«You’d better go up to bed. You’ll catch cold».
He took the hand she held forth. «It was a wonderful evening,» he declared.
«Luis will be back in a few days. You must come to dinner then. I’ll call you, darling».
«Right». He backed away a few steps along the gravel walk.
«Turn to your left there by that clump of bamboo. The gate’s open».
«Good night».
«Good night».
Stepping behind the bamboo thicket, he waited to hear her close the door. Instead, he heard her say: «Ah, Hugo. There you are! You may lock the gate after Mr. Dyar».
«Got to do something about that,» he thought, walking quickly to the right, around the side of the house to the terrace where the swimming pool reflected the stars in its black water. It was a chance to take, because she would probably have been watching, to see him go out through the gate. But she might think he already had slipped out when she was not looking; otherwise it would be very bad. The idea of just how bad it could be struck him with full force as he hesitated there by the pool, and as he hurried ahead down the steps into the lower garden he understood that he had committed an important tactical error. «But I’d have been locked out of the garden, God damn it,» he thought. «There was nothing else I could do».
He had now come out from behind the shadow of the house into the open moonlight. Ahead of him something which had looked like part of the vegetation along the path slowly rose and walked toward him. «Let’s go,» said Thami.
«Shut up,» Dyar whispered furiously. At the moment they were in full view of the house.
And as she strained to identify the second person, even to the point of opening one of the doors and silently stepping out onto the terrace to peer down through the deforming moonlight, the two men hurried along the path that led to the top of the cliff, and soon were hidden from her sight.
Dyar lay on his back across the rear seat of the boat, his hands beneath his head, looking up at the stars, vaguely wishing that at some time or another he had learned a little about astronomy. The rowboat they had brought along to get aboard and ashore in scudded on top of the dark waves a few feet behind him, tied to a frayed towing rope that was too short. He had started out by arguing about the rope, back at Oued el Ihud when they were bobbing around out there a hundred feet or so from the cliffs, trying to attach the two craft together, but then he had decided to save his words for other, more important, things. And in any case, now that the Jilali was away from the land, he paid no attention to what was said to him, feeling, no doubt, that he was master of the immediate situation, and could afford to disregard suggestions made by two such obvious landlubbers as Thami and the crazy Christian gentleman with him. The moment of greatest danger from the police had been passed when the Jilali was rounding the breakwater, before the others had ever got into the boat. Now they were a good mile and a half from shore; there was little likelihood of their being seen.
From time to time the launch passed through choppy waters where the warmer Mediterranean current disagreed with the waves moving in from the Atlantic. Small whitecaps broke and hissed in the dark alongside, and the boat, heaving upward, would remain poised an instant, shuddering as its propeller left the water, and then plunging ahead like a happy dolphin. To the right, cut out by a razor blade, the black mountains of Africa loomed against the bright sky behind them. «This lousy motor’s going to give us trouble yet,» thought Dyar: the smell of gasoline was too strong. An hour ago the main thing had been to get aboard; now it was to get ashore. When he felt the land of the Spanish Zone under his feet he supposed he would know what the next step was to be; there was no point in planning unless you knew what the possibilities were. He relaxed his body as much as he could without risking being pitched to the floor. «Smoke?» called Thami.
«I told you no!» Dyar yelled, sitting up in fury, gesturing. «No cigarettes, no matches in the boat. What’s the matter with you?»
«He wants one,» Thami explained, even as the Jilali, who was steering, struck a match and tried to shelter the flame from the wind. The attempt was unsuccessful, and Thami managed to dissuade him from lighting another. «Tell him he’s a God-damned fool,» called Dyar, hoping thus to enlist Thami on his side, but Thami said nothing, remaining hunched up on the floor near the motor.
There was no question of sleeping; he was much too alert for that, but as he lay there in a state of enforced inactivity, thinking of nothing at all, he found himself entering a region of his memory which, now that he saw it again, he thought had been lost forever. It began with a song, brought back to him, perhaps, by the motion of the boat, and it was the only song that had ever made him feel really happy. «Go. To sleep. My little pickaninny. Mammy’s goin’ to slap you if you don’t. Hushabye. Rockabye. Mammy’s little baby. Mammy’s little Alabama coon». Those could not have been the words, but they were the words he remembered now. He was covered by a patchwork quilt which was being tucked in securely on both sides — with his fingers he could feel the cross-stitching where the pieces were joined — and his head was lying on the eiderdown pillow his grandmother had made for him, the softest pillow he had ever felt. And like the sky, his mother was spread above him; not her face, for he did not want to see her eyes at such moments because she was only a person like anyone else, and he kept his eyes shut so that she could become something much more powerful. If he opened his eyes, there were her eyes looking at him, and that terrified him. With his eyes closed there was nothing but his bed and her presence. Her voice was above, and she was all around; that way there was no possible danger in the world.
«How the hell did I think of that?» he wondered, looking behind him as he sat up, to see if the lights of Tangier had yet been hidden by Cape Malabata. They were still there, but the black ragged rocks were cutting across them slowly, covering them with the darkness of the deserted coast. Atop the cliff the lighthouse flashed again and again, automatically, becoming presently a thing he no longer noticed. He rubbed his fingers together with annoyance: somehow they had got resin on them, and it would not come off.
And as the small boat passed more certainly into a region of shadowed safety, farther from lights and the possibility of discovery, he found himself thinking of the water as a place of solitude. The boat seemed to be making less noise now. His mind turned to wondering what kind of man it was who sat near him on the floor, saying nothing. He had talked with Thami, sat and drunk with him, but during all the moments they had been in one another’s company it never had occurred to him to ask himself what thoughts went on behind those inexpressive features. He looked at Thami: his arms were folded around his tightly drawn-up knees, and his head, thrown back, rested against the gunwale. He seemed to be looking upward at the sky, but Dyar felt certain that his eyes were closed. He might even be asleep. «Why not?» he thought, a little bitterly. «He’s got nothing to lose. He’s risking nothing». Easy money for Thami — probably the easiest he ever would make with the little boat. «He doesn’t give a damn whether I get there or not. Of course he can sleep. I ought to have come alone». So he fumed silently, without understanding that the only reason why he resented this hypothetical sleep was that he would have no one to talk to, would feel more solitary out there under the winter sky.
The Jilali, standing in the bow, began to sing, a ridiculous song which to Dyar’s ears sounded like a prolonged and strident moaning. The noise it made had no relation to anything — not to the night, the boat, not to Dyar’s mood. Suddenly he had a sickeningly lucid glimpse of the whole unlikely situation, and he chuckled nervously. To be tossing about in a ramshackle old launch at three in the morning in the Strait of Gibraltar with a couple of idiotic barbarians, on his way God only knew where, with a brief case crammed with money — it made no sense. That is to say, he could not find a way of believing it. And since he could not believe it, he did not really have any part in it; thus he could not be very deeply concerned in any outcome the situation might present. It was the same old sensation of not being involved, of being left out, of being beside reality rather than in it. He stood up, and almost fell forward onto the floor. «Shut up!» he roared; the Jilali stopped singing and called something in a questioning voice. Then he resumed his song. But as Dyar sat down again he realized that the dangerous moment had passed: the vision of the senselessness of his predicament had faded, and he could not recall exactly why it had seemed absurd, «I wanted to do this,» he told himself. It had been his choice. He was responsible for the fact that at the moment he was where he was and could not be elsewhere. There was even a savage pleasure to be had in reflecting that he could do nothing else but go on and see what would happen, and that this impossibility of finding any other solution was a direct result of his own decision. He sniffed the wet air, and said to himself that at last he was living, that whatever the reason for his doubt a moment ago, the spasm which had shaken him had been only an instant’s return of his old state of mind, when he had been anonymous, a victim. He told himself, although not in so many words, that his new and veritable condition was one which permitted him to believe easily in the reality of the things his senses perceived — to take part in their existences, that is, since belief is participation. And he expected now to lead the procession of his life, as the locomotive heads the train, no longer to be a helpless incidental somewhere in the middle of the line of events, drawn one way and another, without the possibility or even the need of knowing the direction in which he was heading.
These certainties he pondered explain the fact that an hour or so later, when he could no longer bear the idea that Thami had not once shifted his position, Dyar lurched to his feet, stepped over, and kicked him lightly in the ribs. Thami groaned and murmured something in Arabic.
«What’s the idea? You can sleep later».
Thami groaned again, said: «What you want?» but the words were covered by the steady stream of explosions made by the motor. Dyar leaned down, and yelled. «It’s going to be light soon, for God’s sake! Sit up and keep an eye open. Where the hell are we?»
Thami pointed lazily toward the Jilali. «He knows. Don’t worry». But he rose and went to sit in the bow, and Dyar squatted down between the motor and the gunwale, more or less where Thami had been sitting. It was warmer here, out of the wind, but the smell of the gasoline was too strong. He felt a sharp emptiness in his stomach; he could not tell whether it was hunger or nausea, because it wavered between the two sensations. After a few minutes he rose and walked uncertainly to join Thami. The Jilali motioned to them both to go and sit in the stern. When Dyar objected, because the air was fresh here by the wheel, Thami said: «Too heavy. It won’t go fast this way,» and they stumbled aft to sit side by side back there on the wet canvas cushions. Long ago the moon had fallen behind a bank of towering, thick clouds in the west. Above were the stars, and ahead the sky presently assumed a colorless aspect, the water beneath melting smokelike, rising to merge momentarily with the pallid air. The Jilali’s turbaned head took on shape, became sharp and black against the beginning eastern light.
«You sure you know where we’re going?» Dyar said finally.
Thami laughed. «Yes. I’m sure».
«I may be wanting to stay up there quite a while, you know».
Thami did not speak for a moment. «You can stay all your life if you want,» he said sombrely, making it clear that he did not relish the idea of staying at all.
«What about you? How do you feel about it?»
«Me? Feel about what?»
«Staying».
«I have to go to Tangier with him». Thami indicated the Jilali.
Dyar turned to face him furiously. «The hell you do. You’re going to stay with me. How the hell d’you think I’m going to eat up there all by myself?»
It was not yet light enough to see the contours of Thami’s face, but Dyar had the feeling he was genuinely surprised. «Stay with you?» he repeated slowly. «But how long? Stay up there?» Then, with more assurance: «I can’t do that. I have to work. I’ll lose money. You’re paying me for the boat and to go with you and show you the house, that’s all».
«He knows I’ve got money here,» Dyar thought savagely. «Damn his soul».
«You don’t think I’m giving you enough?» He heard his own voice tremble.
Thami was stubborn. «You said only the boat. If I don’t work I lose money». Then he added brightly: «Why you think I bought this boat? Not to make money? If I stay with you at Agla I make nothing. He takes the boat to Tangier, everything is in Tangier. My boat, my house, my family. I sit in Agla and talk to you. It’s very good, but I make no money».
Dyar thought: «Why doesn’t he ask me why I want to stay up there? Because he knows. Plain, ordinary blackmail. A war of nerves. I’m God damned if I give in to him». But even as he formed the words in his mind, he knew that what Thami was saying had logic.
«So what d’you expect me to do?» he said slowly, proceeding with caution. «Pay you so much a day to stay up there?»
Thami shrugged his shoulders. «It’s no use to stay at Agla anyway. It’s no good there. What do you want to do there? It’s cold and with mud all over. I have to go back».
«So I have to make you an offer,» he thought grimly. «Why don’t you ask me how much I’ve got here in the briefcase?» Aloud he said: «Well, you can stay a few days at least. I’ll see you don’t lose anything by it». Thami seemed satisfied. But Dyar was ill at ease. It was impossible to tell how much he knew, even how much he was interested in knowing, or to form any idea of what he thought about the whole enterprise. If he would only ask an explicit question, the way he phrased it might help determine how much he knew, and the reply could be formed accordingly. Since he said nothing, he remained a mystery. At one point, when they had been silent for some minutes, Dyar said to him suddenly: «What are you thinking about?» and in the white light of dawn his smooth face looked childishly innocent as he answered: «Me? Thinking? Why should I think? I’m happy. I don’t need to think». All the same, to Dyar the reply seemed devious and false, and he said to himself: «The bastard’s planning something or other».
With the arrival of daylight, the air and water had become calmer. On the Spanish side of the strait they saw a large freighter moving slowly westward, statuelike, imperturbable. The progress of the launch was so noisy and agitated in its motion that it seemed to Dyar the freighter must be gliding forward in absolute silence. He looked in all directions uneasily, scanning the African coast with particular attention. The mountains tumbled precipitately down into the froth-edged sea, but in a few spots he thought he could see a small stretch of sand in a cove.
«What’s this Spanish Zone like?» he asked presently.
Thami yawned. «Like every place. Like America».
Dyar was impatient. «What d’you mean, like America? Do the houses have electric lights? Do they have telephones?»
«Some».
«They do?» said Dyar incredulously. In Tangier he had heard vaguely that the Spanish Zone was a primitive place, and he pictured it as a wilderness whose few inhabitants lived in caves and talked in grunts or sign language. «But in the country,» he pursued. «They don’t have telephones out there, do they?»
Thami looked at him, as if mildly surprised at his insistence upon continuing so childish a conversation. «Sure they do. What do you think? How they going to run the government without telephones? You think it’s like the Senegal?» The Senegal was Thami’s idea of a really uncivilized country.
«You’re full of crap,» said Dyar shortly. He would not believe it. Nevertheless he examined the nearby coastline more anxiously, telling himself even as he did so that he was foolish to worry. The telephoning might begin during the day; it certainly had not already begun. Who was there to give the alarm? Wilcox could not — at least, not through the police. As for the American Legation, it would be likely to wait several days before instigating a search for him, if it did anything at all. Once it was thought he had left the International Zone, the Legation would in all probability shelve the entire Jouvenon affair, to await a possible return, even assuming that was why they had telephoned him. Then who was there to worry about? Obviously only Wilcox, but a Wilcox hampered by his inability to enlist official aid. Relieved in his mind for a moment, he stole a glance at Thami, who was looking at him fixedly like a man watching a film, as if he had been following the whole panorama of thoughts as they filed past in Dyar’s mind. «I can’t even think in front of him,» he told himself. He was the one to look out for, not Wilcox or anybody Wilcox might hire. Dyar looked back at him defiantly. «You’re the one,» he made his eyes say, like a challenge. «I’m onto you,» he thought they were saying. «I just want you to know it». But Thami returned his gaze blandly, blinked like a cat, looked up at the gray sky, and said with satisfaction: «No rain today».