Tangerine

In the taxi ride home the next day, something pulled at my memory and I struggled to bring it to the forefront. I thought of the few stories she had told me about her family, her father—about the garage that he had worked in—and I felt as though the air had been ripped out of me, as if my lungs no longer worked. I struggled to breathe, the space between Chefchaouen and Tangier fragmented and blurred, so that I remembered nothing, nothing at all except what she had said, what she had whispered, lying in bed, the rain slanting down the rooftop, loud and insistent, so that for a moment I thought I was mistaken, had hoped that I was.

But I wasn’t, I knew. I had heard her correctly, had heard what it was that she had said, her breath hot and moist against my cheek as she had smiled and sighed and leaning toward me whispered his name, whispered about that night.

Whispered about the brakes.

WHEN JOHN GREETED US upon our return, watching from the threshold of the doorway as Lucy and I made our way, one slow step at a time, back up and into the flat, I did my best to rearrange my face, to inhabit some semblance of the person I had been before we left. I mounted the steps with something like dread, the knowledge of what I had learned pressing against me so that I could no longer foresee the future, could no longer, in fact, see past one step and then another.

As we came into view, John called out to me, “What on earth are you wearing?”

I looked down, tugging self-consciously at the blouse and running my hands nervously over the pleats of the trousers, eager to be rid of them both. “I borrowed them from Lucy,” I said, blushing as I said her name, as if that night was something etched into my face, as if John would only have to look in order to read everything that had happened, that had transpired between us.

His face rearranged itself into a frown. “What happened to your own clothes?”

“They got dirty.” I knew my voice sounded short, curt, but there was nothing that I could do to change it—I felt as though all the energy had been leaked from my very bones, that the effort I had made, all these months, to smile and nod my head, to act as though I had not made an enormous mistake in coming to Tangier, with him, had suddenly left me.

It was no longer possible.

“Dirty?” He laughed. “What on earth from?”

I heaved a loud sigh. “Does it matter?”

John looked momentarily taken aback. Finally he said: “No, I suppose it doesn’t.” He gave a shake of his head and stepped aside to allow us into the apartment, followed by a quick gibe about his surprise at finding my note, although it was clear that what he really meant was displeasure. Running his fingers through his hair, he attempted a lighthearted laugh, but I could feel his eyes searching out mine: wondering, speculating, puzzling over whether Lucy had managed to pass along his little secret. He did not realize that I had already known—that he was not the only one who could keep things hidden.

“Maybe you should take a bath,” he said, his voice hollow. “You’re covered in dust.” He laughed again. “And in those clothes, people will start to wonder.”

I looked at him, eyes narrowed. “Wonder what, John?” A dare, just there, beneath my words.

“I don’t know,” he said, with a touch of defiance. “But not anything good, I suspect.”

I wanted to respond, to snap, but the words stuck in my throat and then the moment was gone, along with the insinuation. In the silence came John’s insistence that he didn’t mean anything by it, that he was just on edge, worried by my absence. And there did seem to be a truth to it—his eyes were red and swollen, as though he hadn’t slept the night before. I felt ashamed then, for snapping, for being angry at him for something he knew nothing about. I began to tell him this, but he had already moved on, suggesting drinks, suggesting that we go out, visit a jazz club, that promise he had made the first night—and which now seemed like ages ago—his enthusiasm for the outing, I suspected, built upon the prospect of keeping an eye on us, of monitoring what was and wasn’t said. I wondered why he even cared, now that he had someone else. Or perhaps he meant to try and keep us both—Sabine, that was what Lucy had called her. It would not have surprised me. I felt Lucy’s gaze—hard and insistent, as always—demanding me to speak, to set our plan, no, her plan, I reminded myself, into motion. I stood, feeling the intensity of both their gazes upon me and I felt for a moment that I might burst, shatter into a million pieces, right in front of them. The idea filled me with something like pleasure. I ground my fingernails into my palms. “I’ll just take that bath first,” I said, trying to make my words light, though they seemed to resound throughout the room, heavy and dull. John had been right. After our long drive home, Lucy and I were both filthy, covered in dirt and sunburned, our bodies peeling and flaking with each move.

I moved quickly from them, feeling their eyes on my back.

Once I was behind the closed bathroom door, a long, heavy sigh escaped me, and I wondered if they could hear me, wondered whether they, both of them, were listening from the other side of the door. I ran the water, sitting on the edge of the tub’s ceramic shell, letting it develop into a scorching heat, not caring, but rather welcoming it—the moment my sunburned skin would turn an angrier shade of red.

I lowered myself under the water, grateful that it muffled the sound of my scream. And when I resurfaced, when I at last felt the air enter my lungs, burning, I coughed and sputtered and feared that I might retch from the force of it.

She had done it. And I had always known.

That was what the fog had hidden from me—but I remembered now, remembered how, in the days afterward, I had been convinced that she had been the one responsible. But when I had tried to say it, first at the hospital, and later in England, Aunt Maude had brushed aside my accusations, had told me instead to be quiet and still. And because I was not entirely certain, because I was never entirely certain when it came to Lucy, when it came to the dark recesses of my own mind, I had listened, closing my eyes to the possibility.

I thought of Chefchaouen, of everything it had stirred within me, both good and bad and frightening, and I was furious with Lucy, with myself. I turned the water spigot farther to the left, willing the scorching heat to burn away the thoughts circulating in my head.

I would tell her that I knew what she had done, and then I would make her leave.

I shut my eyes and willed myself to be brave enough, smart enough this time, to ensure that she left, and not just Tangier, but my life as well. There could be no more reappearances, no more unexpected knocks on the door. I needed to cast her out, to purge her from my life, once and for all.

I had done my best to forget it, to bury it, to move past it. I had married John, I had moved to another continent, hundreds and thousands of miles away from the place that reminded me of him, of Tom. But now, I knew—that the past was never truly past, and that I could not outrun it forever, that the fog would not always protect me. I felt it begin to resurface then, every painful detail of that time, so that I could no longer feel the heat of the water, of Tangier, pressing against my skin.

I shivered, suddenly feeling as though I would never be warm again.



Ten



Lucy



WE WALKED THROUGH THE VILLE NOUVELLE DISTRICT IN silence. As we moved, I felt almost instinctively that the space was somehow outside of my jurisdiction, as if those other places in the city—the medina, the Kasbah, and all the twists and turns that existed between them—belonged to me entirely, while these streets continued to remain unknown, refusing to yield their secrets. Instead I felt as if I was on John’s territory. And there was something else too—an uneasiness as a result of Alice’s silence, so that Chefchaouen seemed all at once far away, and I found myself unable to read her, to understand why she had not told John about our plan, why, instead, we were following him through the streets of Morocco, an unsettling scavenger hunt where none of us knew the prize.

“One other stop first,” John said, turning down a darkened alley that I did not recognize.