Going Ashore Read online

  “My mother wants you to go ashore with us in Africa,” she had said, already convinced this was so.

  “What do you mean, ashore?” Eddy said. “Take you around, meet you for lunch?” There was nothing unusual in the invitation, as such; Eddy was a great favorite with many of his clients. “It’s funny she never mentioned it.”

  “She forgot,” Emma said. “We don’t know anyone in Africa, and my mother always likes company.”

  “I know that,” Eddy said softly, smiling to himself. With a little shovel, he scooped almonds into glass dishes. “What I mean is your mother actually said” – and here he imitated Mrs. Ellenger, his voice going plaintive and high – “‘I’d just adore having dear Eddy as our guest for lunch.’ She actually said that?”

  “Oh, Eddy!” Emma had to laugh so hard at the very idea that she doubled up over her drink. Eddy could be so witty when he wanted to be, sending clockwork spiders down the bar, serving drinks in trick glasses that unexpectedly dripped on people’s clothes! Sometimes, watching him being funny with favorite customers, she would laugh until her stomach ached.

  “I’ll tell you what,” Eddy said, having weighed the invitation. “I’ll meet you in Tangier. I can’t go ashore with you, I mean – not in the same launch; I have to go with the crew. But I’ll meet you there.”

  “Where’ll you meet us?” Emma said. “Should we pick a place?”

  “Oh, I’ll find you,” Eddy said. He set his plates of almonds at spaced intervals along the bar. “Around the center of town. I know where you’ll go.” He smiled again his secret, superior smile.

  They had left it at that. Had Eddy really said the center of town, Emma wondered now, or had she thought that up herself? Had the whole scene, for that matter, taken place, or had she thought that up, too? No, it was real, for, their taxi having deposited them at the Plaza de Francia, Eddy at once detached himself from the crowd on the street and came toward them.

  Eddy was dapper. He wore a light suit and a square-shouldered topcoat. He closed their taxi door and smiled at Emma’s mother, who was paying the driver.

  “Look,” Emma said. “Look who’s here!”

  Emma’s mother moved over to a shopwindow and became absorbed in a display of nylon stockings; presented with a fait accompli, she withdrew from the scene – turned her back, put on a pair of sunglasses, narrowed her interest to a single stocking draped on a chrome rack. Eddy seemed unaware of tension. He carried several small parcels, his purchases. Jauntily he joined Mrs. Ellenger at the window.

  “This is a good place to buy nylons,” he said. “In fact, you should stock up on everything you need, because it’s tax free. Anything you buy here, you can sell in Spain.”

  “My daughter and I have everything we require,” Mrs. Ellenger said. She walked off and then quickened her step, so that he wouldn’t appear to be walking with them.

  Emma smiled at Eddy and fell back very slightly, striking a balance between the two. “What did you buy?” she said softly. “Something for Wilma and George?”

  “Lots of stuff,” said Eddy. “Now, this café right here,” he called after Mrs. Ellenger, “would be a good place to sit down. Right here, in the Plaza de Francia, you can see everyone important. They all come here, the high society of two continents.”

  “Of two continents,” Emma said, wishing her mother would pay more attention. She stared at all the people behind the glass café fronts – the office workers drinking coffee before hurrying back to their desks, the tourists from cruise ships like their own.

  Mrs. Ellenger stopped. She extended her hand to Emma and said, “My daughter and I have a lot of sightseeing to do, Eddy. I’m sure there are things you want to do, too.” She was smiling. The surface of her sunglasses, mirrored, gave back a small, distorted public square, a tiny Eddy, and Emma, anguished, in gloves and hat.

  “Oh, Eddy!” Emma cried. She wanted to say something else, to explain that her mother didn’t understand, but he vanished, just like that, and moments later she picked out his neat little figure bobbing along in the crowd going downhill, away from the Plaza. “Eddy sort of expected to stay with us,” she said.

  “So I noticed,” said Mrs. Ellenger. They sat down in a café – not the one Eddy had suggested, but a similar café nearby. “One Coca-Cola,” she told the waiter, “and one brandy-and-water.” She sighed with relief, as if they had been walking for hours.

  Their drinks came. Emma saw, by the clock in the middle of the square, that it was half past eleven. It was warm in the sun, as warm as May. Perhaps, after all, they had been right about the summer dresses. Forgetting Eddy, she looked around. This was Tangier, and she, Emma Ellenger, was sitting with the high society of two continents. Outside was a public square, with low buildings, a café across the street, a clock, and, walking past in striped woollen cloaks, Arabs. The Arabs were real; if the glass of the window had not been there, she could have touched them.

  “There’s sawdust or something in my drink,” Mrs. Ellenger said. “It must have come off the ice.” Nevertheless, she drank it to the end and ordered another.

  “We’ll go out soon, won’t we?” Emma said, faintly alarmed.

  “In a minute.”

  The waiter brought them a pile of magazines, including a six-month-old Vogue. Mrs. Ellenger removed her glasses, looking pleased.

  “We’ll go soon?” Emma repeated.

  There was no reply.

  The square swelled with a midday crowd. Sun covered their table until Mrs. Ellenger’s glasses became warm to the touch.

  “Aren’t we going out?” Emma said. “Aren’t we going to have anything for lunch?” Her legs ached from sitting still.

  “You could have something here,” Mrs. Ellenger said, vague.

  The waiter brought Emma a sandwich and a glass of milk. Mrs. Ellenger continued to look at Vogue. Sometimes passengers from their ship went by. They waved gaily, as if Tangier were the last place they had ever expected to see a familiar face. The Munns passed, walking in step. Emma thumped on the window, but neither of the ladies turned. Something about their solidarity, their sureness of purpose, made her feel lonely and left behind. Soon they would have seen Tangier, while she and her mother might very well sit here until it was time to go back to the ship. She remembered Eddy and wondered what he was doing.

  Mrs. Ellenger had come to the end of her reading material. She seemed suddenly to find her drink distasteful. She leaned on her hand, fretful and depressed, as she often was at that hour of the day. She was sorry she had come on the cruise and said so again. The warm ports were cold. She wasn’t getting the right things to eat. She was getting so old and ugly that the bartender, having nothing better in view, and thinking she would be glad of anything, had tried to pick her up. What was she doing here, anyway? Her life …

  “I wish we could have gone with Eddy,” Emma said, with a sigh.

  “Why, Emma,” Mrs. Ellenger said. Her emotions jolted from a familiar track, it took her a moment or so to decide how she felt about this interruption. She thought it over, and became annoyed. “You mean you’d have more fun with that Chink than with me? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”

  “It isn’t that exactly. I only meant, we could have gone with him. He’s been here before. Or the Munns, or this other friend of mine, Mr. Cowan. Only, he didn’t come ashore today, Mr. Cowan. You shouldn’t say ‘Chink.’ You should say ‘Chinese person,’ Mr. Cowan told me. Otherwise it offends. You should never offend. You should never say ‘Irishman.’ You should say ‘Irish person.’ You should never say ‘Jew.’ You should say –”

  “Some cruise!” said Mrs. Ellenger, who had been listening to this with an expression of astounded shock, as if Emma had been repeating blasphemy. “All I can say is some cruise. Some selected passengers! What else did he tell you? What does he want with a little girl like you, anyway? Did he ever ask you into his stateroom – anything like that?”

  “Oh, goodness, no!” Emma said impatiently; so many of her m
other’s remarks were beside the point. She knew all about not going anywhere with men, not accepting presents, all that kind of thing. “His stateroom’s too small even for him. It isn’t the one he paid for. He tells the purser all the time, but it doesn’t make any difference. That’s why he stays in the bar all day.”

  Indeed, for most of the cruise, Emma’s friend had sat in the bar writing a long journal, which he sent home, in installments, for the edification of his analyst. His analyst, Mr. Cowan had told Emma, was to blame for the fact that he had taken the cruise. In revenge, he passed his days writing down all the things at fault with the passengers and the service, hoping to make the analyst sad and guilty. Emma began to explain her own version of this to Mrs. Ellenger, but her mother was no longer listening. She stared straight before her in the brooding, injured way Emma dreaded. Her gaze seemed turned inward, rather than to the street, as if she were concentrating on some terrible grievance and struggling to bring it to words.

  “You think I’m not a good mother,” she said, still not looking at Emma, or, really, at anything. “That’s why you hang around these other people. It’s not fair. I’m good to you. Well, am I?”

  “Yes,” said Emma. She glanced about nervously, wondering if anyone could hear.

  “Do you ever need anything?” her mother persisted. “Do you know what happens to a lot of kids like you? They get left in schools, that’s what happens. Did I ever do that to you?”

  “No.”

  “I always kept you with me, no matter what anyone said. You mean more to me than anybody, any man. You know that. I’d give up anyone for you. I’ve even done it.”

  “I know,” Emma said. There was a queer pain in her throat. She had to swallow to make it go away. She felt hot and uncomfortable and had to do something distracting; she took off her hat, rolled her gloves into a ball and put them in her purse.

  Mrs. Ellenger sighed. “Well,” she said in a different voice, “if we’re going to see anything of this town, we’d better move.” She paid for their drinks, leaving a large tip on the messy table, littered with ashes and magazines. They left the café and, arm in arm, like Miss and Mrs. Munn, they circled the block, looking into the dreary windows of luggage and furniture stores. Some of the windows had been decorated for Christmas with strings of colored lights. Emma was startled; she had forgotten all about Christmas. It seemed unnatural that there should be signs of it in a place like Tangier. “Do Arabs have Christmas?” she said.

  “Everyone does,” Mrs. Ellenger said. “Except –” She could not remember the exceptions.

  It was growing cool, and her shoes were not right for walking. She looked up and down the street, hoping a taxi would appear, and then, with one of her abrupt, emotional changes, she darted into a souvenir shop that had taken her eye. Emma followed, blinking in the dark. The shop was tiny. There were colored bracelets in a glass case, leather slippers, and piles of silky material. From separate corners of the shop, a man and a woman converged on them.

  “I’d like a bracelet for my little girl,” Mrs. Ellenger said.

  “For Christmas?” said the woman.

  “Sort of. Although she gets plenty of presents, all the time. It doesn’t have to be anything special.”

  “What a fortunate girl,” the woman said absently, unlocking the case.

  Emma was not interested in the bracelet. She turned her back on the case and found herself facing a shelf on which were pottery figures of lions, camels, and tigers. They were fastened to bases marked “Souvenir de Tanger,” or “Recuerdo.”

  “Those are nice,” Emma said, to the man. He wore a fez, and leaned against the counter, staring idly at Mrs. Ellenger. Emma pointed to the tigers. “Do they cost a lot?”

  He said something in a language she could not understand. Then, lapsing into a creamy sort of English, “They are special African tigers.” He grinned, showing his gums, as if the expression “African tigers” were a joke they shared. “They come from a little village in the mountains. There are interesting old myths connected with them.” Emma looked at him blankly. “They are magic,” he said.

  “There’s no such thing,” Emma said. Embarrassed for him, she looked away, coloring deeply.

  “This one,” the man said, picking up a tiger. It was glazed in stripes of orange and black. The seam of the factory mold ran in a faint ridge down its back; the glaze had already begun to crack. “This is a special African tiger,” he said. “It is good for ten wishes. Any ten.”

  “There’s no such thing,” Emma said again, but she took the tiger from him and held it in her hand, where it seemed to grow warm of its own accord. “Does it cost a lot?”

  The man looked over at the case of bracelets and exchanged a swift, silent signal with his partner. Mrs. Ellenger, still talking, was hesitating between two enamelled bracelets.

  “Genuine Sahara work,” the woman said of the more expensive piece. When Mrs. Ellenger appeared certain to choose it, the woman nodded, and the man said to Emma, “The tiger is a gift. It costs you nothing.”

  “A present?” She glanced toward her mother, busy counting change. “I’m not allowed to take anything from strange men” rose to her lips. She checked it.

  “For Christmas,” the man said, still looking amused. “Think of me on Christmas Day, and make a wish.”

  “Oh, I will,” Emma said, suddenly making up her mind. “Thanks. Thanks a lot.” She put the tiger in her purse.

  “Here, baby, try this on,” Mrs. Ellenger said from across the shop. She clasped the bracelet around Emma’s wrist. It was too small, and pinched, but everyone exclaimed at how pretty it looked.

  “Thank you,” Emma said. Clutching her purse, feeling the lump the tiger made, she said, looking toward the man, “Thanks, I love it.”

  “Be sure to tell your friends,” he cried, as if the point of the gift would otherwise be lost.

  “Are you happy?” Mrs. Ellenger asked kissing Emma. “Do you really love it? Would you still rather be with Eddy and these other people?” Her arm around Emma, they left the shop. Outside, Mrs. Ellenger walked a few steps, looking piteously at the cars going by. “Oh, God, let there be a taxi,” she said. They found one and hailed it, and she collapsed inside, closing her eyes. She had seen as much of Tangier as she wanted. They rushed downhill. Emma, her face pressed against the window, had a blurred impression of houses. Their day, all at once, spun out in reverse; there was the launch, waiting. They embarked and, in a moment, the city, the continent, receded.

  Emma thought, confused, Is that all? Is that all of Africa?

  But there was no time to protest. Mrs. Ellenger, who had lost her sunglasses, had to be consoled and helped with her scarf. “Oh, thank God!” she said fervently, as she was helped from the launch. “Oh, my God, what a day!” She tottered off to bed, to sleep until dinner.

  The ship was nearly empty. Emma lingered on deck, looking back at Tangier. She made a detour, peering into the bar; it was empty and still. A wire screen had been propped against the shelves of bottles. Reluctantly, she made her way to the cabin. Her mother had already gone to sleep. Emma pulled the curtain over the porthole, dimming the light, and picked up her mother’s scattered clothes. The new bracelet pinched terribly; when she unclasped it, it left an ugly greenish mark, like a bruise. She rubbed at the mark with soap and then cologne and finally most of it came away. Moving softly, so as not to waken her mother, she put the bracelet in the suitcase that contained her comic books and Uncle Jimmy Salter’s Merchant of Venice. Remembering the tiger, she took it out of her purse and slipped it under her pillow.

  THE BAR, SUDDENLY, was full of noise. Most of it was coming from a newly installed loudspeaker. “Oh, little town of Bethlehem,” Emma heard, even before she opened the heavy glass doors. Under the music, but equally amplified, were the voices of people arguing, the people who, somewhere on the ship, were trying out the carol recordings. Eddy hadn’t yet returned. Crew members, in working clothes, were hanging Christmas decorations. There
was a small silver tree over the bar and a larger one, real, being lashed to a pillar. At one of the low tables in front of the bar Mr. Cowan sat reading a travel folder.

  “Have a good time?” he asked, looking up. He had to bellow because “Oh, Little Town of Bethlehem” was coming through so loudly. “I’ve just figured something out,” he said, as Emma sat down. “If I take a plane from Madrid, I can be home in sixteen hours.”

  “Are you going to take it?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, looking disconsolately at the folder. “Madrid isn’t a port. I’d have to get off at Gibraltar or Malaga and take a train. And then, what about all my stuff? I’d have to get my trunk shipped. On the other hand,” he said, looking earnestly at Emma, talking to her in the grown-up, if mystifying, way she liked, “why should I finish this ghastly cruise just for spite? They brought the mail on today. There was a letter from my wife. She says I’d better forget it and come home for Christmas.”

  Emma accepted without question the new fact that Mr. Cowan had a wife. Eddy had Wilma and George, the Munns had each other. Everyone she knew had a life, complete, that all but excluded Emma. “Will you go?” she repeated, unsettled by the idea that someone she liked was going away.

  “Yes,” he said. “I think so. We’ll be in Gibraltar tomorrow. I’ll get off there. How was Tangier? Anyone try to sell you a black-market Coke?”

  “No,” Emma said. “My mother bought a bracelet. A man gave me an African tiger.”

  “What kind of tiger?”

  “A toy,” said Emma. “A little one.”

  “Oh. Damn bar’s been closed all day,” he said, getting up. “Want to walk? Want to go down to the other bar?”

  “No, thanks. I have to wait here for somebody,” Emma said, and her eyes sought the service door behind the bar through which, at any moment, Eddy might appear. After Mr. Cowan had left, she sat, patient, looking at the folder he had forgotten.

  Outside, the December evening drew in. The bar began to fill; passengers drifted in, compared souvenirs, talked in high, excited voices about the journey ashore. It didn’t sound as if they’d been in Tangier at all, Emma thought. It sounded like some strange, imagined city, full of hazard and adventure.