The rock towered above us as we walked, white gulls circling the crags. In the clear morning light, I could see buildings; stark military defences and white villas, steep rows of houses and before it all, a dusty strip of no-man’s-land.
When we reached the border I understood what the man meant about pickings, for there was a queue of motor vans, rumbling and spluttering, waiting to cross into Gibraltar. They were being held, I saw, while British soldiers checked papers. I shrank back at the sight of those uniforms, but the old man quickened his pace, joining the half-dozen beggars already there. By the time the next vehicle pulled up, they were at its side, jostling to reach the windows.
I watched, unable to take in more than one thing at a time. It seemed an unlikely way to get anything, especially beneath the glare of the soldiers, who occasionally shouted and kicked stones at the beggars’ ankles. I kept my head low, afraid to be seen, until I realized I was making myself more conspicuous by standing on my own. I stepped into the shelter of the group.
Before long, I was jostled forwards amongst them. I copied them, holding out my hands and saying por el amor de Dios, por favor señor, my children are starving, please señora, please help us, my mother cannot feed my brothers and sisters, I lost my job, Dios te bendecirá.
From the first few vehicles I got nothing except elbows and shoves from the other beggars. I flinched and clasped at my cap, afraid that it would be knocked off, that I would be discovered. Perhaps it was that cringing posture which made a deliveryman throw a céntimo and his half-smoked cigarette towards me. I snatched up both like a wolf, and smoked the cigarette in quick, hungry drags. It was cheap and acrid but the nicotine filled me with a fizzing sort of spice, pushed the haziness at the edge of my vision back a few inches. I gave the end of it to the old man who had told me about the tap, and then passed my second crumpled cigarette around the group, which earned me a little more currency with them, and fewer elbows.
It was endless, thirsty work, but it held the possibility of money, and anyway, I did not know what else to do. As the sun began to dazzle overhead, my voice grew hoarse and cracked from pleading. The cars grew less frequent, for no one, not even the British, were fools enough to venture out on the roads at noon. Eventually, the other beggars began to wander off, to pass the rest of the day asleep in the shade. I would have done the same, had I known where to go. Walking away would mean abandoning myself to the streets of La Atunara once again, where someone might recognize my stolen clothes.
One more car, I told myself, as the sweat trickled from beneath my cap, one more.
I was the only beggar left, apart from a pair of boys who were more interested in taunting the soldiers. Every time I blinked the stinging brightness of the road from my eyes, it became harder to open them. When I fought my eyelids up for what must have been the tenth time, I thought that I must have been dreaming.
An automobile was roaring towards me, flashing silver in the sun, like nothing I had ever seen. Through the dust and the dazzle of the windscreen I saw a face; white teeth shining, a slick of dark hair, a bright eye, peering over smoked lenses. It was the face of an altar saint, surrounded by brilliant gold.
To this day, I can’t say what made me do it. Was it the glamour of that car, the heat and my hunger? Was it desperation? Or was it the pull of the future, a bolt of electricity lighting up all that was to come?
I don’t know. All I know is that when the beautiful, shining car came within ten feet of me, I met the eyes of the driver, and stepped into its path.
Part Two
Tangier
July 1978
Sam wrote for hours, by the light of the cheap little bedside lamp. Around him, he heard the house settle; stairs creaking, bedroom doors closing, lights being switched off. Outside the open window, night began to bloom. It seeped through the plaster walls, fluttered in the form of the tiny moths that found him, wedged in the corner of the room, the pen scratching at sheets of paper, the edge of his hand ink-stained a deep, ocean blue.
Eventually, he squeezed his burning eyes closed, easing out a crick in his neck. He had no idea what time it was. Not morning, but not far off either. Outside, the streets seemed utterly still, as if the hustlers and grifters had finally given up, and night had rolled down the hill to the beach, to disappear into the cool, grey sand.
Sam picked up the papers, covered on both sides with his spiky writing, and shuffled them into some kind of order. He smiled as he did it; how long had it been since he’d written a stack of pages like this? A year, two years. Not since college.
The stolen letter was the first chapter – he’d have to try and remember it at some point. This second chapter of … whatever it was he was writing, began with a heading, with the words Blood and Sand.
He put the pages to one side. Though he was tired, he didn’t want to stop. If he stopped, he might start thinking too hard about what he’d done, taking a stranger’s possessions from the Hotel Continental, pawing through them, writing about them, like a voyeur.
Inspiration, he told himself, that’s all this is. And anyway, A. L.’s long gone. Rubbing his face, he dipped the ink pen again, and turned over the sheet of paper he’d been writing on.
Pencil marks caught his eye, silvery in the dim light, like veins beneath skin. He blinked hard. Was he seeing things?
Words. There were words, scrawled across the page at a hasty angle, in pencil so faint it didn’t show on the other side of the paper. A drop of ink splattered from the pen and he swore. What if he’d ruined the page by writing on the other side, made it illegible? He dropped the pen into the ink bottle and held the page directly under the lamp to see.
Sure enough, blue ink had seeped through, making the letters difficult to decipher. Why hadn’t he been more careful? This page had been in the writing case the whole time, waiting for him, if he’d only been patient enough to look for it.
He turned the page this way and that, peering at the shining lead letters. Only when he brought it closer to his face did he see the top line:
A,
A what? An initial, an address? Was this a letter to A. L. – just like the one he had written in the café?
He sat back, eyeing the paper. He was burning with curiosity and yet this page – whatever it was – had never been intended for him. What if it contained something deeply personal?
Almost unintentionally, his eyes strayed back to the paper. It was no use; he had to know.
D Portuna, 28.7.28
A,
I am sorry.
One day, I hope you’ll understand.
*
He woke in a sweat at noon and pushed back the shutters, feeling as if he’d been running all night. Outside, the city was alive. He breathed it deep, tasting the bustle of the day, the tang of the sea, burning rubber, wet dust from washing. Leaving the window open, he went back to the tangled sheets and looked down at the writing case, open on the floor, surrounded by ink-scrawled papers. The pencil-written page lay on the top now. Rubbing his eyes, he picked up the stub of pencil from the case, wondering if it was the same one which had written that feverish note.
After a while, he fished around for a scrap piece of paper. Not the stuff from the writing case, he wasn’t making that mistake again. Instead, he found the airmail letter from his parents, clumsily folded. Such a grateful son, he thought as he smoothed it out and wrote on the back:
A. L. = A?
Alejandro del Potro?
Game – rules?
28.7.1928?
Continental?
Blood and Sand?
Sorry?
There was something else, some word that had prickled at him. Going back to the beginning of the letter, he saw it:
D Portuna.
D Portuna. An unfamiliar word. Someone’s name? He scrawled it down, followed by another infuriating question mark.
By mid-afternoon, he was wandering up the Rue Anoual, turning it all over in his mind. A writing case lost to the casbah, a letter n
ever sent, a suitcase never collected, all fifty years ago. A strange passport and now this name: Portuna.
It was like eavesdropping on a conversation, without being able to hear the whole thing. He’d fill in the gaps using his imagination; weave these fragments together into characters, events, into a story that made sense.
If you’re going to play the game, you have to learn the rules.
Smiling, he pushed open the door of the Gran Café de Paris. He hesitated for a moment, feeling the waft of warm air from the ceiling fans. He shouldn’t waste money, not even on coffee. Even with the small flush of cash from Abdelhamid, things would soon begin to look threadbare again. There was nothing else to sell, no one else to ask, except maybe Norton … The idea made him grimace. But what the hell, he decided, he couldn’t stay in his room all day, and it was only a dirham. He sat down in the corner, and placed the writing case in front of him. His head was bubbling over with ideas, just waiting to be brought to life in scratchy ink.
‘Café, shukran,’ he said to the waiter who appeared on the other side of the table.
‘Excusez-moi, vous êtes appelé Hackett?’
He looked up in shock. He’d never told anyone at the café his name.
‘Yes.’ He half stood from the chair. ‘Is everything all right?’
The waiter signalled for him to sit down again. ‘Oui, oui, pas de problème. Mais … I have something for you.’
Did he mean the letter? Maybe one of the waiters had taken it after all, and here was the manager, giving it back. Sure enough, the man was reaching into the pocket of his apron and pulling out an envelope. He laid it on top of the writing case.
‘Is that my—’
Sam stopped abruptly. The envelope was addressed with one word:
HACKETT
For a second, he couldn’t speak.
‘Where – did you get this?’ he spluttered to the waiter.
‘It was left here,’ the man said in broken English, ‘for you.’
‘Who?’ Sam was up from his seat again. ‘Who left it? How did they know who I was?’
The waiter was shaking his head, as if he wanted to deny any involvement. ‘Je ne sais pas, I do not know his name.’
‘He? Was it an old man? With a hat, glasses?’
The waiter nodded, looking uncomfortable.
‘Did the man—’ Sam stopped, forcing himself to speak more calmly. ‘L’homme, the old man, he knew my name?’
‘Oui.’ The waiter was looking around, wanting to take his leave. ‘Oui, he said you are an American, and I will know you by this.’ He tapped the writing case.
Sam stared. He’d written a letter to the past, and now here was a reply. What the hell was going on?
‘Wait.’ He caught the waiter’s arm as he turned away. ‘This man, have you seen him before? Does he come here regularly?’
The waiter shrugged, freeing himself. He’s been paid, Sam realized, watching the man hurry away towards the kitchens. He’s been paid to stay quiet.
Stunned, he turned back to the table, to the impossible letter. HACKETT. Hardly daring to touch it, in case it crumbled into nothing, he eased open the envelope and peered inside.
A single sheet of paper. Not his letter at all. This paper was clean, new, covered in neat black writing.
Dear Mr Hackett,
You have something of mine. I would like it back.
Please reply, outlining how much you will take for the case. Leave your response with Khalid, the manager here. Do not try to contact me by any other mean.
Regards,
A
White Lion
Take one teaspoonful of white sugar, and the juice of half a lime, dropping the spent rind into the glass. Add one wine glass of Santa Cruz rum, one teaspoonful of Curaçao and one teaspoonful of imported grenadine. Shake well with ice, and strain. Cool and deceptively sharp.
Why do certain individuals have the power to change a person’s life, above all others? To anyone else, they might be a face in the crowd, the tip of a hat at an open door, but to that one person …
They are the branch that falls on to the track and derails the train; they are the cigarette that starts the house fire, the one drink too many that pushes a night into chaos.
That’s what he was to me. I knew it the second we locked eyes, the second before I was hit by the car.
Not badly. He was too fast for that. Our eyes met, I knew, and he acted, sending the car veering away from where I stood. Still, the running board clipped my leg and sent me spinning to the ground.
For a moment, everything was a fog of dust, the world reeling around me. The car’s wheel was five feet from my head, and in its mirror-bright hubcap, I saw a face.
A boy was looking back at me. He had ragged dark hair and a fading bruise across his nose. There were purple rings beneath his eyes and blood on his lip. I spluttered out a breath and the boy did the same, droplets spattering the ground. Blood and sand …
All around, voices were shouting, feet scuffing. My English wasn’t as good then, but nevertheless I picked up some of what was being said. The British soldiers were angry, pointing at me and shouting, their candy-coloured faces redder than usual. I heard the words beggar and lying, more than once. I was afraid they would punish me for getting in the way of the car, and tried to rise, only to feel a stab of pain in my leg. I cried out, and fell back to the dust.
That’s when he appeared. Leather shoes like browned butter, the hem of linen trousers as pale as the car itself, silver flashing from his cuffs, and finally his face: his saint’s face, brought down from its altar.
It wasn’t flawless; nothing truly beautiful is. It was tanned, not the rough, burned tan of the British soldiers, but bronzed – that’s the word, bronzed – as though burnished by an artisan. As he took off his hat I saw brown hair, slicked gold by sun and pomade. Finally, I looked into his eyes, peering over the dark lenses. They were brown as well-worn wood, like the butt of a gun, like the handle of a knife.
‘Boy,’ he said in English. ‘Are you hurt?’
Above the dust I caught his scent, musk and soap and something rich I couldn’t name, and when he reached out a hand to me, I flinched away, ashamed of my grime. The movement made me cough, and in utter horror, I saw a droplet of blood from my lip land on his shoe.
Though I didn’t know it at the time, the blood is what did it. You see, when he saw it staining my lips and teeth, he was afraid that my insides had been damaged, that I might die then and there on the road, and he might be held accountable.
‘He’s badly hurt,’ he told the soldiers. ‘I am taking him to a doctor, and I don’t care to be held up about it.’
‘Sir, with all respect he’s just as likely acting,’ one of them answered. ‘He’s been here all morning, begging—’
‘Be that as it may, I won’t be easy until I’ve had a doctor look at him.’
‘There are doctors in La Atunara.’
‘Over there? Quacks and butchers. No, I have to insist. An English doctor.’
‘Has he any identification with him? Any passport?’
Even in my state, I heard that word well enough. Passport. They meant papers, and of course, I had none. I couldn’t let them search me. If they found out I was a woman, they would be suspicious. Who knew if they’d heard about the murder in Córdoba? The next time their voices turned in my direction, I coughed and gave a terrible groan of agony.
It must have been convincing, because I heard a woman’s voice, exclaiming. I opened one watering eye a fraction and saw her, hanging over the side of the car. I hadn’t noticed her at first; she must have been the person the man was laughing with as he drove. She was just as fine-looking as he, in a peach-coloured hat, hair the colour of custard waving below its brim.
Her rouged mouth was open. I didn’t catch exactly what she said, though she sounded hurt on my behalf. Amongst the words there was one in particular that found its way through the ringing in my ears.
Arthur.
The woman made me lie on the back seat with my head on her lap. It made me nervous, because although my disguise might have fooled men easily enough, women were another matter. So I screwed up my face and tried not to look into her grey eyes.
‘Oh it’s too awful, Arthur,’ she said, as the man got into the car. ‘He’s so young, barely more than a boy.’
‘We’ll get him seen to, Hilde,’ the man said, slamming the door. ‘Well?’ he shouted to the soldiers. ‘Are you going to let us through at last?’
Then came the clacking of the barrier, and the great, warm car was purring into life, speeding forwards, taking us into Gibraltar.
That day was one of many firsts for me. I had been in a motor before, but never one so luxurious or fine. I had been close to wealthy patrons at the inn, but never this close: had never rested my head on legs covered with silk, never smelled perfume that didn’t reek or cloy, but soothed, like the gloved hand that stroked my forehead. I had never wanted so badly to disappear, or to plunge myself into a bath and emerge gleaming new, to match those people.
But there are some things that soap cannot wash away. I could scrub and scrub and still I would be different. Beneath my skin was the past, my bad blood: the inn, the Señor and the threat of the garrotte if I was caught. They – bright creatures – knew none of that. Scorn rose in me to war with admiration, mistrust of those gloved hands and amused faces. I had grown up watching their kind; I knew how their interest could disappear in a finger-snap. I had seen them drop people back into the dirt and drive away, leaving all the damage behind them. That’s what I would be to them, I thought as we drove, a temporary diversion, nothing more. In which case, I had to be smart. I had to get what I could.
An Echo of Scandal Page 10