Michael Pearce - A dead man in Tangier

He studied his cup, and was silent for quite some time. Then he looked up.

‘It made a difference. Everything in Morocco today, you know, goes back to Casablanca. For good or bad. And I’m not saying it was all for the bad. But it changed everything. And it changed everything for him, too.

‘We were sent to Casablanca. It was just another place, one of the many we had been sent to. But for de Lissac it was not just another place. It was different because of what we had to do there.

‘And perhaps de Lissac himself had become different by this time. Perhaps it was the child, I don’t know. Or perhaps it was that we were now in Morocco and his wife was Moroccan. He began to think, and to think differently from the rest of us. He had always thought differently. I realize that now, but now his thinking was taking him apart from us.

‘After his first day in Casablanca he said, “This is not right.” And after his second he said, “I am not going to do this.”

‘Well, it was a bad time to make his stand. They had began to fight back and we ourselves were under fire. At such times, you understand, you stand together. So, many were angry with him. I was angry with him. Our Commandant pulled him out. “We’ll sort this out later,” he said. “This is not the time.”

‘But for de Lissac it was the time. If no one does anything now, he said, no one ever will! So he began to show himself and speak and people began to notice him. “You see?” said the Moroccans. “Even the army is beginning to question!”

‘And the townspeople, the interests, the big interests, yes? became angry. What are you doing? they said. Whose side are you on? He’s stirring up trouble. He’s making things worse.

‘Our Commandant didn’t know what to do. He told Marcel to shut up. But Marcel said it was a matter of principle and that he wouldn’t shut up. In that case, said the Commandant, you’d better resign. Very well, then, said Marcel. I will resign. And he did.

‘But then he still didn’t shut up. He went on protesting. “You’ve got to do something about this!” the townspeople said. “What can I do?” said the Commandant. “He’s not in the army now.” “That’s not stopping you doing things to everyone else,” they said. “Get rid of him!” And in the end he had to. We hustled him away. Locked him up. It was the sort of thing you could do then. No one was asking any questions. Certainly not in Casablanca. And not in Tangier, either.

‘Well, we afterwards lost touch. The regiment was posted. And then we heard that he had died. Well, of course, I wrote to Marie. But we were a long way away. I did wonder how they were getting on, but…

‘Then, one day, we were posted back to Tangier, and I went to see them. And what I found made me go straight to the General. “General,” I said, “we’ve got to do something! He was a good man, a good officer, too. And one of us. We can’t just leave them. And there’s his daughter, too. Damn it, she’s half French. You can’t just leave her in this sort of state.” I told the others, too, and in the mess things got quite heated. They sent a deputation in support of me. “You’ve got to do something,” they told the General. And, to be fair, he did.

‘But, you know, when things happen like what happened just now, I wonder if we got it right. But perhaps you can never get these things right…’

‘My thoughts,’ confessed Mustapha, behind him, ‘are not always godly.’

‘No?’

‘Sometimes I think about food.’

‘Well, Mustapha, that is understandable. Especially at Ramadan time.’

‘Ramadan will soon be over, God be praised. No, I don’t mean that! I mean, Ramadan will soon be over.’

‘That is so, Mustapha. And then we will be able to return to ungodly things.’

‘That will be needful, Idris. For by then the money will have run out.’

Mustapha was silent for a moment. Then he said: ‘Idris?’

‘Yes, Mustapha?’

‘Do you think God sees into the heart?’

‘He does, Mustapha.’

‘He will know, then, that instead of thinking holy thoughts, I think about food?’

‘I am afraid so, Mustapha.’

‘And that I said I was looking forward to the end of Ramadan?’

‘God knows everything.’

‘It’s a bad lookout, Idris.’

Idris, too, was silent for a moment, reflecting.

‘On the other hand,’ he said, ‘there are things that will count for you. You have, after all, been observing Ramadan, and that surely must count for something.’

‘Well, that is true, Idris,’ said Mustapha, relieved.

‘And then, since our friend arrived and we have been looking after him, we have not actually been doing things that we ought not to have been doing.’

‘That also is true, Idris. And it is bound to come on the credit side.’

‘The credit side may even outweigh the debit side by now.’

‘God be praised!’ said Mustapha, relieved.

‘Besides, God sees all and knows all. He knows that we are frail.’

‘Bound to,’ agreed Mustapha.

‘And makes allowances.’

‘God be praised!’

Silence.

‘Idris?’

‘Yes, Mustapha?’

‘He’s going to have to make a lot of allowance in my case.’

When they got back to the hotel Seymour assured Mustapha and Idris that he could now safely be left to his own devices.

‘That’s what you think,’ said Mustapha.

‘Look, I’ll be all right. I’m used to handling things on my own. In England-’

‘Ah, in England!’ said Mustapha sceptically.

‘I am a policeman, after all!’

Mustapha said nothing, but exuded doubt.

‘Anyway, who is going to attack me? I won’t go anywhere daft, I promise you. And there isn’t anyone out looking for me.’

‘No?’ said Mustapha and Idris, together.

‘No. No one in Tangier has even heard of me.’

Mustapha and Idris said nothing.

‘Well, have they?’ he demanded.

‘Not heard of you exactly,’ said Mustapha.

‘But seen you,’ said Idris. ‘And once seen, not forgotten. They’ll want to pay you back.’

‘Pay me back? But I haven’t done anything to be paid back for!’

‘No?’

‘Look, stop being so mysterious and tell me what this is all about. To the best of my knowledge I’ve not offended anybody since I arrived in Tangier!’

‘Just think,’ said Idris.

‘The first night,’ said Mustapha.

‘The first night?’ said Seymour. ‘Nothing happened the first night.’

‘Was helping me nothing?’ asked Mustapha.

‘Helping — you don’t mean that bunch could have it in for me?’

‘Things like that are not forgotten.’

‘That’s ridiculous!’

‘Maybe, but we’ll stick around. We know Ali Khadr and his boys.’

In the end he half persuaded them. Mustapha went home to his evening meal while Idris nobly accompanied Seymour to his.

He passed a little French restaurant and saw Monsieur L’Espinasse sitting inside at the window. He was dining alone and his face brightened when he saw Seymour.

‘No, no. Please. It will be a pleasure.’

So Seymour, another single man, joined him at the table and benefited from the Secretary’s deep knowledge of the dishes.

‘Some say it is the sauce,’ said L’Espinasse, ‘and some say the care with which Vincent chooses the raw materials.

It is all those things but as well he has a certain — touch. Yes? A flair. I have always found him very reliable.’

From one reliable French topic to another, and soon they turned to a different French passion, la chasse. There was, said the Secretary, a natural affinity between the French and hunting. So it was not surprising how the new people took to it when they came out here. Of course, wild boars had been hunted in France since the Middle Ages and the pursuit was still practised in many parts of the country. But not quite like this: the mad (the word which suggested itself most readily to Seymour) chase on horseback armed only with a lance. And the boars, like the Moroccans, were wilder. But this, concluded the Secretary, gave only the more opportunity for the expression of French elan.