Cloak of Darkness Read online

  It was a sad thought out of keeping with the people he passed. Intent on their own lives, on the immediate present, such as the morning’s marketing, the cost of buying, the price of selling, the earnest gossip with friends, they brought colour and movement to the street. The variety of faces, of languages, of dress, always fascinated Claudel; and, above all, the women. They were young—and where were the older ones? So few to be seen—young and beautiful, very tall, very thin, their faces unveiled but their bodies enveloped by layers of floating muslin in bright flower patterns. Wide skirts fluttered to the ground and hid their ankles. Knee-length tunics, loose and thin, moved with each step. Vivid scarves covered their heads and then wound loosely around necks and shoulders in billowing folds. Their faces were extraordinary: smooth skin, deeply black, tightly drawn over fine-boned faces; profiles that were sculptured to perfection. But the eyes, briefly looking at him, then ignoring, were the hardest eyes he had ever seen, carved out of obsidian. Don’t even glance at me, my proud beauties: you’d scare the hell out of me.

  Strangely, the tall, thin, black-skinned men, with the same fine features as their women (but they never walked together; it was men with men, women either alone or with another woman), had eyes that seemed more human: clever-quick, deep-set, not friendly, but not inimical, either. Some of the younger ones were dressed like Claudel, in trousers and short-sleeved shirts; the rest wore striped ankle-length gowns, drab in colour.

  He passed the floating dresses that billowed with the slightest touch of warm breeze, made way for a blind old man being led by a young boy, and came to the end of the shops and houses. Ahead of him, on open ground, with flowered muslin and striped nightshirts in mad confusion, was the encircling wall of the uncovered market. Outside the wall were two tethered camels and a few goats under the watchful eyes of eight-year-olds. The main entrance was a jostle of people moving in and out. Claudel took note of the time—five past nine—and removed his watch to the safekeeping of his hand. There was nothing of value in his pockets. The nimblest-fingered thieves were now around. Two pairs of black policemen in starched khaki uniforms were there to discourage the pickpockets if possible, arrest them if necessary. It was all part of the daily scene.

  Claudel strolled into the market, rubbing shoulders, ignoring and being ignored. Casually, he looked around for the Old Arab’s granddaughter. (But her skin was light brown and less smooth in texture, and her features were neither fine-hewn nor sculpted. Her eyes, however, could dance with delight, and her lips smiled.) If she were here at nine fifteen, that would be the signal. His agents, one or other of them, had sailed into the bay west of Djibouti. The Old Arab ought to know; he owned both dhows, rented them to Husayn and Shaaban. A man of age, wisdom, and wealth, the Old Arab (his name had three hyphens and was a mouthful in any language) was respected by most, trusted by some, and feared by all. In his house tonight there would be a room set aside for Claudel’s meeting.

  Claudel’s eyes kept searching. Bright dresses floated everywhere, their wearers bargaining shrewdly for the vegetables and fruit lying on the bare earth in the shade of the wall. Following its curve, pressed on all sides by black, brown, and vaguely white faces, he made his determined way. As usual, it was the strange smell that repelled him—a sweet sickly smell that he couldn’t identify. A concentration of sesame oil or hashish? Or of aromatic resins from the gum trees in Djibouti, such as frankincense or myrrh? No one around him noticed it, except four seamen with red faces and Hawaiian shirts from some freighter docked over at the port. Their comments, in Dutch and German, were fortunately not understood.

  The curving wall brought him to the meat market, a long covered platform with a table matching its length. Behind this counter, strong-armed men hacked away at hunks of goat, while a three-deep crush of women in three-tiered dresses argued and elbowed and pointed as they selected today’s dinner. And no sign of the Old Arab’s granddaughter. Emilie, she was called— an unlikely name but her own, given her by her half-French Somali father. Her mother was of mixed origin, too: half-Arab, half-Sudanese. There were always complications in having four wives, as the Old Arab had found out, especially when he had spent earlier years in travelling southward from his native Lebanon, adding to his wives and his wealth.

  No Emilie today. No signal. No meeting at ten o’clock tonight. Tomorrow, he would have to visit the market again.

  Behind him, an American said, “Jean! Just look at these black legs of lamb hung up behind the butchers. Coal black! Are they smoked or what? Look!”

  Claudel turned his head and saw two women with faces showing horror and fascination. Quietly he said, “Not so loud, ladies. The butcher might throw a hatchet at us.” And what the devil were two bewildered women doing here all by themselves? They had enough sense, at least, to clutch their handbags to their bosoms and not to wear short tight pants or low-cut blouses. Perhaps middle age had given them wisdom.

  “Oh, thank goodness you speak English,” said the older of the two. Her friend, Jean, was still astounded by the black legs of lamb. Suddenly her eyes stared in horror. “It moved—the black skin moved!” A butcher had slapped it with the side of his cleaver, leaving a wide streak of pale flesh.

  “Flies,” Claudel explained quickly, before any other exclamations would ring out. “Just large black flies.” The two women stared in disbelief, but the butcher slapped again and again, ridding the meat of most of the flies before he heaved it off its hook and thumped it down on the table. Then he whacked away at the bone, cutting the leg into the right size for a muslin-draped customer. “And I don’t think it’s lamb. Goat, more likely.” He looked around the market compound once more. No Emilie.

  Jean said, “Irene, I think I’ll leave. Which way?”

  “Best follow the way you came in,” Claudel said. “And watch out,” he told Irene, who had nearly stepped on a piece of discarded offal, thrown to the dogs who roamed around like the half-naked children.

  “At least,” Irene said, looking at the children, “they don’t suffer from malnutrition. They may be thin, but their stomachs aren’t bloated.” She took comfort from that, managed to regain some composure. “So very bewildering, so—so foreign!”

  “Are you alone?” Incredible, thought Claudel: wandering into this market, two pleasant-faced women with faded blond hair under wide straw hats, the older one thin and fragile, the younger one (younger than he had first guessed) with a hesitant smile that softened her sharp features. Both of them were completely disoriented.

  “We did have a sweet old Englishman along with us,” Irene said, “but that awful smell—what is it?—discouraged him.”

  Claudel’s eyes searched the compound once more. The rear exit ahead of him was closed, blocked by doleful-looking goats. Perhaps they sensed their fate if the butchers ran short of meat. Then, suddenly, he saw her—Emilie stepping carefully down from the chopping table, her white dress with its violent pink roses swirling around her. Briefly, she looked in his direction— she had probably been watching him ever since he arrived at the meat department—and then passed into a group of tall women, her own height now dwarfed.

  “Oh, he’s not here,” Irene said, misinterpreting Claudel’s glance. “He’s waiting outside the market. We’ll meet him at the camels.”

  If they hadn’t moved off, Claudel thought. “I’ll lead the way for you.” He retraced his steps, the women following closely. Irene, the talkative one, was now mute, with her handkerchief covering nose and mouth. But delicately done, he was glad to see: no criticism made too obvious.

  They passed the last of the vegetables, set out one by one. The women who had carried them here sat in the dust beside them in their shapeless dresses of drab grey or brown, their heads covered in coarse cotton. Tired faces, with nondescript features and resigned eyes, thinking of the few francs they had made or of the long journey back to their village. Claudel hurried his charges as much as possible, cutting short exclamations and questions. “The vegetables looked good,” Irene was
saying with some surprise, as they left the market. “But what were they?” Claudel, already regretting his offer to help, just shook his head, looked around for an elderly Englishman.

  He wasn’t near the camels. He was discovered after a five-minute search, and in some distress. He had lost his camera.

  “Nipped off my arm by two small boys,” he said indignantly. “And not one policeman around when you need him. Really!” He was a portly, florid-faced man with white hair showing under his rakish, if yellowed, Panama hat. “Anything you can do?” he demanded of Claudel.

  “Not a thing,” Claudel said cheerfully.

  “Now where do we find that taxi?” Jean wanted to know. The heat was making her fretful.

  “Wherever you left it.”

  “We left it somewhere along that broad street with trees,” Irene said. “We asked him to wait—at least William did. He speaks French.”

  The Englishman cleared his throat. “I do my best,” he admitted, “but the driver’s French was worse than mine. However, he will be there. I paid him for the journey here, promised him more on our return.”

  “If he doesn’t wait,” Irene said in alarm, “how do we get back to the ship?” She burst into an explanation of their travels, partly around the world on a freighter; most comfortable, actually, a Dutch ship that could take twelve passengers. William had joined it at Singapore, they had boarded it at Sri Lanka, so much more interesting than travelling on a large cruise, didn’t he think?

  “Yes, yes,” Claudel agreed hurriedly. “If you walk up that street just ahead, you will reach the boulevard with trees.”

  “There is an antique shop near here,” Irene said. “I’ve got its address somewhere.” She started searching in her outsize handbag.

  William had other ideas. “After that, we could look in at that leather shop, the one we passed this morning. Attractive place.”

  This could go on forever, Claudel thought; am I supposed to find their antique and leather shops? “Pleasant journey!” he said with a parting nod, and left Irene searching for that address.

  “A bit abrupt, wasn’t he?” William said severely.

  “Oh, dear!” said Irene. “We forgot to thank him.”

  ***

  It was eight minutes to ten when Claudel returned to the Café-Restaurant de l’Univers. There was no sign of Alexandre and his small green cab—the size and colour of all the taxis in town; but no need to worry. “Around ten,” Claudel had said, and for Alexandre that could mean eighteen minutes late rather than eight minutes early. He would park, as arranged, along the street, not immediately in front of the Univers, a name that Claudel enjoyed: it made him want to smile every time he heard it, and a good smile these days was hard to find. Apart from his sense of time, Alexandre (half-French, half-lssa) was someone to be trusted, almost as dependable as Aristophanes Vasilikis himself.

  There was a message, a note discreetly folded, waiting for Claudel at Madame’s desk. She was the Genoese wife of Aristophanes, a red-haired Italian whose ample figure dominated the scene whether it was the kitchen or the accounting office. Outside of them, her manner was genial and her expression amiable, contributing to Aristophanes’ pleasure as well as his profits. Above all, she was uncurious about his guests or their business. “My little treasure,” Aristophanes called her. Partly true: “little” was a peculiar adjective for five foot nine of solid flesh, all one hundred and sixty pounds of it. With a flash of yellowing teeth, a shake of henna-dyed curls, she sent Claudel on his way upstairs. Such a handsome young man, she thought, so pleasant in manner. Then she turned back to her desk and forgot about him as she corrected the office clerk’s list of expenses. People came, people left, but bills went on forever.

  It was a telephone message from Georges Duhamel, written down in Madame’s fine italic script and uncertain French. Will drop in for lunch one thirty. That was all. Meaning? Anything: it could be news, it could be a friendly visit. Yet, Duhamel wasn’t the type to make contact openly unless it was urgent, and a meeting over a lunch table was less remarkable than two men talking on an empty stretch of beach. Claudel washed, changed his shirt, felt cooler—for the next half hour at least. Downstairs, Madame’s head was bent over a ledger. Claudel gave a small wave to her briefly upraised face, passed through the deep verandah, ran lightly down its steps into the street.

  Alexandre was there, standing beside his taxi, arguing with three people who didn’t understand a word he was saying. And he certainly couldn’t fathom what Irene’s sweet old Englishman was telling him. “Merde,” Claudel said softly, and would have halted, turned, retreated, but Jean had seen him and was waving. So he kept on walking. Quick eyes she has, Claudel thought, and she isn’t altogether surprised to see me.

  “We want to hire this taxi,” William announced, “to take us to the dock. Is that so difficult to understand?”

  Claude exchanged a glance with a much-ruffled Alexandre, who prided himself on his French, and soothed his feelings with a kind word. “Thank you for waiting, Alexandre.”

  “You speak French?” Irene was amazed. “But aren’t you English?”

  “French is useful here, unless you know Arabic or Swahili. Didn’t you go shopping?”

  “Jean wanted to get back to the ship.” Irene was the fretful one now. “And our cab didn’t wait. So would you please tell this young man—”

  “I engaged his taxi.” It’s always the way: he who helps, helps and helps. “Let me give you a lift. No bother. We’ll be at the port in no time at all.” At Alexandre’s rate of driving, three miles could be covered in two minutes.

  “Do you know it well?” William asked, and then covered his curiosity by adding, “Fantastic place. Ridiculous, though.” He looked as if he were about to take the seat beside the driver— more space than being crammed into the back with two women, certainly much cooler—but Claudel forestalled him. Then his eyes bulged. “Look at that! Foreign Legion, aren’t they?” He pointed to two athletic types crisply dressed in khaki, with flat white crowns on their visored caps. They were standing at ease beside a very clean jeep, also white-topped: quietly amused, seemingly impassive. “What nonsense!”

  Claudel ignored the disparaging voice. “Where do we take you? What ship?”

  “The Spaarndam,” Jean said. She was relaxed and confident.

  Irene was too busy pointing out the Café-Restaurant de l’Univers to pay attention to legionnaires. “Wasn’t that the place where you said we’d have lunch—when we drove into town? Jean, you can’t have forgotten. Stop the cab!” She spoke quickly to Claudel. “Please tell the driver to stop.”

  “No!” Jean was definite.

  “We could eat and then do some shopping.”

  “I’m tired, and so are you.”

  “We’ve only been here two hours,” Irene protested, looking behind her at a vanishing l’Univers.

  “Quite enough,” said William. “This place is a Turkish bath.”

  Claudel said, “All shops are closed until late afternoon.” And that settled it.

  Irene sighed and shook her head: no visit to a foreign country seemed complete without bargains to carry home as trophies.

  William’s well-worn Panama was off, his brow was mopped, as he shifted uncomfortably on the vinyl seat. “Ridiculous,” he repeated as if to cue himself in to the observation he had been about to make when he was entering the taxi. He looked at the last of the town, abruptly ending, changing into a flat grey desert broken only by scrub. “I mean,” he leaned over to Claudel, “maintaining that port—all the money spent—all the enormous trouble. And for what? Why didn’t the French let go of the whole place—town, port, everything—when Djibouti became independent?”

  Is this, Claudel wondered, a sideways move to discover whether I am French or English? He didn’t oblige William’s curiosity. Instead of mustering a defense of the obvious—if Djibouti, left to itself, was taken over by a Communist regime as Aden and South Yemen had been, the entrance to the Red Sea would be lo
cked, and what price free movement of shipping?— he merely said, “Haven’t the faintest idea.”

  Irene said, “All these warships—it’s madness, just asking for trouble.”

  Jean said, her voice soft and hesitant, “The Red Sea leads to Suez, doesn’t it? I suppose if the Red Sea entrance was closed, the Suez Canal would be useless, wouldn’t it?” She looked ingenuous and appealing, at William.

  “Ridiculous, though—all that money being spent,” William maintained. “The French have better things to do than hang on to their empire. Say what you will,” he told Claudel, “we English had the right idea with Aden. When you get out, stay out.” Then, as he noted Claudel’s boredom, “You aren’t interested in politics, I see. Wise man. What business are you in?”

  “I’m with a firm of advisers on construction abroad.”

  “Constructing what?”

  “Hotels, mostly.”

  “Surely you don’t plan a hotel here?”

  “Our clients were considering the idea.”

  “Americans?” William was scornful.

  “Not this time.” Claudel was keeping his good humour without any show of effort. “I believe they are an English-German-Italian group.” With relief he saw they were entering the port area.