Tangerine(47)

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.

“Oh, John,” Alice began. I could tell Chefchaouen had taken its toll on her. Dark circles had appeared under her eyes, and although she had spent time in the bath before we departed, it looked as though some of the sand and peeling skin still clung to her, as if she had made no real attempt to scrub them away at all. “Maybe another night.”

“Don’t be like that,” he said, laughing. He tugged at Alice’s arms playfully, though there was something urgent in his movement, something insistent and desperate. I was reminded of Alice that first night, the way she had smiled and laughed, the falseness behind it, and the sinking feeling that it would inevitably all come crashing down around us, the shards splintering onto the ground. John had that same manic look in his eyes, I thought. But where I had felt concern for Alice, I felt only unease under John’s wavering temper. He turned from us then, increasing his speed, so that he walked in front, rather than next to us. “Hurry up, we’re almost there!” he called, the singsong lilt in his voice making it seem like we were playing a game, as if this were all in jest. I thought of the Pied Piper, leading the children out of the town and into the forest. And although I knew the fairy-tale version that children were told, I was reminded of the much darker telling, where the man, in an act of revenge, led the unsuspecting children to their deaths.

But instead of directing us out of town, John ushered us into one of the city’s many anonymous bars. It was stained and weathered, the inside intentionally dark so that it hid whatever refuse the light may have illuminated. I wondered aloud why John had chosen to bring us here, but he only ignored me, walking farther into the belly of the place until at last it seemed we had come to the end and were going to continue out the exit. John came to a halt, sending us both crashing into him.

“Here,” he said, indicating the floor. “Take off your shoes and leave them.”

I frowned, looking over at Alice—but if she was startled by John’s game of follow the leader, she did not show it. Instead she bent down, undoing the ankle straps on her kitten heels and letting them fall onto the grime-covered floor. I watched her in surprise and then, realizing there was nothing to do but push on, I undid my own, placing them in the corner, hoping that they would not get trampled in my absence.