A night in Tangier

Agnes realizes that probably John probably never truly loved her but she still never leaves, until a chance meeting with a a french Algerian singer changes her life forever.

John returned home from the office at 4 pm. He threw the keys on the kitchen table beside a freshly baked apple pie, opened an Oreo packet and gobbled down two cookies then went into the bedroom and took off his clothes. He looked around the room and rolled back his eyes. He darted, naked, into the living room. Agnes, his wife, lounged on the couch with a book in her lap. “What are you doing here?”

Agnes looked up at him. “I was reading.” She said; her voice raspy from hours of silence.

“I guess I made it clear on the phone where I wanted you to be and what I wanted you to do.”

“Oh,” Agnes said, “I got carried away with the reading.”

She got to her feet and ran a hand down his smooth abdomen. A whiff of sweat and decay emanated from him. She winced and tried to ignore it. “We can fix that though,” She stood on her toes to kiss him on his unshaven cheek.

“Stay away from me,” He pushed her and she fell back on the couch. “You ruined it.”

“I’m willing to fix it,” She said, taking off her baggy jeans shirt. “You tell me what you want and I’ll do it.”

She stood naked now in front of him; her body too tiny in contrast with his six foot frame and wide shoulders.

He paced away from her; as if retreating from a looming threat. “I’m not in the mood anymore, Agnes.”

His bloodshot eyes turned to his side and he lowered his head. His sallow skin showed itself more clearly under the glow of the white bulb right above him.

“ John, I’m trying to fix things here,” Agnes said, slowly walking up to him. “I’m sorry I didn’t wait for your naked in bed and I’m sorry I didn’t put on the music you wanted. That doesn’t mean anything. I just got busy.” She smiled and put hand to his face. “I baked you an apple pie. You saw it? On the kitchen table?”

John closed his eyes, his lids pressing against his eyes balls. His jaw clenched. He stood back, raised his arm and slapped her.

She screeched in pain and dropped to her knees on the red carpet.

He leaned forward and slapped her one more time.

This time she dropped face down on the floor; her nose bled.

 “You’re so boring,” he yelled at her, “You’re so mechanical and organized, like a machine. I hate that.”

“Why did you slap me?” She said, trying to get back up.

“Because you’re stupid,”

  She was now on her feet. She dashed into the bathroom, locking the door behind her.

“Yes,” He yelled, “Run away. Instead of discussing this like a grown up,” He punched the bathroom door. “I slapped you because you act like a b***h, Agnes. You’re immature.”

Agnes heard his footsteps thumping on the wooden boards. He smashed the vase onto the ground. She shuddered, sitting on the edge of the bathtub. Then the front door slammed.

Sequel:

That was the first time he slapped her and Agnes didn’t know what to expect from him after that.  They lived on the east side of Manhattan and she enjoyed going for long walks alone, thinking about her life with John, weighing out the options. After he had hit her, her mind tried to find the first flaw in John’s character; it tried to trip her into hating him, just a little bit; however, she didn’t allow for that to happen. Yes, it hurt. Yes, she was shocked at her husband’s sudden outburst of anger, but to her that didn’t mean he’d do it again; it only meant that he was having bad day and he flipped-that’s all.

After trying to purge herself of any bad thought she’d have regarding her husband, Agnes walked the streets of the city.

She was used to John slamming and tearing at things and that didn’t include the other kind of slamming and tearing that he did in the middle of the night- his spasmodic, sleepless nights in which his whole body tensed up under ever increasing beads of sweat. He’d squeeze at the pillow with both hands and bang it repeatedly against the wet mattress. Agnes learned to leave him alone and stay quiet when those tremors took control of him. Sometimes he’d punch the wall and smash the alarm clock beside the bed. “Don’t be nice,” He’d punch himself in the face; he’d slap himself and shriek in terror. “You’re a p***y, John.” He’d yell, “You’re a p***y and you deserve to be bullied.”

At first Agnes thought those disturbed nights of her husband had to do with the numerous antidepressants, sleeping Pills, and blood pressure medication he was taking; he was also taking during the first two years she knew him a number of unidentifiable, at least to her, Pills and when she asked him, he told her that they were a different kind of antidepressants that his other shrink recommended but she knew that he had no other shrink and that he was lying.    

Two weeks after he slapped her, Agnes Joined John on a trip to Tangier.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 At midday, Agnes and John lumbered out of Tangier airport into the scorching sunlight of the city.  The flight was the longest both of them had ever taken and although Agnes imagined having all kinds of conversation with John up there, thousands of feet above the earth, she didn’t. John slept the whole time. She plugged in her earphones and played an Audio book version of the diary of Anne Frank. Half way through the book, she fell asleep only to be woken by the hostess’s gentle pat. “Welcome to Tangier.”

The cab they took to the motel dawdled down potholed streets.  Grey, harsh buildings swept by. To Agnes they were just ugly blocks of cement. She already wanted to go back to New York.

John slept all the way to the motel, quavering out of his catnap whenever the car slumped into a pothole.

At the motel’s low ceiling restaurant they plopped down at a round table and munched undercooked mackerels and sardines.

After she finished eating, Agnes ordered Turkish coffee. She quietly sipped it from the porcelain mug as she watched a woman on the table to their right conversing with her husband through a black veil that covered her face.

John slammed his fork down against the table."Why aren't you talking?"

Agnes shuddered. “You scared me.”

“It’s just that you’re not talking.” He said, his face turning red. “I told you a million times that relationships end this way. Couples stop talking and the whole thing fizzles out.” He chomped at a piece of brown toast “I don’t want this to happen to us.”

She leaned forward on her elbows and squeezed his cold hand. “Please don’t get angry.”

His hand twitched under her fingers and he jerked in his seat, pulling his arm away. “We can’t do that here.”

His beetling brow almost obscured his brown eyes. His mouth was tight and determined. He jutted his chin -a gesture that gave Agnes the impression that he’d have to bear up with her for the rest of their visit."We need to talk about your behavior. We’re not in New York anymore.”He adjusted the hem of his white shirt, sighed, and went back to his eating; his back upright against the back of the chair.

It was June. The air emitted intense heat and humidity. Despite the many places she scribbled down in her notebook after a quick Google search of places to visit in Tangier, she decided against going out during the day when the sun was unbearably searing. “I look awful with a tan.” She said one morning to John who was trying to get her to join him for a walk. “I hate my cheap Irish skin.”

John was more excited about this visit than she was. She never liked leaving New York. She enjoyed new experiences but only vicariously. Like that day when Jude, a pleasant young girl she knew from the book club, told her about her visit to the pyramids. She could feel it in her body, as if she had been there herself. It was much easier to sit there, to listen, to imagine, and to feel.

To John’s relief, the nearest mosque was ten miles away from the motel and that was because the area where they were was inhabited mainly by Christians.” Thankfully I won’t have to listen to this awful baying five times a day.” John said as he was passing a mosque in downtown. “This sounds so bad it actually hurts me physically.”

 “I think it’s beautiful. I admire their discipline, flocking to the mosque five times a day like that. It’s admirable, don’t you think?”

“If you think so then you should live here. Find a Moroccan man and marry him. Go to prayer with him. He’d f**k you in the a*s as well. They like that here.” He strode a few steps ahead of her then stopped suddenly. The muscles at his neck firmed up and protruded out. His whole body was shaking and his face turned red. “Agnes, hurry up.” He yelled at her under his breath.

She wanted to trudge through life whilst he wanted to dash through it at full speed, without any fears or worries-with a determination that she was never given. He despised her fear and quiet. He said he had no patience for this kind of attitude. And she slowly loathed him for that- she loathed him because he couldn’t accept her for the person she was.

Agnes probably thought of leaving a hundred times, but despite her misgivings, she married him two years later, resigning herself to the fact that John was a hard man, callous in his ways and reserved, but she convinced herself that she loved him, and maybe she did.

The weather cooled in Tangier by the end of June. The air had a strange freshness about it and it almost felt cold against her skin.

She woke up at 7 am, prepared breakfast and ate it on the balcony with a book in hand.

At around 11 am John came into the balcony, squinting at the sunlight. “You’ve been up for long?”

She nodded; her fingers curled around her third cup of earl grey tea.

John ate his breakfast which included an egg, a cup of coffee with one tablespoon of sugar, and an apple. “Are these organic apples?”

“I don’t know,” Agnes said, washing her mug in the kitchen sink.

 “I told you to ask them at the restaurant,”

John eyed his reflection in the mirror, picking at a flab of fat that formed recently around his belly button. He sat down at his desk and penned the foods he’d need to eliminate from his diet to lose those extra pounds by the end of the month. You look ugly, he thought as he formulated an 1800 calories diet.

“Maybe we can go out for dinner tonight,” Agnes told him half an hour later resting against the back of the couch.

“I can’t. . .” He picked up his digicam from the linoleum floor and hung it around his neck. “I need to go take some pictures for the magazine. I’ll have to send them tonight.”

“Can I come with you?” she said, “I’ll be quiet.”

  “You hate the sun.” he said, putting on his jeans and yellow shirt.

“It’s not that sunny today.”

He gave her an unsure smile that immediately melted back into his twitchy and cursory expression. And before she could tell him that she was sick and tired of being left all day here in the motel and wanted to go about the city with him, he had scurried out of the door, leaving behind the smell of stale sweat and smoke.

When John returned home at sunset, Agnes was gone.

After roaming the streets around the motel, she came across a small coffee shop in a quiet alley. It was called “El Leila” or “The night”. She waddled into the Café passing mostly heavily set men on wooden, rickety tables. She scowled at the stench of cigarettes as she scanned the café for a table far away from the clack of dominos and the jabber of TV. She finally sat at the far right corner, under a whirring fan with Sylvia Plath’s Ariel in front of her. It was six in the evening.

Minutes later a waiter made a garbled announcement in the microphone and a slim girl traipsed up to the stage. Her body slacked under the blue light above her head.  She closed her eyes and waited for the music to start.

The violinist was a tall man with protruding ears and glossy bald head. After a few minutes of silence, he stroked the bow against the violin and a sharp stream of slow tones resounded in the cafeteria. Yasmin, as she was simply called in her performance, hummed along in a resonant soprano. The violinist fiddled out a bluesy tune, interrupted with some pizzicato notes. Yasmin slurred along, tapping the stage with her foot, her head swaying to music, her body gyrating in a continuous swirl of energy that only subsided when the last note was sang- the last note which was a quiet hum, blithe and airy in the tranquil of the coffee shop.

During the whole time, Agnes rested her head on the table and reveled in this slow delivery of songs in a language she’d never speak. She studied Yasmin’s slender body as it writhed on the stage; her voice too mature for someone her age. How old was she? Agnes wondered. May be she was in her thirties?

A red-haired man walked up to the stage where the sylph singer sat on a stool, her slender, brown arms dangling at her thighs and her face sparkly with sweat. He thanked her and she offered him her cheek to kiss but he bent forward and kissed her on her lips. Agnes imagined that they smelled of strawberries and cigarettes and for a moment she felt a gush of relief go through her at the thought of having her thin, chapped lips touch Yasmin’s lips of cerise.

A few minutes after Yasmin vanished back stage; Agnes walked up to the waiter and asked him where she can find Yasmin to thank her for the beautiful evening. “Sorry. Singer go home,” he said in broken English that reminded Agnes of one of her Dad’s Argentinean friends. She thanked him and walked out into the muggy air.

As she ambled down the cobblestoned alley the quiet of the night enveloped her. She maneuvered cautiously down and along the potholed filled streets. Suddenly, a minaret loomed out of the narrow path, catching her by surprise. Thick lines of cement slithered up the fawn stone tower, festooning it in what Agnes believed to be Arabic letters.

That’s only the second time I allowed myself to walk around town without a map, she mused. Too often she found herself lost at the first turn in an unfamiliar setting. She enjoyed her walk among those closely huddled, square buildings. This clump of cube shaped houses colored in white and beige and blue, spreading up the hilly landscape and finally ceasing at the shore line"the very shore line that crooned to Agnes on her stroll. It was the only sound that could supplement her melancholy thoughts"the gulp of the waves coasting toward the shore and then smashing into the sand.

Agnes thought of heading back home but she was afraid. John was changing. May be he no longer loved her. She decided to call him on his cell phone.

It rang three times before he answered, “Hey, where are you?”

“Not very far from the motel. “She said looking around and trying to decide where she was. She had been walking for almost an hour. “Did I wake you up?”

“I fell asleep while working.” There was this empty sound of silence and space on the phone then she heard him coughing from afar. He probably had left the phone on the desk to go grab a cup of water. He’d always do that- leave her on the phone without saying anything.

“So, are you coming back?”

 

Next morning, Agnes called El Leila coffee shop to ask them if Yasmin would be singing there again tonight. The same waiter in his heavily accented English assured her that Yasmin sang at El Leila every night, five times a week. She thanked him and hung up.

 

“Who were you talking to?” John asked her an hour later, drinking his coffee in bed.

“I went to this coffee shop last night.” She sat on the edge of the bed.” A beautiful singer sang there. She looks Arab. Her name is Yasmin. I was just making sure she’s singing there again tonight.” She crossed her legs and leaned towards him with a smile, touching his bony fingers. “Join me tonight?”

“No,” he said with a wave of the hand. “I have some work to finish.”

She came to her feet and crossed her arms against her chest. “As you wish,”

He flung off his shirt and tossed it on the bed then pulled a towel out of the wardrobe.“Enjoy your night out.”

 The yellow light of the afternoon reflected off his naked body. He gained probably five pounds since they had arrived in Tangier. Agnes wanted to kiss him and tell him that he shouldn’t bother about the extra pounds; that he was still handsome to her, but how could she.

“Are you going alone?” He asked.

“I’m taking my Moroccan lover,” she smiled thinly.

Suddenly, he turned towards the bathroom door and booted it with a thud. “Agnes, you never take anything I say seriously.” He yelled. “I hate your attitude, I hate the way you brush off everything I say with a smile.” He advanced towards Agnes. She sat up in bed and her body contracted.  He bent forward his nose almost touching hers. The stench of cigarettes and beer wafted at her through his contorted lips. She trembled. “If you ever smile like that again, I’ll smack you so bad you’ll never forget it. Do you hear me?”

She didn’t know what she did wrong. She always smiled like that; he knew that she had an occasional sardonic streak about her- he actually said when they first met that he found her cynicism attractive; he called it a mark of true intelligence.

Tears welled up in her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. She was hurt at this sudden outburst of anger. But more than anything else, she was afraid.

Tonight, at the coffee shop, only two men sat at the far left corner and to Agnes’s surprise the TV that blared throughout her last visit was turned off this time. Her position close to the door, at the back, allowed her to have a perfect view of the stage, but she could feel a cold draft against her bare arms. The weather changes so suddenly round here, she thought and decided to move to another table to her left.

A few minutes later, from the corner of her eyes she saw Yasmin walking up the stage right after the waiter announced her number. A small girl of about fourteen or fifteen mounted the stage beside Yasmin, a violin in her petite hand. She placed the bow to the violin, caressing the strings. A legato line surged, straining, steady, and filled with longing.

Yasmin sang that night and to Agnes’s surprise her singing was fuller, more flowing.

An hour later, the last note of Yasmin’s voice faded out in the cool air. Agnes watched as the scant audience applauded and cheered. After bowing casually, a lackluster smile forming on her glossy face, she kissed the young violinist on her mat of red hair and stepped down the stage, disappearing behind the bead curtain at the far end of the café.

Agnes sprouted out of her chair, her body stiff from sitting for a long time. “Excuse me,” She said as she advanced in a zigzag through the clump of chairs and tables clustered in front of the stage.

She followed Yasmin through the beaded curtain, down a dimly lit hall at the back of the café, and out onto the street.

Yasmin hastened; her sandals soundless over the flagstones.

“Yasmin,” Agnes called, trying to catch up with her.

Yasmin stopped and turned, surprised. “Yes?”

Agnes beamed at her, “I’m a tourist here. I came to El Leila by total coincidence a few days ago and I heard you singing and I had to come back today. Your voice is beautiful.”

“Aw,” Yasmin smiled, shaking her hand, “That’s so kind of you.”

Agnes walked closer to her. “By the way, my name is Agnes Baker.”

Yasmin nodded. “Nice to meet you, Agnes. It’s your first visit to Tangier?”

“Yes,” She said, “It must be amazing to be so good at something like you’re good at singing.”

“Probably, yeah.”

She laughed, flicking her hair awkwardly. “I was never good at anything.”

“You’re American?”

Agnes nodded stiffly. “Yeah,” she said, “My husband’s a photographer. We...” She stopped mid-sentence and wondered why she had digressed so suddenly. 

A few seconds of silence elapsed. Agnes felt herself caught out of time in the presence of Yasmin. That metallic quality to Yasmin’s voice held her immobile. May be it was her fascination with people that were larger than life; people that sang or danced or wrote. Agnes noted about her this sparkling aura. It made her feel complete and alive; exactly the same way John made her feel deficient and dull.

“I guess I won’t stalk you anymore tonight. You probably need go rest those precious cords of yours,” Agnes finally said.

“Yeah, I’ll do that probably by getting drunk and passing out.”

Agnes gave her another of her affable but awkward smiles.

 Yasmin dipped her hands into the pockets of her jeans and said, “If you promise you won’t kill me and steal my furniture, I’d be glad if you come and have dinner with me tonight. “

“Two strangers having dinner together in Tangier,” Agnes said, “I like that.”

Yasmin’s apartment was only five minute walk from the café. Inside, Yasmin flicked on the dim orange light. The living rooms had yellow cinder block walls and on a far table a stack of books and a red bag of chocolate covered peanuts. There was the sweet smell of roses and water, as if it was raining from the ceiling- a damp smell that reminded Agnes of her childhood on the ocean in her Dad’s chalet.

 The closed Venetian shades made the room appear darker than it was but it also gave it a relaxing air.

They sat at the roundtable by the kitchen window where white shells quivered in the warm draft on the sill.  

Agnes drank her coffee and tried to keep an eye on Yasmin as she cooked, grating the cheese and cutting the tomatoes and green pepper. Her hands were quick; her body sliding over the porcelain floor,  tasting the sauce, then back to the cutting board, then take out some more veggies out of the fridge. From the back, Agnes thought, she almost looked like a juggler, adding more balls to her act every other minute, each movement so balanced and calculated.

“Need a hand?” Agnes said.

“Don’t worry.” Yasmin said with a smile. “You learn some things when you live alone all your life.” She wore a slim blue jeans and a navy t shirt.

The light filtering throu"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font:major-bidi;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-bidi;mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi">“Then leave,”

“I will.”

 

Agnes went back to the hotel that night. John was there, sleeping. Agnes was afraid to sleep after what Yasmin told her about her boy friend cutting her toe in sleep. She stayed awake, reading and planning her escape. She had agreed that she’d stay with Yasmin for a few days and John wouldn’t be able to find her and then she’ll just take a plane back to the states and start a new life away not from just John but also her family. It’d be better this way- A new slate, a life devoid of people that made her feel like nothing; a life full of new possibilities, of new friends like Yasmin. Yasmin promised her that she’d come visit her in the states. And she knew she didn’t lie.

By dawn, Agnes had packed her things and was out of the house on her way to Yasmin’s apartment. She felt bad about not leaving John a message telling him that she couldn’t take his abuse anymore, but then when she told Yasmin that, Yasmin told her. “He deserves it. Don’t ever feel bad about the likes of him,”

Agnes spent the whole day with Yasmin. It was a beautiful day. Yasmin cooked to them, she told her about her family history, how her parents met in France and how her Mom killed herself at the age fifty. Agnes told her about her parents as well and cried when she had to mention her seventeen years old brother’s suicide. “His boy friend who was five years older than him came to our house and he told us.” She said, drinking her tea, “Mom cried for a whole week after that. She thought t was her fault. May be it was my fault too. I was never close to him.”

She told her that a couple of weeks after the funeral she met John in New York while she was walking one of her friend’s dogs. “He’s a charmer. The dog loved him and I loved him and two weeks later we went out on our first date. Six months later the monster in him started slowly showing itself. But until last night I thought that it was my fault.”

By midday, Agnes sat at the far right corner of the couch, thinking about what John might be doing now. Is he thinking of her? Is he wondering where did she disappear? Something inside of her was hurting, like a stone was tied to her heart and it was being raised and dropped, pulling her heart down her body with every drop. It hurt and she was scared and guilty and angry at herself; at John. But the guilt was much stronger. It made her squirm in her place, cross her arms against her chest, and close her eyes. She saw the illogical stream of thoughts going through her head; she examined it once and twice and finally she decided she was making assumptions based on Yasmin’s experience with Ed. John was different. John was a man who taught her how to sail a boat in the Atlantic, he cooked for her when she was sick, he sang an awful version of Nessun Dorma on their wedding day; he also slapped her, humiliated her, made her feel awful about her own self, but he wasn’t always like that- sometimes he was sweet. She almost forgot that; she almost forgot the John that was sweet and nice and kind, but he was there somewhere and may be leaving wasn’t the best answer. She was just afraid.

“You have the right to be afraid, dear.” Yasmin told her, “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being afraid. I’m always afraid Ed will walk up to my apartment here. My logic doesn’t work right because he doesn’t know where I live. I haven’t seen him for years but I’m always worried he’d show up and punish me for leaving.” She grasped Agnes’s hand and squeezed it. “So far he didn’t and he never will.” She looked away for a moment then turned her head towards Agnes. She looked her in the eyes. “I’m here for you as a friend.” She patted Agnes’s hand which was warm and sweaty. “We’re the same; I see myself in you and I want you to understand that I’m here to help.”

Agnes nods. “Thank you,” she said, “This means a lot to me. I’m still afraid. After some thinking today I’m coming to the conclusion that probably I’m not doing the right thing?”

Yasmin turns her head to one side, “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know,” Agnes shook her head and shrug, “I might be giving up too early.”

Yasmin put a hand to Agnes’s face and slowly caresses her cheeks. “He hit you,” Yasmin said, almost in a whisper. “This skin, this face. He disrespected it. For no reason.”

“I know,” Agnes said, her hand getting sweatier in Yasmin’s grasp. “I don’t give up on people quickly. I always thought that if I wait around long enough I’ll get to see something changing. Dad always said change is the only constant thing.” She pulled her hand away from Yasmin and let her eyes close. “May be John will change.” She shook her head repeatedly, breathed in, and got to her feet. “I have to work hard. I have to show him more love.”

“But it doesn’t work like this, Agnes.” Yasmin got to her feet. She looked at Agnes for a moment and smiled; it was a smile in which Agnes recognized shades of derision and pity- as if she didn’t deserve her time. “I can’t believe how naïve you’re. You think men change. You think he’ll just walk up to you and say he’s sorry. They’re all scum. One big pile of scum.”

“You can’t let your experience color mine, Yasmin.”

“I’m not.” Yasmin said, “I just don’t want you to go through the pain I went through.”

Yasmin paced to the window and glanced outside at the sunlight, the cloudless, blue sky and the pigeons flapping their wings against the hot summer air. “Why are you here? Why did you follow me after the show yesterday?”

“What do you mean?”

She turned and faced Agnes, studying her unworldly face- a face which, to her, offered the observer a chance to hurt its owner; to trick and delude her.  “You wanted my help. You saw yourself in me. I was an outcast, spending my nights singing away to strangers. You recognized your pain and loneliness in me that’s why you’re standing here now, in my place, and I’m offering you my help.”

“I love, John.”

“I loved, Ed.” She shrugged and walked up to Agnes. Her breath was warm against Agnes’s face. Her lips close up weren’t as well shaped as they were that night when Agnes first saw them. They were chapped and flabby and creased. “No one will love you because you’re a woman. When you’re my age you’ll know. When you’re in your early forties and your body starts showing signs of weariness, when you spend hours calculating calories, and running ten miles every day and still your face gets wrinkled and breasts sag like bags of water,” She scowled now, “ No one will look at you. It’s no one’s fault. It’s life.”

 

 

 

 

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