When Ed and Cliff arrived, everyone crowded around to hear about the baths. "They were really interesting," I heard Cliff say. "A real social place."
Emile, among the last to return, told me he hadn't found any interesting coins, but had picked up a small terra-cotta lamp. "What do you think?" he asked me. "This isn't my field. Is it worth anything?"
I examined it closely. "Roman, I should think, and probably authentic." He beamed. "However," I said, "see here, it's been broken and repaired." He pushed his glasses up onto his forehead and studied the place I'd pointed to. "So a nice piece, but the repairs bring the value down."
"Ah, I see what you mean. I'll have to take you shopping with me next time." He smiled ruefully. "I confess to being a little embarrassed."
"You shouldn't be," I consoled. "It's not your field, and the repairs are really expert. I can't imagine how badly I'd do if I went looking for coins. It's very attractive and you should just enjoy it as a lovely memento of your trip."
"I will," he said, but, as I began to turn my attention to the group, I saw him hand the lamp to Catherine, who'd admired it. "Keep it," he said to her, "with my compliments." Catherine flushed with pleasure. It seemed Emile St. Laurent was only interested in the finest specimens, and he was not prepared to live with his mistakes. Come to think of it, though, I might have felt the same way if he'd told me a coin I'd found was worthless. An occupational hazard, I suppose.
"Time to go," I called to the group. "Let me do a head count."
"Guess I owe you a dinar," Jamila said after we'd counted everybody three times. We were one short, and it was Rick Reynolds who was missing.
"You do, and I'll expect to collect the debt this evening," I told her. I was not worried in the least about Rick. "Anyone seen Rick since the Souk des Chéchias?" I asked the group. No one had.
After another ten minutes or so, I did begin to feel a little anxious. Certainly it was easy enough to get lost in the medina, but the area is really not that large, and with the map I'd given him, getting directions should not have been a problem. A few minutes later, with still no sign of Rick, and the group becoming restive, I suggested to Jamila that she accompany the others back to the bus to wait, then circle back to help me try to find Rick.
J AMILA AND I got out a map, and decided who would go where, agreeing to meet back at the mosque in twenty-five minutes to check on each other's progress. The medina, the historical center of the city of Tunis, indeed the original city, was built in the seventh century by the Arabs. It is a semicircular walled town which has at its heart the grand mosque. It is a vibrant mix of monuments and tombs, former palaces and tiny homes, hammams, and the Koranic schools called medersas, white domes and minarets. Everywhere there are shops: one tunnel-like souk, or covered market, leads into another in a confusing maze. The streets are, for the most part, narrow, winding, and inevitably crowded during the day, so looking for Rick was a daunting task. Jamila was to retrace the most direct route back to the Souk des Chéchias, where Rick had last been seen. I was to circle a little farther afield.
For several minutes I looked carefully about, traversing pillared arcades and peering into various souks, the air filled with smoke, and sharp streaks of sunlight penetrating the haze from skylights above. Little children tugged at my sleeves, and salesmen, ever on the lookout for tourists, followed me for a while, extolling the virtues of their particular establishment. Several invited me in for a look. I made my way past workmen at their benches making red felt skullcaps and leather goods, cafés where the men sat drinking strong, black Turkish coffee and smoking the chicha, then past the gargotes, where the aroma of kebabs and kefta wafted into the street. It was hot, and crowded, and I was beginning to think it was hopeless. I wondered if Rick would know how to get back to Taberda on his own, or indeed if he had enough money with him for the hour-long trip, when he realized he was late and the group had left him behind.
I had just come up on the heavy wooden gates of the Souk des Orfe`vres, the souk of the goldsmiths, when I thought I caught sight of him. I entered the souk, with its narrow little shops, the sun casting patterns on the street through the awnings overhead, but couldn't see him. Perhaps I'd been mistaken, but it seemed worth a closer look. I went up and down the souk, and was just about to give up and look elsewhere when I caught sight of him again. This time he was standing in the doorway of one of the shops, stuffing what looked to be a wad of cash into the money belt at his waist. He appeared to have just made a purchase and was putting his change away.
I was about to go over to him and, as with a wayward child, either hug him in my relief at finding him, or berate him for being so late. Something stopped me, though, something in the way he was looking about him carefully before stepping fully into the street, or the fact that he wasn't carrying any parcel. Instead, I pulled back into one of the shops, and watched as he went by. He didn't look worried, or lost, for that matter.
I waited until he had left the souk, and was about to follow him, when, struck by an unpleasant thought, I went into the shop he had just left.
"Can I help you, miss?" the man behind the counter asked.
"Perhaps," I said. "I'm looking for a gold necklace."
"We have many," the man said enthusiastically. "Here," he said, pointing to rows of rather elaborate filigree work, a trifle ornate for my taste.
I looked at several, feigning some interest, but not too much. Shopping in the medina requires nerve, skill, and not just a little acting ability.
"Where are you from?" he asked. "England? Germany?"
"Canada," I replied.
"Excellent," he replied. "I give a good price for Canada. You like which one?"
"I don't know," I said. "Maybe something simpler. Plain, but good, you know. Heavy," I added.
"I might have something like that," he said, turning to the counter behind him, where the object I was really interested in, lay. "Something like this?" he asked, holding the necklace up for me to see.
"That's a little closer to what I was thinking of," I said, carefully emphasizing the words a little. "Can I have a look?"
"Of course," he said, handing it to me. "Lovely, isn't it? Eighteen karat, too. It's very fortunate you came in here. I just got it in today, and I'm sure it will sell very quickly. How much do you want to pay?"
"I'm not sure this is the one," I said. "It's a bit like what I had in mind, but not exactly right. Are there others?" I looked at a few more necklaces, then turned back to the one I was determined to get, and at the lowest price possible.
"I'll give you a good price, I told you," he said. He made a big show of thinking, did some figuring on a pocket calculator, named a breathtaking sum, and the haggling began.
"Oh, I don't know," I said again. "Maybe . . ." I looked about me, then took a couple of steps toward the door. He lowered his price slightly. I paused and countered with a much lower offer. He looked hurt, but came back with something less than his previous price. I named a sum slightly higher than my original offer. He offered me a cup of pine nut tea. Back and forth it went between sips of the lovely minty beverage. Finally he threw up his hands. "I must be feeling very good today"--he sighed theatrically--"to agree to such a low price. But, it's for such a lovely lady. And Canada, too." I thanked him for the compliment, we shook hands, I forked over the cash, and he wrapped it up for me. It was a lot of money, but probably considerably less than Catherine Anderson's late husband had paid for it back home. Rick Reynolds had rather a lot of explaining to do.