And, of course, they couldn’t. Sooner or later, and sooner rather than later, Seymour would have to go back to London. And she?
Well, that was the old question, and it was still the question as she sat on the bench. Should she go to London with him? Or should she go back to the place to which her inner strings still pulled her, to Tangier and her mother, and all the little things — the buzz of the bazaars, the fresh smell of mint tea from the cafes, the smells of the horses and donkeys and the strange, musky perfumes of the women, and of the men, too, often — which she was suddenly beginning to miss?
The truth was she was no further on in answering the question than she had been when she arrived. Should she marry Seymour? Well, yes, increasingly she thought she should. She was beginning to recognize — and this, perhaps, was progress — that she couldn’t manage without him. But did that mean that she had to abandon all that was her life and go with him to some cold, dirty place she had no feeling for? Why couldn’t he come to her? But she knew very well why he couldn’t come to her. She had gone through that. And the idea of the halfway house for both of them, which had been at the back of her mind when she had agreed to come to Spain to see him — that wouldn’t work, either. She thought of the expatriate Englishmen they had come across in Gibraltar. Did she want Seymour to become like them? No, she certainly did not!
And what about the Arabs she had met here? They, too, had made that leap from one country to another, looking for a better life. But had they found it? Few of them seemed completely at ease. They clung, or at least the Arabs she had met in Barcelona did, to vestiges of their old life. They remained, she thought, divided souls. But wouldn’t she, if she went to England, be a divided soul, too? And so the debate she was having with herself went on.
Sometimes Nina would spot her on the bench and when the school had closed for the morning she would come across and sit beside her and eat the roll she had for lunch. They would talk. About what happened to Nina during the morning, about the children — but also about Tangier and Morocco and Algeria. Those places to which Nina’s father had devoted so much of his life. Nina seemed hungry to know about that, as if by recapturing something of that she could recapture something of him.
Or, perhaps, understand him better. That was what Nina seemed to need, thought Chantale. She felt that Nina was puzzled by her father and could not understand why he had abandoned her. Especially as he seemed to love her. She clung to that. She was sure he had loved her; why, then, hadn’t he wanted to live with her, as other fathers did, with their children?
Nina was very young, thought Chantale, suddenly feeling very old. What was puzzling Nina was people; what was puzzling her was love.
And Nina was coming to Chantale for enlightenment! To Chantale, who was probably even more perplexed, just at the moment, than she was.
This morning, while they were sitting on the bench, Nina’s mother came across to them.
‘Senorita?’ said her mother, raising her eyebrows.
‘Senorita still,’ said Chantale firmly. ‘Senora Seymour shortly. Perhaps.’
‘It is better so,’ said Nina’s mother.
‘Mother!’ said Nina crossly.
‘It is better so!’ insisted her mother.
‘It is probably better so,’ conceded Chantale. ‘But there are other things to be thought of too.’
Nina’s mother leaned across and patted her hand.
‘Of course there are!’ she said. ‘There always are.’
‘It is not always possible to marry,’ said Nina sternly, ‘even if you are truly in love. As you found.’
‘Ah, “truly”,’ said her mother. ‘But how do you know?’
‘Of course you knew!’ said Nina. ‘Surely you knew, Mother?’
‘Oh. Yes. Both times,’ she said drily.
‘You wouldn’t have wished it otherwise, would you?’ asked Nina anxiously.
‘I was a young girl the first time,’ said her mother, ‘and I didn’t know either myself or him. The second time I was confident about both of us. Wrongly.’
‘You weren’t wrong,’ said Nina sturdily. ‘You loved him, and, despite it all, it was worth it.’
‘Maybe,’ said her mother, ‘but I wouldn’t wish it like that for my daughter.’
‘What do you think, Senorita de Lissac?’ appealed Nina.
Oh, God! thought Chantale. What do I think?
‘Yes, what do you think, Senorita?’ asked Nina’s mother.
‘I don’t know,’ said Chantale slowly. ‘I don’t know what I think. In all circumstances? But suppose the two are very different? The man and the woman? Perhaps even coming from different countries?’
‘Yes,’ said Nina’s mother curiously. ‘What then?’
‘I think, in the end, I would follow my heart.’
‘Quite right!’ said Nina.
‘Quite wrong!’ said her mother. ‘But-’ she smiled to herself — ‘it’s probably the mistake I would make again.’
‘Mother!’ said Nina, laughing, and throwing her arms around her.
‘Come with me,’ said Ibrahim.
He led Seymour into a back room, where an old Arab woman was sitting on the floor.
‘This is Um Hanafi,’ he said.
‘Greetings, Mother,’ said Seymour courteously, in Arabic.
She wore the usual dark gown and headdress and was heavily veiled. Over the top of the veil he could see her eyes. She was blind.
‘Um Hanafi knows everything,’ said Ibrahim. ‘Both here and in Algeria.’
‘Morocco, too?’ asked Seymour.
‘Only the coast,’ said the old woman.
‘But Tangier?’
‘Tangier, yes,’ she nodded.
“Then you will know the woman I hope to marry. Her name is Chantale, and her mother is from the Fingari family.’
‘I know her mother,’ said the old woman. ‘Her mother is a good woman,’ she said to Ibrahim. ‘And a strong one.’
‘Her daughter is a strong woman, too,’ said Seymour.
Um Hanafi cackled with laughter.
‘Then you will have to be a strong man,’ she said.
Seymour laughed too.
Then he said, ‘You know what I want to know. And why I want to know it.’
‘I knew Sam Lockhart,’ the old woman said. ‘I knew him in Algeria. But that was when I could still see.’
‘And this woman,’ said Seymour, ‘the one who brought the poisoned food to the prison, did she know Lockhart, too?’
The old woman hesitated.
‘I did not think she did,’ she said.
‘But you know her?’
‘I think I know her. People have said — there were rumours even at the time. She speaks Spanish, yes?’
‘Yes.’
‘She has been here a long time. Ten years by my count. It has made her bold. Bold enough to do what you say she did. But still I am surprised. I did not know she knew Lockhart. Her father did, yes. But not her.’
She laughed again. ‘Her father knew Lockhart too well to trust him anywhere near his womenfolk.’
‘How was it that he knew Lockhart?’ asked Seymour.
‘They did business together. In the old days it was oil. But that was in Algeria. Then he moved to Spain. He settled in Tarragona,’ she said to Ibrahim. ‘That is why you do not know him.’
‘But you think she did not know Lockhart? That puzzles me,’ said Seymour.
‘Yes,’ she said drily, ‘it puzzles me, too. But I think it was because Farraj — Farraj is her father — always kept himself separate. And he kept his family separate, too. “The world is changing,” he said, “and we need to change too. Only not too much.’” She laughed again. ‘That was Farraj all over. Keep to the old; but try the new also.’
‘Why do you think that she may be the one who went to the prison?’ asked Seymour.
‘She was seen. She was seen in Barcelona. Someone recognized her — they knew the family. They said, “Why is she here?” And they thought, If she is here, she will surely come to see us. But she did not, and they were surprised. So they asked after her. And then another person said they had seen her, too. Near the prison, right by the gate. As if she was going there. And they said, “Surely Farraj could not be there? Because if he is, we must go and see him.” So they asked her, and she said, no, it was not Farraj. It was Lockhart, and she was taking something to him. And they came back and told others, and they said, “Perhaps we should do something.” But then they heard that Lockhart had died. So they put the thought from them. But nevertheless, some of them remembered that they had seen Aisha, and wondered.’