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

her. He was jealous.” Zaid’s lips curled around his cigarette, his eyes narrowed against the smoke. “It’s the asthma, you know. Makes him irritable and suspicious of everyone. Sometimes he’s difficult to live with.”
    Twittering and squawking noises from the roof filtered down to them.
    “They have a short-wave radio up there, don’t they?” Lily said.
    Zaid puffed earnestly on his cigarette, picked up a card, breathed out a cloud of smoke, and spread his cards on the table.
    “Gin.”

Chapter Eleven
    Herr Balloon waited outside, hiding below the steps behind the railing, when Lily left the Legation to go to tea at Lalla Emily’s. This time she was ready for him.
    She maneuvered past the vegetable stalls, up the hill in the crowded street, ducked into narrow lanes swarming with mothers and children, bustling with businessmen carrying briefcases and wearing dark djelabas. She reached the seedy confines of the Petit Socco, where gossips lounged in the Spanish cafés, exchanging rumors and sipping aperitifs. All the while, Herr Balloon stayed an interval behind her.
    She wove through crowded streets to the Grand Socco, sidestepping storytellers and snake charmers, drugged monkeys and lion cubs, stalls that sold lizard’s feet to cure diseases.
    Once, she looked back. She thought she saw Korian and the German standing together. Just a glance exchanged between them, just a glance for a split second, and then Korian disappeared into the throng of milling people.
    How could they know each other, she wondered. Maybe it’s just my imagination.
    The German hurried to catch up with her, and Lily took off again, plunging into the crowd.
    She rushed ahead, until she heard the call, “ Balek , balek ,” from behind. It was what she had been waiting for.
    She looked back to see a wood-seller leading a donkey overloaded with panniers of firewood. The creature plodded unsteadily among the stalls, the wood shifting from side to side as the ass stumbled through the crowd.
    This time, as she knew he would, Herr Balloon did not stop. Lily halted. As Herr Balloon passed alongside the donkey, she ducked behind him, brought her knee up sharply into the back of his leg, and pushed him forward.
    He careened into the donkey with a loud cry and fell to the pavement. A profusion of stacked wood cascaded over him. Lily ran, peered over her shoulder once to see a throng gathered around the wood-seller and Herr Balloon, and kept on running.
    She hurried on through the crowded streets to tea.
    ***
    “Moroccan houses,” Lalla Emily was saying in a voice as thin as paper, “like hearts, look inward.”
    She wore a silk caftan richly embroidered with gold thread. Lily gazed at the elaborate mosaic pattern of the tiles on the wall and floor, the ponderous Venetian mirror, the carved balustrade that ran around the upper floor. Like so much else in the house, the tea was a blend of Moroccan and British traditions.
    Lily, surprised to see Adam Pardo, wondered why he was here. The guests—Lily, MacAlistair, and Adam Pardo—sat on a divan that ran the length of the room. At a small table inlaid with mother of pearl, Lalla Emily poured tea into glasses crammed with mint leaves. Her thin hands, laced with veins, shook from the weight of the teapot. Her grandson Phillipe passed the glasses and a platter of pastry, heavy with honey.
    The faint sound of the surf from the nearby beach reached them.
    “I met my prince charming out there, on the strand,” Lalla Emily said, waving in the direction of the water. “I had come to Morocco as a governess. We would ride along the sand every day, the children and I, to take the fresh sea air.” She paused, the glass of tea in her hand, her eyes focused on some distant memory. “The first time I saw him, I fell madly in love.”
    “As did your prince,” Phillipe said.
    Lalla Emily put down the glass. “A sad day for both of us.”
    “Not so,” MacAlistair said. “A great day for the children of