A Brief Visit to Ceuta ( a short story )

Shortly before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, I first learned of Robert Barclay. I had been sorting through some of the personal effects of my beloved mother, who had died two weeks before of cancer. It was a journal I discovered among some papers tied together with string. Sandstone was decapitated in Ceuta in July sometime before evening prayers, the first line on the first page of the journal read. Sandstone? My father?

I was born in England in 1913. My father died in 1914, a month before the start of World War I. After my father's death my mother, who was an American, took me to the United States where I grew up. It was not until 1950 that I was able to begin my search.

The journal, which had become part of my late mother's personal effects, belonged to this Robert Barclay. As there were several notations about Algeciras, a city in southern Spain not far from the British colony of Gibraltar on the Mediterranean coast, my inquiries began there. To my surprise I located Robert Barclay within a few weeks. I immediately wrote a letter. Perhaps a month later I received a reply stating he would not be leaving. A strange response I thought at the time. Nevertheless, I made my arrangements and wrote back telling him when I would arrive.

I met Robert Barclay in an outdoor cafe on a warm, sunny day one late afternoon. I guessed him to be around sixty years old, with a face lined but gentle-hearted, and the darkest blue eyes I had ever seen. Barclay was an Englishman who had lived in Algeciras, I later learned, since 1921. The first time I met him, he wore a white rumpled suit and a straw hat. Standing beside his chair, he presented a tattered, painful dignity, like the rest of Europe in 1950 only beginning to recover from the nightmare of the Second World War.

He seemed almost shy when we introduced ourselves. "You have your father's hands," was the first thing he said to me.

"Did you also know my mother?" I said.

He grasped the back of the chair for a moment and then sat down. "Yes. I knew your mother." He gestured for me to sit. "I am truly sorry." He gazed at me for a moment. "May I call you Richard?"

"Of course."

"How did she die? Your mother wasn't old." I told him. He remained quiet for a minute or so and then said, "Are you married?"

"Separated. I appreciate you taking the time to see me," I said.

"No, no. You have traveled from America. It's the least I can do."

I took out the journal from the Pan American flight bag I'd been carrying and handed it to him. "This was yours I believe."

He place the journal on the table and ran his hand slowly across its faded and spotted green cover once or twice. He glanced over at me, a distant smile on his face. He looked back down at the book, opened it and thumbed slowly through its pages. I waited. A few minutes later he closed the journal and nudged it to my side of the table. "Thank you."

"Would you like to keep it while I'm here?" I said.

He shook his head slowly. "Were you in the war?"

"In the Pacific. You?"

"The war to end all wars as they once said. Until yours came along. I was with the British army, in the desert. Arabia and Damascus." He paused. "How long will you be here?"

"Only for the week."

"I see." He again paused. "You have your mother's eyes. Did you know that?"

"I think I noticed as I got older. How did you meet my mother and father?"

"Of course you want to know, everything. But I can not promise you resolution you see. It is not at all what you might think. Not like an American film."

"Mr. Barclay, I really don't think anything yet. Until I came across your journal, my father had always been a mystery to me. As close as my mother and I were, she never said that much about my father. I sensed that she loved him but after a while I stopped asking. I think there's more that she never told me. For whatever reason."

Again, I felt Robert Barclay watching me closely, studying me. "Why don't we go to me place. It's only three blocks away." I started to rise but Barclay held up his hand. "I was not there, in Ceuta, when it happened. Allegedly the window sill where the head had been placed was the bedroom where resided the mistress of the abode, half Moroccan and half Spanish, who was the madam of a notorious brothel. The two Arab boys who found him before six on Monday morning stated on the 'breath' of Allah that they were not the ones who placed the severed head on the window sill of this house, two blocks away from where your father's body was found. Elliot Sandstone, your father, was decapitated. Shall we go?"

I remained frozen in my chair, unable to move. Robert Barclay stood up, watching me with his piercing blue eyes. "Yes," I said finally.

Barclay lived on a narrow street above a small department store, in an area that had an obvious Arab flavor: The rich smells of nutmeg, rosemary, and saffron blended together with the faint aroma of cooked lamb somewhere nearby, a distinct mixture of the Mediterranean and Africa. We entered his flat which was dark and cool with high ceilings and a creaking wooden fan revolving slowly above our heads. The only light were the thin slivers that came through the closed wooden shutters and sparkled on the smooth wood floor. On one wall was a tapestry, difficult to make out in the dim light, but covering the entire wall. "Please, have a seat. Would you like some coffee?"

"Thank you." A minute later Barclay returned with two small cups. The coffee was sweet and syrupy.

"Have you ever been to North Africa, Richard?" I said I had not. "Your father was one of those Englishmen who loved the desert. That very peculiar trait certain Englishmen possess."

"Are you one of those Englishmen, Mr. Barclay?"

"No, not at all. I am like most of the Arabs. Given the choice, very brief, periodic visits would suffice." Barclay took a sip of coffee. "What do you know about Ceuta?"

"Until I saw the name in your journal, I had never heard of it."

"Ceuta was a Carthaginian settlement. Hannibal supposedly spent time there. Later, Rome built a colony in the area. Spain took it from the Moors in 1580. Ceuta is today a military and penal station governed by Spain, even though the enclave is within Morocco."

"And what was my father doing there?"

"I met your father in 1912. He was one of the bright young lights in the rather dull and unimaginative British Foreign office. Nearly ten years older than me, I was placed under his tutelage as I had just been accepted into the service. I eventually met your extraordinarily beautiful mother at a diplomatic function in London. The three of us became close friends.

"In 1913 your father was posted to Spain. He pulled some strings and managed to get me there as well, as a sort of junior-junior officer in the commercial section."

"In Madrid?" I said.

"Yes. Where our embassy was. From the first day he arrived in Spain, your father was constantly on the go, traveling around the country. He made a number of trips to Gibraltar. And perhaps other places."

"What exactly did my father do at the embassy?"

Robert Barclay smiled slightly. "He was in the political section."

"I see. Doing what?"

"The political section tended to be a catch all for all sorts of activities."

"I'm not sure I understand," I said.

Barclay shrugged. "Your father may have been with British intelligence."

"But you're not certain?"

"No."

"And my mother?"

"I'm not sure what she knew. But in 1913 Europe was backing into war. And no one could begin to imagine that the horror of the twentieth century would commence in 1914."

"Are you saying my father's death was connected to his work?"

"No. I don't believe so."

"Then..."

"When your father first graduated from the university he spent eight or nine months in Syria as well as North Africa on a archeological dig. The desert fascinated him from the very beginning. I think because he always saw it as both appearance and reality. It's difficult to tell you see..."

While not expressing my feelings to the man sitting in the chair across from me, I was beginnings to feel restless, sensing much more had not been stated. "Mr. Barclay, your portrait of my father certainly conjures up a rather romantic and mysterious figure. I would very much liked to have known him. My mother never mentioned any of this." I paused. "But his horrible death in Ceuta?"

"Yes." Robert Barclay gazed past my shoulder for a moment and then his attention returned to me. "Richard, do you believe in the spirit world?"

"I'm sorry?"

"Beyond what we can see, feel, understand sometimes. Outside what science and technology can tell us."

"Mr. Barclay--"

"Robert. Please."

"Robert. No, I have not thought about the, the spirit world whatsoever."

"I understand. Would you care for more coffee?" I shook my head. "Your father believed."

"In the spirit world?"

"Yes."

I cleared my throat. "How did you happen to give my mother your journal?"

"Let me show you something." Robert Barclay got out of his chair and opened the wooden shutters, which looked onto the street where we had walked down earlier. I squinted as the bright Mediterranean sun surged into the room and its warmth enveloped me immediately. "Look at the tapestry."

I stood. The bottom half of the tapestry was a cerulean blue. But, the color gradually changed as my eyes moved from the middle of the tapestry to the top. The blue darkened until, near the top of the tapestry, it became dusk-colored in a kind of half-light. A thin, delicately rolling line depicted the horizon. I stepped closer. A shadow near the right side of the tapestry, slightly above the horizon, was clearly noticeable, yet not definite and distinct. But to me it appeared to be the silhouette of a person. "It's almost hypnotic," I said. "Where did you get it?"

"From an Arab dealer in 1927."

"And there is a connection?"

He looked at me for an instant with an almost curious expression. "It seems to me each person has to decide for oneself." He paused. "I gave the journal to your mother in this very room, in 1928. After the two of us had returned from a brief visit to Ceuta." I now remembered my mother getting a telegram and going away suddenly when I was fifteen. I was sent off to stay with my grandparents until she returned.

Robert closed the shutters and the interior began to cool immediately. He sat down and I did the same. "Your father went to Ceuta once or twice in 1913, that I know of. He told me so."

"On embassy business?"

"Officially. But there were other reasons as well."

"And what were they?"

"Richard--by March of 1914, your father knew he was dying."

I sat up in my chair. "From what?"

"Doctors in London, where he returned for one month, told him they thought he had a brain tumor. Remember, this was 1914, not 1950. Your father declined any operation. He returned to Spain. And traveled even more, frequently with your mother. I learned of his condition one night while dining at their house. No one else knew how ill your father really was. But, he told me something else." Barclay became silent.

"Was my father in much discomfort?"

"He never talked about it, at least in my presence, but your dear mother told me sometime later that the last month was quite difficult."

"What did he tell you that evening?"

"That he had met the past in North Africa, in the desert outside of Ceuta."

"The past?"

"Soldiers from Carthage, Roman Legionnaires, Moors, and Spaniards. All who had occupied and lived in Ceuta at one time."

"Robert, you've lost me. My father saw, spoke to, to what? Ghosts? Spirits wandering around in the desert?" I got out of the chair, irritated with the direction of the conversation. "My father was a sick man at this point. Wasn't he ?" Barclay nodded. "Good lord. He was probably losing his mind." Robert remained silent in his chair. "And who killed him?"

"I don't know. I never considered it important I suppose."



I watched as my daughter, along with my eldest grandchild, drove away in the taxi. Their visits with me in Algeciras were always enjoyable, but had become more and more tiring for me each year; however, considering I had just turned eighty-six the day before, understandable. My daughter knew I would never return to the United States. After all, I had been living in Spain for the past twenty years, shortly after Robert died and I inherited his place. My oldest grandchild has expressed an interest in living here some day. We shall see.

I closed the wooden shutters and returned to the chair facing the tapestry. I noticed several shadows near the right side of the tapestry, slightly above the horizon, yet not definite and distinct. Beside me on the table next to my straw hat was the journal, which I picked up, letting my fingers rub across the worn green cover. In 1975 I traveled to Ceuta for a brief visit and went out to the desert one night. I understood then why my father loved it so much.

He was there, along with my beloved mother. And there were others as well.

CHAPTER TWO: We Know What's Best

continued from March 30,2005

We owe a great deal to garbage and excrement. As settlements became permanent and grew larger we accumulated more garbage and more excrement and consequently more opportunity to observe.

While those ancient garbage sites didn't include plastic containers, beer cans, and magazines, we certainly threw away things like bones, both animal and human, along with skins of various kind, and unused plants. We probably also dropped plant seeds while dragging or carrying plants from one place to the other as well as to the village dump.

But it had to be excrement that gave us some of our best opportunities to observe plants. Undigested seeds were defecated and spat out. We know today that many plant seeds have to pass through an animal's digestive system before they germinate or take root; out of an animal's feces will spring many a plant. For example, an elephant, which spends at least six hours a day eating, will digest only about 40 percent of what it consumes. Many of the undigested seeds in the elephant's feces germinate into new plants as well as being a food source for many creatures, including insects like the dung beetle who burrow beneath the ground and aerate the soil. With ever increasing supplies of garbage and limitless excrement, our first crop breeding program, albeit unintentional, probably took place behind the "big rock" as well as in areas where animals congregated.

Merka had noticed when she was still a young girl how the wild pea exploded out of its pod and fell to the ground. This was the way the wild pea germinated. A few pods, however, didn't explode and they would eventually die. Curious, Merka brought back to her small garden some of these none-popping pods. She soon discovered that these pods were the ones that could be harvested for humans. This sort of discovery was being made in more than one location throughout the Fertile Crescent. The selection process was underway.

Wheat and barley were the earliest cereal crops to be domesticated because they produced large seeds which turned out to be edible for humans and which also could be stored for long periods of time. Someone sometime would have noticed that the wild wheat seeds at the top of the stalk dropped to the ground, where they would germinate. But also observed would have been the occasional mutant wheat where this did not happen; the seeds didn't drop to the ground. It would have been this mutation humans observed, brought home and planted, and which eventually became a major food source.

About this time Gaaa appeared around Thorat and Merka's hut, Gaaa being the name Thorat eventually gave to this particular wild cat, who had apparently decided to adopt Thorat and Merka. Archaeologists now believe this human-feline bonding may have started more than 9,000 years ago. As permanent village life developed and domesticated grain crops were stored, mice determined that a readily available food supply was worth a few risks. On the other hand, wild cats like Gaaa quickly learned where a plentiful supply of fresh meat could be found. Humans and cats benefited from this relationship.

One day it happened. It might have been late spring, early summer, but on this particular morning Merka, after calling out to her oldest daughter to fill the water bucket, strolled over to her garden and noticed something different growing there. She called out to Thorat who was about to check on his wheat and barley field. They both knelt down and studied the strange looking thing in the garden, which neither one had seen before, at least in their garden. A vine-like leaf was growing on a running stem along the ground. It had fruit that was firm and round and of a clear yellow color with green markings. How had it gotten there they wondered?

Of course these early gardens did not look like the small backyard plots one can often find in suburbia, where neat cultivated rows of tomatoes and corn, surrounded by a wire fence to keep out the rabbits and the squirrels. Nor had anything like a plow been invented yet. What happened was that the ground was scrapped by some sort of stick, the seeds dropped and covered with dirt. Everything would have been mixed together.

These early farmers--at first--did not realize that the seeds were now competing with one another in this new environment. Certain types of seeds were going to succeed and others would fail. Any number of factors would allow some seeds to win and others to lose. It might have been the size of the seed, the wetness of the soil, or maybe the dryness. Possibly the elevation could have been the difference or the amount of sun--or shade.

Just as we humans were adapting and changing in new environments, the plants also were changing, competing, and adapting. They too had every intention of surviving. The more the soil was turned over and exposed to the air and sun, the more likely that something new would make, often, an uninvited appearance. Over time astute observers like Merka and Thorat would notice under what conditions different plants changed.

As agricultural communities grew and the need for a permanent food supply became even more important, certain individuals acquired the "expertise." They were the ones who learned the best time to harvest a particular crop, identify harmful insects, follow weather patterns, and most important, begin the all important crop experimentation through trial and error. This would have a significant impact on our early communities.

But returning to Merka's garden, Thorat finally pulled up this new visitor by its roots. He smelled it, licked it with his tongue, and then tossed it aside. They forgot about it until three days later when Merka noticed that the same plant had reappeared, but this time it had brought along several companions. Then Merka saw something at the far end of the garden.

A new plant, but this one was big and it was already crowding out some of the lentils. That was serious. Everyone in this community could still remember what it was like to be hungry; they could all recall except for the very young when there wasn't enough food or wild game to hunt.

Time passed. The gardens continued to expand and the wheat and barley fields had an additional dozen part time workers. The community now contained more than 300 residents. Merka and Thorat had four children of their own, two boys and two girls. By now more time was spent picking out the unwanted plants from both the gardens and the wheat and barley fields.

While we can't be certain what the new plant was that Merka first discovered in her garden, by its description it could have been a wild gourd. The Egyptians knew about this plant at least three thousand years ago. It's mentioned in the Old Testament and, among its uses, the oil from the leaves were used for fuel for lamps.

It would have been unlikely that the people going about their daily lives in the Fertile Crescent would have realized they were once again in the center of an historic change. Such awareness usually occurs well after the fact. Perhaps a few people might have noticed that the actual number of full-time food producers had decreased, while the amount of food that was being harvested had grown dramatically. A couple who live not far from Thorat and Merka's hut had stopped tending their own small garden a year before. This happened because they'd become so busy making baskets of various sizes and utensils for pounding grain and cutting plants. Through exchanging these items with the farmers, these budding artisans acquired all the food they needed.
to be continued....