I moved quickly to take a seat: a small round table intended for two, pushed up against the building’s rough wall, underneath a poster advertisement for a French film I had never heard of before that pictured a young boy standing beneath a red balloon. Several moments passed before the waitress appeared: a short, squat woman whose face was lined with wrinkles. I was relieved to find she spoke French, and although I knew only a scattering of words, it was enough to successfully place an order, as within minutes she returned, a tall glass filled with hot Moroccan mint tea clutched between her fingers. Her severe face broke into a grin as she placed it in front of me.
“Merci,” I murmured, moving to adjust the glass. I instantly recoiled, hissing with surprise. I glanced down at my fingers—the tips of which had turned a bright pink.
“Attention”—the woman laughed—“il est chaud.”
I blushed. “Oui, merci.” While all of the guidebooks had extolled the virtues of drinking mint tea in Morocco, they had failed to advise on just how treacherous the endeavor could be. I was used to the thick porcelain of New England diners, not thin glass that seemed to threaten to melt one’s fingers. There were no handles and I wondered how on earth one was supposed to drink the concoction.
“Lentement, mademoiselle.”
I looked over my shoulder to see who had spoken.
“Slowly. You must have patience.” He was standing at the opening of the café, neither inside nor outside and without food or drink in hand, leaning with confidence against the wall of the building. I could see right away that it was the same man from the day before, the one who had been watching me in the medina.
I smiled but turned back, hesitant to be drawn into conversation with him.
To the left of where he stood, a shoe shiner was busy at work, moving swiftly between his client’s right and left foot—though his own shoes, I noticed, appeared to be placed on backward. After a few moments of closer inspection, I could see that the man appeared to be missing his feet altogether, and that he had placed the shoes backward upon the stumps of his legs only in order to steady himself. I continued to watch him work, falling into an near trancelike state as he first applied shiner and then, withdrawing a rag from his belt, began to swipe with long, vigorous strokes, repeating this movement with sustained intensity before moving on to the next shoe.
I took a sip of my mint tea—no longer scalding—and felt the rush of the syrup as the sweetness exploded on my tongue.
The man was still watching. I could feel his eyes boring, examining, trying to pick me apart from across the way. There was a shift then, a change in the air, so that it seemed rife—with danger, with possibility, though I didn’t yet know which. And so I waited, breath held in expectation, already wondering whether I wanted him to leave me in peace, or whether I would be disappointed if he did.
“I am Joseph,” he said, the decision made, moving toward me and extending his hand. He did not wear the traditional djellaba, I noted, though he was most certainly Moroccan. Instead he wore a pair of charcoal-gray trousers, a light button-up shirt that was rolled to the elbows. A thin scarf was thrown across his neck, and a tan fedora hat—adorned with a purple ribbon once again and which I suspected bore the stains of being worn in such unforgiving heat—sat on his head, tilted to the left. There was something dapper about his outfit, despite its thriftiness, or perhaps it was the way he wore it, with a jauntiness that was out of place among the other Moroccan men I had observed and who appeared, in comparison, solemn and grave.
I hesitated at his introduction only for a second—and then the word slipped from my mouth easily, as though it were true: “Alice.”
“Welcome to Tangier, mademoiselle.” He paused. “And where are you staying during your holiday, Alice?” He said the name so that the last part came out sounding like a hiss: Al-iss. He asked the question, his eyes averted, staring down and back into the medina. His tone was casual: deliberately so, as if he had rehearsed the question before it was asked.
“With friends,” I replied, trying to make my voice sound light, effortless—as though I were used to answering such questions from strangers, as though my life were spent moving from one place to the next, from Paris to Cairo and on to the Orient. I let the idea settle, the one that Alice and I had given birth to so many years ago now and that remained trapped, just beneath the surface, simmering, it seemed, waiting to be released. There were times when I could feel it—the desperation of wanting, wanting to watch the sun set over the pyramids, wanting to taste the salty egg and sweet cardamom noodles of Arabia. Wanting to be anywhere and everywhere but the depressing tiny shared bedroom of a boardinghouse and knowing that it was impossible.
“And you are not afraid to explore the city, on your own?” he questioned.
I peered up at him, wondering what it was that he intended.
“Should I be?” I asked.
He gave an exaggerated shrug. “Only last year we had a madman running around the city with a butcher’s knife.”
I eyed the streets in front of us, assessing. “And was anyone injured?”
“Yes, of course,” he answered easily. “The man killed five people and injured nearly half a dozen more.” He must have seen the hard look that I affixed on my face, for his expression lost some of its seriousness and he broke into a large grin—one that I found somehow more disconcerting than his formerly somber mask. “Relax,” he advised, pausing to bring a cigarette to his lips. “I was only teasing, Miss Alice.”
I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding, wondering still at the motivation behind his words. “So that didn’t happen?”
His smile disappeared. “Oh no, it most definitely happened. The man was shot in the stomach before he was taken to Malabata prison. But you are quite safe here—that is the part I was teasing about. There is nothing to worry about now, Miss Alice,” he assured me. “Where are you from?”
“Chicago,” I lied.
“Chicago!” he exclaimed, frowning. “This is the most dangerous place of them all. I have a cousin who went to Chicago. It was very horrible, he said. Too many murders. You do not have to worry about such things here.” He paused. “But if you are looking for a place that makes sense, I feel I must provide this warning—you will be disappointed.” He let out a small laugh. “This is Africa, after all.” He grinned, his smile stretching across his gaunt, tanned face. “Many forget that, they think we are somewhere different entirely. This might be true, but it is also false. Tangier is still Africa. One need only consult a map to know this.” He turned back toward me, eyes boring into my own. “And where do your friends live?”
“In a flat,” I replied.
He smiled, thinly. “Yes, but where is this flat?”
I searched for an answer, unsure whether I wanted to part with such information. There was something about him that whispered he was harmless, another mosquito that could easily be flicked away, but still, the answer hung heavily on my tongue. I was not afraid of him or afraid for my safety. Men like him, I knew, were not the ones to fear. I was simply unsure—of what I had to offer him, of what he could offer me, of the potential usefulness that we might offer each other. “Beyond the medina, somewhere,” I finally answered. “I’m afraid I can’t offer any more specifics. I’ve only just arrived and I’m not too familiar with the city yet.”
Lies, we both knew. I could tell by the glint in his eye, the slight curve of his lip. The only question was how he would react to it. He tilted his head from side to side, as if weighing my answer, my betrayal. “This is good,” he finally observed. “It is better to be in a flat than a hotel. Unless you are only staying for a few days, then a hotel is always best.” He looked at me, waiting for a response.
“I’m staying for quite some time, I hope.”
He nodded, apparently pleased. “So you are a tourist?”
I nodded. “Yes, I suppose I am.”
“Not a traveler, then?” He laughed.
I puzzled over the difference in words—between tourist and traveler. I had never really been many places, had never really seen much, so I supposed myself a tourist rather than a traveler. But there was something in the way he had pronounced the words, a disdain for the former that suggested it was the latter that I should strive for—whether or not it was true. I began to place my coins on the table, my tea now empty. “Is there a distinction?”