The Torch of Tangier (11 page)

Chapter Twenty-One

Lily fell onto the bed without washing her face or changing her clothes, the squeaking bedsprings sinking under her weight, the straw mattress rattling like paper. When she awoke, a down comforter covered her, a pillow was under her head, and it was night. Five red roses were arranged in a tall glass on the table next to the bed.

She closed her eyes again. After a restless sleep of disordered, unremembered dreams with heart-pounding fear, she awoke, still grinding her teeth in futile anger.

The corridor was empty. Only night sounds ticked in the still hall. She made her way down to the bathroom and washed, wrapped herself in towels and padded back to the little room with the bed, feeling the cold floor of the corridor beneath her feet. She found a nightgown in the chest of drawers and crawled back between the quilts.

She sank into a fitful sleep of gore-soaked images—arms and legs exploding in death; bloodied purple faces; muffled screams; Rafi and Drury calling out in agony. She awoke exhausted, her head wracked, her eyes grainy and burning, as if she had sobbed all night.

She soaked in a steaming blue tile tub in the bathroom down the hall, finding a jar of bubble bath and a bar of perfumed soap, still in its wrapping, on the edge of the tub.

Dizzy from the hot water and the pattern of the tiles that surrounded her, she dried herself and felt the hamsa, cold and wet against her skin. She had forgotten it and fingered the chain, still around her neck.

Keep me safe, indeed.

Consumed with a pervasive sadness, she dressed and went out into the cold dawn. She wandered through the quiet streets and found herself on the beach, listening to the slap-slap of eternal waves. She took off her shoes and walked along the strand, feeling the sand cool and sharp between her toes.

She brushed the sand off her feet, slipped on her shoes and strolled aimlessly toward town through a patch of weeds cluttered with broken glass and shreds of half-rotted paper that shivered in the wind, nettles scraping against her shins.

Across the way, she saw a low wall surrounding an incongruous English garden-—roses choked with leggy flowers and the cloying smell of jasmine. She turned away.

“I’m sorry, dear child,” she heard a voice call after her, almost the sound of a whisper. “So sorry.”

Lily turned back to see MacAlistair’s aunt, Emily Keane, leaning on the arm of her grandson Phillipe near the garden wall. Lalla Emily gestured with her cane for Lily to come closer.

“My morning constitutional,” Lalla Emily said. “These days, I go no farther than my garden wall.”

Lalla Emily’s gaze seemed to penetrate into Lily’s soul. “You’re mourning someone deeply. I see it in your face. You were that fond of Dr. Drury?”

“It isn’t only Drury.” Lily felt hollow inside.

“Someone you loved? The wound seems to be beyond words.”

Lily’s eyes clouded with tears and they coursed down her cheeks. She wiped them away with the back of her hand.

“He was killed in the war?” Lalla Emily asked.

Lily nodded.

“When sorrow is still fresh, the pain is raw.” Lalla Emily put her weight on her cane and moved closer to Lily. “But you’ll get through it, you’ll come out changed on the other side and nothing will be the same.”

“I don’t want to change.”

I want it all to go back the way it was. Last week, last month, last year.

Sobs choked her and the tears kept coming, streaming down Lily’s face and trembling on her chin. Her nose began to run. Phillipe held out a handkerchief.

“You weep only for yourself.” Lalla Emily paused. “Sighs and tears change nothing.”

“I weep for Rafi.”

“That was his name, Rafi?”

“I want to talk to him, to see him, to hold him.”

“You can’t bring back what is gone.”

Lily shook her head.

“You’ll get past this.” Lalla Emily’s voice was scarcely more than a threadlike breath. “But the sadness will always be with you.” She steadied herself. “Yours is not the first tragedy in the world. Your friend was not the only soldier.” She reached out and put her free hand on Lily’s arm. “I’m not cruel, my child. Just remembering. And experienced in death.”

Lily handed back the handkerchief. Phillipe folded it into his pocket, his eyes warm with sympathy.

Lalla Emily took Phillipe’s arm. “I tire easily these days. I must take my leave.” She turned slowly. “Please, my dear,” she said to Phillipe. “Let us go inside.”

***

Back at the Legation, Adam paced the hall outside of Lily’s room.

“You all right?” He examined Lily intently and chewed on his lower lip. “We have a lot to do. Less than forty eight hours to Torch.”

Still dazed, Lily looked at him.

“Torch,” he repeated. “The landings at Casablanca. Lives depend on us.”

Other lives. Other battles. Other soldiers. “I can’t.”

She ran into the bedroom, slammed the door behind her and slumped onto the bed, eyes hot with tears.

She burrowed into the covers, sobbing, desperate, faint with images of a phalanx of soldiers, faceless under steel helmets, bayonets fixed before them like the quills of porcupines, advancing in terror into an abyss. One had Rafi’s eyes.

“I can’t, I can’t,” she said aloud.

Without thinking, she reached for the hamsa again. She remembered the last letter she received from Rafi, remembered he had written, “I would do anything to stop them. Anything.”

There was a gentle knock on the door. Adam’s voice called out, “Lily?”

“Beat them back into oblivion,” Rafi had written.

The sadness will always be with you, Lalla Emily had said.

“You all right?” Adam’s voice said.

She stood, wiped her eyes and straightened the folds of her skirt. She opened the door.

“Not all right. But ready as I’ll ever be.”

She sighed and followed him down the hall.

***

Lily and Adam sat at a table in the Petit Socco nestled in the shadow of the Great Mosque with its green and white minaret, oblivious of the hubbub crowding past the little café, of the hawkers, the prostitutes prowling for clients, the shoeshine boys, the dark-veiled housewives heavy with packages. The muezzin had just called the mid-morning prayer. They ate a breakfast of rolls and cheese and café au lait.

The woman with the poodle sat in the back of the café, rhythmically stroking her dog between the ears. She spoke to a man who hovered over her, his back to them.

“You see that woman in the far corner?” Lily said. “I saw her in the Wine Bar at El Minzah once, talking to the German who followed me.”

“The woman with the dog? What’s she up to?”

The man handed the woman an envelope. She had a packet in her hand, slid it into his pocket, and withdrew her hand with an open palm.

“Who’s that with her?” Adam asked.

The woman resumed petting her dog. The man straightened up, glanced over the tables in the café and hurried away.

Lily caught only a glimpse, but it was enough. “It’s Korian!”

“Well I’ll be damned.” Adam put down his cup. “Needs looking into.”

A woman in a dark suit and a lace blouse came up to their table and reached for the extra chair. “You mind if I take this,” she said, smiling.

“We’re expecting someone,” Adam told her and the woman walked away.

Lily picked up another roll and buttered it, pondering Drury’s death, wondering about Korian. “You think he has something to do with what happened to Drury?”

“Anything’s possible.”

“He can’t be trusted,” she said, thinking of Drury’s comments about the bulletin. She told Adam about it, and about their fight.

“They didn’t get along from the beginning,” she said. “And we saw him at the El Minzah that day, when we got back from Asilah.” Adam took another sip of coffee. “He said he was playing whist.”

Adam glanced over at the woman with the dog. “Could be that the murder is connected to the Germans who stalked you.”

“Drury thought they were working alone.” Lily dipped her knife into the marmalade and spread it slowly on the roll. “You think he was wrong?”

“The Germans who were following you could have killed him.”

“I don’t think so.” Her fingers were sticky with marmalade. “Zaid and Drury took care of them. At least, that’s what I thought they were doing. That night, before we went to Gibraltar.” She wiped her hands on a thin paper napkin beside her plate. “Almost the last time I saw Drury, except for….” Her voice trailed off as she remembered surprising him in the office with Suzannah. “You think Suzannah had something to do with it?”

Adam shook his head. “No. Someone who worked with the Germans, maybe. The wire and the microphone signaled—”

Lily turned to him. “Revenge? For what? For killing the German spies?”

“More than that. It was a personal signal. To you. You’re in danger.”

She thought about that, still numb with the events of the last few days, and rubbed her forehead. “It hardly matters.”

“Of course it matters.”

“I may be next?”

Adam nodded. “Sorry I dragged you into this mess.”

He leaned forward, weary-eyed, his hand reaching for her arm.

“You didn’t do it.” Why didn’t she feel more frightened?

“Your ordeal with the police was because of the delay in reporting the murder.”

“You had to find the code box. It wasn’t your fault.”

Still, the memory of the stern face of Lieutenant Periera haunted her.

Lily shuddered. “Anyway, it’s over.”

“Not over yet. I have to leave for Casablanca tonight. Have to be there first thing in the morning. You’ll be all right?”

She picked up the napkin and dabbed at her fingers again. “You found the code box?”

Adam shook his head no and scanned the teeming square. Korian’s friend with the dog was still there and the woman who had asked for the chair sat at a crowded table, happily chatting.

“Later,” Adam said.

A small man in a windbreaker and army pinks approached their table and sat in the empty chair next to Lily. It was Donovan.

“They told me I could find you here,” Donovan said.

He looked around the café. A boy, no more than eight years old, was going from table to table, his face a mask of sadness, his hand outstretched to beg.

“Walk with me along the Strand,” Donovan said to Lily.

Adam took a sip of coffee and sat back in his chair. “I’ll wait here until you’re finished.” He glanced toward the woman with the poodle. “Watch the passing scene. If I’m not here, I’ll meet you at the Legation.”

Lily and Donovan started along the beach walk, past old colonial houses, past strollers out for the morning sun, toward the sea.

The shore was deserted except for a cluster of young boys about a hundred yards down the beach playing near the edge of the surf, running barefoot along the sand, their open shirts flapping in the breeze.

Lily and Donovan walked down to the apron of wet sand at the edge of the water.

“Drury filled you in about Operation Torch?” Donovan asked.

Lily nodded.

“His job was essential. The ships are lying off Casablanca on the Atlantic side right now, ready for the signal. We’re using short-wave signals with a limited range, so messages have to be relayed from Allied headquarters in Gibraltar through Tangier before they’re sent on to Casablanca.” A cool wind off the ocean ruffled Donovan’s hair. “We were counting on Drury to relay the messages in Tangier between Allied headquarters and Casa. You’ll have to take his place.”

“I know how to work the transmitter.”

Donovan nodded. “Good.”

At the other end of the beach, the boys chased toward the edge of the water as the waves went out, then ran up the sand, laughing, trying to beat the oncoming surf.

“The messages between here and Casablanca are encrypted. We’re letting a few between here and Gib open. The Krauts and Vichy French suspect something. We want them to think the landing will be inside the Straits on the Mediterranean side, where their U-boats are patrolling.” He paused and looked at Lily intently. “You know how to work the code?”

A wave moved up the beach and receded. Black and white oystercatchers stepped carefully along the edge of the water with their long legs in an endless dance, using their beaks to pluck worms and mollusks from the tiny breathing holes that popped out in the glistening sand.

“There’s a problem,” Lily told him. “The code box is missing.”

“Missing?”

“We looked in Drury’s room. It was supposed to be in the bureau, but it wasn’t there. It’s possible that whoever killed Drury has the code box.”

“That puts the whole damned operation in jeopardy.” Donovan raked his bottom lip with his teeth. “We don’t have time to set up a new code. You have to find it.”

“Even if we find it, suppose they broke the code.”

“We have to take that chance. Find the code box.”

Squeals came from the boys down the beach when the surf caught up with them, fanning high against their legs, dousing their clothes. A fresh November breeze blew off the water and Lily crossed her arms across her chest against the chill.

“You’ll find it.” Donovan smiled and gave her a thumbs-up. “After all, you have part of today and all day tomorrow.”

***

Lily left the beach and made her way back to the little café in the Petit Socco.

Adam was not at the table. The woman with the poodle was gone, as was the woman who tried to borrow the chair.

Lily looked around for Adam and noticed a man near the entrance. He stood behind a large flowerpot planted with blooming oleanders. He had dark sandy colored hair, a trim beard and wore a striped kaftan and knitted skullcap. A Berber, perhaps?

Lily watched him. Something was wrong with the way he looked, something out of place. He moved slightly and she noticed his shoes—wing-tipped brogues. She could make out brown trousers with tailored cuffs showing under the hem of the kaftan.

She left the café, and the man with the wing-tipped shoes followed. She crossed the crowded Grand Socco, glancing back now and then. He was still behind her. She turned toward the Ville Nouvelle and took a fleeting look back. Still there. She hurried through the Place de France onto Boulevard Pasteur. The man with the wing-tipped shoes kept pace with her at a discreet distance, from the other side of the street.