Tangerine

She had changed out of her housecoat from earlier and was wearing a daytime dress, despite the encroaching evening hour, of silk crepe, its full-hipped skirt suggesting that it was an older piece, though I didn’t recognize it from our college days. But it was more than just her outfit that had changed, as she seemed strangely altered from the girl who had greeted me earlier. There was a giddiness about her; gone was the morose countenance of hours before, apparently shrugged off in the company of her husband—that word still catching somewhere in my throat. I watched as she moved to fill the glasses, her movements sharp, surreal, so that she seemed all at once incredibly fragile, and I found myself wondering whether she wouldn’t shatter into a million pieces in front of us both.

“A visit from an old college friend, did you say?” John asked, addressing Alice. “This is quite the surprise.” He reached out to take a drink from her proffered hand, the condensation from the chilled glass already beginning to drip down the sides. “I didn’t know my Alice in Wonderland had any friends,” he joked.

“Of course I have friends.” Alice laughed, but I could see his comment had wounded her.

“Ice,” he declared, raising his eyebrows. “Now I know this is a special occasion. We never have chilled martinis, Lucy,” he said, the latter sounding like an accusation. I accepted my own drink from Alice. “I’ve been endeared to the idea of your presence already.” He laughed, taking a greedy sip. “And speaking of your presence here, are you actually in Tangier, traveling on your own?” When I nodded, he smiled and asked, “Where from?”

“New York,” I said, watching Alice’s face.

He frowned. “And doesn’t your fellow mind? Your traveling alone, I mean?”

My smile stretched tightly across my face. “I’m afraid I haven’t one to mind.”

Alice looked away at my easy admission, while John leaned forward, ready, or so it seemed, to seize upon the idea. “No fellow? None at all?”

I sighed. “I’m afraid not.”

“Aren’t there any left? Surely the war didn’t do away with them all—or perhaps they’re too frightened of you?” he asked with another laugh.

I saw Alice flinch. “Don’t be awful, John,” she murmured.

“I’m only trying to get to the bottom of this, that’s all,” he said, making a great show of scratching his chin. “To be single in the city of New York—the pictures would make you think it’s impossible. And, well, look at her,” he said, indicating in my direction. “I simply don’t buy it.” He leaned forward. “Perhaps you’re too picky. Is that it? Or perhaps there’s something else,” he continued, a jeering tone entering his voice. “I’ve heard stories about you Bennington girls.”

Alice flushed. “Oh, leave it, John.”

“Well, anyway,” John said, his voice light and jovial, though his smile, I noticed, did not quite extend to his eyes. “You’re here now. Perhaps we can find you an interesting suitor in Tangier. Lord knows we’ve got enough of them. Though, of course,” he said, shaking his head, “I’m not sure any of them have that on the mind at the moment. You’ve chosen an interesting time to come to Morocco.”

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Haven’t you heard?” he asked with a slight smirk, wriggling his eyebrows in what he seemed to intend as comedic effect. “The natives are getting restless, my dear.”

“Oh, don’t talk about it like that,” Alice said, with a movement of her shoulders, as if she could draw herself further inward, away from the conversation.

“Like what?” John asked with mock innocence.

“Like that,” she repeated, casting him a serious glance. “Like it isn’t anything important.”

He turned to me and gave a short laugh. “Sometimes I think Alice fancies she understands the plight of the locals better than any of us,” he said, with a teasing voice, “even though she rarely leaves the house and never interacts with another person outside of myself.”

“That isn’t true,” she protested.

“Not entirely, I suppose,” he conceded. “Still, you’re too sensitive about the whole thing.”

I noticed the strained look that had settled over Alice’s features. “Restless for what, exactly?” I asked, though I already had a vague idea, based upon the various newspapers that had passed under my eyes over the last fortnight or so.

“For independence,” John responded, his eyes narrowing as he spoke. “They’re tired of belonging to someone else, and I don’t blame them, not at all. But it means the French are everywhere these days. Protecting their interests up until the very end. Their forces have only grown since the unrest first began, when they ousted Mohammed two years back. Of course, this is Tangier, so it’s all a bit different. Or it’s supposed to be, at any rate. Still, they’re here, if you look closely enough. It almost looks like they are clinging to the hope that somehow things will revert back to their favor, what with their little spies running around everywhere.”

“Spies?” I asked.

“Oh, stop it,” Alice said, sipping at her drink. I noticed that her hand shook slightly. “John sometimes likes to pretend he’s in a spy novel, I think. He’s always convinced that someone is watching him, French or otherwise. Pay him absolutely no attention, please. You’re perfectly safe here, Lucy.” She stopped. “Well, as safe as anyone can be in Morocco, I suppose.”

I had a sudden image of John lurking in unlit passageways, of Alice being watched, stalked, by her own husband, like some sort of damsel in distress, John cast as the villain of the film. I did my best to suppress a shiver.

“She’s not French, she’ll be fine,” John said, waving his hand dismissively, breaking the spell. “I don’t think she has to worry that any weapons being concealed beneath djellabas are intended for her. Well, not the sort reserved for the French at any rate.”

I felt myself blush, felt tiny pinpricks of anger, of resentment, hot against my skin.

“But then, surely it is a sensitive subject?” I pressed, referring to John’s previous slight at Alice. And before I could think better of it, before I could stop myself, I said, “We are talking about the oppressor and the oppressed, aren’t we? What topic could be more sensitive than that?”

At my words, there was something mean that flashed there, in his sharp little eyes, so that I wondered what it was that he would say in response to my comment. But then it was gone, vanished, before I could fully say whether I had truly seen it to begin with. “Ah,” he said. “I see it now. You’re one of those women.”

I held my face intentionally still. “Those women?”

“You know, those women,” he said, taking a loud sip from his drink. “Out of the kitchen, and all that.”

“John, don’t,” Alice said, looking miserable. Her voice was tight and strained, her face paled a shade or two.

“Don’t what?” He laughed. “I’m just making an observation, that’s all.”

“Yes, well,” I said, pausing to take a drink now myself. “I suppose your observation is correct. I am one of those women—out of the kitchen and all that.” I smiled, refusing to cower.

“Ah,” John cried, giving his leg a quick slap. “You see?” he asked, turning to Alice. “I was right.”

“Yes,” she responded, not meeting his eye.

I leaned forward. “So it’s really happening, then?” I asked, anxious to leave the subject behind. “Independence, I mean.”

John nodded, apparently content, or so it seemed, to move on as well. “Oh, yes. It’s all been agreed already—the whole thing’s been set in motion. The French have already relinquished their hold on Morocco, which means the Spanish aren’t far behind. Tangier will most likely be next. It’s a good thing, as I said before. Independence is always good. But I suspect we’re all running on borrowed time here, as it were. Ticktock.” He took another sip of his drink. “Things will change for those of us who decide to stay behind.”

I frowned. “How so?”

He paused, looking at me as though he hadn’t quite understood the question. And then, with another slap on his knee, he exclaimed: “Well, that’s the question, isn’t it?”

I nodded, taken aback. “Yes, I suppose it is.”

We lapsed into silence then, the three of us staring into our drinks, leaving me to wonder how this could be the man who had stolen Alice’s heart. I thought of the past, of all the plans that we had made, and wondered how it was possible that they had been exchanged for this, for him, though of course I knew it wasn’t as simple as that.

“So,” John’s voice rang out, startling us all out of our reveries. “Just how long is Lucy here for?”

“I haven’t quite decided,” I responded.

He nodded. “But what brings you to Tangier, of all places?”

“Travel, of course,” Alice answered quickly—too quickly, I couldn’t help but think. “Perhaps you could provide Lucy with some recommendations,” she said to John. She turned and looked at me, and I couldn’t help but be reminded of a tennis match, with that dizzying back-and-forth motion that always made my head ache. “If you wanted to see anything other than Tangier.”