Tangerine

“Another layering,” I observed ruefully.

“Yes, Alice.” Again, he smiled, as if he were pleased, as if my answer had satisfied him and I had passed a test to which only he held the questions and answers. “It is a layering of history.” He pointed to his feet, and I shifted my gaze to take in the white formation below us. “These are tombs. Phoenician. From the ancient city of Tingis.”

I knew Tangier had been repetitively conquered throughout its existence, so it was always absorbing culture after culture until it had become an accumulation of everyone and everything that had passed through its gates over the centuries. I wondered whether anyone could still trace their lineage from this moment back to the very start without discovering at least one interruption, one interference from the outside world. I looked at my companion and wondered whether he had ever tried, wondered what his blood, what his heart would say, if it murmured as mine did. Whether his words would also be indecipherable or whether the message would be clearer, stronger—succeeding where I had failed.

“Come,” Youssef called. “The café is just this way.”

We moved onto a narrow pathway, one that was quickly ensconced by gleaming white walls set on either side of us. There was something different about life set high above the medina—quieter, cleaner perhaps, somehow apart from the frenzy that marked the streets below. It seemed only natural that this quiet, this stillness, should be reflected in the very stone. I placed my hand out. It was cool to the touch, and I let my fingers graze over its surface as we walked, my hand trailing languidly at my side. Soon the entrance appeared before us, the title formed by a grouping of rocks affixed to the white wall. CAFé HAFA. FONDé 1921. I reached out and swept my hand over the now-smooth pebbles, just a slightly darker shade than the stark white walls they were placed upon, wondering how many other hands had done the same in the years since they were first set there. I thought I could feel it then—history, heavy and weighted, as if the knowledge that great writers and painters and musicians had similarly passed through this entranceway provided a gravity missing from every other place before it.

Tangier, I decided then, was a ghost town in many ways. Only instead of being dead, empty, barren—it was alive. It was thriving and bursting with the remembrance of those great minds who had walked its alleyways, who had thought and sipped tea and been inspired here. It was a testimony, a tomb, to those who had come before. But there was not a sense that it was over, done with. There was something still here, churning, thriving, waiting to be discovered or released. I could feel it, tingling in my hands. I wondered if Alice felt it as well. In the days since my arrival, I had already found myself thinking that it was as if I had been waiting for Tangier my entire life. As if everything that I had done, every thought and action, had brought me here, specifically for the purpose of finding her once more, and the life we could have. It was perfect, I wanted to tell her, desperately wanting her to see it as well—how wonderfully perfect it all was: Tangier, her, the two of us together in this foreign city.

I turned the corner, my eyes quickly taking in the terrace-style seating that faced the ocean, the blue of the water offset by the dazzling white of the teahouse. “It’s beautiful,” I whispered, conscious of the words even before I uttered them.

Youssef did not seem to hear. Instead he moved slowly down the terraces, one by one, until selecting the very last. “So you can lean over and look out,” he said, settling into a chair.

I nodded, knowing the moment had come. For I had another reason for agreeing to meet with him—something more important, more urgent than sightseeing, the knowledge of what Youssef had to offer now beating steadily within my chest. I sat next to him, trying to stop myself from imagining what he might be able to give me—a magic key, a secret incantation, something, anything, that was more definitive, more concrete than a glimpse caught in the reflection of a mirror.

I removed a photograph from my purse and placed it onto the table. “There is an Englishman,” I said, but then, before I could continue, a young boy appeared, asking for our order. “Tea, please,” I replied, and turning to Youssef, assured him, “It’s my treat.”

Money was an issue we had not broached before, but the look in his eyes as I glanced toward him warned me never to make the same offer again. I shifted in my seat, remaining silent, waiting. Although the words I wished to speak, the questions I wanted to ask—about John, about the local woman I had seen him with—burned, begging to be released, I could see that Youssef would have to set the tone, the pace of the conversation, after the misstep I had just taken.

“This is him?” he asked, after a few minutes of silence had elapsed, the tea delivered. He did not move to pick up the photograph, only let his fingers—clenched around a cigarette—linger above it. I worried for a moment that the ash would fall and leave a burn mark. I had removed the photograph earlier that morning from one of the frames in Alice’s sitting room, my fingers working quietly, afraid that Alice would walk in and find me stealing a photograph of her husband. If caught, I hadn’t a clue as to what I would say. I flinched now, watching as the ash from Youssef’s cigarette grew, forming a leaning tower that burned, white and hot. If it fell, there would be no way to explain its presence—Alice would know.

I breathed a quick sigh of relief when Youssef moved his hand away, the ash tumbling to the ground.

“Yes.” I hesitated, still waiting. In my mind, Youssef seemed to exist on some border, halfway between official and unofficial, between light and dark. In my imagining of how this conversation would proceed, I had assumed he would direct the ebb and flow of our words, that he would know how and where this was supposed to move. “There is also a woman,” I said, casting a quick, hurried glance in his direction.

His eyebrows raised. “Not his wife, I presume?”

I shook my head. “No. But I wonder . . .”

He looked over at me. “What do you wonder, Alice?”

I held his gaze. “Who she is.”

“Will it help?” he asked, tilting his head to the side. “To know this answer?”

I nodded, trying not to betray my eagerness. “Yes, I think so.”

He paused and then said: “She is French.” He tilted his head, apparently reconsidering his previous statement. “Well, half. Half this, half Moroccan.” He gave a short laugh. “Not so uncommon as one might suppose.”

I was about to sip my tea, but at his words, I stopped. “You know her?” I asked, surprised. “And do you know him?” I pointed to the photograph. I had figured that after our conversation Youssef might ask around, perhaps look into the matter himself—I had not considered that he might already possess the answers.

He shrugged. “Do you want to know?”

“Yes,” I said, eagerly, adding please only as an afterthought.

He paused, as if he did not wish to continue, as if to emphasize that he was doing so only as a favor to me, and I wondered then what he would ask for in return, for I was certain that he would, that nothing he did was ever done without consideration of what could be gained. There was, I knew, a difference between refusing charity and giving something away for free.

“She is a Frenchwoman. An artist. That is how I know her.” He paused. “She also works at a nightclub.”

I let the word settle. A nightclub. We both knew what he actually meant. Despite the pretense, the nightclubs in the city were little more than a gathering place for prostitutes, geared toward Westerners. They were scattered throughout Tangier, most of them run by Frenchwomen who had decided to leave behind a life of selling their own bodies in order to sell another’s.

“And her name?” I pressed.

“Sabine.” He turned to look at me. “Her name is Sabine.”

I leaned forward, all pretense at disinterest gone. At this information, at the power it provided me, my ears began to roar, my hands shake. I had not thought it would be this easy, and up until that moment, I had not wanted to admit to myself just how much I needed the answers. “And how long has this been going on? Between them, I mean.”

He looked as though the question did not interest him. Instead he shifted in his seat, tossing his cigarette to the ground, and said lazily, “I would advise you not to be that girl.”

At the word, I felt myself retreat, and though I could not explain my reaction, the sound and shape of it, the implication behind his use, set my heart racing. I silently chastised myself—it was only a word, after all. It did not mean anything. But no, I knew that was not true. It did mean something—everything. “What girl?” I demanded.