Alexandra Singer (6 page)

In the streets below, the light was diminishing. Sitting alone on the rooftop of the Grand Tazi hotel, listening to the sound of Arabic catching in the back of the throats, and the background
whispering of various European languages, Maia felt again all the uncertainty of a girl alone in a foreign country. This was no longer Europe, she was in Africa. From the way both men and women
regarded her, from the café waiters to the man selling cigarettes on the street, to the woman at the next table eyeing her with unchecked, unabashed curiosity, to the resentment she sensed
directed towards her as a westerner, everything she encountered here was alien. She had the strange feeling that this unspoken antipathy was the product of a strange relationship. Greedily they
eyed her, and at the same time they hated her for it.

Maia dutifully executed the tasks set for her by the Historian. She grew aware of the displeasure of his editors in Paris and London at the work that he had produced for them
in recent years. Maia began to wonder what had changed. She took out the letters and read them. ‘Not your usual style,’ they read, ‘Not sufficiently thorough.’ She raced
through more letters complaining of his lack of focus, the lack of research, and then more recently the recriminations crouched in vague, diplomatic language, until she found, crumpled at the back
of a drawer, the demands for the return of the advances he had already received. She could not confront him, and simply left the letter where she had found it. The administrative tasks numbed her
mind and required such a huge amount of time that she barely reflected upon her past anymore. Her curiosity grew as she became aware of how the Historian was slowly destroying his academic
reputation. He had no interest in hiding it; that was clear. She was here to organise his affairs, and that was the alleged reason for her presence. But now it appeared that he had not been
performing his writing and research, the basis of his work as a historian.

Passing the hours trawling through his documents, her life was becoming one of isolation. The Historian was exceptionally secretive about his movements, and Maia felt she didn’t know him
enough to enquire. She knew when he was in the house, because she could feel his presence there, quiet yet imposing and not completely benign. On his part, he settled himself in his rooms and left
her instructions in notes. She grew accustomed to their situation. Rarely did she venture out into the streets, dreading the persistent attention and the suffocating heat, and instead went up on
the roof to sit in the sun as it rose higher in the sky and then sank down in the evenings over the city. She painted the mountains, the rooftops at sundown, and for a while she believed she was
content.

Almost daily Ina crossed Maia’s path, but the housekeeper barely acknowledged the Historian’s assistant. The two women barely spoke. As the days passed, Maia was determined to force
recognition from Ina. One morning as they passed, Maia blocked her way, “Good morning, Ina.”

The woman barely looked at her, emitting only a noise that sounded more like a grunt, and neatly sidestepped Maia. She had worked for the Historian for many years, and lived close by with her
elderly husband. Maia wondered at the unspoken animosity towards her, unable to understand. On a simmering afternoon, Maia retired to her room on the third storey, exhausted in the heat. After a
few moments of peace, the Historian burst suddenly into her room. “My dear, I must give you a tour of the house!”

“Now?”

“I know, I know, it really is rather impromptu. But I’m afraid I simply haven’t had the time.”

Maia was unsure about the truth of this. The correspondence she completed for him never requested his presence in Europe. She could only guess at his movements, and now she wondered what he
wanted from her.

“I must show you around. I have been so rude.”

Maia was shocked by his sudden enthusiasm.

Suddenly his face fell; and he looked around him with distaste. “Disgusting,” he muttered, “disgusting,” and then he appeared to remember her presence and smiled.
“I have collected these… things,” he said, waving his hand disparagingly over the assorted furniture, eclectic and mismatched, “from every corner of the country, and
further still.” Hand painted and carved, the cedar tables and cabinets and the Moorish benches were gathered around, stacked up in corners and gathering dust. “This,” said the
Historian, stroking a small round table, “is a Nedhima Table. Very rare. It cost me little, but I shall sell it on for thousands. Those gullible tourists, flocking here for their taste of
exoticism,” he gave a short, grunting laugh of contempt. He recollected himself, and came towards her. “Now for the tour!”

“Are you sure? I am quite tired; you have given me so much to do. And I have the impression that Ina would not approve. She doesn’t like me.”

The Historian’s presence unsettled her, and she wasn’t sure to believe his friendliness. But even her sobriety did not quell his enthusiasm.

“Ignore her. I always do!” He paused, as if searching for the appropriate words. But he saw how questioningly she was looking at him. He sighed. “Ina is a strict Muslim. She
does not approve of women like you.”

“Women like me?”

He laughed, cynically. “Liberated women, one must suppose. And she is old. It is now many years that she has worked for me. She is a good worker. But a little possessive of the house. And
of me. She forgets that I am the master!” He began to laugh uproariously. It was very unusual behaviour. Abruptly, he became calm and looked at her. “Do not offend her.”

“I have done nothing to offend her,” Maia said, bemused.

He smiled. “I do know that. Now, follow me.”

The Historians permission to explore the house pleased Maia; she now felt that she might be free of Ina’s critical gaze. Through low arched doorways they passed into a room of the house
that was cool, alien from the stifling heat outside.

“When did you leave London?”

“Many moons ago.” The Historian was intolerably vague, and he looked distracted.

“Please, do not play with me. I came here; I deserve an answer.”

“And why not, when it is so amusing to play with so earnest a girl?”

Maia was surprised. The Historian was almost debonair. He had made himself into a recluse. She had assumed that this had been the cultivation of his image, but now she began to wonder if he was
hiding out here because, academically at least, he no longer had anything interesting to say. There were rumours about him. It was said that he had stolen money; that he procured girls, that he was
intolerably self-indulgent. But Maia never believed rumours about anyone; and in this case there were academic jealousies to consider. She was inclined to believe the best of people. Sometimes she
thought that it took to much energy to consider the worst.

As they walked together through the house, the Historian bounding slightly ahead, he pointed out to her objects of interest.

“This is an Al-Khazar armoire,” he said, pointing to a small cabinet carved in mahogany. “This is a marabou dining set,” and rushing ahead, he stopped at six carved wood
and leather chairs, placed around a long, rectangular table. “And this is a Tuareg Buffet.” Lovingly he stroked the leather. “This will sell at auction, for a very high sum. And
this! And this!” He pointed wildly around him.

Maia was surprised to see him almost hysterical in his excitement; his behaviour seemed so out of character. She realised he exuded only a hint of warmth when he was displaying his accumulated
possessions. He had carved out a niche for himself here, and somehow he was both guarding it and showing it off to her. She wondered if perhaps he wanted her to return home and talk about him, to
gossip about his success to his former colleagues.

“I knew the man who made this,” he said, pointing out a cabinet, which he assured her was made by the Ashanti tribe deep in West Africa. “I stayed with him for several weeks...
but now he is dead.”

“Why have you never returned to London?” she asked, hoping he might share some of his past while he was so relaxed. “Surely you must miss it. You were such a fixture
there.” Maia tried to sound casual.

“Yes, I was.” He was thoughtful.

“You know, I don’t believe it about you, those rumours – ”

“One has to live, no?” he said, almost nonchalantly, and carried on down the passageway.

At that moment, as she saw his face darkening, she knew that she had made a mistake.

He whirled on her. “If you wish to stay here, never talk to me again about the past.”

She said nothing. He disappeared upstairs, then seemed to regret it, and he returned. But already she was sorry; she pitied him in his exile.

“I know I can be sharp,” he said, “but I am so used to being alone here.”

Maia was silent.

“Come and see.”

The house was tall and narrow on the upper floors, several storeys high. Rubble lay scattered on the ground.

“I began all of this restoration several years ago, but I never do seem to get round to finishing the work. Or even simply to stay here to see the whole thing completed.” He waved
his hand with an excessive flourish of his long, tapered fingers, as if they might brush away the rubble.

“Can you not trust somebody to check on the work, and pay the builders?”

“I trust nobody!” said the Historian vehemently.

His complaints were incessant. The people here were unreliable, useless. The builders were lazy and corrupt.

“I am always deceived,” he said, bowing his head ruefully.

Maia almost believed him, but in his self pity he was almost comical.

“I have exact plans for this place.”

Despite his relentless criticisms, Maia was convinced of his devotion to his place here. She smelled the scent of the oranges hanging succulently from the trees; saw the tiled blue fountain in
the courtyard where he often spent the evenings, smoking incessantly.

He saw her looking at it, “Why do you never come down here in the evenings? I do hope you are not scared of me.”

Now that he was behaving so hospitably, she hardly felt able to tell him that he had failed to make her feel welcome. “I thought you would like to be alone.”

“Of course you may come down,” he said, and clapped her lightly on the back.

Maia was only able to speculate at his sudden turnaround. She wondered how he coped with his resentment, his self imposed exile, the ostracism and critical treatment from his fellow academics,
but he didn’t mention it again.

When they stopped in the corridor leading to the front of the house from the courtyard, Maia was able to see that the corridor was turned at such an angle that nobody from the street was able to
see directly into the house. The house was well protected, with long, twisting passages, offering her security, protected from the loud intrusion of the people outside. The Historian led her
through a delicately tiled arch into his reception room. Both the floor and the low, round tables had been constructed from dark cedar wood and the walls were painted a deep, dark green evoking the
cool enclosure of a forest. Stuccoed, geometrical designs flitted across the side of the far wall and in high alcoves the bookcases spilled over with huge tomes on subjects ranging from the
esoteric and the philosophical to psychology and mathematics. Strangely, Maia noticed, there were no historical books. Ceramic tiles lay placed in symmetrical patterns across the floor.

He saw her looking at them. “Zellige, my dear.”

The vividly coloured, terracotta tiles had been placed into geometrical shapes, spreading over the entire far wall. The Historian strode nimbly over to the wall and stroked the tiles. Carpets
dyed in reds and purples lay across a raised stone platform, and the windows opened with shutters of latticed wood onto the courtyard outside. Maia understood why this misanthropic man might want
to come in here and never emerge. She was warming to him. So far, she had found that the Historian’s misanthropic contempt for human nature was so strong that he wished to have as little
contact with the world as he was able.

“When I am in here, I do ask you not to disturb me... ”

The intimacy of earlier was all gone. Maia was discomfited. Why had he wished to display this sumptuous room to her; and then forbid her from ever visiting it? Maia dismissed this strangeness
merely as one of the Historian’s many foibles.

Following the spontaneous tour of his abode, the Historian disappeared again without leaving word of his whereabouts. Occasionally she felt the urge to enquire about his travelling, but she knew
that she would never ask. She had already witnessed a hint of the wrath that lay dormant in the Historian, and did not desire to witness it again. Somehow he succeeded in making her feel as if she
judged him too harshly. She pitied the old man, living out the remainder of his life in isolation.

In the Historian’s absence, Maia pushed on with the work that he had left for her and she continued to paint. Although Maia passed Ina in the corridor, the two women still never spoke, and
Maia no longer made any attempt to elicit any civility from the woman.

Maia saw that the door of the riad was the main external feature against the blankness of the house, and savoured the privacy she found once inside. She often sat in the courtyard and worked in
a room downstairs where two sofa beds sat, and rugs were laid out across the stone floor. In the corner, a wooden platform had been constructed for the desk, where at night, she ate alone with
fresh produce she had bought in the day. She began to enjoy her solitude.

Maia did as the Historian asked her. She executed his correspondence with the various publishers and newspaper editors from Paris to New York, she translated articles for him and the articles
which he had written upon varying medieval religious topics from French into English, and she transcribed his indecipherable notes onto his ancient computer. She could sit for hours, her hands
poised over the keys, desperately trying to understand the illegibility of the Historian’s handwriting, or looking abstractedly at the letters before her eyes, without really seeing them at
all.