You shake his hand good-bye enthusiastically. Only after he’s left do you realize he hasn’t asked you your name.
You remain standing in the lobby once again with your blue suitcase and the head of security. He asks you if you would like to sit at the restaurant and have some lunch.
“No,” you say. “I’d like to go to the police station.”
“Yes,” he says. “Someone from the hotel will take you there in a few minutes. But the head of police wants to make sure he gets the papers ready.”
“Yes,” you say. You don’t want to be with this man anymore. His smile is disturbing you. His mustache is disturbing you.
“Why don’t you go put your suitcase in your room, and when you come back downstairs someone will take you.”
“Okay,” you say.
It seems like days have gone by since you were given your key card. You’re almost surprised you still have it. You have to look at the room number written on the small accompanying sleeve to see what floor you’re on.
You enter your dark room, and place your suitcase on the suitcase stand. The stand’s straps are worn out from bearing the weight of the luggage of past travelers. Out the window you have no view except for the back of another hotel.
Before leaving your room, you move your suitcase so it’s under the bed, out of sight. You can think of nowhere else to hide it.
As you walk to the elevator you pass a room-service cart that’s waiting to be ushered back to the kitchen. On the top of the cart sits a basket of bread rolls of various sizes and shapes, seeded and unseeded, light and dark. You consider stashing a few of them in your purse before you remember you have no purse, no backpack. You are carrying nothing. All you have is the key card in the pocket of your skirt. You grab a seeded bun. By the time the elevator lets out onto the lobby floor, you’ve eaten it.
A young man in a plaid shirt and clean sneakers has been assigned and paid by the hotel to take you to the police station. You have no idea what his affiliation is with the hotel — he’s not in uniform — but he has kind eyes, the green of an old leather atlas, and you trust he will get you where you need to go.
He opens the backseat of the car for you and you get in. You see, on the floor of the seat next to yours, a pair of leather shoes, and you wonder what they’re doing there.
The car’s clock says that it’s already after 2 P.M. How did it get so late? Is that the right time or yesterday’s time? You know there was a time shift. You think how odd it is that they change times in the middle of the week here, not at 2 A.M. on Sundays like back home. You try to remember which day is the day of rest here, and you consider asking the driver. But instead you look out the window at the traffic surrounding you, and when you tire of all the cars and faces and gray exhaust swirling out of mufflers, you roll up your window and stare at the shoes.
“You know Paul Bowles?” the driver says, out of nowhere. Because you’re staring at the old leather shoes, you think for a brief moment he’s going to tell you that they belonged to Paul Bowles.
“Yes,” you say. You know who Paul Bowles is. You devoted a paragraph or maybe even a page to him in a college essay you wrote about post — World War II bohemians. You had no prior interest in the subject, nor any sustaining interest for that matter; you signed up for the class because the professor was intriguing to you. She was a burn victim, and two-thirds of her body was scarred, but this made her more beautiful. You weren’t the only one who thought this: the class was filled with young male theater majors and aspiring poets. You were the sole athlete in the class. When you met with her in her office to discuss your mediocre essay, she obsessively rubbed a potent-smelling vitamin E lotion onto her shiny red wrists, her lavender-hued elbows. She kept a large tube of the lotion on the corner of her desk, where others might place a colorful paperweight. Each time she loudly squirted the lotion onto her palm, you silently marveled at the framed photos of her swimsuit-clad children, their skin impeccably unflawed.
“Everyone knows Morocco because of Paul Bowles,” the driver says. “My father read for Mr. Bowles.”
“Read for him?” You are certain that Paul Bowles could read.
“At end of his life, Mr. Bowles cannot see well. My father lives in the same building and sometimes Mr. Bowles asks neighbors to read for him and so sometimes he asks my father.”
“Cool,” you say because you can’t think of anything else appropriate.
“Yes,” the driver says.
You are both silent again, watching the traffic not move.
“Is it always this bad?” you ask.
“Casablanca traffic is the very most bad in Morocco,” he says.
You can’t even see the road ahead of you because there are six large trucks.
“So many trucks,” you say inanely.
“Yes, very many trucks,” he says.
Your head is heavy and you realize you’ve nodded off. The clock in the car now says it’s 3:06.
“I’m sorry. I fell asleep. Are we almost there?”
“Yes, five minutes,” he tells you.
In twenty-five minutes he parks the car. The neighborhood has narrow sidewalks and many shops. Dozens of people are on the street, talking with friends, parking their cars. The driver carefully reads the signs and is sure to put the proper amount of money in the machine.
“Sorry. I don’t have any money,” you say.
He smiles grimly as though you’ve left him to face an impossible task alone.
The two of you walk down the crowded sidewalks. The sun is out and it’s warm but you can tell this is still cold for Moroccans: many men wear leather jackets and all wear long pants. You don’t see any women your age, only young girls and old women. Your generation of females is missing on the street.
“They said the station is next to the big grocery store,” the driver says. You pass a large grocery store, with a number of people smoking outside, next to the display of small fruits.
“Here it is,” he says.
You look at the decrepit building, the Moroccan flag waving from the top.
You enter the building and walk up two flights of stairs. You pass a man and a woman carrying a stroller with no child. You try not to wonder or stare. You and the man in the plaid shirt peek into a room and you see shelves of old shoe boxes, one labeled A-Be, the next: Be-De. This continues all the way through the alphabet. A child’s version of a filing system.
The driver exchanges a few sentences with the policeman sitting behind the desk in the room with the shoe boxes. The driver seems upset.
“What is it?” you ask.
“This is the wrong station,” he says.
“What? How did that happen?”
“The hotel told me it was the police station next to the big supermarket.”
“We saw the supermarket,” you say.
“Yes, but there is another police station next to a big supermarket. That’s where the police chief is waiting for you.”
You return to the car. The only good news about this is maybe the other police station is better organized. Maybe it doesn’t use shoe boxes for filing its claims.
You drive through stifling Casablanca traffic. You nod off again. When you arrive at the other police station near the big supermarket you are told it’s after 5 P.M. and the police chief has gone home for the day.
You ask if you can report the theft to someone else. You don’t want another night to pass.
You are told that that’s not possible; the police chief is personally handling your case.
The driver returns you to the Golden Tulip. In your room you are somewhat surprised to find your suitcase still under your bed. You change into your pajamas and order room service. When the man from room service knocks at the door, you don’t open it. Instead you instruct him to leave the tray on the other side of the door.