Free The Torch of Tangier by Aileen G. Baron

Morocco.”
    She folded her hands in her lap. “My beloved Abdulsalam was the leader of the religious brotherhood of Tabiya in Ouzzane.”
    “Devout pilgrims flocked to Ouzzane to receive his blessing,” Phillipe added.
    Lalla Emily smiled at her grandson and stroked his hand. “I was a parson’s daughter.” She sighed and leaned back. “Like the good wife of an English clergyman, I took baskets to the poor, visited the sick.” She looked down at her hands, shaking her head. “I was new to Morocco and naïve.”
    Upper-class Moslem women rarely ventured out in public —not to the markets where they sent their servants to shop, and certainly not to the houses of strangers.
    “People in town must have been shocked,” Lily said.
    Lalla Emily nodded. “Appalled. But when I saw children and young mothers dying needlessly of diseases that could be prevented….” Her voice, already faint, quavered. “There was a smallpox epidemic, no vaccinations. They called the deaths the will of Allah. I raged against them, chastised them for believing in a cruel God.”
    Lily could imagine the scandal among the powerful Tabiya Brotherhood at the behavior of the wife of their hereditary leader. Since it had been established in the eighteenth century by a descendent of the Idrisides—the founding dynasty of Morocco—the brotherhood controlled the north and the district surrounding the remote hilltop town of Ouzzane.
    Lalla Emily’s eyes clouded over. “I couldn’t stop. I was determined to inoculate the children of Morocco. I enlisted the help of the leaders of the European community, invited them to the house. The brotherhood was up in arms. I was consorting with nonbelievers in the house of their leader.” She looked down at her hands again, her fingers twisting. “My husband was ruined, and I had ruined him.”
    She gazed at Lily as if seeking exoneration. “I had a cruel choice-–between the lives of thousands of children and my love.” She paused again. “I left Ouzzane and came here to Tangier to finish my work.” Her hand brushed against her cheek. “My beloved died two years later. They tell me it was of a broken heart.” She put her hand on Lily’s arm. “Some day, you too may….”
    Her voice trailed off with a sigh.
    The room was hushed. Lily waited through the silence that hung in the air as grave as mourning.
    Lalla Emily reached into her sleeve for a handkerchief and dabbed at the moisture that brimmed in her eyes. She turned to her grandson. “Phillipe, my dear, will you play for us?”
    Phillipe put down his glass and went to a piano in the adjacent room. Lily reached for her glass of tea, then set it back down and listened as the strains of a Chopin nocturne, liquid and eloquent, washed over them.
    “Our family always has shown musical talent,” said Lalla Emily, her head bent, intent on the sound. “If you will excuse me, I leave you to your business.”
    She rose, lifting herself with the help of a gold-headed cane with an intricate chased pattern. Leaning heavily on the smooth, well-worn handle, she moved slowly into the courtyard and closed the door behind her.
    MacAlistair and Pardo looked at each other, then at Lily. She tried another sip of the hot tea.
    “First of all,” Pardo said. “What we talk about here must never leave this room.”
    “Why so mysterious?” Lily tried the tea again. It burned her throat.
    “You’ve heard of the OSS?” Pardo asked Lily.
    “It’s a branch of G-2?”
    “Office of Strategic Services. Civilians. Technically, it’s under G-3, Organization and Training Division.”
    “Why are you telling me this?”
    “The OSS uses experts, specially trained personnel, university professors-–linguists, archaeologists, anthropologists like Drury—for activities outside regular military channels.”
    So that’s what Drury was up to. Lily had heard rumors about some kind of work by Ruth Benedict, Margaret Mead, and Rhoda Metraux-–all former students of