Tangerine

by Christine Mangan

  Later, in our bedroom, I turned to her and smiled. “It’s fate, don’t you see? After everything we’ve been through together,” I said, my voice dropping to a whisper. “That night with Tom and the accident—” I saw her flinch, but I pressed on, knowing that this too was something she could no longer ignore. “I thought you would never survive, not when the brakes had been cut, and then I saw you and I was certain that you were dead, I was sure of it—but then you weren’t and—” I stopped, noticing her face. She had gone pale, her eyes boring into my own. I watched her, waiting for her to speak, but she only remained silent. I glanced at the window, the traces of humidity obscuring most of what was once there. I could no longer see Alice reflected back, only my own strange face as it peered at itself.

  Nine

  Alice

  SHE HAD NEARLY FOOLED ME.

  In her presence, I had allowed myself to forget about the horrible past, the tedium of the present, and the depressing future that any fortune-teller worth a grain of salt would be able to read in my sad, shattered palm. I had closed my eyes in the back of that beaten-up taxi, allowing my body to be flung one way and then another as we bounded over the dips and around the curves of Morocco, letting the wind and the sand whip across our faces and forgetting that it all existed. I worked my way back to that place, before everything had gone so spectacularly wrong, when all I had felt was determination and hope and the knowledge that the future would be whatever I made out of it.

  And it had almost worked. For a few, heart-clenching wonderful hours—so absolutely pure and beautiful that I felt at times that I could not breathe for the joy of it—I had managed it all. I dug out my camera, taking photographs. I smiled into the faces of strangers, I laughed at the kindness of children. I stood face-to-face with the unknown and I only wanted more. And so I ate and I drank until I thought I would burst from it. I laughed until my muscles ached, until my limbs grew heavy. And then—and then the facade came shattering down around me, breaking and splintering around my bare feet, and I knew that it could never be put back together again.

  She had whispered to me about John’s infidelities, reminding me of knowledge I already had possessed, though I had worked to bury it, deep. She had convinced me that I must leave Tangier, that we must leave Tangier. In secret, under the cover of night, because she also knew about the money, about the allowances passed from Maude to me and on to John, knew about what he would really lose with my absence, and I did not question how, knowing only that she must, in that way that she always knew everything. It had all made a perfect sort of sense, and so I nodded and agreed. Tangier was not mine, I had never laid claim to it, nor it to me. I knew that I could leave and not be too bothered.

  But then she had mentioned the accident. She had said the word—Tom—magic in its incantation, dispelling everything all at once, bringing it to light so that I had no choice but to look at it again, once more. I had not wanted her to say his name, I had not wanted us to be forced to confront, to remember. I had wanted to continue as we were—if only for a little while longer. But then she had said his name, and the spell had broken. She had said the next words, ones that were never mentioned in any newspapers, by any police officer, not even by Maude, because I had never mentioned it, had never told them—what had happened in the span of those last minutes, tucking it away and keeping the information to myself, knowing that voicing it aloud would not change anything, could not change anything. Aunt Maude had told me, weeks later, when I started to come out of the shock, when at last I could sit and listen and eat again once more, that there was little left of the wreckage, just burned-up bits and pieces that the police had done their best to sift through, though they had never arrived at any official answers.

  In the taxi ride home the next day, something pulled at my memory and I struggled to bring it to the forefront. I thought of the few stories she had told me about her family, her father—about the garage that he had worked in—and I felt as though the air had been ripped out of me, as if my lungs no longer worked. I struggled to breathe, the space between Chefchaouen and Tangier fragmented and blurred, so that I remembered nothing, nothing at all except what she had said, what she had whispered, lying in bed, the rain slanting down the rooftop, loud and insistent, so that for a moment I thought I was mistaken, had hoped that I was.

  But I wasn’t, I knew. I had heard her correctly, had heard what it was that she had said, her breath hot and moist against my cheek as she had smiled and sighed and leaning toward me whispered his name, whispered about that night.

  Whispered about the brakes.

  WHEN JOHN GREETED US upon our return, watching from the threshold of the doorway as Lucy and I made our way, one slow step at a time, back up and into the flat, I did my best to rearrange my face, to inhabit some semblance of the person I had been before we left. I mounted the steps with something like dread, the knowledge of what I had learned pressing against me so that I could no longer foresee the future, could no longer, in fact, see past one step and then another.

  As we came into view, John called out to me, “What on earth are you wearing?”

  I looked down, tugging self-consciously at the blouse and running my hands nervously over the pleats of the trousers, eager to be rid of them both. “I borrowed them from Lucy,” I said, blushing as I said her name, as if that night was something etched into my face, as if John would only have to look in order to read everything that had happened, that had transpired between us.

  His face rearranged itself into a frown. “What happened to your own clothes?”

  “They got dirty.” I knew my voice sounded short, curt, but there was nothing that I could do to change it—I felt as though all the energy had been leaked from my very bones, that the effort I had made, all these months, to smile and nod my head, to act as though I had not made an enormous mistake in coming to Tangier, with him, had suddenly left me.

  It was no longer possible.

  “Dirty?” He laughed. “What on earth from?”

  I heaved a loud sigh. “Does it matter?”

  John looked momentarily taken aback. Finally he said: “No, I suppose it doesn’t.” He gave a shake of his head and stepped aside to allow us into the apartment, followed by a quick gibe about his surprise at finding my note, although it was clear that what he really meant was displeasure. Running his fingers through his hair, he attempted a lighthearted laugh, but I could feel his eyes searching out mine: wondering, speculating, puzzling over whether Lucy had managed to pass along his little secret. He did not realize that I had already known—that he was not the only one who could keep things hidden.

  “Maybe you should take a bath,” he said, his voice hollow. “You’re covered in dust.” He laughed again. “And in those clothes, people will start to wonder.”

  I looked at him, eyes narrowed. “Wonder what, John?” A dare, just there, beneath my words.

  “I don’t know,” he said, with a touch of defiance. “But not anything good, I suspect.”

  I wanted to respond, to snap, but the words stuck in my throat and then the moment was gone, along with the insinuation. In the silence came John’s insistence that he didn’t mean anything by it, that he was just on edge, worried by my absence. And there did seem to be a truth to it—his eyes were red and swollen, as though he hadn’t slept the night before. I felt ashamed then, for snapping, for being angry at him for something he knew nothing about. I began to tell him this, but he had already moved on, suggesting drinks, suggesting that we go out, visit a jazz club, that promise he had made the first night—and which now seemed like ages ago—his enthusiasm for the outing, I suspected, built upon the prospect of keeping an eye on us, of monitoring what was and wasn’t said. I wondered why he even cared, now that he had someone else. Or perhaps he meant to try and keep us both—Sabine, that was what Lucy had called her. It would not have surprised me. I felt Lucy’s gaze—hard and insistent, as always—demanding me to speak, to set our plan, no, her plan, I reminded myself, into mot
ion. I stood, feeling the intensity of both their gazes upon me and I felt for a moment that I might burst, shatter into a million pieces, right in front of them. The idea filled me with something like pleasure. I ground my fingernails into my palms. “I’ll just take that bath first,” I said, trying to make my words light, though they seemed to resound throughout the room, heavy and dull. John had been right. After our long drive home, Lucy and I were both filthy, covered in dirt and sunburned, our bodies peeling and flaking with each move.

  I moved quickly from them, feeling their eyes on my back.

  Once I was behind the closed bathroom door, a long, heavy sigh escaped me, and I wondered if they could hear me, wondered whether they, both of them, were listening from the other side of the door. I ran the water, sitting on the edge of the tub’s ceramic shell, letting it develop into a scorching heat, not caring, but rather welcoming it—the moment my sunburned skin would turn an angrier shade of red.

  I lowered myself under the water, grateful that it muffled the sound of my scream. And when I resurfaced, when I at last felt the air enter my lungs, burning, I coughed and sputtered and feared that I might retch from the force of it.

  She had done it. And I had always known.

  That was what the fog had hidden from me—but I remembered now, remembered how, in the days afterward, I had been convinced that she had been the one responsible. But when I had tried to say it, first at the hospital, and later in England, Aunt Maude had brushed aside my accusations, had told me instead to be quiet and still. And because I was not entirely certain, because I was never entirely certain when it came to Lucy, when it came to the dark recesses of my own mind, I had listened, closing my eyes to the possibility.

  I thought of Chefchaouen, of everything it had stirred within me, both good and bad and frightening, and I was furious with Lucy, with myself. I turned the water spigot farther to the left, willing the scorching heat to burn away the thoughts circulating in my head.

  I would tell her that I knew what she had done, and then I would make her leave.

  I shut my eyes and willed myself to be brave enough, smart enough this time, to ensure that she left, and not just Tangier, but my life as well. There could be no more reappearances, no more unexpected knocks on the door. I needed to cast her out, to purge her from my life, once and for all.

  I had done my best to forget it, to bury it, to move past it. I had married John, I had moved to another continent, hundreds and thousands of miles away from the place that reminded me of him, of Tom. But now, I knew—that the past was never truly past, and that I could not outrun it forever, that the fog would not always protect me. I felt it begin to resurface then, every painful detail of that time, so that I could no longer feel the heat of the water, of Tangier, pressing against my skin.

  I shivered, suddenly feeling as though I would never be warm again.

  Ten

  Lucy

  WE WALKED THROUGH THE VILLE NOUVELLE DISTRICT IN silence. As we moved, I felt almost instinctively that the space was somehow outside of my jurisdiction, as if those other places in the city—the medina, the Kasbah, and all the twists and turns that existed between them—belonged to me entirely, while these streets continued to remain unknown, refusing to yield their secrets. Instead I felt as if I was on John’s territory. And there was something else too—an uneasiness as a result of Alice’s silence, so that Chefchaouen seemed all at once far away, and I found myself unable to read her, to understand why she had not told John about our plan, why, instead, we were following him through the streets of Morocco, an unsettling scavenger hunt where none of us knew the prize.

  “One other stop first,” John said, turning down a darkened alley that I did not recognize.

  “Oh, John,” Alice began. I could tell Chefchaouen had taken its toll on her. Dark circles had appeared under her eyes, and although she had spent time in the bath before we departed, it looked as though some of the sand and peeling skin still clung to her, as if she had made no real attempt to scrub them away at all. “Maybe another night.”

  “Don’t be like that,” he said, laughing. He tugged at Alice’s arms playfully, though there was something urgent in his movement, something insistent and desperate. I was reminded of Alice that first night, the way she had smiled and laughed, the falseness behind it, and the sinking feeling that it would inevitably all come crashing down around us, the shards splintering onto the ground. John had that same manic look in his eyes, I thought. But where I had felt concern for Alice, I felt only unease under John’s wavering temper. He turned from us then, increasing his speed, so that he walked in front, rather than next to us. “Hurry up, we’re almost there!” he called, the singsong lilt in his voice making it seem like we were playing a game, as if this were all in jest. I thought of the Pied Piper, leading the children out of the town and into the forest. And although I knew the fairy-tale version that children were told, I was reminded of the much darker telling, where the man, in an act of revenge, led the unsuspecting children to their deaths.

  But instead of directing us out of town, John ushered us into one of the city’s many anonymous bars. It was stained and weathered, the inside intentionally dark so that it hid whatever refuse the light may have illuminated. I wondered aloud why John had chosen to bring us here, but he only ignored me, walking farther into the belly of the place until at last it seemed we had come to the end and were going to continue out the exit. John came to a halt, sending us both crashing into him.

  “Here,” he said, indicating the floor. “Take off your shoes and leave them.”

  I frowned, looking over at Alice—but if she was startled by John’s game of follow the leader, she did not show it. Instead she bent down, undoing the ankle straps on her kitten heels and letting them fall onto the grime-covered floor. I watched her in surprise and then, realizing there was nothing to do but push on, I undid my own, placing them in the corner, hoping that they would not get trampled in my absence.

  “Good.” John beamed at us, looking over his shoulder. “Now, follow me.”

  I was the last to enter the back room, and it took a few moments of rapid blinking to adjust to the dim light, so that by the time I took in our surroundings—a floor mat of some sort, not quite bamboo, but not quite wood; walls so deeply stained with tobacco that in the dim light I could not make out the color; and finally, a few low tables, around which a handful of men in traditional djellabas sat, smoking from pipes—John and Alice had already claimed one of the low tables and were sitting cross-legged beside it. I quickly joined them.

  “It took a fair amount of convincing to get you in here,” John said, his face serious, though his tone was self-congratulatory. “This is what would amount to an old boys’ club here, so strictly no women allowed. You’re both in luck that the owner of this joint owes me a favor—still, I promised him no more than fifteen minutes, a half an hour tops.”

  “And what are we doing here?” I asked, eyeing the other men in the room. Most of them appeared to be well into their fifties, maybe sixties, and though they had turned to us with interest upon our arrival, a majority of them had already looked away, rejoining conversations that had stalled and picking up their slackened pipes.

  “This,” John said, producing his own pipe, one that had apparently been stashed somewhere within the folds of his suit until then. “You aren’t afraid, are you?” he teased, waving the kif pipe nearer to Alice’s face. His smile seemed to alter, turning small and mean. Not the Pied Piper after all, I found myself thinking: more like the big bad wolf, tempting us off the path. It felt as though he wanted to poke, to prod—to turn us upside down and see what would fall out. He was nervous, I realized—of what I had told Alice about Sabine, of what, perhaps, had happened between us. I could see it—his suspicions, his paranoia—shimmering in the air around us.

  Alice extended her hand and dutifully inhaled the smoking pipe, only to then cough and sputter, much to my amazement and John’s apparent delight. I hesitated when it w
as passed in my direction. While I had always liked cigarettes—from an early age when I had stolen my first pack from the corner shop and ridden my bicycle down by the creek to smoke them—this was something different. I pursed my lips, trying to decide whether or not it suited me, trying to decide what it was that was happening, the night already taking on a strange disorder that I could not figure out, could not reassemble into something familiar and known.

  John, meanwhile, laughed loudly. “There now,” he proclaimed, snatching the pipe back from me. “That wasn’t so terrible, was it?”

  I tilted my head, not entirely sure who the words had been directed at. And soon it was as if they had never been spoken at all. In fact, it was all becoming rather muddled. The drink we had sipped back at the apartment before heading out, and now the kif—all of it crowded and confused my mind. It began to seem as though we had been sitting there for an eternity, and yet I was certain that very little time had passed at all. I decided then I didn’t like it, if only for the way it seemed to swallow time whole. And yet I felt strangely emboldened, sitting in our strange circle of three. I thought of the words I wished to speak, prepared, I thought, to voice them at last if Alice would not. I looked over at her, to ensure that she felt the same, and found her slumped in the corner, her eyes glassy and distant. I wondered whether it was the kif, or whether she had looked like this before and I had somehow failed to notice.

  I felt then as though the air had gone out of me. I stood, moving quickly toward the back door, leaning my body out and into the night sky. I inhaled deeply, slowly, grateful that the sun had already set, that some of the humidity had begun to leak out of the day. I grasped my head, willing it to stop spinning, to stop moving so swiftly.