The Drifters (105 page)

We were barely through Cato’s first tentative replies when we reached the entrance to the palm drive, where our lead car stopped to allow one of the engineers to move back into the other car and serve as guide. The interrogation of Cato ended, but a conversation of even more interest began. The Yale graduate, oldest and most intelligent of the engineers, said rhapsodically, ‘Once we have settled the Israel question, the Arab nations will enter a period of great flowering. All things will be possible to us. We shall make the desert flower like a garden, our ships will sail to all the seas. We will take Islam to all continents. Poets will flourish as of old, and there will
be a new Damascus in every nation, a center leading the world in science and art. In Morocco it will probably be Fez. Learned men from all over the world will have to travel to Fez to acquire the understanding they need for modern life. Once again our philosophers will lead the universe. All will be disclosed to them.’

He continued expounding his vision of the future, which included a peaceful Muslim hegemony in Africa, the expansion of Islam throughout Russia-in-Asia, and the quick union of all Arab states bordering the Mediterranean. ‘As soon as the Israel question is settled, we will have enduring peace and harmony among our nations,’ he assured Cato, with whom he was most concerned. ‘And when we are a united and powerful people we will be able to give you much aid in your struggles in America.’ He spoke thus for the hour we traveled among the palm trees, and he came back repeatedly to the poetry that would flourish in those happy days and the brilliance of the philosophy, but never once did he allude to social justice, or the distribution of oil revenues, or the establishment of a civil service that could be trusted. Cato, so far as I could judge from his questions, did not notice these omissions.

Deep in the palm plantation, our little caravan halted, and as we stood among the bending trees, the engineers held an impromptu seminar in which they explained their plans for a complex of hotels, swimming pools, belvederes and golf courses set within the majestic grove: ‘It will be an oasis of the spirit, surrounded in all directions by impenetrable forests of palm trees. On one side you will see the High Atlas … well, imagine it for yourselves. As soon as we solve the Israel problem we shall start building.’

‘Is Israel a problem for you?’ Yigal asked quietly.

‘Oh, yes! That nasty little thorn is distant … but it remains in our flesh and festers.’

‘I can’t see what Morocco has to fear from Israel.’

‘Fear? We don’t fear her. In the next battle we shall send a hundred thousand armed men to the army which will gather to annihilate her. Then we can get on with our plans.’

‘Did you send any men the last time?’ Yigal asked. ‘Oh, yes! We assembled eighty thousand … maybe more.’

‘Did they reach Israel?’

‘No. Gamal Nasser and King Hussein granted the Jews
a truce before our men could join the fighting. But next time …’

‘I still don’t understand what business it is of Morocco’s,’ Yigal persisted, and one of the engineers said sharply, ‘You sound as if you favored Israel,’ and Yigal said quietly, ‘As of now I don’t know,’ and Britta said something irrelevant, and the crowd laughed.

The oldest engineer turned to Holt and asked, ‘Well, would it make a good vacation spot?’ and Harvey said, ‘The noisier the world gets, the more we’ll appreciate escapes like this,’ and the engineer said, ‘That’s exactly our vision. Now if Mr. Fairbanks will put up the money and if we can force Israel to leave us alone, we can go ahead with a project that will be fantastic. I see beautiful pools … not the ordinary swimming pools … with reflections of palm trees … and great music … Beethoven, Wagner …’ His narcotic dreams mesmerized the group, and Monica expressed our general approval when she cried, ‘Wow!’

On the way back to town the Yale graduate said, ‘This afternoon there’s something at the big field west of your hotel that you must see,’ and since we had had big breakfasts, we skipped lunch and drove directly to an immense drill field in the center of the city, where Berber tribesmen on handsome Arab horses and armed with mountain rifles from the past century were engaging in a sport with which they had terrified the city dwellers of Marrakech for countless years.

Assembled in rows of forty or fifty, their steeds champing at the bit as if posing for Eugène Delacroix, their brightly colored robes flashing in the breeze, the Berbers would give a wild shriek, spur their horses, and come riding headlong down a field some three hundred yards long. Then, at some signal I could not detect, they would throw themselves forward, almost leaving their saddles, turn backward, and manipulating their rifles with their right arms, fire blasts into the air. Recovering their position, they would continue their charge right at us, fire again, and rein up with their foam-flecked horses a few inches from our faces.

They were terrifying, primitive, untamed by a century of French occupation, the scourge of the High Atlas, the devastation of the plains. No matter how brave a man might be, when those shrieking horsemen lunged at him over
those last few yards of ground, with rifles crackling in the sun, he drew back.

The Yale graduate, thrilled by a sight he had first seen as a boy, grabbed Cato’s shoulder and cried, ‘I guess that will teach the Jews something, eh?’ And his nostrils flared with excitement.

When we tried to figure out what had happened, we agreed that Yigal had started the conversation. We were listening to music in Inger’s when he said, ‘I’m amazed at the Arab’s capacity for self-delusion. Did those engineers really believe that if they defeated Israel, some kind of benevolent peace would settle over their lands?’

Cato not only took objection to the question, but responded to it in an ugly manner: ‘Look, Mr. Goldberg, when them Arabs and us blacks join forces on you, you gonna be ee-lim-eye-nated.’

‘What the hell’s hit you, Cato?’

‘I seen the light, Mr. Goldberg. I seen what your people done been doin’ to my people.’

‘All we did was lead your battles for you … in every area.’

‘Don’t you condescend to me, white boy. Your people move into every goddamned ghetto I ever seen and bleed us white.’ He laughed nervously at his inept metaphor, then added, ‘And it’s gonna stop, Mr. Goldberg, I’m tellin’ you, it’s gonna stop.’

‘I don’t like that name Mr. Goldberg,’ Yigal said.

‘Well, it’s your name, and you gonna learn to like it when the crunch comes.’

‘What do you mean, when the crunch comes?’

‘Ask them. They know.’

Yigal was openly pained by Cato’s line of reasoning and for some moments we could see he was trying to judge the best way to counter it. Then he said, ‘Cato, your people have been in a losing position all your lives. Now, in your first moments of freedom, you choose a losing religion. Islam isn’t going to save the Negroes. You know what I think? When Cassius Clay and all those others made the conspicuous move to Mecca, you experienced a surge of hope. The new religion. The new day. And what happened?
Right after that your new-found champions challenged the Jews and got their blocks knocked off. You’re suffering traumatic shock. And you’ll go on suffering it till you shake yourselves awake.’

‘Listen, Jew-boy,’ Cato snapped, ‘don’t you try none of that psychology on me.’

Yigal looked at his opponent with compassion, then said, ‘This morning when the engineer was spinning his poetic fancies, you enjoyed it, didn’t you? His wild flights of rhetoric were exactly to your taste, weren’t they? That was the wild way you talked with your street pals when you were together, wasn’t it? Great flights of words?’

Cato, aware that Yigal had touched upon the fundamental bond that attracted the Arab and the Negro—their love of soaring rhetoric—grew angry and would probably have struck Yigal had not Monica entered the room at this time, looking very pale but extremely beautiful. She sought a place for herself between Cato and Yigal and patted each on the knee. ‘It’s good to see you two arguing again,’ she said, unaware of how tense that argument had become. ‘Cato tells me you’ve decided to opt for America,’ she said to Yigal. ‘I think it’s a good idea.’

‘Is that final?’ Holt asked.

‘I think so. America is a nation you can be proud of,’ Yigal said. ‘It has a hundred faults, but it tries. And, Cato, that trying is worth a great deal.’

‘Goddammit, Jew-boy, don’t patronize me!’

‘I’m sorry,’ Yigal apologized.

‘You should be,’ Cato growled, little disposed to accept the apology.

‘Doesn’t anybody have a smoke?’ Monica asked, and as a large cigarette loaded with hash circulated, the tension eased and the talk turned to the palm grove and the charge of the Berber tribesmen.

‘They’re from another century,’ Britta said. ‘You do business here, Mr. Fairbanks. Don’t you find it archaic?’

‘I find every nation peculiar in its own way … therefore attractive in its own way.’

‘But some you like better than others?’ Britta persisted.

‘If you want me to compare Morocco with Norway, I find nothing in your country as exciting as the Djemaá.’

‘So you like the Djemaá?’ she asked.

‘One of my favorite spots in the world,’ I confessed. ‘Because when I’m here, I never think I’m in England or
Norway. This is unique. I appreciate the reasons why Inger and Rolf come back every year.’

The Swedish couple bowed and Rolf said, ‘When you’re through work in Stockholm and fog is drifting in from the Baltic, it’s most reassuring to know that in Marrakech the vaudeville is still playing the Djemaá.’

‘You’ve made a song,’ Britta said.

‘It is a song,’ Rolf replied. ‘A song that keeps me going in the cold days.’

‘And that’s not a trivial contribution,’ Yigal said with force. ‘I like Marrakech. If only the Arabs would learn to govern themselves … to live with others.’

‘They’ll never live with the Jews,’ Cato broke in.

‘They must learn to,’ Yigal said stubbornly.

‘They’ll push you into the sea,’ Cato said. ‘Just as well push you into the sea in America.’

‘Are you insane?’ Yigal asked.

‘I can see the future,’ Cato said, ‘and your kind is doomed.’

‘You’re smoking hash,’ Yigal said contemptuously, turning his back and starting to rise from the bed.

This dismissal infuriated Cato, and he reached across Monica and grabbed Yigal around the neck, throwing him down. With startling speed he then leaped from the bed and began pummeling Yigal, who was badly tangled on the floor. With swift blows Cato kept knocking the Jew back onto the floor, hurting him badly with fists to the head. Yigal struggled to get a footing, but whenever it seemed that he was about to succeed, Cato kicked his feet away and Yigal sprawled once more to the floor, where Cato kept hammering at him. Before any of us could stop the punishment, Cato drove a conclusive blow to Yigal’s unprotected chin and knocked him out.

Suddenly, while Holt and Joe were trying to minister to the unconscious boy, Monica rose from the bed, stood precariously erect, and screamed at Cato, ‘Don’t you strike a white man, you filthy nigger. I’ve been ashamed of myself ever since you laid your hands on me, you monkey. Get away from me, nigger, nigger!’

When Cato went toward her, she struck at him, screaming, ‘Take your filthy black hands off me. Get away, you goddamned nigger. You destroyed Africa. You destroyed my father. So get away, you savage beast!’

She retreated to a corner of the room and stood there,
castigating herself for ever having lived with Cato. When Gretchen and Britta tried to quieten her, she thrust them away, shouting, ‘He’s your friend, not mine. Go kiss the nigger and make love to him. He’s your type, not mine.’

Cato just stood there, dazed. At his feet he saw Yigal, still unconscious, with Holt and Joe trying to revive him and casting accusing glances. In the corner he saw Monica, looking as if she would kill him if he moved a step closer.

‘Inger,’ Rolf directed, calling upon his experience in the asylum, ‘take Monica to her room. Mr. Fairbanks, give Yigal some of this ammonia.’ Rolf gave Cato a bottle of orange drink and sat him on the bed. Inger started to lead Monica away, but the English girl fought her off, so Joe grabbed her in his arms and carried her roughly upstairs, but when he tried to throw her on the bed, she resumed her obscenities. She began tossing Cato’s gear into the central well, shouting as she did so, ‘No goddamned nigger will ever again put his hands on me—filthy animals!’

Next morning I was in the Hotel Mamounia, typing out my report to Geneva—I told them I liked the concept of a recreational hotel among the palm trees, provided water could be found for the various pools—when a soft knocking came at my door. It sounded like a girl’s, and I wondered who could be wanting me at this early hour, but when I opened the door it was Jemail. ‘Ssssssssh!’ he cautioned as he slipped into my room. ‘Doorman not allow me in hotel.’

‘What’s up?’ I asked suspiciously.

‘Cato Jackson,’ he said.

‘What about him?’

‘Terrace Café. Drunk maybe. Talking very loud about Bruce.’ There was a long pause, during which the little criminal studied me carefully, after which he said slowly, ‘Of course, I know Bruce an Israeli soldier.’ When I caught my breath, he said, ‘That first day you acted suspicious. I searched his baggage. Saw the two passports.’ He waited for this to sink in, then said, ‘But you know me. I never speak of such things. Maybe forty dollars.’ Then, as if dropping the subject, he said briskly, ‘Cato Jackson talking a lot. Somebody bound to hear.’

I looked down at my little blackmailer and said, ‘And
if Cato talks too much, then your chance to earn forty dollars …’

‘Go
ppphhhttt!’
He shot his arm into the air like a rocket and added, ‘But Yigal Zmora also go to jail … or maybe get shot … I think better we talk with Cato.’

He persuaded me to accompany him to the Djemaá, and we were leaving the hotel when the doorman spotted him and tried to grab him, but having anticipated the move, Jemail evaded him and stood at a safe distance, cursing in Arabic. The doorman bellowed back his own set of curses, listing what he was going to do if he ever caught Jemail, and in this barrage of noise and profanity we made our escape. Jemail hurried me across the Djemaá to the terraced café, where Cato was indeed drunk and was indeed talking in a loud voice. When he saw me he started to become abusive, stood up as if he wanted to slug me, then sort of fell apart and clutched my arms, crying, ‘What can I do about Monica?’