Tangier (30 page)

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 He'd withdrawn from nearly everyone, secluded himself in a glass tower on the roof of his house where, Kranker had said, he was writing a novel about Tangier.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.

"Interesting, isn't it?"

"But improbable," said Robin. "I wouldn't have thought Lake had the balls."

"You underrate him. He's a complicated man. Perhaps he has a desperate need for love."

"Desperate! He must be to be chasing her. She's a donkey. And her nitwit of a husband never lets her out of his sight."

"Well—what are you going to do about it? Will you mention it in your column?"

"Hmmm." Robin smiled. "These are delicate matters. Lake's got kids. I don't want to abuse my power."

"You still haven't answered my question."

"Let's just say I'll weigh the public's right to know against how exposure might harm the Lakes."

"Don't be corny, Robin. An immoralist doesn't talk like that."

"Maybe I'm not as much of an immoralist as you think. Perhaps I'm genuinely sweet and kind."

Townes laughed. "I heard about your picnic."

"It was a very nice occasion. The only bad thing about it was that nothing really bad took place."

Townes nodded. They looked at each other, laughed, and shook their heads.

"Now what I'd really like to know is who's the maniac in the church."

"I've been hoping it would turn out to be you," said Townes, "but I gather Brown has checked you out."

"God, what fools they are! Anyone you suspect?"

"Everybody. Or rather—whoever it's least likely to be. The business with the crucifixes suggests Patrick Wax. He's the sort you'd expect to find officiating at a satanic mass. But I personally think it'll turn out to be someone hitherto regarded as pious and bland. Any one of a hundred people who's felt himself abused. But getting back to your picnic, it turned out rather badly for Vincent Doyle. Kranker blabbed too much, and now everyone's laughing behind Doyle's back. Musica Codd came up to me in the market the other day. Wanted to make sure I'd heard that Doyle carries around his silverware in his sack."

"I didn't say anything."

"Someone did. If you hadn't given the picnic, that particular bit would never have come out."

"OK. But I don't understand you, Townes. You urge me to become an immoralist, then when I do something faintly immoral, you seem to disapprove."

"I only disapprove, Robin, because you didn't follow through. You didn't mention the silverware in your column—it only got around by chance. That's your trouble, you see. You're wishy-washy. You're even a little bourgeois. To be an immoralist, and then renew yourself as a saint, you have to let all that go. You need to come up with a strong concept of yourself, then rigorously act it out."

Robin laughed. "Why are you so intent on my canonization? What on earth does it mean to you?"

"Oh, I don't know." Townes grinned. "You have so much potential. When I look at someone like you, more or less on the right track of life, I feel a compulsion to give him a little push. You're so close to what you ought to be. That's why I'm encouraging you. Cut yourself loose, Robin. Discover yourself in sin."

Robin nodded, though he still wasn't sure what Townes had in mind, or even whether he was being serious or operating on some teasing level of irony intended to provoke. "I'll try," he said. "But what about you? Are you some kind of Svengali who organizes people's lives?"

"Yes—if you like. That's not so bad. I'm a writer. I live in a world of fantasy. I think about people constantly, and also about plots. The trouble is that most of the people in Tangier are floundering in half-created dreams. If they really went to the trouble to see their fantasies through, this town would be a much more interesting place. I think you come closer than most, as does Patrick Wax, and Inigo—an extraordinary man. But let's face it—most of our friends here are pathetic. They don't even know who they're pretending to be. Anyway, this is too abstract. I prefer the method of your column. You name names, describe real deeds, rip off people's disguises. That to me is a virtuous occupation. I wish you'd do it more."

"Fine. Give me material. What else have you got besides this bit about Lake and Mrs. Knowles?"

"Well—let's see. I'm sure you know all about Kelly and Luscombe, how Kelly and the Drears have found a loophole in the TP bylaws, which they obtained on the sly from Derik Law, and how they're going to use it to petition for a meeting where they plan to retire Luscombe from the club. As a result Luscombe is now wandering around Tangier mumbling about a 'conspiracy' to destroy his life. It's so sad to see him perspiring, stopping people on the street to enlist their support, or sitting dazed in Heidi's Bar telling perfect strangers his bitter tale. Then there's Jean Tassigny's affair with Claude de Hoag—they carry on madly at the tennis club every day; and Françoise de Lauzon's thing with her new gardener, whom I believe she calls 'Dent de Lion,' or 'Dandelion' for short. Inspector Ouazzani too—something's bothering him. His girlfriend, perhaps. I don't know exactly, but you might be able to find out, being his snitch and all."

"Really, Townes—that's a vicious lie, started by my enemies."

Townes laughed. "Sorry," he said. "Anyway, I think I know why Kranker told that silverware story on Doyle."

"I've wondered about that. It seemed like a betrayal, since they carry on as though they're friends."

"Just a facade," said Townes. "There's a lot of bitterness there. Years ago Doyle wrote a novel, a cool, bleak thing that became an underground classic, instrumental in the creation of the myth of Doyle, the dropout exemplar. Kranker wrote a play in which he used the essence of Doyle's idea. Not the details, you understand, not even the story exactly, but the essence, the vision, the thing that was so particular to Doyle's point of view. But Doyle was furious, and though he's never said a word to Kranker, the thing's been eating away at him for years. Now Kranker's become hostile and begun to tell stories, like this silverware thing that makes Doyle appear an ass. You get the idea—a vicious circle of neurotic intrigue. There's no point to any of it, it's all petty and ridiculous, and yet it's typical of Tangier, true to our community and its rotting ways. That's what you ought to reveal in your column."

"I never heard this story before. Do you mind if I use it?"

"I doubt it would make any difference if I told you no. The point, Robin, is that if you wanted you could turn your column into a mirror. You could confront our community and all its little secrets, reflecting them back in the form of lurid gossip which in turn would become a vision of the place."

Townes excused himself, left the room. While he was gone Robin thought about what he'd said.

"You know," he said when Townes came back, "I think you're putting me on with this sainthood crap. You're really after something else. Tell me what it is."

"All right." Townes paused. "I am putting you on. I've been observing you for quite a while, Robin, and I've come to the conclusion that you're riding for a fall."

"Oh, come on—"

Townes stood up. He was often abrupt like that, sometimes even rude. "Before you go I have a present for you," he said. "A book, if you haven't forgotten how to read." He handed Robin a worn paperback edition of
The Confessions of St. Augustine.

"Ugh! A classic! And by a saint, no less."

"Yes, Robin—by a saint indeed."

Townes walked him out to his terrace, where they paused before the view. Townes' garden framed Tangier, illuminated by the setting sun, which cast long shadows of trees upon the grass and coated the buildings below with a golden sheen. It was a powerful vision of the city, and it caught Robin by surprise.

"Funny to live up here," he said. "Tangier looks empty when you look down."

"It's a writer's view," said Townes, "too far away to see people. I can sit up in my tower"—he pointed to the glass cubicle on his roof—"and use my imagination to fill it up. From here the town is a set which I can populate as I like."

"What a wonderful place to write about Tangier."

Townes looked at him. "Yes," he said sorrowfully, "there is a novel down there. I've thought about it a lot—" He turned away and grinned.

They shook hands, then Robin walked down Townes' driveway to the street. With the tattered copy of St. Augustine stuck in the back pocket of his jeans, he wandered down from the Mountain to the medina, the smells, the crowd.

The Socco Chico, jammed with tourists, seemed especially intense that night. Hot, sweaty bodies scantily attired—they blurred before Robin's eyes. Pimples, bruises, vaccination scars—impossible to keep them straight. It's the carnival of summer, he thought, an endless moist parade, all strut and rub and furious scramble to insure oneself a delirious night.

The Socco, which he'd always loved for its overheated sense of life, turned sour for him suddenly as he sat in Café Centrale. How many of these bodies, he asked himself, do I really want to touch? How much of this collective genitalia do I care anymore to fondle and grasp? The same of dope and drink, the intoxicants that prefaced all encounters. How much more hashish am I prepared to smoke?

He felt strange becoming so morose, particularly in the Socco, which was his circus, his TV. The whores in their high cork shoes, the hustlers in their clinging jeans—for ten years they'd been his clowns, and their antics his release.
Perhaps
, he thought,
my trouble is I've tasted everything here too long
.

Riding for a fall
—what kind of shit was that?

Townes was a voyeur who sat up on the Mountain watching people play. Still what he'd said was interesting—his point about letting go. Patrick Wax had said the same thing at the picnic, that he lacked the instinct to go in for the kill. Were they right? Was that his trouble? Would things be better for him if he began to use his column like a knife?

He was so confused by then, and so sick of the Socco, that he left his table abruptly and dragged himself through the teeming streets. People clutched at him as he passed, urged him to sit with them, tell stories, score sex or dope, but he pushed them away and in a surly mood entered the Oriental and climbed its rotting stairs.

He thought of his room, in summer, as a hotbox, a place suitable for punishment in a Japanese prisoner-of-war-camp film. Even with the windows open he feared suffocation. He stood in the middle listening to the medina sounds—Arab songs blasting from a hundred radios, the crying of a thousand babies, the screams of ten thousand cats in heat. Barking dogs, children fighting in the courtyards—all the sounds of the quarter, echoing, rebounding off the walls, seemed to roll in upon him in a great, pained, undulating wail.

He stripped off his clothes and threw them on the floor. His body too was sweaty—tomorrow he'd have to go to the beach and bathe. Then, naked, he began to pace about, giving abrupt little kicks to his shabby belongings, his broken phonograph, his piles of clippings, his teapot, his old photographs—all the junk that documented a decade. He'd throw the whole lot of it out one day, live in an empty room with nothing but a sweater and a comb. He'd order the barber to chop off his curls, then return to North America and find himself a job. Perhaps he'd work as a maintenance man on the Alaska pipeline, live with the hardhats in frigid dormitory rooms. He'd work on the tundra wastes, eat flapjacks for breakfast, moosemeat steaks at night, and then, punished by hard labor and the boring company of narrow-minded men, he would find solace in weariness and deep, undisturbed, earned sleep.

"Oh—shit," he whimpered, kicking at his discarded jeans.

"Shit again!" This time he yelped with pain. He'd stubbed his toe on something hard. It was that damn book that Townes had given him. He picked it out of his pants and flung it at his bed. Then he went to the sink, opened the faucets, stood on one foot like an ostrich, and nursed his swelling toe. When it felt a little better he limped back to the bed, and there he found Townes' note.

Dear Robin: Because I know you're lazy, and hate to read serious things, I've devised a little game to get you started on this book. Turn to the third part of these Confessions and you'll see I've marked some lines. (I've also changed a word or two, just to smooth things out.) All you have to do is read what I've marked, leaving out what's in between. You'll get the point pretty fast, I think. Yrs, M.T.

Well, he thought, that was considerate of Townes, to go to so much trouble. He turned to Part Three and followed his instructions. What he read came out like this: