The Torch of Tangier Read online

“You talk like this to everyone?”

  “No, ma’am. Just you, and only because we talked about it before.”

  “It’s a bad habit, Blufield, discussing security matters, with me or anyone else, even people in G2.” His face flushed, suffused with embarrassment. He shuffled his feet and looked down, abashed.

  “Especially in Tangier,” Lily went on. “It’s an international community, full of Axis spies. People’s lives, the outcome of the war, could be placed in jeopardy.”

  “I get the message. Casablanca’s no better. I’ve been careful.”

  “You come from Casablanca? What can you tell me about Torch?”

  “Some opposition from the Vichy French. There was a naval battle; they bombarded the Massachusetts. The landing force ran into resistance, especially at Port Lyautey. We suffered some casualties. But the French had more. We’re beginning to thrust inland. Should clean it up in a week, two at the outside.”

  Behind her, the Teletype continued to spill out new dispatches. “Time to get back to work. You know the code we use here and the broadcast frequencies?”

  He nodded. “I was the one at the other end in Casablanca between midnight and 06:00.”

  She felt a twinge of disappointment. “I thought it was Major Pardo.” She reached into her pocket. “I leave for Meknes this afternoon. Have a few things to do before I go.” She held out the keys. “The round one’s for the roof; the hexagonal one for the shed. It’s easy to remember. ‘R’ for ‘round’ stands for roof, ‘S’ for ‘six sides’ stands for shed.”

  “The Major told me to tell you to report to him in Casablanca when you’re finished at Volubilis.”

  She felt color flood her cheeks and was surprised at how much she looked forward to seeing Adam again. She turned to go, hoping Blufield didn’t notice. He was already at the Teletype and encrypting the next communication. He worked quickly, able to send and receive messages with remarkable speed.

  She left the roof and went downstairs to Boyle’s office. “I’ve come to say goodbye.”

  He looked up from the paper he was reading. “You look terrible. Better get some rest.”

  “Can’t.” She’d had no more than short snatches of sleep in the last forty-eight hours. Her eyes were gritty, but she had to keep moving. “Too much adrenaline.”

  “The jeep is parked outside. Ask Jessup to help you load it when you’re ready.”

  Suddenly she was hungry. “Going to get something to eat first.”

  She headed for the last time for the Petit Socco, found a table that overlooked the square and looked over the menu. The thought of food made her queasy. She ordered a poached egg, some toast, and tea.

  Tired beyond rest, she sipped the tea—too sweet, too hot, the bright taste of mint suffusing her mouth and nostrils. She stared in a daze at the swirling crush of people funneling through the square and raised the glass of tea in salute to the city of drifting souls—the leftovers of Europe and America—remittance men, black sheep, drunks staggering too early in the day, addicts with blank eyes and lost faces, Berbers who moved among them like medieval conjurers.

  Lily would never see Lalla Emily again, would never see Drury nor MacAlistair. Phillipe, Lalla Emily’s grandson, had arranged for them to be buried in a small, weed-choked lot across from her villa. Suzannah had already left for Fez. In a month, a few weeks perhaps, Lily would be in Casablanca with Adam.

  ***

  With the jeep loaded, she drove south, past Chaouen, over the Rif Mountains and past Fez toward Meknes.

  She stopped at Volubilis and left the jeep, strolling through the ruins of the triumphal arch, past the forum and its tall columns, still standing, past the basilica where Roman officials once sat in judgment, and down the Decumanus Maximus, past the Roman villas with their mosaic floors barely visible under the dust—where Orpheus charmed wild beasts dancing in an endless round, where Bacchus drove a chariot pulled by panthers, where Venus bathed with her nymphs. This was the house where the bust of the king of the Berbers, Juba II, descendant of Hannibal, was found.

  Once, Moroccans, convinced that the site was built in Biblical times by the pharaoh of Egypt, called the site Ksar Faraoun, The Pharaoh’s Palace. From here, the wise and kind Juba II ruled the Berber kingdom, Roman procurators ruled Mauretania, and Moulay Idriss, descendant of the Prophet, brought Allah to the Latinized Berbers and Jews and Syrians and established the Sultanate of Morocco.

  Lily could see his tomb from here in the holy town of Moulay Idriss, a little more than a mile away. Flat-roofed houses of the town climbed the hills beyond Volubilis, and cascaded through narrow lanes. The tomb of Moulay Idriss and his shrine dominated the elevation between two hills.

  She thought of the poster she had seen so long ago in Drury’s office that said, “What matters most is how you see yourself.” Did Moulay Idriss see himself as the savior of Morocco?

  It was getting dark now. She went back to the jeep and wondered how Drury saw himself. In the end, Drury had seen himself as an unconquerable hero, and maybe he was.

  She had one foot in the past, in the Roman world where conquerors came into Africa and brought their engineering genius, their villas with mosaic floors, their law courts and Byzantine churches. The past was her reality, with its surge of conqueror after conqueror that fashioned Morocco.

  She thought of Blufield, his mind poised on the cusp of the future. Neither of them lived in the present; both lingered on the moving pinnacle of time.

  Driving away from Volubilis, she thought she understood.

  It was all of a piece.

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