Alexandra Singer (12 page)

Eventually she found that she could not keep away from the Grand Tazi, and she was pleased that for a while, at least, she didn’t see Armand. Instead, she passed her evenings with
Konstantin.

On one of these evenings, Konstantin made a comment about the Historian in French – too fast, its meaning obscured. He said something about suicide, and she tried hard not to think about
it. They came to know one another well, and Maia felt protected in the face of Mahmoud’s disturbing enthusiasm.

Mahmoud had a fondness for both Moroccan and European pastries. He kept them stocked behind the bar, and he licked his fingers incessantly. “Try these! They’re called
rghaif
.” He pushed a dozen, smeared with honey and jam towards Maia and Konstantin, who looked at the plate with disgust.

“Try one!” urged Mahmoud. Maia tried one, and she retched at the taste of the sweaty, uncooked dough.

“You shall have to get used to them here!” boomed Mahmoud, and he went over to the next table to amuse some Czech tourists with his false bonhomie. Mahmoud’s sycophancy
disgusted her. He laughed immoderately at everyone and everything. She suspected that the warm façade concealed a definitive nihilism.

That evening, on her way to the Grand Tazi Maia stopped at the Place of the Dead. By day, the square was an ordinary, large and quiet place, but as evening fell it teemed with shifting crowds of
onlookers. It was enchanted. There were snakes, lizards and other wild creatures of the desert. A group of blind beggars were singing for their suppers in rows of ten at a time. Kerosene and spices
hung in the air and blended unpleasantly with the dust and exhaust of the battered cars.

Just as she was leaving the square she passed a tiny stall where a herbalist sat on the ground. Odd-looking potions in unlabelled jars set out before him. In the backdrop, the Koutoubia Minaret
glowed and she watched the shifting circle of onlookers and fruit sellers shouting their wares. Apes were being led on chains, musicians and a troupe of young dancing boys. She was cut off from her
past life; all this had now become her world. Her life was contained within these streets; her painting, the guests at the bar. No news from outside could permeate. She passed the days in an
indolent state.

On that particular evening, Maia was unsurprised to find Konstantin lolling at the bar by the pool, wholly immersed in the possibility of his next drink. It was a little early, even for
Konstantin.

“Another whisky, Tariq,” he slurred in the vague direction of the barman. “Where have you been today?” lisped Konstantin. His breath was heavy and stale in her face.

“Painting. It is very interesting what you can see from the rooftops.”

“Pigeons? They make pastries out of those pigeons. A flaky cinnamon sprinkled pie stuffed with pigeon livers and eggs.” Gleefully he rubbed his hands together. “Delicious,
makes for a lovely meal.”

“Konstantin, you would be surprised.”

His loss of interest was visible. Five small whisky glasses were lined up before him on the bar. Konstantin was a fastidious man, and Maia had become used to the long pauses before he spoke.

“I have trouble,” he pronounced slowly.

“That’s nothing new, Konstantin.” Everyone she had met in this twilight quarter were evaders of one sort or another, ill-fated sidesteppers of life, drawn to the life where
very little can go a long way. He was evidently drunk and for a moment Maia was of a mind to warn him that he must watch his wallet. But Konstantin must be used to their ways by now. He was a
peculiar mix of cynicism and naiveté. As she grew to know Konstantin, Maia became fond of him.

Konstantin slumped down on his stool, pushing back the wire-rimmed spectacles that were always on the verge of falling from his head. He possessed a certain innocence, which endeared him to
those who knew him.

Outside the hotel, Maia heard as if muffled in the distance the call to prayer. She watched the twitching of Konstantin’s small features and the round head perched atop the unusually tall
neck. He spoke again, more slowly than ever: “No, it is not new.” He showed Maia a letter, which he snatched back immediately. “I can’t show you. But it is very bad. I shall
probably have to stay here a while longer.”

Maia asked Konstantin nothing. This was the unspoken rule at the Grand Tazi. One did not ask questions, and accepted the half-truths and fabrications of the regulars as if they were the most
delightful revelations one could ever hope to hear.

“I wait,” he said. “I wait and I wait, for a final answer from Athens.” Rather sorrowfully, he banged his whisky glass down on the bar. A fat tear rolled down his perfect
moon face, as cold and as white as marble. His hair was almost all gone and his clothes parodied the long black gowns of a priest’s tunic.

Poor man, thought Maia. The cloister was all that Konstantin had ever known, and now he was stuck here, with the rest of them. So he could only wait, spend his time drinking, and perhaps maybe
find more of the same trouble, which had sent him scuttling here in the first place. When Maia thought of this, she was unable to muster any sympathy for him. He clasped and unclasped his fingers,
gnawing at his bloodless lips. Beyond them, the city was nonchalant, unaware and unconcerned by the offences of its foreign inhabitants. Konstantin was holding his head in his hands and whining,
“Oh, Jesus, everybody is against me, I had the urges, you see.” He was sobbing violently, his face white and puffy. “I am so ashamed. It is so brutal. Brutal. Wrong.”

“Yet still you do it.”

Even in his size he exhibited a lanky innocence. He was after all, Maia told herself, merely a victim of his own desires.

Konstantin looked at her stupidly, as if he might have expected some other reaction, some indulgence from her. “I can’t stop myself.”

“You do not want to stop yourself. You believe you can get away with it. Did you imagine that you might find refuge here, Konstantin? You thought he would protect you, didn’t
you?”

For a moment Konstantin looked at her appraisingly, with an unusual coolness. “I thought he cared for me. But you should not trust him. No-one should trust him.”

“I haven’t seen the Historian for a while,” she said.

“I wouldn’t expect to The Historian suits himself. He comes and goes.”

“I don’t know why he stays here,” she continued thoughtfully. “He could teach and write anywhere.”

“Not now, he would have to do some work.” He looked at her face, and seemed to catch himself. “I mean... listen.”

Maia made no reply, thinking of the crumpled up papers that filled the drawers of his study.

“I wish someone would tell me what was going on here,” said Maia.

Konstantin gave a short laugh, tinged palpably with bitterness. “Oh yes, Maia, so do I.”

She sighed, and went to leave.

“Wait,” Konstantin had his bony hand on her arm. “The Historian is not all bad. He was experimenting... research.”

“Historical experiments? What sort are those?”

“He studies everything. Not only history. Behavioural. He needed funds. His department was unhelpful. He had to get it from somewhere. He owed everybody.”

“Fraud?” said Maia. “That’s almost too banal for him.”

“That is the truth.”

“Why tell me this? You seem to hate him.”

“I do not hate him, I love him!” His mouth gaped; he looked aghast, and he dissolved again into tears. The lines of his face took on the significance of his suffering, of the deepest
dejection. The Historian did not love him; he rejected him and Konstantin was humiliated.

“He doesn’t want people to know his situation. But he is in trouble now. That is his problem.”

“Maybe you care for him more than he cares for you, Konstantin.”

“You are right. He should be nothing to me. But he is everything,” he said with a melodramatic flourish.

His endless self-pity was beginning to bore Maia and she looked around for a distraction. She imagined the parties once held here, which had filtered through from the hall into the dried up old
courtyard where the fountain had tinkled alongside the voices of ladies, where now lay two men, smoking away the days.

The bar was starting to fill now, although Maia doubted that the clientele were all of the kind that Mahmoud was so desperately hoping to attract. Amongst the foreigners living out their sterile
expatriate lives, there were a few Berber looking men in cheap leather jackets, men with sufficient means and attractive business interest to mix with the bar’s clientele, swarthy men with
jaded imaginations and evil intentions. There was corruption here, and it was palpable.

Maia attempted to change the subject, now that she saw that Konstantin was completely unwilling to discuss her own interests. He was utterly self-obsessed, yet in so many ways he was charming.
“I can’t stand those two apes down at the entrance. They are always staring at me. I hate having to pass them. They are intimidating.”

Konstantin looked at her and laughed, as if humouring some petulant child. “You know why they are here.” He tried to sound soothing, but failed.

“Yes. Security, apparently. Well, Mahmoud needs to do something about them. I really cannot stand them.”

Maia did not feel that she was a woman to be intimidated by men, especially here, where she suffered the constant calls in the street. Even in the haven of the Grand Tazi she felt their greedy
eyes looking her over.

An Arab man, who Maia had noticed watching her lasciviously at the door earlier, came over to them and gripped Konstantin’s slender arm. The man’s eyes were blank. He ignored Maia
and she found that Konstantin had suddenly turned his back on her. Maia had seen several men like that all over the city; they were evidently a sign of punishment. Being outwardly gay looked like
trouble amidst the shifting sands of Moroccan sexuality, a very delicate balance. With public space universally gender segregated, the city was a place of seductive contradictions. All
Konstantin’s attention was now focused solely on the man, and Maia watched the pair’s interactions.

Eventually, Konstantin left to complete his exchange, and Maia was alone at the bar. The Grand Tazi was about the only place she felt she could sit unaccompanied and have a drink. She never
stopped being captivated by a city where so much of the population secreted the overpowering scent of being on the make.

Tariq the barman was suddenly in front of Maia, gazing at her intensely with his peculiar stare.

“What will you be doing now you have been left all alone? I suppose you might want to paint me?”

Maia went to leave.

“Wait, you pay.”

“No, Tariq. For free. Always for free. Mahmoud promised.”

She went and watched the other guests from the foyer at the foot of the stairs, which went spiralling up into the enclaves of the old hotel, where Mahmoud kept his rooms free for other
transients, and who knew what else. It was whispered that every night drug fiends stretched out upon the ragged rugs in the upstairs halls and undemanding women looked for effortless work in the
long passageways.

For a long time she sat alone looking at the chattering crowd through a dim haze of boredom, as people came towards her and sat down and went away again, filtering out as the sun came up. There
were days when Maia did not even trouble herself to return to the Historian’s riad. At the Grand Tazi there was always a party. She wanted to lose herself in the sun and fleeting moments of
pleasure she thought she could glean. One afternoon she had not meant to fall asleep in the sun, she awoke to the sharp sounds of jabbering; Maia’s head hurt terribly as waves of nausea came
upon her. A sense of utter shame, of near nakedness before the hotel guests as their eyes rested upon her. She managed to gather up her clothes, heading blindly into the hotel and up the staircase
to the room Mahmoud allowed her to use before anybody might notice. She went to shower, then came back into the room and pulled down the shutters.

Several hours later she woke, refreshed, and studied herself in the bathroom mirror, before heading down to reception.

The two men at the door only allowed people in on the advice of Mahmoud, but now it appeared that they were letting in their local friends. Maia knew that Mahmoud was attempting to cater for a
more cultured clientele, but from the people here it seemed that this was policy was failing. Maia was sitting quietly, smoking and listening to the lone guitarist playing, when there was shouting
and a commotion.

“
Salloum allaykoum,
” a young man was shouting as he charged bullishly towards the pool area.

Now Mahmoud appeared, his face red and bulging. He was hurling abuse at the two men who were supposed to be guarding the entrance. “How did this cretin get in here? Get him out!”

The young man dived straight into the empty pool, and came up spluttering a few moments later. The two guards grabbed the intruder by each arm, lifting him out of the water he squealed in pain
as his arms were stretched. As they kicked him, so viciously that each rib made a grotesque cracking sound, he curled himself smaller and smaller into a ball until he lay huddled upon the ground
whimpering to himself.

“You will leave now,” Mahmoud told him.

But the man still had spirit, even as Mahmoud’s bulk shadowed over him. “I am from this place too. I have right to be here. I can enter.”

“Huh.
Wa qul bravo
.” Mahmoud changed to English, so that he could properly display his linguistic skills before his guests. “This is my hotel. I say who enter. You want
to mix with foreigners? Now I tell you not try to come in here. Go away now. You make big, big fool of yourself.”

“No,” came a small voice.

“Do not argue with me,” Mahmoud said, and he kicked the man in the stomach. “You are in real
harira
this time little man. I know your type.”

A tussle ensued; ending with Mahmoud sitting proudly astride the man as his men held down the man’s flailing arms.

“
Je suis moi le patron,
” bellowed Mahmoud, elbowing his way through the gathered crowd. “Now, is all above board, above board,” he repeated loudly; it was
evidently a phrase he had once learned well.