Tangerine

“I don’t know what else he said to you,” I began, “but you can’t let him do this to us.”

For a moment, she looked confused; then she shook her head again, this time a small smile accompanying the gesture. “No,” she said softly, her eyes meeting my own. “No, this isn’t John.” A laugh, sharp and bitter, escaped her lips. “This is me, Lucy. Entirely me. I’m the one asking you to leave. I’m the one who wants you to go.” She stopped. “To go and to never come back. I want you to leave me alone.”

My insides crumpled. It wasn’t John, she had promised, but I wanted to reach out and shake her and scream, Of course it is! Of course it’s him! She was too lost, too far under his spell to be able to see it clearly. “Alice—” I began.

She held up her hand, as if to physically impede my words.

“We were going to leave,” I argued, moving out of the bed and toward her. “You had said that we were going to leave—him, Tangier. All of it.”

“No, Lucy. You said. You decided.” She shook her head.

“Alice.” I reached out for her.

“No.” She stepped back into the hallway. “I should never have opened that door. I should never have allowed you in.” She started toward her bedroom door, then stopped. “I know what you did. At Bennington. I know it was you.”

“Alice—” I started.

“Why did you ask me to stay?”

I frowned, startled by the question. “I don’t understand.”

“That day. That awful day in Vermont,” she said, her voice cold and hard. “You told me not to get into the car. Why?”

“Because,” I said, looking away, only for a second—but she had noticed. “I didn’t want you to leave. I didn’t want us to be angry with each other any longer.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “Don’t say anything more, Lucy. I won’t listen. I won’t believe you.”

“Alice, you’re confused.” I stopped, looking at her, imploring. “Do you really think that I would ever do anything to hurt you?”

I saw her hesitate, but then she shook her head, swiftly, as if determined to convince herself. “You need to leave, by tomorrow.” She turned, as if to go, but stopped, her words glinting, sparking in the darkness: “And if you don’t, I’ll telephone the police and tell them exactly what you’ve done.”

She crossed the hallway and closed the door to her bedroom.

The lock turned, loud and resounding.

I DID NOT SLEEP THAT NIGHT.

Instead I sat, watching as the light broke into the room, casting long shadows across the walls before me, my eyelids feeling heavy, my thoughts scattered and confused. When morning arrived, full and bright, I left the flat.

Once outside I began to walk. I went down narrow paths and tight corners, to familiar places and new territories. I walked until my feet hurt, until they cracked and bled. I discovered the tomb of Ibn Battuta, the explorer. I laid my hand across the rough wall, brushed my fingers across the plaque that had been placed in his honor. And just like him, I refused to stop. I was not tired—thirst and hunger did not exist. I pushed ahead, the knowledge that I had to keep walking, that I must keep walking, buried somewhere deep within me. It was the most important thing. I must not stop, I must not think too hard. At the end of it, I knew, all would be right. Alice would come to her senses, she would tell John what we had decided, and the two of us would leave, head back to England together, maybe stop in Spain for a few months first. I imagined it—the pair of us, in Madrid, then Barcelona. We would drink sherry in one and gin in the other. We would sit outside until the sun faded and night crept in, eating tapas and drinking Rioja. Alice would like that better than gin.

And then I stumbled. A rock I had not seen. A piece of debris sticking out of the ground that had hidden itself. It was a short fall but enough to wrench my ankle so that it smarted when I tried to place my full weight on it. No one had seen. I was alone in an empty alleyway. And yet, despite this knowledge, I felt my cheeks burn with embarrassment, with anger. I had loved this country from the moment I first stepped foot on its shores, and yet this was the way it treated me. Placing unforeseen obstacles under my feet, causing me injury in its filthy streets, the ground covered in a litany of bodily fluids that I shuddered to think of, my hands and knees now red with scratches, my ankle useless. I thought of Alice. It was the same, wasn’t it? I had done everything for her, loved her, watched out for her, and she had treated me just the same. Hiding things, obscuring my vision. Making me think I was safe. The buzzing in my ear increased. I batted at it, desperate. The effort it required to remain calm seemed impossible, insurmountable. I could feel the anger, the rage, boiling just beneath my skin. Tiny pinpricks emerged along my arms, followed by larger, more sinister red hives. And yet, despite the heat, my skin refused to sweat. It was trapped, somehow, inside my body, refusing to come out. The results were angry red welts that rose across my arms and ran up and down my stomach. I could feel them spreading from my neck and onto my face.

A man rounded the corner. I ignored him, willing him to do the same—daring him to do otherwise. He passed by me, silent, and for a moment I felt the anger start to retreat.

Then he turned and spoke: “Smile. Be happy.”

I shot him a look, one that boiled with hatred, overflowed with violence. He shrank backward, and I was suddenly anxious to get away from him, from this putrid-smelling alley. No, not anxious, desperate. I was desperate to get away, feeling my cheeks flush red again, hot with newfound anger. I was embarrassed and I was angry that this man was able to make me feel this way, that anyone could make me feel this way. I could feel it, as I had in the past, growing out of control. As it had that day of the accident. I could feel its energy coursing through my body, as if I had been shocked, zapped, brought back to life so that all of me was burning, electric, and the source of energy could no longer be contained. It took everything in my willpower not to lunge at him. I knew, rationally, that my anger had nothing to do with him. That it was directed somewhere else altogether. At the same time, I was powerless to stop. I did not want to. I worried that if I did, I would simply break apart, break down, the anger and power—yes, it felt powerful—seeping out of my pores and leaving me small and pitiless, a figure to be laughed at, one to be derided. I felt the tears begin to well. “Get away from me,” I hissed, aware that while he probably would not understand my words, he would by no means miss my tone.

A look of confusion swept across his features.

I almost wished that he would do something—shout, slap, spit—anything, but all he did was slink away down one of the city’s countless alleys, disappearing into the labyrinthine maze.

In that moment I felt nothing but contempt—for all of them. I hated John and his confident smirk, I hated the nameless faces that I had to push past in order to find one solitary spot in this sea of strangers, and even, for the briefest of moments, I hated her. Alice. I had done everything for her—traveled halfway across the world in order to find her, to rescue her from the mess that she had made of our life. I hated her for her weakness, her spinelessness, for always going back on the decision she had made.

There was only one thing to do now.

I turned quickly, leaving behind the darkened alley and heading back into the heart of the medina, back to the Petit Socco. I slipped into Café Tingis, ordered a coffee, and then asked the waiter to use the telephone.

I dialed the number, hoping he would still be home, hoping he would be the one to answer. I held my breath and waited to hear John’s voice.

ALICE WAS NOT SUPPOSED to have been in the car that night.

Tom was not supposed to have died.

But then we had fought, a torrent of angry words and accusations, powerful enough to match the snowstorm raging outside around us. A blizzard, I had later heard it referred to, so that by the time I had realized what was happening—the car pulling up, Alice stepping inside, the storm at its zenith—the roads were covered in a sheen of ice and the accident was far worse than I had ever intended.