Christine Mangan - Tangerine

Alice flushed. “Oh, leave it, John.”

“Well, anyway,” John said, his voice light and jovial, though his smile, I noticed, did not quite extend to his eyes. “You’re here now. Perhaps we can find you an interesting suitor in Tangier. Lord knows we’ve got enough of them. Though, of course,” he said, shaking his head, “I’m not sure any of them have that on the mind at the moment. You’ve chosen an interesting time to come to Morocco.”

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Haven’t you heard?” he asked with a slight smirk, wriggling his eyebrows in what he seemed to intend as comedic effect. “The natives are getting restless, my dear.”

“Oh, don’t talk about it like that,” Alice said, with a movement of her shoulders, as if she could draw herself further inward, away from the conversation.

“Like what?” John asked with mock innocence.

“Like that,” she repeated, casting him a serious glance. “Like it isn’t anything important.”

He turned to me and gave a short laugh. “Sometimes I think Alice fancies she understands the plight of the locals better than any of us,” he said, with a teasing voice, “even though she rarely leaves the house and never interacts with another person outside of myself.”

“That isn’t true,” she protested.

“Not entirely, I suppose,” he conceded. “Still, you’re too sensitive about the whole thing.”

I noticed the strained look that had settled over Alice’s features. “Restless for what, exactly?” I asked, though I already had a vague idea, based upon the various newspapers that had passed under my eyes over the last fortnight or so.

“For independence,” John responded, his eyes narrowing as he spoke. “They’re tired of belonging to someone else, and I don’t blame them, not at all. But it means the French are everywhere these days. Protecting their interests up until the very end. Their forces have only grown since the unrest first began, when they ousted Mohammed two years back. Of course, this is Tangier, so it’s all a bit different. Or it’s supposed to be, at any rate. Still, they’re here, if you look closely enough. It almost looks like they are clinging to the hope that somehow things will revert back to their favor, what with their little spies running around everywhere.”

“Spies?” I asked.

“Oh, stop it,” Alice said, sipping at her drink. I noticed that her hand shook slightly. “John sometimes likes to pretend he’s in a spy novel, I think. He’s always convinced that someone is watching him, French or otherwise. Pay him absolutely no attention, please. You’re perfectly safe here, Lucy.” She stopped. “Well, as safe as anyone can be in Morocco, I suppose.”

I had a sudden image of John lurking in unlit passageways, of Alice being watched, stalked, by her own husband, like some sort of damsel in distress, John cast as the villain of the film. I did my best to suppress a shiver.

“She’s not French, she’ll be fine,” John said, waving his hand dismissively, breaking the spell. “I don’t think she has to worry that any weapons being concealed beneath djellabas are intended for her. Well, not the sort reserved for the French at any rate.”

I felt myself blush, felt tiny pinpricks of anger, of resentment, hot against my skin.

“But then, surely it is a sensitive subject?” I pressed, referring to John’s previous slight at Alice. And before I could think better of it, before I could stop myself, I said, “We are talking about the oppressor and the oppressed, aren’t we? What topic could be more sensitive than that?”

At my words, there was something mean that flashed there, in his sharp little eyes, so that I wondered what it was that he would say in response to my comment. But then it was gone, vanished, before I could fully say whether I had truly seen it to begin with. “Ah,” he said. “I see it now. You’re one of those women.”

I held my face intentionally still. “Those women?”

“You know, those women,” he said, taking a loud sip from his drink. “Out of the kitchen, and all that.”

“John, don’t,” Alice said, looking miserable. Her voice was tight and strained, her face paled a shade or two.

“Don’t what?” He laughed. “I’m just making an observation, that’s all.”

“Yes, well,” I said, pausing to take a drink now myself. “I suppose your observation is correct. I am one of those women—out of the kitchen and all that.” I smiled, refusing to cower.

“Ah,” John cried, giving his leg a quick slap. “You see?” he asked, turning to Alice. “I was right.”

“Yes,” she responded, not meeting his eye.

I leaned forward. “So it’s really happening, then?” I asked, anxious to leave the subject behind. “Independence, I mean.”

John nodded, apparently content, or so it seemed, to move on as well. “Oh, yes. It’s all been agreed already—the whole thing’s been set in motion. The French have already relinquished their hold on Morocco, which means the Spanish aren’t far behind. Tangier will most likely be next. It’s a good thing, as I said before. Independence is always good. But I suspect we’re all running on borrowed time here, as it were. Ticktock.” He took another sip of his drink. “Things will change for those of us who decide to stay behind.”

I frowned. “How so?”

He paused, looking at me as though he hadn’t quite understood the question. And then, with another slap on his knee, he exclaimed: “Well, that’s the question, isn’t it?”

I nodded, taken aback. “Yes, I suppose it is.”

We lapsed into silence then, the three of us staring into our drinks, leaving me to wonder how this could be the man who had stolen Alice’s heart. I thought of the past, of all the plans that we had made, and wondered how it was possible that they had been exchanged for this, for him, though of course I knew it wasn’t as simple as that.

“So,” John’s voice rang out, startling us all out of our reveries. “Just how long is Lucy here for?”

“I haven’t quite decided,” I responded.

He nodded. “But what brings you to Tangier, of all places?”

“Travel, of course,” Alice answered quickly—too quickly, I couldn’t help but think. “Perhaps you could provide Lucy with some recommendations,” she said to John. She turned and looked at me, and I couldn’t help but be reminded of a tennis match, with that dizzying back-and-forth motion that always made my head ache. “If you wanted to see anything other than Tangier.”

I nodded but didn’t respond. Instead I found myself preoccupied with the idea that she had mentioned it—the possibility of other cities—only in order to get me out of the apartment, away from herself and John. Though to what end, I was uncertain.

“I prefer Tangier myself,” John said, though his interest seemed more directed toward the drink in his hand, which had since been refilled, although Alice and I remained on our first. “Most people will say Marrakech is the spot you should go to. Really, though, I don’t like it much myself past three or four nights. And you can’t stand even that, can you?” he asked without turning, though his question was obviously directed to Alice. “Chefchaouen is always worth a few days, and so is Casablanca, I suppose. I know a few who would swear that Fez is the best out of them all. The roadblocks can be a bit tiresome, of course, but once you show your papers, there’s never any trouble,” John continued. He paused, looking at me with a peculiar expression. “Are you really interested in any of this?”

“Of course,” I responded, though I wasn’t, not really. I had no intention of leaving Tangier anytime soon. My eyes moved between the two of them, the pair of them, and I decided that something was most certainly amiss—I could feel it, for it seemed to fill the very room around us, crackling and sizzling, calling out to be noticed. Watching her from the corner of my eye, I could not help but think how haunted she looked—a strange word, I knew, and yet it was the only one that seemed to apply. She was haunted by the ghost of her former self. “I’ll keep that in mind,” I replied. “But I think I’ll focus on Tangier for now.”