Surrender My Love: Twin beds and dark stairways

Apologies for the lateness of this post!

When we last saw them, Ryan and Krista (I keep on accidentally typing Ryan and Trista – I think we all know why) had just met the other members of their Moroccan tour, including genial Jeff, seductive Eve and their guide Hamid.

As the bus trip begins, we get the full complement of trivia  about Morocco. For example, Krista wonders why there are so many people going towards the cemetery. Hamid informs us all that “This is Friday, a Holy Day in the Moslem religion.  Families go to our cemeteries to spend the day with the dead” (40). Someone, of course, asks about how many wives men are allowed and one of the travelers answers: “'Each man can legally have four wives,' he droned in precise tones. ‘The present king has two—a Moroccan woman who is the mother of the Crown Prince and a French wife as well’” (42).

It’s not surprising that Janice Radway, in Reading the Romance (1984), found that the small-town American romance readers she spoke with felt that reading romances educated them about the world.  Many Harlequins from the 1970s, especially Harlequin Presents, (and Signet romances too, as we see here) set in international settings play up this aspect, sometimes even offering a short ‘facts about the country’ at the back of the book.

We sense the first hint of the promised mystery and intrigue when their tour is slowed down by a roadblock up ahead. Apparently there was an assassination attempt on the King a few years ago and security has been stepped up since then. Before they reach the roadblock, Hamid gets off the highway and takes them to a small café in a nearby town, supposedly because the line for the roadblock might clear a bit later. Krista takes a little walk off from the rest of the group and Hamid joins her. He gives her a gift of a small booklet written in Arabic and bound in red Moroccan leather and asks her not to tell any of the other travelers, because they might be hurt. 

This is very suspicious and Krista doesn’t seem enthused (although she is more confused than suspicious - she doesn't know she's in a romantic suspense novel), but I suppose there’s not an easy way to refuse the purported gift of a book. 

In any case, they get through the roadblock just fine and reach their hotel in Fez. Krista had mused that Fez looks “like something out of the Arabian Nights”, but their hotel is “an extravagantly modern two-story stucco building which looked more like Palm Springs than the fabled interior of Morocco” (56). Krista and Ryan, of course, have to share a room, since the original bookings were made for the previous Director of the Zoo and his wife. And they’re actually married! The room, however, has two twin beds, which you would think would satisfy Krista’s sensibilities, but she also goes to the trouble of dragging a heavy leather screen from the balcony inside and placing it in-between the two beds.  I wonder whether a twin-bed arrangement was the standard one for hotel rooms at the time? Anyone? I’ve never seen this in my experience: it’s usually either two full or double beds or one double or queen. 

Ryan is a little insulted by this. But the rest of the night is uneventful. 

The next day the group tours the city and ends up at the college of Bou Inania. They all climb a dark and twisty staircase up to the roof of the college to see the view of the medina. Everyone is impressed by the architecture, the mosaics and the fountain. While Ryan and Jeff are taking photos, Krista takes the stairs back down to the bus.  This is when the intrigue really gets going, as the quiet stairwell suddenly feels "oppressive and threatening" (74). Then, Krista is pushed by an unknown person and falls down the stairs. 

Who was it? And why would they want to hurt a lowly zoo employee? Maybe we’ll find out on Monday…