The Blue Hour (43 page)

“I won't contest that. At least be thankful that I allowed you a shower, a good meal, and an excellent night's sleep before calling them.”

Then he shouted something in Arabic down the corridor. Moments later I was surrounded by three men in suits and a police officer in uniform. One of the detectives spoke to me in French, asking me to confirm my name. I told him what he wanted to hear.

“Now, we would prefer not to use handcuffs,” he said.

“I'll go quietly,” I said.

“Very wise,
madame
.”

With the two officers in front and two behind me, I was marched out. Ben Hassan insisted on accompanying us to the front door.

“Do say hello the next time you are in Casablanca,” was his parting benediction. “And do remember there is a subtext to all this: survival is everything.”

I was marched down the stairs, marched into a waiting unmarked car, accompanied by two police cars blaring their sirens as we shot across the city. Neither of the detectives with me said anything as we traversed Casablanca. I shut my eyes.
Why am I surprised it is ending like this?

The windows on this vehicle were virtually blacked out, allowing me no idea of where we were heading. After a quarter of an hour I saw through the windscreen that we were entering a modern block of buildings, and then driving down a tunnel into an underground garage. Once there, all the officers exited the vehicle before I was allowed to get up. The same deal as before: two officers in front and two behind me as I was marched to a doorway that only opened after one of the cops punched in a number code, and the door swung open. The walls inside were painted an institutional green. I was brought up a set of stairs, and then down another concrete corner until I was steered into a room furnished only with a metal table, four chairs, and a mirror that, no doubt, was two-way.

The cops deposited me in this room, then turned and left without saying anything. The door slammed behind them with a formidable thud. I could hear a bolt sliding into place outside.
Do you really think I'd try to make a break for it?
I felt like shouting. Instead I sat down in one of the chairs, put my face in my hands, and thought, Whatever you do, insist on a lawyer, and refuse to answer any of their questions.

I heard the bolt being slid back and the door opening. In walked a Western woman, late thirties, dressed in a crisp linen suit, a pressed white blouse, a bulging leather briefcase in her left hand. She came over to me, her hand extended.

“It is so good to finally meet you, Robin.”

I accepted the outstretched hand, trying to work out who this woman was and why she was here in a Moroccan police station.

“Alison Conway, assistant consul at the US Consulate here in Casablanca. Now, we don't have long, as Inspector al-Badisi and the translator will be here in a moment. But what I wanted to explain before he got here—”

She didn't have time to finish that sentence, as the door swung open and in walked a man, with thick black hair and a groomed moustache, wearing a light brown suit. He extended his hand and informed me that he was Inspector al-Badisi. He had a dossier of documents with him, which he put down on the table. I asked for water. He shouted out to someone in the hallway. Meanwhile a woman joined us—dark suit, black hair tied up in a tight bun, severe features.

“This is Madame Zar,” the Inspector said, “who will be translating for me today.”

“But we are speaking in French now.”

The assistant consul, now seated next to me at the table, put her hand on my arm.

“I felt it was better, for clarity's sake, if all discussed here was translated, so there would be no ambiguities.”

“What's going on here?” I whispered to her in English.

“Just let the inspector speak,” she whispered back. “All will be explained.”

The water arrived. The door was closed. The inspector sat down and opened his dossier, bringing out several copies of what seemed to be the same document. Then he looked up and regarded me with formal severity. As he spoke, the translator waited for a pause every few sentences before rendering his words into English for me.

“
Madame
, on behalf of His Majesty and his government, I wish to offer you our sincere condolences for the ordeal you have been put through. We have been, as Assistant Consul Conway can attest, working very closely with the US Consulate here in Casablanca in the search for you. We are immensely relieved and pleased to have you here, alive and, I hope, reasonably well.”

I said nothing, just nodded acknowledgment.

“Now, I regret that we must discuss the events that occurred in a sector of the Sahara some forty-three kilometers from the town of Tata. We do know what happened out there—”

Suddenly I flew off the handle. “How can you know what happened there? I was there. What happened there was inflicted on me.”

The assistant consul gripped my arm tightly. I shut my eyes for a moment, gathering myself, then opened them and said, “I apologize for interrupting you, Inspector. It has been a very long few weeks.”

“There is no need to apologize,
madame
. On the contrary, we should be apologizing to you, considering what you've been put through. But as I was saying . . . we are aware of what happened in the desert.”

With that he pulled over what clearly was a prepared statement. And began to read it to me. In it he recounted the “facts” of the case. How I had been searching for my missing husband in the Sahara and had been drugged with chloroform while leaving my hotel in Tata to catch the early bus to Ouarzazate. The two “criminals” were named Abdullah Talib and Imad Shuayb, both twenty-one, both from Marrakesh, both working on a road work project in Tata. They beat and robbed me, knocking me unconscious. But after that, the two thieves argued over how to split the money and goods stolen from me. A fight between them broke out, with Imad stabbing Abdullah to death, and then, in a panic, setting fire to the body and returning to Tata. When he tried to sell my computer and passport some days later in Marrakesh, a merchant notified the police. Imad Shuayb confessed everything after his arrest and was so ashamed of his crimes that he hanged himself in the prison cell in which he was being held, awaiting trial.

When the inspector reached this part of the narrative, my shoulders stiffened. I was about to say something—but again Assistant Consul Conway put her hand on my arm, letting me know that silence was the best option. Of course I knew immediately what the inspector was reading me: the official version of what went down, eliminating the nasty public embarrassment (especially in such a tourist-based economy) of the revelation that a Western woman had been abducted and raped and left to die under the Saharan sun. I could only begin to wonder if, after having had his confession beaten out of him, that dreadful young man had truly taken his own life or was conveniently “suicided” to close the case entirely. While part of me was outraged that the rape had been left out of the official statement, the other forensic part of my psyche also understood what the authorities were doing. They were giving me a way out, and one in which no possible legal charges could ever be directed at me, or an investigation demanded by the assailants' families. The loose narrative ends were being tied up in a manner in which the case would be closed permanently.

The inspector continued on, explaining how, having been left unconscious in the desert, a Berber family rescued me, nursed me back to life, and eventually helped get me back to Casablanca. Again the thought ran through my brain: Did they actually know the name of my saviors or was this just more official-story-speak? I interrupted him at this point.

“That is what happened,
monsieur
. I owe my life to those people who saved me and the man who drove me up here.”

The inspector's face twitched, as if he had been caught unawares by this revelation. That's when I knew: they had been totally unaware of Maika and her family, of Aatif and the way I was smuggled up here behind the niqab. They had just invented the Berber part of the story as another way of explaining why I had gone missing for several weeks. So my Berber friends would not be receiving unwanted visits by the Sûreté posing all sorts of questions. They would be left alone.

Assistant Consul Conway shot me a look, telling me that I should let the inspector finish.

“I am pleased that you were helped by our citizens,” he said. “And I would just like to say—those men who attacked you, those criminals . . . they are not us.”

“Believe me,
monsieur,
I know that,” I said. “I know that so well.”

“So we have prepared an official statement in English, French, and Arabic, which Assistant Consul Conway has examined in all three languages to confirm they are one and the same, and which we would like you to sign . . . after, of course, you've had the chance to peruse them. We would appreciate it if you would pose for a photograph with me; a photo that will be released to the media to show that you are alive and well, as there has been considerable concern here and elsewhere in your disappearance. We were in contact with the hotel at which you and your husband were staying in Essaouira. All your clothes were packed up and sent north to Casablanca, where they will await you tonight at the Hôtel Mansour. It is an excellent hotel and you will be our guest tonight. When Imad Shuayb was arrested, we also recovered your passport” (which he now pushed across the table to me). “We also discovered that you had a reservation back to New York on Royal Air Maroc some weeks ago that you never used. We have contacted the airline. They have changed the flight, at no charge to you whatsoever, to tomorrow at midday. We will also arrange for complimentary transport to the airport—and anything that you want tonight at the hotel you just sign for.”

So Ben Hassan had probably called his police contact early this morning while I was still asleep, telling them he had me at his place, but to wait until I was up and ready before showing up to take me in. In the meantime the assistant consul had been contacted and everything put in motion to wrap this story up as quickly as possible and get me out of the country tomorrow.

“That's all very thoughtful of you,” I said. “One important thing remains outstanding: Have there been any sightings of my husband, any sense whatsoever of his whereabouts?”

The inspector pursed his lips and reached for another file.

“On August second your husband checked out of the Oasis Hotel early that morning and was seen walking out of town. A local tour guide named Idriss was heading to work in his jeep and saw Monsieur Leuen heading directly into the desert. He stopped and asked Monsieur Leuen if he could offer assistance, as he was heading into a barren area without oases, and as he was wearing no hat and carrying no backpack or canteen. Your husband told the guide, ‘I'm fine,' and kept walking into the Sahara. That was the last sighting of him.”

“And that was at what time?” I asked.

“The tour guide said it was around seven twenty.”

“But that's impossible,” I said. “I arrived in Ouarzazate at seven and caught sight of my husband at least three times that morning.”

“Did you speak to him?” the inspector asked.

“No—he always eluded me. And the woman at the hotel told me he returned there at four o'clock and was heading to the bus depot to catch the four ten to Tata. I followed him. I saw him in front of me. I missed the bus and took the next one.”

The inspector pulled out more documents, scrutinizing them with care.

“I have here the statement from the tour guide and the woman at the hotel. Again I repeat, she said your husband checked out at seven, and the tour guide confirmed he had his conversation with him at seven twenty. It's all here.”

“But I saw him.”

“But if you saw him,” the inspector said, “then why didn't he answer you?”

“He was avoiding me. But that woman at the hotel . . . I remember the conversation I had with her when I came back from seeing . . .”

I stopped myself from saying anything more. Because to do so would, I sensed, begin to raise questions about my sanity, questions that I myself didn't want to answer. I closed my eyes. There was Paul, eluding me on the streets of Ouarzazate. There was the scene at the hotel reception desk, after visiting his other wife. “You've just missed him,” the woman at the desk told me. And the sight of his bobbing gray hair and his tall frame in the distance as I raced to catch him before he boarded the bus. Everything else that had happened to me after that was so real. I still had plenty of physical scars from the attack. They'd found the burned body. Opening that passport in front of me, I saw that it was my own. All tangible, all real. I had lived this story. It was all verified. But those hours in Ouarzazate when Paul was everywhere and nowhere . . . surely that couldn't have been a hallucination?

“Are you all right, Robin?” Alison Conway asked me, her hand on my shoulder.

“No,” I said.

Leaning toward me, she whispered in my ear, “I cannot give you official counsel, as that is not in my diplomatic remit. But, speaking personally, if I were you, I would sign the statement. I had one of our legal people and one of our translators look at all three versions. They all match up, and they all let you leave Morocco with the matter entirely resolved.”

So she too suspected (or, indeed, knew) that the burned body in the desert wasn't the handiwork of the accomplice who was then “suicided” while in custody.

“Give them what they want,” she continued. “Put your signature on the statement, pose for the press photograph, spend the night in the five-star hotel they've arranged for you, take the flight home tomorrow. They are being very smart about all this. Very conscientious. I strongly advise you to do the same.”

I shut my eyes again. Paul was there, sketching away on the balcony of our room in Essaouira, flashing me a seductive smile as I brought him a glass of wine, telling me he loved me. I blinked. Paul was gone. I blinked again. There he was dashing down that back alley in Ouarzazate, eluding me as always—but still so tangibly there. I blinked again. Nothing. A void as empty as the Sahara.