Tangier: A Novel

by Stephen Holgate

  A burst of laughter from inside the tavern made him jump. His eyes darted toward the open door beside him.

  When he let go of the breath that had caught in his throat, he told himself that, no, he was simply on edge, tilting toward delusion. Why else would he think that the three sailors sitting at the table near the back of the room looked like the men he’d seen arrested that morning in the little port down the coast? And the presence of a Guardia Civil, his uniform blouse unbuttoned, laughing and drinking with them, was surely just another coincidence.

  Yet he couldn’t help thinking that even a small share of three hundred pounds sterling would easily finance several rounds of beer when divided among both cats and mice.

  M’barak showed no surprise when Laurent approached from the other side of the square. He put the Citroen in gear and pulled away from the curb.

  “Did you find what you were looking for, Monsieur?”

  Laurent searched his face for any sign of irony, but decided the chauffeur could not have known what had happened.

  “Yes,” he said, “and much that I was not looking for.”

  If Laurent had thought M’barak would ask him what he meant, he was disappointed.

  “You found your ring?”

  The woman’s voice stopped Laurent as he crossed the foyer of the villa on his return from town.

  In the shadows of the large main room, Charlotte Wald sat in an overstuffed chair, an open book in her hand testifying to her desire for nothing more than a quiet read. Yet Laurent was certain she had been waiting for him.

  “Yes, I did.”

  This appeared to disappoint her. “I was sure the maid would have taken it.”

  “It isn’t the sort of hotel that has maid service.”

  “How dreadful. So, tell me, how did you do it? Did you wear a false beard and sneak by the front desk?”

  “No. I went in through the back door and up the servant’s stairs. There was a man searching my room. Why would that be?”

  “How should I know? And this man gave you the ring?”

  “Not voluntarily. I had to knock him down and take it from him.”

  Charlotte put down her book and looked at him with genuine surprise. “Bravo. You are a natural Tangerois, Monsieur Laurent—a born sneak. And a thief to boot.”

  “You flatter me.”

  “You’re probably right. It was, after all, your ring, wasn’t it? But I hadn’t taken you for the pugilistic sort.”

  Laurent sensed that she was looking at him in a new way, and he rather liked it. “I suppose Laoui must have told you something about how I came to be here,” he said. “A botched attempt to get out of Tangier. The fishermen who were supposed to convey me to Portugal were rounded up by the Guardia Civil just before I was to board their boat.”

  “It sounds thrilling.”

  “Yet, just now, in town, I believe I saw the crew of the boat in a local tavern, free as birds—laughing and drinking with one of the Guardia Civil who had supposedly arrested them a few hours earlier.”

  She shrugged. “It’s a forgiving town.”

  “I think it’s also one in which people are willing to act out a piece of theater for the price of a few drinks. What it looks like to me is that Laoui found it more profitable to keep the money I gave him than to arrange a boat for me, so he hired a few men to act out a pantomime for my benefit. Then he brought me up here to get me off his hands.”

  “Aren’t you the suspicious one?”

  “Are you saying I’m wrong?”

  She sighed, evidently bored by the discussion. “Everyone has to make a living. It’s a city where it pays to be suspicious.”

  “You make Tangier sound exceedingly complex. So, you’re saying I’m lucky to end up here, rather than still down at that little port, lying by the dock with my throat slit?”

  Charlotte appeared to think this over. “Laoui actually has scruples. That’s why I like him—he’s so original. Besides, I think he rather likes you.”

  “I hate to think of what happens to those he doesn’t.”

  “Or perhaps you’re making a great deal out of very little. You try to leave Tangier surreptitiously but it doesn’t work. A man is thinking of taking your former room, and you come in and knock him to the ground. Some sailors are drinking in a tavern and you imagine conspiracies.”

  The possibility that she might be right made him tired. “I’m going up to my room to rest.” “Yes, I suppose it’s been a long day for you—and it isn’t even dinnertime.”

  Unable to think of a new plan to leave Tangier, over the following days Laurent allowed himself to enjoy the beguiling pleasures of the warm sun and clear skies, to surrender a little more to the entropy that defined life in the Villa Aeaea.

  Roaming the quiet villa, Laurent occasionally ran into the houseboy, who would look at him pleadingly but knew better than to put his hand out. He saw no sign, though, of the other boarders, the Moroccan, Snoussi, or Rivera, the Spaniard. And he almost never saw Charlotte Wald during the day.

  Instead of being asked to dine with his will-of-the-wisp hostess, Laurent took his meals in his room. He might have thought himself no more than a well-treated prisoner but for the fact that no one tried to stop him from taking occasional walks in the neighborhood, and that he continued to share evening drinks in the salon with his hostess.

  Over time their exchanges became less like a fencing match and more like conversations. They drank slowly, smoked cigarettes, and offered a few details of their lives. Charlotte spoke of growing up on her family’s estate outside Geneva and of her years in boarding school near Bern before her father lost the family fortune. “You can’t imagine what it’s like, Laurent, having everything, and then having nothing.” She saw the look in his eyes and added. “Ah, yes. Perhaps you can. You’ll find it does funny things to you.” Her former marriage she referred to only elliptically.

  Her repeated references to money—its former plenty, current lack, and her fervent hopes for more in the future—struck him as distasteful, though he conceded that he might soon be sharing her obsession if he couldn’t find enough of it to get out of Tangier.

  He told of his similar upbringing, the family’s dented fortunes after the Depression, his university days in Paris, and spoke with what he thought was appropriate modesty of his quick rise in the diplomatic corps.

  “Do you have children, Monsieur Laurent?” she asked him one evening. “You’ve spoken of your wedding ring, but not of your wife.”

  He felt an unspoken implication behind her question.

  “No. I . . . we would like a son.”

  She nodded without taking her eyes off him, the suspicion of a smile on her lips.

  Eventually, their conversations were marked by long pauses that grew increasingly comfortable. When the silences grew too long they rose and went their separate ways, Charlotte to whatever part of the house in which she spent her nights, Laurent to his room, where he lay awake, thinking of the war, his own lack of purpose, his wife. And of Charlotte Wald.

  EIGHTEEN

  The tap on the door took him by surprise. It wasn’t time for Rabia to bring lunch, and no one else had come to his room since his arrival at the villa. Laurent put down the week-old newspaper he had found in the salon and rose from his bed.

  In makeup and clothes suitable for a social call, Charlotte made an entirely different impression from the barefoot odalisque lounging around her hareem for one. Her eyes made him aware that he was looking her up and down.

  “May I put them back on now?” she asked.

  He felt his face redden and tried to recover. “Ah, I see you’re wearing shoes today.”

  It was the first smile he’d seen on her face that didn’t appear calculated for effect.

  “I need a small favor, Laurent. I’m going into the city, and I wonder if you could pick up a package for me while I’m gone. It’s in entirely the opposite direction.”

  Though he wondered why she couldn’t send her chauffeur
or Rabia on such an errand, he said, “Certainly.”

  “You’re sweet. M’barak will take you. I’ve called a taxi for myself.”

  “Is this how I earn my keep?”

  The smile disappeared. “If you want to think of it that way.”

  He liked that he had offended her.

  “Who are you?”

  The unshaven man spat the question through the half-open door. Of uncertain nationality and comprehensive unwholesomeness, he might have been the very avatar of Tangier but for his lack of good manners.

  Laurent put on his toniest manner. “Madame Wald said I was to pick up a package from this address.”

  When he had left the villa with M’barak, Laurent had imagined Charlotte was dispatching him to a high-end boutique, or perhaps to a friend residing in a villa much like her own. Instead, M’barak had driven him to a remote tumble-down house in a weedy lot above the Atlantic.

  The man’s red-rimmed eyes darted up and down the road running in front of the house before coming to rest on Laurent. “I don’t know you,” he said.

  “Then we’re even.”

  Scratching his stubbly chin, the man shrugged and flashed a smile sharp as an ice pick. “Stay here,” he said, and shut the door in Laurent’s face.

  He returned with a paper package wrapped in string, about the size of a small loaf of bread but much lighter. Again the man scanned the deserted road, then shoved the package at Laurent. “Tell her to come herself next time,” he said, and slammed the door in his face again, this time for good.

  On the way back to the villa he turned the package over in his hands, hefted it once or twice. When he looked at M’barak to ask, “What is it?” the chauffeur replied only because they both already knew the answer.

  “It is Madame’s kif, Monsieur.”

  When Charlotte came home late that afternoon, he met her downstairs and handed her the package, telling her, “If diplomatic immunity doesn’t cover skipping out on a hotel bill, I’m sure it does not extend to trafficking in cannabis.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Really, you’d think I’d asked you to rob a bank.”

  “Next time,” he said, “just send M’barak if you can’t pick it up yourself.”

  “It makes these villains feel much easier to see a European face at the door. We’re less likely to be in the pay of the Guardia Civil. Besides, I wanted you to feel like a real part of the household, have you pitch in on the chores.”

  If she hadn’t been so transparently manipulative, he might have laughed.

  The Minzah was no less crowded than on their first meeting, but the clientele had changed.

  “Where have the Germans gone?” Laurent asked.

  “A few still come in, but most of them are down at the Rif now,” Torrence said. “We ran them out.”

  “Historians will say that the tide of war was finally turned in the bar of the Minzah.”

  Torrence did not smile.

  “You must have been surprised to get my call, Michel.” Laurent saw the look he got in return. “And more than a little disappointed.”

  “Let’s say I expected a better return on my investment. What happened?”

  Briefly, Laurent related the story of his attempted escape, the assistance of a Moroccan acquaintance, the arrest of the boat’s crew minutes before they were to have set sail. He left out his suspicions that it might have all been a charade; he didn’t mind appearing unlucky to his old friend, but he didn’t want Torrence thinking he had lent his money to a fool. “I’ll do everything I can to repay you.” The promise sounded hollow even to him.

  “So, where are you staying?”

  “At a friend’s.”

  “That sounds quite vague,” he smirked. “It must be a woman.”

  “Not what you think.”

  Torrence raised his eyebrows without amusement. “She’s on our side?”

  “She’s Swiss, stands on her neutrality, though she makes grand speeches against the fascists.”

  “Risky behavior these days. So you have a place to stay.”

  “Yes, but—

  “But you still want out of Tangier.”

  “Exactly,” Laurent said, though he was surprised by the lack of conviction he heard in his own voice. Could a couple of weeks in the moral vacuum of Tangier so thoroughly undermine his character? Already, he better understood Torrence’s willingness to sit back and watch as the war played out to whatever conclusion it might reach.

  “And let’s face it, Michel,” Laurent continued, “you’ll feel more comfortable when I’m gone. Do you think I can cross to French Morocco yet? If I can get to Rabat or Casa and meet the right people . . . ”

  “The right people are all in prison. And that’s saying you’d get as far as Rabat.”

  “So you think they might still be looking for me?”

  “Are you willing to wager your life that they’re not?”

  “Any possibility yet that the Consul-General would sign off on a visa for me?”

  “None. You should be glad he doesn’t know you’re here. In a staff meeting last week he told us that some members of Mendes-France’s cabal—that’s what you’re officially considered—might be here in Tangier, unable to leave. I said nothing—at considerable risk.”

  “Your valor is admirable.”

  “Listen, Laurent—”

  “Let me pull your leg. Just a little.”

  Torrence made an embarrassed smile. “Of course. I didn’t mean . . . ” But of course he had.

  He looked around the room once more, but this time Laurent could see that he was looking at everything through the filter of his own anxiety.

  Abruptly, Torrence ducked his head.

  “Ah. You recognize someone,” Laurent said. “But he hasn’t seen you yet.”

  Torrence kept his head down and gripped his glass tightly. “If I’m going to do you any good, it would be best that no one knew we were in contact—or that you are even in Tangier.”

  “Really, what are the chances someone will recognize me?”

  “More than zero, which is more than you—or I—can afford.”

  Laurent understood what he needed to do. “All right. You’d better go. Maybe we should meet someplace less public next time.”

  Torrence rose and shuffled off, keeping his head down until he was out the door.

  Though he probably had more reason than Torrence to want to slip out unnoticed, Laurent lingered, finishing his gin and tonic, in no hurry to return to his voluntary house arrest up at the villa.

  When the last ice cube clinked against his empty glass, he left a few pesetas on the table and rose to leave.

  “Please, sit back down.” The man’s voice was quiet. Only Laurent would have heard him. “Could we have a word?”

  Without waiting for an invitation, the man who had been sitting at the next table nursing a beer rose and took the chair opposite Laurent. Short, graying, bad teeth and a regimental mustache. His French was good but the accent unmistakably British.

  “My name’s Harris.”

  Laurent was sure it wasn’t.

  “Rene Laurent,” he replied, unable to think of anything better.

  “Yes,” the Englishman said, as if he already knew. “So, how do you like Tangier, Monsieur Laurent?”

  “It’s fine—for a short stay.”

  Harris chuckled. “A short stay. Exactly. Would you care for another drink?” Without waiting for a response, he signaled a waiter. “Another . . . ” He looked at Laurent.

  “Gin tonic.”

  “Yes, just right for a warm night. Two gin tonics.” The waiter nodded and retreated toward the bar. The Englishman smiled and settled down to business. “I won’t ask how you come to be in Tangier. I think we both know.” The off-hand remark sent a wave of uneasiness through Laurent’s gut. “But I believe you would prefer to be somewhere else, doing things you can’t do from here.”

  The Frenchman’s silence brought a small smile from Harris, who now made a more dir
ect approach. “Tell me your plan for getting out of here. I’m assuming if you had an exit visa, or enough money to buy one, you would have already left.”

  Laurent took a deep breath and decided to engage with the Englishman. “I had a plan. It didn’t work.”

  Again that small smile. “But you’d still like to find a way to be of service.”

  Vaguely stated like this, it was an invitation for Laurent to take it as he wished, show his hand or not. He decided to show. “That’s correct.”

  “Perhaps London, with de Gaulle.”

  Yes, Laurent thought, let’s not pretend. This was a British intelligence agent—one who had a professional interest in him.

  Harris leaned over the table and spoke quietly. “Your government may be out of the war right now, but we are still allies, yes?”

  “Are we?”

  The Englishman sat back and looked at him.

  Laurent bored in. “Is it the work of an ally to bombard our fleet in Oran, kill our sailors, sink the Bretagne?”

  Harris’s pose as a slightly bumbling but friendly Englishman evaporated. His eyes were hard now, his manner serious.

  “No one in Vichy and no one in Oran would give us sufficient guarantees that the fleet would not fall into German hands—something we could not possibly allow. We did what we had to do.” He gazed steadily at Laurent. “Look, we know you want to make a contribution to this struggle. Whatever you might think of us right now, we have a common enemy—Germany. This is a fight for our lives as nations, as a people, French and English.”

  “You can get me out of here? Get me to London?”

  “Perhaps. But don’t start packing your bag just yet. I can’t be sure exactly how . . . ”

  “Maybe via Gibraltar.”

  Harris pursed his lips. “I can assure you that you’d be intercepted.”

  “If I went by submarine.”

  “For heaven’s sake, Laurent.” Swallowing his impatience, Harris continued, “But, yes, it’s reasonable to think we could get you to London. Eventually.”

  “You want something from me first.”