Stewart, Angus (5 page)

Slumped on his shoulders, Jay saw that there was something disconcerting about the area. Perhaps principally it was the
Palais de Justice
:
its
very existence in this wasteland, orange and white, with dull, staring windows. But the nearby bank and post office were only slightly less oppressive. They gave new meaning to the word arcade: sheet white, throwing shadows like warships in dazzlepaint, their angular cloisters were disproportionately heavy. The structures themselves had the stolid authenticity of any public buildings that are fought for, and defended, in revolution. No accident had disposed the French to build them on open ground. The Nationalist Government had kept them that way.

About the
Palais de Justice
there were the obviously dramatic things: the mobile cages of youths; the relations chewing nuts on the pavement; the old woman who had used to come daily, but who had seemed to know that death was working more quickly within her than were the filing systems within the great building. Sometimes Jay had been able to see the clerks and filing systems through field-glasses. It had seemed to him then as if the white light of Camus were confining Kafka within the shadows, behind the dull windows perhaps, in the palm of the old woman's hand with the coin she held out to the doorman.

Jay could define no logical cause in his continuing discomfort as he looked at these things. Perhaps, he reflected wryly, he should simply walk in and ask, 'Does anyone accuse me?' Then he wondered again why old Frederick Halliday should be wanting to contact him. It was strange.

The pavement was hard beneath him, and it was cool with the sun going down. It occurred to him now that nothing more had been said about the possibility of finding another apartment. He continued to sit where he was.

  *  *  *  *  *

The sound of drums just reached the European town, but Achmed kept walking away from them. Because it was Friday he carried a paper carton containing two coffee meringues. He turned the corner from where there was
a view of the sea. Far away, rising out of the sea, was the mountain, which was where England began, though the people spoke Spanish as his sister had done. In England the Queen gave people gold teeth for no money, though Frederick's teeth were
filled with silver. In England, too, the cinemas had soft seats like taxis, and people's clothes had labels saying 'London', which was where the English Queen lived, as Sidi Hassan lived in Rabat.

Achmed stopped abruptly. He was looking at the Queen in the shop window. There was broken glass of many colours piled all over her. He thought it was rather well arranged.

Farid, Abdullah and Nathib were gathered about the shop window with a
ballon
.
Aicha stood some distance away. As the sky got darker the rectangle of light falling from the window grew brighter, and the boys were using it as a goal. Achmed unwrapped one of the meringues. By the time he had started to break it quite a crowd of children had gathered, so that the sandy particles had to be divided smaller and smaller. Meanwhile, as the children closed their mouths on the fragments of sugar, Achmed leant against the window of bright books. After all they were his books too.

Unlocking the door, he crossed the shop, past the cash register which threw up white teeth with figures on them, using only his ray-torch. He put the remaining meringue under his pullover and began climbing the stairs.

'
Niño?
That you?' Frederick Halliday called.

The boy made a horrible ripping sound in the back of his throat. It exactly represented cats divided by a sardine tin. He appeared in the doorway smiling.

'
Moment!
'
Frederick said. He finished totting up an account. 'Did you get the meringues?'

The boy came towards him looking puzzled. '
Comé?
'

Frederick smiled. 'Meringues,
Niño
!'

'Eh?' Achmed cupped one of his ears close to Frederick's mouth; then, as if despairing of its total deafness, tried the other ear. He frowned furiously. 'Eh?' Suddenly he could contain the deception no longer. He grinned and brought the meringue from beneath his pullover.

'
Una solo? . . . Mais, pourquoi?
'
Frederick asked shamelessly.

Achmed patted his stomach. 'Achmed . . . Boulevard.'

'You might as well have this one too,' Frederick said.

'No!
Merclah por Frederick!
'
Achmed protested. He was quite capable of feeding Frederick forcibly if he sensed injustice, and Frederick knew this.

'Okay. I'll just finish what I'm doing; then we'll put the kettle on.'

Achmed went over and stood by the window. He opened it just a fraction. A wail of pipes had joined the drums; and the wind bore the sound on its slow pulse.

'Frederick?' he said, turning back into the room, 'Medina.
Esta
Noche
.'
It
was tentative; just a suggestion.

'Any other night of the year,
Niño
. Frederick spoke deliberately, underlining a statement in red as he did so. Achmed didn't understand the words, but gathered their import. '
Pourquoi pas
?'

'Referendum, riot,
meurtre
.' Frederick slashed absent-mindedly at his throat with the red biro.

'Eh?' Achmed really didn't understand. He wasn't acting deafness.

Frederick turned towards him.
'Mañana, Niño
.
Not the Medina tonight.' He mimed seething crowds with his fingers. 'Politics. Communists. The shops have been shut all day. Lots of vino drunk.
Tu
comprends
?'

Achmed nodded. He turned back to the window. Frederick felt afraid. There was tension in the room. He remembered the night the boy had run away—and for reasons slighter than this. That was over three months ago; when they had been together for only two weeks. The row, he knew, had been an inevitable reaction on the boy's part; a demonstration for more love. He had been able to follow each phase of the reaction, yet unable to check it. Finally Achmed had walked out into the bitter night, with Frederick following him secretly. A European had stopped the boy, but Achmed had spat at him as if he had been insulted. Eventually he had curled up to sleep alone against the wall of a mosque.

Now Achmed felt the same tension. His thoughts were no more clearly defined. There were drums in the Medina and he wanted to go there. Not tomorrow, but at once. He loved Frederick like a father. He was not sick from many years of
kif
, and had not thrown broken bottles at him as his
own father had done.

'Hey,
Rifi
!
What about that tea?' Frederick called.

'Fassi!
'
the
boy said, though without much enthusiasm. It was a game they played. When Frederick called him by the people of his father he would reply with the people of his mother.
His father was bad and his mother had been good. She had died when he was an infant, and this he had explained to Frederick by cupping one hand to his breast and making the cat sucking noise.

At that moment, in fact, Frederick was recalling the final
phase of the boy's miming of the death of his mother. Clasping his hands horizontally, he laid his head stilly upon them —so stilly that not even his eyelids had moved. 'Finish!' the boy had said, smiling brightly, and shrugging as he leapt into life again.

Now that memory made Frederick frown. He crossed to the window and the boy moved lightly away from him. It was nearly dark outside. Wind battered the house, and although the streets were clean, it sometimes found a handful of dust to fling. When this happened the bright particles rose up at the lighted window, then banked miraculously away like a flight of starlings. 'I thought we might ask Jay Gadston to help in the shop,' Frederick said, hoping at that moment to distract Achmed, though the idea had been in his head for
some time.

Achmed checked at the name.
'Peut-être'
he
said. 'Jay
bueno
.'
But he was too preoccupied with his own thoughts to say he had heard that Jay had returned to England.

Achmed went to a cupboard. He collected his money box and a knife. Holding the clay vessel gracefully above his head coins began to slip out of it. Frederick had watched the process many times. To all appearances the laughing boy would merely be counting the money before feeding it back into the slot again. But sleight of hand and optical illusion played a large part in many of Achmed's games, and after a 'count' such as this he often managed to buy Frederick a present. It was a ten-franc comb usually, because Achmed's consciousness was governed largely by cosmetic considerations. Tonight the boy counted his money without smiling. Frederick returned to his desk. 'I'll have to be up early in the morning. The train for Casa leaves at eight.'

'Achmed—Medina!' the boy said.

Frederick looked at the sky. There was unreasoning terror inside him. His mind remained cold. 'Will it rain?' he asked.

'
Shtah?
No
Shtah!'
the boy said.

'Take the umbrella, anyway. It may rain again before Ramadan. It always rains during Ramadan.'

'
Aquí mañana! Si
,
Frederick!' Achmed had understood instinctively.

Frederick made a column of meaningless figures on a bit of paper. 'You don't understand. There is no
mañana
.
Finish.'

'Achmed Medina,' the boy said resolutely. He had all the money in his hand now.

'
Alors! moment! Are
you my
Niño
, or not?'

Si!
Frederick
padre
.'

'D'accord.
Frederick
ou Medina
.
Now hoppit. Think next door. I'm busy with this list for the French woman. She wants the book with the lions.'

'
Les lions?
'

'Yes.
Niño
,
I've an idea. Why don't you fetch a taxi and deliver the book now?'

'Taxi? Achmed Medina?'

'Taxi to
the Mountain
.
A business trip.'

'
Medina! Per favor
,
Frederick, please thank you!'

Frederick ignored the whining phrase although, springing as it must have done from the boy's months on the streets, it made him angry. It had been several weeks
before he could persuade Achmed to attract his attention by calling, 'Frederick!' instead of the nefarious, 'Hallo! of the touts and vendors. Now he said, 'If we don't sell books we don't eat. You know that. Take the lions to the French woman.
Fautah
,'
he added absently, 'you'll want a towel.
Et ta brossse à dents
.'

Achmed made teeth-cleaning motions. '
Mañana!
'

'No,
Niño.
If you go now, you don't come back.'

'
Pourquoi
no Medina?'

'I've told you. There are three reasons. The referendum—politics—you may get hurt. Then I'm going to Casa tomorrow; tonight I want you here. Finally, because I say so.'

Achmed was getting angry. He could still hear the drums, though the window was closed. 'No Medina! '
quoi pas?
No
ciné
! No
cigarillos
!
Frederick no! no! no!'

'In the last week we've seen one film about Tarzan and two about Hercules.'

Achmed relented a little. '
Hercule bueno
,
eh, Frederick?'

It ought to strike you that way,
Niño
.
Hercules films are made expressly for the Moors. Now get your toothbrush.' Frederick found he had made six columns of quite meaningless figures. When he looked up, the boy was returning from his bedroom carrying a pair of jeans. He paused in the process of
changing into them, and tucked his genitals between his thighs. Then he made a cutting noise in the back of his throat, encircling the hidden organ with his finger as he did 'Hey, Frederick! Look!
Tarde
—Kasbah!' He pretended to weep.

'
Niña
,
maintenant
,'
Frederick said drily. 'Get dressed.'

'
Si
,' Achmed replied soberly. He tried wriggling into the jeans with his thighs still clamped together. But the material was like rhino skin. He had to change his sex again halfway.

'
Señor
Brown,' Frederick began, watching him 'You haven't, you know . . .?' He laid his two forefingers against one another.

'No!' But Achmed became conversational. '
La señora
American?' he enquired. 'Frederick?'

Frederick shook his head. 'Not any more. She's a woman your people don't understand bemuse they've never produced one. She's neurotic'

'
D'accord
,'
the boy said. He hadn't understood a word. Frederick also fell silent. He felt lonely sometimes because he was never able to communicate very fully with the boy. What little wisdom he had must be conveyed by means of a multi-lingual tool, hardly one word of which was pure Arabic, Spanish, French or English.

'
Medina!
' Achmed said. There was an ugly whine in his voice.

Frederick shook his head. 'I'm locking up in a minute. The train leaves at eight in the morning, and I don't want to be tired. You'll want money. See what there is in my wallet. Get a job before the money runs out' He spoke meaninglessly. There was no employment for the boy. He might only live on Moorish charity, supplemented by casual prostitution. At best it could be no more than a day-to-day existence; apathy taking account of nothing beyond the immediate present. Frederick had planned a forward-looking evolution for Achmed.

'Medina, Frederick! Please, please, thank you!' Achmed said. His
chin dropped, and he came across the room like a beggar. His eyelids were heavy. They were the inheritance of his mother, whose tribe was not from Fez at all, but had been desert people south of the High Atlas. Achmed did not know this.

Frederick lit a cigar. It was something he rarely did. Then he began
to talk to the boy, and his agitation, the passionate need to communicate at that moment, gave lyrical form to his persuasion. He used paper, pencil, and many drawings and signs. Holding Achmed's attention was like playing a marlin; though the fight lasted no more than half an hour.