Jan nodded.
‘Eh bien.’ He took a battered and dusty pill-box officer’s hat from a nail on the wall and led us out through the drifting sand to his house. Like all houses in Morocco, it was built for intense heat. The floors were tiled, the walls cold, white expanses of plaster, their severity relieved by a few hand-woven rugs. There was a gramophone and some books and a small collection of brass sugar hammers, beautifully inlaid with copper and silver. When Julie admired them, he said, ‘Ah, yes. Once Foum-Skhira was famous for its silver craftsmen.’ He turned to Jan. ‘There is an old story that your Kasbah Foum was built on the site of a smelting place — for extracting silver from ore. But — ‘ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Like all these stories, it has come down by word of mouth only. Maybe it is true. Duprez excavated some old fire-places there and now there is this American…’
He shrugged his shoulders again and took us through into his study. There was a big desk with a field telephone on it, and the walls were lined with books. Magazines, some of them American, littered the floors. On the mantelpiece were some family photographs framed in silver and above it a delightful oil painting of a Paris boulevard. He saw me looking at it and said, ‘That one I picked up in a little gallery I know on the Left Bank. It is by a man called Valere. He is not much known yet. But I think he is good. In the other room I have another by him and also one by Briffe. But this is the one I like ‘best. It is a great pleasure to sit here at my desk and look at Paris, eh? I am a Parisian, you see.’ He laughed and then turned to one of the bookshelves. ‘Regardez, monsieur.’ He pointed to a beautifully bound collection of volumes, all on art. ‘I like to look at the works of the great painters, even if I can never afford to own one. I like pictures.’ He turned abruptly away, as though he had revealed too much of himself. ‘Alors, mademoiselle. Qu’est ce que vous voulez boiret Vermouth? Cognac? I have a good cognac that I have sent out to me from France.’
‘I’d like a cognac then,’ Julie said. He pulled up a chair for her and then shouted for his Berber servant, who came and poured paraffin on the pile of wood in the grate so that it went up with a roar as he lit it. Legard poured us our drinks. ‘Sante!’
‘Sante!’
The fire blazed with heat. The room was suddenly warm and friendly.
‘What is the best way for me to contact the Caid?’ Jan asked.
‘Ah, that is a little difficult, monsieur. I would take you myself, but…’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘It is as I have said — you come at a bad time. I cannot leave the Post until the food trucks arrive. I have two trucks bringing food here to these people, and they have both broken down.’ He made rude, angry noises to himself. ‘Our transport is all from the war. It works, but it needs servicing.’ He began to cough. ‘Like me,’ he said as he recovered, and he grinned at us sardonically. ‘The trouble is that everything — even the wood for the fire — has to come across the Atlas from Marrakech.’
‘Could you provide a guide then?’ Jan said. ‘I have to see Caid Hassan. It’s urgent.’
Legard looked at him, frowning. ‘You have waited ten years, monsieur. What is the hurry?’ And when Jan didn’t answer, he smiled and said, ‘Ah, it is the American that is worrying you, eh? Well, he is worrying me, also.’ He leaned quickly forward. ‘Things were difficult enough here before. The date crop failed. For two years now we have what is called the Marlatt scale pest here in the palmerie. We have sprayed from the air at the time when the insect comes out to moult, but it is no good.’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Then this fool arrives, paying three Arabs incredible wages to run his abominable machines. I asked him to clear the rock by hand with local labour. He refused. He did not seem to understand that the people here needed the money.’
‘His Arabs have left him,’ Julie said.
‘Yes, yes, I know.’ He had risen and was pacing up and down excitedly. ‘They departed early this morning.’ He stopped and stared at us. ‘But do you know why? Does the American say why they left?’
‘He said they left to get stores,’ I told him.
‘Pff! You do not send three indigenes to get stores when one would do.’
‘Maybe they were told to go,’ I suggested.
‘Who by?’
‘Isn’t the Caid’s son, Ali, here in Foum-Skhira?’
He looked at me hard. ‘How did you know that, monsieur?’
I told him then about the visit we had had from Kostos.
‘Ah, oui. That man Kostos!’ He resumed his pacing. ‘Merde!’ The word burst out of him with explosive force. ‘Everything goes wrong this year.’ He swung round on his heels so that he faced me. ‘Did you see the souk when you came in and the road up the mountain?
First the dates and then the rain. And now Ali is here.’ He started to cough again and winced, pressing his hand against his belly. He leaned on the desk for a moment and then walked slowly round to his chair, his body bent, and slumped into it. ‘Eh bien,’ he murmured, ‘my relief will arrive soon.’
‘You’re not well,’ Julie said.
He looked across at her and smiled wanly, shrugging his shoulders. ‘Every year I go to Vichy to take the cure. I am late this year, that is all.’ He shouted for the house-boy who came running with a glass of water, and he drained it at a gulp.
‘Is it dysentery?’ Julie asked.
He nodded. ‘Oui, mademoiselle. The amibe. With us it is an occupational disease. We do not always stay in the Posts. We have to visit all parts of the Territory, and sometimes we must drink bad water. For the indigenes it is different. They are immune. But for us…’ He shrugged his shoulders again.
‘About this man Ali,’ I said. ‘Can’t you arrest him? I understood…’
‘Oui, oui, monsieur. I can walk into the kasbah now, this morning and arrest him. But it would disturb the people, and things have been difficult here lately. Maybe when the food trucks arrive …’
The field telephone on the desk buzzed. ‘Pardon, monsieur.’ Legard lifted the receiver. ‘Oui, mon commandant — id Legard… Oui… Oui… Oui, mon commandant….’ He looked across at us, the instrument still held against his ear, and his eyes fastened on Jan. ‘Oui. Exactement… Vraiment?’ His tone was one of astonishment. For a moment there was silence whilst he listened to the voice at the other end of the line, and then he said, ‘Je le ferai…. Non, non, Us sont justement arrives…. Oui, out, je comprends parfaitement.’ He asked about the food trucks then and after a short conversation on the subject, he nodded. ‘Oui, je le ferai… Ca va bien. Adieu, mon commandant.’ He put the receiver down slowly on to its rest. Then he stared at the three of us, a little startled, a little angry. ‘Your papers, monsieur,’ he demanded, looking at Jan and holding out his hand. When they were handed to him, he went through them slowly, glancing up every now and then as though to check that they really did relate to the man sitting opposite him.
‘And yours, monsieur,’ he asked, addressing me.