Garment of Shadows (23 page)

I lowered the timbre of my voice to greet the shopkeeper, then pushed a 25 centime piece across the counter and asked for bread, haggling until I had twice the amount he had originally offered. I pushed the rolls into the depths of my
djellaba
, and only then asked if he knew the English nurse, Miss Taylor. He shook his head, but I continued as if he had not replied.

“The wife of my cousin took their son to her for an infection of the eye, and Miss Taylor gave her an ointment that cured it, and now my brother’s first son has the same infection, and my brother is worried that the boy will go blind and be unable to read, and he is such a bright boy, I said I would find her and ask her for the ointment.”

“You want ointment? I have ointment,” the fellow said, reaching under the counter to pull out a tea-chest so ancient, it retained the faint arms of the East India Company on its side. He began to rummage through its contents, drawing out a series of bottles, tubes, tins, and packets, all of which were half-used, several of which, like the food tins, lacked identifying labels.

“I told my brother that I would bring that of Miss Taylor. He loves his son. I would pay, if (
insh’Allah
) I could find a man who could guide me to her door.”

The shopkeeper ceased his archaeological burrowing to raise an eyebrow at the one-franc coin on the counter. When there were three of them, his head shifted minutely; at five, I paused, and made to draw them away.

He dropped his handful of pastille tins back into the wooden chest, swept aside the mound of dodgy medicaments, and locked up his shop for the night.

Perhaps if someone offered me enough francs, my own memory would improve?

My sense of direction is generally adequate, but in Fez, I seemed perpetually to have a magnet being waved past my internal needle. Maybe it was just the bang on the head. In any event, in a city without street-lamps, whose lanes are covered with woven ceilings that obscure the sky, and where even the thoroughfares are straight for no more than a few yards at a time, I was instantly lost. Mute as Idir, I followed my guide, who acknowledged half the men we passed with a word, a quick handclasp, or a raucous joke—confirming my suspicions that the citizens of the medina were a tightly woven lot. Even when we came to one of the internal gates between the neighbourhoods, which was closed for the night, its attendants let us slip though with only a small coin by way of acknowledgment.

Twenty minutes of twists and turns, during most of which I had a firm grasp on the knife on my forearm, finally brought us to a tiny lane with a blind kink in it. As I had a score of times already, I held back lest a gang of thieves wait around the corner; this time, I saw a brief stretch of alley with a door on either side and a third where the passageway came to an end. A small light shone down at the steps, and I saw at once that it was the very same patch of architecture that had so puzzled me when I woke, three and a half days earlier. Beside the Moroccan door, looking remarkably out of place, was an English bell-pull. My guide gave it a yank and stood to the side, giving me an expectant look. I moved forward into the light. In a moment, the door came open, and a round Moroccan gentleman looked out.

I told him in French, “I am looking for Mademoiselle Peg Taylor.”

“Is it an emergency?”

“No. Yes. Well, it’s hard to say.”

At my response, the shopkeeper looked less eager to depart, but I stood to the side and made the sort of gesture that in any language is a clear invitation to leave. Reluctantly, he exchanged a hand-clasp with me, then retreated down the stone passageway.

I turned to the other man. “It is not a medical emergency, but it is urgent that I speak with her. Is she here?”

“Mademoiselle Taylor was called out to a sick bed. She will not be long. Will you come in?”

I stepped inside, finding myself in a dimly lit entranceway. He shut the door and led me through a brief version of the twisting lanes outside, including a second doorway, and finally into a much smaller and less decorative version of Dar Mnehbi: a small tiled courtyard with rooms opening off all four sides, part of its roof open to the stars. I pushed back my
djellaba
’s hood, and the man’s eyebrows went up, a variety of emotions playing over his face: surprise, relief, a touch of amusement, and something curiously like embarrassment. “Ah—it is you! She will be glad to see you return.”

I knew him then—he was the man who had come onto the roof, looking for me. Which indicated that the woman would be, as Holmes had suggested, Miss Taylor.

He settled me in one of the salons that opened off the tiled courtyard, this one an odd mixture of Moroccan architecture overlaid with English sensibilities: The banquettes were higher than those I had seen elsewhere, almost like sofas, with upholstered cushions of bright local fabric scattered with needlepoint throw-pillows of English roses; the table before the banquettes was a gigantic brass tray, but half the knick-knacks on its surface came from British seaside resorts; the paintings on one wall were imitation Constables mounted in ornate Moroccan frames. The one distinctly non-Moroccan feature it exhibited was an actual stone fireplace built into one corner, cold at the moment but with wood arranged and ready.

“The hour is late,” he said, “but will you have tea?”

“That would be most welcome,” I said with enthusiasm. His face creased into a smile, and he left me alone.

The wall opposite the paintings held photographs: One, very faded, showed a Victorian-era picnic on the Thames; beside it were three laughing Englishwomen on camels; a third, with more recent clothing, showed a party at—yes, that was Dar Mnehbi, with Maréchal Lyautey and several Moroccans, all of them holding glasses that did not appear to be tea. There was also an ageless picture of a man with a dog and a shotgun on a misty hillside, paired with an Arab-looking gentleman on a white horse, a falcon perched on his wrist. When the tea arrived, it was as bi-cultural as the room: A flowered pot suggested England and smelt of Lapsang, while a brass pot contributed the odour of mint. The disparate drinking vessels were included: porcelain cup and saucer alongside gilt-edged glass. A single small plate held slices of lemon, while the Moroccan bowl of sugar could perform for both countries.

But it was the platter of tit-bits that I particularly appreciated, where the delicate English tea-biscuits were overwhelmed by the considerably more substantial Moroccan delicacies. I fell on them with an urgency I had not realised, and only just managed to keep myself from licking the plates.

Miss Taylor was away longer than her … butler? assistant? had anticipated. I was dozing among the cushions with a throw-rug wrapped around my shoulders when the sound of voices startled me awake, but managed to be on my feet when she came through the doorway.

Peg Taylor was a small figure dressed in the enveloping white garments of a Moslem woman. Her face was lined, but sweet, in the way of those who have spent a life in service to those they love, the sort of face that makes an ill person’s aches diminish. It was also a face I knew: I had seen it before:
Faces would appear and make noises, then blow out the lamp and leave me alone
.

“I am very glad that you found your way back here,” she told me, taking my hands, looking into my face both in earnest affection, and to make an examination of my pupils, my body, and my head. “I was quite worried when you disappeared from your room.”

She was speaking English: because Holmes had told her it was my native tongue, or because I had babbled in my delirium? If the latter, what else had I given away?

“I apologise for having left so abruptly,” I replied. “I saw the soldiers arrive, and I thought they were coming to arrest me.”

She looked surprised. “For what?”

“I didn’t know. I still don’t. I can’t remember what happened. I’ve lost all memory of the past few months, in fact, although bits of it keep coming back.”

Her hands left mine. “Amnesia?”

“Rare, I know, but it happens.”

“That must be remarkably disconcerting.”

The others had greeted my condition with emotions ranging from polite disbelief to open irritation; her sympathy took me aback. “Er, yes, it is.”

“You should have remained here, resting. I trust you have spent the intervening days in a quiet state?” She stepped back, and began to unwrap various scarves from her person.

“Not exactly. In fact, I need to ask—”

“No business until you’ve eaten. And then I’ll examine your injuries—William!” The small figure overrode my protests, ordering that a supper be brought, a hot bath readied.

Leading me across to the fireplace, she made
tsk
ing sounds as she took a box of the same matches I had carried away from here, and lit the laid fire. “This is my one true luxury. Moroccans don’t believe in heating a house, they think it unhealthy, but even though I’ve lived here more than thirty years, after a long day I still find the cold absolutely penetrating. One wouldn’t think an Englishwoman would—”

I seized her arm to interrupt her.

“This is urgent,” I said. “A man is missing.”

She sat, but she did not rescind her orders. I frowned at the growing fire, and began to explain.

“The other night, I was brought here following some kind of a fight. The man I was with—at any rate, a man who I have reason to believe was with me—is an old friend. He has not been seen since then. I need to find him.”

Her man—William—came in with a basket of wood for the fire. When he was gone, she said, “A young man whose wife I nursed back to health last year was bringing fire-wood from the family orchard, in the hills to the west of the city, when he noticed a motorcar stopped on the road ahead of him, its head-lamps pointing in the opposite direction, downhill. As he came near, there was shouting and what he thought was a gunshot, after which the motorcar raced away down the hill. He hesitated, but things seemed to have gone quiet, so he went forward, and heard noises to one side of the road. It was you. As he was trying to help you back to the road, a child came running up and started hitting him with a stick, although once he realised that you were being rescued, not assaulted, he helped the young man get you onto the cart and down to the city. The moment you came near the gate, the child turned and ran back up the hill, without a word of explanation or of thanks.

“Since you could not tell him where you belonged, the young man brought you to me.”

“Why? Why you and not a hospital?”

“You appeared to be a native, but you were muttering in a language he did not know. And he thought that if he reported a motorcar hitting you, he would have to go to the police and tell them what had happened. The people here are not fond of the police,” she explained. “Instead, he sent a message into the city, asking me to come to the nearest gate. It was locked, the hour being late, but all the guards know me well, and thought nothing of my going in and out. I’m afraid that I did have to lie to them in order to bring you in. I told them you were the mad brother of one of my families—you appeared to be a man, and you were rather babbling—who had wandered off during the day.”

“I see.”

“William and I settled you into my surgery, where we began to examine you. You can imagine poor William’s shock when you turned out to be a woman. Or perhaps you cannot?”

“I know Moslems, so yes, I can understand.”

“William and his wife converted to Christianity—it’s not generally talked about—but he is still a Moroccan, so I excused him and brought in Fatima. She and I cleaned you up, dressed your wounds, and stitched the cut on your scalp. I had her find another tunic for you, and we emptied your pockets—which reminds me: Did your friend—your other friend—deliver your boots and that weapon?”

“He did, thank you.”

“Considering your state of mind, I thought the gun a poor companion, and the boots wanted cleaning. Your other possessions we left on the table—except for a ring, which seemed to me too valuable to leave sitting out. I trust the people who work for me, but there is no call to tempt them. Other than the ring, you had remarkably little. Not even any money. Were you robbed?” And before I could answer, she said, “Of course, you wouldn’t remember.

“In any event, I decided that further disturbance would be dangerous in your condition, so we carried you upstairs and left you to sleep, checking on you every hour. The next day you showed signs of waking, so I sent a message to the authorities. I was—”

“You sent the message both to Dar Mnehbi and to the police, is that right?”

“Yes, and I let the police know that I had done so. Someone might have reported you missing, and since the police have been known to exhibit a heavy hand when they suspect wrongdoing to a European, I did not wish to put off notifying them that you were safe. Bad enough to steal a car, but to kidnap a woman with it—I feared they might arrest some poor fellow and beat him for information,” she said baldly. Then she added, “I did not expect them to respond with armed soldiers.”

We had got that far when William returned, asking, “Will you take supper here?”