“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.
It was my fault. What had happened with Tom, with John—all of it. There was no one else to blame. Only myself and Lucy. She had taken everything from me—but I had let her.
The realization stirred something, so that as I made my way back to the flat, I increased my pace, desperate to confront her on my own at last. Feeling, in that moment, as though this is where we had been headed for some time now, the two of us, standing before each other, all our secrets and lies exposed. I walked faster, turning one corner and then another, stumbling against locals, against the vibrant blues, pinks, and yellows of doorways, stopping and starting several times over in confusion. I realized soon enough, my heart hammering in my chest, that I was lost.
And that there was someone following me.
It hit me in the chest as I struggled to breathe, as I increased my speed, my eyes scanning over every building, every landmark, searching for something that looked familiar, that whispered of home. I thought of the man with the scar, positive that it had been him, only a few days before, following me through the streets. I had been frightened then, and though I was still frightened now, I was tired of running.
And so I stopped, quickly and without warning.
I felt the force of another body smack into my own. My handbag was knocked from my arm, and its contents went scattering across the pavement: a tube of lipstick, a container of rouge, the few coins that had fallen to the bottom. I had forgotten about them until that moment, and my gaze fixated on them as they fell, the bright silver flittering like leaves in the air around me.
I turned, expecting to find the man standing there—but no, it was a woman, it was her—Lucy. “What do you want?” I demanded, scurrying to grab my purse, my belongings, to place a few feet of distance between us. I fumbled, wondering how long she had been following me, whether she knew about the police station, about the horrible thing that Aunt Maude had confessed afterward. I imagined her listening around the corner, smiling, taking pleasure in my displeasure. Hoisting my handbag onto my shoulder, I began to move away, but that monstrous grin of hers—the same one that she had fixed on me the other night—was all that I could see. I thought of my father, of his teasing voice, my little Alice in Wonderland. “Why are you doing this?” I shouted now, ready at last, feeling the rage course through my veins.
But when I looked up at her, what I saw made me stop and blink.
It was Lucy, I had been certain. But no, I could see now that I had been wrong. That it was a woman, yes, but not Lucy—not anyone who even looked like her, not really. This woman was older, taller—she was fair where Lucy was dark—and she was watching me with concern, her hand pressed up against her mouth, her eyes wide with an expression that I could not manage to read.
I shook my head.
“I’m sorry,” I murmured. “Je suis désolée.” I continued, moving my head oddly, I thought, though I could not stop the gesture, a funny tilt that looked as though I were bowing to her. She started to speak, to say something, but I walked—no, sprinted—away, imagining that she, whoever she was, remained there, watching me with derision. I could almost hear it, her laughter pressing up against my back as I hurried from one street to the next, not paying attention to where I was going, needing to lose myself in the crowd, to put as much distance between myself and that grinning face as possible.
BY THE TIME I RETURNED HOME, Lucy was gone.
At first I could not believe it, assumed that she was only out, somewhere in the city. But then, stepping into her room—slowly, at first, as though I expected her to emerge at any moment—I could see that it was true. Her suitcase, her clothes, her toiletries, everything was gone. As though she had never really even been there.
I felt the realization, dully, felt the knowledge of what her absence truly meant begin to sink in, slowly, trickling, bit by bit.
Youssef would not speak up. Aunt Maude did not believe me. Worse still, she thought I was the one responsible. I thought of the officer from earlier—his questioning, his disappointment and simultaneous glee as he realized just how many of the questions he put before me I was unable to answer. I knew then that it would not be long before they came.