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in the streets – they all spoke French. Even Mustapha and Idris habitually spoke French. But the poorer people, the workmen, the men sweeping up the donkey dung, spoke Arabic. Seymour spoke some Arabic, he had picked it up in Istanbul, but that was a different Arabic from this. Yet he felt its undertone beneath the French, continuously there in the background.
    The words continued to dance in his mind now, both Arabic and French, all jumbled together, as he lay there on his bed, watching the ripples of sunlight playing on the ceiling, reflected somehow from the bay, the words, but also the things, all mixed up: the French soldiers wearing Bedouin headdresses, the shopkeepers, with their polite, cultivated French, but sitting on the counters. Everything all jumbled up, all mixed. France and Africa.
    Macfarlane came punctually at five. There were some people he should see ‘in order to clear things’. First, as etiquette demanded, the People of the Parasol.
    ‘You know about the Royal Parasol? No? Well, whenever the Sultan goes out, a slave goes with him holding the Royal Parasol over his head. It is a splendid affair, all blue and green and glittering, like a peacock’s tail. Everything beneath it is, as it were, in the shade conferred by the Sultan. And so a saying has grown up: “Under the Parasol.” What is under the Sultan’s protection. Meaning Morocco. No longer, I’m afraid.'
    They were going, he said, to see the Vizier for the Interior, Suleiman Fazi.
    ‘There are several Viziers: for Foreign Affairs, Trade, War – you remember Sheikh Musa? He was Vizier for War until he resigned in protest over the Sultan’s agreement to the French establishing a Protectorate. The Viziers are like Ministers and they have that standing. Together they form the Mahzen, the Sultan’s Government.'
    Suleiman Fazi offered them mint tea – mint tea, Seymour soon learned, was the staple of Moroccan social life – which was served at a low table in the ante-room to his office. He seemed in no hurry to turn to business and Macfarlane was too experienced in Moroccan ways to attempt to press him. For some time the conversation was confined to inquiries about their respective families.
    ‘And how is Awad?’ asked Macfarlane. ‘He must have finished his law studies now.'
    ‘He has, yes.'
    ‘Satisfactorily, I hope?'
    ‘Oh, yes. No worries on that score. He’s a bright lad.
    ’ ‘And what is he going to do now?'
    ‘That, alas, remains to be seen.'
    ‘Something in the Mahzen?'
    ‘He’s not keen.'
    Macfarlane looked surprised.
    ‘I would have thought, with his advantages –’
    ‘Oh, something could be found. Has, indeed, been offered. But – he is thinking of working elsewhere.'
    ‘Elsewhere?'
    ‘In another country.'
    Suleiman Fazi looked unhappy.
    ‘Morocco, of course, is not as it was,’ he said quietly. ‘The Sultan keeps his Parasol, but nothing under it remains the same.'
    ‘And Awad doesn’t like that? He’s not happy about the Protectorate?'
    ‘He is thinking of leaving.'
    ‘Of leaving Morocco? But where would he go to?'
    ‘Ah,’ said Suleiman Fazi, ‘that is the question.'
    ‘Algeria?'
    ‘French,’ said Suleiman Fazi.
    ‘Tunisia? Libya?'
    ‘French, too.'
    ‘Egypt?'
    ‘English. It is a question,’ said Suleiman Fazi, ‘that he has not yet resolved.'
    ‘It would be a pity if he left,’ said Macfarlane. ‘People like him will be needed here.'
    ‘That is what I tell him. To be like you, he says? There are worse fates, I say. Oh, he says? Tell me them.'
    ‘The young are always restive,’ said Macfarlane.
    ‘There is nothing for him here,’ said Suleiman Fazi. ‘There is nothing for me, either. All the French will let us do,’ he said bitterly, ‘is collect the taxes for them. And you can imagine how popular that makes us! Everything else we have to leave to the French.'
    He looked at Seymour.
    ‘Your concern is with Bossu,’ he said. ‘Our concern is with the hundreds of Bossus that