Tangerine(31)

And so I clung to her, afraid to break from our strange embrace.





Six


Lucy


I MET YOUSSEF AT CAFé TINGIS, SEVERAL DAYS LATER, AT THE agreed-upon time. He stood, leaning against the wall. “Ready?” he asked with a grin.

I smiled in return, ready to set out, to toss aside the words and warnings of others. For there was something about Youssef, I had decided, that felt infinitely more familiar than the Johns of the world. We were, both of us, on the outside, the periphery—myself by birth, Youssef by circumstance. There was something, if not quite as strong as the affinity I shared with Alice, at the very least an understanding, which I felt ran between us. I was still wary, of course, still cautious, but I trusted the otherness that marked us to form a connective thread that would keep us tied to each other, in spite of, or perhaps because of, the world around us.

We left the medina behind, the confined and chaotic streets giving way to long, wide stretches. Fewer people dotted the path. We walked in a companionable silence, and though I was content to let my mind wander, I found myself turning to him and asking, “So is it Youssef, or Joseph?” I had been thinking about it in the hours since we had last met, ruminating over the difference. Joseph. Youssef. Were they the same, only derivations of one another? I wasn’t sure. In fact, I was no longer entirely certain which one he had first introduced himself as, and which one Alice had used when referring to him. In my mind he was already Youssef, but that was possibly my projection alone, trying to instill upon him a particular brand of foreignness that appealed to my own sensibilities.

He shrugged. He had lit a cigarette as we began walking, and he reached for it now, taking a long pull, his calloused, darkened fingers apparently untroubled by the still-hot ash that spilled over them. “Does it matter?”

I frowned. Did it? I found I was no longer sure as I turned the question over in my mind. “It’s your name,” I protested.

“We, all of us, have many names,” he responded.

I squinted. “How do you mean?”

“Husband. Father. Brother.”

“Those are titles, not names,” I countered.

He shrugged again, apparently unconcerned with the distinction. “Tangier has many names. First, she was Tingis.” He paused and reached again for his cigarette. “In French, she is Tanger. In Spanish, she is Tánger. In Arabic, she is Tanjah. So you see, she has had many different names. Or titles. It is all the same.”

I was quiet a moment more. “And so you go by either Youssef or Joseph, without any preference one way or another? Like her, I mean.”

He smiled at this. “Yes, like her.”

I MOVED TOWARD THE CLIFF’S EDGE, looking down below. There were a few other couples, scattered here and there, to either side of us. Some sat, staring out at the ocean. Others unwrapped bundles of food. I saw bread and cheese, a few pieces of fruit. There were women in niqabs, women in Western dress. It seemed that this was a place for both locals and outsiders alike. Although where here was, I had yet to learn. I turned toward my companion, waiting for an explanation.

“This,” he began at last, “is where the Mediterranean meets the Atlantic.”

“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.