Michael Pearce - A dead man in Tangier

Mustapha and Idris, listless from their Ramadan fasting, brightened up when they came to the Street of the Moneylenders. The sight of the coins had a stimulating effect on them and they were inclined to linger outside the shops, looking in, drooling.

‘All right for some,’ said Idris wistfully.

They stopped outside a small, exceptionally dirty shop.

‘This is the one to go to!’ they said firmly.

‘No, I don’t think so,’ said Seymour.

‘Babikar’s all right!’ they insisted.

‘No, I want a big one.’

‘It’ll cost you!’ they warned.

‘I want-’ he consulted the list the bank manager had given him — ‘Mohammed Noor.’

‘Mohammed Noor!’ They reeled back. ‘Well, if you say so…’

They found the shop and went in. Mohammed Noor, seeing a European and deducing therefore that he was wealthy, came forward. Mustapha and Idris slipped back against the wall.

‘I come on behalf of a friend,’ said Seymour.

‘Of course!’ said Mohammed smoothly, and clapped his hands.

An attendant brought tea.

None was offered to Mustapha and Idris. However, their presence was accepted; as if the kind of people Mohammed Noor sometimes dealt with were the kind of people who naturally brought their own bodyguards.

Mohammed Noor did not force the pace. They talked of this and that, how long Seymour had been in the country, how he found Tangier. The moneylender spoke French, with the same fluency and ease as the bank manager and, indeed, many of the Moroccans Seymour had met. It transpired, from something he said to Idris, that he also spoke Berber; and, probably, English and Italian and Senussi and a dozen other languages as well.

Gradually they got round to business. Seymour explained that he was acting on behalf of a friend who wanted to make a trading expedition into the interior. The price of salt was rising in Algeria and his friend wished to buy a lot of it; for that, of course, he would need a lot of money, and in appropriate form. Might Mohammed Noor be able to accommodate him?

Mohammed Noor, who, of course, believed none of it, spread his hands and said that nothing could be easier.

Seymour named a sum. Mustapha and Idris, who might have fallen over if the wall had not been behind them, gasped. Mohammed Noor did not turn a hair.

There would be no difficulty, he said.

And what might be the interest charged, asked Seymour.

This time it was Seymour who gasped.

Mohammed Noor spread his hands apologetically.

Of course, he didn’t like to impose such charges, he said, and normally wouldn’t. But things were deteriorating in the interior, there were rumours of war. The local tribes were unreliable, there were bandits…

He could come down just a little, perhaps, in view of the extra security that someone like a friend of Monsieur Seymour would be able, he was sure, to offer. But…

And so it went on. And on. In the end Seymour said he would have to consult his friend.

Mohammed Noor, who had not expected otherwise, smiled and said he was always there.

As they were going out, Seymour said that Mohammed Noor’s name had been mentioned to him by an acquaintance, a Frenchman, a Monsieur Bossu, who had himself made use of Mohammed’s services not long ago. Did Mohammed Noor recall him, he wondered?

Mohammed Noor pondered, but shook his head.

And Seymour moved on to the next one.

Mustapha and Idris had cottoned on by this time and restrained their gasps, although they continued to look slightly alarmed. Even the distant contemplation of such sums disturbed them.

The third moneylender they went to was Abdulla Latif. By this time Seymour had drunk so much mint tea that he was feeling a strain on the system. Abdulla Latif was as prepared to be obliging as the others; so much so that Seymour asked a supplementary question, whether by chance Abdulla knew of any sturdy men who might be willing to accompany his friend into the south. Abdulla Latif said that there were always such men around but that he could supply Seymour with some names if he wished.

As they left, Seymour stopped and turned. Did Abdulla Latif by any chance recall a Frenchman…?

Abdulla Latif frowned and then said he thought he did. Seymour said that in matters of this sort it was as well to go by recommendation and his acquaintance — a Monsieur Bossu, was it? — had spoken highly of Abdulla’s services. Abdulla bowed and said that he recalled his client perfectly. He had been able to be of use to him on several occasions.

‘Twenty per cent!’ said Mustapha, as they walked away. ‘Twenty per cent!’

Seymour thought he was registering the enormity of the charge. But he wasn’t.

‘See, that’s what those big blokes can get away with. Someone like our friend can go in and they’re all over him. “It’s just twenty per cent for you, sir.” Whereas it’s bloody forty per cent for someone like you or me, Idris!’

‘What was that about a bodyguard?’ asked Idris. ‘Your friend’s not planning a trip down south, is he? Because if he is, we could fix him up.’

‘No, no. There isn’t any friend. It was just a trick to get the information out of him.’

‘Pity!’ said Idris.

‘The journey’s already been made,’ said Seymour. ‘By Bossu.’

And then ‘Just a minute!’ he said. ‘Do you do this sort of thing? Sometimes?’

‘If the money’s right, yes. Why not?’

‘Down south?’

‘Well, probably not far. We’re city people, really.’

‘You didn’t, by any chance, go down with someone to Azrou and Immauzer?’

‘No, no. Miles away.’

‘Too hot!’

‘Bloody camels!’

‘Not our sort of thing.’

‘We have been down occasionally, of course. But that would have been on a run.’

‘And in a truck. I mean, camels!’

‘Okay, not you, then. But you know people who do that sort of thing? Act as a bodyguard?’

‘Oh, sure,’ said Mustapha casually.

‘Listen, do you know anyone who’s made a trip down to those places? Azrou and Immauzer? And Tafilalet?’

‘Don’t think so. Could ask around, I suppose.’

‘Would you? It would have been several months ago. I’ve got the dates here. A Frenchman. Carrying money. Quite a lot. Probably would have paid well.’

‘Sounds interesting,’ said Idris.

‘It was bad,’ said Chantale, cast down. ‘It was bad.’

And it was bound to get back to her mother.

Seymour was amused. Here was this woman, who seemed so supremely competent, informed, it appeared, on just about everything. On good terms with all and sundry, able to fix practically anything — and alarmed, like a schoolgirl, that her mother might hear of her transgressions!

‘Your mother?’

‘It was in the quarter,’ said Chantale gloomily. ‘You don’t know our quarter. And you don’t know my mother. Everything in the quarter gets back to her sooner or later.’

‘And that matters?’

‘It does. Apart from everything else it is an offence against the caida. You know about the caida? No? Well, you ought to, because it runs through and affects everything you do in Morocco. It is — well, I suppose the French word for it is etiquette. But it is more than that. It is a sort of web which touches everything. It enters into all a Moroccan does… into the way you conduct yourself to others. Not just politeness but tact, sensitivity, respect. And I’m pretty certain that my mother’s not going to feel I showed a lot of that towards Madame Poiret.’

‘She asked for it!’

‘No, no, that’s a Western thing to say. It’s too brusque, harsh. It sounds aggressive. And that’s part of the problem for Westerners. Whenever they speak, it sounds wrong. It sounds like that. We Westerners-’ She caught herself and laughed. ‘We. Me! In our clumsy way we are always offending against the caida. And when we do, the Moroccan shrinks back. He withdraws. And so the West never quite meets the East. They never quite come into contact. The Moroccans are terribly polite to them but somehow there is no engagement. You have to be sensitive to the requirements of the caida or else you can never really quite speak to a Moroccan.