Page 14 of The Last Postcard

‘No more late money,’ she said, handing them over.

He knew he must have looked like a fool, grinning and nodding at her, but he didn’t care. He ran up the stairs two at a time, already chewing. His room was cool and blue with its open shutters. A breeze was blowing in from the strait, and he could see the lights from ships, port and starboard stars in the darkness. On a rooftop somewhere near by, a man and a woman were talking softly. Sam smiled to himself and lay back on the narrow bed. In that moment, all of Tangier was the taste of warm flatbread and cumin and sweet mint and smoke, the musk of old leather and the worn, fine presence of the past.

The first thing he saw when he awoke the next morning was the writing case.

He groaned, remembering what it had cost him, on top of a supply of kif. How had he spent almost a week’s rent on a piece of junk? His parents were right, he didn’t deserve money. But at the time it had seemed so … right. He’d believed that the writing case had been waiting for him. He sighed and pushed himself upright. Perhaps Abdelhamid would take it back.

It was good leather, must have been expensive, once. How had it washed up here? It looked tattier than he remembered, the leather gouged on one side, peeling on the other, the initials A. L. almost bare of gilt. The calendar inside was English, he remembered. Did that make A. L. British, or American?

When he turned it over, it rattled, something tumbling inside. Perhaps he hadn’t replaced the pen properly. He swore and balanced it on his knee. Abdelhamid would never take it back if something was damaged. He worked at the rusty catch, and eased it open.

The smell came first; fusty paper and brittle leather. He opened it wider. The paper was there, yellowed but clean, the pen and pencil and ink snug in their holders. What made the noise, then?

He shook it. There was something loose, sliding and rattling about. He looked more closely. The blotter wasn’t set all the way into the case; there was an inch of space beneath.

He tried to work his fingers under the edge. It was difficult, the thing fit perfectly, and he almost gave up, thinking it was too much work for what was probably a nub of pencil.

What else do you have to do? Stare at the space where the Hermes used to be?

Finally, by holding the case upside down and poking one edge of the blotter, he was able to work it free. Gravity did the rest, sending two small objects tumbling out on to the sheet. One of them glinted silver, like sunlight on water.

He leaned forward, wondering whether he’d finally smoked too much kif. But no, his fingers touched metal, tarnished and real. It was a key, a small one, the type that might open a bag or a chest or a bureau. Automatically, he looked to the front of the case, but there was no lock there, just the rusted clasp. Stray key, he thought in delight, what do you open?

Abruptly, he was wide awake. It was as if the silver of the key had shone into his brain and illuminated a corner he had forgotten about. It brought a shiver of excitement, the crackling sensation that came with a new idea, with the urge to write something down. The seed of a story, a mystery. He’d always been a sucker for those, for cheap paperbacks filled with secrets and thrilling adventures, much to the disapproval of his literature professors.

Eagerly, he looked at the other item. It was dull and brown, an offcut of leather, curled like a leaf. Don’t get excited, it seemed to mumble, dead things, that’s all we are. He picked it up anyway, and turned it in his fingers.

It wasn’t an offcut at all, he found, but a rectangle, like a luggage tag. Smoothing it out, he saw a design embossed in gold, a stylized lion’s head. And beneath it, stamped into the leather, was a number:

15

*

Noon found him hurrying through the streets of the medina, the writing case clasped to his chest. In his haste, he stepped in a pile of fish heads left out for the cats and almost slipped, but he carried on, not thinking about his shoes, just trying to reach the shop before it closed for lunch …

‘Abdelhamid!’

He caught him just as he was turning the key in the lock.

‘Monsieur Hackett,’ Abdel greeted. ‘Good afternoon. You have not run out already?’

‘Not yet.’ He tried to catch his breath. ‘I was looking at the case, and I found something inside.’

‘Oh?’ Abdelhamid squinted. ‘What did you find?’

‘A key –’ Sam dug into his pocket ‘– a key for something, like a chest. Did the case come with anything else? From the same set of luggage maybe? And I found this too. Do you know what it’s for?’

He held them out, the key and the crumpled leather tag. A second later, he felt a stab of uncertainty. What if Abdelhamid thought they were important and wanted to take the case back? Sam gripped the handle tighter.

But Abdel just shook his head, turning the little silver key in his fingers. ‘No, no, it was always alone, always just …’ He looked down at the label, and shrugged. ‘Why? You think they are something?’

Yes, he wanted to insist, they are. But of course, they were probably not. Whatever the key opened – suitcase or travelling trunk – it was no doubt long gone, crushed in some dumpster back in the States or mouldering in an attic in an English village. Whoever A. L. was, they probably owned a dozen keys far more important than this one. And yet, here was a piece of someone’s life, a sliver of it, from fifty years ago; perhaps, if he tried, he could find out more.

‘Could you talk to your brother Mouad?’ he asked. ‘See if he remembers where the case came from?’

Abdel’s frown transformed into a smile. ‘You are inspired by this,’ he declared, patting the case. ‘You see? I told you. Much better than a typewriter!’

Sam laughed with him. It was true, he felt inspired. The case, the key – they itched at his brain. He found himself speculating, imagining, eager for more. He could get a story out of it: a mystery of the casbah, beginning with a young man who finds a key … Either that, or he was just desperate for something to do. He shoved the thought aside.