The man looked over at the case of bracelets and exchanged a swift, silent signal with his partner. Mrs. Ellenger, still talking, was hesitating between two enameled bracelets.
“Genuine Sahara work,” the woman said of the more expensive piece. When Mrs. Ellenger appeared certain to choose it, the woman nodded, and the man said to Emma, “The tiger is a gift. It costs you nothing.”
“A present?” She glanced toward her mother, busy counting change. “I’m not allowed to take anything from strange men” rose to her lips. She checked it.
“For Christmas,” the man said, still looking amused. “Think of me on Christmas Day, and make a wish.”
“Oh, I will,” Emma said, suddenly making up her mind. “Thanks. Thanks a lot.” She put the tiger in her purse.
“Here, baby, try this on,” Mrs. Ellenger said from across the shop. She clasped the bracelet around Emma’s wrist. It was too small, and pinched, but everyone exclaimed at how pretty it looked.
“Thank you,” Emma said. Clutching her purse, feeling the lump the tiger made, she said, looking toward the man, “Thanks, I love it.”
“Be sure to tell your friends,” he cried, as if the point of the gift would otherwise be lost.
“Are you happy?” Mrs. Ellenger asked, kissing Emma. “Do you really love it? Would you still rather be with Eddy and these other people?” Her arm around Emma, they left the shop. Outside, Mrs. Ellenger walked a few steps, looking piteously at the cars going by. “Oh, God, let there be a taxi,” she said. They found one and hailed it, and she collapsed inside, closing her eyes. She had seen as much of Tangier as she wanted. They rushed downhill. Emma, her face pressed against the window, had a blurred impression of houses. Their day, all at once, spun out in reverse; there was the launch, waiting. They embarked and, in a moment, the city, the continent, receded.
Emma thought, confused, Is that all? Is that all of Africa?
But there was no time to protest. Mrs. Ellenger, who had lost her sunglasses, had to be consoled and helped with her scarf. “Oh, thank God!” she said fervently, as she was helped from the launch. “Oh, my God, what a day!” She tottered off to bed, to sleep until dinner.
The ship was nearly empty. Emma lingered on deck, looking back at Tangier. She made a detour, peering into the bar; it was empty and still. A wire screen had been propped against the shelves of bottles. Reluctantly, she made her way to the cabin. Her mother had already gone to sleep. Emma pulled the curtain over the porthole, dimming the light, and picked up her mother’s scattered clothes. The new bracelet pinched terribly; when she unclasped it, it left an ugly greenish mark, like a bruise. She rubbed at the mark with soap and then cologne and finally most of it came away. Moving softly, so as not to waken her mother, she put the bracelet in the suitcase that contained her comic books and Uncle Jimmy Salter’s Merchant of Venice. Remembering the tiger, she took it out of her purse and slipped it under her pillow.
The bar, suddenly, was full of noise. Most of it was coming from a newly installed loudspeaker. “Oh, little town of Bethlehem,” Emma heard, even before she opened the heavy glass doors. Under the music, but equally amplified, were the voices of people arguing, the people who, somewhere on the ship, were trying out the carol recordings. Eddy hadn’t yet returned. Crew members, in working clothes, were hanging Christmas decorations. There was a small silver tree over the bar and a larger one, real, being lashed to a pillar. At one of the low tables in front of the bar Mr. Cowan sat reading a travel folder.
“Have a good time?” he asked, looking up. He had to bellow because “Oh, Little Town of Bethlehem” was coming through so loudly. “I’ve just figured something out,” he said, as Emma sat down. “If I take a plane from Madrid, I can be home in sixteen hours.”
“Are you going to take it?”
“I don’t know,” he said, looking disconsolately at the folder. “Madrid isn’t a port. I’d have to get off at Gibraltar or Malaga and take a train. And then, what about all my stuff? I’d have to get my trunk shipped. On the other hand,” he said, looking earnestly at Emma, talking to her in the grown-up, if mystifying, way she liked, “why should I finish this ghastly cruise just for spite? They brought the mail on today. There was a letter from my wife. She says I’d better forget it and come home for Christmas.”
Emma accepted without question the new fact that Mr. Cowan had a wife. Eddy had Wilma and George, the Munns had each other. Everyone she knew had a life, complete, that all but excluded Emma. “Will you go?” she repeated, unsettled by the idea that someone she liked was going away.
“Yes,” he said. “I think so. We’ll be in Gibraltar tomorrow. I’ll get off there. How was Tangier? Anyone try to sell you a black-market Coke?”
“No,” Emma said. “My mother bought a bracelet. A man gave me an African tiger.”
“What kind of tiger?”
“A toy,” said Emma. “A little one.”
“Oh. Damn bar’s been closed all day,” he said, getting up. “Want to walk? Want to go down to the other bar?”
“No, thanks. I have to wait here for somebody,” Emma said, and her eyes sought the service door behind the bar through which, at any moment, Eddy might appear. After Mr. Cowan had left, she sat, patient, looking at the folder he had forgotten.
Outside, the December evening drew in. The bar began to fill; passengers drifted in, compared souvenirs, talked in high, excited voices about the journey ashore. It didn’t sound as if they’d been in Tangier at all, Emma thought. It sounded like some strange, imagined city, full of hazard and adventure.
“…so this little Arab boy comes up to me,” a man was saying, “and with my wife standing right there, right there beside me, he says—”
“Hush,” his wife said, indicating Emma. “Not so loud.”
Eddy and Mrs. Ellenger arrived almost simultaneously, coming, of course, through separate doors. Eddy had his white coat on, a fresh colored handkerchief in the pocket. He turned on the lights, took down the wire screen. Mrs. Ellenger had changed her clothes and brushed her hair. She wore a flowered dress, and looked cheerful and composed. “All alone, baby?” she said. “You haven’t even changed, or washed your face. Never mind, there’s no time now.”
Emma looked at the bar, trying in vain to catch Eddy’s eye. “Aren’t you going to have a drink before dinner?”
“No. I’m hungry. Emma, you look a mess.” Still talking, Mrs. Ellenger ushered Emma out to the dining room. Passing the bar, Emma called, “Hey, Eddy, hello,” but, except to throw her a puzzling look, he did not respond.
They ate in near silence. Mrs. Ellenger felt rested and hungry, and, in any case, had at no time anything to communicate to the Munns. Miss Munn, between courses, read a book about Spain. She had read aloud the references to Gibraltar, and now turned to the section on Malaga, where they would be in two days. “From the summit of the Gibralfaro,” she said, “one has an excellent view of the city and harbor. Two asterisks. At the state-controlled restaurant, refreshments…” She looked up and said, to Mrs. Munn, who was listening hard, eyes shut, “That’s where we’ll have lunch. We can hire a horse and calesa. It will kill the morning and part of the afternoon.”
Already, they knew all about killing time in Malaga. They had never been there, but it would hold no surprise; they would make no mistakes. It was no use, Emma thought. She and her mother would never be like the Munns. Her mother, she could see, was becoming disturbed by this talk of Gibraltar and Malaga, by the threat of other ventures ashore. Had she not been so concerned with Eddy, she would have tried, helpfully, to lead the talk to something else. However, her apology to Eddy was infinitely more urgent. As soon as she could, she pushed back her chair and hurried out to the bar. Her mother dawdled behind her, fishing in her bag for a cigarette.