"Oh, Robin," she said, kissing both his cheeks, "you're just in time to see our film."
She led him around to greet the other guests-all people he knew. They were sprawled on sofas yards apart, and he had the impression of an inanimate group. There was Patrick Wax, who raised his little pony whip in salute, Inigo in a white suede vest worn over a black shirt, the Hawkins' in riding clothes, Madame de Hoag with Jean Tassigny, and Martin Townes.
Townes was perched on a huge white Marrakech hassock, his blue-tinted glasses cocked warily on his nose. Robin sat next to him-though he didn't know the writer well he liked his looks and saw a plate of hors d'oeuvres nearby. The Beaumonts and Inigo were smoking kif. Wax was sipping champagne, the Hawkins' were drinking vodka, Claude de Hoag a pastis, and Townes a bottle of beer.
"You know," Robin said, "it's amazing to find you all here. I just finished writing my column, and there's not one of you I didn't name."
"You write nasty stuff, lad," said Wax, hissing through his teeth. "But I love it anyway."
"What did you say about us, Robin?" Herve passed Florence his pipe.
Robin brought a finger to his lips. "They're sealed," he said. "Anyway, you can read it yourselves Saturday morning. Nothing juicy, I assure you, though I mentioned your missing statuette. Oh, yes-I did take a few swipes at the conversation at Barclay's Tuesday night."
"Good for you," said Wax. "He's got it coming to him, the bloody snob. So grand he is, and so awfully dull. I'd love to know who wrote that note."
"You're a prime suspect," Robin said.
Wax laughed. "Unfortunately I don't go to his dreadful little church. They're all such phonies there, and the Vicar's liturgy stinks. But I'll be there Sunday-to hear the sermon, though not, I assure you, to pray." He brought down his little whip hard on the arm of the couch. The smokers were too stoned to turn, and the Hawkins so drunk they didn't hear.
"I doubt," said Townes, fixing Robin with a stare, "that you could have said very much about me. We rarely see each other, and everyone knows I don't go out."
"That's just what I wrote. I suggested you were up to something. Scribbling something nasty in that windowed tower of yours."
"You speculated, then?"
"If you want to put it that way."
Townes looked at him closely, then turned back to his beer. Robin lit his own pipe and watched Herve set the projector up.
"Listen, everybody," said Florence. "We're going to show the film. It's just a home movie-nothing dirty. Move your chairs around. We'll project it on the wall."
"Guyslene will do the commentary," said Herve.
"No," said Guyslene. "Florence."
"I think Florence might do better," said Patrick Wax. "She's a little less badly stoned."
"All right. Now someone draw the curtains." When no one did, Florence drew them herself.
A minute later the film was on, a flickering study, Robin thought, of a family in decline. Florence's voice-over was full of giggles and breathy gasps.
"See-there's Herve in his Maserati! Just like James Bond! And there he is leaving the hospital. After his heroin detoxification in Suisse."
A cut then from Herve walking out the hospital door to shots of Mexican women dressed in black sitting on mules.
"This is Acapulco, I think. We had Christmas there last year."
Florence was seen jumping topless into a pool, while a pair of panting Afghans eyed her from the side.
"You're fatter now," said Claude de Hoag.
"Hmmm. Maybe. There's papa leaving court! See all the photographers. And the mob!"
"The stockholders put them up to that," said Herve. Robin watched a pan of angry faces-people who'd lost their savings in the Beaumont bank.
"Look! Here we are skiing. That's Jamie Townsend, Guyslene's fiance last year."
The images went on, shakier and more blurred. There were scenes of the Beaumonts sitting around smoking hash, and barely legible footage of a Djillala party they'd organized the previous summer on the beach at Cap Spartel. They all looked young and rich, and vulnerable too, beneath their smiles. There was a sense of doom in the background-people playing while their fortunes turned unseen. Gone now were the Maserati, the Christmas vacations in Acapulco, the ski chalet in Klosters. Robin had heard that the elder Beaumonts were living on credit in a commercial rightbank hotel, and that their legal fees had mounted to more than a million francs.
Once, when the film broke and Herve worked to splice it up, Martin Townes wandered out of the salon. Robin thought he'd gone to the toilet, but after a while, when he didn't return, Robin excused himself and went out to look. He found Townes, finally, sitting in the garden stretched out on a wicker chaise lounge.
"Couldn't stand it, huh?" Robin asked.
"I got the idea pretty quick."
"Disgusted?"
"Not really. These people are fascinating, in a macabre sort of way."
"Why do you think?"
"Their emptiness, their superficiality. In some strange way that film shows them as they are."
"It'll be over for them soon, you know. This house is on the market. Not that anyone in his right mind would want to buy it, of course."
"I'm a great admirer of your column," said Townes, looking suddenly into Robin's eyes.
"Well, thank you very much. I wouldn't have thought you'd like it much."
"Actually I do. Gossip is what the novel is all about. Men and women, society, news. But there's something special about your work that's attracted me a long time. You don't write particularly well, and most of it's crap, but still, beneath it, there's a voice. A distinct one, I think."
Robin was caught off guard. He knew his column was "crap," but he wasn't particularly happy to be told so to his face. "Oh?" he said. "Please tell me more. Just what is this voice you hear?"
"It's the voice of a young man weary with life, and also fascinated by his own despair. He loathes what he does, and revels in it at the same time. The Robin Scott that emerges from a year or so of reading 'About Tangier' is a soul who's found grandeur wallowing in the abyss. He leads a perfectly pointless life, but somehow, despite that, he achieves a kind of sainthood in the end."
"Like Jean Genet?"
"No. Genet is a thief. Robin Scott is not a criminal, except perhaps in a broader sense. But certainly he's an existential character living on the edge, striding through Tangier's filth with an angelic smile on his face. People say terrible things about you, Robin. They say you inform for the police."
"That's rubbish, of course."
"Of course. Anyway, the point is that people apprehend you as a diabolical character. You're sinister in their eyes, and they can't reconcile that with all the fun you seem to have. There must be envy in it too. Everyone, at times, wishes he could embrace immorality."
"So, I'm an immoralist. What else do people say?"
"Oh, the usual things. Faggot. Pimp. Heroin racketeer. What is this business about putting young boys in woolen shorts?"
Robin blushed. "It's something I've wanted to do."
"Tell me about it."
"I'd rather not."
"Come on, Robin. It's all the same to me. Besides, I've read your poems."
"You have? How on earth did you find them?"
"Doyle showed me some things, in a little magazine."
"What did you think?"
"There were some lines. I remember a pair: 'His face is the triangle of a Berber horse / He has the burning eyes of Moroccan dice.' Something like that. Anyway, what comes through is the voice of a man who has a passion to confess."
"Perhaps I do, but my woolen shorts fetish is something I don't talk about anymore."
Townes shrugged. "As you like, Robin. But please tell me the story about your being nearly castrated last year. I've heard several versions, but not the true saga from the authoritative source."