To not think each and every second of the day about what had happened in the cold, wintry Green Mountains of Vermont.
OVER A YEAR NOW, and it was still cast in a hazy fog that I could not seem to work my way out of, no matter how long I tripped through the labyrinth. It’s better that way, my aunt had said afterward, when I had told her about the vaporous sheen my memories had taken on, how I could no longer remember the details of that horrible night, of the days that followed. Leave it in the past, she had urged, as if my memories were objects that could be packed away in boxes secure enough to ensure they would never let loose the secrets held within.
And I had in a way, had shut my eyes to the past—had opened them to John, to Tangier, to the blazing sun of Morocco. To the adventure that he had promised—with a proposal and a proper ring, though not an actual ceremony, just a signed slip of paper.
“But we can’t,” I had protested at first. “We hardly know one another.”
“But of course we do,” he had assured me. “Why, your family is practically related to my family. If anything, we know one another too well.” He laughed, flashing me that wicked grin.
There would be no name change—I was adamant on that point. It felt important, somehow, to retain some part of myself, my family, after everything that had happened. And there was something else too, something I had a harder time explaining, even to myself. For although my aunt’s guardianship would technically dissolve upon my marriage, she would still retain control of my financial trust until I turned the age of twenty-one, at which time my parents’ estate would at last be released into my own name. The idea of being doubly covered seemed entirely too daunting, and so, when I reached for my passport, it was still Alice Shipley written there.
And at first I had told myself that Tangier wouldn’t be so terrible. I imagined days spent playing tennis under the hot Moroccan sun, a team of servants to wait on us hand and foot, memberships at the various private clubs throughout the city. There were worse lives to live, I knew. But then, John wanted to experience the real Morocco, the real Tangier. So while his other associates hired cheap Moroccan help and their wives spent days languishing around the pool or planning parties, John eschewed it all. Instead he and his friend Charlie went gallivanting around the city, spending hours at the hammam or the markets, smoking kif in the backs of cafés, always trying to endear themselves to the locals rather than to their fellow coworkers and countrymen. Charlie had been the one to convince John to come to Tangier in the first place, plying his friend with tales of the country: its beauty, its lawlessness, until John was half in love with a place he had never seen. And I had done my best in the beginning, going with him to the flea markets for furniture, to the souks to shop for supper. I had sat in the cafés beside him and sipped café au laits and tried to rewrite my future in the hot and dusty city that he loved at first sight but which continued to elude me.
But then, there had been the incident at the flea market.
Amid a frenzied collision of sellers and stalls, of antiques and junk piled haphazardly, one careless layer after another, I had turned around and John had been gone. While I was standing there, strangers passing me, jostling me from either direction, my palms growing clammy with the familiar beginnings of anxiety, shadows had played at the edges of my vision—those strange wispy apparitions that the doctors had whispered were only manifestations but that to me felt real, visceral, tangible, so that they seemed to grow, until their dark shapes were all that I could see. In that moment I was struck with the notion of how very far away I was from home, from the life that I had once envisioned for myself.
Later, John had laughed, insisting he had only been gone the space of a minute, but the next time he asked me to go out, I shook my head, and the time after that, I found another excuse. Instead, I spent hours—long, lonely tiresome hours—exploring Tangier from the comfort of our apartment. After the first week, I knew how many steps it took to get from one end of it to the other—forty-five, sometimes more, depending on my gait.
Eventually, I began to feel John’s regret looming above us, growing, our exchanges limited to matters of practicality, of finances, my allowance our main monetary support. John was bad at money, he had once told me with a grin, and at the time, I had smiled, thinking he meant that he didn’t care about it, that it wasn’t a concern for him. What it really meant, I soon learned, was that his family’s fortune was nearly gone, just enough remained to keep him well dressed, so that he could play at pretending to still claim the wealth he had once had, that he had been born into and still felt was rightfully his. An illusion, I soon realized. And so, each week I handed over my allowance, not really caring, not really interested where the numbers disappeared to in the end.
And each month, John continued to vanish as well: into his mysterious city that he loved with a fierceness I could not understand, exploring her secrets on his own, while I remained inside—my very own captor and captive.
I GLANCED AT THE CLOCK now and frowned. It had been only half past eight the last time I had checked, and now it was ticking steadily toward noon. I cursed and moved quickly toward the bed, toward the outfit I had laid out earlier that morning, before I had lost all the hours in between. For, today, I had promised John that I would go to the market; today, I had promised myself that I would try. And so I looked to my costume, such as it was, the semblance of an ordinary woman about to do the week’s shopping: stockings, shoes, a dress that I had purchased in England just before moving to Tangier.
Pulling the dress over my head, I noticed a slight tear on the front, at the bit where the lace met the collar. I frowned, bringing it closer to my face for inspection, trying not to tremble at the sight of the damaged material, telling myself that it was not a sign, that it was not an ill omen, that it did not mean anything at all.
The room felt too warm then, and so I stepped out onto the balcony, needing, in that moment, to be free of its imposing walls. Closing my eyes, desperate for any hint of a breeze, I waited, but there was nothing, except the still, arid heat of Tangier as it bore down on me.
A minute passed and then another, and in the quiet, listening to the rise and fall of my breath, I became aware of the peculiar sensation of being watched. Opening my eyes, I cast a hurried glance toward the street below. There was no one. Only a handful of locals making their way to the market, their steps rushed, the hour when the market would end slowly approaching. “Pull yourself together,” I whispered, heading back into the safety of the flat. Despite these words, I closed the windows firmly behind me, my heart pounding. Glancing at the clock, I saw that it was now half past one. The market could wait, I told myself.
It would have to, I knew, my hands shaking as I tugged the curtains closed so that not even the tiniest trace of sunlight could filter through.
Two
Lucy
THE SUN BEAT DOWN HEAVILY AS I LEANED AGAINST THE railing. I felt the rocking sensation beneath me grow stronger, a lurch in my stomach as the ferry started and stopped, inching awkwardly to its final destination: Morocco. I hurried to grab my suitcase, the past few months already marked by dreams of grand, sweeping displays of Moorish architecture, of the intricate twists and turns of the lively souks, of colorful mosaics and brightly painted alleyways. Joining the queue that had already begun to form, I craned my neck, impatient now to grasp my first, real glimpse of Africa. For already, there was the smell of her, beckoning us from the shore—the promise of the unknown, of something infinitely deeper, richer, than anything I had ever experienced in the cold streets of New York.