The Storyteller of Casablanca (35)
At last we came to a huge cavern, which opened up all around us. The sight was quite extraordinary. Strange stalagmites, sculpted by water and time into shapes like beehives and giant bathtubs and weird statues, rose from the floor, where an underground river flowed between them. The man held his lantern high above his head but in places the light still didn’t reach the roof of the cavern, which was so high, somewhere far above us. The pierced patterns in the tin cast stars of light on to the walls and it felt like we were standing in the middle of the universe itself. Then the man led us to another strange stalagmite, which must have been about five times as tall as Papa, and he showed us that we could climb it using a series of natural steps that had formed on one side. When we reached the top of the mound there were hollows containing little pools of perfectly clear water, which Papa said had filtered through the rocks over thousands of years. Above us, hanging from the roof of the cavern, were what looked like velvet curtains in shades of pink and cream. Then I realised they were swathes of stalactites, but I could hardly believe they were made of stone because they seemed to drape themselves in such soft folds from the ceiling. The man took the stick from his belt and tapped them gently. I was already finding it hard to believe my eyes, but then I couldn’t believe my ears. A strange, other-worldly music filled the cave, like chiming bells, reverberating and echoing from the walls. I could almost feel the waves of sound passing through me and I closed my eyes for a moment. I imagined I was in a vast cathedral or mosque or synagogue and suddenly I saw that it didn’t matter which it was or which particular version of God you believed in because faith was something deeper and stronger, something like that music drawn from the rocks pulsing through my body, more powerful than any words written down by mankind. Papa and I stood in silence listening as the last notes slowly died away and then he smiled at me in the candlelight and his face was so full of love that for a few seconds I couldn’t breathe. I thought, ‘I will always remember this moment, as long as I live.’
The man said the tunnels continued even deeper into the earth but to go any further would need ropes and special equipment. Some scientific expeditions had begun to explore further but the war had put a stop to all that for the time being. I thought it would be very interesting to be a scientist exploring those mysterious tunnels and perhaps being the very first person on earth to see what lay in their depths. But it was time to go, so we went back out the way we’d come and it was quite a relief to be back in the fresh air and the glare of the sunlight once again. Maman and Annette were sitting on some rocks at the side of the stream and I realised it must be the same water that had flowed in that underground river in the great chamber. It felt like Papa and I had glimpsed another world entirely.
We ate a picnic lunch beneath a cedar tree whose spreading branches made it look as if it was curtseying, and we drank some of the water from the stream, which was as fresh and cold as newly melted snow. Then it was time to carry on. The tourist circuit climbed up to a place where there were still a few traces of actual snow by the side of the road and we stopped to make snowballs. Even Annette forgot to mind about her hair getting messed up and joined in. Papa said that in winter the snow was so deep here that you could ski on it. None of us said it, but I know we all hoped we wouldn’t still be around for the next ski season.
When we got back to the hotel, after I’d checked under the bed for scorpions, I went and stood on the balcony for a while, watching the traffic in the square, which, very interestingly, included a man leading a camel. Then I realised someone was watching me. A scruffy-looking man was sitting at a table at the café opposite and he was openly staring up at the window where I was standing. Even from that distance I could see he wasn’t a local. With his pale, close-shaven head and black robes, he reminded me a little bit of the vulture we’d seen the day before. When he saw that I’d noticed him, he picked up his cup of coffee and raised it in a tiny salute. Covered in confusion, I turned away, pretending to pay attention to a passing truck filled with crates of chickens, and when I looked back he’d gone.
By the time Maman tapped at the door to let Annette and me know it was time to go down for dinner, we’d washed off the dust from our day’s outing and changed into our good dresses. This was the last night of our family holiday and it felt like a special occasion. It also felt like the final opportunity for the real purpose of our trip to reveal itself, unless any of the red herrings we’d encountered turned out to be a cunning double bluff, which, as I know from Dorothy L. Sayers, can sometimes happen. So I was determined to remain on high alert for anything out of the ordinary happening or for the appearance of any of those brown envelopes.
In the end I didn’t need to be on high alert for very long at all, though, because when we walked into the restaurant there was Papa sitting at a table in the corner and seated alongside him was the vulture man from the café across the way.
Papa looked a little uncomfortable and Maman looked distinctly unimpressed as the man was even more rough-looking when you saw him close up. His hair was shaved close to his head but what there was of it was very pale, as if the sun had bleached it the colour of desert sand. His hooked nose added to his vulture-like appearance and his eyes were the cold, hard blue of ice. He grinned at us as we approached and his teeth were yellow and pointed, reminding me a bit of the wolf in the fable of The Wolf and the Lamb. Papa introduced us and the man grinned even more. His name was Monsieur Guigner, which sounded a bit suspicious to me, meaning as it does to wink an eye. As Lord Peter Wimsey would have observed, winking often indicates that someone is either telling a joke or being a bit sly.