‘Has there ever been an art student who’s worked on Marta’s ward?’
‘Some time ago we did a three-month experiment with some art therapy,’ said Dra Cuevas.
‘How did that work?’ asked Falcon. ‘Who were the art therapists?’
‘It was something we did on the weekends. The work was unpaid. It was just to see if the patients responded to a creative activity that might remind them of childhood.’
‘Where did the artists come from?’
‘One of the board members of the hospital is a film director. He recruited people from his company with an artistic background. They were all young.’
‘Is there a record of who they were?’
‘Of course, there had to be. We paid their travel expenses.’
‘How were they paid?’
‘Once a month by cheque, as far as I know,’ she said. ‘You’d have to go to the accounts department for details on that.’
‘Do you remember any of the names of the males who helped with the course?’
‘Only their first names — Pedro, Antonio and Julio.’
‘Was there a Sergio?’
‘No.’
‘I’ll go and see the people in the accounts department.’
Dra Cuevas was right. There’d been a Pedro and an Antonio, all of whose names were completely Spanish. It was the third name that the secretary in the accounts department gave her that attracted Falcon’s interest, because in full it was Julio Menendez Chefchaouni.
It was 9 p.m. by the time he got back to Calle Bailen and as he opened the door he kicked another package across the floor. No address again. The number 3 written on the front.
He was exhausted. He put the package in his study. The answering machine was blinking. There was one message from Comisario Lobo, giving a home telephone number. He didn’t have the strength for it and took a shower instead.
The kitchen supplied him with bread and chorizo, which he washed down with red wine. He took some ice with him to his study and found a bottle of whisky in the drinks cabinet. He poured a couple of fingers over the ice. He stretched before he sat down and thought that for the first time he’d managed to get a move ahead of Sergio. He wasn’t chasing any more, but circling. He opened the package. There were more photocopied sheets of his father’s journals.
1st July 1959, Tangier
I have a new toy, which is a pair of binoculars. I sit on the verandah and look at people on the beach and sketch their bodies, the unaware still lives. Rather than the lithe bodies of the young, I find I am more drawn to the collapsing geography of the old and out of condition. I draw them as landscape — escarpments, interlocking spurs, ridges, plains, and the inevitable mud slide. As I train my new far-seeing eyes across the beach I come across P. and the children. My family at play. Paco and Manuela are constructing some Gaudiesque castle, while Javier annoys P., who takes him down to the water. P. walks while Javier high-steps through the shallows, holding his mother’s hand. I am entranced by this everyday sight, which seems more wonderful for their being unconscious, until P. stops and Javier sets off at a sprint and is caught up in the arms of a stranger, who hurls him up in the air and puts him down again. Javier stamps his feet in demand and the stranger complies and throws him up again. He is a Moroccan in his mid thirties. P. approaches and I see that she knows this man. They talk for some minutes while Javier forms mounds of sand over the stranger’s feet and then P. walks off, towing Javier, who is turning and waving at the man. I refocus on the Moroccan, who is still standing with his head held high to the sun. He looks at P. and the boy for as long as it takes them to merge with the crowds on the beach. I see admiration in his face.
1st November 1959, Tangier
The first rains and there is nobody on the beaches. There are few people in town. The port is empty. Last month Mohammed V’s decree, giving Tangier special status, was abrogated. The Cafe de Paris is empty apart from the grumbling few, who blame the recent move on Casablanca’s business community, who have always been envious of Tangier’s competitive advantage. I go to the Medina and sit under the dripping balconies of the Cafe Central where they now only serve poor coffee or mint tea. I am aware of being watched, which is unusual as I am normally the watcher. My eyes move over the turbanned heads, the burnouses done up to the chin, the babouches clapping against hardened heels until I come across the face of the man on the beach who was talking to P. He has a pencil in his hand. Our eyes meet and I see that he knows who I am. He leaves soon after. I ask the waiter if he knows him, but he’s never been seen here before.
R. tells me he is moving again. Abdullah Diouri’s letter has got under his skin.
3rd December 1959, Tangier
M. writes, v. depressed. M.G.’s stomach pains have been diagnosed as liver cancer and no surgeon is prepared to operate. It seems he will die in months, if not weeks. She has fallen hard for M.G. and I know this news will be a savage blow. She asks after Javier, another male who has dived into her heart. Her letter makes me nostalgic for how P. and I used to be. This thought jolts me out of my seat and I pace the room. There is an intruder in my head. I root around for the lie and find the face of the man on the beach. I know I will not find peace of mind until I know who he is.
7th April 1960, Tangier
I do not work any more. I cannot. My mind has no sticking point. I cannot bear to be in the studio. I wander the town and Medina looking at faces, watching and waiting to find the stranger. He is my new obsession. I am living in my head, which has the bizarre logic of the Medina, but all I come up against is dead ends.
10th May 1960, Tangier
I had almost given up hope when, walking down the Boulevard Pasteur, I am oddly drawn to a piece in the window of one of the tourist shops, which is of carved bone. As I lift my eyes from the sculpture I see the stranger from the beach serving in the shop. At first I think it is his shop until I see an old man running the money. I go in and, ignoring the stranger, who is serving some tourists, I ask the old man about the piece in the window. He tells me it is made by his son. I am impressed and ask for his name, which he tells me is Tariq Chefchaouni. The old man says his son has a workshop on the outskirts of town, on the road to Asilah. As we talk I see next to his cash box a small basket of cheap rings. Four of them are agate cubes mounted on simple silver bands. Now I understand P.’s puzzlement, or was it fear?
