Vendela Vida - The Diver's Clothes Lie Empty

You are ushered to a chair on the other side of the desk with the computer. On the desk is a box holding paper clips and erasers and thumbtacks. On the side of the box there’s a calendar; the calendar is three years old. The ceilings are high and the eggshell paint on the walls is peeling. The room has a photo of a man who you assume is the King of Morocco. On top of a beige filing cabinet sits a bouquet of fake flowers. You imagine the flowers were brought in by a secretary or one of the detectives’ wives who wanted to add some color, some semblance of cheer to the empty room. At some point somebody must have decided they didn’t like the flowers — too pink, too prissy — so the vase was relocated to that spot above the file cabinet where you imagine they’ll remain for eternity.

One of the detectives is seated at the computer and the two others sit atop bare desks. They sit like detectives.

“We are all here to listen to details of crime,” one detective tells you. “We saw video. We saw what thief looks like. We do not think he was part of the conference. We think his badge was. .”

He can’t find the word.

“Fake,” you suggest. You notice there’s an echo in the room.

“Yes. You are not surprised?”

“No,” you say. You are not surprised.

“We also see from video he has two people he works with. They both have badges too. One outside the hotel, the other also in the lobby.”

“There were three people?”

“Yes.”

This makes you feel better. You were the target of a crime ring. There was probably little you could have done differently. They had fabricated badges and were going to rob someone, so they robbed you.

“Do they do this at other hotels? Make badges and rob people?”

“No, we have not heard of this before,” another detective says. “It is first time.”

“Oh,” you say. You’re not sure you believe this.

“We will start with entering information,” says the man at the computer.

“Okay.”

“What was your grandfather’s name?”

“My grandfather?”

“Yes, it is a formality here. We have to fill out the forms.”

“Anthony,” you say. You have not thought of your grandfather in years. He died when you were five, and he was not such a good man. The last time you and your sister saw him you stood in front of his reclining chair, dressed in matching blue jumpers, patterned with Raggedy Ann dolls, and holding your parents’ hands. Only years later did you realize you were all there to say good-bye.

Now you are giving his name to a Moroccan detective. It takes the detective five minutes to type the name. The computer or the keyboard — maybe both — are giving him trouble.

“What is your father’s name?”

“Gian-Carlo,” you say.

He spends five minutes typing it. He has difficulty first with “Gian,” then with the hyphen, and then with “Carlo.”

“Listen,” you say, “I’m wondering if we can get to the part where I tell you what was stolen? I’m afraid I’ll never get my computer back. . I’ve already lost a day.”

“You lost a die?” one of the detectives asks. “What is a die?”

“No, I lost a day. It’s an expression,” you say. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Was it a Dell?” another detective asks.

“No, a day.”

“The computer was not a Dell?”

“Oh, a Dell computer!” you say.

“So it was a Dell.”

“No, it was an Apple.”

The three men look at you blankly. “An Apple Macintosh?” you say, slowly.

The phone rings and the detective at the desk stares at it, startled.

He says a few words into the receiver, glances at you, and is off the phone in twenty seconds.

“It’s the police chief,” he says. “He wants you to come to his office. He has development.”

You are directed across the hall where a door is open.

The police chief beckons you in and asks you to close the door behind you. In contrast to the three detectives who were thin and nervous-seeming, the police chief seems even larger than he was yesterday, and his office could not be more different from the spare, beige room you just left. A plush burgundy rug expands to the edges of the room, and a blown-up map of Casablanca takes up one wall. The curtains are burgundy as well and cascade to the ground in thick folds. There’s the same photo of the King of Morocco, but this one is framed in ornate gold.

From a coatrack in the corner hang two dry-cleaned suits and at least three shirts, all in plastic bags. A tie that’s already been tied hangs from a hook.

“We have found a black backpack,” the police chief says.

“That’s fantastic,” you say. You are stunned. You were wrong to question him when he was 100 percent confident it would be retrieved. This man radiates competence.

“Not everything is in it, but it has a passport and a wallet with credit cards. Thieves here are never interested in credit cards.”

You wish you had known this before you canceled all of yours.

He produces a black backpack from behind the desk where he’s sitting. It’s not your backpack. You know it’s not your backpack but you don’t have time to say anything because he’s already unzipping it and pulling out a dark blue American passport. With a snap of his wrist, he places the passport on the desk before you, as though he’s a blackjack dealer giving you your last card.

“I imagine everything will be easier if you have this,” he says.

You open the front page of the passport and see that while the photo resembles you — the woman has brown straight hair and bright wide-set eyes — it is not your passport. It belongs, you see, to a woman named Sabine Alyse.

The chief of police places a red wallet in front of you.

“They took the cash from the wallet but it still has the credit cards.” You wonder if these credit cards, like yours, have been canceled. You imagine using these cards to check in to the Regency and ordering everything on the menu before sleeping all the sleep you have not slept.

It strikes you as relevant that the police chief has not asked you for your name, that he has been careful with how he describes the backpack, wallet, and passport. Here is the backpack, here is the wallet, here is the passport. Not once as he called any of them yours.

You stare at the coatrack, at the expensive-looking tie that’s already tied. Shaped like a noose. You do not have many options. You know this. The police chief is suggesting you claim something that isn’t yours. And you’re not sure what will happen if you protest. You stare at the map of Casablanca on the wall. The city is large and overwhelming, its many rectangular piers jutting out from the rest of the city like large teeth.

You now know you will take the backpack and the passport and the wallet and check in to the Regency. Once you’re in the Regency you will feel safe. You need to feel safe to sleep. Once you’ve slept you will go to the American embassy and tell them it was a mistake, that the police returned the wrong bag to you. That is the plan.

For now, you need to get out of this police station. You need to get out of the Golden Tulip. You will not tell the police or the Golden Tulip where you’re going.

You glance down under the desk and see that the chief’s shoes are to the right of where he’s sitting. He’s taken them off while talking to you. He’s become more comfortable; you’ve grown more tense.

“So everything is finished,” he says.

You consider bringing up the fact that your computer and many other belongings are still missing. But the words he uttered—“So everything is finished”—was a statement, not a question.

“Yes,” you say.