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The reasons or excuses which he gave were: first, that his wages were insufficient; and, secondly, that "a courier" had been sent over to him from Tetuan to tell him that his mother and his wife were quarrelling to such a degree that Tahara had threatened to go back to her native Riff country with her brother unless S`lam returned, and if she took that step it would mean a divorce.
Miss Z poured a teaspoonful into a tumbler, and returned the bottle to Tahara, who was getting rabid at the delay. The teaspoonful we decided should be given to one of Miss Z 's little chickens which she was rearing. I said I would come in the morning and hear her report.
Tahara was talked about and orders promptly came through for him to return to Japan. This was in 1936. Half a year later, a suave Japanese named Takahiro Wakabayashi appeared in Panama as the representative of the Federation of Japanese Importers and Exporters, the same organization under a slightly changed name.
So poor little Tahara, who had no voice in her marriage, but had wept all the way to Tetuan under the escort of her bridegroom and brother, was left penniless in the old mother's clutches. She had no relatives near to help her, otherwise I have no doubt that she would have got a divorce.
Tahara had her eccentricities too, of which one was an extraordinary aptitude for annexing wherewithal to tie round her head in place of her own yellow silk scarf, which was kept for high days. One week one of our table-napkins was raised to this honour; the next one of our clean bedroom towels had taken its place round her dark locks.
When we went out, Tahara was made to bolt every door; and if any one came to the house, she would only call down to them out of our bedroom window. The first night we slept in our garden-house and for several nights after, the basha took upon himself to send us out a guard of soldiers, who were responsible for our safety.
She was madly jealous of Tahara, whom S`lam had married without letting her know. He had gone over to Tangier; had arranged the marriage with Tahara's brother, who was living at Tangier with her; had brought her off, hardly a happy or willing bride, for he told us that she cried the whole of the journey; and had sprung her upon his old mother at Tetuan.
S`lam was about twenty-six years old, Tahara about twenty. He was a sinewy, long-legged ruffian, well over six feet, and holding himself creditably. He had a pair of fierce, dark, restless eyes, little beard or moustache, the front half of his head shaved, and a few locks left long at the back in token of his being a "brave" and having slain his man in a blood-feud.
People in the city had spoken against her and said evil things about her. S`lam was jealous. He had been very angry. They had quarrelled, and he had poisoned her. But he must never, never, on any account, know that she had been to the tabiba's to tell the tale. If S`lam suspected that Tahara knew he had tried to poison her, and had told us of it well, her life was not worth a flus.
So S`lam set out with our cavalcade, and we proposed to keep him while we were at Tangier, take him by boat to Mogador, and after our march was over return him to Tetuan. But, while "man proposes " I was sorry for Tahara. She was left behind with her old enemy S`lam's mother. He left the mother money, but Tahara not one flus.
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