Alexandra Singer by Tea at the Grand Tazi Page B

different angles and those inhabitants whom she was able to persuade to sit for her. She soon found the courage to enter
cafés and introduce herself to the regulars, to explain that she was a painter who needed models she could paint in public, in all the mundane situations of daily life. But the men were all
inappropriately keen, and disillusion showed on their faces when once they had agreed she began to take out her pens and paints, rather than inviting them to pose privately.
    Inevitably, the men would begin to make salacious advances towards her, but they were always in public and as soon as this began, Maia made clear her lack of interest. She passed the afternoons
with an interchangeable series of men in cafés, with passing tourists and people doing up their riads in the old medina, and soon she had amassed a small number of acquaintances. But the
people she met were always on the cusp of leaving, and the lack of women in the midst of the crowds of local men began to concern her.
    Too often, she saw that women were neither seen nor heard, and her curiosity about them grew. She saw that here women were allowed to exist only on the periphery of life, and only in the roles
allocated to them, and even those she saw in the streets were often silent and covered, or hovering on the rooftops of the uniformly plain stone houses which lined the labyrinthine alleys.
    Maia prepared her canvas in white, so that the material glowed through with the illusion of dazzling sunlight, and the light and colours splintered the surface and created an uneven perception
for the viewer, in an imitation of the real life of the city. Her use of colour was so imaginative and exuberant that she lost hours in experimentation at sunset exploring all the shades of red and
pink, vivid hues of terracotta, salmon and red earthstone. When she went out onto the roof to paint, Maia tried to forget the objects which stood before her, and she saw only shapes, lines and
curves, rather than houses, trees, the small, drab black clad figure of a woman. As she painted she increased her sense of perspective and an understanding of at least the architecture of the city.
But it was a true appreciation of the character of the inhabitants of the city, which still eluded her.
    Maia wanted to grasp the true character of the inhabitants. She watched the women, waiting for an opportunity to see behind their doors into their lives. Sometimes she brushed past a woman in
the street; she smelt her scent, looked at the worries etched upon her face, but Maia knew that she would never know her. She was aware that while the women were hidden from her, the city would not
reveal its secrets, however hard she tried to immerse herself.

 
Chapter 4
    Maia was sitting at the Historian’s dark wooden desk, translating a lengthy correspondence between his French agent and London publisher, when the telephone rang shrilly
and knocked her out of concentration. The Historian hardly ever received telephone calls.
    “Bonjour, ma petite!” bellowed the man at the end of the line. Immediately Maia realised it was Mahmoud. His voice was even more robust than at their first meeting at the Grand
Tazi.
    “Hello, Mahmoud. I’m afraid that the Historian is away in Europe.”
    “Really? Do you imagine that I am not aware of where Mihai is, child? I know all his movements. I also know that you have nobody here and I hate to think of you sitting there all alone in
the house and well... all cold and lonely.”
    “I am not cold, Mahmoud.”
    “Yes, yes, so you say. That is by the bye. Still, too much time alone for a young lady. Come back to my hotel and you can meet all my regulars. You come at once! Straight away! I give you
very nice time.” Then he thought for a moment. “No – there is another place. A bar. Ask at the desk.”
    “I have a lot to do for the Historian before he returns, Mahmoud.”
    “Mihai won’t mind.”
    “I think, in fact, that he will. He is