"Can't she speak English?" Jimmy said in a somewhat irritated tone.
"French is the country's second language after Arabic," Aziza said. "Tunisia was once part of France's empire. She is welcoming us to the hotel. Merci, madame," she added in Sylvie's direction. "Votre auberge est trés gentille." Aziza speaks French, I realized. That was good to know. She wouldn't need as much assistance getting around as some of the others.
"You are all most welcome," Sylvie said, switching to English. "We want you all to have a wonderful stay here in Taberda. And now, may I attend to some formalities?"
In short order, everyone had their room keys and had been shown to their rooms. The guest rooms were located off the upstairs hallway, which overlooked the main space below. As tired as I was, there was no time for me to rest. I had only a moment or two to see my room, a small but almost perfect single, formerly an artist's studio, where according to Sylvie, she and her sister once had weekly art lessons. The room had a tiled entranceway, marble floors, and one of those boxed beds Clive was so keen to acquire for the store, and which I thought would be perfect for the film star, a bed essentially built into an alcove, and surrounded by a glorious carved wood frame. I sat on the bed for a moment or two. Perfect, and I was looking forward to falling into it. It had been a very long day: the overseas flight, the stopover in Frankfurt, another flight, and then the usual customs formalities, and an almost two-hour bus ride to our destination. Sleep was something I needed very badly.
In the meantime, however, I had work to do. First I checked that the remaining two members of our group had arrived, which indeed they had: Clifford Fielding, an American, and a woman by the name of Nora Winslow, who described herself as Fielding's companion, whatever that meant. They had requested adjoining rooms. "M. Fielding, he is resting," Sylvie said. "Tre`s charmant, our M. Fielding. And the other one, she has gone jogging," she added, her distaste for such an activity, and the person engaged in it, plain in her tone. She had a point. Why would anyone travel all the way to North Africa to go jogging? "Ah, there she is. Madame Winslow, this is Madame McClintoch," she called out to a very fit-looking woman in jogging attire who was heading up the stairs.
Nora Winslow had a nice firm handshake, and the body to go with it. Rather androgynous in appearance, with long legs and a slim, wiry body with good muscle definition, she was about my age, early to mid-forties, and had short-cropped hair, bleached by the sun, and an even tan. Group athlete, I decided. "I'm very glad you'll be joining us," I said aloud. "You'll meet the others at dinner, cocktails are from seven-thirty to eight, here in the lounge. Will you tell Mr. Fielding for me?"
"Of course," Nora said rather abruptly. "See you," she added, before bounding up the stairs two at a time. Not a great conversationalist, our Ms. Winslow.
Next, with everyone accounted for, I met briefly with the guide who had greeted us at the airport and who would accompany us on all our excursions, a pleasant young woman named Jamila Melka, to make sure the arrangements for the next day's tours were in good shape. Then I telephoned our resident expert guide, an archaeologist and historian called Briars Hatley--an unusual name to be sure, but one I'd take over Chastity any day. I'd found Briars through some contacts I had in the field. He was a professor of archaeology at UCLA, a specialist on the Phoenician period in Tunisia, and was on sabbatical, working at a site on the Gulf of Hammamet. He confirmed he'd be at the hotel shortly to meet me, and was ready to start the next day.
"Can they spare you at the site?" I asked. I had been told he was the project director, and was pleased we'd been able to hire him.
"They can," he chuckled. "I have a very competent assistant. And I'm delighted to have a real paying job for a few days."
"Why don't you join us for dinner at the auberge this evening, then?" I suggested. "We'll throw in a good meal, too. We're having a Tunisian-style feast tonight to get things off to a fitting start. You can get acquainted with everyone."
"I never turn down a good meal, particularly given the grub I've been eating lately. Regrettably, our housekeeper quit and we've had to do our own cooking," he said. "I'll be there, with bells on."
"About seven-thirty or eight," I said, concluding the call.
Next I typed up a list of all our guests and their room numbers, had it copied, and arranged to have the list slid under everyone's door. I figured it would help people remember names that evening.
Then it was off to the kitchen to consult with Chantal, who was head chef for the evening. We went over all the details of the menu. Then, with Sylvie and Jamila, I went to see about setting up the tables. Clive had insisted we start with a big dinner, even though I protested that people would be too tired. "You start big, and end big," he insisted. "Then everyone will be happy. You'll see."
We had two large tables of eight, plus an extra setting at one of the tables for Briars. I decided to split up the couples, except for the group whiner and her mother. "Who do you figure will get lost first?" I said to Jamila, as she helped me put out place cards.
"Catherine," she replied. "She is the kind of woman who has been looked after all her life, and can't find her way anywhere by herself."
"You could just as easily say Betty by that criterion," I said, laughing. "I vote for Rick. He'll be too busy making deals over his cell phone to notice the rest of us have all moved on. Why do you figure he came on a trip like this?"
"I see that type all the time," Jamila said. "Men who work day and night for years and years. Never marry, or the wife leaves them because she's alone all the time. Then one day, right around forty or forty-five--I think that's his age, don't you?--they wake up and realize life is passing them by. They find they have few close friends, just casual acquaintances from the office, and no real stories to tell. But they do have money, so they try to buy some experiences: this trip, for example. Rick's got the look all over him. I agree he is a candidate for first person lost, but my money is still on Catherine. Want to bet a dinar or two?" she asked, referring to the local coinage.
"A dinar," I said. "You're on."
Cocktails were to be served at seven-thirty, and I had barely enough time to shower and change into something more partylike before it was time for the festivities to begin. I threw on a silk dress, some lipstick and eyeliner, looked longingly at the bed, and then headed down to the bar. We'd taken over the lounge, by and large, for the party. There were a couple of local businessmen there, but they soon left the place to us. It started quietly enough, but gradually our travelers began to drift in, and as the drinks flowed, the decibel level rose. On the bar were lovely pottery dishes decorated with elaborate Moorish patterns, heaped with glistening olives and sun-dried sweet peppers. Waiters passed plates of tiny briks, succulent warm and savory pastries filled with eggs or meat and perfumed with olives, capers, and cilantro. Other waiters passed platters of doigts de Fatma, Fatima's fingers, slender tubes of golden pastry filled with potato and onion. Still others brought artichokes stuffed with ricotta and tuna. And then there were slices of baguette--the French might have gone from Tunisia, but they'd left a number of culinary traditions behind--topped with goat cheese and roasted tomatoes.
Susie was the first to arrive. She'd exchanged her pink and green tights for white pants and a pink T-shirt. Catherine was one of the early birds, too, in a very elegant long skirt and starched white cotton blouse with a lace collar. She was wearing pearls this time, and while they make pretty authentic-looking fakes these days, I was reasonably sure these were the real thing. I sincerely hoped she had taken the advice to lock up the rest of her jewelry, and debated about mentioning it again, but it wasn't necessary. Susie was on it right away. "I'll do it after dinner," Catherine replied. "I was just too tired when we first got here."