Paradoxically the situation of Tangier eased briefly after Teviot's death. There was a temporary increase in money and provisions from England, the pitiable lack of which bedevils the entire twenty-two-year period. Some of the troops' pay was two years in arrears; such few shovels as the garrison possessed were found to have vanished, sold, one supposes, by enterprising privates. But a further factor was that Ghailan's own days were now numbered. The Saadien dynasty, ruling the interior of Morocco, scarcely explored, and still less touched by Europeans at this time unless they were building walls as slaves, were ousted by the Filali Sharifs, who came from Telilalet in the country's deep south. Theirs is the same dynasty which, though named Alaouite, rules Morocco today. But meanwhile the first of the Filali sultans, Rashid, was conquering northwards, and Ghailan, and other Berber dissidents, were being systematically eclipsed.
Rashid was succeeded by the most important and bizarre figure in Morocco's history. Moulay Ismael was a ruler of genius, and cementer of the modern empire; but his personal deportment was disgusting in the extreme. He killed arbitrarily as a matter of daily routine. Thus he would disembowel a member of his Black Guard on parade, and decapitate the page holding his stirrup, though whether in the interests of testing his sword's edge, or obviating the need to utter a command, is unclear. Most likely he did not rationalize these, and more organized diversions, at all.
Moulay Ismael's significance for the English in Tangier was his contempt for all Europeans (the rising walls of his great new capital of Meknes were said to be reinforced by the Christian slaves who died on the job being promptly built into them); but also, and paradoxically, his far-sightedness as a statesman. He dispatched an ambassador to the court of Charles II. For six months the ambassador feasted, ceremoniously visiting both Oxford and Cambridge, while Caroline London gaped, in Hyde Park at magnificent displays put on for its citizens by squadrons of cavalry who had accompanied his Excellency. Eventually a treaty was concluded in respect of Tangier. This was never ratified. Upon his return to Morocco it was discovered that Moulay Ismael had cut off his ambassador's credentials as arbitrarily as if they had had been his personal retainers' heads. One can envisage the expressions on the wigged faces in Whitehall. Tangier, which Charles called 'the brightest jewel of my crown', was a wasting asset; and moreover the government had been made fools of by a despot, about whose terrible idiosyncrasies they had undoubtedly heard. For while the ambassador beguiled society hostesses, and the London populace gasped at the Lab-el-baroda, or 'powder play' of his horsemen, the politic Moulay Ismael had not been idle in consolidating his military power. The Tangier garrison now confronted a force quite as fanatical, and many times stronger than Ghailan's defeated Berbers.
And so the British departed until modern times. The 1912 Treaty of Fes made Morocco a French protectorate, with Spain governing small patches of the country. Tangier was in the anomalous position of being controlled by various European legations. In 1925 the Statute of Tangier formalized international control; the governing powers were Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, Holland, Sweden, Italy and Belgium. Extraordinarily the system worked, The thirty-three years before Moroccan independence were to see Tangier boom rich, extraordinary, notorious; particularly during the Second World War, when the tiny town was a cloak and dagger spy centre second only perhaps to Lisbon. High living, contraband, brothels, criminal refuge — Tangier carried on well fed beneath bright lights while the holocaust enveloped Europe.
4. Pad
I trudged through the hot mornings and mid-afternoons calling on the smartest and lowliest house agents, wise only to the fact that the rent of an unfurnished flat was very much a question of negotiation. It was quickly apparent that pleasant places at bedrock rental had become very difficult to find. Although there was now a Rents Tribunal, prices were bound to go up I was assured by the manager of the bank where, rather self-consciously, I opened an account with two five-pound travellers' cheques. I was determined to avoid kind offers of gatehouses or chauffeur's quarters on the Mountain — 'the room where Bill used to do his painting' sort of accommodation,
Then came the breakthrough. Six weeks previously the American writer Harry Atkins and his wife Beth had seen a marvellous penthouse. But it had only one large room, with an ingenious L-shaped bed-alcove. They had sat in it, they told me, willing it to grow fractionally larger. I was at the agent's office early next morning; and moments later dismissing the puzzled concierge who had let me into the flat, explaining I must be alone to think. The flat was an awful mess. One of the glass doors on to the terrace was smashed; and it was filled with rubbish. The venetian blinds sagged, broken, their canvas bands torn and rotten. All electric light fittings had been stripped. There were no curtain rails, But what a flat it was! In addition to the airy, polygonal room with its L-shaped alcove, there was a hallway, a full-sized bath, and a neat kitchen. But the great attraction was the terrace. Wrapped in a full semi-circle about the flat, it measured twenty-two metres long by three deep. It could comfortably lunch fifty while keeping a week's washing out of sight. There were a dozen battered earth boxes filled with parched geraniums and unperturbed cacti. I signed a lease next morning: twenty pounds a month for what was to central Tangier rather as the top floor of Swan and Edgar to Piccadilly Circus.
There was a great deal to do. Not least among complications is that one must in person petition Electricity and Water Companies to inspect your premises and submit a report upon its suitability to consume their products. Something will be wrong. When it is repaired, you petition in person once more for further inspection. If the report is satisfactory, you are offered a contract loaded with deposits. In my case the water was relatively easy. Not so the electricity. I was in the flat when what proved the ultimate inspection was made. Accompanied by a minion, as seems obligatory with officials, the uniformed inspector made straight for the only chair. He opened a huge ledger across his knees and looked preoccupied while the minion tinkered. Passionately I explained that English authors did without refrigerators and electric irons. I showed him my pack of hand-powered razor blades. 'Is everything all right now?,' I ventured tentatively. Officials must be regarded with awe; the inspector wore a red fez,
'Yes,' he announced.
'Then please may I give you some money?'
'No. You must pay at the office.'
'If I pay at the office as soon as it opens this afternoon, can I have electricity tonight? Please.' I had earlier wondered at the Electricity Company whether they sold candles, and been told with a perfectly straight face, no, that I must buy them in a shop; so I was being careful.
'No,' the inspector said. 'You can have electricity tomorrow.'
I bowed slightly as he left, followed by his minion.
By midday the next morning the electricity had not been switched on; and it was Saturday. The Company offices proved to have shut at 11.30. I went to Cohen, the agent. After protesting that it was impossible now to get the electricity turned on before Monday, he nevertheless succeeded in phoning someone in the Electricity Company. Then Cohen's hand slipped up to cover the mouthpiece. 'How much will you pay'. To have it on this afternoon.'
'Six dirham,' I said unsurprised.
'Should that be enough He considered. 'Yes, if it is one man. Perhaps ten dirham if there are two.'
'There will be two men,' I said,
Cohen spoke briefly, then replaced the receiver. 'Someone will come,' he said.
Half an hour later there was a knock on my door since Tangier doorbells are wired to the mains; a system convenient if you are being persecuted, since you can turn them off. Sure enough it was two men, They unlocked the box and switched on, taking less than ten seconds. 'Thank you, gentlemen,' I said producing my ten dirham, or the price of a grand restaurant meal.
With the Water Company there was one fiasco, minor, though proving irreparable. 'Combien de pièces avez-vous, monsieur?' asked the official, anxious to discover what scale of deposit could be extorted. 'Well,' said I,
keen to cooperate scrupulously if it might expedite things. 'let me see. There's a bath, a shower. a bidet, a w.c., a hand basin, and then the two taps in the kitchen.' He looked at me a little oddly. 'D'accord, monsieur, Six pièces.' And of course when I came to query any huge water deposit with friends I realized I'd claimed a six room flat. So be it. Muttering French through grilled and glazed windows in a press of Moroccans is my only excuse for this ruinous stupidity. But I can really let the water flow without fear of its being cut off, When it's short they turn it off anyway.
A man had to be found to erect curtain rails. I seized upon the Moroccan Cohen had employed to repair the glass door. He spent a lot of time contending that his name became Miguel in Spanish and Michel in French, and inviting me to address him by whichever I chose.
First essentials were a bed and mattress. These I bought without difficulty, but expensively, for no imported goods are cheap in Tangier. Next came a complex of three gas burners which I purchased from the company who installed my bottles of butagas; and basic cooking, eating and drinking utensils. I discovered that in the new town it was impossible to buy a single saucepan: one was expected to settle for a battery of five. The same condition governed the sale of those implements used to scoop fried eggs from the pan. One must perforce have several shapes and a vicious tri-pronged fork for sausage turning and domestic defence into the bargain. I resented this engineering of culinary status, rejected both deals, and bought a single saucepan in the Medina, Egg and sausage manipulation for five years remained the prerogative of an ordinary spoon and fork. The arrival of the large bed, and the wicker chair I bought new at the same time, suggested the solution of another problem. I had bought a couple of tables, bookcase, some lamps and oddments from Henry's wife. These had to be conveyed a couple of miles across the city. Required, I was told, was a man with a hand-cart; the price of hire about five dirham a trip. I accordingly made arrangement with the furniture shop's delivery man to have a cart at the suburban house, previously occupied by my friends, the following evening at six o'clock. At six o'clock the inevitable minion was waiting for me not there but at the flat. We went out in a taxi and loaded the cart, which the man had left earlier in charge of the house's watchman. I departed, estimating that it would take the man, who was already impressively panting and blowing, about an hour to make the journey. I could see the snag. My contract had been with the furniture shop's man, who was not on the scene at all. But the minion to whom he had subcontracted the job would expect payment too. As indeed, I realized, and as proved to be the case, would the third man enlisted at my end to convey the stuff up the stairs. I already had sufficient experience of Moroccans' passion for subcontracting to know it would be fatal to pay the overall agreed sum to the man who had actually done the work. Inevitably the man with whom I'd made the deal would turn up and demand it over again. The additional tip I gave the two men (and there was agonized grunting as they staggered, in with not particularly heavy stuff) was insufficient in their estimation. There was much ringing of my doorbell over the next couple of days and, of course, impassioned appeal to any third party who happened to be passing on the landing. Feeling rather a worm, I resisted ruthlessly. A bargain had been struck, and the men tipped additionally. The principal minion, who had done most of the carting. was a rather moronic and alarming looking youth, and I nearly gave in simply to be rid of him. But doing so would have escalated the original fee out of all proportion, and no people are more adept at exploiting the faintest sign of a weak will over money than the Moroccans. The matter was finally resolved by my marching the minion to the furniture shop, where the man with whom I had contracted worked, and obtaining a public declaration that payment had been settled in full.
This incident had a touching consequence. The cartload had included a number of books. Presumably Said, the Soussi shopkeeper with whom I had by then begun to deal, had seen these arrive, for that evening he drew up several books from beneath his grocery counter. Much as I would liked to have bought even one this was impossible, They were all without exception devoted to Christian teaching, with a bias toward, juvenile readership. But they were indeed books; and I think the Soussi was a little hurt that he could not interest me in them.
And so I was installed; curtainlesss, and with borrowed linen. The hotel I had stayed at during the interim had been the Rembrandt. There the manager insisted that I borrow anything useful. He would speak to his head porter, Hamadi, who, according to one of his press profiles I was subsequently shown, had known Lloyd George. I elected only to borrow a pair of double-bed sheets, a single pillow-case, and a bath towel. In a suitcase which had been in store I discovered a musty tea-towel. This was the sum total of my linen.
I had approached Hamadi about finding a maid. Previously I had inherited the woman who went with furnished flats, or the long-standing servant of friends, and had sometimes been frankly intimidated by these. To Hamadi I explained that as the flat was small, and as I should want no cooking done, but also could only afford a couple of hours three times a week, the post might suit a young girl. I was thinking both of my pocket and intimidation fears. In the event both precautions proved useless. However tender in years one's Moroccan servants or associates, sooner or later they will come to run you. Without exception this is the Moroccan's unexpressed ambition and express skill. Nevertheless Hamadi said, 'A young girl, Mister Stewart, I understand.' I was quite excited.
The next morning there turned up a fat and rugged little thing of about sixteen, bouncy, determined, and scarcely meek. Hasnah and I began to negotiate wages. We ended by my agreeing to pay twice what I was paying mature and responsible women in the years to come. I also paid a small sum down in advance, as much out of fear I might spend it myself as from good nature. This proved a mistake. In subsequent months Hasnah affected not to understand why it didn't happen regularly, but it also instigated credit consciousness elsewhere. Hasnah this morning had a tuna sandwich with olives and a bottle of Coca-Cola,' Said, the shopkeeper, would announce when I came, as I did every evening to settle my account with him. Worse was to come. With the half-loaf of bread she brought up from the shop for me Hasnah one morning delivered a note from Said. 'Would you give me twenty-five dirham for une affaire personale SVP,' it read. I nearly panicked. This was blackmail. Friends had pointed out that should Hasnah become pregnant by a Moroccan boyfriend I, as her legal employer, was forbidden to sack her, and might be required to keep the baby for ninety years. The twenty-five dirham proved to be credit she had elicited on her own account from the Soussi, who was hoping that I would take over the debt.
Hasnah's punctuality now varied from anything between thirty to ninety minutes late. But by that time I had in daily attendance a literate young Moroccan I had known for several years, who had been at school in England and who, quite simply, awed her with firm charm as, unchallengeably to a Moroccan girl, with maleness, Hasnah's emergency control was shamelessly delegated to a thirteen-year-old boy. Their conferences, particularly when Norodin chose to deliver a pep-talk about bath-cleaning or drying the cutlery (which, being scarcely silver, was going rusty) were so funny that I would sometimes have to go out on to the terrace to hide my amusement. Norodin remarked to me with some gravity that he had seen Hasnah on the Boulevard at midnight, and that this was a bad, even sinister sign of her frivolity. I didn't inquire what Norodin had been doing abroad himself at that hour.
About Norodin, who elected to call himself my secretary, roundly announcing as much at the reception desk of the Velazquez hotel for instance when returning a typescript to Alec Waugh, more will be said. His only advice its respect of the maid, which I rejected, was that I sack her and let him find me someone else. I knew the suggestion was politically motivated by his own power ambitions,
The desire and ability of Moroccans to discover, buy, and negotiate on one's behalf goes, I believe, far deeper than the small commissions and trader influence these exercises inevitably afford. It is an historical tradition dating from times when the
protection of European legations was extended to numerous individual Moroccans, particularly in Tangier, in return for services and loyalties, and which survives today as an almost courtly conception of the personal patron. They are not a dependent people, far less a servile one. Yet the search for 'protection' is there. Religion also plays a part. Its fundamental place in a Moslem's life is often remarked, but is desperately elusive of definition. To a Moroccan the Christian will always be apart. Yet he is accepted as on the whole a more technologically and politically powerful human being. Religion, or more particularly the temperament of Islam, insists that if the Christian be not positively scorned, then that he be tirelessly guyed. He is there to be used; and this in a way that the manipulator both couldn't and wouldn't formulate, and is perhaps scarcely conscious of. The paradox is that while the game goes on all the time under the surface, it does not disrupt personal loyalties. This is the Moroccan's supreme manipulation. He never permits the two totally different worlds and philosophies to intrude upon one another; and that other side, which is really the inner side of one's friends or one's servants, remains a mystery. The few Europeans and Americans I know who have lived a long time in close, and sometimes intimate association. with Moroccans, freely admit that they know little or nothing abbot these individuals' lives. If you press an inquiry you will be met with answers that are less lies than foils. Moreover the foils will alter quite arbitrarily from day to day, even moment to moment, without remotely embarrassing the person questioned by their inconsistency. You've asked a question, and politeness requires an answer. But your answer will be (sometimes delightfully) inconsequential, and comes to you across an unbridgeable gulf. The response is to accept it with appearance of good faith; then forget it, at least as any working hypothesis.
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