Free The Lighthearted Quest by Ann Bridge Page B

chauffeur politely holding the door open for her.
    Ali was a neat little Arab with a flattened hook nose, a small Chaplin moustache, and dark brown eyes full of a rather sceptical intelligence, indeed his whole expression conveyed a not unfriendly scepticism; he wore a trim chauffeur’s jacket over baggy dark-blue trousers, and a red fez. Julia told him to go to the Librairie Farrère. This was a huge bookshop in the business quarter among the tall blocks of buildings which made the streets look like canyons of golden sandstone. Here she turned over masses of picture post-cards, mostly displaying palm-trees, camels, and views of Marrakesh, none of which seemed very appropriate for despatch from this African version of New York; however she bought a few, and then realised that she had no Moroccan currency—whatever that might be. It proved to be a special African type of franc, and the grey-haired woman who served her had no hesitation in changing a
£
1 note—however she only got 800-odd francs for it.
    â€œNot a thousand?” asked Julia, in her excellent French.
    â€œAh no, Mademoiselle—not in the Maroc. A thousand is the
French
rate.”
    Back in the car, Julia learned with astonished amusement in what Ali’s idea of the sights of Casablanca consisted. He drove her briefly through the Mella, the Jewish quarter, which was too tumble-down and dirty even to be picturesque, with low one-storey houses and many street markets; but thereafter they proceeded to visit the hospitals of the city, which stood more on the outskirts, in large airy tree-shaded avenues. He took her to nine in all, ending up with the Animal Dispensary! “Hospital for Arab Men,” Ali would say complacently, pulling up before high iron gates and indicating a series of modern buildings in spacious grounds full of flowering shrubs and trees; or “Hospital for Arab Children”. There were hospitals for Europeans too, of course, but the little chauffeur made the longest pause of all outside “Hospital for Arab Women”. He pointed out to Julia the Moorish trained nurses, unveiled and in European dress, but not in uniform, passing in and out through the gates, their up-to-date tartan-covered bags of medical appliances strapped to the carriers of their bicycles, explaining how they went into Arab homes, giving piqûres, applying dressings, administering medicines and treatment. “Do much good,” said Ali, with such conviction that Julia was considerably impressed; she sat in the car for some time watching these lively hatless girls, their modern dress and hairdo contrasting so strangely with their dark-skinned un-European faces, chatting at the big gates to numerous Moorish women, presumably their patients—the latter veiled to the eyes and smothered in voluminous white draperies which, as Edith Wharton said long ago, caused them to resemble nothing so much as animated bundles of washing.
    After the Animal Dispensary, however, she struck. Among the post-cards she had bought was one of Marshal Lyautey unveiling a memorial plaque to Charles de Foucauld, and she wanted to see it; she had what she herself would have called ‘rather a thing’ for that strange being, the cavalry officer turned White Father, whose missionary efforts had been sowholly unavailing, his political effect on the pacification of North Africa so great. She showed Ali the picture and bade him take her there. The Foucauld monument stands in a particularly busy avenue; Ali approached it from the wrong side and pulled up level with it, but across the road.
    â€œWait,” said Julia; she hopped out, threaded her way through the traffic and stood quietly for a few moments in front of the memorial, behind its small hedge of bushes. It seemed to bring her monkish hero—so unlike all the pseudo-romantic business of the novelists who write up the Foreign Legion—strangely near. Julia was seldom impulsive, except when