought, three of us to pressure, interrogate, threaten, harm if necessary, and remembering Hong Kong she shivered. "The waiting is hard," she admitted.

  Sidi Tahar glanced up at the square of light that filtered through the iron rods of the grate. "It is halfway between mid-afternoon and the sunset call to prayer."

  "A little after five o'clock," she told him, holding her wrist-watch to the light. "Ourzazate is seventy-five or eighty miles away and that will take time." But they would not come in an ancient truck that climbed the hills slowly, she realized, they would come in fast cars, or perhaps even a helicopter, for undoubtedly they were important enough for the latter if one was available. The news of a network of Polisario informants having been in existence for so long must have proven very humiliating. Heads might already have rolled, and anger and vengeance would surely outweigh moderation.

  She remembered Ahmad, and wondered how long he would wait for them outside before he understood that he'd been abandoned. Would he be able to find his relatives? He'd spoken as if he might have visited them once but it was equally as possible that what he knew had been told him by his father. At least he knows their name, she thought wearily, they can't be too many miles away and perhaps someone will help him. But it was more probable that he would set out to find his relatives on foot, and her heart ached for him as she pictured him trudging forlornly along the road.

  Max's eyes had opened. "I've been listening to you two," he said. "Sidi Tahar, what did you do to me?" He sat up looking cross.

  He smiled. "Do you know the meditations of our poet Rumi? He has written that there is no reason for fear, it is our imagination that blocks us just as a wooden bolt holds the door. I loosed the wooden bolt a little, that is all. Perhaps now you can return to the present moment."

  "Cheerless thought," said Max. "Haven't you noticed we've been very neatly captured and imprisoned?"

  "I am not blind," Sidi Tahar told him. "We are in the hands of Allah . . , believe!"

  "And if Allah should be blind?"

  "Then it would be His will."

  Mrs. Pollifax asked with interest, "Are you a mystic, Sidi Tahar, or perhaps a priest?"

  Max shook his head. "No by George, he speaks most like a Sufi and I heard him use the word majlie, meaning disciple. Are you a Sufi teacher, Sidi Tahar, a darwish or a khalifar?"

  Sidi Tahar shrugged. "These are words, no more."

  "A Muslim mystic!" exclaimed Mrs. Pollifax, and with a start of recognition, "But Sufis have also been called whirling dervishes, haven't they? Oh Sidi Tahar, are you a whirling dervish, do you do the dance?"

  His eyes smiled at her eagerness. "You mean what we call 'the turning.' It is prayer to us, but a dance, too, you might say —to set one free .., to climb higher and higher."

  "To what?" she asked.

  "To Consciousness. To God. To the Light."

  "And surely grow dizzy," Max commented dryly.

  Curiosity and interest won out over the desolation of her environment. She said, "Could you show me how? Would it be blasphemy to ask it, to ask at least how you whirl and dance?"

  He laughed. "And you a nasrani? But to amuse you—and is it not a time to forget why?—I will tell you how to begin."

  "Shukren," she said, smiling at him.

  "Stand," he said.

  Max said flippantly, "Easy enough so far."

  "Now you must center yourself, the most important part of all." He placed his hand on her solar plexus. "Here is your center. Feel it. Without a center there is no turning, no dance."

  Mrs. Pollifax placed her hand there and waited.

  "Now to receive your first lesson, cross your arms, your right hand on your left shoulder, the left hand on the right shoulder." He nodded. "And turn counter-clockwise but slowly, first to your left and then, round and round."

  With arms crossed she turned, managing it only twice before dizziness overcame her and she stopped. Sidi Tahar smiled. "You were not centered. Try again but this time you will turn without your left foot leaving the floor."

  She stared at him in astonishment. "Without my left foot— but that's impossible!"

  He laughed. "You pick up your right foot and you put it down on the other side of the leg, and you turn. And you turn without moving the left foot, as if it is nailed to the floor. In fact in the old days a big nail would be driven into the floor between the toes of the left foot so that it could never leave the earth."

  Mrs. Pollifax tried this, clumsily turned and collapsed on the carpet beside Max. When she had caught her breath she smiled at Sidi Tahar. "There is more to this than I believed!"

  "There is more to everything than one believes," he said. "The 'turning,' the whirling, takes one to the still point of the universe, and how can that be easily learned?"

  Beside her Max said in a burst of anger, "This i
s ridiculous, damn it, don't you realize that we've got to think what to do and say? We've got to plan, get our stories straight . . . The police could come at any minute and my God, you're taking lessons in dancing?"

  She looked at Sidi Tahar and smiled. "You don't understand, Max, he'd never share this under any other circumstances, he's trying to distract us."

  Max pointed to the grate in the roof. "That's all very well but can't you see how dark it's getting? It doesn't give us much time to plan."

  Sidi Tahar frowned. "It can't be dark yet, the muezzin has not begun the sunset call to prayer."

  What Sidi Tahar said was true; even Mrs. Pollifax's wrist-watch told her that it couldn't be sunset yet Puzzled, she rose and walked to the center of the room to stare up at the hole in the ceiling that had lost its daylight. Standing there she said, "Someone has covered up the grate." She felt something tickle her nose and brushed it impatiently aside but a second later it returned to tickle her cheek. Assuming it to be a cobweb she reached out to grasp it this time and discovered that it was not a cobweb but a string. "Look!" she gasped. "A string!" Lifting her head she exclaimed, "Someone must be up there lying across the grate, which is why it's dark!"

  They moved to examine her discovery. Running the string through her fingers she said, "And look—feel—there's a -pebble attached to the end of it." Excitedly she said, "Max, it has to be Ahmad, who else could it be? He must still be in Zagora and is trying to help!"

  Max grasped the string, his fingers following it until he reached the pebble at its end. "It's certainly attached to something or someone up above—and look, there's more than a pebble here, there's a scrap of paper tied to the pebble. Have we a match?"

  Sidi Tahar brought them his candle and lighted it, and now there was no question about it: someone on the roof had sent them a message. Mrs. Pollifax opened up the wad of paper to find two childlike drawings in pencil. In the flickering candlelight they peered at the scrap of paper, frowning over what looked like the drawing of a key, and below it a second primitive sketch of two circles set into a box.

  Pointing to the latter Max said, "That's a truck, it has to be, and those are wheels."

  "The other looks like a key," contributed Mrs. Pollifax. "What's the swirl of Arabic writing at the bottom?"

  Max said excitedly, "It really is from Ahmad, he's signed his name. You're right—he's here, he found us and he's on the roof."

  Mrs. Pollifax sent him a silent thank you, her heart warmed by the thought of his presence. "I think he wants us to send up the key to the truck."

  Max looked at her in horror. "But why? We mustn't!"

  Mrs. Pollifax said indignantly, "What do you mean 'mustn't'?"

  "If we ever get out of here the truck's our only hope. Why would he want the key, does he plan to sell the truck for " 'O ye of little faith,' " chided Mrs. Pollifax. "If he can use money as a bribe to get us out, send up the key to him."

  "Damn it, he's only nine years old."

  "The truck is scarcely of any use to us here, Max," she said tartly. "Don't underestimate Ahmad, he's a clever little boy. Send him up the key."

  "But do you really think it wise?"

  "You might consider the alternative," she told him dryly.

  Max sighed. "Well, he's certainly been loyal to have stuck around like this, unless of course they're holding a gun on him up there to make him do this."

  She sniffed. "I'd no idea you suffered from paranoia, Max."

  "You won't accept the wrecked nerves of a claustrophobic.5"

  She said impatiently, "If Saleh has found our truck and wants the key, need I point out that he would only walk in that door and take it from your"

  "You have a point," he admitted generously. "Obviously I'm falling apart in this hellhole. Sidi Tahar—?"

  Sidi Tahar laughed. "Ali the Lion, caliph of Islam, has spoken of three things that can never be retrieved, the last of which is a missed opportunity."

  "I won't ask what the others are," said Max. "Okay, let's see if opportunity knocks." He brought the key from his pocket and carefully tied it to the end of the string, gave it a tug, and it vanished from his grasp into the darkness. They knew that it reached the grate when the silhouette of a hand appeared and guided the key between the bars. Following this both the hand and the shadow disappeared, and daylight shone again through the hole.

  "So much for that," Max said grimly. "Our entertainment for this hour. What do you think will happen next?"

  "What happens next," said Sidi Tahar tranquilly, "is airead) written."

  Mrs. Pollifax responded to the serenity in his voice and relaxed. "We must strike you as very impatient."

  "Possibly Europeans are," he said. "And Americans. There is a story of a King who summoned all his wise men to his palace and promised a rich reward to the one who could sum up for him in just one sentence all the wisdom of living, just one sentence that would contribute to every possible event in a lifetime."

  "And?" asked Mrs. Pollifax, smiling.

  Sidi Tahar chuckled. "The wisest of them wrote for him just four words: This too shall pass. And so it is with the three of us crouched in this dark room: this too shall pass."

  "It will pass, yes," grumbled Max, "but how? Remember, the police can still come at any minute and take us away, or even worse we could be—"

  "Such words!" interrupted Sidi Tahar with a shake of his head. "They stab, they disturb the peace of the heart! Try to be calm—be in the world but not of it!"

  Max subsided but Mrs. Pollifax could feel his claustrophobic panic growing again and accumulating a life of its own until it felt like a fourth person occupying the room with them. She hoped he would remain silent now. Their prospects, his and hers, were not rosy but were somewhat improved by their being foreigners. It was Sidi Tahar whose future was anything but promising—after all, he was a native of this country and therefore could be called a traitor; it was kinder not to think what awaited him. She thought instead about Ahmad and of how so ver) little kindness had won such a staunch loyalty from him; she felt again the touch of his confiding hand in hers and visualized the radiance of his sudden smile, and then she thought of Cyrus, still in Kenya and assuming that she was safely at home. Whatever lay ahead for her would not be easy; she was known to have set out from Fez with the false Max Janko, and he was now dead. She would be accused, no doubt, of his murder and there would be no help from Carstairs, that was always part of the bargain, but in this case she would feel especially compelled to protect him from his own people. She owed him that. "Maverick department, Atlas—very secret," Bishop had explained.

  No, there would be no help from Langley, Virginia, nor would she ask for it. It might even be wise of her to confess to Flavien's murder herself, for if Max hadn't shot him she would certainly have done her best to kill him, and didn't the thought equal the deed? As a woman and an American she might be treated a shade more gently than Max, who was very obviously connected with the CIA, having been Flavien's boss in Cairo.

  They would know things like that.

  No, she thought sadly, Cyrus would not find her waiting for him when he came home, and how naively she'd believed that she would be back among her geraniums by that date! A week's jaunt through Morocco, Bishop had told her—and here she was in a dark mountain village in the south of Morocco, captive and without hope of deliverance.

  She leaned her head back against the wall and for a moment or two closed her eyes. When she opened them it was to see that Sidi Tahar, seated on the earth floor, was watching her. He smiled. In his craggy dark face his smile was beautiful and she smiled back. She had met with a Sufi; now she asked, "Are you also a prophet, Sidi Tahar?"

  His smile deepened and his eyes twinkled. "We have an ancient story about that, a joke if you will . . . There was once a man who announced himself a prophet on arrival in a strange village, and the townspeople asked, 'What are the proofs of your being a prophet?' And he said, 'The proof I offer is to tell you exactly what is in your minds.' Th
ey said eagerly, 'Tell us, then, what do you see in our minds?' And he replied, 'You are thinking that I am a liar and not a prophet at all.' "

  She laughed. "I like your stories and your proverbs. Tell me, where did you learn to speak such excellent English?"

  "During the Second World War," he said. "I left Morocco to fight with the Free French, and spent a few years with English and Americans fighting in North Africa."

  "Hey," said Max from his corner.

  She nodded. "Yes!" And leaning forward she said to him, "And did you save a man's life in Tripoli, Sidi Tahar?"

  He smiled. "So you do know Carstairs."

  "Yes, it's he who sent me. And because in a way he saved my life," she told him gravely, "I thank you for saving his."

  "Some men are like good bread, others like stones," he said. "How could one abandon such a man?"

  From beyond the walls there came to them now the call of the muezzin to prayer, to the shehada, the ululating voice rising and falling . . . The time of sunset had arrived. Sidi Tahar sank to the floor and touched the ground with his forehead, intoning "la ilah Allah wû—Muhamtned rasul Allah. ... !"

  She closed her eyes, listening and hoping to exorcise the growing tension of waiting.

  16

  Mornajay judged it to be a three-hour drive from Marrakech to the Tizi Pass and he drove as fast as hills and traffic permitted, wanting to cross the pass before any new snows intervened, and in time to reach Ourzazate for a very late dinner. He admitted to a sense of exhilaration at what lay ahead of him: Tizi-n-Tichka was the highest peak in the long line of the High Atlas range, the pass itself 7414 feet high, and this was January. He was leaving behind a temperate zone of heavily fruited orange trees, bougainvillea, fertile gardens and villages, and for contrast he need only glance skyward to see ahead of him the towering snow-frosted mountains. From his college days he remembered that Pliny had written of a Roman named Suetonius Paulinus who had crossed the High Atlas at Tizi Pass in the fifth century. My God, how long ago, he thought; it was exciting to think of a Roman traveler daring such a journey for in those days not many people ventured far from the coast of the Mediterranean.