Hamid shrugged. "Suddenly I detest the disorder of Tangier. I try to impose myself upon it but, of course, I fail. A funny thing, though-I'm beginning to enjoy my power. What do you think? Have I finally become corrupt?"
"Possibly. It happens to policemen. We're not living in a democracy, after all. But in your case I prefer a political explanation. I think you've become disgusted, as I've always been, by the antics of the foreigners here, and it's that disgust that's finally touched you viscerally and driven you into acting tough. I know you're not a political man, Hamid, but you take things very much to heart. You can't fail to be moved by injustice-full pools on the Mountain while our people swelter without water in Dradeb. For years I've heard people say you weren't affected by this. I always defended you. I always thought you felt it. And I always thought one day you'd make a good ally."
"Allied with whom? Is there a conspiracy going on?"
Achar smiled. "Let's not talk about conspiracies, unless we talk about the official ones being plotted in Rabat. Anyway, I wouldn't dream of trying to undermine your loyalty to the regime. But we're old friends. I'm watching your development. You're changing, Hamid, acquiring a will for order. One day you'll come to talk to me about the future, and not just the decadence of the beach."
"Actually I didn't come here to talk about that."
He described the intelligence report that an Israeli agent was coming to Tangier, his theory that he might be coming to kill a European, and Zvegintzov's tip about the Freys. "It's strange," he said. "There's a dilemma in all of this."
"I don't see one."
"Oh-of course there is. Here I have, perhaps, a perfectly fiendish pair-the Freys, Kurt and Inge Becker-people who don't deserve to stay alive. And on the other hand I have, perhaps, a killer, a man coming to murder them in Tangier. I can't sit back and allow someone to commit a crime, particularly a person who works for the secret service of an enemy state. But then who else will execute them? If the Israeli turns up, what am I to do?"
"To me, Hamid, there's no dilemma at all. Israelis and Nazis are all the same-they're foreigners. I'd say keep an eye on both of them and see who kills the other first. Then wrap up your case by killing the one who's left."
Hamid laughed. He knew Achar wasn't serious, but still his joke revealed coldness, the coldness of a surgeon who could become an executioner one day.
Achar refilled his glass. "You know," he said, "this is an exciting time to be alive in the Arab world."
"You really think so?"
"Oh, yes. There's a mood spreading, across Africa to the Persian Gulf. We Arabs, those of us who comprehend our destiny, must recognize that our revival is near at hand. Look at Europe and America, squirming before the oil cartel. It's coming for us, Hamid. A new era. You can even see it in Tangier-your friends on the Mountain reveling in decadence while down here we prepare the antibodies to extinguish their disease. Don't you feel it-the anger? We have an explosive situation here, and though I hate to say it, it's you in the police who are holding on the lid."
"This is dangerous talk, Mohammed. You shouldn't say such things to me."
"Perhaps not. But I trust you. And I hope you're interested in what I say."
"Better to change the subject. Someday, if you should happen to get yourself in trouble, it'll be good if you have a friend in the police."
"All right, Hamid-enough. How are things now at home?"
"Much better. She's stopped smoking finally. Thank you very much for that."
"You know she's been by here several times." Achar brushed his fingers across his mustache. "Actually, Hamid, she's been by quite a bit. I'm busy most of the time, though occasionally she's caught my eye. She's come here on her own it seems, approached my people and volunteered to help."
Suddenly Hamid could feel a thumping in his chest. It was the same feeling he'd had when she'd told him Zvegintzov had followed her home from the British play.
"You didn't know, then?"
Hamid banged his fist against his forehead. "Why does she do this? I'll never understand."
"Well, it's not as if-"
"What the hell have you got her doing? Scrubbing bedpans? Emptying slops?"
"Of course not, Hamid. Calm down. She's just come by a few times and helped us with our census. Driss Bennani is impressed with her, says she's been a terrific help. He's seen an interesting side to Kalinka. He says-well, I hesitate to tell you this-"
"What?"
"Well-he says she's 'a revolutionary at heart.'"
"My God!"
"That's not so bad, Hamid."
"Yes, I know. You think the same of me." He stood up. "I'm going." He walked to the door. "Good night!"
Outside the clinic he started toward his car, then stopped, turned around, and walked back up Rue de Chypre. He spent an hour strolling through the slum, following the little paths between shanties which glowed with candlelight. He listened to radios that wailed, music that overlapped and fused. He caught glimpses through split walls of people eating, quarreling, scratching their bodies. It was so squalid, Dradeb-he could hardly believe he'd been brought up in such a place. And all the time he kept thinking: a revolutionary at heart.
He really didn't think she'd meant to deceive him; it was vagueness, not secretiveness, that had made her neglect to tell him about her work. But then, in the back of his mind, there was a suspicion (and he despised himself for feeling it) that perhaps there was something happening between Kalinka and Achar. Or maybe even with Bennani, who'd run out so quickly when he'd walked in. Ridiculous, of course! Bennani was only a boy, and Achar was his oldest friend. But still there were things such as that time, months before, when he'd observed her sipping tea with a smuggler near the bus station, or that day he and Aziz had found her smoking with the Chinese on the laundry-strewn medina roof. How could he ever marry a woman whose past and present actions were so difficult to understand, who constantly eluded him, who was so foreign and so strange?
He paused, stood still, then violently shook his head. He had to get her into focus, had to get her clear. But then he realized that it wasn't just Kalinka. It was all the foreigners, everyone: Zvegintzov, Lake, Robin, the Freys-names gushed in, the names on all his dossiers, the names that filled the filing cabinets in his office, and constantly shuttled through his brain. For some reason he recalled a fleeting vision of Inigo sobbing, or perhaps laughing, parked one night outside Heidi's Bar. The mysteries of Tangier-there seemed no end to them. There are as many, he thought, as there are people in the town. And now Kalinka-just as I'm getting close to her a stranger glimpses something which, through all the months we've slept together, I never saw at all.
The Saint
Of all the writers in Tangier Martin Townes was the one Robin liked the best. Yet he knew less about him than any of the others-there was something elusive about Townes, something ironic and concealed.
Ever since the May afternoon when they'd talked in the Beaumonts’ garden, Robin felt they shared a bond. He felt like a specimen too. It was as if he and all the other people in Tangier were creatures in a vivarium whom Townes observed most coolly through the blue-tinted spectacles he always wore. Robin had been amused by Townes' suggestion that he become a professional immoralist, a diabolic saint and, pleased by so much attention, he'd gone to great pains to seek Townes out. This entailed going to the Mountain, for Townes despised the rabble of the town. He'd withdrawn from nearly everyone, secluded himself in a glass tower on the roof of his house where, Kranker had said, he was writing a novel about Tangier. Robin didn't know whether this was true, but Townes' grasp of the complexities of the European city belied the widely held notion that he was cut off and aloof. In fact, he seemed fully aware of all the latest gossip, including the fact that Daniel Lake was having an affair with Jackie Knowles. He mentioned this one evening in early July when Robin stopped by for a drink.