The Prophet of Essaouira

1

Jesus, what time is it?

A few minutes past noon. That was the midday bell that woke you.

Noon! Already!

In fact, we crossed the first time zone this morning, so it’s 1:00 back in the Canaries.

Jesus.

How do you feel?

Not good! Miserable! No, fifteen times worse!

Have some coffee.

No, thanks. I’m not even close to ready for that.

I understand.

How long have you been, you know, like sitting there?

All night.

All night! Jesus. Just watching me?

Keeping an eye on you. I also did some reading. Listen, this is from the latest issue of “Time.”

“According to this theory, Markham and Kennedy walked to the Senator’s room in the Shiretown Inn, a block from the waterfront, while Gargan returned the boat to Chappaquidick and drove back to the cottage. If this version is true, the question remains why Kennedy would conceal the facts and invent the swimming story.”

I have no freaking idea what you’re talking about.

I realize you’ve been away for some time, but haven’t you read the papers?

I guess I did hear something about Chappa … however you pronounce it. And I heard we landed on the moon like a month ago. But that’s pretty much it. Except for Woodstock, if that counts as news.

There isn’t much more you need to know, I’ll grant you that.

Jesus, it’s even worse when I sit up.

You had quite a lot to drink.

Pass me my uh, you know, my clothes, will you.

I’ll avert my eyes.

Ha. You seem pretty comfortable with this, uh, this situation.

It isn’t the first time something like this has happened in the history of the civilized world.

Or in the history of you?

Not lately.

Jesus, is this me swaying, or the boat?

It’s more you than the ship I’m afraid. The ocean is calm this morning, and the ship is rather large.

Yeah, I noticed that back in Tenerife. I thought the boat looked like the Prudential Building, tipped over. Excuse me a minute, will you.

Certainly.

---

I’ll try a little of that coffee now.

Sugar?

Sure.

It’s still warm, but not hot.

I’ll never drink that much again. Ha! You know, I seem to recall saying that on one or two other mornings. But, look, I’m afraid I really don’t remember very much about last night.

I’m not surprised. How much do you remember?

The bar. Flirting with you. Drinking too much. Saying too much, I guess. Oh, and splitting the moon! That happened, didn’t it?

You said it did, but honestly, I didn’t understand what you meant.

It’s supposedly one of the miracles of Muhammed – that he split a full moon into two halves – and when we were looking at the moon last night, at its reflection in the water, a swell came along, and for a moment it looked like it was split into two, though I guess it would have been a pair of full moons and not two halves.

I see. Very poetic.

Yeah, I thought it was. But did I really threaten to jump overboard and swim out into the reflection?

I’m afraid you did, yes.

Jesus!

I didn’t think you were entirely serious.

I don’t think I was. Anyway, I remember a little about what happened when we got back here, but, I’m a little embarrassed to say this, but I don’t remember if, you know…

No, we did not.

Did I make like a huge fool of myself?

You might feel that way, but I don’t.

That sounds pretty bad. Jesus, I’m sorry.

There’s no need to be embarrassed. The scene was more or less a cliché. I played my role, and you played your role, and I don’t think it was the first time you’d played that sort of game with a woman like me. With an older woman. Nor was it the first time that I’ve been with someone and something has gone wrong, although I have to say that it does not usually happen quite that way.

How do you mean?

I mean that it wasn’t that you couldn’t do what we were going to do because you were too drunk. It was that you wouldn’t. For an entirely acceptable reason, though. Do you not remember that part?

I’m afraid it’s kind of coming back to me.

Things were going as expected and had proceeded to a certain point. Then, rather abruptly, I thought, you pulled back. “No,” you said. Very emphatically. You couldn’t let me … do that. It wouldn’t be right. Because of her.

I’m afraid I do kind of remember that part.

I knew who you were referring to. You’d told me, at the bar, that you’d been with a girl for some months, and even though she’d known that you were going back to school in the fall, the breakup was traumatic. Or, as you put it, “heavy.” For both of you, but especially for her. Is that right?

I guess.

What surprised me was that, while break-ups are painful, they do not always get in the way of what we were about to do. To the contrary, they sometimes add a certain spice. But it all made much more sense once you told me what had happened in … what was the name of that town?

Essaouira.

Yes, that’s it. A very pretty name, for a sad place.

How much did I tell you about what was so … sad.

Not very much.

How much not very much?

Are you sure you want to do this right now?

No. But I want to at least know what I told you.

In that case, the essence is this. You told me that you did not simply break up with this girl. She lost her life, and in a rather dramatic fashion.

“She” was Lu.

What?

Her name was Lu. Didn’t I tell you that last night?

No, I don’t believe you did.

If we’re going to talk about her I think we should use her name.

I agree. Yes, of course. But do you … do you want me to continue?

I want to know how much I told you.

Well, off the coast of this town there’s a rock that sits just above the water on most tides, but not the highest tides. You said that she, Lu, went out there one night, to put her life in the hands of Fate. If it had been a full moon perhaps she wouldn’t have gone, but it was a new moon, which doesn’t rise until the morning, so she wouldn’t have seen it. However, a new moon also brings high tides, and that was what happened. Her body was never found, but she was almost certainly swept away by the high tide, and you feel tremendously guilty because of how it happened.

Jesus! That’s a helluva lot more than “not very much,” don’t you think.

Of course, it is. I only meant that you didn’t tell me very much about Lu herself, or your relationship with her, or why she went out to this rock. So, while sad, and tragic, and understandably very traumatic for you, I don’t have a true feeling for the whole story. That’s all that I meant, but I can certainly understand how what we were about to do would have been disrespectful of her memory.

I shouldn’t have told you as much as I did.

Perhaps not. But it’s alright.

I’m still embarrassed.

Of course. But let’s put it behind us.

---

I could send for fresh coffee.

No, thanks, I should be going.

Please have a little something to eat. Just something light.

No. Bad idea, food.

I understand, and, well …

Well what?

Nothing.

You looked like you were about to say something, and then you stopped.

You’re right. I did have a thought.

Well, go on, then. When someone starts to say something, I need to know what it was. Was it something about the food?

No, something else entirely.

Which is?

I was just wondering, I’m not sure where this thought came from, but when we began talking, at the bar … did you expect to come back here with me?

No, I don’t think so. I think I just intended that we’d get a little drunk, you know, like people do in bars. I think I also intended that I’d let you try to pick me up, since you seemed to have an interest in that. And I definitely intended to let you buy me a few drinks, since you seemed to have more money than I do. Or don’t. But no, I don’t think I intended to go through with anything. Because of what happened. On the other hand, it doesn’t totally surprise me that I did come back here.

I got a sense of that from you.

Which – that I didn’t intend to, or that I did?

Both.

Ha! You’re probably right. I probably drank as much as I did to break down my resistance. I mean, it wasn’t that I didn’t find you attractive. I found you sexy from the get-go, and in a way that’s very different from the girls I’ve dated, and as I got drunker I told myself that I could really use some sort of, you know, release, I guess, if you’ll pardon the expression. You looked like you could handle yourself just fine, anyway. So I thought it was a straight, “You can use me for a night if I can use you for a night” proposition. I mean, was I way off or what?

No. And I would add that there was a certain air of mystery to you that interested me. Like the murder mysteries I’ve been reading, I meant to finish you in an evening. In bed. With the light on.

Ha! But then …you’re right, it wasn’t a physical problem. It was just that it would have been wrong. Even blotto. I mean, it’s only been – what? – a week.

This has been very difficult for you, hasn’t it.

Very. Yes.

I wonder, during the first part of the evening, how much was it about the flirting, and how much you simply needed someone to talk to?

Some of both, I guess. And I guess I knew that I might flirt too much, or talk too much. Or drink too much! Speaking of which, what’s that you’re drinking?

Bourbon.

Hair of the dog theory?

Not exactly. Would you like one?

Not before six.

A good rule.

---

Have you told anyone else what happened?

No one outside Essaouira.

The name sounds familiar. I believe I was there once, many years ago. You say it has a rocky shore, but the place I’m thinking of had a lovely beach.

It has that, too. The rocks where it happened are up by the castle.

Yes, I remember a castle, too, now that you mention it. And when did this happen?

Last Tuesday night. Or Wednesday morning.

And in the week since then?

Well, I spent about half that time in Essaouira waiting for, you know, for things to resolve themselves, one way or another. Her body was not found, but when I got what looked like a definite answer, I left. I hitched up to Casablanca to try and change my plane ticket, which is when I lucked into this cruise idea. Then I had to hurry down to Tenerife to meet your boat when it came down from Cadiz.

Why didn’t you fly home?

Well, for one thing, I wasn’t sure if I could hitch up to, you know, Luxembourg in time for my return flight. Also, when the agent presented the ship idea I thought it would give me some time to think about what had happened. With a plane it would have been, you know, you snap your fingers and, bang, you’re in New York. Talk about a rude awakening! I had the time, since classes don’t start till the 4th. Also, I got a great deal on the ticket. Some dude cancelled, I guess.

In fact, he died.

What!

Yes. Up at Mallorca.

Jesus! The dude died! In my cabin?

No, in the main dining room. But rest assured, it wasn’t the food, although I do hear that the food down there leaves something to be desired. It was a heart attack.

If I’d know that …. Oh, I don’t know, I guess I still would have come. But maybe you’re right, maybe it would have been easier to just shoot back, put it out of my mind, and deal with it later. I mean because it is … Jesus, whenever I stop and think about it I, uh, I … oh, fuck! There I go again.

It’s OK.

I don’t know which is the hangover and which is, you know, what happened.

It’s mostly what happened, I’m sure.

Have you ever had someone close to you die?

Yes, I have.

But did it happen in a manner where you bore some degree of responsibility?

In fact, yes.

Well then you can maybe appreciate what I’m talking about.

Perhaps. But I would also say that every situation is unique.

You got that right.

2

If I ask you a question to which you might take offense, would you be willing to listen with an open mind?

What kind of question?

Something about last night.

Maybe. I mean, I guess I owe you one.

You don’t owe me anything, but here is the question. Last night, when you said that you couldn’t – or wouldn’t – continue because of what had happened with Lu …

Yes?

Now that you’ve told me what happened, I can certainly understand that, as I said. But is it possible that it was the other way around?

What? That what was the other way around?

Is it possible that it wasn’t what happened to the girl, to Lu, that got in the way of having relations with me? Is it possible, instead, that you used not being able to have relations with me as a way to bring up what had happened?

That sounds like kind of a complicated and backwards way to bring something up.

Complicated and backwards is sometimes the path things take when the direct route is blocked or somehow forbidden.

No. I don’t think I approached you in order to talk about what happened to Lu. I wanted to talk, yes. But I didn’t intend to tell you about her death. I’m sure of that.

That’s not what I’m saying.

I better take five or ten more aspirin because you’re losing me.

I believe you approached me for the reasons you described earlier. But I wonder whether, at the same time, this other part of the story wanted to come out. You kept it from me at the bar. And I agree, I don’t think you came back here with the intent of talking about her death. But then the opportunity presented itself, and instead of one form of “release,” as you said, you reached for another.

I guess it’s possible.

I don’t think we’re ever quite sure why we do some things, but I also think it’s possible.

But why would I want to tell you? I mean, you’re so totally different from me, or her.

Perhaps for that very reason.

You mean like, “Somehow, because you despise me, you’re the only one I can trust?”

I wouldn’t go quite that far.

Ha. You’re funny. Hey, can I bum one of those off you?

I didn’t think you smoked. You didn’t in the bar.

I quit, while we were in Essaouira. I started again after, you know, what happened. Then I quit again, yesterday, when I boarded the ship. As a kind of penance. And now, well, here I go again.

I’ve quit many times myself.

Then you know how, when you haven’t had one for a couple days, they usually taste god-awful. But this one’s great. What are they, anyway? I can’t tell with the fancy case.

Dunhill.

I rolled my own in Morocco.

If I haven’t said this clearly let me say it now. I’m very sorry for your loss.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

---

Will you get therapy when you get back home?

I guess.

People don’t, always. Especially young men.

What, are you like a therapist or something?

Hardly.

But you’ve seen a few, I’ll bet.

Some years back, yes, I saw a number of them.

D’you sleep with any of them?

Yes.

Ha! You crack me up. But yes, I probably will get some help. It’s pretty expensive, I guess, but I could maybe do it with a counselor at school. I assume from your question that you think I should see a therapist.

In general, I don’t care for them. I have friends who’ve been dependent on therapists for far too long instead of taking responsibility for their own lives. However, in a case like this, with a trauma, yes, I think you’d be well advised to see someone competent.

I take back what I said earlier.

Which was?

When I said we didn’t have anything in common. I mean, it sounds like we feel pretty much the same way about therapists.

We may have other things in common.

Not too many, I don’t think.

Is it alright talking to me, Troy?

It’s OK. Why?

In addition to seeing someone when you get back, I think it would be good for you to continue talking now, while things are fresh in your mind. You’ve made a start, and that can be the most difficult part.

That would be quite the switcheroo, wouldn’t it. You start out thinking I want to use your body, and it turns out that all I need is the one shoulder. And why would you want to do something like that, anyway?

You interest me. I find you intriguing.

Like one of those books?

No. That’s just the usual trash one reads on a cruise.

Whereas, in my story, it’s real people who suffer? And die?

A fair comment.

Did you know that in Shakespeare’s time they killed people on stage. Literally. People would let themselves be killed to free their families from debt.

I’m not sure that’s true, but I see your point. There’s a certain amount of prurience in all of us, and there may be more in me than in most.

Not to sound too cynical, but are you also thinking that in the course of me telling you these things, and getting emotional, and sobbing on your chest, as I think I may have last night, it might just happen that … you know?

If that feels right, I wouldn’t be opposed to it. I am not sure that it would be a good idea under the circumstances, but I rule nothing out.

You know, I like your directness, I really do. But I don’t know about talking to you. On the one hand, I think it would be totally inappropriate to talk to you about her. On the other hand, I do find it hard to talk to myself. Maybe because I know all my little tricks. So I really don’t know, and on top of everything else my head is not in the greatest shape.

Understood. Let’s set the question aside for the moment. What would you say to some lunch?

Here? In the, uh, spider’s nest?

No. I could use some fresh air, and perhaps you could, as well. I was thinking of the café by the adult-only pool.

Don’t you think that after the scene in the bar last night the adults, as you call them, might look at us like – I mean look at me – like I was your trophy.

Even though you’re not.

People will assume I am. I mean, just look at the timing. They’ll assume that we did it five times last night and three more this morning, me being such a young stud and all.

Could you not stand their thoughts?

You know, if I really was your trophy, definitely not. But since I’m still a free man, maybe. Though I’d need to change and clean up.

I have a few things to do as well. What would you say to 2:00?

OK to the free lunch. But that will probably be the end of this … of whatever it is.

If so, it will be a more dignified ending.

Deal. 2:00. By the pool.

Just ask for my table.

You have a reserved table?

I always eat at the same time. So they hold it for me.

OK. And what’s your … your full name?

Elza. Elza Reyes.

Right, Reyes, with two syllables. Sorry I didn’t remember that.

No need to be sorry.

And I’m Troy. Troy McAllister.

Yes, I know.

3

I’m pleased you came. I wasn’t sure you would.

I wasn’t either. And you know, if I’d showed up by myself even one minute after 2:00, I’m about nine hundred percent sure that that skinny fellow in the white jacket would have pointed to the sign and told me I was five minutes too late. You know, “Sorry, but lunch is only served until 2:00, sir.” But they seem delighted to break the rules for you.

They hope it will result in a larger gratuity.

Look, I have to tell you something. I actually got here a little before 2:00. I came right after the mini-muster they made me do as a new passenger. In case we hit an ice berg in the middle of the summer. You weren’t here yet, but instead of sitting alone at your table like a, you know, a special delivery package, I waited for you to show up. So I saw you walk over just now and, uh …

You hadn’t noticed before?

Actually, no, I hadn’t.

Not in the bar?

I don’t think you got up the whole time.

What about after you met me outside? And we walked to my stateroom?

I noticed that you had a cane, and you limped, but I thought you’d just sprained your ankle playing shuffleboard or something. Not that I was thinking really analytically last night.

What about this morning?

You hide it very well.

I make no particular effort to do so.

How bad is it?

The one leg is fine, but the other’s not much use. One doctor suggested replacing it with a prosthetic.

Jesus. What happened?

A car accident.

Were you the driver?

What makes you say that?

Well, it’s your left leg. If you were hit on that side – I mean it could have happened that way, if you were the driver.

I was the driver, you’re right. But we were not hit by another car. I drove off the road.

Was anyone else hurt?

Yes.

The way you say that, did someone … die?

Yes. My second husband.

Jesus. Had you been drinking?

What would be your guess, Troy?

Sorry, an insensitive question.

But a fair one. It was my fault. I accept that, and I have had to live with it.

Did this happen like a long time ago?

Fifteen years. No, it’s been more like twenty years now.

Jesus, I’m sorry.

About the accident, or my leg?

Both, I guess. And I’m sorry I didn’t notice.

Would it have changed anything if you had noticed?

You mean in the bar?

Or later?

You don’t think I stopped because of that?

It wouldn’t be the first time.

No, it wasn’t that. If I had noticed, it wouldn’t have changed anything. I mean, I guess it would have been different, even a little weird, to be perfectly honest, but no, I don’t think it wouldn’t have, you know, prevented anything. Or would it have?

No, the rest of me is OK.

Jesus, I didn’t mean it that way.

Does it change anything now, Troy? I ask that question because it feels like it does.

In a small way, perhaps.

How so?

Not in a bad way. If anything, I think it makes you more approachable.

Am I that intimidating otherwise?

Maybe not to your peers, but to me, yes. I mean, you’re way older than I am. And, I don’t know why, but I find women with dark hair scary.

Mine’s gone rather gray.

That doesn’t change the fact that you have dark hair. The gray actually makes it stronger, somehow. And none of the girls I’ve dated have worn much lipstick. Maybe for some big event, but not in broad daylight. And I’m guessing you’re rich and powerful, too. Are you?

Which?

Are you very rich? I mean that’s a good-sized diamond, and it looks real.

It is real. But “very rich?” No, I wouldn’t say that. But “rather rich,” perhaps.

You live in New York, I think you said.

For the most part.

What do you do down there?

I purchase art and antiquities. But not in New York. Abroad.

Is that what you were doing in Spain?

Yes.

Is it your money?

My, you’re full of questions.

It’s a form of defense, I think. When I’m nervous I talk a lot.

It was my father’s money, originally, though his fortune has diminished under my care.

Are you married now?

Yes.

But he’s back in New York?

At the moment I believe he is in the Caribbean.

What does he do?

He sails.

Is this number two? Or are you up to like five or six by now?

In fact, he’s number three.

Ha! Knew it! And he’s not the jealous type?

Something like that.

---

Is that all you’re going to eat?

Yes, would you like any of it?

I’ve always hated to see good food wasted, and I hate it even more after the places I’ve just been.

Help yourself.

Just a couple fries, if you really don’t mind. But here’s a question for you. I mean, since I’m so full of questions. I told you last night why I took the boat instead of flying. But what’s your reason for taking the boat? Aren’t you New Yorkers like always in a huge hurry?

My stated reason is that this is an excellent way to transport the artwork I’m bringing back, because when the provenance of a piece is “complicated,” the airport customs process can be awkward. The other reasons are that that I’m in no hurry to return, and I can think of few better places to practice my favorite pastime.

Which is that? Reading cheesy mysteries, or seducing innocent college students?

Neither.

No? What then?

Drinking.

Ha! You know, you really are a character. You’re totally unlike any of the women I’ve ever dated.

It’s possible you haven’t dated any women yet.

There you go again. But I know what you mean, and you may be right about that.

---

You’re feeling better?

A little.

Would it be my turn to ask a question now?

Sure.

You told me last night that you’d been reading Camus to work on your French.

Yeah.

You said you also read some Proust.

I tried, but the Proust was pretty tough. I had to look up every other word, and even then I didn’t always get it because some of the sentences are like three pages long.

There was one line from Proust that you liked very much, though. You mentioned it several times.

I know the one you mean. “La réalité ne se forme que dans la mémoire.” Reality only takes shape in memory.

You said – I’m not sure if you remember this or not – that that’s what you hoped to do on this voyage, to let the reality of what happened take shape.

Ahhh, so here it comes again.

You mean my prurient suggestion?

Yeah, I was kind of wondering when you’d circle back to that.

Should I stop. Or may I continue?

It’s OK. Go on.

What would you say is the central question you need to answer, Troy?

I don’t know. Maybe it’s like that riddle where it’s not the answer that’s important, but the question.

Is the question whether she died or not?

No, I don’t think so. I think it’s pretty clear that she died.

Then, is it the role you played?

I think that’s probably it, yes.

That’s what you said last night.

I did?

Yes. And the way you said it concerned me.

What do you mean.

You said that what happened has caused you to question, deeply, who you’ve been until now, and you believe that this will lead to a major change in your life.

Yeah, I do believe that. But is there something wrong with that?

I don’t remember the exact words you used, Troy, and it was also how you said it, but it sounded like a form of – forgive the expression – original sin.

What!

You said you feel extremely guilty about what happened, and you implied that you plan to use that guilt as the foundation for these changes in your life.

Is that a bad thing? I mean to make a serious mistake, where someone dies, for Christ’s sake, and then try and learn from it?

It depends on whether the change is a true change inspired by the events, or merely a penance. I think it also depends on the extent of your guilt, which is difficult for me to assess based on the small part of the story I know. On the one hand what you said felt very deep and sincere …

But on the other hand it might have just been the alcohol talking?

Or the guilt, regardless of how deserved it might or might not be.

Look, I don’t know exactly how I put it last night, but let me say it this way, now. Sober. Or pretty sober. I want Lu’s death to mean something. I don’t think she died for me, you know, like you-know-who supposedly died for our sins, and you could maybe argue that I was less to blame than I feel like I am. But I was there. I could have stopped her. And I didn’t. I don’t think any court would convict me, and I don’t think she’d blame me for what I did, or didn’t do, but it would please her greatly to think that she’d helped me to move in this direction.

Was a lot of your relationship with her about moving in a new direction?

Sure, I mean, my whole trip was kind of about that.

And how would you describe this new direction?

Well, not to get overly philosophical, but I’ve always been kind of closed off and disconnected. I tend to be suspicious, and a little cynical, and awfully critical. Plus I can get very angry, at other people, and at myself. But I’m beginning to see that those are partly just defenses, kind of like I said before. You know, to push people away. What Lu believed is that people need to not only be more loving, but to truly tell each other what they’re feeling, to open their hearts and let the world in, although in her case …

Yes?

I think sometimes she let too much in, and she kind of … I’m not trying to make a sick joke here, but she used this image a couple of times herself. She said that sometimes she kind of drowned in her own empathy. She took so much in – more than any one person could contain – that she’d feel herself going under.

She sounds almost too good for this world.

She was. She really was. Oh, Jesus, here I go again. Losing it.

It’s OK.

Are people looking?

I’m sorry, Troy. I’m very sorry for your loss.

Just give me a minute.

---

That’s odd.

What?

Weren’t we in the shade just a minute ago?

We may have turned.

Why would we turn? Isn’t it like a straight line to New York?

They make corrections to compensate for currents, and the wind. I believe the actual course ends up looking rather serpentine.

I guess that makes sense.

Would you like to go someplace cooler, and quieter?

Like your room? Or, no, I’ve got it – one of the innumerable bars on this floating pleasure palace?

In fact, I was thinking of the library on the third deck.

I don’t know. I think I could actually use a swim or something like that.

In that case perhaps I’ll get my nails done.

Sharpened?

You are feeling better!

I’m coming around.

That’s good, and …. I’m glad to see it.

You looked like you were about to say something else. Were you trying to decide whether to invite me to dinner?

No, not dinner.

Lunch but not dinner?

I generally meet clients at dinner.

Clients?

People who are interested in the works I represent and who, in at least one case, may make a significant purchase before we reach New York.

You have these discussions in the first class dining room, I assume.

Yes. But what would you say to a drink after dinner? Perhaps at about the same time and place as last night?

You mean return to the scene of the non crime?

If you will.

You’ll be there in any case, I’ll bet.

Undoubtedly.

Would it be OK if I just see how I feel later?

Certainly.

What time did I show up last night?

I believe it was about quarter to ten.

But you’ll be there earlier?

Yes, but not before six.

Ha! Well I may join you. Or I may not.

Understood.

And thank you for lunch.

4

You were on the same stool last night.

Frank holds it for me. But you’re not where you started last night. You’ve moved closer already.

That’s OK, I assume.

Of course. Good swim?

Yeah. Gym, swim, sauna. Then siesta. I used to follow more or less the same routine at school on mornings when I was a little hung over.

Which one of your parents drinks?

My old man.

Badly?

He doesn’t get mean. But he drinks way too much.

And your mother?

She used to, but not for a long time now. I think it gives her some high ground with him. Everyone needs a little, you know.

A little high ground?

Yeah. Even if it’s something ridiculous.

I agree. What does your father do?

He has, you know, a small insurance business. Getting smaller every year.

And your mother?

Housewife, basically.

Any brothers or sisters?

Not that I know of.

And you live in New Haven?

Not in the city, but far from it. And you, what part of New York do you live in?

The Upper East Side.

Of course.

Do you know the City?

Not really, but everyone knows that the Upper East Side is where the rich people live. Does your palace overlook Central Park?

It does. I’m not far from the Guggenheim.

And where do you sell your “art and antiquities?” I mean the pieces you don’t sell on the ship.

I have a small gallery.

In Greenwich Village?

God, no. Uptown. On Park.

If you buy something for, say, a thousand dollars in Spain, how much would you sell it for in your small uptown gallery?

Whatever the market will bear. But as a rule, I look to get five times what I paid.

Jesus! There’s capitalism for you.

Rare art and antiquities are difficult to value. Since there are few benchmarks, the pricing is sometimes as creative as the works themselves.

Not that you really need the money.

Not needing the money has nothing to do with it.

You mean it’s more about the winning or losing? Like when I play poker, the money is simply a way of keeping score. Not that I can afford to lose very much.

The money’s more important than that. But you’re right, it’s not the primary thing.

---

When you came in last night and sat over there, I thought you looked at once both out of place and rather at home.

How do you mean?

With your long hair and beard, and patched elbows, you looked out of place in this bar. There are other bars on the ship where you would have fit in better, and I wondered why you’d chosen this one.

It felt quieter. And there’s a bar near the, near my school that’s a bit like this. You know, dark and woody.

Perhaps that’s why you looked at home, because it reminded you of a place where you feel comfortable.

Not that comfortable though! I mean, that place is expensive. We do most of our drinking in our rooms, or in cars.

Do you drink much?

Too much, I guess. I mean, most everyone my age drinks a lot, or smokes a lot, or whatever, but the way I do it does feel more ingrained, if that’s what you mean. Like it’s in my genes. Not that I’m blaming my old man or anything. And how about you? You drink too much, too, don’t you.

No, I don’t think so.

But you like even drink in the morning. Isn’t that like the worst thing.

For me, it’s like putting on my makeup. It’s true that I drink steadily, throughout the day, but I never get drunk.

People don’t always know they’re drunk.

I do not get drunk. And when I drink, I do not become someone else. I become more who I am.

Have you ever tried to stop?

My second husband encouraged me to cut back.

But you fixed him.

Do you mean that I killed him?

Jesus. I’m sorry. That was très thoughtless.

Either that, or you’re very mad at me, Troy.

What would I be mad at you for?

For trying to make you talk about things that you don’t want to talk about.

Yeah, that could be. And, you know, you’re not the first person to notice that little flaw in me.

---

We started out talking about the statue of Christopher Columbus, didn’t we. Last night, I mean.

Yes. You told me you’d just joined the cruise, and you asked me if I’d been aboard the whole time. When I said that I’d joined the ship in Barcelona you brightened and told me you’d been there a few months ago yourself. You mentioned the statue in the harbor and asked me which direction I thought he was pointing, whether it was east, to America, or west, to China.

When I said I had no idea, you said that you were pretty sure he was pointing south, and you thought that was funny, that Columbus was pointing south.

I didn’t really think it was that funny.

It was just a way to start the conversation?

I guess. Better than, “Come here often?” Or, “Are you by any chance a Gemini?”

You had looked glum before. You cheered up during that little exchange, and as we talked about some other things, but then you clouded over again.

And you asked me what I seemed so unhappy about.

Yes. That is what you were asking me to do, wasn’t it?

I guess.

You then told me that you’d been traveling with a girl for some months – I don’t think you said exactly how long – and you’d had to leave her behind to go back to school, and it was rather upsetting, and that was probably what I was noticing. But …

But what?

From the way you said it, I felt that there was more that you weren’t telling me.

Did you have any idea that it would be as … heavy as it is?

I did, yes.

Really?

Yes. It felt much bigger than just the end of a summer romance.

If you’d had to take a guess at what it was, I mean last night, before I told you, would you have guessed that she died?

No.

What would you have guessed?

I would have guessed that she was pregnant.

Jesus! I wish she had been. Or, what I mean is that I don’t wish she’d been pregnant, but I wish it could have been something like that. Something that simple. I mean, relatively.

It’s very difficult, isn’t it.

Yeah. And it feels like it’s getting more difficult, not easier.

If I might offer some advice, don’t try to deal with it all at once, Troy. Let a small piece out, then leave it alone. And take it on again a little. Accept that it will be a long, slow process.

You’ve been through something similar.

Yes, I have.

---

Another?

Sure.

Tell me, at this bar near the college …

Yeah?

Did anything like last night ever happen?

You mean with, like, someone older?

Yes.

Just once.

Was it someone my age?

More like halfway between you and I. Or you and me. I can never remember which way that goes.

So, thirty-five, perhaps?

I was taught to never talk about a woman’s age.

Then you were raised well. How did it happen?

She was in town on business. Some kind of sales.

Did she happen to have dark hair?

As a matter of fact.

And you and she. Did you …

Oh yeah.

So you’re not that afraid of dark hair.

Well, hers was, you know, quite a bit shorter.

Young man, you do amuse me!

Seriously, I think maybe it’s some kind of an approach-avoidance sort of thing with me. The dark hair, I mean.

Are you a Psychology major?

No. Economics. But I’ve been allowed to take a couple course like that. I took Abnormal Psych and a seminar on Freud first semester. Also then a course on T.S. Eliot that I just loved.

Where are you in school?

Boston.

BU?

No, Northeastern. I went there because they have a work study deal where I can earn part of my tuition.

I see. And are you headed for Business School?

No, my father wants me to go to Law School.

Like him?

Right.

---

Do you mind if I ask you a question?

Like you suddenly need permission?

It’s just that I don’t want you to misinterpret this question.

Jesus. Now I’m really curious. Go on.

You said that Lu’s body was not recovered?

That’s right. At least not in the four days I was in Essaouira.

Did anyone see her fall, or jump into the ocean?

Not exactly.

I don’t want you to think that I’m doubting you. I just want to get a clear picture of what happened. Did anyone see her out on this rock? Or in the water?

Someone saw her on the rock, but he wasn’t 100% sure it was her.

No one saw her in the water?

No.

I see.

What do you see? Are you thinking maybe she didn’t die – that she just flew back to North Dakota?

Is that where she was from?

Yes.

In fact, I’m not thinking about her. I’m thinking about you, Troy.

How do you mean?

What I mean is that in a situation like that, many people, perhaps most people, would cling to even a slender hope that the girl was still alive, the way the families of the boys missing in Vietnam do.

Whereas I seem eager to accept it?

I wouldn’t say you seem eager to accept that she’s dead. But you seem willing to accept it.

You know, I did cling to the hope for as long as I could. I certainly didn’t want her to be dead, and not just because of my involvement, but because, I mean, why would I want her to be dead, especially someone as god as her. But there came a point when it would have just been total denial. Did I tell you that they found her passport?

No, I don’t think you did.

It was a couple days after she was lost. A kid tried to sell it to one of the dealers in the souk. He’d found it out on the rocks, and it was heavily water damaged, otherwise maybe the guy would have bought it. Instead, he turned it in. So, no one saw her in the water, like I said. But her passport had definitely been in the ocean. The police said there was no doubt in their mind. They said it happened two or three times a year. Not suicides so much as people misjudging how quickly the tide came in.

You don’t have to convince me that she died.

Then what do I have to convince you of?

You don’t have to convince me of anything, Troy. But I do think you have questions to answer to yourself. If you want what happened in Morocco to truly make a change in your life, I think you need to put it on as solid a foundation as possible. That’s all I’m saying.

I’m not sure that will be possible. I mean, there was a lot of uncertainty about what happened, and this isn’t one of those cases where you can just look up the answer in the back of the book, like at school. I wish I could. Whatever the answer is. At least then I’d know, for sure, what happened. And, you know, maybe that’s why I sound so willing to accept the fact that she’s dead, as you put it. Because I want a solid answer.

Would it help that much?

I think so. Don’t you?

Not necessarily.

Why not?

Because knowing what happened would not necessarily tell you why it happened.

I can see that. Yes.

Which does bring us back to the question we began with this morning.

You mean, whether I want to talk to you, I mean keep talking to you, about it?

Yes.

I’m still not sure.

I think you should decide.

Right now? Right this minute? In a god-damned bar!

Is there a better time?

What if I say no? Are we done?

With this, yes, though we can talk about other things. The Kennedy mystery, for example – I have more information about that now. Or the Tate murders.

Jesus, I heard about that. Horrible!

Indeed.

There were actually two separate incidents. Is that right?

Yes. There were the Tate murders, and then the LaBianca murders two days later. There is also Vietnam to chat about. And Woodstock, though I can’t say that I know much about rock music. We can talk about those things and then go our separate ways. Or we can have a fling if we wish. It’s all the same to me.

“Cela m’est tout égal?”

What?

That’s what Meursault was always saying in “L’Etranger.” “Cela m’est tout égal.” You know, “It’s all the same to me.”

It’s not all the same to me, Troy. I only meant that it’s your choice.

I could flip a coin.

If you like.

I’ve done that before, you know. If I have a big decision, I’ll flip a coin. But I have a special trick. Like if I say, heads I’ll tell you everything, or tails I won’t, and the coin comes up tails. Well, if I’m disappointed, that tells me that I want to talk to you, so I will. But I don’t think I need to do that here.

Because you do want to talk to me about what happened, don’t you?

I don’t know if I want to, but I think I need to. So yes, I will. As long as I can pull the plug at any time.

Of course. You’re the client, as it were.

5

Is it your senior year you’re going back to?

Yes.

You took a whole year off?

That’s right.

Why did you leave school?

No big, dramatic reason. I mean, no nervous breakdown or anything like that. It was just that I was going through some changes, and senior year I’d be taking the LSAT’s, you know. Or not.

Were you thinking that you might not go to Law School?

That’s right.

What would you do then?

As if there isn’t anything else in life!

Such as?

Actually, I thought I might like to write, or maybe become a photographer.

Would your father support a choice like that?

Sure. As long as I’m happy he’s happy. Mom, too. All they care about is my happiness. Ha. No, stop, put your hand down, it’s my turn.

Don’t be silly.

I insist. Let me get this round. What’s his name again?

Frank. But it’s hardly necessary.

I insist.

Put that away. He won’t take cash. If you must, just tell him your room number.

What, so you can sneak down tonight? Ha! No, I was just kidding. That’s how I can tell when I’ve had too much to drink. I start buying drinks for people and I kid around too much. Either that, or I start fights.

---

Were you traveling for the whole year – or more than a year it would have been, including the summer?

No. I worked for seven or eight months, to save up some money. Then I hit the road in February. So I was on the road for, what, about six months I guess.

What about the Draft?

4F.

You don’t look 4F.

Bad knee. I guess you didn’t make it down that far.

Please.

Sorry. That’s what I mean about when I get a little wasted. But do you really mind? I mean the flirting.

That wasn’t flirting, Troy. That was simply bad taste. But, no, I don’t mind flirting. As long as you either mean it, or understand, clearly, that you don’t.

I’d better stop then.

Tell me about your knee. How did you injure it?

I was in a car accident last year and banged it up pretty good.

Is that why you made the comment about it being my left leg that was injured?

Yeah, I guess we sort of have that in common.

Perhaps more than that.

Or not.

You told me last night that you landed in Luxembourg.

Right, because that’s where the cheap flight lands. $169 round trip on Icelandic, New York to Luxembourg. $165 one way, so the return only costs $4. That’s how everyone my age comes over. Except the rich kids.

Then you traveled down to Paris, I imagine?

Right. When I got off the plane in, you know, Luxembourg it was snowing. Just lightly, but snow, and it was colder than I expected, so I started hitching south, and the gravitational field of Paris kind of pulled me in. I got there right after the Peace Talks started.

How long were you in Paris?

About two months. Till the end of March, or the first week in April I think it was.

What sorts of things did you do in Paris?

Well, the funny thing is, I did pretty much the same things I’d done back at school. And with some of the same people. I don’t mean literally the same people, but other kids from the States. We drank a lot and, you know, hung out and talked about all the same shit.

Where did you stay?

There was a little dive on the Île Saint Louis. The Hotel Olinda. It was simple, but pretty clean, and très cheap.

Yes, the Île is charming.

What about you? Have you spent much time in Paris?

I went to school there. What you’d call prep school.

I didn’t go to prep school. Most of my classmates did, but not me.

Of course. But I came from different circumstances.

Right, your father had that fortune that’s “diminished” under your care. You said you were born in South America, but you were speaking German with that fellow at the bar last night. And your name – I mean Elza – sounds German. Did you live in Germany at one point?

Yes and no.

Which is yes and which is no?

Well, there are two versions of this story.

Mmm. This sounds interesting.

What most people believe – and what I’ve told people for the last thirty years – is that my parents, who were German, moved to Rio at about the time of the First World War, and I was born in South America. But the truth is that only my mother and sister and I moved to Rio de Janeiro, just as the Second World War was breaking out.

Your father remained in Germany?

Yes.

So you were actually born in Germany?

Yes, in Berlin.

East or West?

There was only one Berlin at the time.

Of course. Jesus, I must sound like an idiot.

I was born in 1923.

So they sent you to Paris to get educated and learn French?

Yes, in the 30’s. Right after the Depression.

D’you have a wild time while you were there?

I was very closely supervised.

Does that mean yes or no?

When in Rome.

Ha! And then?

Toward the end of 1938, when it became apparent that war would break out, my father summoned me home. And then, in the summer of 1939, just a couple months before the invasion of Poland, he sent me to Brazil with my mother and sister.

How’d you feel about leaving Germany?

I was sixteen. I wanted to stay behind with my father. I wanted to be part of the war everyone knew was coming. I believed that Germany had been insulted at Versailles and we needed to regain our pride.

But that was before you knew how far the Nazis would take that idea?

Yes, of course.

I can see that. I mean, I was happy to get out of Vietnam because it’s a bogus war. But if it had been 1939, or maybe right after Pearl Harbor was bombed, I think I would have wanted to be part of the fight, too.

So war is not all bad in your mind?

It depends on what it’s about.

I agree.

Was your father in business?

Yes. He was a banker.

From what I’ve read, the War was a time when people like him either did incredibly well, or got like totally wiped out.

He did very well. At least for a time.

Did he have to corroborate? Scratch that. I mean, Jesus, what’s the word I’m looking for?

Collaborate?

Right. I’ll be better after two or three more drinks.

Yes, I believe he must have, in one way or another.

So you were sent to Brazil in 1939?

Yes.

Did you fly in one of those classy old propeller planes?

Oh no, we took a ship.

Like this?

No, not at all like this. The idea of traveling by ship has changed entirely in the last thirty years.

Yeah. “True sailing is dead.”

Come again?

It’s a line from a “Doors” song. You know, Jim Morrison and the “Doors.”

Were they at Woodstock?

That’s actually a good question. And, you know, I would have thought so, but someone told me that they actually declined, and I kind of like that idea. Right or wrong I like it that they took a position.

You like it that they took a position that went against the grain.

I do, yes, though I don’t know the real reason for it.

---

You know, it’s weird that you were in Paris in the 30’s, because I was reading Hemingway when I was in Paris. In the beginning, anyway.

Which book?

“The Sun Also Rises.” They’re drunk all the time, as I’m sure you know, and we kind of followed their example.

Wasn’t that expensive? Without an heiress to pick up your bar tabs.

I didn’t drink in bars much, for that very reason. We’d buy a few bottles of cheap wine and hang out on the tip of the Île de La Cité – you know, that little park that’s shaped kind of like the bow of a ship. Either that or we’d set up on the walking bridge that leads from the Left Bank over to the Louvre.

Le Pont des Arts.

That’s right, though you pronounce it better than I do. Without the “t’s.” There was always a crowd there, especially at night. It was a great place to meet people from all over. We’d drink and smoke. Cigarettes, I mean. Or mostly. A guy from Amsterdam turned me on to hand rolling cigarettes. You save a fortune, and it kind of makes a statement, that you’re not smoking an Establishment brand.

Did you meet anyone special in Paris?

I was with a number of women in the early days, if that’s what you mean. Then, toward the end, I spent a fair amount of time with this one girl from Alaska who was an incredible gin rummy player. I’m pretty good at cards, you know, but she just ate me alive.

You’re better at poker, I would guess.

And you’d be right.

When did you start reading French?

That was also toward the end of my time in Paris. I’d taken some French in high school, and at college, but I was a long ways from what you’d call fluent. Anyway, I was hanging out on the walking bridge one night and some dude was going on and on about how this was the exact same bridge as in “The Fall,” “La Chute,” which is kind of ironic, I guess. I mean because there’s also a drowning in “The Fall.” It’s not anyone you know or meet in the book – it happens off in the background – but it’s at the heart of the story. Do you know what I’m talking about?

I read the book, but years ago.

Well, this fellow, the central character, I can’t remember his name, but he’s on that bridge late one night, alone, and he hears a woman jump or fall into the Seine. He doesn’t help her, and this haunts him.

I had it in my mind that she had jumped into one of the canals in Amsterdam.

No, he’s telling the story in a bar in Amsterdam, but it’s about what happened in Paris, years earlier, and it’s all a little mysterious. I mean he didn’t see the woman in the water – he just heard a voice. Also, he wasn’t even sure she was calling for help. You have the feeling that it might have just happened in his imagination, but the thing is that he didn’t help the woman, or even call for help. He didn’t do anything.

Which is a serious crime in France.

I think so. Non assistance to a person in danger. It’s super très serious.

And you feel that you did something similar in Essaouira?

I do, and my incident was a lot more personal. But of course I wasn’t thinking about that when I was in Paris.

What were you thinking about then?

I don’t know. Alienation, I guess. How I didn’t fit in. You know, the existential thing.

But it sounds like you did fit in quite well. Perhaps not with Paris, as a city, but with your circle of friends.

I fit in about the same way I did in college.

What about with the girl from Alaska?

Brenda. You’re right, I liked how grounded she was. I liked the image of that wild country up in Alaska, and how cold it would get in the winter. Like a purification, I thought. And I wondered if maybe that was what I needed. I didn’t drink nearly as much when I was with her. But then she had to leave.

To return to Alaska?

Right. And it’s funny when you think about it, how I’d come all the way across the Atlantic, to France, just to hang out with a bunch of kids from New York and Baltimore and San Francisco, and the person I felt closest to was this girl from Alaska.

Did you consider going back there with her?

I did, actually. But we were just pals.

You didn’t sleep together?

Sure. A couple times. But it was no big deal.

Really?

Right. In this case it really wasn’t.

And then?

And then, after she split I felt even lonelier than before. Kind of like Meursault.

In “The Stranger.”

Yeah. I really related to him. Probably more than one is supposed to, given that he shoots that dude.

---

Hey, I meant to ask you, what’s been happening in Vietnam? When I was in Paris we were like carpet bombing Cambodia, but then we announced some new “Vietnamizing” policy where the locals are going to take over.

Vietnamization.

Someone told me North Vietnam is holding a lot of hostages and kind of blackmailing us with that.

The blackmail goes both ways.

How do you mean?

We protested the treatment of the POW’s and told them that if they did not release them, or verify that they are being well-treated, then we would take certain actions. Such as bombing Hanoi. Is that not also a form of blackmail?

It’s a war. You’re allowed to bomb shit in a war.

In any case, their response to our threat was to essentially say, “Go right ahead,” which I believe that’s the correct answer. One should never give into blackmail.

That’s easy to say when it’s not your family who’s being held hostage. I mean, suppose the Vietcong were holding your son in Hanoi and they said, either you give me this or do that, or whatever, or else the kid dies. What would you do?

I would never give into blackmail. I would say, if you wish to commit murder and suffer the consequences, that’s your choice. But I will never pay blackmail. And if no one ever pays it, it will stop.

More easily said than done, I think.

Perhaps. But to answer your question, yes, we have begun to withdraw our troops.

I heard that when I was in Essaouira, but people were skeptical.

It’s true. I believe that the 9th Infantry just came home.

Were any POW’s released?

No. And the city of Hanoi has not been bombed.

6

I think it was April Fools’ Day that I left Paris, or maybe the day after. I took the Metro out to the edge of town early one morning and started hitching, down through Limoges and Toulouse to Perpignan. I didn’t stop anyplace, because I wanted to get right to Spain.

Why did you head south?

I figured it would be warmer.

Logical. But why the hurry?

I was ready for a change. I’d used up almost a third of my time and in some ways it felt like I hadn’t even started my trip yet.

I see.

It was certainly a different hitchhiking experience in Spain, and not in a good way. In France there had maybe been a little of that “personne en danger” mentality, you know, but as soon as I got to Spain I couldn’t get a ride to save my life. There was this one little town – Bascara I think it was, rhymed with mascara. A trucker dropped me there one morning and I tried all day to catch a ride. I slept in a field that night, with cows staring down at me in the morning, and tried again the next day. There was a bus stop just down the road, and the bus didn’t cost much, but it was a point of honor with me that I’d wait there as long as it took to catch a ride.

How long did it finally take you?

After 37 hours without any luck I broke down and took a bus to the next nearest town. Girona. It hurt my pride, but there was no sense in being an idiot about it. I met some kids there and they said it was like impossible to hitch in Spain unless you were a woman, and of course it could be dangerous for a woman. Nothing against the Spanish, because there are creeps everywhere. The ideal thing, they said, was for a girl to pair up with a guy. Then you’d get a lift and she’d be safe. Unless you were a creep yourself. Ha.

I couldn’t find a girl who was headed in my direction – there were only hunched old women in black dresses and I didn’t think they’d want to take off with me. So finally I took a bus down to Barcelona. The port was a popular hang out and I wound up there, as we talked about. Everyone was going on and on about the Balearic Islands, so I bought a ticket. Deck class, you know. The ferry left in the evening and we sailed through the night. There was loud music and no one slept. We got to Mallorca in the morning, then Ibiza. That’s not easy to pronounce when you’re a little tipsy. Did this cruise stop at Ibiza? I mean, after Barcelona?

No, it was Mallorca where we stopped. Palma.

And that was where the dude croaked at dinner?

Yes.

What’d you think of Mallorca? Otherwise.

I didn’t get off the ship.

No? Not at all?

I seldom do. For me, the ports of call are not the purpose of a cruise. I prefer the open ocean.

“Oed und leer das Meer.”

You speak German?

A tiny, tiny bit I’ve just been learning. But that’s a quote from “The Waste Land.” I took a course in Eliot last year that I really loved. I think it means, “Empty and wide the sea.” From a poem by Goethe.

That’s the right translation, but it’s not from Goethe. It’s from “Tristan und Isolde.” By Wagner.

You’re right! I remember that now! It was in the notes.

However, to your question, I have been to Ibiza on different trips. There’s a quaint square in the Old Town that’s filled with chattering birds in the evening.

I know that square, but it wasn’t Ibiza I stayed in. There’s a tiny town called Santa Eulalia down the road a ways, and just outside of Santa Eulalia, near the water, there was a house that a group of people shared. Not really hippies. Quasi-hippies.

How do you mean?

You know, long hair but not big beards or tons of beads or anything like that. Embroidered shirts, but not tie-dyed. No God’s Eyes. Pretty normal looking folk. The kids from Australia and those places were actually quite straight.

That sounds like a good group for you.

It was. I liked it there. I fit in a lot better than I would have with actual hippies.

---

And you? What were you doing in Spain? Buying art?

Yes.

Which parts were you in?

Mostly Madrid. I only went to Barcelona to meet the ship.

Is it mostly art or antiques that you buy?

Antiquities, not antiques. But both. In particular, Egyptian antiquities, and European art.

I wouldn’t think there’d be a ton of Egyptian an-tiq-ui-ties or European masterpieces in Spain.

Most of what I buy comes from elsewhere. It’s simply more convenient to purchase them in Spain. There is a rather good business in “importing” such pieces, usually by water.

Does that mean that some of these pieces had been, you know, acquired in inappropriate ways?

Do you mean looted or stolen?

I didn’t want to come right out and say it.

As you may well imagine, the idea of ownership can become fuzzy in time of war. Yes, some of the pieces may have been looted, as you say. Others may have been hidden to protect them. In some instances the rightful owners may have passed away, or disappeared. There was a great deal of confusion during the War, and where there’s confusion, there is often opportunity.

Suppose there was an old masterpiece – a Van Gogh or something like that. Let’s say it used to belong to Mr. and Mrs. Goldsmith in Amsterdam, but the painting and its owners, you know, “disappeared” during the War. Then someone offered this painting to you. What would you do?

If I were to inform the authorities, I would compromise my standing in the circles in which I work. I could say that I wasn’t interested, as I have at times. Or I could purchase the painting, as I have also done at times.

Jesus!

Do you think that’s wrong?

Maybe. I guess I’m not really sure. But, either way, you can’t just hang something like that in a gallery, can you?

Of course not.

So, is it a private person you’d sell it to?

Yes. There are some rather impressive private collections in New York, as you might imagine. How do you feel about that?

Well, if it’s like a masterpiece, I guess I feel that it should be public. Not that I’m a Commie or anything, but that just seems fair.

Another point of view would be that many of these works were privately commissioned to begin with – works from the Renaissance, for example. Most of them were created under a very private system of patronage. Even in your fictitious example, the work was previously the private property of Mr. and Mrs. Goldsmith. Now Mr. and Mrs. Jones have it. Is there a reason, in your mind, why people who have sufficient money should not be entitled to a private art experience?

I guess I could argue that one either way.

As with many things.

When you sell a “special” piece like that, do you make even more because it’s, you know, a unique experience for someone?

The knife cuts both ways, Troy. Because there’s no public market, I can obtain the work more cheaply. On the other hand, there are significant risks for the buyer. But yes, I do reasonably well.

So, is your father’s fortune really “diminishing” under your care?

I was perhaps too modest.

---

Speaking of parents, did your parents know where you were?

Nope. I mean, they knew I went to Europe, but once I was there I didn’t send or receive any mail. And I didn’t tell anyone back home where I was. Not even friends. Not that I have any really close friends back home.

No one even knew what country you were in?

Not unless my father had a private detective on my tail, which is totally possible.

And you didn’t follow the news from home, either?

Well, I did hear a few things. Like, right after I arrived on Ibiza everyone was talking about how SDS had just occupied University Hall at college, but I made a point of not saying anything because I didn’t want anyone to know where I went.

SDS occupied Northeastern?

What? No, what I meant was that …. I think it was actually Harvard they occupied, and Columbia, too. But there was an SDS chapter at Northeastern, and they were talking about doing something similar there.

Why wouldn’t you want the non-hippies on Ibiza to know you went to Northeastern?

It’s … complicated.

I’m reasonably adept at these things.

Well, the truth is …. Look, you know how you said that you had two stories about when your family went to Brazil?

Yes.

Well, I guess I did something similar, and now that this has come up, the truth is that I actually go to Harvard, not Northeastern. The problem is that Harvard’s crawling with rich kids, and I didn’t want people to think I was one of them, so I made up the Northeastern story, at least for while I was on the road.

But smart people also go to Harvard. Many on scholarship.

Right, but that’s not the image people have of Harvard kids. The image is that your father went there, or donated a building or something.

But not you?

I wish. But no, I was a good student and I test real well and, you know, with my father’s business a little on the skids, I guess we passed the needs test.

I can see why you didn’t want your friends on Ibiza to know you were a Harvard man. But why did you feel that you had to tell me the same story?

I didn’t. I didn’t feel that I had to tell you that. It’s just the story I was telling on the road, you know, so it’s sort of who I became for a while.

In other words, you told a couple white lies when you were on the road.

Yeah, I guess I did. But we all do that, don’t you think?

Yes. And sometimes darker ones as well.

Are you speaking about me or yourself?

I would never presume to speak for you, Troy.

---

The most beautiful thing about Santa Eulalia was the views of the ocean, and the coves with their turquoise water and stones that rattled when waves rolled in. I have some long passages about that in my journals. One of my favorite images, though, is walking into town, which was about a mile and a half away. On the right side of the road was a scrubby field with a few goats, but no fence. To keep the goats from wandering off, their legs had been tied together – one front leg tied to the back leg on the same side, with a cord just long enough for them to hobble to a fresh grazing spot. I thought that was cool, and it reminded me of a lot of people in our society. I also wondered if they varied it – you know, if one day they’d tie the right legs and the next day they’d do lefts, but then I forgot to look.

How long were you in Santa Eulalia?

Close to a month.

Were you with anyone?

I knew you’d ask that, but the answer is no. No wild sex to report. Sorry. Ma’am.

Was everyone already paired up?

It wasn’t that. I had opportunities to be with people, or to be part of a complicated threesome, but I decided to abstain.

Were you being faithful to the girl from Alaska?

No, but I was kind of being faithful to the idea of purity that came from her. I cut way back on smoking – just three cigarettes a day was all I allowed myself, and very little weed or booze. I ate light and healthy. And I took long walks by myself. I guess you could say I went through a kind of mini-ascetic phase on Santa Eulalia, like I was a bit of a monk, though I should confess that I did sleep with one woman. But not in the usual way, you know.

You have my full attention.

Ha.

---

Well, one day when I was in town – Santa Eulalia, I mean – I happened onto this hole-in-the-wall joint where they sold fishing supplies, and I bought what I needed to put together a sort of rod and reel. The soil was too dry to dig worms but there were snails crawling up the trees. I’d crack them open and use them for bait, and I caught half a dozen decent sized fish that way. Pan fish, about this size. I brought them home and everyone was, “Like, Wow, man!” You know, hunter-gatherer and all that. We cooked them up, and after that I caught fish a couple times a week. I really liked that – I mean having a primal sort of role in our little community.

The Fisherman.

Yeah, sort of. Anyway, there was this girl from New Orleans who asked if she could go fishing with me one afternoon, and when we were there she went in swimming.

Naked?

Right. And, well, I asked her to swim on the other side of the cove. Not be she was naked, but because she was spooking the fish.

I can imagine how she reacted to that.

She was fine about it. I mean she wasn’t a flirt or anything. Not like me. And then, after I caught some fish I took a swim with her.

But nothing happened?

Sorry. But when we got back to the house and our hair was wet but our clothes were all dry, you know, people assumed that something had happened, and they kind of teased us about it, and then we did sort of sleep together that night.

How does one “sort of sleep together,” Troy?

Like we did the other night is one way.

Touché.

Well, we were already sleeping in the same room but on separate mats. But in the middle of the night, that night, she came over and lay next to me. She was upset and she asked me if I’d just hold her, and I did, and I was worried that she meant the other thing. But after an hour or so we both fell asleep.

The next day she told me that her brother had been harassed terribly by a gang of white kids, and he’d finally committed suicide, like five years earlier. The fishing had reminded her of him because he’d liked to fish, too. We hung out quite a bit after that, and she told me a lot of things, and we slept together a couple other times, but we never had sex, and not because she was black – I’ve got no problem with that – but because she’d told me so much and I had become, in a way, like her brother. And it was soon after that I left, anyway. Partly because of her.

How was that?

Well, she said she thought I should keep moving. She thought I was looking for something, and she didn’t think I’d find it in Santa Eulalia.

Did she say what she thought you were looking for?

Sort of. She said she didn’t think I needed less in my life, like I was thinking right then. She thought I needed more, more emotion in particular. And it wasn’t just what she said, it was how she said it. And, you know, if we’d had a sexual relationship, I’m not sure she would have said it, or that I would have heard it as clearly.

Thank you, very much.

For what?

For telling me this story.

It’s not a story, it’s all true.

I mean thank you for telling me about Santa Eulalia. And the truth about college. And about the girl.

You’re welcome, but I should be going.

One for the road?

Maybe a short one. And a smoke, too, if you don’t mind, because who knows what they’d think if I rolled one of mine in here. That red faced guy looks like he might keel over. Hey, maybe I can get a bigger cabin!

---

May I ask one improper question before you go?

You saved this until I was loaded?

Perhaps I did.

Uh oh.

You’re smiling. But should I not ask this question?

No, I’m curious now. Go ahead. I mean, it sounds like I may not answer this question, but I’d like to at least know what it is.

In that case … you said you led an ascetic life of Ibiza, that you were a sort of monk, and you didn’t have relations with anyone.

Right.

My improper question is, did you masturbate?

Jesus! Is sex like the only thing you ever think about?

You obviously don’t have to answer.

How about you go first. Do you?

Do I masturbate?

Yeah.

Certainly.

I can’t say I’m shocked.

And you, Troy? I mean on Ibiza?

Yes, I did. Not fifteen times a day or anything, but sometimes, at night, before I went to sleep. But not when she was there with me.

And what did you think about at those times?

Mostly the goats. You know, the ones with their legs tied together.

Funny boy.

Sorry. But the answer is that I think about women. Or girls, you might say. I’m not into guys, if that’s what you’re asking.

No, that wasn’t my question. I assumed that you thought about women. But what I’m wondering is, when you are … at times like that, do you picture women you’ve been with, or women you have not been with?

Ha. You know, that’s actually a pretty interesting question. And I guess the answer is … I guess, usually women I have not been with. I never really thought about it before, and I’m not sure why. But is that what you thought?

I didn’t really have a thought either way.

What about you?

I think about men I’ve been with.

Does that mean that you haven’t thought about me?

Not yet, Troy. But since you asked, what about you? Have you thought about me at … those moments?

I was passed out last night.

What about this afternoon? After your gym and swim and sauna. Before your siesta.

I should probably take the fifth on that one.

I understand.

Only because it might get in the way of our conversations, you know, like it would have with Shawna.

The girl from New Orleans?

Right.

Does that mean, though, that you would like to continue talking to me?

Honestly, I have mixed feelings. And this little exchange didn’t do much to calm things down, you know.

I wasn’t trying to calm things down.

Alright the, yes.

Yes, you thought of me.

Yes, I did. You want details?

No thank you. But, thank you.

You mean for being honest.

For not using a little thing like this as an excuse to run away or hide.

I am tempted.

To run?

Yes.

But here you are.

Yes, here I am.

It’s getting late. Do you want another, or shall we continue at breakfast?

Breakfast sounds good.

There’s a terrace outside the Star Bar, and there’s never anyone there in the morning.

They don’t serve breakfast out there, do they?

They will for me.

Ha.

At about 9:00?

Sure.

Till then, then?

Oui. A Demain.

7

I like this spot better than the pool.

It’s more secluded. And not as bright, at least in the morning, when the sun’s on the other side of the ship.

You got here first.

Does that surprise you?

I didn’t expect it. I thought you’d always be a little late.

Is that how the women you know are?

As a matter of fact, yes. I’ve never known a woman to be early. Except my mother, who is never, ever late.

I am sometimes late. And sometimes early. But I’m never late on purpose. Or early on purpose.

You don’t play silly games?

I wouldn’t go that far.

Ha. You’re incredibly easy to spot, you know.

Because I’m crippled?

No, because you’re like the only person on the boat who wears black before sunset.

Ship.

What?

This is a ship, not a boat. You’ve said it a few times, and I worry that you’ll offend the crew if you keep calling it a boat.

You’re right, my dad told me that.

Does your father sail?

God, no. He couldn’t afford a boat. He does play golf, though. And, speaking of golf, I just thought of something. There’s this golfer, from South Africa, and he always wears black, too. Gary Player! That’s his name. He’s the Black Knight.

I don’t follow golf.

You know, I didn’t think for one millisecond that you did. I’m just making witty conversation, even though I lack your advantage.

What advantage is that, Troy?

Bourbon in the morning.

Would you like one?

No. But I could have a Bloody Mary.

---

What pulled you down to Morocco, Troy? From Spain.

Well there was, you know, like, a flow. People were either heading south, from Spain to Morocco, or if they’d already been in Morocco then they were headed back north, up to France, or Luxembourg, or even home. Maybe if it had been August, and hot, I wouldn’t have headed south, but it was only May. Also, if I was going to open my heart, like Shawna said, then south felt like a better direction.

I took the ferry in to Alicante and then worked my way down the coast, stopping for a while in Malaga and a few places like that. A guy gave me a tip which was that you should always have a pack of American cigarettes with you when you’re hitching so you can offer one to your ride, even if you roll your own, like I did. So I did that – I got a pack of Marlboros – and it actually helped. I mean, the people who stopped couldn’t have known that I’d have smokes on me, but it seemed to work.

Finally I got to Algeciras. On a clear day, you can actually see across the Straits to Morocco. It looks like a low cloud hanging just over the water.

When you came into a new town, like Algeciras, how did you know where to look for a room or to meet people? You weren’t using “Europe on Five Dollars a Day,” I assume.

Actually, that book is where Brenda found the Hotel Olinda. But no, it was like a network. Everyone you met on the road would tell you about the places they’d been and give you tips – the best routes, meeting points, good places to stay, where to buy dope, where to not buy dope, and so on. In addition to my journals, I had a notebook full of tips from people, as well as tips to pass on.

I’d gotten an excellent tip about crossing the Straits to Morocco. There were basically two ways to go. Folk used to take the ferry from Algeciras straight across to Tangier. The problem with that route was that the U.S. State Department had asked the Moroccan authorities to slow down the influx of dope smoking young Americans. The method the Moroccans settled on was to turn away any Americans who looked like hippies – meaning if you were wearing bell bottoms, had long hair, or a beard, or a backpack. Or no American Express card, God help you. If you were turned away, then you had to take the ferry all the way back to Algeciras. I don’t know if they made you pay for the return trip, but it was a hassle in any case.

You weren’t a hippie, though.

No, but I had a backpack, and a beard. And I was wearing flared jeans, even if they weren’t quite bellbottoms. Plus my hair was getting longer. And I used some hippie words, like “bummer” and “far out,” even if I couldn’t get used to calling money “bread” and wasn’t into, you know, “vibes” or “groovy.” I was kind of borderline, and I think in the manual it was written, “When in doubt, kick ‘em out.”

Anyway, the other way to get to Tangier was by the back door, through Ceuta, a Spanish city on the North African coast about 25 miles from Tangier. The ferry to Ceuta was much cheaper – 70 pesetas, versus about 250 to Tangier, I think it was – but the main thing was that if they turned you down at the border you didn’t have to go back across the Straits since you were still in Spain. I decided to take that route, partly because it made sense, and was cheaper, but also because it sounded cooler.

I took an evening ferry. In Ceuta I got on a bus for Tetuan, which was the first Moroccan town across the border. First we passed over the Spanish border. Frontera Espanola. SALIDA! The bus wobbled across a no-man’s land between the two countries and then pulled up in front of a shack, like a toll booth. We were at the Moroccan border. A thin Arab man in an even thinner uniform came onto the bus and collected the passports, giving the hippie types in particular the evil eye. He went back to the shack and was gone for a while. When he returned he dealt the passports back out, but not all of them. He held back the ones that belonged to the hippies, who were ordered to get off the bus and had to walk back to the Spanish side of the border. But I’d been told that that wasn’t a huge problem. You just hired a taxi for like ten dollars, and the driver could get you across the border, probably by giving half the money to the border guys. That was probably the main reason why they kicked people off in the first place.

Did you make it through on the bus?

I did it. And I was a little disappointed.

Really?

Yeah. Because it meant that I didn’t look like a hippie yet. Even though I wasn’t one.

---

A kid with bad acne had given me the name of a place to stay in Tangier. The Hotel Florida, of all things. He said it was cheap and fairly clean and there were a lot of “heads” staying there.

I got to Tangier late at night. I found the Hotel Florida and checked in, and about fifteen minutes later I got sick. It happened so fast that it couldn’t have possibly been the place. I must have picked up something in Algeciras, from the water. I had nausea, in waves, a constant headache, and urgent needs to get up throughout the night. If it wasn’t dysentery it was a kissing cousin.

The main things I remember about the Hotel Florida were the angel wing patterns of cracked plaster on the ceiling, and the graffiti in the bathroom, which didn’t smell great, either. Someone had written, “L’amour est comme une rose.” And someone else had added, “Mais il y a certaines fleurs qui seraient beaucoup mieux sans odeur,” which means …

I understand.

You speak French? Oh, right, of course you do. You went to finishing school in Paris.

Also Portuguese and Spanish.

Plus German.

Ya, e parlo dell’italiano.

Magnifico. Anyway, I soon became weak, and I was dead tired all the time. About the only good thing was that the sickness followed a pattern so I could kind of schedule my misery around it. I’d stay up really late – till like three or four in the morning – so I’d be exhausted, sleep till noon, or later, and then head down to the Petit Socco, in the Medina for some mint tea. It was a good spot to sit and read, or write, and I wrote about it in my journal.

Is that your journal?

One of them. I have like five. I brought it because it has dates and things in it, and I thought it might help me remember some of the stuff. Would you like to hear what I wrote about the Petit Socco?

Certainly.

---

“The Petit Socco is not so much a true Socco, in the sense that the Grand Socco, with all its shops and street vendors and commercial hubbub, is a bustling marketplace. It’s really just a wide spot in the road. A narrow street, whose name I can’t remember, snakes down the hill and where another street crosses it, making a four corners, and that’s the Petit Socco – like a rat the snake has swallowed. Above and below it are shops selling leatherwork, painted pottery, hammered copper, water pipes, embroidered blouses, and what have you, but the Petit Socco itself is mostly just two cafés.

The café on the shady side is the Arab café. Dark-eyed figures in djellabahs sit in the shadows sipping thé à la menthe and smoking. One might be perusing ‘Le Monde’ or ‘Le Petit Marocain,’ while another is whispering to an acquaintance, but most simply sit, motionless, with their hands folded in their laps. Their eyes do not seem to move, but you have the sense that they see everything.

By contrast, café on the sunny side– the Café Central – is flocked full of brightly dressed tourists, all chattering and preening and fluttering about like tropical birds. They compare suntans, titter about some little incident in the Alley of Thieves, boast with huge voices about the triumphs of their hometown baseball team, and continually check their watches.

“Between the two cafés it’s a perpetual parade. Veiled women with a child at each arm. English secretaries in bright, flirty clothes. Sunglassed Silva Thin smokers. Dead-faced dealers and their pale customers. Octo-lingual, tri-sexual, twelve year olds with cigarettes and JFK key chains dangling from their belts who change money so close to the speed of light that it always shrinks a little.

“A friend once predicted that if you sat long enough in the Petit Socco you would see everyone from your Kindergarten teacher to the priest or rabbi who, though not born yet, would speak at your funeral. ‘Why travel,’ my friend said, ‘when you can sit in the Petit Socco and let the world travel for you.’”

---

Lovely.

You really like it?

I do.

It’s OK, but there’s one thing I noticed it about it this morning, when I reread it, which is that it’s almost all in my eyes, and my head. There’s not a single color or smell or touch or taste, really. It’s not very sensual. Which is something I tried to do more of later. Something Lu urged. But, hey, I’m talking too much. How about you tell me something.

What would you like to know, Troy?

Maybe something about your life in Brazil? What was that like?

It was very much like our life in Germany.

How so?

Because we had the money to make things just as they had been. But then everything changed after I married.

Did you marry a Brazilian fellow?

I did, and I married rather young as well. Younger than you are now. With that, I was no longer a person in my own right, but only his wife. It was a very strict and formal role. This was a marriage that my mother had arranged, but I was the one who had to live it.

Was he wealthy?

Of course.

What was his name?

Estevon.

And he’s no longer with us, it sounds like, from the fact that there was a number two. What happened to Señor Estevon?

He owned plantations and flew back and forth in a small plane.

There was an accident?

His plane crashed in the jungle, under suspicious circumstances.

But you weren’t at the wheel?

No.

Were drugs involved?

I believe so, yes.

How long had you been married at that point?

A little more than a year.

I’m guessing you weren’t entirely heartbroken?

To look at me, one would have thought so. But perhaps not entirely.

And afterwards?

I was a widow. I wore black. Perhaps that’s when that began. I would be allowed to remarry, but not for some years, and only with permission from his family. And I would probably have to marry someone much older. In the meantime, I was quite comfortable. I had status and money.

Were you able to see other people?

Not in the open.

But you did?

What would your guess be?

Ha. So, life was not all bad?

That’s one way to put it. I had a large house and servants and everything I needed.

But …

Yes, the word “but” sums it up very well. Is that enough about me?

D’you have children with him?

No.

How about later?

No. No children.

---

I can’t say my life in Tangier was nearly as comfortable as yours in Brazil, especially the way I was feeling, but that’s what it was, and life went on like that for a few days and then, one afternoon, I’m sitting in the Petit Socco, sipping a mint tea when this tall, bony dude with sprung hair – kind of like Dylan – shoots in and sits next to me. As he does, he slides a ten dirham note onto the little table in front of me and asks, in heavily accented English, if I will please be cool and pretend that we are “two-guess-air.”

He was French?

Oui, cent pourcent. Then, still catching his breath, he starts talking about “fuutball” or something, but at the same time he’s hunching down like he’s trying to disappear.

A minute later a couple local toughs – dressed like Europeans, though, with pointy shoes – come through the Socco, scanning with their eyes, and looking très upset. Then one points down the hill and they hurry off toward the bus station.

Once they’re gone the Dylan dude thanks me and introduces himself as Marcel. I don’t think I ever got his last name. He’s from Marseille – Marcel from Marseille, which I always thought was a little suspicious – and would I like an OJD? On him. An OJD, he tells me, is an Orange Juice Deluxe. It’s pure orange juice laced with a couple shots of gin and a some mint leaves on top.

It’s not a bar drink I’ve ever heard of.

I think it was his private invention. So we had a couple of those, on him, although he paid with the ten dirham note I thought he’d given me for not ratting him out, and then he suggested that I move into the hotel where he was staying, the Pension Bonne Santé. He said he could get me a deal that would be a lot cheaper than the Florida, which he said was a “poubelle.” You know, a trash can.

There were a lot of people like me at the Bonne Santé, he said. And many young women he added, with a leer.

I told him I wasn’t in the mood for any women right now.

Also men, he said. And boys.

I explained what I meant, choosing my words really carefully.

Also lots of dope, he said finally, with a little triumph in his voice when I seemed to perk up. He might have even thought that I was a junkie because I’m skinny to begin with and I’d lost about another ten or pounds since getting sick.

When I explained what my problem was he smiled and said he had something that would fix me right up.

I said I could use a little “bonne santé,” so maybe I’d move down there. I say “down” because the Florida was up on the hill and the Santé was the other way. And, speaking of the hill, did you know that the hills of Tangier are supposed to be the body of the giant, Antaeus?

Of Greek mythology?

Right. Stop me if you already know this, because there’s probably some famous painting illustrating the scene that you sold for five times what you paid for it, but Antaeus was like a giant who challenged all visitors to a wrestling match. So, when Hercules came by on his, you know, his labors, the two of them had a go. These were to-the-death affairs, so Antaeus must have been pretty good, given that he was still standing. Hercules was no slouch, himself, but he couldn’t get anywhere with the giant. The problem was that Antaeus’ mother was Gaia, the goddess of the Earth, so every time Herc’ pinned the dude down, or threw him to the ground, Antaeus drew strength from his mother and jumped up fiercer than before.

Things were not looking too good for our hero, but then he had a brainstorm. He lifted Anateus into the air to separate him from his mother’s strength, strangled him up near the clouds, and then tossed the body down. Big thud there. And that’s how the hills of Tangier were formed. Antaeus’ wife was Tingis, and the city was named after her.

You certainly remember a lot of details.

I took notes, like I said.

Do you think you might write a novel about the trip someday?

Maybe. But the main thing is, when I take notes it helps me to notice more, and the more you notice things, the more you feel them. Lu believed that, too, though I hadn’t met her yet. Not for another couple days.

---

Marcel had told me to look for a piss-yellow façade and a large red sign with red letters – all capitals – that said, “PENSION BONNE SANTÉ.” But he said that behind the “PENSION,” in faded letters, like yesterday’s lesson on a palimpsest, I’d be able to see where it had once said, “HOTEL.” And that was right on. I mean that’s exactly how it looked.

You could see that the Santé had once been a better place. But now the oriental rugs were threadbare, the tiles in the courtyard were cracked and dirty, the toilets only half flushed, the paint was peeling, and the beds were swaybacked. It was pretty sad.

I liked the crowd, though. At the Florida there had been a few low-budget tourists mixed in with the rest of us. But there were no tourists at the Bonne Santé. It was all kids like me, give or take.

Marcel got a commission whenever he referred someone. That was his business. He’d been in Tangier for a couple years and he had a ton of little rackets going on.

Including drugs?

Sure. That was probably racket number one. He was on the street all day, and would invite people over for one of his parties and give them a taste, and next thing you know they’d be customers.

Was it the police who’d been chasing him that afternoon?

No, other dealers. The police didn’t hassle him, he said.

Did he pay them?

Not directly. The police wouldn’t take money from a European. There were local guys who he paid, and they paid the police. It sounded like a very orderly system. It was kind of like New York that way, or at least how I imagine New York is, from the movies.

What sorts of drugs did Marcel sell?

He said he was a dealer, and a travel agent. But not a pusher.

I’m afraid I don’t know those terms.

Well, a dealer sells kif, dope, and stuff like that.

And what is kif?

Kif’s a resin that comes from dope, or hash. Think of it as super marijuana. Meanwhile, travel agents handle, you know, LSD and things like that. And pushers sell hard drugs, to addicts.

What about opiates?

They’re somewhere in the middle, I guess, though that was actually what Marcel recommended for my condition. It was actually a prescription medicine but off the black market. He said it wouldn’t cure me – only time would do that – but in the meantime I’d feel a helluva lot better, and since I’d helped him out he’d give me a special deal.

Did you try it?

Heck, yeah. I would have tried almost anything at that point.

And did it work?

I was still sick, but I didn’t mind half as much. And then I met her.

You mean Lu?

Yes.

---

Did you meet her at one of Marcel’s parties?

No. I was just out on the balcony of the Santé one afternoon – the balcony that overlooked the inner courtyard. So, picture this. I’m sitting on the tile floor, leaning back against the whitewashed wall, kind of dazed from my medicine, maybe a little farther gone than that. Then she comes striding along in that breezy, lilting style of hers. I have to pull my knees up to let her pass, and as I do she looks down at me, and her dark brows furrow with concern. Then she kneels and stares deep into my eyes.

What color were her eyes?

She said hazel but I thought they were lighter than that. More like honey. Anyway, after looking into my eyes she widens the look to my whole face and says, “You’re sick.”

“Tell me about it,” I say.

When she asks me what I have, I say I think it’s some kind of dysentery.

She takes my hand, examines my palm, squeezes the tips of my fingers, and the fleshy spot on the backside of my hand between my forefinger and my thumb, which she says has something to do with my large intestines, then looks deep into my eyes again and tells me it isn’t dysentery.

I tell her thank you very much but the evidence indicates otherwise, and if she wants to hang around for a few minutes I’ll be happy to show her what I mean.

Then she tells me I’ve been sick for a long time – most of my life, actually. No matter how well I’d felt, even if I’d been a good athlete, which I totally wasn’t. Now my body is rejecting that sickness in an effort to make me truly well. It’s a sort of healing purge I’m going through. She says she went through the same thing herself.

What did you think of that?

Well, on the one hand it sounded a little crazy. On the other hand, my body was kind of purging. Plus I liked the idea that I might be getting better.

And she was cute?

At that point, cute was not really on my mind. But now, thinking back to her standing there, smiling and, alive, and the light in eyes. Oh, Jesus! It kind of hides for a while, you know, and then, when it jumps back out, it just takes your legs out from under you. I don’t know if I can really do this right now. Or ever.

I’m sorry.

It hurts. It really does.

It will hurt less once you get through it.

Maybe. But it doesn’t feel that way. It feels like it’s getting worse, not better.

8

Does the air help?

It does, yeah. And hey, this is pretty cool – your own mini balcony. That’s funny. We’ve moved from one balcony to another.

We don’t have to continue the story, though.

Might as well.

Please keep your voice low. There could be someone on an adjoining balcony, or a door could be open.

Sure. I understand. So … we were on the other balcony, the one at the Santé, and she was telling me that I was actually purging a lot of bad shit out of my body.

What did she look like?

Well, short to medium height. A little on the plump side, I have to say. With a cheeky, cherubic face. Brown hair that had been dyed blonde maybe a year earlier, so only the tips were blonde now, kind of like a halo. And a small mouth, pursed. I sometimes thought she looked like the cutesy star of that TV show, “The Roaring 20’s.” Who am I thinking of?

Dorothy Provine, perhaps?

Yeah, I think that’s who I mean. But I don’t mean to imply that she was some giggly little thing. She was sharp. She hadn’t been to college, but she was smart.

As smart as you?

She was smart in different ways.

Such as?

Well, I could spell patchouli, but she could smell it a hundred yards away. I remembered everything people said, but she noticed the things they didn’t say. She could tell you in advance who would eat the last cookie on a plate. Also, she read a lot, and not the usual stuff, like “The Politics of Experience,” or “The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test.”

What kind of things?

Now that I think of it, she was the one who told me the story about Hercules and Antaeus, because she liked mythology and stories like that, and more than just reading them she was into feeling the life of historical moments in the present time. I mean, she believed that the past and the present are only separated by a thin veil. The future, too.

What was she wearing when you met her?

The usual. Bellbottom jeans – or what Marcel called “pantalon patte d’éléphant” – and a loose, embroidered top. No bra, of course. She had a purple suede bag, with fringes, and around her neck there was the leather cord for a little beaded pouch that hung down inside her blouse, with her passport and money in it.

Did she have a good figure?

I knew you’d ask that! Her breasts were, you know, very nice. She thought she was a little too plump, but I liked that better than some skin and bones speed freak.

What about her personality?

Soft. She had soft gestures and a soft voice. Like a nurse speaking quietly to not disturb the fellow who was dying in the bed next to you. Or an angel.

Did you really think of her as an “angel?”

Maybe not in the moment, no. But later, when the fishermen in Essaouira called her “mon ange,” because of the highlights at the ends of her hair, and because of a certain radiance, I thought the name really fit. And it was kind of like that, you know, the way she dropped out of the sky and rescued me.

Was she also staying at the Bonne Santé?

No, she’d just come by to see someone.

Marcel?

No. A friend. A girl friend, I think.

And what happened next?

I’m sorry, but I’m still having a little trouble talking about her. I mean, in some ways it’s easier to talk about how she died than it is to picture her when she was so alive.

Perhaps I can guess what happened.

You’re thinking we were shacked up like five minutes later?

No.

You disappoint me. So, what do you think happened next?

I would say that she sat with you on the balcony, and you talked. She suggested that you take a walk with her and perhaps get some tea. You felt better after that. Truth be told, you felt better the minute you were with her. And she stayed with you that night.

That’s about right. But nothing happened that first night.

That doesn’t surprise me.

And by the way, it didn’t not happen in the same way that it didn’t happen between you and I.

I understand.

Since you’re reading my mind, I’ll bet I can read yours.

Really?

Now that I’ve told you that nothing happened that night, I’ll bet you’re going to ask me how long it was before it did happen.

No, I wasn’t going to ask you that.

Really?

Not right now.

What, are you going to wait until tonight, when I’m smashed?

Yes, that is my plan.

Ha. There you go again with the hilarious jokes. Is that really your plan?

We’ll see.

Assuming there is a tonight.

Of course.

---

Lu had a guitar and she could pick at it OK, but she didn’t have much of a voice. She sang from such a sincere place, though, that it kind of worked. I mean, because she didn’t try to sound better than she was, it sounded honest, and I think that’s at least half of it.

What songs did she play?

Beatles. Joni. And Dylan, which was a good choice for her because you could just speak the lyrics.

What were her favorite songs?

She liked, “Just like a Woman.” You know, “She aches just like a woman, but she breaks just like a little girl.” Do you know that one?

I can’t say that I do.

That line kind of says it all, anyway.

Where had she been staying?

I think she’d just arrived that day, or maybe a day or two earlier.

From?

Spain, I think. Like pretty much everyone.

After spending the night, did she move in with you?

Yes, but it’s not like there was a lot to move in. Just one backpack. Marcel spoke to the management on our behalf and they only charged us another dirham fifty for the two of us. And they didn’t count the first night.

Did she pay her part?

The difference was like thirty cents.

And you were getting free nursing.

That’s true. She started making me teas and things, and I began to feel better almost immediately, though it might have also been the difference between being alone, you know, and ….

And having company?

Not just company. There was a brightness around her. A radiance, like I said.

How old was she?

She said she was 21. But she was actually just 19.

How did you know that?

I sneaked a look at her passport.

Without her knowing it?

Yes. Do you disapprove?

Not at all.

I figured that my looking at it was no worse than her fibbing about it.

What else did you see there? How long had she been on the road?

I think it had been just a couple weeks when I met her. It looked like she’d started out in Spain, then came right over to Tangier.

What was her story back in the States?

I don’t know all the details because we didn’t talk about her personal life very much. She talked more about how much she hated American culture – how America was all about greed and power. She was anti-War, and anti-Business, and all that. But without being angry. She was a flower child, through and through. She’d been reborn, she said, in the Summer of Love. You know, ’67.

Had she run away from home, do you think?

Yeah, kind of, I think.

Where did she get the money to travel?

She said she’d saved a little back home. Waitressing, and also some massage. Plus an uncle had left her money in his will.

An uncle had left her money?

Yeah, I think he left some to each of his brother’s kids because he didn’t have any kids of his own.

And this money had come to her at age 18?

I guess. She said 21, but I knew that couldn’t be right. Anyway, she said she hit the road pretty much once she got the dough. I didn’t, like, grill her on the subject. I also thought it was possible, to be perfectly honest, that she came from more money than she wanted to admit and had invented the uncle because she didn’t want to seem like a little rich kid.

You could relate to that?

As we’ve already established.

But she didn’t appear to have much money at that point?

No. I mean no one did.

Except Marcel?

You got that right, although even Marcel never seemed to have enough, either. And it’s not like he was putting it into Swiss bank accounts or anything like that.

Did you say she was from North Dakota?

Right. I would have guessed that she was from California, but it turns out she was actually from North Dakota.

Nineteen is very young.

She was older than that in a lot of ways.

Do you mean that she’d been around?

Kind of. But she had a really young heart. And she was all about Peace and Love, like I say. If she’d slept with a few people it had been, you know, very innocent and natural.

How did her “flower child” beliefs compare with yours?

Well, it’s not like anyone who knew me back home would have described me as a flower child. I mean, I did think America had made some mistakes, and you couldn’t always trust businesspeople to do what was right for society as a whole, but I saw the other side as well. One of my professors told me I was a Rockefeller Republican, if you know what that is. So I wasn’t looking to become a full-fledged hippie, but I was looking to take a few steps in that direction. Anyway, I think I know what you’re getting at and you’re right – at a fundamental level she and I were pretty different. Almost opposite, you could say, like zig and zag. Or yin and yang. But she also said that at the core, yin and yang are two parts of the same whole. And they need each other.

Was Lu her actual name?

No. Her actual name was Lucette. But she thought Lucette was too formal.

And Lucy was too informal?

Right. Plus she kept getting Lucy in the sky with diamonds.

So, Lu.

Yeah. I think she also liked it that it Lu sounded a little Chinese. Not that she looked Chinese in the slightest, but she was into the I Ching and she’d read all sorts of stuff about that, and Buddhism, and so on. And, you know, she even told me – I think this was after Tangier, either in Marrakech or Essaouira – that before she left the States she’d done a séance and it told her that she would meet me.

How did she know you were the one?

By my hands.

What about your hands?

I don’t know, but she said these were the ones. And, speaking of that, soon after I met her, she did this incredible thing with my hands.

First she asked me which of my hands felt the tightest. It was my right hand, which I guess is usually the case if you’re right handed. She had me put it out, like this, and then she tugged gently on my fingers, one at a time, really slowly, and then let them fall back to where they were, without pulling any of them too hard. And after a few minutes of that, my right hand felt ten times looser than my left. Then she fixed my left hand. And after that she asked me to imagine what it would be like if my whole body could feel like that.

And what did you say?

I said that it would probably feel nice, but I’d be worried that I’d just fall asleep. The image I had was that I was kind of like a bow. Strung, with tension, I had the energy to fire an arrow. But unstrung, I was afraid that I would be, you know, defenseless.

And she said?

And she said that it was a false image. I would actually have more energy relaxed. And if I did have to fire an arrow, I’d be much more accurate.

Did you believe that?

I thought it was possible. I mean, I thought of some of those films with the jujitsu masters and all, and how they seem calm and focused, yet strong. I know that’s just in the movies, but, yeah, maybe.

---

What kinds of things did you and Lu do in Tangier?

Well, we talked a lot, of course. She was very easy to talk to because she was a good listener. Not that I was a good talker. We didn’t agree about everything, of course, but I had the sense that she really understood what I was saying. At an emotional level.

What kind of things did you tell her about?

How I felt like I always had to compete. To prove myself. And how tight I got. Things like that. And I told her that I had this theory that everyone who was on the road was looking for something.

Did you tell her what you were looking for?

Yes. I said that I hadn’t known at first, but then this girl I’d met on Ibiza had told me that she thought I was looking for more. Feelings. I guess because I was worried she’d be jealous I added that nothing had happened between us, and you know what Lu replied?

What?

She said that, to the contrary, it sounded like a great deal had happened between Shawna and I. Then she said that if I was looking to open my heart, I’d come to the right place, and I laughed again and said that that’s what I was afraid of.

And what was she looking for?

I asked her that, and she said she didn’t think she was looking for anything. She said she was just trying to get away. When she said that, I said that one thing I had learned from traveling so far was that you couldn’t get away. Not from the things inside you. Wherever you went, they followed you, and pretty damn quickly. But, still, certain places were still better than others, and certain people were better than others. She said that’s what she was looking for – a better place with better people. They didn’t have to be perfect.

Did that make sense to you?

Yes, but I actually thought of it a little differently. It felt to me like she was looking for a home.

A home?

Yes.

What kind of home?

One that was safe and welcoming. Like she’d never had one before.

---

There was some sort of party pretty much every night. Marcel would invite people over and turn them on, you know, to develop them as customers. He always had some different loser chick with him, inevitably someone who looked really down, or maybe it was the shit that did it to them. He’d take them into his room from time to time, but when they came back out they never looked any happier. It was pretty depressing.

Did they go back there to have sex? Is that what you mean?

That might have happened, but I actually meant something else.

I see. Did Lu use drugs?

She smoked dope and hash. And kif, of course. No cigarettes, though, which surprised me. She’d done some hypnotism thing and I guess it worked.

She didn’t use hard drugs?

Like all of us, she’d done this or that, but she wasn’t doing any hard drugs then, no.

And what about you?

Well, I’d been taking the “medicine” Marcel had given me. I mean sold me. But once I was with Lu I tapered off that real fast.

Did you smoke any … what was it called again?

Kif. Speaking of which, there’s an Arabic expression, “kif-kif,” which means “same-same,” or “it’s all the same-same,” though I have no idea what the connection to hash is.

Did you smoke kif at these parties?

Yeah, some. Which was a bit of a change for me.

How do you mean?

In college and all I was never really into weed. Too much of a downer I always felt. I preferred traveling in the other direction.

Does that mean amphetamines?

Basically, although I was never like a speed freak, either. I’d do pills or meth to write a term paper, or sometimes just for kicks. But I was more fond of alcohol, which I guess you can relate to. So this was kind of the first time in my life that I was smoking pretty much, and it was good hash. I mean it was strong and sometimes laced with this or that.

Did Lu smoke much?

Yes. I thought she smoked a little too much, so I suggested that we start skipping the parties.

What did you do instead?

Well, we didn’t have a television, you know, or money to go out to fancy restaurants, and Lu was a vegetarian, anyway. But we did go to one movie in Tangier.

Which movie was that?

“Romeo and Juliet.” The one by Zeffirelli, if I said it right.

Did you like it?

I think she liked it more than I did.

I’m not surprised.

I found it amusing how, when they’re in the crypt, at the end of the movie, and Romeo is giving his speech and Juliet is supposed to be dead, her hands are in different positions in different shots.

Did you point that out?

Not right then, but I did a day later and Lu gave me major shit about it. She was half kidding, but she said it summed up a lot of what was wrong with me. Not that she didn’t love me anyway.

She said she loved you?

I didn’t mean it that way.

She didn’t say she loved you?

She may have used the word, but not in the, you know, “big” sense that you just suggested.

In what smaller sense did she use it?

I mean, to Lu it was more important to love everyone than it was to love anyone in particular. And she especially did not believe in love in the possessive sense that most people used it – like if you loved someone that meant you belonged to them. Also, we’d only been together a couple days.

But she did have feelings for you?

Sure.

And what about you? What feelings did you have for her?

Kind of the same, but not as much, I wouldn’t say.

What about later, after you made love?

I don’t know. I’m not sure if it was that I didn’t feel as much, or that I just couldn’t describe my feelings.

But you did have feelings for her?

Certainly. Yes, I did.

But not love?

I don’t know what they were, or weren’t. I’m not sure anyone really does. Maybe I should bring a fucking dictionary next time.

END OF EXCERPT