Robin was irritated when Vincent Doyle arrived alone. The old exemplar, the literary lion, gaunt and bony, his hair shaved nearly to his skull, explained that his friend Achmed was indisposed. Doyle was excessively polite, but Robin sensed he was on edge. He settled on a rock and immediately lit up a pipe of kif.
Doyle always carried his manuscript with him, packed in a burlap sack. He was known for his paranoia, his fear of Moroccans, particularly servants and police, and his belief that a revolution might break out at any moment, making it necessary for him to leave the country without his work. Doyle was almost as well known as Ashton Codd, but he hadn't published anything in years. The manuscript he carried was to be his swan song, a huge novel into which he was pouring everything he knew and by which he hoped to remind the world that he was still alive.
Robin offered to store the sack in the tent, and actually had his hands on it when Doyle suddenly grabbed it back.
"Christ's sake, Vincent. What's the matter? This thing's as heavy as bricks."
Doyle, upset, stashed the sack beneath his knees. "I'm most particular about my manuscript," he said. "I'm a mother you see. I must keep my baby in my sight."
"Yes, of course." Robin nodded, though it saddened him that Doyle, once such a famous hipster, had become an old lady about his goods.
Sven Lundgren arrived next, with his Mohammed, thank God. Immediately they stripped to bikinis and ran hand in hand into the surf. Mohammed was delicate as a willow branch, his smooth, bronze flesh marred by adolescent pimples along his jaw. Robin was entranced, for he was truly a chicken, his innocence set off by contrast with the dentist, whose torso was covered with a pelt of thick blond hair.
Kranker arrived then with Nordeen, a sulky boy whom Robin knew from around the Socco. Kranker liked professional hustlers; he had no interest in finding and courting a lover, preferring to pay for sex and keep himself detached. This had its advantages, and dangers too, since most of the hustlers Robin had known were capable of exhibiting psychotic rage. Kranker, Robin thought, must be excited by the danger, the possibility of being suddenly turned upon with fists and knife. He lay down beside Doyle, leaving Nordeen to his own devices. The boy drifted down to the tidewater and began to build a castle in the sand.
So far the picnic was shaping up with a lot less style than Robin had hoped. Herve was literally sulking in his tent, Lundgren was in the ocean, Bainbridge and the poodle clipper were lying in the sun, and Doyle and Kranker were whispering together by the rocks. But then suddenly and simultaneously Inigo and Patrick Wax appeared, and at the sight of them Robin knew everything would be all right.
Inigo, wearing nothing but a white panama hat and green silk slacks, walked across the sand with the panache of a South American millionaire, stalked by Pumpkin Pie bearing a great plate of salad, with Inigo's sketching kit strapped across his back.
Wax arrived from the opposite direction in a flowing white djellaba and gold-trimmed Arabian headdress, his riding crop in his hand. His Kalem followed, bearing salad and a folding beach chair-a marvelous, tough-looking Arab boy, Robin thought, with bulging muscles and a cruel face. This Kalem was only the latest in a long line of chickens whom Wax had ferreted out, instructed in interior decoration, introduced into society, then dropped when the youths became twenty years old.
"Oh, Patrick," Robin yelled. "You look just like T. E. Lawrence."
"Florence of Arabia, dear boy," Wax replied. "I see Mother Barclay hasn't arrived."
"She will," said Bainbridge.
"He'd better," said Wax. "I want to arrange a wrestling match between his Mustapha and my Kalem." Then, sotto voce: "I've been teaching this beauty the manly art of self-defense. He'll pin Barclay's chicken in the dirt."
Robin was elated. This was just the sort of thing he'd hoped to see. He helped Wax arrange himself, then hurried to Inigo on the other side.
"My salad and my friend," the artist said, snapping his fingers at Pumpkin Pie. "You must come see his portrait before I ship it off to New York."
Pumpkin Pie grinned.
"Oh, he's very pleased," said Inigo. "I've flattered him a lot. He's being good to me this week-I've promised to take him to Madrid. Well-first we're going to swim, and then we're going to draw."
"Come say hello-"
"No thanks, Robin. I detest homosexuals. Wait-isn't that my dentist in the sea?"
"If you're such a snob, Inigo, you can swim farther down the beach."
"Yes. That's what we'll do." He snapped his fingers at the boy. "Come!"
Pumpkin Pie handed Robin the salad and sketching pack and followed Inigo across the sand. A few minutes later, when Robin came out of the tent, Patrick Wax beckoned with his crop.
"Look," he said. "Do you see Doyle? Now why do you suppose he doesn't undress?"
"The sun's hot today-"
"Rubbish, Robin!" Wax switched him gently around the navel. "There're black-and-blue marks all over him. That Achmed of his beats him up, and of course the man's ashamed."
Now that was something Robin didn't know, and wasn't about to concede. Wax was a marvelous character but he lied all the time and was the most evil man in all Tangier. Though he lived in a palace on the Mountain, he kept a flat for assignations in town, a deteriorating place that Robin had once seen, filled with dusty, rusted mirrors and scores of crucifixes on the walls. The crucifixes, Wax claimed, were part of a valuable collection he'd inherited from his mentor, a Polish cardinal or a Bavarian bishop, depending on which version he was telling at the time. They had, he said, a twofold usage: as religious paraphernalia, and to ream boys in the ass.
Inigo came out of the sea, fetched his sketch pad, then went back to the sand to draw Kranker's Nordeen. Kranker watched with Doyle, a twisted smile on his face, which Pumpkin Pie tried to catch in a crude drawing of his own.
"You see," said Robin to Herve, whom he'd finally enticed out of the tent, "all the boys are learning from their mentors. Wax is teaching Kalem interior decoration, and Inigo's teaching Pumpkin Pie how to draw. Doyle's got Achmed writing verse, and Barclay's Mustapha is learning how to entertain. We expatriates leave a magnificent heritage. Look at Farid Ouazzani, the Inspector's brother. Wax taught him about antiques, and now he has a shop on the Boulevard."
"Bazaar Marhaba-is that the place?" The poodle clipper had been listening in.
"Yes," said Robin. "Been in there?"
"Uh huh. The other day." He pulled off his T-shirt, exposing a pale, fragile chest. "The young man showed me everything, and then we went upstairs to look at rugs. As soon as we were alone he took my arm and asked if I felt like making love."
"Ha!" said Wax. "That's Farid!"
"Did you do it?"
"Certainly not. I didn't know him, and besides, I didn't come down here to catch a disease. I bought a little bracelet from him, though, so he wouldn't feel hurt." He flashed his wrist. "Sort of cute, don't you think?"
Robin was beginning to take a dislike to this nelly queen, who seemed so ordinary among his Tangier friends. He was about to say something nasty when Wax guffawed.
"Ho, ho! Look who's there. I believe Mother Barclay has arrived."
Barclay had managed to come last, but his entrance, Robin thought, was not the best. He and his Mustapha trudged across the sand, giving identical little waves of the hand. Barclay's hair showed silver in the sun, matching the handle of his cane.