Page 86 of The Last Postcard

For a moment, he stiffened. Then, I felt him relax, leaning closer. ‘I could say the same for you,’ he whispered. ‘Why don’t you choose us another one?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I’ve been thinking.’ His breath was warm on my cheek. ‘If it happens that I have to leave Tangiers, would you go with me?’

Leave Tangiers, Dar Portuna? ‘And go where?’

‘Anywhere. Argentina, Shanghai. The other side of the world, where no one knows us.’

Those places, I knew them from Ifrahim’s stories, but they’d always seemed like a fantasy; impossible to reach for someone like me.

‘You mean travel together?’ I leaned my head against his, closing my eyes. I could see us now, two gentlemen standing at the railing of a ship, smoking and laughing, playing cards with ladies in cocktail lounges, idly reading newspapers over breakfast, sharing a cabin, where we could shed our disguises and be together, breath and skin, upon a vast ocean.

‘Of course together.’ His lips touched the side of my head. ‘With you as my wife—’

I opened my eyes, as if someone had stuck me with a pin.

‘Your wife?’

‘Yes. They will be looking for us, after all, for Langham and del Potro. But as a gentleman and a lady we could slip past. Mr and Mrs Porter, of Gibraltar, maybe. You could borrow a few of Hilde’s dresses, perhaps a wig, until your hair grows out.’ He ran his hand through my short curls and I jerked away, my guts knotting.

He frowned. ‘What is it?’

He reached for me again, but I shrugged out of his grip. I couldn’t explain it. Langham’s wife … to be with him, openly, in public. Wasn’t that what I wanted?

‘No,’ I told him shakily. ‘I can’t.’

‘Ale, as my wife, you’d have protection.’

I turned to face him. ‘I don’t want to be protected, to need protection. I don’t want to be a wife.’ I searched for his eyes in the darkness. ‘I want what you have. I want to be like you, to be free.’

There was silence between us for a long time. I couldn’t see his face clearly, only the outline of his features. Then, his chest jerked and I saw a glint on his skin. It was a tear, I realized.

‘To be like me,’ he said, his voice soft with dismay. ‘No, Ale, I couldn’t wish that on you.’

I pulled him into my arms. His tears were warm and slick as lamp oil on my cheek as I kissed him, feeling my own eyes sting. We clung to each other, there on that rooftop, like two people about to fall from the edge of the world.

Tangier

July 1978

Sam stood motionless, one arm around Zahrah. She was fighting not to cry; he could feel the hitch of tears in her chest, barely contained.

Gone.

‘What happened? Tell me.’

She looked up at him, and for a moment there was such recrimination in her face he thought he wouldn’t be able to stand it.

‘We waited for you,’ she sniffed, wiping her nose on her sleeve. ‘Last night, we waited up but you didn’t come. In the end, Ale sent me out to get the evening papers … You promised,’ she said fiercely, stepping away from him. ‘You promised you’d stop it.’

‘I tried!’ He was too ashamed to meet her gaze. ‘I went to Norton’s office, I got Ale’s old passport back, I tried to make him leave the story alone, but …’ His voice trailed off and he gave a dull laugh. ‘I spent the night in jail. That’s why I didn’t come.’

‘In jail?’ Zahrah looked alarmed. ‘Why?’

He rubbed his eyes. ‘I got into a fight, with Norton.’ It sounded so ridiculous. ‘Everything would’ve been fine, but the police found the passport and decided they didn’t know what to do with me. So they threw me in the lock-up. I’d probably still be there if my friend Bet hadn’t bailed me out.’ After a moment’s silence, he looked up at her. ‘Please,’ he begged. ‘Zahrah, tell me what’s happened to Ale.’

Her shoulders dropped. ‘Last night, we read that article of Norton’s,’ she said, sitting wearily on the edge of the bed. ‘Ale saw the bit about Langham, and Dar Portuna, and the authorities, and didn’t say a word, just locked the door of the study and didn’t come out all night.’ Zahrah was worrying her hands, red with nail marks. ‘This morning, early, Ale came to the kitchen and asked me to go and buy the morning papers. Neither of us had slept, I could tell.’ She swallowed a sort of laugh. ‘It was just an excuse to get me out of the house … By the time I got back, everything was quiet. There was no sign of Ale. Nothing except for this.’