Hammond Innes - The Strange Land

I was nervous and the minutes dragged by. Cars came and went and my eyes remained on the corner of the building, my mind trying to visualise the scene inside. It was a modern brick building and on the side facing the airfield was a buffet with tall windows looking out to the runway. The baggage counter was between the buffet and the entrance hall, enclosed by doors. The officials would be fully occupied with the papers and baggage of the passengers stopping at Tangier. Kavan should have finished shaving by now. He should be sitting in the buffet with the rest of the passengers bound for Casablanca. The air hostess had gone into the building with the air crew several minutes ago. Vareau should have added Kavan’s name to the list by now. He should have got Kavan’s immigration form, too.

I got out of the taxi and began pacing up and down. If I could only have been in the buffet to keep an eye on things, to keep Kavan’s mind occupied … I was afraid his nervousness would give him away, sitting there alone. I tried not to think what would happen if they started questioning him.

I kept glancing at my watch, but it seemed ages before the hands pointed to four forty-five. The air crew strolled out to the plane, their flat hats and dark blue uniforms looking oddly naval. A mechanic was clambering along one wing. Then he jumped down and the air crew disappeared inside the fuselage. It was ten to five. What were they waiting for? Had something happened? Were they interrogating Kavan now? I went to the rail, craning my head forward to see farther round the corner of the building.

And then the air hostess came out, the board with her list of passengers swinging in her hand. The passengers followed in a long, straggling line. I didn’t recognise Kavan at first. He was near the end of the line, walking close to a French family. He looked quite different without his beard. He was walking jerkily, a little nervously, his head thrust forward, his eyes on the ground. Once he half-turned and glanced in my direction. His face looked stronger, more positive without the beard. He had a strong jaw and somehow the sight of him looking like that made me feel it would be all right.

The passengers were bunching up now, queueing at the foot of the steps into the fuselage. Gradually the little crowd thinned. I could see the immigration official. He was talking to the hostess, only half his attention on the passengers. And then he was looking at Kavan and my muscles tensed and my mouth felt dry. The air hostess glanced down at her list and I breathed a sigh of relief. Kavan was climbing the steps. I watched him disappear into the fuselage and then I turned and walked rather shakily back to the taxi.

Five minutes later the plane taxied out to the end of the runway. It stood there for a moment, revving its engines, and then it took off, the undercarriage retracting and the starboard wing dipping as it swung south and disappeared in the direction of Morocco.

I told the driver to take me back to Tangier and I lay back in my seat and closed my eyes. In little more than an hour Kavan would be through the airfield immigration check and on his way into Casablanca in the Air France bus — so long as nothing went wrong. But I couldn’t do anything about it now. I would mail Vareau his money from Marrakech and that, I hoped, would be the end of the whole business.

For the first time since I had pulled Kavan out of the sea I felt relaxed. Lying back, watching the dusty road stream by, my mind turned to Enfida. Now at last I was able to think and plan again for the future.

The next thing I knew we were back in Tangier and a horn was blaring at us. We had stopped at some traffic lights and somebody was gesticulating and shouting to me from a car drawn up alongside. It was Kostos, and he leaned across the Arab he had with him and wound down the window. ‘Lat’am!’ he called across to me. ‘I like to talk to you. Tell your driver to stop opposite the British Post Office, eh?’

‘And I’d like a word with you,’ I shouted at him. The sight of him had suddenly made me angry. If it hadn’t been for that nonsense about the passport, I shouldn’t have had to run the risk of getting Kavan out of the Zone illegally. He could have travelled with me on the train. I leaned forward and told the driver to stop opposite the BPO. The lights changed and we moved forward. Through the rear window I saw Kostos nose his car in behind us. I sat back again, thinking how dangerous it could be to take another man’s name when you knew nothing about him — especially when the destination was Tangier. I was consumed with sudden curiosity to discover what it was all about. What were these documents that Kostos was so anxious to get hold of? And this place Kasbah Foum — it had an oddly sinister sound.

The taxi stopped and I paid the driver off. Kostos and the Arab were waiting for me on the curb. ‘Where have you been?’ Kostos demanded. ‘You don’t go to the British Consulate. I check that. An’ you don’t go to the Pension de la Montagne. I just come from there. Where do you go?’

‘That’s none of your business,’ I said. ‘There are one or two questions I want to ask you. First, I want that passport. What have you done with it?’

‘The passport?’ He smiled at me. ‘You heard what Lopez say. He give it to you.’ He leaned closer to me, still smiling. ‘You tell me where Wade is, Lat’am, an’ I make it worth your while, eh?’

‘He’s left Tangier,’ I told him.

‘Left the Zone? Oh no.’ He shook his head, looking down at the suitcase I was carrying. ‘He don’t leave the Zone with you — not now. So you better cancel that other berth in the wagon-lit. He don’t leave till I get what I want.’

‘And that is the deeds of Kasbah Foum?’

He nodded, watching me closely. ‘Strictly between you an’ me, Lat’am, I trade the papers for his passport. You tell him.’

‘And if he hasn’t got them?’

‘Oh, he has them.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I know because …’ He stopped there and took hold of my arm. ‘Come. We cannot talk ‘ere. You come to the Cafe Normandie and have a drink with me, eh?’

‘All right,’ I said.

He nodded towards the Arab, who was about thirty, tall and well-built, but carrying a little too much flesh under his djellaba. ‘This is Si Ali bel-Caid El Hassan d’Es-Skhira.’ His use of the man’s full title rather than the way he said it conveyed his contempt of everything indigene. ‘Maybe he persuade you, eh?’ He smiled slyly, convinced that only money or power would persuade anybody.

I glanced at his companion with renewed interest. So this was the man who had employed Wade to get the deeds. At the mention of his name he had turned towards me and now that I could see his face I realised that he was Berber, not Arab. His features were long and pale, like a European’s, with prominent cheek bones and a high-bridged, aquiline nose. It would have been a fine face but for the cruelty of the mouth and a slight craftiness of the eyes. ‘Are you from the Atlas?’ I asked him in French.

‘From the Anti-Atlas. My father is Caid of Kasbah Foum-Skhira.’

‘Poor fellow, he is an exile, you see.’ Kostos tightened his grip on my arm with unpleasant familiarity. ‘Come, Lat’am. We go where we can talk.’ And he led me to one of the pavement tables of the Cafe Normandie, where he ordered two cognacs and a coffee for Ali, and then sat watching me uncertainly. The Berber stared out across the Place de France, his face impassive, his eyes remote. I was thinking they were typical of the cosmopolitan world of Tangier — the crook lured there by easy money and the Berber nationalist deported from his own country because he had been too actively anti-French. The roar of the traffic lapped round us, mingling with the shrill cries of the Arab news-vendors and the sound of Spanish music from the cafe radio.