Who is Maud Dixon? Page 11

  What Florence wanted to do was prove to her mother that this Florence, the one she really was, could be great on her own terms: as a writer; as an artist. She was sick of being made to feel like she was falling short of Vera’s ideal.

  Perhaps this was a test. If she could cast off her mother, her reward would be the same as Helen’s: an unblocking. A violent unleashing of her talent, a torrent of brilliance. Her own version of Mississippi Foxtrot.

  Mark my words, Helen had said. I wouldn’t be a writer today if I hadn’t done it.

  Florence looked at her phone, glowing in the darkness of her room. She held it in her hands briefly like an amulet. Then she wrote a message to her mother: I’m going out of the country for a while for work. I won’t be in touch while I’m traveling. It was nothing final, she told herself. Just a trial separation.

  Almost immediately after she sent it, her mother called.

  She silenced the ring and turned off the phone.

  20.

  On Monday afternoon, Florence stood outside the Dunkin’ Donuts a block from the Forrester office, chewing on the straw of her iced coffee. She’d just taken the train into Manhattan from upstate. The closest place to expedite a passport was the US passport office on Hudson Street—which happened to sit directly across the street from Forrester’s building. According to Simon’s restraining order, she wasn’t allowed within five hundred feet of it, but this risk, she’d decided, was worth taking.

  She studied the building and tried to find his window. Was it five hundred feet as the crow flies? Simon’s office was on the fourteenth floor, so the elevator ride would take up nearly a third of that distance.

  “Florence?”

  She turned. Amanda Lincoln was walking toward her, smiling in amazement.

  “I thought that was you. What are you doing here? Are you back at Forrester?”

  “No. I have a meeting nearby,” Florence said automatically. She gestured vaguely toward the west side. The only thing that lay west of Forrester was the UPS plant, she realized.

  “Are you still living in the city then? You disappeared so completely we thought maybe you’d left.”

  Amanda was clearly fishing for some piece of gossip she could relate breathlessly to her colleagues upstairs. (“You guys won’t believe who I just ran into.”) Florence couldn’t imagine what they’d said about her when she was fired. She knew the story about the photographs had gotten out because Lucy had made a vague reference to it in one of her voicemails.

  “No. I’m up near Hudson now. I love it. It’s such a relief to be out of the city. To be honest, I always found New York slightly overrated.” And then, recklessly: “You should come up to visit.”

  “I’d love that.” They maintained eye contact in silence, each aware that such an outcome was absurd. They had never been friends. They were playing a game of chicken.

  Florence broke first. “I can’t put you up, unfortunately—I’m in a guesthouse that belongs to a sort of mentor of mine, but it’s really small.”

  “That sounds amazing. I need to get a mentor with a guesthouse,” said Amanda with a laugh. “How do you know him?”

  “Her.”

  “Oh, sorry, I just assumed.”

  Florence felt a familiar prickling in her fingers, the heat in her gut. She wanted desperately to humiliate Amanda. To make her feel ridiculous. Amanda had probably never felt ridiculous a day in her life. She dug the fingernails on her left hand into her palm. They weren’t sharp enough.

  “I have to go,” Florence said. “I’m going to be late.”

  “Oh no. Well it was so good to see you!”

  Amanda leaned in to kiss her on the cheek as Florence awkwardly responded with a hug. She ended up with a mouthful of Amanda’s hair.

  Later, in line at the passport office, she replayed the encounter in her mind. Amanda could report her to the police for violating the restraining order. Or to Simon. Yes, that’s what she would do. Florence supposed she could deny it. Anyway, she was leaving the country in a few days.

  She had never traveled farther than LA, where she’d flown for an audition when she was nine. Her mother had been giddy with excitement on the way there, then grim with disappointment on the way home.

  Florence had a sense that she, too, would return a different person, that travel would change her. Change is never a smooth curve; it comes in leaps and jolts, plateaus and remissions. And in the periods after an old identity fades away but before a new one is fully installed, there is a certain sense of impunity. As if nothing quite matters. You are not quite yourself. You’re not quite anyone.

  She was running out the clock on Florence, on the person she currently was. It was a pleasant thought. She was sick to death of herself. That was one of the problems of always being stuck in your own head; the outside world isn’t loud enough to drown out the constant monologue on the inside. The same shit, day after day. Does she like me? Do I look okay? Will I ever be happy? Will I ever be successful? It was like listening to the same song over and over every day for years. Didn’t they torture people that way?

  “Florence Darrow?”

  It was the man who’d taken her form and photograph twenty minutes earlier. Florence heard nothing. She was perched on a hard wooden bench watching an old woman fill out a passport application with a slow, shaky hand. Florence had a sudden urge to snatch the pen from her arthritic fingers and hurl it across the room. Tired old crone, she thought. How was she going to navigate customs and security when she couldn’t even fill out a fucking form? Florence’s body was rigid with unexpected fury. She didn’t even know why she was so angry. Something about the woman’s fragility struck her as offensive.

  She forced herself to look away and take several slow, deep breaths. She knew from experience that the rage would pass. She tried to put Simon and Amanda and this old woman she didn’t even know out of her mind.

  “Florence Darrow?”

  She had to prod herself to call out, “That’s me.”

  PART III

  21.

  They landed in Marrakesh with a violent thud and skidded into an unnerving leftward veer. They had been traveling for more than sixteen hours: New York to Lisbon, Lisbon to Marrakesh. Helen had flown business class while Florence sat in coach.

  As the plane taxied toward the terminal, the short Arab man next to Florence turned to her and said, “You see the wind in the trees there?” He leaned across her and pressed a well-manicured finger onto the plastic window. “It’s the chergui. It blows in from the Sahara. It doesn’t usually come this early.”

  “What does it do?”

  “It brings heat and dust.” He smiled. “And if you ask my grandmother, bad luck.”

  The plane stopped some distance from the terminal, and two men wheeled a rickety set of stairs up to the side of it. As soon as Florence disembarked, she felt it—the chergui. It whipped her hair around her face and into her mouth. Its roar was joined by the whir of the plane’s engines winding down. The sudden heat and noise had a disorienting effect on Florence. Helen, on the other hand, seemed invigorated by the hot, violent gusts. Her eyes glowed, and she smiled wildly at Florence.

  “Bonjour, l’aventure!” she called into the wind.

  On the tarmac, two men in fatigues and green berets cradled automatic weapons and followed the line of passengers with bored eyes. There were two terminals. On the right, an old, pink two-story building with a rickety sign spelling out AEROPORT MARRAKECH MENARA in both French and Arabic. Next to it stood a gleaming new construction, a swoop of shiny white plastic like an Ikea table, with a punched-brass facade.

  They were ushered into the second building, where the kaleidoscopic carpets and shiny surfaces could have belonged to any conference center in middle America. Florence was disappointed. She had expected something more exotic.

  Florence had never been in public with Helen before they’d arrived at JFK. There, the impatience and occasional severity Florence had grown used to in Helen’s temperament ma
nifested itself for the first time physically. She’d scattered crowds like buckshot while Florence tagged behind, trying not to trot. This aggressive efficiency was, in truth, a relief to Florence. She felt herself settle into the role of Helen’s ward. For the time being, she would take a respite from responsibility. She kept her focus on Helen’s back and blocked out everything else.

  In Marrakesh, Helen once again charged to the front of the herd of passengers shuffling from their flight. But in the large customs hall they encountered a snaking line containing hundreds of people. It bulged here and there with families and tour groups, as if the snake were digesting several mice whole. Helen stopped short when she saw the crowd, then changed course and made a beeline for a woman in uniform.

  “I’m pregnant,” she said to her in English with no elaboration. The woman shot a split-second glance at Helen’s flat stomach, then said, “Of course.” She led them to a shorter line of six or seven people surrounded by strollers and wheelchairs and crutches. Florence shot a glance back at the people who would be waiting an hour, maybe two, in the longer line. She was glad she wasn’t among them. She no longer wanted to be hampered by a petty obsession with rules. Something about it seemed vaguely low-class and pathetic to her now.

  Florence had hired a driver through the hotel, and they found him outside of baggage claim holding a sign that said WILCOCK. He wore a long dust-colored tunic over black jeans and Reeboks. He introduced himself as Hamza before guiding them outside toward a late-model Fiat in the parking lot. Again, Florence was disappointed. Though, really, what had she expected—a camel?

  They cruised down smooth modern roads, past floodlit billboards—many in English—and around orderly traffic circles planted with neatly groomed flower beds. They passed large, gaudy buildings with neon signs and elaborate fountains. It looked like Las Vegas.

  Finally, they approached the ramparts surrounding the medina—the old city—and the Marrakesh of guidebooks appeared before them. The walls, Hamza told them, had been built in the twelfth century. The clay was a warm ochre color that glowed in the afternoon sun. The wall itself was pockmarked with huge holes, some of them jammed with wooden struts. Marrakesh, Florence had read, was known as the Red City, because its buildings had originally been constructed out of reddish clay from the surrounding plains; later, the government required newer structures to be painted the same color.

  They drove through Bab El Jdid, one of the busiest gates leading into the medina, and above them rose the towering minaret of the Koutoubia mosque, carved with impossibly intricate fretwork. Topped by four gilded spheres, one on top of the other, it was visible from everywhere else in the city. As part of her research, Florence had learned that after the original mosque had been built there in the twelfth century, the whole thing had been demolished and rebuilt to correctly align with Mecca. Their hotel, Florence knew, wasn’t far from it.

  The roads here were more chaotic than the modern highways outside the city walls, but the cars, donkeys, horse-drawn carriages, and mopeds darted around one another without incident. Florence peered out the window. The buildings had a delicate beauty entirely absent from those in Florida, or even New York. The geometric carvings and colorful tilework looked extraordinarily labor-intensive. Florence loved the romance of it, eschewing the practical for the magical. Palm trees marked the facades with swaying shadows.

  After driving through the old city for ten minutes or so, Hamza stopped at a busy intersection and put the car into park.

  “What are you doing?” Florence asked.

  “We’re here,” he said.

  Florence looked around. They had passed several picturesque side streets on the way in, but this was not one of them. Music blared from a restaurant on the corner. The store next to it sold tires and car batteries. A dozen or so men were draped over white plastic chairs on the side of the road; to call it a sidewalk would have been an overstatement.

  “Charming,” said Helen flatly.

  “No,” said Florence, shaking her head. “No.” She unfolded the printout of their hotel reservation and showed it to Hamza again. She had chosen it after hours of research. According to TripAdvisor it was a “tucked-away oasis oozing local charm.”

  “Riad Belsa,” she said, stabbing the paper with her finger. “A tucked-away oasis oozing local charm.”

  “Yes,” he said agreeably. “It is a very nice hotel.” He stepped out of the car and moved around to the trunk. He handed their bags to a tall, thin man standing idly near their car. That man, in turn, tossed them into a large wheelbarrow beside him and started pushing it toward a narrow, poorly lit alley.

  “Wait,” she said uselessly.

  “I cannot go any farther with the car,” Hamza explained patiently. “This man will take you the rest of the way.”

  “This doesn’t seem right,” Florence said quietly to Helen.

  Helen shrugged as she dug in her wallet for a tip for Hamza. “I’m sure it’s fine. He had the name of the hotel on his uniform.”

  Florence reluctantly followed Helen down the gloomy passageway.

  “I’m not sure this is a good idea,” she whispered.

  “Panic is a waste of energy, Florence.”

  They followed the man with the wheelbarrow through the labyrinth. Every turn revealed another dim corridor, empty save for a few skinny cats slinking against the walls. Florence tried to look for street signs, but all the alleyways seemed to be unmarked. They’d never be able to find their way out.

  Just then the call to prayer issued from the direction of the Koutoubia mosque. It sounded like a sad, moaning lament to Florence. She looked up, but found that the walls were too high and close together here to see the minaret.

  Finally, they turned into a dead end and saw an elaborately carved wooden door with a gold plaque announcing it as Riad Belsa. Florence recognized the entrance from the photos on TripAdvisor. The man swung a large brass knocker, and the door was opened by a smiling, heavyset woman in a headscarf. She greeted them warmly, saying “Salaam alaikum, good afternoon, bienvenue,” and ushered them through a small courtyard into a larger, second courtyard surrounding a burbling fountain. It was filled with citrus and pomegranate trees with lush, drooping branches. The floor and walls gleamed with black, red, and green tiles. She seated them at a table tucked under a knot of vines and then returned with a plate of dates and two small glasses of milk scented with orange-blossom water. Florence looked around in relief.

  Soon a man in a three-piece suit arrived and sat down with them.

  “Good afternoon,” he said in British-accented English. His comb had left stiff ridges in his shiny black hair. “Welcome to Riad Belsa. I am Brahim, the manager.”

  He asked them where they were from and how their trip had been. Then he said, “My apologies, but let’s move on to the formalities, if you don’t mind. Then you can enjoy the rest of your visit without concern.” He slid two slips of paper across the table. “We need some information for the police. They require us to file these every night about new guests. We have taken the liberty of filling out most of your information from your booking, but you will need to add your profession and your signature, there, and there.” Florence examined her form. It was labeled Bulletin Individuel d’Hotel, and her name, address, and passport number were already written out.

  “May I ask what you do for a living?” Brahim requested.

  Helen and Florence answered “writer” and “assistant” at the same time.

  “Assistant, that’s very good,” he said, nodding at Florence. “But please,” he turned to Helen, “you must not put writer. The police will become very interested. They will think you are writing political articles or something unflattering about our country. They will ask us to tell them where you have been, what you have been photographing. It will become a headache, I assure you. Please, just write ‘sales’ or ‘manager.’ That is best.”

  Helen seemed delighted by the demand for farce. “Manager, then,” she said. “What should I
manage? A factory?”

  “Just manager is fine,” Brahim said mildly.

  “I manufacture cogs, mainly,” Helen went on, nearly giddy. “For boat engines. All seagoing vessels, really. If you can float it, we can power it…with cogs. We might need to work on that slogan, what do you think, Florence?”

  Florence smiled unsurely. She wasn’t used to seeing this playful side of Helen.

  “Just manager will suffice,” Brahim said again. “And you are staying for just one night, I see?” he asked, consulting his iPad.

  They nodded. The next day, they’d drive west to Semat.

  “In that case, might I suggest an itinerary for your brief time with us? El Badi is a ruined palace not far from here. Very magnificent. Well worth a visit. And you must take a quick walk through the souks. We will be happy to provide a list of the most reputable salesmen. Leather, jewelry, anything you’re looking for.”

  “Mm. Perhaps,” Helen demurred. Florence knew that she didn’t like plans being dictated to her; she’d found that out when she’d suggested a detour to the Atlas Mountains on their way to the coast. Helen had stared at her for an uncomfortable few seconds then walked out of the room.

  “I assure you it is quite safe, Madame,” Brahim said, misinterpreting Helen’s reticence. “There are dozens of plainclothes policemen in the souks whose only job is to protect tourists. They pretend to be drunks, lowlife types, leaning against buildings, sitting on the ground, but the moment they see something, they strike.” He clapped loudly, and the sound echoed around the courtyard.

  Florence raised her eyebrows. “Really?”

  “Oh yes. Everyone in Marrakesh is pretending to be someone they’re not,” he added with a wink.

  “I think we’ll go to our rooms now,” Helen announced, rising. She seemed to have abruptly deflated. Florence had to remind herself that Helen was not much more accustomed to international travel than she was. It was just past four in the afternoon in Marrakesh and they had been awake for more than twenty hours. Any curiosity they’d felt about the city had been blunted by fatigue and jet lag.