Alexandra Singer Read Online Free PDF Page B

Europe recently then.”
    “Ah, a quiet humour. My favourite type. But Mahmoud maintains that it is always the quiet ones one must watch.” He looked at her anew, and she shivered.
    “Watch? What do you mean?”
    The Historian ignored her question and already he was gathering his thoughts. “A few years ago, there were only a handful of foreigners living within the city walls. But now we are
everywhere! This is a historic walled city, a veneer of Western influence contrasting ever more starkly with its Islamic core.”
    “You sound just like a guidebook.”
    “Ah ha! Already you have managed to catch me out. Clever girl. I did write a guidebook to the country. That was several decades ago.” He sounded nostalgic. “It is true, what I
am saying. When I first arrived here, there was only a small colony of expatriates, not so many of us. It was a place to hide, not the place to see and be seen, as it has become now. It has
changed.”
    “Not for the better, I take it?”
    “No, certainly not,” said the Historian glumly. “Rather significantly, I would say, for the worst.” He looked more closely at the woman across the room. “That woman
you are watching. She is very interesting to you, isn’t she? She seems completely unaware of how she appears to others. But the persona she portrays is forced. She is not at all natural. You
will soon learn about Moroccan ways.”
    Together they continued watching her.
    “Tell me, how are you getting on with your painting? Have you managed to find that inspiration you were looking for?” asked the Historian.
    “To be honest, I haven’t done any painting since I arrived here,” she confessed. “I have been moving around a lot. Tangiers, Essaouira. There were...
complications.” Maia stopped and listened to herself speak for a moment, and she despised the tone of self-justification in her own voice.
    But the Historian did not look surprised at all.
    “You will find much more to interest you here. There will be distractions, of course. This is a very distracting city. But you will have all the time and space you need to observe and
paint, and you will of course carry out any tasks I require, such as research.”
    “What tasks do you require exactly?”
    “In the morning, you will organise the library, perform research and carry out all my correspondence, of which there is a great deal, and which I find it extraordinarily time consuming. A
lot of silly people to deal with. It is a little tedious, but it has to be done. They, after all, control the purse strings. I really do not know why so many people are interested in me and my
life. Surely they should care only about my work! But always, you see, they want to know about me. It is unbearable, intrusive. These people, I detest them! The more I hide from them, the more they
run after me. I have had photographers trying to capture me, even an intruder once, in the riad.”
    “An intruder?”
    “Yes, exactly. Do not worry. There will be no more. Now.”
    “Is photography not allowed here, Professor?”
    “Call me Mihai. No, no photography at the Grand Tazi. That is exactly what I said. You must listen to me carefully. I am an old man. I do not care to repeat everything I say.”
    “You mean to tell me that absolutely no photography at all is ever permitted within the city walls?”
    “And on the walls where the storks line their nests... ” He began to sing. His voice was surprisingly sweet. Suddenly he grabbed her hand so tightly that it was almost painful. She
tried to pull it away. “You must never harm a stork, Maia.” He looked at her intensely and she tried to break his gaze.
    “Why would I ever wish to harm a stork, or any animal for that matter?”
    “People here have ways of making you do things. To be malicious. For magic.”
    “Surely you don’t believe in such things, a man like you?” She looked at him, but couldn’t tell if he was being serious. His eyes penetrated her. She had the