'How did you get to Russia? Where did you study?'
'I studied at Kiev. I got there with other students through Algerie.'
'So you're not a pimp? Would you really have found me a woman tonight, had I wanted one?'
Abdslem looked offended. 'Of course I am a pimp!'
'And you'd have pumped precious sterling out of your country by exchanging money for me illegally?'
'Why not?'
'These are trivialities beside the inevitable processes of revolution?' Lom asked with some irony.
'Exactly.'
'And what made you accost me in the first place? Was it accident?'
The relaxed, overdrive smile played again on the boy's face. 'If you had wanted someone to sleep with, or to buy kif, then I would have had a little money, that is all. But currency exchange, that is different. You exchange legally at the bank; the money goes to the rich bankers. You exchange illegally on the streets; the money leaves the country—through Indian traders mostly. But you exchange illegally with me—with my party—and not only does the money stay in the country, but it goes to the people. And of course we give a twenty per cent better rate than anyone else. There, my friend, is a concession from an Arab that should impress a Jew! Jews, they say, love money. So do we Arabs. It is paradox perhaps! But you asked why I stopped you. It was not for any of these things. I thought you must want some thing more. That maybe you help us.'
'How?'
'Just taking good pictures—like Life magazine.'
'Where?'
'You said you wanted to travel in Maroc,' Abdslem parried him at a tangent.
'Where?'
Studiously, the boy filled and lit the sebsi again. 'Take mortar bombs and land mines,' he said. 'The campaign in the Sahara is confused—and complicated by hundreds of women. They collect the shrapnel to sell for scrap.'
Lom's eyes narrowed sceptically. 'Hasn't the government and military sealed the area from civilians?'
'You can't legislate against the peasantry gathering and selling whatever harvest is to be had when they are hungry,' Abdslem said drily.
It was a slip. Alternatively, perhaps it wasn't. At best, Lom had been casting the youth in the role of simple field worker, whatever his linguistic fluency. Now this second flash of irony made him wonder. Playing the open game the kif encouraged, he said, 'You were lycée educated under the French, weren't you?'
Abdslem gave him only a quick look. 'Then there are three hundred thousand land mines in the battle area. The Algerians seized them during the French evacuation. They work—only their triggers are a little rusty. Most, not all, will withstand six or seven stones weight in pressure.' Abdslem gestured towards the portrait of the king. 'So he's using children from our gaols to clear the minefields.'
Lom's, mind had ceased being drily speculative. It had lost sophistication. His eyes still looked at the youth with incredulity; but his consciousness had retreated far behind them. There had been a crack in the rough brick wall. At its widest point it measured perhaps a third of a metre, and the Germans hadn't bothered to seal it. Pini and Sanya squeezed through the gap one night to search for food. They never came back.
'What happens to the photographs?' Lom asked mechanically.
'They become ours.'
'I never sell negatives.'
'It's a detail,' Abdslem said.
'And salary?'
'That is not for me to say.'
'You report back to your boss?'
' "Boss", my friend is what the American negros must call their warmongering masters. There must be discussion, yes.'
'Quite. But what you want, broadly, is propaganda material on poverty in general, and the Saharan war in particular. I press the button, and you write the words. How long do you expect the assignment to take—after you've had discussions, of course?'
'Maybe two, three weeks.'
Lom was decided. 'Then I accept on two conditions. That nobody in your organisation tries to tell me where to point my camera and when to shoot. And that nobody in your organisation bothers me with talk about causes, or tries to pretend that I can have any say or interest in whatever you may want to do with the finished work. I'll get you pictures. But that's where my interest ends.'
They both stood up. Abdslem had stopped smiling. 'I can promise both things,' he said.
'After discussion, yes. Then contact me. I'll be ready.'
The slow smile returned as Abdslem said, 'But I don't know your hotel.'
Lom looked at him for a moment. 'Minza.'
'Ah! Then I can do so.' Abdslem had assumed a sterner persona. At least he hardly acknowledged the 'L'ha'nik!' of the proprietor as they stepped into the street.
'How do you know I won't go straight to the police?' Lom asked suddenly.
'Would they believe an old man full of kif?' the youth said. 'You have reputation, so perhaps they might listen. But by then I'd no longer be in Tanja. No, you won't go to the police, my friend!' Conversationally he went on, 'You have taken many photos in Tanja?'
'Only an English queer's little Spanish boy friend. Pussycat calendar stuff.'
'Spanish boy?'
Lom looked up sharply. 'Yes.'
'Manolo!' Abdslem exclaimed. 'And Simon Brown. I know about them!'
Why shouldn't I slander a stranger when I'm dying, Lom thought dully.
They began to descend through the empty Medina, and Abdslem spoke again. 'I will tell you something. Yesterday I met a strong man, a young man. He was leaving Tanja after a year here to go back to the country. I asked him why he was returning to his village. He told me, 'In the country I have only the one pain of being hungry. But, in the city, I have another pain because people laugh at me and say, "Look! Driss is starving!" '
'You've already broken one of the rules of our agreement,' Lom said, unmoved.
The youth's face broke into a wild grin as he stopped in his tracks, and slapped Lom heartily on the back. It seemed to be a violence to which he was addicted. 'I'll contact you at the Minza,' he said. 'Go carefully! Many bad men in Tangier!'
For a moment, fancifully, Lom wondered about concealed microphones. He lay on his hotel bed. Had he talked in his sleep the previous night? The youth been detailed to recruit him? It didn't matter. Before sleeping, Lom cast through some photographs. He might, he supposed, make five hundred more. He doubted whether he would be allowed to retain so much as a single print of one of them.
* * * * *
Naima's friend was right. The card on Brown's letter box acclaimed him as a Master of Arts. The door was opened by a Spanish confirmation candidate. Although he was a little old for the Catholic ceremony, Jay would have supposed, that this satin sailor suit was immaculate. Simon Brown got up from a day bed, switching off a tape-recorder as he did so.
'Mr. Gadston, this is Manolo,' Brown said. 'Ice and the Vat 69, I think, Manolo.'
'You've two sons,' Jay began, conversationally, as the boy disappeared. It was outrageous, but he saw no point in being circumspect. There was also something ingenuous about Brown.
'Manolo is simply my guest.'
'He's been confirmed?'
'Just the soup of the day.' With this Brown addressed himself to pouring the whisky, which the boy had now brought. 'You know about my child then.'
'I learnt of him half an hour ago. Quite by chance.'
'From?'
'From his mother.' Jay had hesitated a second.
'You've been up at Mrs. Diergardt's
'No. Naima's been sacked. We met outside her father's house.'
'Sacked, you say?' Brown was looking at him intently now, 'Did you gather why?'
'Only that them had been some sort of row. In fact she said she'd walked out.'
'Ah!' Brown motioned Jay to a chair, and sank down upon the divan again himself. 'Larger one's for Mr. Gadston, Manolito,' he said absently then to Jay, 'The old woman's a lesbian, you know. I suppose most of the European women here are queer.'
Jay accepted the drink from the sol
emn Spaniard and said nothing.
'So,' Brown went on, arranging more cushions beneath his shoulder blades, 'we've known each other three minutes, and you're confronting me with my bastard child—reproaching me, I might say. What's your interest in the matter?'
'Naima was in a state of shock. She told me about the—arrangement.'
Brown twisted his neck sharply to look at him. 'I see. Let's have some tapas, Manolo, sweet. And change before you make them.' He was evidently thinking. The boy disappeared again. 'Are you in love with her?'
'I don't think so.'
Brown had remained quite composed. Nevertheless he now looked relieved. 'What else did you gather?'
'That it wasn't an accident. And that it wasn't a love affair!
'You're postulating a Lafcadio Brown? The crime gratuit—strong Gideian stuff?'
'Hardly. I think you probably had a motive.'
'Which was?'
'I don't know. Or not beyond the obvious one of your wanting the child.'
'I see.' Brown was silent for a moment. 'You know, you're quite wrong in supposing it wasn't an affair of some passion. I was deeply attracted to her.'
'Because you didn't think of her as a woman.'
A light smile began to spread across Brown's face as he refilled their glasses. 'You mean she's boyish?'
'Not necessarily that at all. Perhaps you were able to disassociate her from any preconceived notions of femininity simply because she isn't a European. And then decided to have a child.'
The smile took full possession of Brown's lips as he raised his glass in a mock toast 'Tell me, do you make a habit of leaving your hosts as neatly wrapped and labelled packages on their own carpets?—No please!' Brown put up an imperious hand to block Jay's protest or apology. 'Halliday's death must have left you very worried for your friend Achmed—that's the motive force of your aggression. I suspect. But perhaps it's been aggravated by something. A failure of sexual consummation with Naima this evening? Your feelings towards her are as ambivalent as you describe. My dear chap, have another drink and tell me all. But straight this time.'
At that moment Manolo reappeared. He carried a tray on which were spread pieces of cheese, anchovies and olives speared upon squares of toast, and miniature kebabs of tuna and bacon. Only it was a different Manolo. He wore a free-falling tunic of fine white wool, with a dulled purple border of severely geometric design. Thonged sandals had been substituted for the silver-buckled shoes; and the whole inspiration supposedly derived from the gymnasium.
'Soup of tomorrow,' Jay managed to remark hollowly.
'I should eat well, Jay, because we're going out,' was all Brown said; and, after some moments, 'Perhaps we'd also better get a little drunk.'
With that the three of them ate silently for some minutes, Manolo sipping fastidiously at a glass of milk, and occasionally casting long glances at Jay when he supposed himself unobserved. Jay could think of no idle pleasantry to advance to the boy, unless it be a curious enquiry as to whether he was wearing knickers. The heavy abstraction into which Brown had withdrawn seemed to preclude this, or indeed any conversation. Manolo waved the whisky bottle questioningly at him, and came across to top up his glass. The identical impulse that forty-eight hours before had prompted him to feel Naima's buttocks now overcame him again; and as the pseudo-ephebe leant over him with the bottle he brushed the hem of his tunic a few inches up his thigh. He received much the same response.
'I saw that,' Brown said, apparently from the depth of disinterest. 'They're the sort worn with kilts. A boy's model.'
'You've anticipated my precise thoughts
'That's not difficult,' Brown said. 'Incidentally, have you seen Achmed since Halliday's—death?'
'No, I've not seen him,' Jay said. 'He has a family about forty miles away, and I gather he's gone to visit them.'
'The loss of the shop's going to be tiresome.' Brown sighed. 'There's the American Library. Always supposing you want Moby Dick translated into Arabic by the C.I.A. What are you going to do with Achmed when he gets back? He's ridiculously young.'
'Not much younger than this ephebe,' Jay said defensively.
'What's that?' Manolo spoke for the first time.
'A sort of military cadet,' Brown explained.
'My Father was a soldier.' This time, though inoffensively, Manolo pushed the bottle to Jay across the low table.
'So was mine,' said Jay.
'And both were mercenaries in their different ways' Brown delivered this with lazy irony. 'But you haven't answered my question. I'd suggest his becoming a caddy at the Country Club. He must have delivered Books of the Month and Montgomery's memoirs to most of its members. Otherwise talk one of the old ladies into taking him on as houseboy or assistant gardener. How many times has he been in gaol now?'
'Only three time, as far as I know.'
'That's one time too many already,' Brown said grimly. 'You must definitely get him behind one of those walled gardens. Now Manolo actually pinches things from time to time, do you not?' he went on, putting his arm about the boy. 'Only the gods gave you a European face, and I gave you a necktie. It makes all the difference.'
'It was only a wrist watch,' said Manolo.
'Only a wristwatch,' Brown echoed.
'Which old lady would you suggest,' Jay asked.
'The maddest.' Brown was thoughtful. 'The more relatively sane are less likely to take him on. D'you know Hilda Font?'
'No.'
'Late of the Raj. Relict of a Colonel. A drunk, naturally; but then they mostly are. Loaded, mean, but impossibly sentimental. Play up Achmed's Kim value, and suggest a three-months' unpaid apprenticeship, followed by three months at one-and-six a day. Don't whatever you do mention the native currency unit. Can you talk Raj?'
'No!' Jay confessed wildly.
'Then I'll teach you. But, come to think of it, all you need grasp is the essence of the woman. Let me see. An image. The first time I met her I was astonished to see a severed tiger's head glued to the wall. I'd thought such things only happened in Punch cartoons. I remarked it with as grave a face as a stomach full of pernod permits. "Yes!" she boomed, leading me imperiously into the adjoining room, "and that's his mate on the floor" Got the idea?'
'I think so.'
'Good. Failing which, and from the walled garden angle, I'd suggest a Mrs. Allen. Only I think she's a little agin natives,
'She is.'
'You've met her?'
'At the Diergardt woman's.'
'Another possibility that, of course. He might substitute for Naima. No, Clarissa Allen, come to think of it, is not agin natives. Perhaps superficially so. She spends a lot of time in the Diplomatic Forest in the hopeful expectation of being raped. That sounds callous, I know. But it simply is a real fad and fascination with her. Curious.'
Jay smiled faintly, remembering. 'You seem to have your finger thoroughly on the pulse of the place. The wonder is we've never met.'
'Yes,' Brown said ambiguously. 'But I've been watching you some time.'
'So it would seem:
The whisky was loosening them both. A frown of concentration gathered on Brown's forehead; then became almost the strained features of martyrdom. He looked at Jay intensely. 'You met a man called Lom the other day. He—rather the two of you—gave me an idea.'
'What was that?'
'An erotic film.'
'Oh! The blue movie!' Jay laughed; but Brown's furious seriousness was disconcerting. 'We discussed something of the sort.'
'And I want to make one.'
'Starring whom?'
'Manolo.'
'Manolo! You can't be serious!'
'Oh, but I am.'
'And Naima?' Jay stared incredulously. 'Why, Manolo's only . . .'
'No, definitely not. And you.'
'Me?'
Before Jay could protest further, Brown had picked up Manolo and deposited him bodily on his knee; standing back urgently to review the combination. Manolo contrived to look only mildly
surprised.
'Just what is it you have in mind?' Jay asked gently. Manolo made an interesting armful, and he felt no disposition to push him away. Nevertheless it occurred to him that Simon Brown must be rather unpleasantly mad.
'Repair,' Brown said. There was deep agitation mixed with his seriousness.
Jay considered perhaps a full minute. During that time he took a more considerate, though relaxed possession of Manolo. 'Isn't this doing it?' He asked eventually.
'You can put him down,' Brown said. The whisky glasses had a three-inch diameter, but he couldn't keep the draining bottle neck from oscillating musically within his own. 'No,' Jay said resolutely. He sensed Brown would more easily forgive himself if he feigned an element of drunkenness. Either way, it helped him convincingly maul a total stranger. He laid kisses upon the almond-shaped serenity of Manolo's face. The mouth he took by storm; only in slow motion. Whatever his propensity for leaving hosts labelled upon their own carpets, Manolo's easy interest suggested he was not the first guest to be curiously treated either. And what, Jay wondered, carefully and angrily bruising his lip against too perfect enamel with his eyes shut, of that wretched Arab girl? Wouldn't it have been altogether kinder to both Brown and the baby to play these games at a less indirect remove?
Further thought was disrupted by helpless laughter, in which Manolo equally joined. Heaven knew, he must go to the cinema too: the telephone was insistently ringing.
'The taxi man,' Brown announced. 'I don't speak much Spanish.'
And Manolo had disengaged in a trice; leaving Jay with no alternative than to bury his nose in his whisky glass once more.
'Price, for heaven's sake, price!' Brown said agitatedly to the boy at the telephone. Woundingly, Manolo wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. After a moment's listening he cradled the receiver beneath his chin and raised seven fingers.
'Five,' Brown hissed.
'He wants to know whether it's for all night,' Manolo said 'Yes.'
'Què? Si! Seis, hombre. Al instante!' Manolo said firmly, replacing the receiver.
'Six what?' Jay asked, helping himself to the second bottle.
Brown looked resigned. 'Six thousand francs.'
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