"Actually she's taken it pretty well, but I didn't come here to talk about her. What disturbs me is the vicious way that he was killed. I was there. I saw it. So don't talk to me about pitiless soldiers. I saw Moroccans behave like animals, stand there and watch him burn."
Achar fingered the teapot, then raised his eyes and sighed. "I know you were there, Hamid. Some friends of mine were on the bridge, inciting the people to use the torch. Well, there you are-I admit we're agitators, or perhaps just respected men who use our influence to channel rage."
"Damn it, that's what I don't understand! Why channel it against Zvegintzov and a few pathetic foreigners on the hill? If there're grievances, correct them. Attack your oppressors if you feel oppressed. But you have no right to send up bands against the Mountain, terrorizing people and taking lives."
"So, you're angry, Hamid. Well, well-it's not so simple as you think." He poured another half glass of tea, nodded, then filled the glass. He handed it to Hamid, then filled another for himself.
"Driss Bennani told me something he learned from Fischer, the old architect who was working here last year. When there were riots in the American slums a few years back, the black people there set fire to their homes. Well, I don't believe in that-turning one's rage against oneself. How much more logical and healthy that we should attack the world outside. I'm sorry about Zvegintzov-he meant nothing, was nothing but a stooge. The foreigners mean nothing-most of them are clowns. But they're symbols, Hamid, symbols of wealth and power, up there above us, in their big villas looking down, cultivating their gardens, relaxing in their pools, serviced by the Russian, furnishing themselves from his luxurious stock of goods. Should we have burned down this clinic? Ridiculous, of course! Attacked city hall so we could be shot like dogs? Well, that may happen one day too. The point, Hamid, is that the Mountain was not only the closest place at hand, it was the appropriate place. We really had no choice."
He had spoken forcefully, and Hamid knew he believed everything he'd said. But there was something cold about Achar, something ruthless in his reasoning that caused Hamid to look at him with fear.
"Don't be upset, Hamid. There's nothing new in any of this. There've been attacks before, in many parts of the world, enraged third-world hordes rising up against the smug, soft people of the West. It's a cliche by now, and the aftermath too, the repression, with the inevitable result that an even more powerful anger is instilled. Then more attacks, often in different forms. Not just boys with chains, ripping up gardens, putting a few villas to the torch, but armed guerrillas attacking barracks, assassinating officials, making war. It's an old story. Algeria. Cuba. Vietnam. We'll see it again in other places, and, I guarantee you, we'll see it here. Our regime, stupid as it is, will recognize the danger too. Watch out now for a combination of repression and superficial reform-increased food subsidies, phony land reforms, and, too, new detention laws, and American advisors to teach the tactics of counterinsurgency to you in the police. This little business in Dradeb will be forgotten very soon. We can look forward now to more outbreaks, a good deal more effective and severe. The children of the slums have seen and understood the efficacy of violence. But excuse me, Hamid. You didn't come here for a political discussion. Forgive me for rambling on. I get carried away these days."
For a while Hamid stared at him, then finally he spoke. "You think I'm shocked by what you've said? Believe me-I'm not. I'm only amazed by your arrogance. And your righteous certainty, which makes me sick."
Achar laughed. "Well, Hamid-perhaps you're right. I try not to be arrogant, at least not in the Dr. Schweitzer sense. But yes, I am certain that I'm right. How else can I sustain myself? However, let's lower the level of abstraction. I know that politics isn't your game. So let's talk about you. Let's see where you fit in."
"I don't fit into any of this."
"Maybe, but don't be too sure. I said you were observed by my friends during the burning of Peter's shop. You're well known in Dradeb. You're from our quarter. Most of the people here know you're an inspector of police. All right, there you were, standing up there on that ledge with a revolver in your hand. You were threatening the people down on the bridge, making it quite clear you didn't like what they were doing and were going to shoot them if they didn't stop. Well, they did stop. There was a little pause, the sort of moment that even a single man can use to turn a mob around. So, there you were, prepared to shoot, but then you lowered your gun, and suddenly they felt released. Yes, Hamid! That's what your action meant to them. It was a signal. It told them you wouldn't shoot. You, a policeman, releasing them to go on, an even more powerful trigger than the one on your gun."
"What are you talking about? They'd burned the shop! Peter was already dead!"
"Yes! And a few of them were already on the Mountain. But not the mob that ran up there later on."
"You're crazy!"
"Why didn't you shoot them, then?"
"I don't know. I couldn't do it. I don't have the heart for things like that."
"Ah! There you are! You didn't have the heart. It was your duty to do what you could to protect the Mountain. When you chose not to do your duty, you showed your heart was with the mob."
"Well, Mohammed, it isn't as clear as that. You're simplifying everything, trying to catch me in a trap."
"It is simple, Hamid. The people on that bridge were quite certain what they saw. At that moment you were the regime. You held a gun on them, and when you lowered it you announced that you stood with them."
"I don't think so."
"Well, I do. By the way, I hope this doesn't land you in trouble. It shouldn't if you brazen it out when you're called up to explain."
"You're crazy, making me out as a collaborator. Anyone who knows me knows I could never be that."
"All right, Hamid. Have it that way if you like. But think about it just the same. Maybe you'll change your mind."
Hamid glared at him. He was angry now. "What do you want from me?" he asked. "What are you trying to do?"
"There's no trap, Hamid, but I do want something. I want you. You could be such a help. Listen-there's a new era ahead, a new Morocco, a new society to be forged. You could have a place in it, play an important role. It isn't enough merely to understand the rage. One must feel it, and I know you do. I've seen you change over the last few months. I've seen you grow impatient with your work. Forget the foreigners. The logic is with us. I need you, Hamid. I want you to join me in this thing."
Late that afternoon he and Kalinka stood alone in a corner of the European cemetery at Bourbana watching four Moroccan gravediggers lower the body of Peter Zvegintzov into the ground. Hamid had bought the coffin; Kalinka had commissioned a little granite marker on Hassan II. The text was simple and written in French: "Peter Zvegintzov, entrepreneur," it said, and then the date of his birth in Hanoi, and of his death in Tangier.
"Poor Peter," Kalinka said when the grave was finally covered. "He had no friends here. No one at all."
"Still he'll be missed," said Hamid. "He once told me that the Europeans on the Mountain couldn't survive here without his help. He was a cushion, he said, between us and them. Perhaps now they'll find it a harder town."
"But still," she said, "they never liked him. He was not a sympathetic man."
He glanced at her-they were walking between long narrow rows of graves. Peter had been her last connection with the past, but now to Hamid she seemed strong, perhaps stronger than she'd ever been.
"They had a service for Luscombe at the British church," he said. " 'A good turnout,' as the British say. The new vicar, they tell me, speaks very well. As for the Freys-no one has come to claim them yet. I suppose we'll have to bury them at government expense."