A Small Door - Maria Robinson

There was a small door in the back of Andre's white stone villa. It was off the garden and fed into the pantry. The door frame was tear-shaped as were many windows in Morocco. Andre had learned that it was once the "ice door", for the bricks of ice that the rich Tangerois , natives of Tanger, had brought in for parties, and used to make ices and drinks.

Lying in his Paris convalescent home, he thought back on the years he'd spent in North Africa, the glittering years of the French Embassy parties, his wives and mistresses, the food. The stable influence in his life had always been Farid, with his watery hazel eyes that reflected the water and his wit which always calmed him. Twice a year, Farid's mother, Zohra, came down from the Rif and lived with them for a month, bleaching the linens and making couscous and fragrant tagines speckled with lemons and onions and fennel. It was the memories of those meals and of fat lingering days that held them, that made Andre want to continue to live.