Michael Pearce - A dead man in Tangier

Seymour said that he imagined that was particularly important for Chantale. Madame de Lissac agreed that it was and said that she was very grateful to those who had made it possible. And yet…

She hesitated.

And yet it was equally important that Chantale did not allow herself to be cut off from ‘the other side’ because that was her inheritance, too. That was what she had had in mind in bringing Chantale back here. She had grown up in the quarter and people remembered her from when she was a child. That made it easier for them to accept her. Even though, of course, she would always be different.

‘You make me sound a freak,’ said Chantale.

‘Not a freak,’ said Chantale’s mother. ‘Just different. And you will have to live with that.’

‘I manage very well,’ said Chantale.

‘Yes, but what happens when you grow up?’

‘Mother! I am grown up.’

‘And need to find a husband?’

‘Mother!’ said Chantale, and got up hastily from the table, and took the bowls inside.

When her husband had died, she had said. Did she know how he had died, wondered Seymour? Did Chantale?

Seymour said that he could understand at least some of the difficulties, perhaps better than they might think. He told them about his own family: about the Polish grandfather who had served in the Tsarist army and been forced to leave Russia in a hurry because of his radical activities; about his grandfather on his mother’s side, who had died in an Austro-Hungarian prison — also for unwise political activity; about the mother from Vojvodina, and the father who had grown up in England and wanted none of this sort of thing, only to be a boring, unrevolutionary Englishman ‘Were they all revolutionaries?’ asked Chantale, who had returned with some bowls of hot, spicy soup.

‘Yes. And I was the most revolutionary of the lot,’ said Seymour. ‘I joined the police.’

Madame de Lissac laughed.

‘That I cannot understand,’ said Chantale.

Seymour shrugged.

‘In my part of London,’ he said, ‘which is a poor part, there weren’t many jobs. I had tried an office and didn’t like it. And the police gave me a chance to use my languages.’

‘And they brought you to Tangier,’ said Chantale, smiling.

‘Can’t be all bad, can it?’ said Seymour.

They moved on to the main dish, which was couscous, made of semolina rolled into small, firm balls, steamed in saffron and spices, and served with a top layer of vegetables and meat.

Seymour asked Chantale’s mother what it had been like when she was a child growing up in the area.

‘It was very different then,’ she said. ‘That was under the old Sultan — not this one, but this one’s father. In those days the Parasol meant something. My father worked for the Mahzen and that was something that gave prestige. It also made us quite well off. We were able to afford private tutors and so, although we were girls, we were quite well educated. We mixed, too, a little in society.

‘But that had its dangers. We were seen, although we were always very discreet. I was seen, by a man, a Frenchman who did things for the Mahzen, and was very rich and ambitious. He wanted to marry me. I said no, and my father turned him down. But he pursued me. He just wouldn’t give up. In the end they had to send me away to relatives in Algeria.

‘Even there he pursued me. He just wouldn’t give up. I think now that he couldn’t bear to lose. Even when I told him that I had found someone else. I don’t think he could believe that — believe it was possible, that anyone could be thought better than him. I tell you this,’ she said, looking Seymour directly in the face, ‘so that you will understand. The man was Bossu.’

‘I know already,’ said Seymour.

She began to gather up the dishes. Chantale rose to help her but her mother signalled to her to sit down. She went off with the tray.

‘She said, “When my husband died,”’ said Seymour. ‘Does she know how he died?’

‘I think so,’ said Chantale. ‘We never speak of it but I think she has guessed.’

‘And you: do you know how your father died?’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Chantale.

‘Exactly how he died?’

Chantale looked at him.

‘Exactly,’ she said.

The first thing that Seymour noticed when he left the hotel the next morning was that Mustapha and Idris had changed their clothes. They were in bright new jellabas, Mustapha in a particularly splendid robe of saffron.

‘What’s this?’ said Seymour.

‘It’s the end of Ramadan,’ said Idris. ‘Everyone puts on new clothes for the day.’

Seymour looked around. Yes, everyone was in new, or, at least, clean clothes; including Chantale, standing in the doorway beside him.

Seymour considered.

‘Perhaps…?’

‘Yes,’ said Chantale, ‘I think you should.’

He went back to his room and changed into his new suit, the one that Ali had made.

‘Just a minute!’ said Chantale and she stuck a large red handkerchief in his pocket.

‘That makes you look more suitably festive,’ she said.

He noticed that it matched the one draped round her shoulders.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘it shows that you belong to me.’

They went together to the Kasbah. The space in front of the Kasbah was taken up by lots of carpet-sided enclosures with seats inside them, in which people were sitting in their Sunday — or perhaps it was Friday, this being a Muslim country — best. Among them were the Macfarlanes.

‘Come and sit beside me, Mr Seymour,’ said Mrs Macfarlane.

Mustapha and Idris sat down on the other side of the carpet wall.

‘You again!’ said Macfarlane, with his habitual disfavour.

‘A bodyguard!’ said Mrs Macfarlane. ‘How nice! I’ve always felt I should have one.’

She leaned over the carpet wall and chatted to Mustapha and Idris.

Chantale waved a hand and drifted off.

A procession began to pass in front of the enclosures. It consisted of splendidly fierce tribesmen on horseback, many of them sporting rows of medals, old men in white capes and often on donkeys, families in traditional draperies, well washed and much pressed, and French soldiers, who lined up at intervals along the front of the carpet boxes.

The Resident-General arrived, in a frock coat, top hat and high collar, and took up his position in one of the front boxes.

A small carriage appeared, drawn by four piebald ponies and escorted by French soldiers. Out of it climbed a little, much bewildered boy. He looked around, saw the Resident-General, and bowed to him. The Resident-General returned the bow. Then the little boy went into one of the boxes where a crowd of other small princes were sitting. He sat there stiffly for a moment or two and then, like them, turned round to have a good look at everyone.

Sheikh Musa appeared, bristling with medals and escorted by almost forty retainers, all on wonderful horses. He took up position to one side of the enclosures and looked balefully round.

There was a sudden stir at the Kasbah entrance and a lonely white figure rode out, sheltered by a great parasol. There was a murmur from the crowd.

‘The Imperial Parasol,’ whispered Mrs Macfarlane.

On foot and on either side of him walked venerable, bearded guards, gracefully wafting the flies away from the imperial face with sheets of white cloth. Behind them came the Imperial Guard — fifty huge Negroes in crimson uniforms, with black and white turbans, on pearl-grey horses.

And then — Seymour leaned forward. Everyone leaned forward.

‘ Le voila,’ said a man sitting on the other side of Macfarlane. ‘There it is! Le carosse de la Reine Victoria!’

Yes, there it was, all red and gold and rickety, wheels grating on the dusty street, empty, pulled by slaves and escorted by guards: the state chariot presented to the Sultan of a previous day by Queen Victoria.