Page 24 of The Last Postcard

I nodded. ‘From inland. Looking for work.’

She laughed and looked me over, her eyes flicking from my bruised nose to the dirt beneath my nails. ‘No offence but you might have to wait till it gets late, there’s that many girls working here. Most of us got regulars.’

‘I didn’t mean—’ I stopped.

She looked at me, her lips twisted. ‘You mean you didn’t come here to whore? None of us did, chica. Most of us came looking to be domestics, over there.’ She jerked her head in the direction of the rock. ‘Course no one tells you before you leave home that there isn’t any work, that the Brits bring their own lot in.’

‘What about the men on the shore?’ I asked. ‘They had work, carrying cargo from a boat. There was a man who paid them. In a black hat.’

The girl smiled. ‘Black hat, beard like a mule’s ass?’

That made me smile too, despite myself, and I nodded.

‘That’s Bautista. He’s got the biggest racket round here. Runs the show. Usually pays well.’ She glanced about the street. ‘If he had them working tonight, I might have some luck after all.’ She tugged at her blouse, pushed a few hairs back from her face. ‘Wait till they’ve had a few. They’re less picky then.’ With that she began to walk away.

‘Wait,’ I called. ‘I … don’t have anywhere to sleep. Do you know a place?’

She turned. In the light of a flickering electric bulb that hung outside a bar, I saw that beneath the kohl and the weariness, she was younger than I’d thought. ‘You got any money?’ she asked.

I shook my head.

She sighed. ‘There’s an empty warehouse, border end of the beach. People sleep there, sometimes. Anything worth nicking?’

‘Only a knife.’

She gave me a sort-of smile. ‘Watch your back, chica.’

I wandered, no idea of where to go, or what to do with myself. The girl was right about other women, there were two to every corner of the main street. I saw the tell-tale signs of their profession everywhere; a chair sitting empty outside a house, a bit of bright rag tied to a window, the smell of violet perfume, liberally doused. Finally, at the end of a quiet street, I found a water pump, and stuck my head beneath it, rinsing the salt spray and sweat from my face, drinking until the pieces of fish swam in my belly.

When I looked up, the streets were dark. I began to feel afraid. The water had washed away a film of grogginess and reminded me of the truth: that I would have to spend the night in the open. It struck me then just how protected I had been at the inn, despite Morales’ threats. Road or room, that had been her offer in the past. Now I knew for certain what I had only suspected before: that she knew first-hand the realities of both and had once made the choice herself. Perhaps her fierceness came from the knowledge of what lay beyond the gates for a woman like her. Like me.

As I pushed the hair back from my face, I became aware of someone watching me. A man, leaning heavily on a wall in the shadows, his lips slack, his eyes fixed on my chest, where the water had soaked through my blouse. I didn’t smile, though I knew what the girls would have done. I knew the tricks and bits of business they used, to secure their clients.

‘Like what you see?’ I asked, my voice hardly audible. The man looked on without moving. Remembering the Señor’s dog-like stare, I almost turned and ran, but then the man was grunting and lurching forward. When he got within a few feet of me I realized he was sopping drunk. In a dark corner of my mind, an idea began to form.

‘How much?’ he slurred. I don’t believe he could see me properly, for his eyes were drifting out of focus. All the better, I told myself, before I swallowed hard, and answered with a price.

He began to fumble with his belt.

‘Not here.’ He turned his vacant gaze on me. ‘There,’ I pointed to a dark alley.

It was a dead end. In that moment, exhausted and half-feral with fear, I don’t believe I had much notion of what I was about to do. I could hear the man behind me breathing harder. We reached the wall and he stepped close, his hands going to his belt again. My own hands went to my waist, to where my guts were coming to life, trying to protect me, to give me strength.

‘All right,’ the man said, his trousers loose, ‘you—’

I turned, and drove my knee into his groin. The air went out of him, and he made a strangled noise of pain as he fell, choking and retching. Before I could think twice, I began to wrestle the trousers from his legs.

When he felt that, he kicked and flailed. I took the knife from my belt and held it against his thigh.

‘Stop,’ I hissed. ‘Take the jacket off.’ When he hesitated, I pressed the blade closer. He yelped as blood began to well. After that, he did as I said. In a matter of seconds, I grabbed up the jacket, and the trousers and his cloth cap for good measure. Before he could utter another word, I fled into the night.

Tangier

July 1978

The suitcase banged against his leg as he hurried through the dark streets of the casbah, the writing case tucked under his arm. He felt like a fugitive, fleeing with his possessions, convinced that a figure would step out of the shadows into his path, that footsteps would echo after him, that a voice would shout and torchlight dazzle him into blindness. He took the most twisting way he knew back to Madame Sarah’s – a sharp left, a sudden right – as if trying to shake off a pursuer who didn’t exist.

Mohamed had helped him pull out the case from under a stack of six others. It had come free in a cloud of grit and decaying leather, and for one second, they had both held the handle. Then, Sam was swinging it away.