The Diver's Clothes Lie Empty (7 page)

You stare at his face, memorizing his features: caramel eyes, a straight nose. You know that you might need him.

“Yes, thank you very much,” you say. As you shake his hand to thank him for his offer, one of the crew members who is indeed sloppily dressed approaches the manager.

The man speaks in French to the manager and says there's a problem. You can't make out much else except for the word
drapeau.
Your brain picks out a definition you didn't know you had:
flag
.

There seems to be an issue with the flag flying outside the Regency Hotel. You notice you're lingering, so you walk away and approach the concierge desk, where an older gentleman in a crisp suit stares out at the lobby as though he's standing at the helm of a boat, observing an unextraordinary view.

You ask the concierge for directions to the embassy and he unfolds a small map. He circles the hotel, and circles the
embassy, and hands you the map. You're relieved that the embassy appears close because you have no cash for a taxi. You will have to walk.

You step out of the hotel. No filming is currently happening. Men and women, dressed shabbily, are moving monitors around and adjusting wires while smoking dense, heavily packed cigarettes.

You walk in the direction of the embassy. The area surrounding the Regency is not much of a neighborhood; it's a grid of wide streets where people sell goods, many of which appear to have been stolen. You search absentmindedly for signs of your computer, your camera, still in its box. But this street is for the selling of stolen items that no one wants. An elderly toothless woman sits on an upside-down crate and displays a used and cracked asthma inhaler. A young man sells mix cassette tapes, their labels handwritten, some with hearts.

You walk to an enormous square and find hundreds of people gathered around. You ask one of the many guards what's going on.
“Qu'est-ce qui se passe?”
you say. But he doesn't understand the question. You question your French. You know you said it correctly. So you ask again. Still, he looks at you as though you should know.

Red Moroccan flags are everywhere—flying from every flagpole in the square, jutting out from buildings, hanging from balconies. You stand behind the rows of men in black leather jackets—they are almost all men—and a few children, who wait with eight-by-ten photos. You catch sight of one of the photos: it looks like a younger version of the king. Of course.
Le prince
. The prince.

Everyone around you is waiting for the prince himself.

Now you see a row of dignitaries lined up and you realize they too are there for the prince. You decide to remain where you are for a minute to see if you get a glimpse of him, before you keep moving.

You begin to feel stares as you stand there, the only Westerner in sight who's waiting for the prince. And the only woman. Where are the women? From your neck you remove your deep orange scarf, a scarf that you packed because it seemed Moroccan to you, or at least the shade of a Moroccan spice. You take it and wrap it around your head, covering much of your face. You dressed for the embassy, for the Regency but not for the street.

The scarf around your head cuts down on some of the stares, but still you are female. You wish you had an umbrella with you—it looks as though it might rain, and besides, an umbrella would allow you to hide. You decide to keep walking. It's almost 4
P.M.
and you assume the embassy closes at 5. You don't have time to wait for the prince. You consult your map: the fastest route would be to walk across the square in front of you, but it's now blocked off for the prince's arrival, so you make your way around the large city block.

The neighborhood is in disrepair—benches are missing their seats, or tipped to the ground, the sidewalks are uneven. Grass is spotty and rare and no flowers have been planted. The people lingering in the streets where you walk are homeless or appear drunk. They don't seem to be aware, or else it doesn't mean anything to them, that nearby hundreds of people are awaiting their prince.

When you're almost all the way around the block, it starts to rain—first lightly, and then thrashingly. You duck under the canopy of a storefront for cover. Two men in leather jackets sprint out of the rain and under the canopy as well. They light cigarettes. The prince has still not arrived. More people are gathering and the guards are beginning to prohibit pedestrians from crossing the street.

Barricades have been erected, indicating down which streets the prince and his cavalcade will drive. Throngs of people stand in front of the silver railings. When the rain stops, which it does as suddenly as it started, you try to continue on your way to the embassy, but there are roadblocks everywhere.

You cross one street and take a right, only to find a barricade that forces you to retreat and take a different route. You endure the stares of people taking note of your skin, your body. Even an elderly grandmother holding the hand of a young boy gives you a stare that says,
You should not be here.

You squeeze between two barricades and a policeman whistles. You raise your hand apologetically and move on. You need to keep moving.

Finally you make it to the embassy. It's 4:40. You're still wet from the rain. You should have brought an umbrella. A psychiatrist friend of yours once told you that a telltale sign of a mentally unstable person is she's never dressed appropriately for the weather. You decide to wait outside under the awning for another couple minutes to allow yourself to dry off even a little.

When you enter the embassy, you've never felt so happy to
see the American flag. You pass through the metal detector, and you're given a number. You sit in a folding chair waiting, surrounded by families and couples. You are the only one there by yourself. The room is small but regal, with flags and portraits. You stare at the photograph of Obama on the wall. He seems to care about you. Or is his look one of mild disappointment?

When your number is called, you approach window number three. An American woman in her forties, with a Sontag-gray streak in her dark hair, greets you. “How can I help you?” she says.

You find her formidable, and probably attribute more intelligence to her because of her Sontag streak, her streak of Susan Sontag.

“I'm an American citizen,” you say. “I live in Florida. Usually. My passport and computer and everything were stolen by someone wearing a badge when I was checking into my hotel. The Golden Tulip.”

“They were wearing a badge?” she says.

“Yes, but that was just a front.”

“Have you been to the police?”

“Yes,” you say. “They gave me another backpack that wasn't mine to replace my backpack. I mean, they thought they were giving me the right backpack. Or maybe they didn't think that. Anyway, I got the wrong backpack back. So now I have someone else's backpack and passport.”

“Why would the police give you someone else's backpack?”

“I don't know,” you say. “Maybe they were in on it.”

“In on it with whom?”

“With the hotel.”

“You're saying the Casablanca police and the Golden Tulip were in cahoots to steal your backpack.”

It sounds ludicrous coming from her mouth.

“Yes,” you say, suddenly less certain of anything, of everything.

“Can I see your ID?” she says.

“That's the thing: I don't have any ID. I just have this other backpack and passport, which I left at the hotel for safekeeping.”

“But why would you have someone else's backpack and passport?”

“Because the police gave it to me.”

“Can I see the police report?” she says. “With your name on it.”

“I don't have a police report.”

“You don't have a police report,” she says in disbelief.

“I have a document from them,” you say. “With a red stamp from the police chief.”

“Can I see it?” she asks.

You reach into your skirt pocket and extract the paper and unfold it.

It's blank.

You turn it over.

The other side is blank.

You feel your ears pop and widen, as though your sense of hearing will help you locate the document.

“I think I left it. I left the document at the hotel,” you say, speaking slowly, trying to calm yourself down.

“And it has your name on it?”

“Yes,” you lie, because you cannot believe you're in a situation where you have nothing with your own name on it.

“Can you get that document and bring it back here?” She is speaking to you like a child. Susan Sontag is speaking to you like a child.

“Yes,” you say. “I'll get the police document and I'll bring it here.”

“Bring it tomorrow,” she says. “In the meantime, do you want to tell me whose passport and backpack they gave you? They were American, I assume?”

“Yes, she's American,” you say.

“Her name?” she says.

You panic. If you give up Sabine Alyse's name you will have nothing.

You decide to lie because you have no choice: “I don't remember. I'll have to go back to the hotel and get that too,” you say.

She looks at you skeptically, taking in your features for the first time. You imagine her describing you to someone else, perhaps the police, the ambassador, the secretary of state, the president. He will be so disappointed.

“You said you're staying at the Golden Tulip?” she says.

“Yes,” you lie. “The Golden Tulip. I'll be there until this all gets resolved.”

She scribbles something on a paper in front of her, a paper you cannot see. You imagine it's a list of suspicious persons, people she and the president are disappointed in.

“What time will you be back here tomorrow? What time can we expect to see you?”

“First thing,” you say. You know you need to be agreeable. She suspects you of something and you need to be agreeable.

“Nine
A.M.
,” she says.

“Perfect,” you say.

“I'll take down your name so we're sure to have the appointment booked. What was your name again?”

She says this so casually that you know she suspects you, that she's trying to trap you. You give the name of a woman who helped you at the baggage store in Florida. You noted her name on the receipt. “Megan Willis,” you say. It's the only name that comes to mind. Megan Willis is the one who suggested you purchase the basic black backpack, and that, when you really think about it, was the first true mistake. This all started with Megan Willis.

You walk casually out of the embassy door, and once you've exited you move quickly. Fuck, you think. This latest lie will be yet another thing you will have to explain when you return. You have no money to take a cab or bus, so once again you must walk. You wind through streets and pass through a small square where several policemen wearing dark black vests surround two groups of people. In the center of one circle is a woman; in the center of the other a man. The woman is crying and she's pointing at the man, and though you can't understand what she's saying, you know some sort of violation occurred. She gesticulates, using her hands to show the way the man fondled her rear. Two policemen are listening to the woman and another is holding the man by his arm.
You watch and then, as though reminded that you too are a woman, you move on.

As you continue to walk to your hotel, you think of how fortuitous it was that Sabine Alyse didn't cancel her credit cards. And then you wonder why a woman who has a AAA card in her wallet and shops at J.Crew and strikes you as a fairly together woman wouldn't cancel her credit cards when she discovered her backpack with her wallet and passport were missing. You got the backpack this morning, so she's been missing it for at least that long. You canceled your cards within an hour. You contemplate what might have prevented her from making the calls you made to Vipul and Christy. Maybe Sabine is somewhere where she can't make calls. She's been kidnapped. You picture her blindfolded. She could be dead. And what if the embassy knows she's dead? What if the embassy finds you, and her backpack on you? Wouldn't they assume you did it? Wouldn't they assume at the very least that you stole her possessions?

No. No. This is madness. She's not dead. And you have a document proving the police gave you her possessions. The document is everything. And it's back in the hotel.

As you approach the Regency you see a line of people formed as though they're protesters, but they're not shouting anything; they're just staring. It's the prince, you think. He must be at the Regency.

But as you get closer and make your way through the line, you see filming is now taking place at the entrance to the hotel. You explain to a guard that you're a guest at the Regency, and he informs you that you'll have to wait a few minutes before you can enter. He apologizes.

You move closer to the entrance of the hotel and join other guests who are watching the filming. You are vibrating, almost jogging in place. You need to find that piece of paper with the red stamp. But instead you are forced to watch the filming of a movie.

The scene being shot involves a woman on an old bicycle as she rides up to the front entrance of the hotel and disembarks. Then she does it again. And a third time. Lights are adjusted. Cameras are pulled forward and back on a trolley.

You find yourself enjoying this. Its repetitions are soothing. And now you are sure the document is on the desk, in your room, where you left it. It's in the Regency, and all is safe within the Regency. The director says, “Cut!”

After the woman disembarks for the fourth time, she takes off what you realize is a long, dark black wig with bangs. Beneath the wig her hair is brown, like yours, and pulled back into a tight bun. You recognize her. She's the young woman you saw emerging from the hotel elevator when you first checked in. You had no idea she was a movie star. She doesn't look like a movie star. She looks like you: same height, same plain face. She disappears into the hotel and the bike is rolled out of view, back where it came from. Seconds later, another young woman is on the bike.