Read Online The Torch of Tangier by Aileen G. Baron - Free Book Online Page A

Drury said to MacAlistair. “Tonight.”
    MacAlistair sighed. “Go tell her she’s fired,” he said to Zaid.
    Zaid scowled. “Who’s going to wash the dishes?”
    MacAlistair sighed again and held out his hands in entreaty.
    Zaid stood up, slammed down his napkin, and strode out toward the kitchen.
    “How long have you known him?” Lily asked after he was gone.
    MacAlistair’s face took on a dreamy expression. “I met him the first time I came to Morocco, a long time ago. He was working at the British Legation.” His eyes seemed to smile at some secret memory. “He was so beautiful then. So graceful. When he danced, he seemed to float on a cloud, his feet just glancing the floor, his arms and hands tapering and elegant, moving like the wings of a magnificent butterfly.”
    MacAlistair paused, absorbed in memory, his eyes closed, his head swaying gently to the rhythm of a half-remembered tune.
    “And he’s been with you ever since?” Lily asked.
    “We quarreled once, some silly thing, I can’t remember now. He went to stay with his mother’s family in Meknes, just south of Volubilis.”
    The shadow of a frown crossed MacAlistair’s face. “He came back a year later, brought Faridah with him. He had changed, but I took him back, hired Faridah.” He shrugged and gave Lily an apologetic smile. “He was still beautiful.”
    They could hear snatches of Faridah and Zaid talking in the kitchen, Zaid’s voice a low hum, Faridah’s raised a little, as if she were asking questions, then gushing out in a long spate, interrupted now and then by a grunt from Zaid.
    Lily couldn’t make out their words.
    MacAlistair looked down at his plate, shaking his head regretfully. An embarrassed silence hung in the room.
    “Tell me more about your aunt,” Lily said into the silence. “It couldn’t have been easy for her and the Sultan’s nephew. Was their marriage accepted?”
    “No. Her marriage to the prince scandalized both British and Moslem society. To make matters worse, she shocked the Moslem world by appearing in public, taking baskets to the poor, visiting the sick. The prince’s reputation was destroyed and she discovered that children were dying of smallpox.”
    “That’s when she began to work on getting them vaccinated?”
    MacAlistair nodded and spread his hands on the tablecloth as if he were playing a chord on the piano. “She enlisted the help of the European community and moved to Tangier, hoping to save the reputation of her beloved prince. He died of grief two years after she left Ouzzane. She went on to wipe out smallpox in Morocco. Today, the Moslems regard her as a saint, and the Tangenos think of their marriage as a tragic love story.”
    Zaid came back into the room and sat down. “You tell her,” he said to MacAlistair. “I can’t.”
    “After she washes the dishes,” MacAlistair said.
    Faridah cleared the pastilla and brought tea. MacAlistair followed her into the kitchen. Soon the clatter of pots was drowned by Faridah’s guttural shouts. After a few minutes, MacAlistair returned. They stayed at the table, sipping sweet tea in the cool night air until they heard Faridah leave.
    MacAlistair glanced at his watch. “Time for us to look at the stars,” he said to Drury.
    Drury and MacAlistair rose from the table and left the room. Zaid took the cups to the sideboard and retrieved a deck of cards, a pad, and a pencil from the drawer. He slapped a package of Gauloises and a glass ashtray on the corner of the table and sat down to deal out cards to Lily and himself.
    Scraping sounds of moving chairs came from the roof. The low murmur of voices, mingled with crackling and rasping noises, hovered above their heads.
    Zaid fingered the cards, rearranged them, put one on the pile and reached for another.
    “What’s wrong with Faridah looking at a book?” Lily asked.
    “That was just an excuse. Her brother died and I was comforting her. MacAlistair saw us in the garden with my arm around