I was growing as impatient with Mr Mix’s cloak-and-dagger dramatics as I was with Miss von Bek’s French farce. I longed for the oblivion of my own particular Oriental romance. But Brodmann had seen to it that even this small comfort was to be removed. I slipped away that evening into the mellah, near the Bab Barrima, just below the French Post Office and behind the Prison. The address was familiar. It belonged to one of the Pasha’s own Jews, the young man who had remained my supporter, whose greatest hero was the Masked Buckaroo, Monsieur Josef. I hated visiting those whispering alleys especially at night. What could I want that they had to sell? I consoled myself. At least they did not offer me mortal danger. I was relieved to reach the Jew’s house. M. Josef was one of El Glaoui’s less illustrious advisers, but he affected European clothing and manners and had ambitions beyond the confines of the mellah, beyond Morocco itself. Because he continued an enthusiast for my films this made me trust his friendship a little. Mr Mix had known him for some while and had often visited him. I arrived dripping with sweat in a heavy winter hooded djellabah, the weather having turned suddenly mild, to be greeted by a less than light-hearted Monsieur Josef. He had lost a great deal of his European savoir-faire and wore the hunted look of the typical Ukrainian Jew. Suddenly I began to put two and two together. This development almost certainly involved Brodmann. Where had he been lying low? Here, in the mellah, or perhaps as a guest of the Pasha? I was drawn by Monsieur Josef through dark corridors and across silent courtyards, deeper and deeper into that alien enclave, until at last we came to a small, windowless room where Mr Mix was waiting for me, his huge body flinging the cell into heavy shadow as he rose to block the light from the lamp-shelf behind him. ‘I’m glad you made it,’ he said soberly. ‘I don’t know how you get away with it, Max, but that ain’t the only thing I don’t know. Listen, the Pasha’s wise to all of us. He’s known about you and Rosie for months but he was waiting to see how useful you’d be to him. Did you fix his car?’
‘I’m not a mechanic,’ I said. ‘What do you mean?’
‘He sent you his Rolls to repair. The one you damaged. I think he is giving you a small chance to redeem yourself. Can you do it?’
Now Hadj Idder’s remark was no longer mysterious. Inadvertently I had cannibalised the car I had assured him only that morning was now as good as new. I had not even taken especially good care of the remaining bodywork. This news stunned me for a moment and I asked Mix to repeat certain information so that I could be sure I had heard him correctly. It became quickly clear that my only hope now was to demonstrate the efficiency of my plane. That alone would fully restore me to favour.
‘What do you want to do?’ said Mr Mix. ‘Monsieur Josef says the Pasha is out for blood. We have another friend who can arrange passage on the French military train. Or we can take the bus, but my dough’s on the train. You get French protection that way. From Casablanca it’s a step to Tangier, a free port.’
It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him that the plane was as good as ready but then I thought better of it. It would be a disappointment to him to know I had chosen Miss von Bek over him, though I think he was man enough to accept the news soberly. He had, anyway, his own escape route worked out. The Jew would get him away. Perhaps we could all meet up in Rome and share an amusing anecdote or two about our escapades.
I agreed that the train seemed the best idea. He told me to lie as low as I could for the next day or two and he would arrange when and where to meet. There were agricultural transporters going down to the coast in a couple of days, he said, and they often had passenger accommodation. I asked him who our other friend was. He whispered that it was Fromental, just returned from the ‘front’. Doubtless he would be glad to see the back of me. My going would, he knew, effectively bring an end to the Pasha’s dreams of air-power. I still did not quite trust the Jew. I asked him why he was risking so much. ‘Because I admire you,’ was all he would say. ‘Because one day I too will smell the sweet free air of the prairie.’ I was never to discover his real reasons.
The railway station, Monsieur Josef reminded us, was a good distance away on the far side of town, beyond the Nkob gate. He would arrange a car for us.
I remained for as long as seemed politic and then said I had affairs to attend to and must leave. I met my driver where I had left him in the Djema al Fna’a and made him take me at once to the factory where I packed my bag of plans, my pistols and my remaining supplies of cocaine, together with a few of my prospectuses. I stowed my new American passport with the bag then secured it firmly under the pilot’s seat, the remainder of my cocaine supplies and my Spanish passport in the usual places on my person. I had now taken the basic precautions. My next step must be to warn Rosie von Bek of her danger. If I could not myself enter the Maison El Glaoui, where she was now effectively incarcerated, I could send a note to her through one of the several intermediaries we had used over the months. Then I began to suspect that those servants might already be in the confidence of the Pasha, sworn to tell him our every move. There was no reason not to suspect this and it would therefore be wise to wait until the next day and hope that the Pasha was still waiting to judge my work on his car. Happily I had used only the most fanciful of phrases in my deputation to the Glaoui that morning. Thinking back, I believed I had probably reassured him. Unless he decided to come to see the work for himself, I had at least twenty-four hours’ respite. Very shortly my twin soul and I would be winging our way to Tangier.
There is a white road down which I ride and the road ends at a green cliff, a blue sea, and when I reach the end of the road I lift easily into the air and fly towards Byzantium to be reunited with God. I still see her vivid violet eyes in her tawny Albanian skin. She shared my dream of flying. I had made flight what it should be - ethereal, beautiful, as it is in nature. I was not one of those who reduced it to a lumbering metal tube carting its human baggage from city to city like so many sacks of grain. What misery Big Business makes of our dreams and visions! They should not be allowed so much power. Who should the brave boys die for? Their fatherland? Their family? Their bank?
I recognised Brodmann again. Ihteres! Ihteres! He had followed me into the souk and gone ahead of me. I first saw his back as he paused to study some piece of inferior tinsmithery. He turned towards me, his hand reaching for an ornamental dagger of the kind popular with certain tribes now forbidden to carry weapons. I think he had it in mind to use the dagger, but I darted away from him, down another alley into the shadowy maze of shops and stalls, roofed with canvas and palm leaves and lengths of old cotton, through which the sun occasionally blinded you as you moved from deep shadow into sudden rays. I avoided the open sewers and the muddy earth, keeping to the cobbles of the main streets, making my way back into Djema al Fna’a to where my driver waited. He took me out to the aeroplane factory. I told him to come back for me in two hours. A little later, through the winter drizzle, Rosie arrived in a galloping kalash and, as it drew up, flung herself out to come running across the makeshift tarmac towards me. ‘He knows everything!’ She was horribly distraught. ‘He knows I’ve come here. You can’t imagine what he’ll do!’ She let me pay and dismiss the cab. Agitatedly she told me that he was openly contemptuous of our affair, mocking her and insulting her about it. She was determined to suffer no more from him. ‘Obviously he doesn’t believe we can get clear. Is the plane ready?’