All stories must come to an end. Hilde is gone, Zahrah has learned all I can share, and it seems the authorities might have found my doorstep at last. And so I find myself wondering whether Dar Portuna has become a cage, rather than a haven; whether freedom might better be found out in the world. Whether, by breaking my silence about Langham, I might finally be able to shake off the past, and begin a new story, even at my age.

The thought is irresistible.

But, I didn’t tell you that story. I’m telling you this one, and it is almost finished. Hold out your glass and I will pour the very last drop.

It tastes of a foggy morning in March 1932, when a letter arrived at the gate of Dar Portuna, postmarked Shanghai. For long minutes it sat damp with rain on the kitchen table, while Hilde and I stared, trying to decide what to do. Then, as the coffee pot began to whistle, we met each other’s eyes, picked it up, and dropped it into the stove. For a moment, the whole kitchen seemed to smell of wax and musk and rose-scented pomade.

Not for long. By the time it had crumpled to ash we were sat on the veranda, talking and drinking coffee and listening to the rain, falling over the strait of Tangiers.

Epilogue

Tangier 1988

Last Word

Take a pony of dry gin, three quarters of a pony of Chartreuse Verte, three quarters of a pony of Maraschino liqueur and the same of fresh lime. Shake well with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. A drink to cleanse the palate, when the day is done.

Le Mal de Tanger.

Tangier Sickness, it’s the excuse people give, the reason why they remain in this city. I already had it bad, back then. Now I’m incurable. I’m a true Tangerine, like the best and the worst of them.

Of course, Tangier – my Tangier – is gone. It changed around me, even as I walked the streets, just as it had for Ale, for Hilde, for Arthur Langham.

Still, I see that lost city every day. To live in Tangier is to live in a dozen versions of the same place, to walk with one eye filled with ghosts. I see it in the faded advertisements on the medina walls. I see it in Abdelhamid’s shop, which hasn’t changed a bit. I see it in the old, flamboyant characters, clasping their fraying masks to their faces, taking the same seats in the Café Central that they did fifty years ago, sullenly sipping tea where once they drank down Fundador.

I see it every time I walk past the Bab al-Bahr, and the white walls of Dar Portuna rise up before me. A few times, I have almost forgotten myself and turned the corner, almost raised a hand to brush aside a fall of jasmine that is no longer there.