The Loss of What We Never Had

by Carolyn Thorman

  The memory of the Berber woman’s face, the ragged stump of severed spine… What if they find me with Hamid?

  “Your refusal to take the kid has a name.” Zak held up his index finger. “Altruism at someone else’s expense. You do the verbal grandstanding about saving the kid from jihadists, while someone else—like me—does the work.”

  Ashamed of myself, I knew he was right. I began thinking out loud. “I’m the only American in this building. Easy for the jihadists to spot.”

  “Not an issue. The coast has hundreds of English-speaking ex-pats and the Emir’s Army’s headquartered in a strip mall fifty kilometers away.”

  “The owner of the Rabat Palace Bistro has the first-floor apartment. He sees a baby who popped up out of nowhere? Or spots me in Carrefour’s buying diapers. And I don’t mean the old-people kind.”

  Zak leaned and lifted one of Mozart’s ears, dropped it, and scratched the dog under the collar. The ping of the elevator came from the hall. Somewhere a dog barked. “I thought you had guts,” he said.

  I’d been accused of nit-picking, perfectionism, and irritability, but never cowardice. The zone between courage and irresponsibility was a no man’s land. I felt Zak was too cavalier about the Jihadist threat. “There’s more to it. The creep in the weeds near the decapitated head might want to shut me up. Or if the jihadists find us, Hamid’s the target, and I’m the collateral.”

  Zak resumed playing with Hamid’s penguin. I turned to look through the glass door which I’d left open. Silver clouds tumbled over the moon and palms swayed and clattered in the stiff wind. Seemed like more sailors than usual were motoring into port seeking a safe harbor. Prudence? Or cowardice? Life was stacked against the living. Bacteria in every breath you breathe, the precancerous brown spot on your toe that won’t wash off. Face it. The only safe harbor’s a grave.

  Before I knew what I was doing, I got to my feet. “Did the baby-bed from Carrefour’s come with a mattress? If not, we can invent one.”

  It took Zak an hour to put the crib together, most of the time spent figuring out what to do with two leftover screws. “I give up. Here, save them.”

  We converted the bedroom to a nursery: assembled a jury-rigged mattress of towels and a terry cloth bathrobe. Organized the diapers, cotton swabs, wipes, talcum powder, bottles, something called a sippy cup, baby shampoo, baby oil, teething rings, booties and one-piece suits with zebras on the flannel—all on the dresser, my hairbrush shoved in a drawer. Hard to believe one small organism needed so much effluvia. What did cavewomen do?

  After Zak left, I sat on the edge of my bed and looked at Hamid asleep, the penguin’s beak flattened in the curve of his neck. Would sleep for how long? A tune ran through my mind, and I smiled at the memory. When had I last heard what my mother called the ‘hostile rocking song?’

  ‘This is the day we give babies away.

  With a half a pound of tea.

  If you know anybody

  Who wants a baby?

  Send them around to me.’

  20

  I held a pencil ready while Tony stretched a tape measure across the width of the front door. “Mark the center,” he said.

  I drew an X.

  He dropped the tape measure in the top tray of the toolbox he’d set on a kitchen chair in the foyer. He was a perfectionist: look at the drill attachments lined up like soldiers and the cord bound neatly in a twist’em. His starched plaid shirt was tucked into jeans, his belt the same scarred Spanish leather of his calf-high boots. In the dim overhead light, it was hard to tell if those streaks in his thinning hair were gray, or just lighter strands of the overall ash-blond. I settled on gray.

  Hamid’s crib was parked in the living room where I could keep an eye on him. He’d tossed his penguin on the floor, grinning at me as I crossed the room and picked it up. I tucked it under Hamid’s chin where the toy usually slept.

  “Bollocks, where’s my work gloves?” Tony said, then held them up. “Aha.”

  Standing beside him, I felt the reassurance of his presence. Not size nor strength, just the sheer comfort of nearby masculinity harbored in every woman’s DNA. “Tony—” I tried for a steady voice but couldn’t pull it off. “I’m scared out of my mind. That weird light I told you about? Then last night’s sounds in the hall.”

  “Footsteps, you said, right? How long were they there?” The doctor in him replacing fear with fact.

  “I heard rustling, then breathing before Mozart went nuts.” I looked down at the dog who sat with his tongue dripping on my tennis shoe. “Yes, you.” Then back to Tony, “When I opened the door, no one.”

  “No more opening without looking. That’s what this peephole’s for. Although anyone’s who’s jolly well determined to get you, will get you.”

  Anxiety had overcome my ability to handle breakfast, and Tony’s warning stirred every acidic enzyme in my gut.

  He turned to the array of tools. “Let’s hope the midnight visitor was only a passing nutter. You see a brad-bit?” He found it and clicked it into the mouth of the drill. At the whine of the motor, Mozart slipped into the bedroom and Hamid’s eyes opened. I braced myself for the wake-up scream. So far, so good. Tony positioned the drill and bore down on the X sending sawdust up and over the furniture. He withdrew the tool and blew the dust from the bit. “Tomorrow, love, take the nipper straight back to Zak and say sorry, mate, no go.”

  “Wonderful. Allow Hamid to be shipped to the Muslims.”

  “So what?” When I didn’t answer, Tony added. “I’ll tell you why so what. You’re too pig-headed—”

  “It’s not that.”

  “Too pig-headed to admit you let yourself in for a giant cock-up. Why did you go along with such a stupid scheme?”

  How could I say I wanted Hamid to be Christian without sounding like a born-again nut—nuttter—as Tony would put it. I kept it generic: “A feeling—irrational—I know. Plus, a bevy of personal reasons, that I don’t have a clue as to what they are.” I listened to myself, not making sense.

  Tony shook his head slowly as if baffled until he finally took a deep breath and broke the silence. “If you’re hell-bent on keeping the tyke, at least get that Welshman downstairs to babysit, give you a break.” Running his fingers over the newly drilled hole, he said, “You look knackered as hell.”

  “Hamid screamed until four AM. And about Casey, I like his company but don’t trust him. Always whining he’s broke, and he goes and buys thirty-euro wine. Bragging about the big shots he knows, yet he’s unemployed. Hamid’s a hot item. If Casey knew he was here, he’d sell me out to impress—” It took me a minute to think of who he would want to impress and conclude I didn’t know. “Whoever he thinks could do him some good. I’m really sorry he has access to the apartment.”

  “How the devil—”

  “After the ribs disaster, I thought someone else should have a key.”

  “Get it back.”

  “I’d need a reason.”

  “Not if you get rid of the kid.”

  I handed Tony the bag he’d brought from the hardware store. “The Archbishop DeAlba himself is helping with a permanent placement.”

  “According to your friend Zak.”

  The peephole came in a kit packaged in a plastic case that required a linoleum knife to open. Tony took out the decorative back-plate and slid it over the hole. “Perfect.” He stepped away. “Ready for a test run?”

  Squinting into the opening, I made out the Picasso reproduction on the wall opposite my door.

  From behind me, Tony asked, “Think I can wear shorts to that church-thing next Sunday?”

  I turned to face him. “I’v
e never been to a dedication. The Pope’s coming in from Rome. The radio said the Musica Antigua will play—you’ll like that.” Wanting to remind him, but not wanting to be an alarmist, I said, “You’re aware the Emir’s Army threatened to cause trouble.”

  “Count on it.”

  Ignoring Tony, I leaned over the crib. Since Hamid had screamed all night, it was no wonder he was out like a light. I drew the summer blanket over his shoulders. “If the dedication comes off okay, Zak’s supposed to hand this little guy over to the church. The local version of Associated Catholic Charities.”

  “This whole production is absolutely daft. You believe Tariq won’t bomb the place? Will honor a deal? Let me lay it out. When I was with Medicines Sans—sorry, Doctors Without Borders—we tangled with Boko Haram, and I’m warning you, prepare for the Emir’s chaps to come roaring in on motorcycles with all guns blazing.”

  “Not while the Catholics have Hamid.”

  Tony touched his forehead with the heel of his hand. “You’re in La-La land. They don’t care.”

  “Remember, Hamid’s the imam’s son.”

  “Like the daughter whose throat he’s ready to cut if she looks at a boy sideways.”

  I wanted to convince myself Tony was overreacting. “We don’t have to stay long.” I moved to the sofa and sat with my foot on the crib, rolling it back and forth.

  Busy putting away his tools, Tony said, “Don’t think the Muslims are ordinary people in funny costumes, like the goblins in Disneyworld.” He looked up. “Hey, good idea: a jihadist theme park. Re-enactments. Their ads can say, ‘Holiday coming up? Take the nippers to simulated beheadings, to the live amputation exhibit, the gift shop for plastic rocks made like the real ones used to stone your neighborhood adulterer.’”

  “Spoken like a true Islamaphobe.”

  “Think so? Wait until the Army cuts off your head.”

  Tony closed his toolbox with a click and returned the chair to the kitchen. He came into the living room and stood over me. I caught a whiff of Ralph Lauren’s aftershave. Gently he lifted my chin with his index finger. “If they hunt you down, you’ll be lucky if they kill you before the rape.”

  I swallowed hard.

  A light pat on my cheek and he took the other end of the sofa and stretched his long legs under the coffee table.

  “Tony, let me run this by you. I’ve been thinking that. I should get out of here.” My voice came out strangled. “There’s my dad’s place.” A vague plan organized itself as I talked it through. “The electricity’s working there, and the water’s on. The workmen won’t bother me, they’re just starting on the roof. Only what if the jihadists know my car...”

  “Not if we’re in mime,” Tony said. “Tomorrow morning, I take Hamid back to where he came from, to Zak’s office, you’ll tell me where. Then I take you to your dad’s, and the next day we go to the embassy in Madrid and get your passport.”

  “The Guardia Civil has it right here.”

  “Madrid doesn’t know that.”

  It took a minute for the fact to sink in.

  He went on. “Embassies routinely issue replacements if you tell them one’s lost. You fill out a form. A clerk fusses around, and Bob’s your uncle.”

  “But it isn’t lost.”

  Tony brushed the truth aside. “Spaniard’s aren’t all that efficient. If a lowly constable in

  Andalusia confiscates a passport, and from what you said, I bet he did it without proper procedures or authority. Did you get a receipt?”

  “Come to think of it, no.”

  “You really believe a local copper would take it upon himself to call the American Embassy? Come on, love, you know how the world works.”

  Of course, I did. Or thought I did. How on earth did the obvious shoot right past? I cut myself some slack. I’d had been so flummoxed by the foreign police and rattled by the crime, I’d forgotten Dad’s famous Occam’s razor. Keep it simple.

  “Suppose Madrid checks.”

  “Spot on. You believe the embassy routinely calls every provincial police officer to ask if they happen to be illegally holding an American’s passport? Worst case scenario, Robert, friend of mine, the Doc’s without borders own visa and work-permit-paper pusher, might go to bat for you. He eats bureaucrats for lunch.”

  “He doesn’t know me from Adam.”

  “He’ll know you’re an American psychiatrist who’s in the process of signing on as a volunteer.”

  “But I’m not.”

  He frowned as if in thought. “Or she could be.”

  Before I could argue, Tony got to his feet. “Throw some things in a bag. Madrid’s an overnight.”

  I looked down at Mozart, chewing a rawhide bone.

  “He goes to La Casa Perro,” Tony said. “They’re super nice with my Spider, the barmiest Siamese ever born, the damn cat never shuts up.” Tony’s cell phone went off, and he checked the sender. “The clinic.” He stepped into the bedroom to take the call, returned and said, “I’ve got to go. Tomorrow, eleven sharp. You’ll be okay? Lock the doors. Stay inside. You have my number.”

  He closed the door behind him. The peephole revealed plaid moving along the green paint of the hallway wall. After sliding the deadbolt in place, I returned to the living room that would have been empty were it not for the motes of danger hovering in the air. Hamid was batting the mobile over his head. I lifted him from the crib, bouncing him up and down on our way to the glass door. “See the pretty boats on the pretty water?”

  Along the shore, dirty surf tossed ragged debris on the sand. The dingy whitecaps were not white at all. The sea was in a terrible mood. But Hamid had to learn to face down fear. So did I.

  Holding the warm body close, I told him about the seagull who lived on the South Pole, about Rainbow Whale who took all little boys who don’t scream, on rides through the clouds. I turned to shield his eyes from the advancing tide lashing the black pilings of the pier and shield my own eyes from the angry waves foaming at the mouth.

  21

  Tony ran the long black scarf between his hands. “Silk?” Before the saleswoman could reply, he read the label aloud. “Seda, hecho Barcelona. Wrap it up.”

  “A gift?”

  Startled by the question in English, he said, “Why not?” After which the clerk disappeared and returned with a box, gold paper, and red ribbon. Like all saleswomen at Corte Ingles, she wore the uniform of black skirt and white blouse. Tony liked that. He’d set up his low-fee clinic in Spain to recover from four years with Medicines Sans Frontieras. He liked the no-nonsense Spaniards and their vestiges of European old-world gentility. A civilized place to heal third-world burn-out. No country’s perfect, but at least Spain’s parliament gave lip service to the rule of law, lawlessness being the Achilles heel of emerging nations and Tony was sick of emerging nations. His last Medecines post had been on the horn of Africa where typhoid, cholera, and parasites with unbelievably exotic lifestyles sent his tolerance for discomfort over the top. How in God’s hell could there be starvation amid all that garbage? Only the flies ate.

  The sales Tony woman held up the package for Tony’s approval before she accepted payment. Tony liked that, too.

  To throw off the creep who might be watching Paige’s apartment, he parked half a kilometer from her building. At ten in the morning, the shops along the esplanade bustled with activity that would continue until siesta-time at one. Theoretically, commerce would resume at four: and for a few businesses, it actually did.

  The wind too brisk for recreational sailing, only the fishing fleet braved the whitecaps. Tony’s imagination saw far beyond his eyes: saw the boats’ peeling hulls, the seaweed caught on the she
ets and the weathered skin of the sailors—perhaps the very same sailors who’d been plying these waters since Neanderthals roamed Marbella before it was, well, Marbella. Tony smiled at his own whimsy. Possibly Paige’s flights of fancy, as he called them, were rubbing off. God forbid he should acquire her fervent Catholicism. Fervent to the point of being daft. Her insistence on harboring that baby was beyond comprehension. Wanted the boy raised in the church, she said, whatever that meant. On second thought, maybe she wasn’t all that daft. Every blooming Sunday his own mum had dragged him to Bible school where the jolly Anglican chap drummed the gospel into the skulls of the restless nippers wiggling around. A smattering of religious fervor was probably perfectly harmless. It’s just that Paige’s adamant Christianity was so—what was the right word? Common, he decided.

  On the sea to Tony’s right, a tanker flying the Union Jack rounded the buoy. A few miles down the coast lay the broken stones of forgotten conquerors. Phoenician, Roman, Visigoth... Of all the invaders, Tony found the current tourists the most despicable. Packaged tours and teenaged brat-packers brought no art, architecture, nor artifacts—just rubbish-strewn beaches and yogurt thickened with gelatin.

  Tony made his way past a gang of tattooed Swedes and a German bicyclist who whizzed around an elderly Spanish couple without slowing down. Tony nodded politely as he crossed the couple’s path on his way to Paige’s building.

  As soon as she opened her door, Tony stepped back overwhelmed by the smell of scorched milk and urine. Hamid kicked and screamed under her arm. “He’s been like this all morning,” she said.

  “How totally awful,” Tony followed her into the kitchen. The crib sat beside the table. Paige lowered Hamid into it and wiped her brow with her sleeve. The sobs quieted. “Finally.” She slumped onto a chair and put her head in her hands.

  Usually, Paige could have stepped out of an ad in “Elle.” Look at her now, Tony thought. A crust of dried milk on her jeans. Strands of unwashed hair plastered in the sweat on the back of her neck.