The Diver's Clothes Lie Empty (8 page)

The cameras start rolling but now it is this other woman with black hair who is on the bike, cycling up to the front of the hotel. She disembarks. You see that this woman resembles a famous American actress. And then it hits you: this is a famous American actress. Her face has been on the covers of so many magazines, and yet, even at this distance you can tell
she's more beautiful, more delicate, more bizarrely perfect in real life.

She retreats and a crew member walks the bicycle out of sight. A minute later she rides up again. Everyone on set is more focused, more engaged now that it's the famous American actress on the bicycle.

She does three takes and on the fourth take her foot falls off the pedal and the pedal spins and she laughs. A makeup woman wearing a short, brush-filled apron, rushes out and uses a wet wipe on the famous American actress's leg, removing any grease. Another woman who is so elaborately dressed you guess she must be from the costume department emerges from the side of the set and adjusts the right fold at the bottom of the movie star's pedal pushers. A crew member walks the bike back to the starting point. Then the movie star rides up to the front of the hotel again and this time doesn't send the pedal spinning. When the scene is finished, she raises her hands in the victory sign—she can ride a bike without messing up a scene! The crew around her claps, and she gives an exaggerated and theatrical bow.

You have read a few magazine profiles about this famous American actress and now you think that they haven't done her justice. In real life she is more beautiful, yes, but also very human, very funny. She is capable of making fun of herself, of her mistakes on set, and the crew applauds this. You haven't been on any movie sets before, but you are fairly positive that everyone on this set is in awe of the famous American actress, and everyone likes her more than they expected to. There's an earnestness in the way they surround
her afterward. The director approaches and puts his arm around her in a fatherly way.

Filming appears to be done for now, at this location at least. The famous American actress is ushered into the Regency, but a transformation has occurred: she's no longer a girl biking up to the entrance of a hotel; she's an American movie star once more, and now she's surrounded by two men who, if you're not mistaken, must be her bodyguards. They whisk her past the onlookers in the lobby and into an elevator that is miraculously waiting. Is there a third bodyguard inside who timed it so that the doors would open just when she appeared? The swiftness with which she enters the lobby and is lifted up to what is surely the best room is so well orchestrated it makes everything that happened on the film set look like it was done by amateurs—shabbily dressed amateurs.

You take the next elevator to your room. You can picture the document on the desk. You made copies and brought them back to your room, right? You cannot remember the order of the settings of the day's events: embassy, business center, police station, Golden Tulip, Regency. They're just images on a scattered deck of cards.

A bottle of champagne sits in a bucket of ice on your desk. You read the card, which is addressed to Sabine. “Wishing you a pleasant stay,” the card says. “Warmly, your grateful manager.”

You search the desk for the document. It's not on the desk. It's not near the desk, under the desk. You throw the comforter
from the bed. You open and close the curtains. You look behind the television, in the closets, in your suitcase. It's not in the room.

You sit in the desk chair defeated. You eye the champagne. You want a glass to calm your nerves. You struggle with the cork. There's something wrong. You turn the cork toward you and study it. You pull at it and it hits you in the chest and the champagne follows, dampening your blouse and skirt.

“Jesus!” you say aloud. You hold your hand to your chest. You feel like you've been shot. Your hands are sticky and your clothes are wet. You can smell the dried rose scent of the champagne on your scarf, and you untangle it from your neck. Your blouse clings to your skin as you take it off, and you unzip your skirt and let it drop to the floor. You rummage through your suitcase for whatever is available and easy. You pull on a dull, wrinkled T-shirt, some black spandex exercise pants.

You try to think. A phone rings in the room next to yours. You remember the man and his annoying cell phone ring at the business center. That's where you left the original. It must still be there. You slide on your sneakers and pick up your key card.

The elevator ride is interminable. It seems to stop at every floor to let in another hotel guest. The guests are inevitably well dressed, and carry suitcases or purses of fine leather. The purses are bright-colored citron or red; gold Chanel or Hermès logos dangle from their zippers.

You should never have bought a simple black backpack.
You should have picked a fluorescent knockoff Hermès bag with metallic charms hanging from its multiple zippers. Then the thief would never have been able to walk out of the hotel so casually, the black unisex backpack flung over his shoulder.

You exit the elevator and go straight to the business center. You lift up the top of the copier. No paper is inside. You check the mouth of the machine for the copy.

Nothing. You never pressed copy. Or did you? You made one copy but it was blank. You turned over the police report. The man with the phone distracted you. And you left. Now the police report is gone.

You flee the business center; the door slams behind you.

You approach reception, and the long-haired woman standing behind the desk says, “Are you looking for the fitness center?”

“No,” you say, confused, until you understand that the only possible explanation for your attire is that you're going to work out.

“Actually,” you say, because saying that word calms you down, makes you not—you hope—come across as frantic as you feel. “By mistake I left a very important document in the copy machine earlier today, and now it's not there.”

“You are sure you left it there?”

“Yes,” you say. “Has anyone turned anything in?”

“I don't think so,” the long-haired woman says. She rummages below the reception desk. “Nothing here.”

She calls over to a short-haired woman working one computer
down from her. The short-haired woman looks at the desk area around her and shrugs.

“No,” says the long-haired woman. “Nothing's been turned in.”

“Is there a lost and found?” you ask.

“A what?”

“A place that people put things that are lost? So other guests can find them?”

“This is that place,” says the woman.

“What about housekeeping?” you say. “Do they clean the business center?”

“Yes, but they shouldn't take anything.” Before you have to ask her to do so, she calls housekeeping. You feel she's on your side.

She speaks in Arabic and waits. She moves the phone away from her mouth. “They're checking,” she tells you.

You wait for two minutes while they check.

She speaks into the phone and hangs up.

“No, nothing,” she says.

You go back into the business center and look at each computer station. You peer under the lid of the photocopier: nothing.

You pass by the woman working at the currency-exchange booth. You have an idea.

You approach the glass window. “Have you seen anyone come out of the business center carrying papers this afternoon?”

“Pardonnez-moi?”
she says, leaning in closer to the glass.

You repeat yourself, speaking louder.

“You are asking me if anyone left the business center carrying papers?”

“Yes,” you say.

“Everyone leaves the business center carrying papers. That is where they print their papers.”

You have never liked the currency-exchange woman and now you actively loathe her.

You decide to find the manager. He knows you and will understand your predicament.

You walk to the front of the hotel, where he is in conversation with the sloppily dressed crew member again. He does not look pleased. The crew member looks more shabbily dressed now than he did earlier.

You stand near them, lingering. The manager must feel your gaze because he looks up.

“The fitness center is that way,” he says, and points.

“Thank you,” you say. “I actually need help with something else.”

“One moment, please,” he says, and continues a heated negotiation with the crew member.

“You cannot film in the lobby on Monday,” the manager says. “We have a very important conference checking in on Monday and your film crew cannot be the first thing they see when they enter the Regency.”

The crew member starts to protest.

“You can do it Tuesday, but not Monday,” the manager says. “We will have explained the situation and the relaxed dress code to our guests by then.”

The conversation ends and it's your turn.

“Thank you for the champagne,” you say.

He stares at you, evidently not recognizing you in your spandex.

“You had champagne sent to my room.”

“Oh, yes,” he says. He seems to be questioning why he bothered.

“I have a bit of a situation,” you say. “My belongings were stolen at the Golden Tulip yesterday. I was originally supposed to stay there.”

“You were going to stay there instead of here?” He questions your judgment, your taste, your budget. Your wrinkled and faded gym attire isn't helping.

“Yes, and my backpack was stolen and I went to the police station and they gave me a report with a red stamp. A very important red stamp. I went to make copies in the business center and I must have left it behind because I don't have it now. I'm so tired. I just arrived yesterday and so much has happened . . .”

“You are looking for a piece of paper?” he says.

“Yes.”

“What is your name again?”

You give him Sabine's name.

“If we find a piece of paper with your name on it, we will call you immediately,” he tells you.

Back in your room you check the champagne bottle to see if there's anything left. A quarter of the bottle. You fill your glass and finish it quickly.

Your thoughts become slower, more orderly. You lied to the embassy woman. You told her you were Megan Willis.
You told her you had a document from the police, but now you don't. It seems impossible to go back to the embassy without your own identification, with only the possessions of Sabine Alyse. And having given Susan Sontag a fabricated name. But without the embassy what can you do? You cannot return to the police station: when the police chief pressed his warted thumb into your thumb you knew he was saying that you were to never see each other again. You doubt he will defend you if you return to the station. You will have to continue to be Sabine Alyse, here at the Regency. You will have to eat here, charge everything to the room. But how long will that last? How long before Sabine Alyse's credit-card charges are traced to you?

You stand in front of the window, looking out at Casablanca as it presents itself below. A modern tram snakes through the city. You pour yourself the last of the champagne and stare out at the clock in the distance: it's 10
P.M.
You stop noticing anything new. You simply focus on the patterns pedestrians make as they crisscross through the square below. Unlike your sister, whose brain is a beehive, and who has excelled at continuously plotting her next step, you have always been good at staring out of windows for long periods of time. You try not to calculate how much of your life you have wasted doing exactly what you are doing now.

In the morning you shower and wash your hair, using the small hotel bottles. Yesterday they made you smell like someone else but today they smell like you. At home you wear
something floral. This new scent you've adopted smells of tangerines and honey. The robe is back on a hanger, its sash tied at the waist once more. As you untie the belt you feel as though you're undressing someone else.

You are too hungry to wait for room service. In the lobby you approach a waiter and ask where you sit if you want food. He says anywhere. He tells you one side of the lobby is nonsmoking, the other smoking. There's no wall between the two.

You order coffee and an omelet, and look around you, catching shards of conversation. Businessmen chatter over cappuccinos in French, Portuguese, and Arabic. Five women dressed in high heels and showing bare calves have arranged themselves around another table. If you didn't know better you would think they'd come to Casablanca to celebrate one of their fortieth birthdays. But you know better. No one comes to Casablanca to celebrate anything. Your guidebook to Morocco (also in your backpack) was right: the first thing you should do upon arrival in Casablanca is get out of Casablanca.

Which is what you're trying to do. But you're not sure where you'll go. Your plan was to go to Fez, to Marrakech, to the desert, but these places no longer have appeal. You try to imagine when they did have appeal. You try to remember the person you were when planning this very trip.

Across the lobby, in the nonsmoking section, you see the woman who slightly resembles you. The stand-in for the famous American actress. She's not wearing the wig. She's sitting with two other people you haven't seen before. The woman is older; she is pale, professional, precise. She wears practical but expensive shoes that have low square heels, and
her hair is cut short in the style favored by women who don't want to make a fuss, who don't want to present themselves as overly feminine. She is perhaps fifty. The man sitting with her is an unlikely match: he's wearing black jeans and a white shirt and has tattoos on his arms. The stand-in appears to be crying.

The tattooed man and the pale practical woman seem agitated with the stand-in. They are reprimanding her, and you assume that their words are the cause of her tears. What has she done? Who are these people causing her to sob? Still, as she buries her head in her hands it's clear why she's a stand-in and not an actress; her gestures are dramatic, obvious choices.