“No, I don’t think it’s funny at all,” you say honestly to the practical secretary. Her face is so twisted now that you can’t look at her. You turn to the famous American actress. “Do you care that much about not looking drunk?” you say. A few nights ago she was throwing back gin and tonics while wearing pajamas patterned with pastel hippos. She didn’t seem to care then.
“I care that much about not looking like I’m cheating on my boyfriend,” the famous American actress says. “That’s the reason I sent you out with Leopoldi in the first place! So no one could say I was cheating on my boyfriend!”
“I’m sure we can explain everything,” you say.
“Why don’t you explain why you’re fucking trying to ruin my life?” she screams. She stares at you as though she actually wants an answer.
“I only did what you asked,” you say.
“Fuck you, Reeves,” she says. “Or whatever the fuck your name is. What is your name? Where’s your passport?”
She stares at you, but addresses the practical secretary: “Ask to see her passport.” She storms out of the lounge. The bodyguards follow her.
“I apologize for her behavior,” the practical secretary says unapologetically.
“I take it for granted that I’m fired,” you say.
“No,” the practical secretary says. “We can’t fire you. The insurers are already concerned about her temper. It’s been a problem in the past.”
“But you saw the way she is with me. And my passport—”
“No, stop,” the practical secretary says, and holds her hand up. “Whatever you’re going to tell me, I don’t want to know.” She places a palm over each ear like she’s one of the three monkeys. “I have enough on my plate right now, thanks to you,” she says. “Tomorrow’s a big day of shooting. You’ve already potentially cost us a hundred thousand. If you’re not there you cost the production much more.”
You don’t know what to say.
“So we’ll see you tomorrow,” she says.
She stands up and leaves.
You are alone in the tenth-floor lounge.
The bartender enters the room, confirming your earlier suspicion that he was dismissed during the meeting.
“Can I please have a coffee?” you ask him.
“Are you a guest at the hotel?” he asks. Even he knows you have been shunned.
“Forget it,” you say, and stand up and leave.
You return to your room at the Grand and look out the window. The band shell that used to be outside in the plaza is gone — Jazzablanca must be over. The plaza appears more somber now, the pedestrians more serious as they walk with long strides and purpose.
Today is your day off work, and it feels interminable. There are too many directions the day could take. The photo could be sold to the tabloids. That would be disastrous for the famous American actress, and for you. But what concerns you most at this moment is the fact that the actress knows you are not Reeves Conway. She knows that you have no ID of your own, that you’re in possession of a passport that doesn’t belong to you. You should not have told her that your passport was stolen, that the police gave you the belongings of someone named Sabine Alyse. You have little faith that she will keep this information to herself. Even if the practical secretary covers her ears when the famous American actress tries to tell her about it — and surely she will try — there is someone who will want to listen to the famous American actress tell them that you’ve been staying under a fake name, that you are in possession of a passport that doesn’t belong to you. Again, you picture Sabine Alyse’s face. You haven’t looked at her passport photo since the day it was handed to you by the police; when you picture her now, she’s pale, unconscious.
You don’t know why you have held on to Sabine Alyse’s passport, credit cards, journal, and backpack. You should have disposed of them the day you were offered the job as the stand-in. You have been on a film set in the home of a wealthy Moroccan, in the tenth-floor lounge drinking gin and tonics with a famous American actress, at a Patti Smith concert, in a mosque, at dinner with a Russian businessman, and all the while you’ve been in possession of the belongings of a young woman who is most likely dead. If she’s not dead, she’s in trouble. You have to make an effort not to think about the single line you read in her journaclass="underline" I tried to tell them it wasn’t dangerous.
A sudden urgency expands within you. You know you need to get rid of the backpack, the diary, the wallet, the passport. All the famous American actress has to do is make one phone call and your hotel room will be searched, and you will be arrested for theft. Or more. You will be questioned. You will be brought to the American embassy and Susan Sontag will connect the dots. You do not trust the famous American actress, you don’t trust anyone. You know the police will be of no help.
You could cut the passport, and credit cards and the pages of the diary into pieces, and throw everything into the wastepaper basket in the bathroom. Still, everything could be traced back to your room, to your wastepaper basket, to you. And there would remain the problem of what to do with the backpack and wallet.
You can’t return the items to the police. That’s out of the question. If she is alive she’s reported all her possessions stolen. You have to be rid of them — of everything related to Sabine Alyse.
You enter your niece’s date of birth as the code to unlock the safe, and remove the passport and diary and wallet. You dump out all the clothes from your suitcase. Her backpack is at the bottom. You place the diary inside the main pocket of the backpack. You put the passport and wallet in the external pocket and don’t zip it closed all the way. The royal-blue corner of the passport is visible. The wallet is just in front of it. Your plan is to go to the market in the old medina, walk around, and wait for the inevitable theft.
You remove fifty dirhams from the safe — you don’t want to carry too much — and place them in your bra.
You take a taxi to the market. You place the backpack over one shoulder and walk past the merchants selling dark brown leather backpacks. “Backpack, backpack,” they say to you. You want to tell them you already have one that you’re trying to get rid of. Instead you keep your eyes ahead of you and continue walking.
It’s crowded in the marketplace and it smells like cats, though none are visible. You pass spice stands in a row, displaying spices of golden yellow, burnt orange, and poppy red in shallow, circular woven baskets. The displays are exactly what you expected of a spice shop here, and the shops’ popularity with tourists leads you to suspect the shopkeepers have studied pictures in the guidebooks to Morocco. They’re giving the tourists precisely what they pictured Morocco would look like. You keep moving.
“Pardonnez-moi,” you say as you delve deeper into the crowds. You pass a young man selling birdcages without the birds. You stand before him, and place the backpack by your feet. You know it’s careless; you worry that your carelessness will not be appreciated and you’ll have to be more obvious, more irresponsible. You open the birdcages and close them, making sure the doors close properly. As though this matters.
Finally your curiosity has to be satisfied. You look down. The backpack is gone. You turn in a circle. No one suspicious is around you. You look behind you: a complicated braid of pedestrians.
You are free of Sabine Alyse. You are free from any implications about her fate.
You take a right and another right until you exit the marketplace. You hail a taxi and return to your hotel room at the Grand. No messages have been slipped under your door, and the light on the hotel phone isn’t blinking. You start to imagine that the practical secretary exaggerated the gravity of the situation. Why has no one been in touch? You watch the phone for twenty minutes. You pick it up to make sure it’s working.