The Eye

The Eye Summary | Detailed Summary

A man once came to live in Tangiers and met with an early death. This was a relatively common occurrence, and local society sat back to watch the man suffer, convinced that he had brought it upon himself.

The man's name was Duncan Marsh, and he was from Vancouver, British Columbia. The man telling the story (whom we will refer to as "the narratornarrator") never met Marsh, but heard about him and his fatal circumstances at cocktail parties.

Marsh rented an inexpensive, furnished house just outside of town and hired a teenage boy to act as a night watchman. The house came with a cook and a gardener, but Marsh replaced these two with a new cook who had been suggested by the night watchman.

Soon after the new cook came to work for him, Marsh became ill. The doctors sent him to a hospital in London, where he spent two months recovering a small amount of his health. They still had no idea what had made him sick, however, and he returned to Tangiers, becoming bedridden soon after. He was eventually forced to go home to Canada, where he died shortly after arriving.

Through all of this, people assumed that he had made the typical mistake of becoming too familiar with the natives and trusting them, so he was yet another victim of slow poisoning by the natives. There is never any proof in these instances, so no one ever attempts an investigation.

There were, however, extra details to this story. While Marsh was ill, he told an acquaintance about his plan to provide for the night watchman financially, should he himself be forced to leave Morocco. He had given the boy a notarized letter for this purpose, but the boy had never tried to claim any money. Another piece of the puzzle was that the doctor, Dr. Halsey, who had arranged for Marsh's journey from the house to the airport, had reported that the soles of Marsh's feet had been cut with crude patterns. The cuts were deep, and some were slightly infected. Dr. Halsey called in the cook and night watchman to ask them about the cuts, but they were shocked and had no explanation. Within a few days of Marsh's departure, the cook and gardener who originally came with the house returned to the house to live once again.

In discussing the mystery, everyone believed that the night watchman was guilty, but they were puzzled by his behavior toward the money that had been provided for him, and the patterned incisions on Marsh's feet made no sense. It did not fit with the slow carefulness of a poisoner.

As time passed, the circumstances of Duncan Marsh's illness and subsequent death fell off the list of hot topics. Several years later, an American resident came to the narrator with the information that he had discovered Marsh's night watchman. His name was Larbi, and he was now working as a waiter at a small restaurant in town. Apparently, he could understand English well but spoke it poorly. The American was simply sharing the information in case the narrator felt inclined to investigate.

He thought about it for a while and decided to go see Larbi in person. The restaurant was somewhat dark inside and frequented by Europeans. The three waiters all looked the same, so when one of them brought a menu, the narrator asked for Larbi.

Larbi came to take his order, and the narrator ordered in Spanish. When Larbi brought his soup, the narrator told him quietly that he was surprised he was working here and not running a bazaar or shop. This caught the young man's attention.

When he brought the next course, the narrator apologized and explained what he had heard about Larbi's legacy from the foreign gentleman. When Larbi said that the letter was not any good, the narrator expressed interest in seeing it. Larbi agreed to show it to him on the following evening, since the letter was at home.

The narrator thanked him and promised to return in two or three days, noting to himself that the young man obviously did not feel that he had had a part in Marsh's death. When he return a few nights later and was given the document to read, he learned that it was only good for a monthly sum of money while Marsh still lived. Larbi simply told him that it was fate. The narrator took his leave of Larbi, wanting time to consider this information instead of pressing the young man for details around Marsh's death.

He realized that the letter, written on the type of paper sold in a tobacco shop, was an agreement between master and servant. Marsh had asked for Larbi's help, and Larbi had consented. The narrator decided to try to speak to Larbi in Arabic in the house where it had all happened, to see if he could understand more clearly. When he went to ask Larbi, the young man replied that he knew the guardian of the house. He was surprised and then satisfied at being addressed in Arabic. Then the narrator asked if they could go there so he could hear the whole story and offered to pay him for his time.

They traveled to the house, and the guardian let them in and followed them everywhere. As Larbi showed the narrator through the house, the narrator began to feel as though everything would soon be made clear. When Larbi explained that the entrance from the kitchen to the patio outside is where everything began, the two men sat out on the patio, and the house guardian left them alone, locking the door after him.

Larbi explained that the original cook with the house was not a very good cook. Marsh was dissatisfied and asked Larbi to find him another cook. He found a woman named Meriam, who had a young daughter that she would have to bring with her on some days. Marsh said that this was not a problem as long as the girl kept quiet.

On the days Meriam brought her daughter, the girl would play on the patio where her mother could keep an eye on her as she worked. Marsh continually complained about her noise from the beginning. One day, he went quietly around the house to the patio, where he got on all fours, put his face close to the girl's and frowned so fiercely that the girl screamed in terror and ran into the kitchen. She continued to wail and cry until Meriam took her home. That night, she came down with a fever and remained on the brink of death for several weeks. When the fever subsided, the girl could no longer walk.

Meriam consulted one fqih (a local Moroccan doctor) after another. Each told her that Marsh had put "the eye" on her daughter. However, even if Marsh agreed to remove the spell, he would not be able to do so himself. Instead, they would have to perform a special ceremony, and Meriam needed to give him certain substances so that he could not counteract the spell. The substance was merely a relaxing agent, not anything meant to harm him, so that when the time for the ceremony came, he could not object.

Marsh eventually told Larbi that he thought Meriam might be drugging him and asked him to watch for it. This was when the letter was written and witnessed. Since Larbi still believed what Meriam was giving Marsh was harmless, he told Marsh that everything would be fine.

When Marsh was sent to the hospital in London, Larbi told Meriam that she had made him sick and now she would never be able to break the spell. However, she simply replied, "It's in the hands of Allah." Larbi encouraged Meriam to finish things quickly when Marsh returned. He felt it would be better for the gentleman's health if the drugging did not continue for very much longer.

Soon Marsh was worse than ever, suffering terrible pain. He could not even get out of bed to use the bathroom. Meriam finally thought that it was time to hold the ceremony. The fqih held it that night in the presence of her child, and four men from her family came to get Marsh. Larbi saw them coming and left for the city, not wanting to have anything to do with the ceremony.

Larbi then took the narrator to see where the men had to take Marsh - climbing steps around the back of the house to a lawn and a wall of trees, then along a path thought the undergrowth to an old well. The men had to hold him steady over the well so the blood would drip in the water as they made the incisions in his feet based on drawings the fqih had given them on paper. Marsh was very sick for two days afterward, begging Larbi to call the English doctor. However, the mud and grime had to be cleaned up before the doctor could even come in the house.

The narrator carefully asked if Larbi felt there was any connection between these events and Marsh's death. Larbi simply answered, "He died because his hour had come." When questioned about whether the spell had been broken, Larbi told him that Meriam had taken her daughter and gone to live with her sister in another town, so he never heard whether the girl could walk again.

The narrator paid Larbi for his time, dropped him off in town and went on his way, mulling over what he had learned.