Flashback (17 page)

Tensing my grip on the wine key, I widened my stance and braced myself. Brian's feet sounded on the tiles, the muted slap of bare skin on cold ceramic. His face appeared in the doorway, chin and nose first, hair still dripping water.

“Werner,” I said. Wrapping my left forearm around his neck, I jammed the metal tip of the corkscrew into the berm of his carotid artery. “I called him Werner. I never said Bruns.”

Brian's jaw flexed, the muscle tensing and contracting like something alive under his skin.

“How did you know?” I demanded.

He turned his head to look at me, and the steel pressed farther into his skin. “I'm sorry, Eve.”

“Who are you?”

He didn't answer.

“Did I know you?” I asked. His skin was warm from the shower. I could smell the shampoo in his hair. “Did you know me before?”

He shook his head. “No.”

“Who am I?” I demanded.

“I don't know.”

“Who are you?”

He didn't say anything. I couldn't hurt him, and he knew it.

I lifted the corkscrew from his neck and took a step backward. The steel had left a red mark on his skin, a single welt like a bee sting.

“I'm sorry,” he said again.

“Me, too,” I told him, starting for the door.

“Be careful, Eve,” I heard him say, as I stepped out into the hallway.

*   *   *

Too agitated to ride, I shook off the half dozen taxi drivers camped outside the Mamounia's gates and started up the Avenue Houmane el-Fetouaki toward the Hotel Ali. It was late, too late to be walking, but I needed to get my thoughts together. Still gripping the wine key, I put my head down and marched forward. A car pulled up next to me, and I looked over to see one of the taxi drivers beckoning through the open window.

“Get in!” he called.

I shook my head and waved him off.

“It's dangerous,” he warned.

“Go away,” I said, rudely.

“Crazy,” the man snarled in French, rolling his window up, speeding away.

I
was
crazy, I thought, crazy to have trusted Brian in the first place, crazy to have come to Marrakech. And yet, this was where the thread of my past ran out.

A car engine slowed behind me, and wheels pulled to the curb. Another taxi, I thought, keeping my eyes on the sidewalk. Jeezus, why couldn't they leave me alone? Out of the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of a black hood, a dark window. No, it wasn't a
petit taxi
. The door opened, and a man jumped out. My friend from the train. Salim.

I leaped forward, my hand tight on the corkscrew, and broke into a dead run. Behind me, a second door popped open, and a man's voice shouted in Arabic. Go, I told myself, powering ahead, but I wasn't fast enough. A hand grabbed my waist, and I went down on the sidewalk, my shoulder cracking against the pavement, the pain knocking the breath out of my lungs.

I rolled over, swinging the corkscrew, catching a piece of Salim's jacket, drawing a long red welt on his forearm. Then the second man was on me, his fingers hard on my wrist. He wrenched the wine key from my grasp, then grabbed my hair and pulled me up. There was more shouting in Arabic. The car rolled forward, and the second man shoved me inside, then climbed in after me.
This is it,
I thought,
they're going to kill me,
and the last thing I saw before they slipped a sack over my head was the Koutoubia's minaret against the black sky.

FIFTEEN

I'm with Patrick Haverman, on the other side of the mountains, in a casbah on the road to Ourzazate. Behind us is the moonscape of the Atlas, a jagged silhouette of treeless peaks. On one of the nearby parched foothills someone has written a message to God in white stones.
Allahu akbar,
it says, the letters several stories high, the script flowing across the rocky terrain as gracefully as if it had flowed from the tip of a giant ink pen.

There's a dry wind blowing, a desert wind, clean as sand. It has a left a film of fine grit in my hair and on my skin. We're on the roof, and above us is the most perfectly blue sky I've ever seen, a great placid lake of blue, stretching all the way to the northern tip of the Sahara. In my right hand I'm holding the Beretta.

It's a familiar scene, this old and uncomfortable memory. Pat is hurt, bleeding badly.

“I'm sorry,” I tell him. “God, I'm sorry.”

He's trying to tell me it's okay, but I don't believe him. This is my fault, I think. I'm the one who has done this.

“You have to go,” he says, and I know he's right, but my legs won't move. Now I'm down on my knees beside him.

“Go,” he tells me. “I'll be all right. They're coming.”

From far off down the valley comes the sound of beating wings, something powerful slicing through the air.

“I'm sorry,” I say for the last time. I lean down and kiss him, putting my hand against his chest.

“Stand up,” he demands, and I do. For the first time I notice a huge stork's nest on one of the corner ramparts of the old Casbah, an engineering feat of sticks and mud large enough to cradle a grown man.

They're coming, I think, there's nowhere to go, and then I'm plunging down into the blackness of the Casbah, down into the earthy smell of it, the jumble of rooms and stairwells, this place that seems to have risen from the land itself.

*   *   *

I'm on a sailboat, on a lake somewhere, no, on an ocean. There's a gray mist coming off the water, and my face is wet with it, wet with the spray our hull makes as it carves through the dark water. We are in a narrow passage, a channel closed on either side by two rocky islands. There's an overwhelming sense of the primeval to this place, to the moss and ferns and rambling green brambles, and the little rain-wet beaches spilling down to the water, as if they are completely secret, untouched by humans. The water is so clear that I can see the giant rocks far below, the islands' craggy foundations. The channel is dotted with rafts of kelp and white sea froth.

There are four of us on the boat, two women, a man, and me. We've brought a picnic: cold salmon, green beans, potato salad, strawberries, and chocolate cake. Everyone else is drinking champagne, but I am drinking sparkling grape juice. My mother poured it into a tall glass flute like the adults have, where it bubbles and fizzes just like the real thing.

“Look there,” my grandmother shouts, and we all follow her finger to the mouth of the channel.

Sliding toward us through the mist, its giant bow cleaving the water into two perfect white combs, is the largest boat I think I've ever seen.

“The ferry,” my grandfather says, leaning hard on the wheel, nudging us closer to land.

It's too big, I think, it's going to crush us, but I'm wrong. We skirt it easily, slipping along beside its rust-washed flanks.

“Come on,” my mother says, standing, waving her arms.

I struggle to my feet beside her.

“Wave,” she tells me, and I wave with her, to the several dozen brightly clothed passengers on the upper deck of the ferry, who are waving back.

Then the horn sounds, loud and low, sending a shiver down my spine, and the ferry turns, curving deftly around us, its prow just missing one of the green rock islands.

*   *   *

I'm in a stairwell, a narrow, garbage-strewn passageway that descends into near darkness. There's a man with me, and we're both running, careening downward, taking the steps two at a time. Below us, working their way up out of the gloom, are several dim figures, men in strange clothes, cotton shifts and loose pants. We emerge onto a landing, and my companion pulls me after him, off the stairs and into a large room, a vast, high-ceilinged industrial space bounded on one side by a long row of grime-streaked windows.

The warehouse, I think, and already I know what is to come. There is no way out, and we can hear the men, their feet pummeling the stairs. My friend looks at me, and his eyes are black with fear. He is sweating, his face glistening in the swampy light. It's okay, I want to tell him, but I know it's not. In an instant the men are upon us. The knife winks, flashing toward me like the ivory tooth of some giant predator. I feel it briefly on my neck, not pain, but something swifter and cleaner, and then I feel nothing at all.

*   *   *

It's hard to say how long I was out, a few hours, possibly more. It was just before dawn when I woke, cotton-mouthed and nauseous, groping my way toward consciousness. Through the high window across from my bed I could see the first hint of the sun, the black sky draining to blue, the stars fading like spring snowflakes settling on a pond.

They'd given me vasopressin. I could taste its bitter reminder in the back of my throat. They'd given me something else, too, something that had knocked me out with the speed and precision of a heavyweight prizefighter. But whatever it was had quit working, and now, for the first time since I'd been stuffed into the black Mercedes, there was nothing to mask the throbbing in my shoulder. I rolled over, trying to sit up, and the pain caught me right in the pit of my stomach. I took a deep breath and lay back, running through the litany of my dreams, while the pain subsided to a dull ache.

To live with amnesia is to live with a suspect mind, a renegade piece of yourself that cannot be contained. Dreams may be memories, memories may be dreams, and neither one is to be trusted. I had seen my mother before, or at least her shadowy incarnation, and I had long since learned to discount her appearances as wishful specters of my own desires.

In the beginning I had been deceived by the vivid conjurings of my imagination. The places in my dreams had seemed impossibly real, home interiors furnished down to the last tiny detail, china figurines on the end tables, a cluttered pot rack in the kitchen. I had come to believe in these places the way the sisters believed in the kingdom of heaven. Here was Christmas morning, a flocked fir tree in the living room, a fire in the fireplace, a new red bicycle with a bow on it. And here I was in a pair of blue-and-white pajamas.

And then, one night at the abbey, I'd recognized that pajamaed little girl in one of Sister Claire's videos. The house was a relic from another movie, a ghost story about a man who'd killed his mistress. How could I believe in anything after that?

And yet, try as I might, I couldn't shake the vision of Patrick Haverman, the Beretta in my hand. He was dead. I knew it now. Hadn't I dreamed this before? Hadn't I shuddered at the person in my piracetam nightmares, the same person who'd gone to Joshi's apartment that night, who'd left a gun in the safe of the El Minzah, who knew how to use it? There are some things we're better off not knowing, I thought. Like whatever had happened in that warehouse.

Somewhere in the distance, the muezzin started his call to morning prayer, and a handful of other, fainter voices joined in. We were still in the city, then. I sat up again, slowly this time, and surveyed my surroundings. The single, open window let in just enough light for me to make out the room's spare furnishings. Aside from my bed, there was a small dresser, a wardrobe, and a single chair.

The room had two doors, one on either side. I stood up, taking a moment to get my balance, and made my way toward the closest one. It was locked tight, dead-bolted from the outside, without an inner knob or latch to try. I swept my hand across the wall, feeling for a light switch, but found nothing.

The second door gave way easily at my touch, swinging inward. Finding a light switch on the inside wall, I flicked it on to reveal a small, utilitarian bathroom with a white porcelain toilet and sink. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirrored medicine cabinet and winced. My hair was matted from sleep, my right cheek red and abraded from the fall. My lip was fat on one side, my right eye showing a darkening half-moon bruise that promised to blossom into a nasty shiner.

Working through the pain, I lifted my arm and made a small circle, loosening my shoulder joint. No, I didn't think it was broken, but the muscles would be sore and stiff for a while.

My arrival had evidently been expected. A shelf next to the sink held an array of basic toiletries, soap, toothpaste, hairbrush, a new toothbrush still in its wrapper, and a plastic drinking cup. There were clean white towels on the back of the door.

I took a drink first, letting the tap run till the water came out cold. Vasopressin always made my mouth dry, but this was worse than any hangover the medication had ever left me with. It took three good cupfuls of water for me to wash down the cotton taste. When I'd drunk my fill, I brushed my teeth, then turned the tap to hot and washed my face, carefully scrubbing the crusted blood from my right cheek.

Where was I? I wondered, stepping back into the main room, listening to the muezzin's voice fade to silence. Out the open window I could hear a bird singing and the faint rumble of a car engine. In the city, yes, but somewhere quiet. At Bruns Werner's villa, perhaps. Had Brian set me up? He must have known all along, from the moment he saw me on the ferry. No, he must have known before that. Someone at customs in Algeciras had known who I was. And Patrick Haverman? And Hannah Boyle? Had they been a lie as well? Some part of me deep down refused to believe it.

I crossed to the locked door and stretched myself out on the terra-cotta tiles, my eye to the inch-wide crack at the threshold. There was a light on in the corridor, but no sign of life. Standing, I crossed back to the bed, shoved the bedstead against the wall beneath the window, then positioned the chair on top of the mattress.

It was a precarious arrangement, but with careful climbing I managed to reach the window. Lifting myself on my tiptoes, I peered out. From where I stood I could see the walled gardens of several large properties, and not too far away, a slice of what looked like the Jardin Majorelle. Yes, I was definitely in Marrakech, at Werner's house in the Ville Nouvelle.