The Torch of Tangier (2 page)

***

Lily was still staring at the shuttered window of Drury’s room, the bright North African sun silhouetting his angular body, when his voice broke into her thoughts.

“Where the hell is room service?”

He began pacing the hotel room as if it were a cage. “Those goons must have cleared out of your room by now.” As he reached for the telephone, a knock sounded at the door.

“At last.” Drury opened it. He turned away from the waiter and indicated the desk. “Put the tray down here.”

He signed the check and stood in the middle of the room until the waiter’s footsteps faded, then went to the door, opened it a crack and scanned the hall.

“All clear.”

He picked up the tray and carried it into the hall, pausing in front of Lily’s room. “Not a word when we get inside,” he whispered and signaled for her to unlock her door.

She opened it, hesitating in the hall a moment. Everything seemed to be in order, as if intruders had never been there. The Germans had vanished.

Drury eased the tray onto the dresser in Lily’s room and held a finger to his lips. He ran a hand under the table, got down on the floor and looked under the dresser, the bed, the chair, all the while motioning her to silence. He took the drawers out of the dresser, turned them upside down, dumping the contents on the bed, emptied the closet, and ran his hand along the closet walls.

He went into the bathroom and peered in the medicine cabinet, under the sink, under the lid of the toilet tank. He climbed up on the toilet seat and loosened the screws holding the air grate.

He focused on the inside of the shaft, nodded knowingly, and signaled to Lily to look up.

There, inside the airshaft, dangling from a wire, was a microphone.

Chapter Three

Drury clambered down from the toilet, fetched the tray from the dresser, and brought it into the bathroom. He placed it on the sink, climbed back on the toilet seat, then slathered a coating of honey along the wire and the microphone. He motioned for Lily to hand him the mashed potatoes. He packed the soft mess around the microphone with his fingers, squeezing each clump to make it adhere.

“That should do it,” he said out loud while he washed his hands. “The only thing they’ll get now is an earful of potatoes.”

“Suppose they’re not hungry?” Lily said. “Besides, the food will attract every rat in the harbor.”

“Not to worry.” He climbed back up and screwed the grill in place. “The grid keeps all the rats in the airshaft. Except for the ones in the room above.” He tapped on the ceiling with his middle finger.

“Someone’s up there listening?”

“Probably. Earphones glued to their heads, eager for every word.”

Lily felt a spark of irritation. “Why? I have no secrets.”

He climbed down and wiped his hands on a towel. “Not yet.”

“But you have secrets, Dr. Drury?”

He strode into the other room. “Let’s have the tea.”

“You do, don’t you?”

“Milk or sugar?”

“It’s cold by now.”

“Doesn’t matter. It’s good for you.”

“Won’t they be suspicious when they don’t hear anything?” Lily asked.

“Ignore them. They’re buffoons. Chocolate soldiers in a comic opera.”

Buffoons or not, Lily felt her shoulders tense.

He reached for the tea. “But don’t underestimate them.” He took a quick sip and put down the cup. “Drink up. We’ve an appointment at the villa.” He moved to the door and held it open for Lily. “Come on, we’re late.” He stopped, halfway into the corridor. “Don’t forget to lock up.”

“The horse is already stolen.”

“If you don’t lock the door, they’ll know we spotted them.”

Outside the hotel, the woman who called herself Suzannah was canvassing stray tourists at her usual place, her shining black hair luminous in the morning sun. Drury had told Lily that Suzannah was a prostitute who lived in the mellah, the Jewish quarter of the medina.

He nodded when they passed her. The costumed doorman in slippers, fez, and orange sash, his hand clasped firmly on Suzannah’s flank, shooed her away, telling her to go back to the mellah and stay there.

Drury glanced at Suzannah with an almost imperceptible nod of his head and looked toward a café across the street from the hotel. Lily watched Suzannah swivel down the street in her high-heeled shoes, her dark satin hair flapping against her shoulders like the wings of an angel, and tried to remember where she had seen Suzannah before.

***

They took a taxi up The Mountain to the villa. Lily waited at the gate while Drury paid the driver.

“It’s open,” he said when he came around to the gateway and reached behind the lock to lift the latch.

They skirted a black Packard parked in the circular drive in front of the villa and entered the tiled vestibule, made their way around a blocking wall and a corridor and into the villa, a quixotic blend of British and Moorish styles.

Drury stalked across the chintz and mahogany sitting room, with its beaded lampshades and Kerman throw rugs. He strode into a courtyard garden where the soft aroma of orange blossoms and old French roses hovered, where bougainvillea spilled against a dazzle of brilliant tiles, each tile matched to its neighbor with mathematical precision, circles embedded in circles, blue and yellow and white in intricate harmony.

MacAlistair and a stranger were seated next to the fountain in the shade of the eastern wall of the garden with glasses of mint tea on a table between them. They both rose when Drury and Lily entered.

“Lily, this is my friend Wild Bill,” Drury said.

“Hickok?”

“Donovan.” Drury turned to his friend. “Lily Sampson. I told you about her.”

Donovan was a small man in his late fifties with pale blue unblinking eyes. He wore a windbreaker, but his trousers looked like officer’s pinks.

“Donovan has a job in Gibraltar,” Drury said. “Comes over here every once in a while for a decent meal.”

“I understand you worked in Palestine,” Donovan said to Lily.

“Tel el Kharub.”

“The place where that archaeologist who was killed worked?”

Lily nodded. “Geoffrey Eastbourne.”

“You’re going back to finish the dig?”

“We closed down the site after Eastbourne was killed.”

“What happens now?”

“His assistant, Kate Hale, is writing up the site report in London. I’m doing the section on the cemetery.”

“You’re working on it now?”

“I didn’t bring my notes. I thought we’d just be here for the 1941 season, then go back to Chicago.”

Donovan glanced at Drury. “But you stayed,” he said to Lily. “Over a year longer. It’s 1942, almost November now.”

“The war,” MacAlistair said. “How would she get home? She’d have to go south to the Cape, then over to South America.”

“And Drury won’t pay for that, I suppose.” Donavan turned to Lily. “So what do you do with your time?”

“Not much. Getting to know the city.”

“Participant observation. Isn’t that what you anthropologists call it?”

“I’m an archaeologist. I’m just observing, not participating.”

Again Donovan glanced at Drury.

“You speak Arabic, Miss Sampson? French or Spanish?”

“I can speak a little of the local dialect they use in Palestine. It’s different from what they use here but I can understand most of what the Tanginos are saying. As for French, my pronunciation is awful and my vocabulary tends toward archaeological terms like
tesson
for potsherd,
niveau
for level. Just high school Spanish.”

“But you can get along.”

“Pretty much.”

“With all that free time, you must be bored. Maybe you could help out at the Legation.”

“I don’t…” Lily began.

But before she was sure of her answer, Drury stepped in. “Great idea. We’ll both go down there, offer our services.”

Donovan gave a grunt of approval. He moved toward the door. “I took the liberty of mentioning both of you to the chargé d’affaires at the Legation. Name is Quentin Boyle. He’s expecting you.”

Drury seemed satisfied. “We’ll drop by this afternoon.”

“I’ll call and tell him you’re coming.” Donovan started to leave. “Be careful,” he said to Drury and then turned to Lily. “Good to have met you Miss Sampson. Maybe we’ll meet again.” He sauntered toward the inside of the house and then stepped back into the garden.

“While you’re there,” he said to Drury, “check out the personnel. I’d like to hear what they’re up to.”

“Something wrong?”

“Nothing I can put my finger on.”

MacAlistair coughed gently, looking from Donovan to Drury and back to Donovan. “I’ll see you out,” he said and followed Donovan out of the garden.

“Looks like you’ll be working at the Legation,” Drury told Lily.

“How do you know? We haven’t gone there yet, haven’t asked for the job.”

“Wild Bill always gets his way. Nobody can turn him down.”

MacAlistair returned, followed by Zaid.

“Who was that?” Zaid asked.

MacAlistair hesitated, looked over at Drury. “A friend of Drury’s.”

“What was he doing here?”

“Dropped by to say hello,” Drury said.

Lily watched the water splay in the fountain while MacAlistair crossed to the chair he had been sitting in earlier, sat down with a sigh, and picked up the glass of tea.

Zaid sat in the other chair and leaned forward. “The tea is cold. I’ll get you a fresh pot.”

“We have to leave. Have an appointment at the Legation,” Drury told him.

Zaid seemed annoyed, distracted. “Want me to drive you?” He stood up, searched in his pocket and pulled out the car keys.

“Sure.” Drury strode out of the garden, through the sitting room, and was waiting at the Hillman before Zaid and Lily reached the drive outside the gate.

Chapter Four

At the Legation, the acrid smell of an old building—damp plaster and musty wood—hung in the air. A Marine corporal in dress uniform perched in a glass enclosure at the entrance nodded to Drury and gave Lily a quizzical look.

“She’s with me,” Drury told him. “We have an appointment with Boyle.”

The corporal waved them through.

***

In the office of the chargé d’affaires, Quentin Boyle leaned back in his chair, both hands on his desk. “So you say you’re an expert on Arab affairs, know how they think.”

Boyle had auburn hair and a pale redhead’s skin. He had a nick on the right side of his nose, and his nostril flared and fluttered when he spoke.

Drury sat on the edge of his chair. “I know the Riffians,” he repeated, his tone growing more insistent with each sentence. He leaned his elbow on Boyle’s desk. “Came here in the Twenties during the Riff war when they fought for their independence against Spain. Fascinating people. Blue-eyed, blond Arabs.” He gave Boyle a knowing grin. “The Vikings were great explorers.”

“You’re trying to tell me Leif Erikson was here?” Boyle glanced at Lily with half a smile, as if expecting a reaction. She raised an eyebrow and Boyle glared at Drury’s arm resting on the corner of his desk.

He removed his glasses and leaned forward. “This is the second time you walked into my office to make demands and tell me what to do. And now you have your friend Donovan call, put the pressure on me.” Boyle waved his glasses in Lily’s direction. “And Goldilocks over here? What does she want?”

Goldilocks?

“She’s my assistant,” Drury said.

“I’ll bet she is.”

“My name is Lily Sampson.” Goldilocks, indeed. “But you may call me Miss Sampson. I’m an archaeologist. I’ve worked on sites in the Middle East before.”

“This isn’t an excavation, Miss Sampson. And we aren’t in the Middle East,” Boyle said. “The Middle East is the Levant, Palestine, Syria. This is the Near East.”

Drury let out an impatient sigh. “I know the founder of the Republic of the Riff, Abd el-Krim.”

Boyle drummed his fingers, his gaze fastened on Drury’s hands resting next to the tray of pens on Boyle’s desk. “I don’t know what you’re really after.” He watched as Drury rearranged the pens in the tray. “I know you’re up to some tricks, but I don’t know what they are. I only know that I have instructions from higher up to accommodate Donovan.” Boyle’s nostrils expanded with an irritated quiver and a pink flush of anger suffused his face. “And frankly, I resent it. I wouldn’t know what to do with you. You don’t know squat about consular work.”

He looked pointedly at Drury’s hands, still fumbling with the pens on Boyle’s desk.

“I apologize for whatever.” Drury dropped his hands to his lap and leaned back in the chair. “Didn’t mean to step on your toes, but I’m here to help. There’s a war on, you know.”

With a contemplative nod, Boyle twirled his glasses by the earpiece, first clockwise, then counterclockwise. “We’re in a delicate situation here. Have to be careful. It’s touch and go whether Franco will join the Axis.”

“I understand.” Drury bent toward Boyle again and lowered his voice. “That’s where the Riffians come in.” He spoke slowly now. “We can use them in a pinch, throw them against the Kraut. I’m sure of that.”

Boyle took in his breath. He seemed to give the suggestion some thought, nodding his head, tapping his fingers, blowing out his cheeks. “At the least Spain may allow German troops free passage through the territory.”

Boyle fiddled with the paper clips in the well of the pen tray. “Maybe there is something you can do. Let me talk to Armand Korian.” He folded his glasses, placed them on the desk, and strode to the door. He signaled the secretary. “Tell Korian to bring the news bulletins.”

He returned to the desk, the door still open. “Korian edits the Legation Bulletin,” he told Drury. “We send out pamphlets in French, Spanish, Arabic.” He shrugged. “Doesn’t seem to do much good.”

“Miss Sampson can be of some help,” Drury said. “She’s supposed to be working for the State Department, like me.”

That’s the first I’ve heard of it, Lily thought.

Boyle raised his eyebrows. “You work for State?”

Drury nodded and leaned forward again. “You have an empty room here she can use? She can sit, read books. She won’t bother you. She’ll keep out of your way.”

Out of his way? Nothing like feeling superfluous.

Boyle shook his head. “We don’t have room here.” He looked Lily up and down with an appreciative smile. “Why don’t you spend your time at the beach, Miss…?”

“Sampson.” My God, is he flirting? Should I bat my blue eyes? Fluff out my golden hair?

“She needs a cover. For safety,” Drury said.

“I’m busy serving the government here. Proud of it, I might add.” Boyle hesitated, then continued in a more conciliatory tone. “So are you, I suppose, in your way. And from what I can see of your friend, Miss…?” He paused.

Lily sat straighter in the chair. “Sampson,” she repeated.

“Miss Sampson.” Boyle looked her up and down again. “You’ve got nothing to be ashamed of, either.” Boyle smiled at her. “Go to the beach.”

Drury rose, blocking Boyle’s affable leer. “She’ll be too noticeable there.”

Boyle tilted back his chair. “Indeed she will.”

The secretary knocked on the open door. “Korian is here with the pamphlets.”

Boyle brought his chair upright. “Go to the beach, Miss Sampson. Improve our relations with the Tanginos.”

A man came into the office, clutching a pipe between his teeth. He carried a stack of leaflets and balanced them on the edge of Boyle’s desk.

“Meet Armand Korian,” Boyle said. “He’s in charge of our news bulletin. Counteracts Spanish propaganda.”

Korian had droopy eyes, a sharp nose, and hair glowing with too much brilliantine. He wore a shiny three-piece suit with baggy pockets and a blue spotted bow tie. He looked like an unsuccessful insurance salesman.

The front of his shirt and his lapels were dappled with bits of tobacco and ash. He reached into a pocket and pulled out a pouch of pipe tobacco.

“Professor Drury here is an expert on the region,” Boyle told Korian.

Korian looked at Drury and waggled the pipe in his mouth.

“He’s going to assist you with the bulletin.”

Korian began to fill his pipe. “I don’t need any help.”

Boyle handed a leaflet printed in Arabic to Drury. “Read this, tell us what you think of it.”

Korian pulled a match from his pocket and lit it by scraping his thumbnail across the head while Drury stared at the leaflet in his hand. Korian began to draw on the pipe and Drury crossed to the window, held the paper to the light and squinted at it.

Boyle waited. Korian puffed, billowing smoke out of the side of his mouth. The room filled with the sticky-sweet smell of his pipe tobacco.

“Trouble reading it?” Korian took the pipe from his mouth and aimed the stem at Drury. “Need some help?”

Drury brought the paper closer, then held it at arm’s length and stared at it.

Boyle picked up a pencil and tapped it on the desk. “I thought you knew Arabic.”

“Haven’t studied classical, printed Arabic in years. It’s worthless here, you know. The farther you get from Syria, the less it’s understood.”

Korian took a draft of his pipe. “How do you manage, then?” He let out a smoke filled breath.

“With locals, I speak Mogrebhi, the local Arabic. Stick to simple subjects.” Drury waved the smoke away and gave a measured cough. “Why aren’t you in the army?”

“Punctured ear drum. And it’s none of your business,” Korian took a deep draw on the pipe and blew another cloud toward Drury. “The locals understand Arabic.”

“Just Moroccan Arabic. Mogrebhi.” Drury pushed away the smoke like a swimmer stroking through surf. “Berbers speak a local language, Tamazight. Almost a third of the population here are Jews and they use a different dialect—mixture of medieval Spanish and Hebrew. They brought it from Spain during the Inquisition. Call it Ladino.”

Korian looked sleepy, with bags under his eyes so heavy they looked like they could fall from their own weight. “I understand the people here,” he said through a haze of smoke.

“You don’t know which side they butter their bread,” Drury told him.

“My family is from Lebanon.” He shrugged and flicked a speck of tobacco from his lapel. “I’m an Arab, more or less.”

“I’d say less. You don’t know the locals.” Drury looked Korian over, lingering on the stains on his lapel and his over-polished shoes. “You’re not an Arab, you’re Armenian, born and raised in California, in the Central Valley.”

Drury began to pace the area in front of the desk, his hands clasped behind his back. He shook his finger at Korian as if to a naughty child. “And it’s time you had a short course on Moroccans and their languages.” He cleared his throat and folded his arms. “The Romans called them Mauri, derived from the Hebrew word for west, but the Berbers were the indigenous ‘Libyans’ of North Africa. They’ve been here since the dawn of history, known to the Egyptians as ‘Lebu.’” Striding up and down as if he were in a lecture hall, he droned, “The Riffian dialect changes Arabic ‘L’ to ‘R’. ‘F’ and ‘B’ are interchangeable, hence Rifi from Libi.”

Korian rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “We have to listen to this?”

Boyle grunted and Drury resumed pacing.

“I’m giving you the benefit of fifteen years of education and research.”

Once he gets started, there’s no stopping him, Lily thought. He’ll harangue us forever. She picked up a bulletin.

“You read Arabic, Miss Sampson?” Boyle broke in.

“I read it but don’t speak it. It says here that Doolittle led an air raid on Tokyo.”

Korian gathered the pamphlets. “That’s what it says. Good for you.”

He eyed Drury disdainfully and stalked out of the room, wafting tobacco smoke behind him.

Boyle closed the door after him. “One thing I’d like you to tell me is how you know the background of Legation personnel.” He waited. “You won’t say, of course.”

Boyle looked from Lily to Drury and back again. “You’re anthropologists, aren’t you?”

Drury finally stopped pacing. “That’s what we are.”

“You know how people in foreign cultures think?”

“That’s what we do for a living.”

Boyle folded his glasses and held them in his hand. “Wouldn’t hurt if you prepared a report on the Riff. Work up a pamphlet about propaganda in Morocco, what would work, what wouldn’t.”

“Exactly what I had in mind.”

Boyle tapped his glasses against his hand. “Can’t pay you, of course.”

“Wouldn’t take the money if you could.” Drury sat in the chair facing Boyle’s desk and leaned back luxuriantly.

“It’s settled then,” Boyle said. “Busy yourself with Arab affairs, find out what they’re thinking, how they can be influenced.”

“We’ll both work on it.” Drury looked over at Lily. “As a team. Just want to do our bit for the war effort.”

“And you’ll shut up and leave me alone.” Boyle opened the door for them. “God help us. With teams like this, we could lose the war.”

***

Lily saved her comments until they were back on the Rue de Statut.

“Boyle made me feel like a floozy.”

“He meant it as a compliment. Forget it.”

“Why’d you tell them we could do a pamphlet on propaganda?”

“We can. We’ll do an ethnography, chapters on social organization, kinship terms, religion. Contrast tribal areas with cities.”

“I don’t know enough about the Berbers.”

“Doesn’t matter. Throw in some anthropological jargon. Makes a good impression. The more ponderous and mysterious, the greater they’ll think it is.”

While he was talking, Drury stared across the street. Lily followed his gaze. Suzannah was seated at a sidewalk table in a café across from El Minzah. When they passed, Suzannah raised her eyebrows then looked away.

“Besides,” Drury said, his voice hesitant, distracted. He was still looking in Suzannah’s direction. “They think I work for the COI, Coordinator of Information, doing research and propaganda.”

“Don’t you? Who do you work for?”

Drury peered at Lily and then glanced across the street. Suzannah picked up a glass and held it to her lips without drinking.

Lily was certain Drury had given Suzannah a hidden signal, but what the signal was, or why he sent it to her, Lily couldn’t tell.

“Who is she, really?” Lily asked.

Drury was watching Suzannah. “Who?” He smiled and gave Suzannah an almost imperceptible nod.

“Never mind,” Lily said. She had remembered where she had seen Suzannah before.