Tangerine(61)

“Yes. I’m awfully sorry about reaching you this way, but I needed to speak with you, urgently.” I stopped, held my breath, counted in my head. “It’s about Alice.”

She did not hesitate to respond this time. “Is everything all right, Sophie?”

I willed my voice to shake, to sound unsteady as I whispered into the telephone: “No. No, I’m afraid, it isn’t.”

I HAD TO BE QUICK. There was still one more thing to be done, one more telephone call to be completed before Alice returned—and one that couldn’t be made from inside the flat, just in case they ever tried to trace it. I wasn’t sure how it all worked, but I knew that there were records, little cards that the telephone operators were responsible for and that logged who had placed what call and where and for how long. There could be no evidence of this next one, not if my plan was to work.

As I walked, my steps steady and sure, I hoped that it would.

That the plan I had conjured up out of despair and desperation only moments earlier would be enough. I had not anticipated this, after all, had not foreseen this turn—and it stung, this change in the narrative that I had not consented to. I had already worked it out so perfectly, and she had gone and erased it all.

The public telephone box sat at the end of the street, just as I remembered. Once inside, I waited to hear the click, waited for the greeting of the operator before I began to speak, my accent molded in some proximity after Alice’s own. “I’d like to be connected to the local police, please.” I paused. “Yes, yes, I’ll wait. My name? Alice Shipley.”

IT WAS DONE. There was no turning back.

I hung up the telephone, my thoughts distorted. Everything had shifted in the course of an hour. It seemed impossible, ridiculous even, that an entire life could be altered by a few brief words. My mind tried and failed to keep up with it, to understand the consequences of what I had just set in motion. But then, no, I reminded myself, it had not been me—it had been Alice. She had been the one.

I turned to exit the telephone booth, but a figure stood there, blocking me. Youssef.

“Oh, please, just leave me alone,” I murmured, suddenly aware of the sweltering temperature of the little glass booth. My blouse clung to my back. “We have nothing to say to each other.”

He smiled. “But I only wish to speak, to try and make things right between us once more.”

I looked at him, knowing that he did not mean what he said, knowing that there was something else, another reason for his visit today, for his visit the other night. Our encounters were not merely coincidences, I knew. There was something that he wanted from me—no, it was more than that. Something he thought he could get—perhaps deserved, was owed. I wondered what it could be, how it could ever matter, in light of what had happened already. The police would arrive soon. I had little time left, which meant I needed to return to the flat. But I paused, wanting a few more minutes, a few more hours, in which I could pretend that everything was just as it had been the day before. And so even though I knew that it was not the smartest decision, that I should shoo away the mosquito before me and continue with what I needed to get done, I leaned heavily against the frame of the booth and consented.

“I suppose,” I said, ignoring, even as I did so, the dangerous smile on his face.

Pushing aside the venomous words that he had spoken to me that night in the street, I followed him to Café Hafa and beyond, through one of the numerous unmarked doors that signaled the dwellings of the local community. I even agreed to the ridiculous proposition that he eventually put forth—a request for a portrait—wanting, needing to know in that instant just what it was that lurked behind his smile, both tired and angry that he was the second person in my life who had decided to try to put something over on me that day.

Once inside, I noted the dozen or so canvases lining the room, and moving silently among them, I wondered whether any of the work actually belonged to Youssef, or if these too were part of his facade. Perhaps the paints and brushes were just props on a stage, the canvases completed by another hand—that daughter that either John or Alice had once mentioned, though I could no longer recall who had spoken the words. The paintings themselves were adequate if unremarkable. A sunset, an ocean, the market on a busy day. Everyday life in Tangier, I noted, though the colors were bright and cheerful, dispelling the notion that anything untoward ever ran through the veins of the city. All trace of filth, of grime, swept away. I was struck with the sudden desire to laugh.

There was one, though, that caused me to pause. It was of a series of rooftops, nothing remarkable, but the vibrancy of the paints struck me. Perhaps it was the broad careless strokes, or the clashing colors—clotheslines, I could decipher, a tenuous link that held each building together, a jumbled mess that made it impossible to pick out where one began and the other ended. It was horrible, in some ways, going against everything they taught you in class—and yet, there was something else there as well, something that reminded me of Tangier, as if I were already gone. Whatever it was, I slowed, my fingers resting lightly on the frame.

“This one is beautiful,” I said.

Youssef nodded, directing me toward a stool that he had set in the center of the room, a beam of natural light illuminating the space, his easel and canvas only a few paces away. “Please,” he said.

I sat, grateful for his suggestion, for the opportunity to let my mind relax, to wander, to not dwell on all that had happened over the last few days, on all the things that would have to happen still. My eyes began to flutter in the calmness of the room. I felt the warmth of the sun against my face and I sighed, my body relaxing.