But there was something more too.
I turned to her now, lowering my black sunglasses once more, so that my eyes peered out at her, wide and unflinching. I opened my mouth to tell her, to accuse her, finally, but instead, what I said was “You left.” I had meant the words as a question, but they fell, heavy and dull, and I wondered then whether that wasn’t the real reason why I had spent so long blaming her—for abandoning me when I needed her most. “After the accident, after Tom,” I said, giving voice to what I had long since puzzled over, of what I had read as evidence of her guilt, of her admittance. “You left.”
She looked up at me, squinting. “You told me to, Alice.”
Her words were simple, but true. I had told her to go that night, had told her other things that I could no longer remember but that I felt in the pit of my stomach on those rare occasions when I let the memories find their way in. I had wished for awful things in those moments and they had come true—only it hadn’t been to her that they had happened. They had happened to me, to Tom.
And it was my fault, not hers, that they had.
It began to slip away then—the wall that I had placed between us since her arrival, since that night of the blizzard. I felt it give way in that moment, the resistance that I had worked so hard to cultivate, its mass no longer something that was tangible, solid, so that my fingers grasped, unable to hold on to it any longer.
“I haven’t felt like myself since we arrived, not really,” I said then, pausing a moment, letting the confession settle between us. “It all feels too much sometimes, don’t you think? Sometimes I feel as though I can’t breathe. I’m filled with so much dread at the thought of walking out my front door on my own. I know it’s ridiculous, but I can’t help it. I just don’t feel myself here.” I stopped, staring into space, my breath heavy and ragged. “I know it’s all down to me—isn’t it? I chose to come here.” A laugh escaped from me. “Although what other choice did I have, really.”
Lucy waited the space of a few moments before speaking: “Is it really as bad as all that, Alice?”
I wanted to flinch then, under the intensity of her gaze, but I didn’t. I could see from her face—could tell from the sound of her voice—that she didn’t understand, that she couldn’t. I thought of what she had said earlier, about the different names that Tangier had had over the course of history. In some ways, I felt like it was appropriate to the moment—we were both of us in the same place, but in two very different versions of Tangier, and I could not imagine hers, a place of excitement, a place to start anew. Mine held only fear and isolation. “Of course not,” I murmured, my voice barely above a whisper. But then, because I could not stop, not when the words were finally pouring from me, I asked, “Do you ever regret going to Bennington?”
Lucy frowned, startled it seemed by my words. “Regret it?”
My voice wavered as I spoke. “Yes. Sometimes I feel like I do, regret it, I mean, almost horribly so. I feel like they lied to us, in a way. Making us feel like we could go off into the world and be equal to them—to men, I mean. But it’s all lies, isn’t it? They lied to us. We thought we were learning a vocation, but really, they’re just a finishing school in disguise. Preparing us with hobbies to pass the time once we marry. It makes it all so much more difficult.”
“But, Alice,” Lucy began, “it doesn’t have to be like that.”
A laugh escaped me, one that sounded more akin to a sob than anything else. I rushed to cover it. “Don’t mind me, Lucy. It’s the heat, I think. I never was very good with it. There’s something about a hot, sunny day that puts my teeth on edge. I always feel as though I’m teetering on the precipice of something.” I paused. “It will pass.”
But in that moment I knew that I didn’t want it to pass. I wanted—oh, I didn’t know what. For her to take my hand, like she had in the old days, to tell me that if I wanted to get away from Tangier, she would be that for me—my way out. The words swelled on my lips—everything, the whole mess: how distant John had grown over the months, how I had become convinced that I had made the wrong decision when I had agreed to marry him, to come to this wretched place. I longed to speak then, to confide, to tell Lucy everything. But the words would not come.
I stood, fumbling in my purse for francs, looking around for the boy who had served us our tea, anxious to leave, though to go where, I didn’t know. I felt stuck, trapped, and the realization that there was no way out, no place that I could escape to, threatened to overwhelm me. In response, Lucy stood, placing a few coins on the table, her movements anticipating my own once more, I noted.
We were halfway up the aisle of the terraced settings when I felt Lucy’s body press against my own, when I heard a crash sound, directly below. I jumped, startled by the noise but certain, in that moment, that it had been one of the waiters, perhaps the boy who had served us our tea, having dropped one of those swinging contraptions from his hands. But then I glanced backward and saw her—a woman, vaguely familiar, though I couldn’t quite manage to place her—lying at the bottom of the stairs, the broken glass surrounding her an intricate mosaic that shimmered underneath the afternoon sun.
My hand flew to my mouth, aghast. “Lucy?” I heard myself whisper.
The café erupted in pandemonium then. The waiters rushed down to assist the woman, who was, I saw with a relieved sigh, sitting up, slowly. Customers rose from their seats, a few even leaving their belongings unattended as they rushed to offer aid. I could see that the woman’s arms and legs had been badly scraped up—by the fall, by the glass, I didn’t know. She stood, testing her ankle, as though hesitant to place any weight on it.
And then she looked up, to where Lucy and I stood, her eyes dark and shining.
I felt my stomach turn, felt the taste of the mint from the tea go sour in my mouth. Something like fear ran through me then, so that I reached out my hand, clamping onto Lucy’s wrist. “Can we go?” I asked, my voice broken, shattered. My fingers, I knew, were digging into her skin, but I could not stop, could not pause the strange rising tide of panic. For in that moment, despite everything, despite all my uneasiness and suspicions, and everything that had occurred between us over the years, I was certain of the one thing I had always known about Lucy: that she loved me, that she would do anything to help me. And so I turned to her now, my voice pleading, and said, “Oh, please, Lucy, can’t we go?”
I wasn’t sure exactly what I meant by those words. I knew only that I had to get away—from the café, from the woman’s insistent gaze, from the truth of my relationship with John. I could not look at it, could not take it out into the sun and examine it—not just yet. In that moment, I only wanted to be away from it, from him.
From Tangier.
II
Eight
Lucy
WE SHOULD GO TO CHEFCHAOUEN.”