Read Online The Saffron Gate by Linda Holeman - Free Book Online Page A

modest jack-in-the-pulpit. But here! I knew my box of paints, stored away on the bedroom shelf of my small house across the ocean, could never create such colours.
When the ache in my leg abated I walked, slowly, to the far end of the roof and peered down into a shadowy labyrinth of streets, surely the medina, the oldest part of the city. There the crowds milled in a kind of frenzy; there were calls and shouts and the braying of donkeys and barking of dogs and the occasional roar of a camel.
And then came a sound I hadn't before heard; a high and yet carrying voice, coming from somewhere behind me. I turned to see the spire of a minaret, and knew it was a muezzin, calling the Muslim believers to prayer. Suddenly another voice joined in, and then another, as voices from the various minarets throughout Tangier called out. I stood on that roof, surrounded by the sonorous, rhythmic phrase that to me sounded like Allah Akbar, watching the scarlet-stained mountains.
Was Etienne hearing these same sounds? Was he looking at the sky, at mountains, at the sea? Was he thinking of me, at this lonely hour, as I was of him?
I had to close my eyes.
When the echo of voices ended there was a sudden quiet, and I opened my eyes and drank in the sense that the foreign prayers had somehow reached inside me. Without thinking I crossed myself in the old, reflexive habit.
And then I made my way down the narrow, malodorous stairs. I was impossibly hungry. I went back to the lobby, passing the doorway of the lounge.
From the laughter and boisterous voices it was obvious Elizabeth and her friends were still there. The lounge appeared dark and blurred, formless and colourless after the brilliant beauty I had just witnessed. Like the prayer, I felt that the colour I had seen had touched me, and that as I passed the doorway surely Elizabeth and Marcus and the others would stop their drinking and gossip, and instantly grow quiet, staring at me in wonder. In that short time on the roof I felt as though I had become part of the mosaic of Tangier, a fragment of sound and colour.
But as I walked past the lounge nobody turned, nobody noticed.
Out on the spacious terrace — empty but for me — with its gently swaying potted palms and wooden furniture and views of the harbour, I ordered a pot of mint tea and a pastilla, which the server explained was a kind of bird — I couldn't understand if he was saying partridge or pigeon — mixed with rice and chopped egg in layers of the thinnest pastry.
While I waited, I laid my head against the tall back of the chair, listening to the far-off, muted babble of unknown languages, to the nearby cooing of a dove, to the even softer rustle of the palm fronds in the warm early evening breeze. It was lovely, Tangier, although, as I knew from both my reading and the boisterous Elizabeth Pandy, also dangerous and uncontrolled, a free port, ungoverned by any country. I was weary, and overcome with a listlessness that was not unpleasant. But I would not — could not — stop and rest in Tangier. I sat up, shaking off the languor that had set in. Tomorrow I would set out to find a driver to take me to Rabat, as the American on the ferry had instructed.
When the tray was set before me, the server lifted the small brass teapot. He poured the tea in a thick amber stream, holding the pot high over the small painted glass in a silver holder. I expected the tea to splash out of the glass from that height, but he filled it with the foaming liquid without spilling a drop. He then dumped the tea back into the pot, poured it again, and repeated the process a third time. Finally he set down the teapot, picking up the glass with both hands, and extending it to me with a slight bow.
'Très chaud, madame,' he said. 'Wait, please, for it to cool.'
I nodded, holding the glass by the silver holder, and lifted it to my nose. The odour of mint was almost overwhelming. I took a small sip, and it was intensely sweet, and like no tea I had ever