Tangerine(77)

His eyes widened at this, his eyebrows raising just an inch or two. He remained silent, though his eyes sought, appraised. Finally, he said, “I see.”

“The woman you met,” I continued, eager now to have it all out in the open, “used my name, though I’m not sure why. But I think it was for this reason, because she planned this, all of it, somehow, from the very beginning.” I waited for a response, and when there was none, I said, “So you see, you have to tell them.”

He smiled. “Tell what to whom, madame?”

“The police,” I replied, confused that he did not understand, that he did not see. “You have to tell them what I’ve just told you.”

“That a Tangerine lied to me? Gave me a false name?” He shrugged. “That is hardly news.”

I shook my head. “You must tell them that I am not Alice, or rather, not the Alice that you know. That I am not the one you saw that night—that night when John was killed.”

“Yes, I could tell them this.” He paused. “But why would they believe me?”

I sputtered, confused. How could he not see it? I wondered, that this was not only my way out but his as well, his one chance to clear his name and be free of the shackles that her lies had imposed upon him. “They have to,” I said.

He shook his head. “Madame, let me tell you what the police will say. That you came here to convince me to lie. After all, why would you visit a man in prison you did not know? For what other reason than to ask him to save your life, since his own is already lost?”

I stood, speechless.

“They will twist everything,” he continued. “Your words, your intentions, until they fit their own. This is their way. Nothing will change that. So you see, it is an impossible situation.”

“But, it’s not right,” I said, though the words came out soft, meek. “She can’t get away with it. Surely this place won’t let her get away with it.”

He raised his eyebrows. “This place?”

“I didn’t mean,” I began hastily, anxious to explain. But then I fell silent, wondering if I hadn’t meant exactly that. Tangier. This place. This strange, lawless city that belonged to everyone and no one.

Youssef settled back into his chair. “Let me tell you something a friend once told me. He works at the Hotel Continental—do you know it?”

“Yes,” I replied, a blush starting on my cheeks at the mention of it. Looking at the man in front of me, I wondered how often he had sat down to tea there or passed through its doors at all. It struck me as odd, the idea that he belonged to this city, and it to him, and yet the places, the spaces of the city, did not. “Yes,” I repeated. “I know it.”

He nodded. “My friend there is the manager of the hotel. He told me once about a group of tourists that had come to stay, Americans, he said. Upon departing the ferry, one of the first things they asked him was if Tangier was safe.”

Youssef paused then, affixing me with a gaze that made me grow uneasy. For at his words, all I could think of was John, of his body on the metal table of the coroner. No, I wanted to say, to shout. No, Tangier was not safe. Nothing I knew about it suggested otherwise, and nothing Youssef, a son of Tangier, could say would change that. But then I looked at him, sitting there before me, imprisoned for a crime he did not commit, and I felt I could not say the words aloud. “I don’t know,” I offered instead.

“Well,” Youssef said, shifting in his seat. “He asked them this—when at home, if a strange man was to approach you, one with a jagged scar on his face,” he began, indicating his own visage, as if the deformity could be viewed there, “would you stop to see what he wanted?” He leaned forward. “Would you?” he demanded, the last words spoken more harshly.

“No,” I answered quickly.

“No,” he repeated. “No, of course not. So why would you stop to talk to such a man here, only to be surprised when something bad happens later?” He shook his head ruefully. “If you are not smart at home,” he said, tapping his head, “you will not be smart here. If you run into trouble at home, do not be surprised to run into trouble here. You are still the same person. Tangier can be magic, but even she is not a miracle worker.”

I nodded, refusing, in that moment, to consider the implications of his words, of the truth I suspected that they held, of what they might mean for me—no, about me.

“But what will you do?” I asked, realizing that all other questions were lost to me.

“I will survive.” He shrugged. “Nothing is forever, Alice Shipley.”

THE TAXI BACK TO THE FLAT could have dropped me outside the front door, but I found myself restless to be outside—to be walking in the fresh air, though it felt thick and languorous already. Still, it was nothing compared to the temperature in the backseat of the taxi, the windows shut tightly, as if the driver feared the air itself.

I puzzled over Youssef’s words, could not help but feel the sharp sting of them, as if they had been a rebuke intended solely for me. After all, he was right—how could I blame this place, Tangier, when I had brought the problems myself? They had not manifested out of the cracks and corners of the sidewalks around me; no, they had been born and bred somewhere else, had followed me here because I had ignored them, had allowed the fog to hide what I already knew.