The Saffron Gate (7 page)

^{It seemed anything could bring me to tears. I cried at the beauty of the sun shining through Cinnabar's deaf ears. I cried when I saw a young couple walk past the porch pushing a baby carriage. I cried when I found the tiny foetal skeleton of a bird in a broken shell under the linden tree. I cried when we ran out of flour.}

^{I cried daily for three months. I cried every second day for another two months. I cried every week for two more months, and then I cried every second week, and eventually I stopped crying, and a year had passed.}

^{My father was a gentle man, with a beautiful lilting Irish voice, but he spoke less and less after my mother's death. We found an easy comfort being with each other. My father and I created new routines that suited us both, and we moved through the house as though we were parallel wisps of smoke, never touching and yet somehow graceful in our harmony. Every evening, after dinner, we read: the daily newspaper, as well as books. I continued to read novels, and he biographies and history. We sometimes spoke about what we read, perhaps commenting on a piece of news, or about a particularly insightful passage from our respective books.}

^{We were all we had.}

^{But my mother's demise had diminished my father in ways not only emotionally, but also physically. He seemed to grow smaller and more hesitant in his movements. And then — whether it was his reflexes or something about his eyesight, even with his eyeglasses — it was soon evident that his vision wasn't strong enough to continue his chauffeuring. His first minor accident was simply brushing against a lamp post when he attempted to park his employer's expensive, gleaming car, but that was quickly followed by nudging the front of the car into the closed garage door.}

^{After this his employer told him he couldn't keep him on any longer. My father understood. What good was a driver who couldn't be trusted to drive safely? But the employer was a kind man, sorry to have to let my father go, and had given him an unexpectedly large dismissal package. We lived frugally, but managed.}

^{My father had loved driving, and owned a 1910 Ford Model T. He told me that it was the true sign of a successful life in America to own a piece of land and an automobile. But even with their hard work and meagre lifestyle, my parents were never able to buy land or a house, and my father often mentioned how good it was of Mike and Nora — Mr and Mrs Barlow — to let us live on and on in this house, paying as little as we did for rent. And although while still employed he had purchased the Model T at an auction, it didn't run and there had never been enough money to repair its engine. My father long held on to his dream to one day drive it. But that never came about; by the time his eyesight deteriorated he had given up the idea of driving the Model T. Still, he kept it in the shed behind our house, and every Saturday, in pleasant weather, we would take out buckets of soapy water and rags and a chamois, and clean it from its hood to its thin tyres. Some evenings he sat in it, smoking his pipe; I sat in it too, reading, in the summer months. There was something comforting about its smooth wooden steering wheel and its warm leather seats.}

^{One day my father brought home an old copy of
Motor Age
from the barber shop. He started talking about his love of cars, and, seeing him enthusiastic about something for the first time in so long, I bought him the most recent copy of the magazine the next time I was buying groceries, and we looked through it together, sitting side by side on the sofa. For an unknown reason I enjoyed looking at the beautiful, sleek new cars being manufactured.}

^{And then he found a Boyce Motometer hood ornament in a weedy lot, and polished it until it shone. A few weeks later he came home with a Boyce Motometer radiator cap he'd turned up in a second-hand shop. This became our hobby; we went into Albany together on Saturday mornings, hunting through second-hand stores and asking at garages. We pored over the auto magazines together, looking for opportunities to purchase the gleaming Boyce hood ornaments and radiator caps, sometimes writing away for one, with a small payment enclosed. The collection grew. Once a month I took them all out of the pine display cabinet in the living room and polished them, laying them on the kitchen table. My father would sit on the other side of the table, watching and occasionally picking one up to study it further.}

^{We went to car auctions together, just to be part of the excitement of all those cars and the frenzy of bidding. We also started laughing again.}

^{The years passed. The seasons came and went, and both my father and I grew older. Little changed until a late March day in 1929, when an icy rain blew in from the east, and all that I knew disappeared for ever.}

^FOUR

^{A
s I waited at the front desk of Tangier's Hotel Continental for the key to my room, I saw that the American on the boat had described it accurately: the other guests were fashionable in an elaborate, formal way, and the hotel itself was quite beautiful — a combination of European and Arabic influences. I wandered to a plaque on the wall near the front desk stating that Queen Victoria's son Alfred was one of the first patrons. As I ran my fingers over the plaque, I again noticed the line of dirt under my fingernails.}

^{I was shown to my room by a young boy wearing a maroon fez; the fabric was discoloured where it sat on his head, and the tassel was a bit ragged. He nodded and smiled broadly as he set down my bags. 'Omar,' he said, patting his chest. 'Omar.'}

^{I put a few centimes in his hand.}

^{'Thank you, Omar. Is there somewhere I might get something to eat at this time of day?' I asked him, and as he studied my lips carefully, in the way one does when trying to understand a language one is not comfortable with, his head continued nodding.
'Manger,'
I repeated, touching my mouth.}

^{'Ah,
oui
. Downstairs, madame, downstairs,' he said," backing out, still nodding and smiling. Suddenly the smile left his face. 'But please, madame, not to go on roof,' he told me, in tortured French. 'Roof bad.'}

^{'Oui,
Omar,' I said. 'I will not go to the roof.'}

^{When he'd left, I went to the narrow windows. They overlooked the port and the strait beyond, fed by both the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. The strait was perhaps only eight miles across, but it divided two continents and an ocean and a sea. And it was as if Tangier itself was caught somewhere in the middle, belonging to neither European Spain nor African Morocco.}

^{Suddenly I shivered, overcome with melancholy and somehow chilled, although the air coming in the open window was balmy, smelling of the sea. It was unexpected, this odd sense of isolation. I didn't like crowds, and avoided situations where I would have to make simple, unimportant conversation, yet now I didn't want to sit alone in my room. And, most importantly, I had to speak to someone about renting a car and driver to take me to Marrakesh.}

^{I went back down the winding staircase to the lobby, remembering the lounge I had passed. I hesitated at the doorway, the old sense of discomfort at meeting strangers arising as I surveyed the shadowy room. There were people at different tables, some with heads together in corners, other laughing loudly as they sat at the bar. I took a deep breath and stepped in.}

^{I had never before gone into a drinking lounge. I sat at one of the small round tables. Almost immediately a man in a short white jacket bowed before me, setting a tray with a glass of reddish liquid and a small carafe of what appeared to be aerated water on to my table. Even in dim light, filtered by the tall half-opened shutters, I could see three black insects in the water.}

^{'Non, non,
monsieur,' I said, shaking my head at the man. I had planned to order a mineral water.}

^{'Campari, madame,' he said, firmly, as though I'd asked him what it was, or had expected him to serve it to me. He pointed to a line on the paper he handed me, and rather than argue further, I signed my name. Then he left. I stared at the water, watching the insects trying to escape the carafe. One had made it part-way up, clinging desperately to the, side of the glass, while, the other two were moving in a sort of swimming walk, although very slowly, as though the water was molasses. Surely all three would soon perish.}

^{Nobody noticed me, and in an attempt to appear that I was used to these situations, I breathed deeply, sitting back and taking a tiny sip of the Campari. It was bitter and had an almost medicinal quality. I thought the strong flavour would have been lessened by the addition of the fizzy water. But I wasn't sure what to do about the insects.}

^{A shadow fell over the carafe as a woman passed my table. She walked in long, easy strides in flat leather shoes, and wore a rather mannish shirt tucked into a simple skirt. She had her hair bobbed, and it curled on to her nape. She glanced at me, and then away. I watched her go to a table and join four others — another woman and three men. They all greeted her with a burst of enthusiasm.}

^{She looked like the type of woman who would know about hiring a car.}

^{I touched my fingertips to my lips; they were burning from the Campari. I rose from my chair and went to the group, aware, as I grew close, that they had turned to watch me. I stumbled, slightly, on the heavy carpet in the high-ceilinged room, lit by long rays of light from the arched windows. A silence fell as I stood to one side of the raw-boned woman.}

^{'Excuse me,' I said.}

^{'Yes?' There was something slightly unfriendly in her manner. She openly studied my hair and my face, her eyes lingering on the scar on my cheek. I fought not to raise my palm to cover it.}

^{'I . . . I'm newly arrived in Tangier. Just a few hours ago, in fact. And I'm in need of hiring a car. I thought perhaps you could help.'}

^{As I spoke, her demeanour changed. 'Well, hello,' she said, extending her hand as if we were men. I responded, putting my hand in hers; it was big boned and strong. She squeezed my fingers in a firm grip, making my knuckles ache as she gave my hand one abrupt shake and then let it go. 'Elizabeth Pandy,' she said, adding, 'from Newport, Maine. And you?'}

^{'I'm Sidonie O'Shea.'}

^{'O'Shea. Hmmmm. Of the Boston O'Sheas? I knew old Robbie. And his daughter Piper.'}

^{'No. No,' I repeated, shaking my head. 'I'm from Albany.' I stuttered on the last word, aware they were all watching me. My forehead felt damp.}

^{Now she smiled. She had a short upper lip, and a great deal of her gum showed. 'Well. New York. I wouldn't have—' She stopped herself. 'Look, when I first saw you I thought you were French. You—' She stopped for the second time.}

^{I knew why she had made this distinction. But the way she spoke — her tone, especially — made me realise that it might be better not to tell her about my mother's background.}

^{'Join us, why don't you, and have a drink.'}

^{'Oh, I already have one, thank you. A . . .' I looked back at my table.'A Campari.' Again I touched my stinging lips. 'Although I didn't order it.'}

^{She nodded in a knowing way. 'I don't know why these bloody boys think that every foreigner in Tangier drinks Campari. Come now, and have a proper drink with us.'}

^{She raised her chin at one of the men, who immediately stood and pulled a chair from the next table in beside hers. Elizabeth Pandy was unmistakably a woman used to telling others what to do.}

^{'I . . .' I looked behind me, at the doorway of the lounge. How could I leave without appearing impolite? But these confident men and women made me so uncomfortable, so aware that my life was nothing like theirs. That I didn't fit in. 'I really . . . I'm hoping to hire a car, as quickly as possible. And a driver, of course. I was wondering if you knew how I could go about this. I need to get to Marrakesh. I was told . . .' I thought of the American, 'that it would be best to first get to Rabat.'}