«Me? Feel about what?»
«Staying».
«I have to go to Tangier with him». Thami indicated the Jilali.
Dyar turned to face him furiously. «The hell you do. You’re going to stay with me. How the hell d’you think I’m going to eat up there all by myself?»
It was not yet light enough to see the contours of Thami’s face, but Dyar had the feeling he was genuinely surprised. «Stay with you?» he repeated slowly. «But how long? Stay up there?» Then, with more assurance: «I can’t do that. I have to work. I’ll lose money. You’re paying me for the boat and to go with you and show you the house, that’s all».
«He knows I’ve got money here,» Dyar thought savagely. «Damn his soul».
«You don’t think I’m giving you enough?» He heard his own voice tremble.
Thami was stubborn. «You said only the boat. If I don’t work I lose money». Then he added brightly: «Why you think I bought this boat? Not to make money? If I stay with you at Agla I make nothing. He takes the boat to Tangier, everything is in Tangier. My boat, my house, my family. I sit in Agla and talk to you. It’s very good, but I make no money».
Dyar thought: «Why doesn’t he ask me why I want to stay up there? Because he knows. Plain, ordinary blackmail. A war of nerves. I’m God damned if I give in to him». But even as he formed the words in his mind, he knew that what Thami was saying had logic.
«So what d’you expect me to do?» he said slowly, proceeding with caution. «Pay you so much a day to stay up there?»
Thami shrugged his shoulders. «It’s no use to stay at Agla anyway. It’s no good there. What do you want to do there? It’s cold and with mud all over. I have to go back».
«So I have to make you an offer,» he thought grimly. «Why don’t you ask me how much I’ve got here in the briefcase?» Aloud he said: «Well, you can stay a few days at least. I’ll see you don’t lose anything by it». Thami seemed satisfied. But Dyar was ill at ease. It was impossible to tell how much he knew, even how much he was interested in knowing, or to form any idea of what he thought about the whole enterprise. If he would only ask an explicit question, the way he phrased it might help determine how much he knew, and the reply could be formed accordingly. Since he said nothing, he remained a mystery. At one point, when they had been silent for some minutes, Dyar said to him suddenly: «What are you thinking about?» and in the white light of dawn his smooth face looked childishly innocent as he answered: «Me? Thinking? Why should I think? I’m happy. I don’t need to think». All the same, to Dyar the reply seemed devious and false, and he said to himself: «The bastard’s planning something or other».
With the arrival of daylight, the air and water had become calmer. On the Spanish side of the strait they saw a large freighter moving slowly westward, statuelike, imperturbable. The progress of the launch was so noisy and agitated in its motion that it seemed to Dyar the freighter must be gliding forward in absolute silence. He looked in all directions uneasily, scanning the African coast with particular attention. The mountains tumbled precipitately down into the froth-edged sea, but in a few spots he thought he could see a small stretch of sand in a cove.
«What’s this Spanish Zone like?» he asked presently.
Thami yawned. «Like every place. Like America».
Dyar was impatient. «What d’you mean, like America? Do the houses have electric lights? Do they have telephones?»
«Some».
«They do?» said Dyar incredulously. In Tangier he had heard vaguely that the Spanish Zone was a primitive place, and he pictured it as a wilderness whose few inhabitants lived in caves and talked in grunts or sign language. «But in the country,» he pursued. «They don’t have telephones out there, do they?»
Thami looked at him, as if mildly surprised at his insistence upon continuing so childish a conversation. «Sure they do. What do you think? How they going to run the government without telephones? You think it’s like the Senegal?» The Senegal was Thami’s idea of a really uncivilized country.
«You’re full of crap,» said Dyar shortly. He would not believe it. Nevertheless he examined the nearby coastline more anxiously, telling himself even as he did so that he was foolish to worry. The telephoning might begin during the day; it certainly had not already begun. Who was there to give the alarm? Wilcox could not — at least, not through the police. As for the American Legation, it would be likely to wait several days before instigating a search for him, if it did anything at all. Once it was thought he had left the International Zone, the Legation would in all probability shelve the entire Jouvenon affair, to await a possible return, even assuming that was why they had telephoned him. Then who was there to worry about? Obviously only Wilcox, but a Wilcox hampered by his inability to enlist official aid. Relieved in his mind for a moment, he stole a glance at Thami, who was looking at him fixedly like a man watching a film, as if he had been following the whole panorama of thoughts as they filed past in Dyar’s mind. «I can’t even think in front of him,» he told himself. He was the one to look out for, not Wilcox or anybody Wilcox might hire. Dyar looked back at him defiantly. «You’re the one,» he made his eyes say, like a challenge. «I’m onto you,» he thought they were saying. «I just want you to know it». But Thami returned his gaze blandly, blinked like a cat, looked up at the gray sky, and said with satisfaction: «No rain today».
He was wrong; within less than half an hour a wind came whipping around the corner of the coast out of the Mediterranean, past the rocky flanks of Djebel Musa, bringing with it a fine cold rain.
Dyar put on his overcoat, holding the briefcase in his lap so that it was shielded from the rain. Thami huddled in the bow beside the Jilali, who covered his head with the hood of his djellaba. The launch began to make a wide curve over the waves, soon turning back almost in the direction from which it had come. They were on the windward side of a long rocky point which stretched into the sea from the base of a mountain. The sheer cliffs rose upward and were lost in the low-hanging cloudbank. There was no sign of other craft, but it was impossible to see very far through the curtain of rain. Dyar sat up straight. The motor’s sound seemed louder than ever; anyone within two miles could surely hear it. He wished there were some way of turning it off and rowing in to shore. Thami and the Jilali were talking with animation at the wheel. The rain came down harder, and now and then the wind shook the air, petulantly. Dyar sat for a while looking downward at his coat, watching rivulets form in valleys of gabardine. Soon the boat rested on water that was smoother. He supposed they had entered an inlet of some sort, but when he raised his head, still only the rocks on the right were visible. Now that these were nearer and he could see the dark water washing and swirling around them, he was disagreeably conscious of their great size and sharpness. «The quicker we get past, the better,» he thought, glad he had not called to the Jilali and made a scene about shutting off the motor. As he glanced backward he had the impression that at any moment another boat would emerge from the grayness there and silently overtake them. What might happen as a result did not preoccupy him; it was merely the idea of being followed and caught while in flight which was disturbing. He sat there, straining to see farther than it was possible to see, and he felt that the motor’s monotonous racket was the one thin rope which might haul him to safety. But at any instant it could break, and there would be only the soft sound of the waves touching the boat. When he felt a cold drop of water moving down his neck he was not sure whether it was rain or sweat. «What’s all the excitement about?» he asked himself in disgust.