Alexandra Singer

by Tea at the Grand Tazi

  Rupert pulled up a chair and Maia relented. He seemed genuinely despondent. “I regret ever getting involved with them now. That woman is like a vampire! She wants me all the time. And the husband... I just can’t stand him anymore, with his hangdog air and awful jibes.”

  “So why are you here?” said Armand.

  “To check out the talent, of course!”

  Maia and Armand exchanged a silent and surreptitious look.

  “You’re drunk,” Maia said. “You prefer men, don’t you, Rupert?”

  “Do you have a problem with that?”

  “Of course, I don’t Rupert. But it makes me wonder how you bear being a woman’s manservant, especially one as unattractive as Lucy Bambage.”

  “Don’t call me that!”

  “But my friend,” Armand said softly, “that is exactly what you are.”

  “I know,” wailed Rupert, and half the café’s clientele turned to look at him, “it’s so awful.” Maia suspected that Rupert was finding material luxury no substitute for thwarted passions.

  “How did you know where to find me?” Maia asked.

  “It wasn’t really you I was looking for,” he said, and winked. “But I asked around. Apparently the locals don’t find it so difficult to spot a western woman trying to blend in. What are you doing here?”

  “The company is better. I found Armand in the street. Or rather, he found me.”

  “How coincidental,” said Rupert.

  “Yes, I thought so too,” said Armand.

  “Have you two met before?” asked Maia.

  Armand looked down.

  “But of course we have!” laughed Rupert. “Armand is a regular at the Grand Tazi. He is rather tight with Mahmoud and your Historian.”

  “Really?” asked Maia, thinking about Mahmoud’s warning the other night.

  “J’adoute!”

  Armand and Maia both looked at Rupert.

  “Armand, you just touched the knight!”

  Armand looked at him blankly.

  “I’m afraid I’m rather strict on the subject of chess. I believe that if you touch a piece, even inadvertently, you must move it. You must say, ‘J’adoute’.”

  “That is ridiculous, Rupert. I might as well start on you with a lecture about the phallic symbolism of chess pieces. Ignore him,” Maia said to Armand. “This man is just a gigolo.”

  Armand smiled at them both benignly. Rupert was looking around the bar, shifting in his chair as the look of desire flitted over his face. She wondered how he was able to tolerate the arrangement with the Bambages. Despite his slimness, there was a certain vulnerability about him. He had the face of one plunged into corruption.

  A moment later, Rupert’s attention was fixed once more on the chessboard.

  “So, my friends, did you know that chess originated in India, probably around the sixth century. The sixty-four squares of eight by eight is the mandala, the symbolic representation of the Universe. It was a game of warfare and fate – ”

  “It still is,” said Armand.

  Rupert trailed off as he realised that Armand was staring at him. Maia was astonished to see the self-important Rupert silenced with a mere look.

  Armand stood up. “I don’t think we will continue with the game. Maia, it seems you have won.”

  “Armand, don’t be a bad loser.”

  “Of course not Maia! It looks as if you have won. I can’t hang around here all day dragging out the game.”

  “But I will play with you instead!” said Rupert.

  “I don’t think so. I’m taking Maia down to the Grand Tazi. I have something to discuss with Mahmoud.”

  “Then I shall accompany you!”

  “Shall you?” Armand raised his eyebrow.

  “I don’t mind.” Maia was becoming fond of Rupert and his eccentric ways. She was pleased by his decision to align himself with her after Lucy Bambage’s comments. She accepted Armand taking charge, and found that she enjoyed it.

  Chapter 6

  When they reached the Grand Tazi the violet sky was filled with shadows, and storks lined the city walls. In the dark, smoky recesses crudely carved into the stone behind the pool, sat several Russians and Arabs quietly conversing, their heads bowed closely together. It was becoming obvious to Maia that the Grand Tazi was a popular venue for unsavoury exiles, for expectations and transactions. Beneath the darkening sky, Maia saw how Mahmoud’s shabby yard might come to appear almost luxurious, despite the weeds twisting around the fixed stone plinths, the cracked, peeling walls, and the filthy, ragged curtains. Emerald tiles lay broken beneath her feet, and Mahmoud had added several small lemon trees placed in huge terracotta pots placed around the pool. Light glowed gently from intricately worked iron wrought lamps of tinted glass, which hung from the walls.

  Maia’s stomach dropped as she turned and saw the Bambages. Watching them interact with one another and their paid escort, Rupert, who had returned straight to them just as surely as a dog returns panting to its master, Maia wondered how the purple faced Martin Bambage found it possible to tolerate such an unbearable situation. All these people had something in common; they had nothing in mind but a taste of oblivion whilst remaining cocooned in their wealth. Fleeing expectations that they were either unwilling or unable to meet, they were sidesteppers of life, who were more than willing to leave everything behind and wait out their time beneath the North African sun.

  Armand and Rupert disappeared off somewhere, and Maia hesitated to approach anybody. Mahmoud was nowhere to be seen, and no other familiar faces were visible. As she approached the pool, she noticed the Historian sitting on the edge, dangling his legs in the water, his trouser legs rolled up. His arched eyebrows and patrician face, his high cheekbones and straight mouth set in the stiff entirety of his face, she sensed a real dishonesty about the man. His trousers were dirty and splashed. The sight of the reserved and distinguished Historian sitting there was an amusingly strange sight. He looked to her like a small schoolboy playing truant.

  Maia sat down beside him.

  “And how is it going with you this afternoon?” said the Historian, as if she saw him everyday.

  Maia was learning to play the game. “Very well. You do look a little overdressed for paddling.”

  The Historian had brought a man with him back from the bar, who was standing just behind. “Hello.” The man reached down to take Maia’s hand. He had long, thin fingers and they were icy to the touch. An enormous gap between his two front teeth lent him an unassuming lisp.

  The man’s name was Konstantin and he had a bald, marble looking head, upon which spectacles perched. Konstantin moved in an awkward way, his trunk seemed unstable, and as he spoke he swayed like a willow tree in the breeze. Amongst the hordes of vacationing foreigners, Maia had come to recognise the occasional individual who appeared a little more accustomed to their surroundings. The world of foreigners in Morocco existed separately whilst remaining at the same time part of the broader society. They had their own economy, myths and code of ethics. At first Maia thought they were, for the most part, the frauds, the freaks and the failures who could not make it at home, but by now she was prepared to admit that their stories were more varied and complex than their appearances would suggest and the Grand Tazi was the social hub for this transient tribe. Konstantin followed the Historian obediently around the bar. Every time the Historian moved, his bulbous eyes swivelled to follow him and they barely left him for a moment. He glared at Maia as the Historian talked, his animosity palpable.

  “What is this statue?” asked Maia, and she pointed to a grotesque statue, which had been placed awkwardly on a raised plinth at the furthest corner of the pool. Carved in grey stone, it was a small, awkward creature with a hugely swollen, obscenely large member. It was grinning lewdly at her in the dusk. Maia wanted to tear her eyes away from the creature, but it stood directly facing the guests, commanding their attention.

  “That is the Priapus, Mahmoud keeps it here to guard his garden.” sa
id the Historian, managing to maintain a serious expression.

  “Really?” said Maia, incredulously.

  “Oh yes,” said the Historian, “the Priapus was the ugly child of Aphrodite, cursed by Hera, who made him offensive in his ugliness.” Maia inspected the statue; he seemed to lend the hotel an even more hedonistic air.

  “Priapos was born from Aphrodite’s womb with a huge belly, feet and hands, nose and tongue, and this gigantic, continuously erect phallus. It seems that Aphrodite was so offended that she cast Priapos out and abandoned him.”

  “How cruel,” was all that Maia felt able to say.

  “Very cruel,” continued the Historian, “but due to his voracious fertility, he is presumed to protect gardens.” Happily he quoted, “‘O, wayfarer, thou shalt fear this god and hold thy hand high: this is worth thy while, for lo! There stands ready thy cross, the phallus.’”

  Maia looked on, sceptical. Everything that the Historian was; her suspicions of his dishonesty, his chequered past, his secrets, were inseparable from this hotel. The Grand Tazi kept drawing her in; she was intrigued by the oddness of it all. When Maia was around the Historian, she was starting to have the horrible suspicion that he was mocking her.

  “Who said that?” asked Maia.

  “Virgil. Be careful not to transgress.” And with that, the Historian sauntered off to speak to Mahmoud, and Maia was left alone with Konstantin.

  “Mihai tells me that you are an artist,” he said, “and that you are obsessed with painting the female form.”

  Maia sighed. “I have already explained this. You must admit that especially here, the social presence of women is very different to that of a man. To be born a woman is to be born into the keeping of men, into an allotted and confined space.”

  “Have you finished?” Konstantin asked, in his bizarre lisp.

  She continued, though slightly taken aback, “Do you not understand that a woman must constantly watch herself? Here, I must always watch myself. It becomes a little tedious.”

  Konstantin smiled. His accented English was stilted. “I feel I must tell you not to worry. I prefer men.”

  “I am sorry. Then I suppose that you have visited The Parador bar?” said Maia, recalling the café she had visited with Armand.

  “Of course, but usually I come here. I have seen several of your new friends there, however.”

  Maia was intrigued. “Which friends?”

  Konstantin only tapped the side of his nose with his long fingers. He leaned towards her. “Don’t trust him.”

  “Trust who?”

  “Anyone.”

  “Not even you?” Maia tried to joke, she didn’t like the turn the conversation was taking. “Do you mean Armand?”

  “I was not referring to him. But, him too. I am sorry for him.” He said this with a tone of superiority.

  “Why is that?”

  “He must run to the Historian’s whims; he is desperate for success. He runs too much. They do not like one another.”

  “I know he has suffered,” said Maia.

  “No, you do not know what you think you know. Armand makes many other people suffer too.”

  “So he is damaged, that is not so unusual.”

  “Be careful. Armand suffers no internal conflict. If the theory is correct that feeling is in the head, then... the Historian is the worst. He likes to weave his webs.”

  “Webs? What do you mean? I thought you and the Historian were close.”

  Konstantin beamed proudly. “We are. But that does not mean he is without fault.”

  “What is it exactly you are trying to say?”

  “The Historian likes to research people.”

  “People?”

  “Yes, he likes to test them.”

  “Does he test you?” Maia was laughing now; in an attempt to cover up her feelings of discomfort.

  “In the past, he did. Now he has no need to test me further.”

  Maia was forming her next question as Armand walked over to them, accompanied by Mahmoud and the Historian. Together they passed the rest of the night as other clientele wandered aimlessly around the bar. The Historian remained deep in conversation with Mahmoud, whilst Maia and Konstantin talked together quietly.

  When he looked at her, his eyes were warm, and Maia sensed that Konstantin was able to get away with almost anything he wanted. Around them people exchanged their meaningless pleasantries. Maia felt Armand’s cold eyes penetrating her, almost immediately she contemplated surrender. She curled up on her chair.

  “I’m feeling very sleepy,” she said quietly to Armand. With a subtle smile she offered herself to him, and a silent and surreptitious look passed between them. The Historian caught their glance, and smiled. They left Mahmoud with the Historian, and Armand walked her back to the riad.

  In the room alone with him, it struck her how small and airless the space was. He placed his hand upon her thigh, and she looked away. She knew what was to come, and she didn’t mind. She had resigned herself to its inevitability. The heat allowed her to relinquish all authority. He stood only a foot away from her, but she was unable to step towards him.

  “I was watching you – ”

  “I know.”

  “I want to talk to you properly,” said Maia.

  “What is the point of that?” smiled Armand.

  “I need a friend here.”

  “We will not be friends,” Armand said, pulling her closer. Later, she realised that would have been the moment to stop.

  “Why not?” asked Maia, closing her eyes.

  “Because all of the interactions between a man and a woman are sexual.”

  “I do not believe that.” She opened her eyes, pulling away from him. “Why has the Historian never returned to Europe?”

  “He has never wanted to. He likes it here.”

  “Then why is he so bitter?”

  “The Historian’s former colleagues were ungrateful.”

  “Do you know what happened?”

  Armand shrugged. “They did not get on. They were not cooperative. You should ask him.” He knew that she would not. The Historian was far too intimidating. “But you don’t want me to be your friend. You want me to conform to the needs of your unhappy life,” he said.

  Maia didn’t reply. What Armand didn’t know was that behind Maia’s passion, she believed that if she could be seen as the property of Armand, she could continue to visit the bar at the Grand Tazi, liberated from Mahmoud’s advances.

  He traced the lines of her face, her nose, the corners of her lips. He pulled her closer still, and there were his hands on her waist, the exploration of her breasts. She succumbed to him.

  “I feel as if I’ve always lived in exile, never belonging.”

  “You are very sentimental.”

  “I can’t help it. That’s the way I am.”

  Even to her own ears she sounded ridiculous. The truth was not so romantic; she always felt as if she were missing out, as if the party was somewhere else. Now she stood naked before him, and he came towards her.

  “What do you want, Maia?”

  “I want to lose myself.”

  “I can give you that,” he said.

  There was a darkness and an expectation, and an exciting vulnerability, and then it came hot and stagnant, eyes closed and bodies enlaced. With his thighs pressing down upon her she dissolved herself into a frenzied emptiness. She longed for annihilation, life without responsibility, and at some point she must have murmured this to him, for he raised his head to her and acknowledged it. He thrilled her, with his uncertain past and unreadable emotions, and bonded by sweat she abandoned herself to their nocturnal pleasure.

  She knew she had demeaned herself. That he wanted to leave as quickly as possible. That she disgusted him. There was silence in the room and a growing aliveness outside. She felt lightheaded, the events of the night before unfolding like a dream. She followed him down to the front door of the riad. Ina was standing in the corridor leading to the
courtyard, looking at Maia as she passed her by.

  “Putain.” For a moment Maia was uncertain if she had heard the whispered word, but when she turned round Ina was staring up at her maliciously.

  Maia ignored her and returned back up the stairs to her room, where she lay discarded and silent upon the bed.

  From their first night together, Armand knew that he had her hooked. The power he felt himself holding over her was delicious in its irresistibility; the memory of it made him wince with desire. But Armand was the type of man who thinks that he loves women. He loved their shape, their warmth and their scent. But he despised the way they made him feel, their pull on him and all their sordid manipulations. And even when they came to understand this, still they found him fascinating. He pitied them. For Armand, Maia was a woman to pursue, and nothing more.

  If Maia had known Armand’s thoughts, they would have horrified her. But now as she looked herself over, she felt only repulsion for the person she had allowed herself to become. She washed her face and wiped the sleep from her eyes, watching the transformation take place as she made herself become all that she showed to the outside world, whilst inside she was still able to remain detached.

  Nobody disturbed her as the day dragged on. In the afternoon the streets were empty, abandoned to indolence and heat. The sun climbed in the sky over the ochre hued city and then began to fall. When she woke, covered in sweat, as the wailing muezzin called the faithful to prayer, it was to a silent house. The room was suffocating. She opened the door, padded out over the smooth stone slabs and called to Ina. There was no reply, only the sound of water tinkling in the courtyard. She went to dress. In the tiny bathroom there was only cold water but she cared little and stood under the cold trickle for a long time. She dressed in light jeans and a loose shirt and went on to the roof, to drink what was left of her bottled water and smoke the first cigarette of the day. Somewhere she had read that these flat roofs had once been the preserve of women, from where they could watch the life on the streets yet remain invisible. She surveyed the homing pigeons on the rooftops beside her and peered downwards into the endless, seething labyrinth of side streets. She sat there for hours, before a drumming sound awoke her from her daze, and she could see the men making their way towards prayer.