Tangerine

by Christine Mangan

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.

  I leaned up against the wall and felt the bracelet in my pocket, solid and heavy.

  At the reminder of it now I felt the rage well up inside me. It erupted in that moment, so that its release felt almost violent, such that I could actually feel it leaking from my pores.

  I tore the plates from the wall first, the force of the movement wrenching my shoulder. I ignored the pain, ignored the trembling of my hands, desperate to have them gone—wanting, no, needing, to destroy this place that had once promised safety, a new chance, a new start. It had been lies. And in that moment, I wanted nothing more than to destroy it.

  When my own strength failed me, I ran to the kitchen, my hands encircling the sharpest knife that I could find. This I plunged through the cushions on the sofa, through the leather poufs on the ground, pulling down on the knife’s handle with such force that the fabric had no choice but to yield at last, pulling apart at my insistence. My hands were shaking, my breath short and fast. I could feel my heart thudding loudly against my chest as I wiped away the sweat that had collected on my forehead.

  I had an image then of what I must look like—face wild, teeth and claws bared.

  Dropping the knife, I collapsed onto the ground amid the tattered room, now torn into jagged strips, the remains scattered around me like some macabre version of snowfall. And I waited, for the feeling of comfort, the feeling of triumph to wash over me. I looked down at the mess that I had made—but there was nothing. Only the feeling of emptiness at the thought that she was gone. That I might never know for certain—what she had done then, what she had done now. That all I would ever have were my own suspicions, my own convictions, which suddenly did not seem like enough at all.

  And there was something else too.

  It was absurd, grotesque even, but there was something like a physical ache, just there, behind my rib cage. I remembered the moment at the police station, earlier, when I had turned to look for her. Almost as if there were some missing part of me that only Lucy’s presence would ever truly complete. For even though I blanched at the idea, without her, I knew from experience, my resolve diminished, my voice disappeared. Whatever symbiosis existed between us was real, tangible, and now, without her presence I could feel the absence of it, as if she were an extension of my own person. She was, I realized, that awful, wretched part of me that should be locked away and boarded up forever—like Jane’s madwoman in the attic. She was the unfiltered version, the rawness that no one should ever see. She was every wicked thought, every forbidden desire turned real and visceral. I held up my hand and saw that the dye from the leather had stained my skin. I laughed, whispering the words to myself, See, you will never be rid of her. I looked down once again, willing myself to feel something, anything.

  But there was nothing. Nothing at all.

  I HEARD MY NAME BEING CALLED, muffled, from the other side.

  It was the police, I knew. They had returned at last.

  I looked at the walls of my apartment, desperate to be swallowed up by them, to be consumed, once and for all, by the shadows lurking in the corners.

  I should have known that I would never be able to outrun them.

  That I would never be able to outrun her.

  I moved from my place on the floor. Strips of leather, of fabric, now stuck to my arms. There was a small piece affixed to my cheek. Pulling them away, gazing down at the strips of canvas, I was gripped with the conviction that none of it, what happened with Tom, with John, with anything in between, mattered. Not really. This had always been about her, about me, about the two of us. And it was always destined to end this way.

  There was an ache in my head, and I pushed my fingers into my temple.

  The knocking grew more insistent.

  I thought about the last time I had heard someone knock on the door like that, the morning that John had disappeared. No, not the morning of his disappearance, but the first time I had learned of it, from that strange man with the scar. I wondered then, and not for the first time, who he had been and why he had been so reluctant to contact the police. If he truly had been the person following me that day in the streets. If what the police had said, about John leaving with Sabine, had been true. It made me realize that I had never really known John, only the hazy mirage he had presented to me that summer we first met, a shimmering beacon of hope that I had clung to in my darkest moment. I turned toward the door, toward the sound of someone fumbling with the knob. It was locked. They would not get in so easily.

  I moved quickly, toward the bedroom.

  They had come for me at last, my invisible shadows, which Lucy ha
d made real. But this time, I knew, they would not go away. After all, the police believed that I was responsible for John’s death—if not the actual physical act, then at least in the collusion of it. A Lady Macbeth whispering that could not go unpunished.

  I thought about John’s body, wondering whether they would bury it here or whether they would return it to England. I thought of his eyes, empty—or at least I imagined they were empty, for they had been closed when I had seen them last. It seemed strange, the idea of returning him to his birthplace. He had loved Tangier, and she had loved him, for a time. It didn’t seem right for them to be parted. No, it made sense for him to remain with her, forever. I hoped they would realize that.

  I grasped the knife that I had picked up from the floor.

  In many ways, this too seemed to make a certain sort of sense. As if all the years in between now and my parents’ death I had only been waiting, for this. For the end that I was meant for that night, that I perhaps would have succumbed to, if not for some strange miracle. Or perhaps it had not been a miracle after all. Perhaps it had only been a mistake. Perhaps I had not been meant to survive, and the shadows were simply warnings, or time, watching over me, waiting, for my impending death.

  Perhaps I had always been moving toward this day, all on my own.

  There was a comfort in the thought, I realized as I moved onto the bed. I crawled, pulling the duvet back and slipping under the sheets.

  It sounded now as though a large body was pummeling the wooden frame, over and over, so that I worried the sound of it would never stop, that it would go on and on forever.

  But then, I remembered, looking down into my hand, it would stop.

  All of it. Soon.

  And nothing that had come before would matter ever again.

  Twenty

  Lucy

  IN FRONT OF HER, THE QUEUE WAS FINALLY MOVING. “TICKET, please,” the man commanded, opening his hand in expectation. For a moment, she considered turning back. Pushing through the line she had waited in for nearly an hour, making her way through the port and into the heart of the city, just as she had done the first day. She could almost feel it, the heat of the medina pushing up against her, the frenzied excitement that ran through it, as though a vein that kept the city alive—pumping and rushing, working relentlessly so that the rest of Tangier could survive. She longed to be in the midst of it again, suspecting—no, perhaps already knowing—that she never would be. That Tangier would be a stranger to her, now and forever. Well, not really a stranger, but a piece of her past. One that she might take out and examine from time to time, holding it up to the light—but one that she would never revisit. That was impossible.

  If only Alice had not called Maude.

  If only Youssef had not blackmailed her.

  Lucy handed over her ticket to the attendant and found a seat toward the back, away from the screaming children, their faces sticky with sweets, their parents already wearing the resigned look of those who know they are facing a losing battle. It was an expression they no doubt shared—for Lucy also knew that this was the end for her and Alice as well. There would be no more chances between them.

  She felt the fabric beneath her shift, and she half turned, surveying the occupant of the seat beside her. The woman was older, perhaps a decade or more than Lucy’s own years, but there was something soft and inviting in the way that she smiled and nodded her head. Just a slight tilt, nothing too intrusive, but Lucy found herself returning the easy gesture, suddenly eager to leave her heavy thoughts behind.

  The woman sighed loudly. “It’s a relief, isn’t it?”

  Lucy frowned. “What is?”

  The woman gestured to the window beside Lucy, which had grown hot and hazy from the afternoon sun. Already she could feel the force of it pressing up against her cheek.

  “Leaving this behind,” the woman said. She let out another sigh, moving farther into the cushion. “Not that I don’t love Morocco, of course, but it’s always such a relief when it’s time to return home. Like I’m, oh, I don’t know, shedding my skin, or something. Like suddenly I can breathe again.” She turned back to Lucy. “Isn’t there some saying about it?”

  “Saying?” Lucy repeated. She was staring at the woman more intently now. There was something about her, in the way that she moved—theatrical, Lucy thought—with an elaborate flourish of her gloved hands. There was a sturdiness to the woman’s voice, a confidence that Lucy found herself enthralled with, and she found herself wondering whether the woman did this often, talking to strangers as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Her tone confident, self-assured, as if she was already certain that such a quote existed and that the question she put to Lucy of its validity, its existence, was nothing more than a mere formality.

  There had been a time when Lucy had been that certain—when everything had seemed easy and fitted into place. But then the world had tilted upside down, and when it righted itself at last, she had stood in front of the burning wreckage, suddenly unsure of everything. This time more of a change would be required, something more than a simple relocation and fabricated résumé. She thought of Tangier and its many names and alterations. Of the people who had claimed it as home over the centuries—a vast array of nationalities, of languages. Tangier was a city of transformation, one that shifted and altered in order to survive. It was a place where one went to be transformed. And it had, in a way, changed her. Gone was the girl, the young woman who had loved so carelessly, so blindly, that she was willing to do anything to keep that love. For while she still believed that Alice had loved her once, she could no longer pinpoint the exact time in her mind.

  Lucy turned back to the woman—to the present—and smiled. “I don’t think I know that saying.”

  The woman raised her eyebrows. “No? Well, perhaps I’m just imagining it then.” She stuck out her hand, still gloved. “I’m Martha.”

  Lucy took the outstretched palm, the sweat on her own transferring to the starched material. “Alice,” she said, trying it out, shifting her voice just a bit, so that the a was higher, more rounded.

  Martha frowned. “Now, am I wrong, or do I detect a bit of a British accent?” she asked, leaning in. Her own vowels were long and drawn out, like the lazy flies that circled overhead, so that Lucy imagined hot, dusty weather, with mud the color of burned ochre.

  Lucy smiled. “My mother was American, but my father was British.” She paused, feeling the gears of the boat as they began to churn at last. “Though I was raised by my aunt in London.”

  “By your aunt?” Martha questioned.

  “Yes,” Lucy said. She felt the boat pull away, but she resisted the urge to turn and look out of the window. She had already said her good-bye to Tangier. “My parents died when I was young.”

  Martha’s hand flew to her cherry-stained lips. “Oh, my dear, that is awful.”

  Lucy lowered her eyes. “Yes, yes, it was.” She let out a deep sigh, feeling the movement as it made its way through her entire body, until she was no longer certain whether it was the exclamation of relief or the churn of the mechanics that rumbled there. “But that was a long time ago now.”

  “Of course,” Martha said, nodding eagerly. She started to speak, but then hesitated. Lucy thought that she could read the conflicting emotions there—politeness and interest, the two of them fighting within the woman. Her back pressed against the window, refusing to look backward, Lucy waited to see which one would win.

  The boat surged then, and the woman gave a sudden lurch, slapping Lucy lightly on the shoulder. “I’ve got it!” she exclaimed.

  Lucy frowned, startled. “What?”

  “The saying,” Martha replied, shaking her head, as if she couldn’t believe that Lucy didn’t know what she was referring to—as if they were already fast friends. “There is a local saying here—or there, rather,” she said, indicating over Lucy’s shoulders, toward the retreating image of Tangier and her shores. Martha paused, watching Lucy expectantly. And then she s
aid: “‘You cry when you arrive, and you cry when you leave.’”

  Epilogue

  Spain

  IN HER DREAMS, SHE’S SITTING AT CAFÉ HAFA. THERE IS A glass of mint tea before her, only recently delivered, and she marvels at the colors. A rich forest-green on top, a golden amber on the bottom. It is one of those perfect Tangier days, she thinks. The skies are a deep blue, the clouds a startling white. She wishes, not for the first time, that she was able to capture it all somehow—perhaps with words on a page, or paint on a canvas—just so she can keep it with her, always.

  Her reality upon waking isn’t entirely different. The sun still shines, set against an azure sky. Only instead of the sapphire blue of the Mediterranean, she faces mountains—green and budding in the first days of spring.

  Today is Tuesday, her favorite day of the week.

  On Tuesdays, she wakes early, ladles out coffee grinds into a cup—just enough for one, as she has somewhere else to be. Afterward, she climbs the stairs and drinks her coffee on the balcony, which overlooks the street and one of the town’s many steep inclines. She is high up enough that she can see the vast stretch of it, the mountains beyond—at night, when most of the town falls quiet, she can observe those places that stay awake, their lights pulsing in this otherwise darkened mountain town.

  Today someone has moved into the flat across the street. She can, from her vantage point, see into the belly of it as they move around, pulling sheets from the furniture, shaking the dust out the window and onto the street below. One of the pieces is an old piano, pushed up against the back of the room. As she is finishing her coffee, music begins to drift out of the window. Two drifters, off to see the world, There’s such a lot of world to see. She sits and listens, smiling, drawing out the moment as long as it will stretch.

  Today will be her last day in the house.

  She waits patiently at the bus stop, nodding to the other faces that have since grown familiar to her. There is the couple who owns one of the three restaurants in town and who serves her cerveza with a small tapa, fish that she doesn’t recognize but that is always oily and salty and satisfying; there is the tramp who has taken up residence in the abandoned shack behind the doctor’s house; and more, other familiar smiles. She nods at them all but does not speak. No one, it seems, understands English or French in this little town, and so she remains apart from them, happy in the barrier that exists.