The woman scowled up at me. “Where did you find that?”
“Someone left it in my room,” I told her. “Do you know who it belongs to?”
She slid the book protectively toward herself, then set it on the desk next to her computer. “I will see that it gets back to its owner. Good night, Mademoiselle.”
It was just after ten-thirty when I pulled up in front of the sandstone portal and heavy, iron-studded wooden door that marked the El Minzah’s front entrance. I paid my taxi driver, climbed out, and made my way inside. If the Hotel Continental was the geriatric specter of French colonialism, then the El Minzah was its teenage reincarnation, the Versace-clad, cell phone-carrying spirit of the unstoppable empire of twenty-first-century globalism.
Inside the plush lobby, potbellied oil money mingled with B-list celebrity. American English predominated; a variety of well-crafted accents wafted through the potted palms and up toward the blue-and-white zillij mosaics. The air smelled of Cuban cigars and eucalyptus.
Conscious of my convent clothes and work-blunted fingernails, I followed one of the doormen’s directions down a flight of stairs, past the rambling Andalusian courtyard at the heart of the hotel to the piano bar. Scanning the sea of faces for Brian, I stepped into the elegant room, found an empty table, and settled in to wait. The piano bar was more British than French or Moroccan, dark and richly paneled like the library in some English gentleman’s country estate. A large oil portrait of a serious-looking Scot in full military dress dominated the room, staring down on a crowd tinged with the shabby, desperate whiff of exile.
From down in the dank and tangled streets of the medina it would be hard to imagine the existence of such a place as Caid’s. It would be difficult to conceive of such blind and easy luxury, the thin rattling of ice in a crystal glass, the fizz of champagne, a woman’s bare shoulders rising like a frail white flower from the black sheath of her dress. There were no beggars in Caid’s, no dirt-smeared children grappling for change, only the pervasive stink of orchids and tobacco, and a nauseating blend of expensive perfumes. Here, I thought, was the fantasy money can buy, the Victorian illusion of a separation between this world and the savage one, these few dozen bodies clustered under the pale archways and dark pleated drapes like exotic orchids in a winter hothouse.
The staff was all Moroccan and male, as was the piano player, a small round man with a smile as white as his dinner jacket. He was singing a maudlin rendition of “Ne Me Quitte Pas” while several couples pawed each other on the dance floor. One of the waiters, a handsome young man in a neatly tailored red vest and black pants, started over to me, his face brightening as he neared.
“Ms. Boyle,” he said warmly when he had reached my table. Tucking his tray under his arm, he leaned in closer, beaming, shaking his head in evident disbelief. “I almost didn’t recognize you.”
Boyle, I thought, Ms. Boyle. I looked up at the man’s delicate, caramel-colored face, searching in vain for something familiar.
“Nadim,” he said, motioning to himself.
I smiled. “Yes, of course, Nadim.”
He stood there for a moment, an awkward silence passing between us, then made a slight stiff bow. “Your drink,” he said, turning. “I will be right back.”
I watched him walk to the bar. He said something to the bartender, and they both glanced back at me and nodded; then the bartender pulled a clear bottle from the shelf behind him. I had been here, I thought, shifting my gaze to the piano player and the dark bank of windows beyond him, the panes reflecting the bar’s dim faces. I had been here, and yet I could not remember. The waiter came back carrying a martini glass and laid a small linen bar napkin on the table in front of me.
“When was I here last?” I asked.
Nadim set the glass on the napkin, then straightened up. “It has been a while,” he said, scowling, trying to remember. “A year. Maybe longer. You stayed with us.”
I looked down at the drink. A single delicate sliver of lemon rested at the bottom of the glass. “Was I alone?”
“Yes.”
“And I was here before that?”
The waiter drew back now, puzzled. “Of course. Ms. Boyle, is everything all right?”
“Alone?”
“Why no, with Mr. Haverman.”
I took a sip of the martini. It was vodka, cold and citrusy, studded with tiny shards of ice. “A friend?” I asked.
“Of course, Madame.”
“What does he do, this Mr. Haverman?”
“Do?” Nadim asked, perplexed.
“For a job.”
“He’s an American,” the waiter said, as if being an American were a profession in itself. “Like you. A nice man.”
“And what does he look like?”
Nadim shuffled his feet nervously. “Young, like yourself.”
“Brown hair? Blond?”
“Brown,” Nadim said, growing more and more wary of this game by the second.
A customer several tables away signaled for service, and the waiter gratefully excused himself. I put the drink down and reached up and grasped his wrist. “What else, Nadim?” I asked, desperate to keep him there. “What else do you know?”
The waiter looked down, fear flashing across his face. “You are a patron of the hotel, Ms. Boyle,” he said, trying to compose himself. “And a lovely lady. You drink vodka martinis with a twist. This is all I know.”
“And Mr. Haverman?”
“A friend,” he said, repeating his previous answer, “a customer like yourself. This is all I know.”
Nadim had made no attempt to remove his wrist from my grip; now his arm was beginning to tremble. The man at the other table waved again, and I loosed my grasp. “I’m sorry,” I told him as he hurried away, obviously embarrassed by what had just happened.
I finished my drink, ordered another, and watched the crowd revolve. Toward the end of the evening the American film crew from the Continental showed up. They were loud and underdressed, as Americans almost always are, throwing dollars around and ordering overpriced Scotch.
It didn’t seem possible that this had been my life, and suddenly I didn’t want it to be. I wanted my old clothes back, and if not the convent, some place like it, a small plain room and a little garden on a hill, a bell ringing the hours.
The piano player tapped out the first few lines of “As Time Goes By,” and a smattering of applause rose from the tables. Giving up on Brian, I downed the last of my drink, stood, and made my way out of the bar. It was late enough that the rest of the hotel was nearly deserted. Out in the courtyard the only sound was the splash and gurgle of a fountain, and a woman’s quiet laughter that drifted down from an open window somewhere above. The stars were out, a carpet of faraway sun catchers. The black shape of a bat cruised silently overhead.
I climbed up into the empty lobby and headed for the front desk, where a young woman in a blue suit was bent over a computer keyboard. She looked up when she saw me coming and straightened, fixing some unseen crease in her jacket. I watched her face for some expression of recognition but saw none.
“May I help you?” she asked.
I nodded, thinking of the form I’d filled out when I’d checked in at the Continental. Surely a hotel as nice as the El Minzah would require just as much information from its clients, if not more. If I had been a guest here, there might be some record in the computer.
“How long have you worked here?” I asked, stepping forward, propping my elbows on the marble counter.
“Six months,” the woman said. She was meticulously made up, her lips stained the same dark red as the drapes in the piano bar. Her name tag read Ashia.
I smiled. “I stayed here about a year ago,” I explained. “I’m trying to pin down the dates. I just can’t seem to remember. Do you keep a record of your guests on file?”
Ashia nodded. She looked at me expectantly and when I didn’t answer, cleared her throat. “Your name, Madame?”