Though it sounds superstitious, ridiculous, I still can’t help but wonder whether what happened next was my fault. How do we know the slaughterman wasn’t right about the bull; that its meat carried a bloody violence, which I brought to life?
A good rabo de toro takes at least three hours to cook. Mine stewed quietly at the back of the stove, its powerful scent of meat and bone filling the kitchen. I tried to ignore it and work on other things; wafers of sweet-salt jamón and dishes of toasted almonds, platters of tiny fish ready to fry in oil, and bread to soak up wine. But the stew kept catching my attention. It was as if there was another person in the room, who disappeared every time I turned to look.
All too soon, the sun was sliding towards evening, the church bells were tolling nine and the first guests were arriving, demanding to be served. Aside from sangria, Ifrahim had never shown much interest in drink. After a lifetime within the inn’s walls, I felt differently. Beer was like fuel to some men, wine like blood. Brandy could make them lose their heads and break down crying, sherry could corrupt like a slow poison. Gin was what the girls often drank when alone in their rooms, hard and clear as tears. Drink was a potion, as much as food, and if I could control it, I could control them, the men who came here to satisfy themselves.
It became almost a game to me: how to keep them drunk enough to sing and empty their wallets, but not so drunk they would grow violent or collapse. I diluted wine with lemon soda, to make them drink slower, longer. A canny merchant from Jerez taught me how to make a Rebujito – sherry and soda and a sprig of mint, cool enough for any hot head. In one of Elena’s discarded fashion magazines I even found a recipe for a cocktail, called a Marianito, which I longed to try. But it belonged to another world, to inconceivable places like New York or Paris. It could never exist at the inn. Nevertheless, I kept the torn-out page next to my bed so I could daydream the impossible: that one day I might sit in a bar, in a city far away and order myself a drink, as easily as breathing.
I thought of my dream that evening, as customers hollered for wine, more wine, more raciones, more sherry and I ran to and from the kitchen, trying my best to give them what they wanted, to control them before they went crashing into the night. I was so busy, I almost forgot about the strange, bloody day and the rabo de toro seething on the stove. Until he arrived.
The moment I heard his voice the hairs on my neck rose despite a layer of sweat. My guts turned cold and kinked themselves once, twice as the Señor and his friends sauntered into the inn.
I stopped in the kitchen doorway, waiting for them to pass, to fill their eyes with the sight of the girls in their tight dresses and crowns of flowers and lace. But the Señor didn’t look at them. He looked straight towards me, and smiled.
It was then I understood: he had not ordered the rabo because he wanted it, but because I would have to make it. I would have to pour time and sweat into the pan. I would have to serve him at the table with my own hands. I had thought that cooking was a sort of freedom, a way to gain an ounce of control over the people who dominated my world. But I was wrong. I was not Ifrahim, able to drift and charm and cook my way across a continent. I was a woman, and the Señor only had to flex his will to remind me – to remind the world – what that meant. I would never be free.
By the time I returned to the kitchen my palms were clammy with fury and nerves. I swiped them down the apron, trying to think, my mind cloudy as old fat. He might have ordered the rabo but he didn’t know about the bull, about the blood. Did that make it my weapon, or his? I wasn’t sure. All I knew in that moment was that it was a weapon, and that it was dangerous.
I busied myself with whisking oil and garlic, with dredging fish in flour. I didn’t want to think about him, but I couldn’t stop, the smell of the stew kept getting in my nostrils. Before, the Señor had been content to eat and drink like anyone else, to grasp Elena’s waist and throw the occasional leer my way as I crossed the patio. Why did he now …?
My hands stilled. This was the first feria without Ifrahim; the first year without his quiet presence, filling the kitchen. Perhaps he had spoken for me, all these years, in more ways than one.
I took a breath. I would serve the rabo de toro. I would leave them to their drinking. I would be the cook, nothing more. I told myself all of that, but I also picked up one of the kitchen knives and dropped it into the pocket of my apron. I was no longer a child. I’d do more than vomit on the man if he tried to touch me.
A flicker of movement in the doorway made me start. It was Elena. She was wearing the pale flowered silk dress that the Señor had given her, the year before. It was girlish, but then, that was how he liked her. The lace mantilla, his first gift, fell around her face, over her shoulders and down her back. It made her look like she was on her way to communion. Morales wanted her to seem that way for him, the man who paid to have her clean and to himself for the feria.
We stared at each other, Elena with her soap-scrubbed skin, me soaked in sweat and reeking of the stove. For a moment, the kitchen seemed to fill with the smell of gelatine and roses.
‘Mama sent me to check on the rabo,’ she said. ‘Is it ready?’
I pulled the stew pot towards me and gave it a stir. Rich, viscous and silky with marrow. A piece of the bull’s tail rose, tender around its star of bone.
‘Almost.’
‘Well, hurry up,’ she said. ‘They are drinking imported whisky. It’s making them impatient.’
I glanced over at her. There was something odd about her manner, something furtive. She was worrying at the web of skin between her thumb and forefinger, worrying it red.
‘The Señor seems different tonight,’ I said.
Her round face flushed. ‘What do you mean?’
I could hear the nervousness in her voice, barely held back. I left the stew and took a step towards her, my eyes on the door.
‘What’s going on?’ I whispered.
She looked at me for one shallow breath, two.
‘I’m leaving.’ Her voice was so quiet I could barely hear it over the din coming from the courtyard. ‘He’s going to take me with him, after tonight. He said … he told me that when I turned eighteen he’d take me away from here, set me up in my own apartment.’ She pinched at the skin of her hands. ‘I’m eighteen now. So he’s got to take me with him tonight.’
The lace mantilla, the sherry, the Turkish Delight, they weren’t what had made her bow her head and follow him into a bedroom, four years ago.
‘Elena—’
‘He has to.’ There was a tremble of panic in her voice. ‘He swore he would.’
‘But you hate him.’
She looked up at me. In that moment, I saw Mama Morales in her, in the defiance that coloured her cheeks and made her lips compress, in the rigid stare that said there is no way but this.
‘I hate this place more,’ she said.
And so I set the stew in front of them. I watched from the shadows as they ate, as their mouths and moustaches became coated with juice from meat and bone, as they mopped the thick, brown sauce with bread and washed it down with glasses of their expensive, foreign spirit. When the Señor lifted a piece of meat on a spoon and held it to Elena’s lips, I wanted to rush out and tell her about the blood and the bull, tell her not to eat. But I couldn’t. I could only watch, and wait.
Trouble was brewing. As I crossed the yard to clear the table I could hear it in the music, in every cracked-throat cry and feverish guitar note, in the hands that beat slap slap slap against each other. I collected the dishes. The Señor’s eyes crawled over the nape of my neck.
‘A fine rabo de toro,’ he said, as I loaded the tray. ‘Though a little forceful for my liking.’
I couldn’t help it. I looked at him. He was drunk, his face reddened from sun and alcohol, the brash smell of whisky all about him. His friends had been diluting theirs with seltzer, but I watched as he tipped some into his glass, neat, spilling it on the tablecloth. Beside him Elena sat, pale and sweating. He caugh
t my glance towards her.
‘Poor little Elena, your rabo was too much for her.’ He drank his whisky. ‘Perhaps the two of us should take her up to bed.’
‘Be my guest,’ I retorted and walked away before I could see the consequence.
I didn’t have to wait long. Morales stepped into the kitchen a few minutes later, where I was hacking the bread to crumbs.
‘He wants ice, upstairs,’ she said. ‘Take it to him.’
I stopped my sawing and met her gaze. My lips were shaking with rage. I did what you wanted, I told her silently, I made what he asked for. Now leave me be.
‘I’m busy,’ I said.
‘You are not too busy for this.’
‘Get one of the girls to do it.’
‘No.’ Her face didn’t change. ‘He wants you to take the ice.’
In that moment, I remembered the knife in my pocket.
You know the rest. You know what I found, when I carried that bowl of ice upstairs and opened the door.
Blood and sand. Whisky and violence. Elena with the bottle in her grip – sharp as a freshly broken promise – and the Señor, his throat slashed, bleeding all her hope out on to the rug.
Tangier
July 1978
By the time Sam reached Madame Sarah’s again, it was dark. He’d drifted through the evening streets of the casbah on a wave of good feeling, had even smiled at the kids who nearly hit him in the face with a football.
He was still smiling as he opened the door of the house. Madame Sarah was in the kitchen. It was warm and yellow in there, filled with the crackling sound of the radio, the smell of gas from the stove and fish frying in spices. For a moment, he wished Madame Sarah would smile at him the way she smiled at Pierre, wished she would ask him to sit down and eat with her and Aziz. But her face soured when she saw him.
‘You owe me rent,’ she said, pointing a fork at him. ‘Now.’
He nodded humbly and stepped into the kitchen to count out the money. He didn’t blame her for being angry. He felt awful about it. Impulsively, he added an extra few dirhams on to what he owed. Her eyes narrowed when she saw that. No doubt she was wondering what he’d done to get the money, but he gave her his best smile.
‘Here it is.’
She gave a sniff, and folded it into her apron.
Behind her, next to the gas burner sat a stack of msemen. He could already taste them, the thick, chewy layers, rich with clarified butter, like the best pancake ever made.
‘Could I …?’ he heard himself asking, pointing to them, already knowing what the answer would be.
But to his surprise, she sighed, shook her head a little and picked a couple up.
‘No more late money,’ she said, handing them over.
He knew he must have looked like a fool, grinning and nodding at her, but he didn’t care. He ran up the stairs two at a time, already chewing. His room was cool and blue with its open shutters. A breeze was blowing in from the strait, and he could see the lights from ships, port and starboard stars in the darkness. On a rooftop somewhere near by, a man and a woman were talking softly. Sam smiled to himself and lay back on the narrow bed. In that moment, all of Tangier was the taste of warm flatbread and cumin and sweet mint and smoke, the musk of old leather and the worn, fine presence of the past.
The first thing he saw when he awoke the next morning was the writing case.
He groaned, remembering what it had cost him, on top of a supply of kif. How had he spent almost a week’s rent on a piece of junk? His parents were right, he didn’t deserve money. But at the time it had seemed so … right. He’d believed that the writing case had been waiting for him. He sighed and pushed himself upright. Perhaps Abdelhamid would take it back.
It was good leather, must have been expensive, once. How had it washed up here? It looked tattier than he remembered, the leather gouged on one side, peeling on the other, the initials A. L. almost bare of gilt. The calendar inside was English, he remembered. Did that make A. L. British, or American?
When he turned it over, it rattled, something tumbling inside. Perhaps he hadn’t replaced the pen properly. He swore and balanced it on his knee. Abdelhamid would never take it back if something was damaged. He worked at the rusty catch, and eased it open.
The smell came first; fusty paper and brittle leather. He opened it wider. The paper was there, yellowed but clean, the pen and pencil and ink snug in their holders. What made the noise, then?
He shook it. There was something loose, sliding and rattling about. He looked more closely. The blotter wasn’t set all the way into the case; there was an inch of space beneath.
He tried to work his fingers under the edge. It was difficult, the thing fit perfectly, and he almost gave up, thinking it was too much work for what was probably a nub of pencil.
What else do you have to do? Stare at the space where the Hermes used to be?
Finally, by holding the case upside down and poking one edge of the blotter, he was able to work it free. Gravity did the rest, sending two small objects tumbling out on to the sheet. One of them glinted silver, like sunlight on water.
He leaned forward, wondering whether he’d finally smoked too much kif. But no, his fingers touched metal, tarnished and real. It was a key, a small one, the type that might open a bag or a chest or a bureau. Automatically, he looked to the front of the case, but there was no lock there, just the rusted clasp. Stray key, he thought in delight, what do you open?
Abruptly, he was wide awake. It was as if the silver of the key had shone into his brain and illuminated a corner he had forgotten about. It brought a shiver of excitement, the crackling sensation that came with a new idea, with the urge to write something down. The seed of a story, a mystery. He’d always been a sucker for those, for cheap paperbacks filled with secrets and thrilling adventures, much to the disapproval of his literature professors.
Eagerly, he looked at the other item. It was dull and brown, an offcut of leather, curled like a leaf. Don’t get excited, it seemed to mumble, dead things, that’s all we are. He picked it up anyway, and turned it in his fingers.
It wasn’t an offcut at all, he found, but a rectangle, like a luggage tag. Smoothing it out, he saw a design embossed in gold, a stylized lion’s head. And beneath it, stamped into the leather, was a number:
15
*
Noon found him hurrying through the streets of the medina, the writing case clasped to his chest. In his haste, he stepped in a pile of fish heads left out for the cats and almost slipped, but he carried on, not thinking about his shoes, just trying to reach the shop before it closed for lunch …
‘Abdelhamid!’
He caught him just as he was turning the key in the lock.
‘Monsieur Hackett,’ Abdel greeted. ‘Good afternoon. You have not run out already?’
‘Not yet.’ He tried to catch his breath. ‘I was looking at the case, and I found something inside.’
‘Oh?’ Abdelhamid squinted. ‘What did you find?’
‘A key –’ Sam dug into his pocket ‘– a key for something, like a chest. Did the case come with anything else? From the same set of luggage maybe? And I found this too. Do you know what it’s for?’
He held them out, the key and the crumpled leather tag. A second later, he felt a stab of uncertainty. What if Abdelhamid thought they were important and wanted to take the case back? Sam gripped the handle tighter.
But Abdel just shook his head, turning the little silver key in his fingers. ‘No, no, it was always alone, always just …’ He looked down at the label, and shrugged. ‘Why? You think they are something?’
Yes, he wanted to insist, they are. But of course, they were probably not. Whatever the key opened – suitcase or travelling trunk – it was no doubt long gone, crushed in some dumpster back in the States or mouldering in an attic in an English village. Whoever A. L. was, they probably owned a dozen keys far more important than this one. And yet, here was a piece of someone’s life, a sliver of
it, from fifty years ago; perhaps, if he tried, he could find out more.
‘Could you talk to your brother Mouad?’ he asked. ‘See if he remembers where the case came from?’
Abdel’s frown transformed into a smile. ‘You are inspired by this,’ he declared, patting the case. ‘You see? I told you. Much better than a typewriter!’
Sam laughed with him. It was true, he felt inspired. The case, the key – they itched at his brain. He found himself speculating, imagining, eager for more. He could get a story out of it: a mystery of the casbah, beginning with a young man who finds a key … Either that, or he was just desperate for something to do. He shoved the thought aside.
‘So you’ll ask Mouad?’
Abdel jerked his head. ‘I will try. Come.’
Sam sat at the back of the café for twenty minutes, his feet twitching in his shoes, listening to Abdelhamid’s phone call, not able to understand more than a few words.
‘Mouad does not remember the case,’ Abdel said finally, hanging up the phone. ‘He says, if he sees it, maybe he will.’ He shook his head, seeing Sam’s disappointment. ‘He will visit soon, before Ramadan. Then we can ask him.’
‘When is Ramadan?’ Sam followed him out of the café.
‘August. The first days. You will still be here, then? You shouldn’t miss it.’
Sam tried to smile. He had enough money for another two weeks, but then … ‘I hope so,’ he said.
After saying goodbye to Abdelhamid, he wandered out into the heat of the Grand Socco. It was busy and baking, café tables crammed beneath awnings and faded umbrellas, all occupied by people trying to cool themselves with tea or Coca-Cola. He hadn’t eaten since the msemen Madame Sarah had given him the night before; had been filled instead with kif and excitement. Now, he found himself ravenous.
An Echo of Scandal Page 5