Mrs. Pollifax and the Whirling Dervish

by Dorothy Gilman

  Halfway down this broad passage Sidi Tahar stopped at a closed wooden door and knocked lightly, rapidly. A voice called out from inside, and Sidi Tahar replied in his own language. A bolt was drawn and just before the door opened Sidi Tahar turned to them and smiled. "We are here," he told them. "We have reached the house of Khaddour Nasiri."

  20

  The door opened several inches and they were observed by a bright dark eye. "Praise be to God, you are here!" gasped a voice, the door swung open and in this manner they met Khaddour Nasiri, informant number seven. He looked a rough and burly man, with a heavy moustache and thick callused hands, but if he lacked the grace of Sidi Tahar Mrs. Pollifax was delighted at finding him safe, well and looking very competent. He gave Ahmad a startled glance, his eyes moved to Mrs. Pollifax's veiled face and then came to rest on Max. Pointing to him he said in English, "He is a nasrani but he has muscle, he is needed for my left tire!" and having said this he remembered the courtesies and bowed to Sidi Tahar, touching his hand to his forehead. "Salam alaikum," he said.

  Sidi Tahar smiled. "Alaikum wa Salam." He added quickly, "I have come to tell you that everything is known, Khaddour, it is ended for us."

  The man nodded. "Bismallah, I will be glad to go now—it is time, I have hungered and waited." He slipped into his own language, speaking quickly, with Max listening nearby.

  Mrs. Pollifax glanced past him at the dark stone-walled room with its carpets and pillows, but not understanding what was said brought impatience, and she touched Max's arm. "What is it? What are they talking about?" she asked.

  Max looked puzzled. "He seems to have somehow expected us, he has his truck ready to leave. Except for one tire."

  She did not find this reassuring. "Sidi Tahar," she pleaded, "Max is saying we were expected?"

  Sidi Tahar turned to her. "He tells me there has been someone here before we came, warning of trouble."

  She gazed at him in horror. "Who could that be? Where is this person? Is it the police?"

  "I know only that he has spent the night in the house of the headman el-Kebaj."

  "But—" Agonies of anxiety arrived again. Khaddour regarded her with little interest and turned back to Max, speaking urgently in words foreign to her.

  Max nodded and said, "There's no time for talk, he says a police spy came to the village last night and slept by the well. Right now he needs a strong helper for the left front tire, whatever that means. The important thing—but I'll try to learn more, except what does it matter?" He gestured helplessly. "We go or we're caught. You, Ahmad and Sidi Tahar are to wait here, he says not long."

  Not long, she thought despairingly.

  "Lock the door behind us," Max told them, and hurried out with Nasiri.

  The door was locked and Mrs. Pollifax collapsed on a pile of carpets and sat there hugging her knees. Ahmad sat down beside her, giving her an anxious glance, and Sidi Tahar, standing in the middle of the room, looked down at her thoughtfully. He said gravely, "Your spirit has become tired."

  She nodded. "This is the last suspense of all, Sidi Tahar."

  He shrugged. "But not the first."

  "No—but we've tried so hard, and there is that car from Marrakech we saw, and the police spy who saw us, and the mysterious person who told Khaddour there was trouble . . ."

  "The mind can hold only one thought at a time," he reminded her gently. "Think beyond Rouida, think of the Polisarios, in fact I will speak of them now, since as a woman you may appreciate their creed."

  "Creed?"

  "Why not? In which they renounce all forms of exploitation and affirm a fair distribution of resources, adequate house and health facilities, and free compulsory schooling—"

  She glanced quickly at Ahmad.

  "—and the emancipation of women," he added, "vowing to 4 re-establish their political and social rights."

  This was pleasing but still academic because those women were miles away across the border and she was here, and she was relieved when Sidi Tahar stopped talking. After a few minutes, still observing her, he said, "You remain stubbornly in your fears and worries, and not with us."

  She had been thinking of Cyrus; she had been remembering the cool greenness of pine trees, of snow in the meadows, and warm hearth-fires, but his gentle accusation reproached her and she glanced up at him.

  He said, "As a gift to you, to distract you—and for Ahmad, because he may become a Sufi, too, one day—I will do the dance for you." He shrugged off his djellabah, robed now in a long belted white shirt. He bowed, touching one hand to his forehead, and she thought his lips moved. He had captured her complete attention now. Humming a tune he began to sway, and then he stopped, took a firm stance, folded his arms across his chest and began to turn, slowly at first and then faster and faster until she gasped as his body blurred like a spinning top— he was like a flame—and she understood that this was his gift to her, and she came to life again, responding, so that as he slowed, becoming body and flesh again, there were tears in her eyes. "Oh yes," she whispered, "yes yes yes."

  Sidi Tahar's eyes glowed; he looked as if he returned from another world. "Of course yes," he said. "Always yes—to life, to Allah."

  "And your left foot never moved," she said in awe. "Thank you, Sidi Tahar." And she smiled, feeling rooted again in the moment, and without fear.

  Yet when the knock came at the door she jumped nevertheless. Ahmad raced to unbolt and open the door to Max, who ducked inside, closing it behind him. She saw that his face had turned haggard. He said in a low tense voice, "Quick—the place is suddenly swarming with police. The truck's waiting at the end of the alley—very exposed and—"

  She said, "Dear God what's that noise, Max?" "Camels," he told her, and with a flash of his old self added wryly, "Camels and police, it's insane. Sidi Tahar and Ahmad— you go first; Mrs. Pollifax and I will follow. We do it two at a time, but hurry—Khaddour's at the wheel, it's dangerous. Out and turn to your right and run."

  He opened the door to them and Sidi Tahar amazed her by the swiftness with which he made his exit, holding Ahmad by the hand. Max closed his eyes, counting "one . . , two . . , three . . ." He opened them and gave her a twisted smile. "Well, Tante Emily, it's our turn now—pray and run fast."

  She nodded, he opened the door and they slipped through it to the alleyway. Turning to the right she saw the truck waiting for them some eight doors away in the sunshine, but as she broke into a run a voice behind them shouted, "Arrêtez! Halt!"

  She looked over her shoulder and saw that two men in black leather jackets and visored caps had entered the passage and at sight of them had begun to run. "Police!" gasped Max. "Oh God."

  Because they were so near, and because one of them was pulling a gun from his holster they had no choice but to stop. Beside her Max whispered, "Only two of them . . ." and with a quick glance, "Keep your face covered."

  "They'd soon uncover it," she said in a low voice. "Take the one on the right, Max, I'll take the other." A hurried glance behind her to the truck showed her that Sidi Tahar was lifting Ahmad into its rear, but Khaddour could not afford to wait long. She turned to face the two policemen. Beyond them another man was just entering the alley and she recognized him —it was Saleh, last seen when he'd locked them into the storage hut in Zagora. In now or never, she thought grimly, and as the two men caught up with them and began speaking harshly in Arabic she took a defensive stance and waited.

  The taller of the policeman stretched out his arm to snatch away her veil with his hand, and this brought him near. With a quick slash she struck down his arm, aimed a kick at the nerve center in his thigh and when he staggered back in pain she drove the knuckles of her right hand into his jaw. Leaving him barely conscious on the ground she turned to Max and saw that he'd managed to wrestle the gun from the second man and was just hitting him over the head with it.

  "Run!" she gasped, and punctuating her urgency a bullet ricocheted off the walls nearby; Saleh was armed and in pursuit, shouting for help. />
  They ran. There was no time to open the door of the cab, they flung themselves into the back of the truck with the others. Khaddour gunned the engine and turned the truck into the great broad avenue of sand that led toward the desert, threading his way among a dozen camels, huge and homely figures making ungodly groaning noises as their veiled and blue-robed Tuareg drivers unloaded them. Peering over the panel in the back Mrs. Pollifax watched Saleh emerge from the alley shouting, his lips forming the words Stop them, and because no one heard him over the braying of the camels he fired his gun into the air. "Stop them! Regardez!" he screamed, gesturing wildly.

  The truck was moving with terrifying slowness; up ahead in the cab she saw Khaddour leaning over the stick-shift, his right arm struggling to push it out of low gear. They were leaving the camels behind but so slowly that Saleh, running after them and waving his gun, was ominously gaining ground on them. He had been joined by one of the camel-drivers—a Tuareg, she saw from his veiled face and indigo robes—and behind them other policeman were converging to join in the hunt. We're not going to make it, she thought grimly, oh these trucks, these trucks, God help us . . , jaster, Khaddour, jaster!

  The slowness of their progress in low gear was agonizing, they had not even reached the last walls of the village, beyond which lay the longed-for desert. She felt Ahmad's hand reach for hers and she grasped it, sharing his fear. A bullet from Saleh's gun struck the side of the truck with a metallic ping, the camels brayed in the distance, the truck's motor roared senselessly, the shift remained stuck in low gear.

  There was no hope, no hope at all, she thought in despair as Saleh and his companion outdistanced the others and drew near. Please, Khaddour, please make the gears work, she prayed, and as she hung over the back-panel of the truck to watch sha saw the veiled Tuareg bring a gun from the folds of his robe and fall back a step to fire it.

  "Down, Ahmad!" she screamed, and shrank lower. The Tuareg pulled the trigger and fired, but peering over the side of the truck she saw to her astonishment that he had not fired his gun at them but at Saleh.

  She gasped as Saleh crumpled and dropped to the ground. The man in the indigo-blue robe and veil spun around to flee but in that moment of turning, before he raced toward the sanctuary of the walls, his veil fell away and she saw his face and gasped.

  Their pursuers came to a halt beside Saleh, staring down at him in bewilderment, and at that moment the gears meshed at last and the truck shifted into high gear. As their truck gained speed the man who had shot Saleh disappeared into one of the mazelike alleys, but just before he vanished into its shadows Mrs. Pollifax saw him ruthlessly fling off his robe and she glimpsed a blue windbreaker and dark slacks.

  Beside her Max gasped, "Good God, that man saved our necks, did you see that?" With a glance at her face he said, "Hey, are you okay? You look as if you'd just seen a ghost."

  Mrs. Pollifax sat back, puzzled and astonished and thoughtful. "I did," she said softly. "I did see a ghost." And as she fully grasped what she'd seen—and whom—and interpreted all that it meant, she began to smile, her smile broadened, and suddenly she threw back her head and laughed.

  Max shouted at her crossly, "My God, woman, we're still thirty-five miles from the border, what in hell can you be laughing about:"

  "A joke," she shouted back at him. "A wonderful joke! A pompous bore of a man I met a year ago, never dreaming or imagining he could be one of Carstairs' people, when all the time—"

  She did not finish; she would tell Max later, when there was no need to shout. Instead she turned and looked back at the village of Rouida, grown small now as they left it behind in their race across the desert, and she thought, Salam Alaikum, Mr. Mornajay . . . I hope you trusted God but tethered your camel first and will soon be safely away . . .

  No helicopters came to intercept them, no trucks followed, and presently Mrs. Pollifax slept a little with her head on Max's shoulder. When she opened her eyes it was to wonder how she could have dozed off during such a wild and jolting drive across the glazed sands. Above them the sky was still drenched in the gold and apricot colors of dawn—she had not slept for long after all—and when Khaddour noisily pounded on the horn, which sounded like the braying of the camels, she realized it was this that had wakened her. She sat up and said, "What on earth—?"

  "Look!" shouted Max, pointing.

  Leaning over the side-panel of the truck she looked ahead and saw a subtle change in the terrain of the desert, saw a series of low dunes, saw a few goats feeding on impoverished desert grass and behind them a pair of low tents, and then she saw the men: two of them in coarse khaki-colored djellabahs that melted into the khaki-brown of the desert around them, their heads snugly wrapped in turbans that hid their chins, and almost their eyes, and each wearing a submachine gun strapped to his back. As she looked in amazement one of the men waved a pair of binoculars and the other, in a fever of welcome, unloosed a pistol from his belt and fired it into the air.

  The truck came to a shuddering halt and the men rushed forward to greet Sidi Tahar, to help him down and embrace him with joy.

  "But—who are they?" she faltered.

  "Our escort—Polisarios," Max said in an awed voice. "They're telling Sidi Tahar they got his message and have been waiting a long time for him. We're being thoroughly welcomed!"

  Welcomed, she thought; what a pleasing word that was after being pursued the length of a country, always in hiding, always hungry, and with almost no time to sleep. Now they were being welcomed by two of the men with whom she would begin her long journey back to safety, and to Cyrus, and home.

  But it was Sidi Tahar who had the last word—as usual, she thought with affection. This friend of Car-stairs' stood straight and tall beside the truck, with a small and weary Ahmad at his side. Glancing up and meeting her gaze he smiled and spread out his hands in a gesture that encompassed the great lonely desert, the fading colors in the sky, and all the hazards of living. "You see?" he said to her. "It was written thus all the time."