Tangerine(19)

And then I remembered. About what Lucy had told me, only moments before: how her parents died when she was five years old. I frowned. It didn’t make her story impossible. Perhaps she truly did remember that horrible story from so young an age, and yet—what, I asked myself, what was it that had bothered me? I thought again of her detached manner, as if she were reciting a story that she had heard from someone else. I shook my head, feeling another breeze, a draft, I supposed, as it moved through the building. There was no reason for her to lie.

I heard something in the distance again, and my heart began to race. I could feel the familiarity of it, beginning in my fingertips. A nervous condition, the doctors had said, most likely brought on by the stress of my parents’ death. It was a pressure, a grip, one that felt as though it would strangle me, for surely it possessed enough strength, enough power. Part of me had imagined, naively, I realized, that leaving England behind might mean leaving that all behind as well, that distance was all that was needed to dispel the ghosts of my past. I had been a fool, I thought, angry at myself, at my ignorance. It would follow me, always, no matter where or how far I went.

But then, standing just a few paces away on the staircase, so that I towered over her, and not the other way around, stood Lucy. She watched me, with those strange, inquisitive eyes, and then she smiled and said, “There’s nothing to be afraid of, Alice.”

Her voice was so certain, so sure.

Lucy extended her hand toward me. “Come on, let’s go get supper.”

All at once I felt the darkness that had threatened me only a second before begin to lift until it no longer felt like I was some Gothic heroine trapped in a haunted castle, a patriarchal labyrinth that was impossible to ever escape. Instead I was simply Alice and she was Lucy, and there was nothing to be afraid of any longer. I felt her hand searching for mine, her fingers interlacing with my own. I grasped it and together we fled the darkened mansion, leaving behind all the ghosts it held within, both real and imagined.

THERE WAS A COMMOTION OUTSIDE THE BAR, and then something louder: an explosion of sorts, which brought me hurtling back to the present. I thought at first it was gunfire, thought I could feel the hot bite of it against my skin. I thought of the riots, of the violence that had been erupting throughout Morocco, that had touched Tangier only recently, proving that even she was not immune. John had spoken of it only briefly, making it sound as though it had been amusing that day when the locals had decided to take to the streets, hurtling bottles at the foreign-owned stores and later, when the police responded with gunfire, anything they could use to defend themselves. And when news came out that several lives had been claimed in the skirmish, and almost all of them locals, John had only shrugged, had told me it was nothing to worry about, that these minor rebellions would be squashed eventually. His faith had been absolute. It seemed that not even he, with his professed love for Tangier, had been able to foresee the determination of its people to reclaim their independence, to reclaim their Tangier, had refused to acknowledge, to recognize just how important, how absolutely necessary it was to their life, to their survival.

I turned to look over my shoulder and saw a flash of lights, just beyond the din of the bar. No one was shouting or running away. There was only laughter, and the sounds of celebration. Fireworks, then, I noted. Locals celebrating their approaching independence. The idea caused something to prickle, just there, at the back of my mind. I moved and knocked over the glass in front of me, sending it onto the floor, splintering into sharp, nearly invisible pieces, the gin and tonic soaking my dress.

Letting out a sharp exclamation, I stood quickly, the suddenness of my movement causing the dog beneath the table to let out a yelp of dismay, scrambling from his safe hold—though not before his teeth found purchase, my unexpected movement causing him to sink his teeth into my leg. I looked down to see a trail of blood slipping down my now-tattered stocking. The sight made me strangely dizzy. “He didn’t mean it,” I whispered to no one, watching as the dog disappeared from the bar. My head still felt light as I moved to help pick up the broken glass—the bartender now heading toward the mess that I had made—and I felt myself blush with embarrassment. I thought, then, of John and his angry scowl that evening. Of Lucy, and her penetrating gaze, always looking, always searching, I worried, for something that was not there. And then I thought I saw him—John—at the bar, though he wasn’t alone, wasn’t with Charlie, as he’d promised. And there was Lucy, just behind him, watching, watching, watching.

And then I felt the hard sticky floor of the bar beneath me as I fainted, falling slowly at first, and then faster, without anyone at all to catch me.





Four


Lucy


I FOUND THE SOUKS ELECTRIFYING. THE LABYRINTHINE CURVE of them: dark and packed, with vendors that stood behind stalls or sat on the floor, their bags and buckets of wares splayed out before them. At first, I had been nearly swept up in its fast-moving current, but then I had slowed my gait—walking steadily, with purpose. I stopped at one stall, and then another, purchasing a few grams of bright green olives at one, a stack of hot, sweating msemmen at another. I inspected the hanging carcasses of chickens, not recoiling at the smell the way most tourists I observed did, but considering and haggling, as if I intended to purchase one. I paused in front of the brightly dressed Rif women, opting for a handful of broad beans instead, and then a wheel of white cheese, the kind I had seen locals eat, the sides covered with intricately braided green leaves.