Mrs. Pollifax and the Whirling Dervish

by Dorothy Gilman

  On the ancient maps of the region the Maghreb had been called Mauritania, which had nothing to do with the present country of that name in the south, and from this region the Romans had extracted fruit, grain, animals and gold but most of all slaves, in fact once on the other side of the mountains he would meet the old caravan routes that had crossed the Sahara to trade and sell in Fez for centuries.

  He drove past sunny green fields, men astride donkeys hung with panniers, and then the town of Ait-Ourir, and following this the traffic thinned. Soon he began his ascent into the mountains. The road was narrow and winding but it had been cleared, leaving snow in great piles on either side. As he rounded one long curve he was surprised to see a small espresso cafe clinging to the sides of the cliff out of which the road was carved, and having met with no traffic at all he decided to stop and inquire about conditions ahead.

  In the deserted cafe a gnarled little old man sat behind the counter, the usual fading photograph of the King framed on the wall behind him. A few tables and chairs were scattered around the room, and through the windows Mornajay saw that a broad wooden deck had been built outside to hold more tables.

  "Bonjour," said Mornajay. "Une espresso."

  "Une espresso," said the man, nodding, and to Mornajay's questions he replied that, yes, the Pass had been closed for some hours the day before but by noon it had been opened to one-way traffic, and today traffic was normal and the roads cleared all the way.

  Even as he said this a truck could be heard shifting gears as it passed the cafe and headed down toward Marrakech.

  Mornajay nodded and thanked him. Carrying his espresso he strolled out onto the deck and stopped in astonishment, spellbound. Far far below him, perhaps half a mile under the cafe, lay a fertile valle}- of green fields with a cluster of tiny houses tucked into its folds, but what equally amazed him was that the green fields had been built into terraces that seemed to flow up the mountain to where he stood and beyond him, terrace after terrace rising like stairs out of that deep valley until it met the snow line where only rock endured, and above that—he flung back his head to look—it met with craggy peaks and blue sky.

  He felt taken out of himself . . . The silence was profound, the sun was warm on his face, the air tart and crisp. He looked again into the valley hidden below the wall of mountain and he thought, "Here is Shangri-la, I must come back to this one day."

  He wouldn't, of course, and he knew it, nor was there any need to return, it was simply one of those unexpected moments that engraved itself upon a person's soul and he was grateful to be touched by it. For so many years of his adult life he'd been an obsessed man, sternly protecting himself against emotion, but during the past year—trying to learn again how to live—he'd begun to understand how impoverished and empty he'd become. This moment filled him, and that was enough.

  He lingered a few more minutes, both the espresso and the sun warming him, his eyes softening as he dreamed over the peaceful scene, and then with a sigh he remembered why he was here on his way to Ourzazate and went back to his car.

  It was at some point following the descent from Tizi Pass and during the long drive through a wasteland of rust-colored escarpments and hills that Mornajay wondered if it might not be sensible for him to look up the agent whom Bartlett had told him was in Ourzazate. Jenkins was the man's name, he remembered, and he could be found at the Hotel Raid Salaam. He'd not seriously considered doing this earlier but the deeper he traveled into this country the more incredible he found it that Mrs. Pollifax could have evaded the police for this long. He'd told Carstairs on the phone that it would be similar to looking for a needle in a haystack but as he digested the total emptiness of the landscape through which he passed he realized that any Westerner—and a woman at that—would be so conspicuous as to change this analogy completely: It was much more like looking for a haystack in a field of needles.

  Her disappearance seemed so inconceivable that he felt he should stop to see Jenkins and discover if she'd been found by now.

  He tried to think back to the Mrs. Pollifax he'd known at such a crucial time in Thailand. This was difficult for him to do because he'd been a different person then, totally occupied with his own secret mission; he'd been irritable and impatient at every obstacle he'd met, and Mrs. Pollifax had been one of them. His earliest impression of her had been that she was a fool, and—he smiled faintly—that she'd been determined to insult him. Yet when he'd lain in the jungle half out of his head with fever and hallucinations she'd not deserted him and it was because of her and her Thai companion that he was alive today. He'd been able to repay her later by helping her and her husband but he'd never been curious about her presence in such wild country.

  Knowing now who she was, and what she was, he looked back on the experience with a different eye. What he had taken as insults from her, he admitted wryly, was merely bluntness: she had been as irritated and as impatient with him as he had been with her, and recalling his pompousness he winced. If she'd been capable of saving his life, and her husband's, then she was quite capable of preserving her own life, but how, he wondered, and where was she, and what would she do? In Thailand she'd kept a cool head, she'd had resolution, stamina and resourcefulness. Was she holed up somewhere in hiding, or on the move ... ?

  He thought, What would I do in her situation?

  He thought, In the country of the blind I would pretend to be blind.

  "Aha!" he cried aloud triumphantly. "Exactly!" And he smiled.

  He knew what he assumed no one else knew, and this was the last name on the list that Mrs. Pollifax had been given, which was that of Khaddour Nasiri in the village of Rouida. If she was caught before she reached that village—if she was found hiding in Erfoud, or making her way to Ourzazate or Zagora—he knew there was absolutely nothing he could do for her, the pursuit was too organized.

  But if by chance or luck she succeeded in reaching Rouida there was a great deal that he could do for her.

  He would not stop in Ourzazate after all, he would head directly for Rouida.

  Drawing up to the side of the road he stopped the car and brought out his wallet. From an assortment of forged identification papers and passports he selected a press card with his photo and the name of Ambrose Cunningham. This and his camera should suffice to get him a laissez-passer that would see him through the military roadblock on the way to Rouida. His guidebook did not mention why traffic on the road to Rouida had to be stopped and inspected but it needed only a glance at a map to understand why: the village lay a scant forty miles from the Algerian border.

  He felt elated by his decision, reckless as it might prove. To hell with Ourzazate and Jenkins, he thought, he would secure the necessary laissez-passer in Zagora and then head directly to Rouida as Ambrose Cunningham, photographer for a major news magazine in search of desert exotica.

  17

  In Zagora Mrs. Pollifax had fallen asleep when Max nudged her, saying in a low voice, "Listen!" and to Sidi Tahar, "Are you hearing something, too?"

  Beyond the flickering candle Sidi Tahar leaned forward and whispered back, "I hear. There are sounds from outside, behind the wall next me, the back wall."

  Mrs. Pollifax, listening and frowning, said, "It sounds like a car with its motor running. What could it be?"

  "But it doesn't stop," pointed out Max. "A car ought to drive away, and if it's the police they'd surely go to the souk and come through the door over there."

  Sidi Tahar leaned close to the wall to listen. "It is not going away, it is very near—inches near."

  Mrs. Pollifax, thoroughly awake now, rose to her feet.

  "That's not a car," she said, "it sounds more like—Max, I believe it's a truck."

  Max said incredulously, "But how, what—what's it doing? And why is it there?"

  The sound of the engine outside suddenly accelerated, no longer idling but rising in sound, and as it grew louder they moved to the middle of the room and stood together, tense and wondering, vaguely threatened
and deeply curious.

  "Look!" cried Sidi Tahar and pointed at the wall, which had begun to tremble, as if under great pressure.

  An adobe brick dropped away to the earth and then another. Abruptly the sound of the engine turned into a great roar and more bricks toppled, dust rose in clouds and the nose of a truck edged its way into the room and stopped. It was their Volvo, and seated behind the wheel, scarcely discernible, sat a very small Ahmad. Even in the dim light they could see his huge proud smile.

  "Bisura, bisura," urged Ahmad, leaning out of the window. "Please—I do not know how to send it back."

  Max raced for the driver's seat and Mrs. Pollifax and Sidi Tahar followed, stumbling over fallen bricks to climb in beside him, where Sidi Tahar lifted Ahmad to his lap. Max shifted gears into reverse; the truck protested, shuddered and moved a few inches, sending a rain of fresh bricks down on the roof of the cab, and then stalled, ominously. Desperately Max pressed the accelerator to the floor, the engine returned to life and the truck slowly inched its way out of the ragged, gaping hole that its ramming had created. Once outside and free of debris it then became necessary to continue backing down a long narrow alley with buildings on either side. With relief they emerged at last into a broad dirt road that serviced the cluster of huts around the souks.

  "Wphew," gasped Max. "Tight squeeze . . . All right, Sidi Tahar, now where, is there a way to avoid the road to the hotel?"

  Sidi Tahar pointed. "Turn left, this trail leads behind hill and hotel to exit on the highway south."

  "Thank God," murmured Max. "That road to the hotel is a dead-end death trap. Ahmad, you okay?"

  Ahmad was still beaming. "Oh . . , kay," he said with delight.

  The truck had lost one of its headlights from the ramming and the trail was no more than a cart-path; they bumped over rocks and swerved around trees, knowing they were now in a race for their lives. The town looked to be asleep, there were no lights showing except at the hotel, but if Saleh had not heard the crashing of bricks behind the souk there were sure to be neighbors who would rush to speak of the strange truck that had made such a hole in the storage hut. After so many hours of waiting for the police their arrival must be imminent, too; they might even be drawing up to the front door of the souk as they escaped from the rear . . .

  Realizing the miracle of this escape Mrs. Pollifax leaned over and kissed Ahmad on the top of his head.

  Sidi Tahar, nodding to her, said, "He has baraka, this boy."

  "What's that?"

  "The benediction of Allah. I would like to instruct such a boy."

  She gave him a quick glance at this but there was no time for response for they had just gained the paved highway. Max braked, and four heads swiveled right and then left to observe the dark road. Finding it empty of traffic Max turned south. "Now we look for Ahmad's aunt," he said and added grimly, "and try to make plans for ourselves after that. Sidi Tahar, you know this part of the country, you're in this mess too, where and how do we—"

  "Later," he said calmly. "Our fates are joined together—I too am thinking. One matter at a time."

  "Where are the directions to Ahmad's cousins?" Mrs. Pollifax asked.

  Digging in his pocket Max handed a slip of paper to her without looking at her. "I wrote them in English. It shouldn't be far, only about five miles Muhammed said . . , something about a cemetery and a road beyond it. Still have your pocket flashlight?"

  In its thin beam of light she read out the words he'd scribbled down in Ourzazate. "About five miles out of Zagora a cemetery on right side of road, bordered on south by line of olive trees. Just beyond trees a dirt road. Turn down it—one mile to village."

  Max said, "With only one headlight it's going to need four pairs of eyes to find that cemetery."

  She nodded but she knew what to look for now: here in the south the graveyards were very different from those she'd seen in the north. At first casual glance they looked like a field of broken shards; it needed a second glance to see how the jagged points of broken flagstones had been pressed into the earth in neat rows, one at the head of the grave, another at the foot, the graves very close together. They had reminded her of the pretend-gardens that she'd made as a child by sticking twigs and stones into the earth. They were the graves of a people who lived in a harsh poor land, they were desert graves.

  "Yes it will be hard to find in the darkness," she agreed, and to Ahmad, "We must look closely, Ahmad."

  Max said irritably, "I feel conspicuous, we can be seen for miles, damn it, even with only one headlight. What do we do if a car comes?"

  "Pray," said Mrs. Pollifax.

  "Bismallah," contributed Sidi Tahar.

  A sliver of moon was rising in the east, the mountains black against a night sky of indigo blue dusted with stars. No lights could be seen anywhere at all in the great sweep of countryside that surrounded them. Her wristwatch told her that it was half-past nine but if there were any householders in the valley they had all retired for the night. "There!" cried Ahmad, and she saw it, too: a straight line of trees ahead, and soon the solitary beam of headlight picked out the broken stones of the graveyard. "At last," she breathed.

  Max slowed the truck, they passed the trees, and there was the road, deeply rutted, its spine as broken as the flagstones in the cemetery. Max growled, "This has to be the coup de grace for our shock absorbers, it has to be."

  She said tartly, "I didn't know we had any." They bumped over holes and hillocks, heading across a barren plain with only a few tufts of grass and scrub visible, and then Mrs. Pollifax saw a whitewashed dome and a row of adobe houses pressed against a hill. It was difficult to think of this as a village, and perhaps it wasn't, but they had arrived.

  Ahmad said comfortably, "There is the house of my mother's sister." He pointed.

  Max did not drive up to the house but headed around it to hide the truck in the rear. A dog barked. A dim light suddenly appeared in the house, they had been heard, and as they climbed down from the cab a door opened and a man with a lantern peered out, the light shining on a white shirt that reached his ankles.

  " 'Amm Mahfoud!" cried Ahmad joyously, racing toward him.

  "Ahmad?" faltered the man, and as he lifted his lantern Mrs. Pollifax saw a worn dark face with a gray beard. Ahmad erupted into words, none of which Mrs. Pollifax could understand, and touching her arm Max said, "I have the distinct feeling that no one speaks English, which is going to be damnably boring for you but I'll do my best to keep you informed."

  "Thank you," she said. "I can already guess what Ahmad's telling him because he's quickly snuffed out his lantern."

  "So he has," said Max, and they moved toward the two figures on the threshold.

  Sidi Tahar, following tranquilly behind them, paused to bow and say, "Salam Alaikum."

  Startled, Ahmad's uncle said, "Alaikum wa Salam," and then, peering at him more closely, "You are the holy man from Zagora!" And with a bow he touched his heart with his hand and bid them come inside.

  They sat on pillows in the house of Mahfoud. A single candle had been lighted, but not until both window and door had been well sheathed against the glow of its light. While the others talked earnestly and with passion in their own language Mrs.' Pollifax looked around her with curiosity: this was her first glimpse into the interior of a real home. She was seeing a long room with whitewashed walls, along which lay bright pillows and carpets for sleeping and sitting, and a few small low tables. The earth floor was covered with reed mats. In the corner a young boy still slept soundly, a dark shape that turned restlessly but did not awaken. An older boy, in his teens, had roused and sat watching them silently. Nearby, Mahfoud's wife was ladling soup from a kettle into four bowls, turning from moment to moment when she heard something startling, her glance sliding to Mrs. Pollifax before she returned to the food. The soup would be cold, Max had told her in an aside, they did not dare a fire to heat it but it was harira soup and would be delicious.

  She decided that she would like some
delicious soup very much, whether it was hot or cold, having eaten no food since breakfast. This was a moment when she was content to let all the strange words flow past her without understanding any of them, or knowing what plans were being discussed. The police had to be looking for them and for the truck by now. It was doubtful they could stay long here when a thorough search would eventually bring the police to this out-of-the-way hamlet and endanger Ahmad's relatives. She would therefore exist only in this hour; she would rest, not worry, not consider the next hour, which looked dark and possibly dangerous, she would let Max and Sidi Tahar argue possibilities without querying them.

  Max turned to her abruptly. "Both Sidi Tahar and Mahfoud tell me there is a checkpoint between here and Rouida, about four miles from here. Not for us," he added quickly, "it's always there, one needs a pass to get through because Rouida is close to the border."

  Mahfoud's wife brought her soup and a spoon, giving her a faint smile. "Shurba," she said, and went back to carry soup to Ahmad, who sat cross-legged on the floor following the conversation with huge eyes.

  Again Max turned to her. "Mahfoud calls it twenty-five miles in distance from this house to Rouida. We can't stay, of course, we've got to leave. I've asked for his help and offered him the truck in return, it's all we have to give him and it's of no use to us any farther. He tells me—"

  He means we must walk, she realized.

  "—tells me he accepts the truck with deep thanks but it mustn't be found here. His older son Rashid will drive us into the hills as far as possible and then hide the truck in a wadi or cave. After this Rashid will leave us, knowing exactly where the truck is hidden, and—"

  "And we walk," she said, sparing him the word, knowing that of course it was the only way for them to get past any checkpoint and reach Rouida without being seen. Valleys were nicely flat but inhabited. Only mountains could conceal them now but she did hope they were not high mountains, for if they had looked like mesas framed against the night sky they were surely steep. She tried not to think of this; after all they had little choice in this attempt to reach Khaddour Nasiri in Rouida, and if they reached him she could only hope he would be trustworthy and know what to do with two nasrani and a Sufi on the run.