Saadi of Shiraz SEÑOR BENITO RAISED A FORK OF SAUTÉED SWORDFISH TO HIS lips and rolled his eyes with shame. We were seated on an expansive terrace overlooking the strait, taking lunch at a restaurant known for its fish. The other tables were empty, almost as if the old collector had booked the entire place so that we would be left undisturbed. 'The parties were decadent in the extreme,' he said. 'We would dance through the night, until the sun was high, and we would bathe in chilled champagne.' 'What brought you to Tangier in the first place?' Benito sipped his Muscadet. 'A love affair,' he said. The waiter approached, poured water, then wine, hovered like a black and white butterfly, flitted away. 'Tangier is a city built on scandal,' he said, when the waiter was out of earshot. 'Whatever anyone tells you to the contrary is wrong. Everyone you see from the waiter there to the men selling crabs down in the port . . . they are all involved.' 'Involved in what?' 'In the scandal, of course.' I asked about the love affair.
