The Blue Hour Read Online Free PDF

the cop in the booth, the discussion getting heated, voices raised, the policeman picking up the phone to call someone, two other plainclothes officers (guns bulging under their suit jackets) showing up and leading the now angry and frightened man into a side interrogation room. Glancing away from this little drama toward my husband, I could see that he was regarding these proceedings with dread.
    â€œYou think they’ll let me in?” he whispered.
    â€œWhy wouldn’t they?”
    â€œNo reason, no reason,” he said, sounding uneasy. At that precise moment the cop in the booth called us forward, his hand out for our passports and landing cards. As he scanned each of our passports and peered at the computer screen, Paul was working hard at masking his distress. I reached over and took his hand, squeezing it, willing him to calm down.
    â€œYou stay how long?” the cop asked in choppy, cadenced English.
    â€œ Quatre semaines , ” Paul said.
    â€œYou work here?” the cop asked.
    â€œNo way,” Paul said. “We’re on vacation.”
    Another glance at the computer screen. Then a thorough inspection of all the pages of our respective passports, during which I could feel Paul tense even more. Then: stamp, stamp . . . and the cop pushed the passports back to us.
    â€œ Bienvenue, ” he said.
    And we stepped forward into Morocco.
    â€œSee, they let you in,” I said, all smiles. “Why so nervous?”
    â€œStupidity, stupidity,” he said.
    But as we moved forward toward the baggage carousels I caught him whispering to himself one word:
    â€œIdiot.”

FOUR

    JULY IN NORTH Africa. Heat and dust and gasoline fumes enveloping the parched air. That was the first aroma to hit my nostrils as we left the airport terminal: petroleum intermixed with arid, motionless oxygen. Up in the sky the morning sun was at full wattage. It didn’t matter that Casablanca was on the Atlantic coast. The first sensation on leaving the somewhat cooler confines of the arrivals hall was “welcome to the blast furnace.” The sort of torridity that immediately stung the eyes and parched the mouth.
    â€œWe would have to arrive in hell,” Paul said as we waited at the packed bus stop for the coach into the city center.
    â€œWell, you did once live here in July, right?” I said.
    â€œIt will be cooler in Essaouira.”
    â€œAnd we’ll be there in just a few days. No doubt our hotel here in Casablanca has air-conditioning.”
    â€œDon’t be so sure of that. This is North Africa. Discomfort at the cheap end of the spectrum is part of the deal.”
    â€œThen we can find a hotel with AC.”
    â€œOr we can change our plans now.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œBack in a moment.”
    With that he disappeared off into the crowd. I wanted to follow him. But our suitcases were there in front of me. They were four sizable pieces of luggage, as they had clothes for many weeks and Paul’s art supplies and the collection of twelve books I had envisaged myself reading while facing the waters of the Atlantic. Were I to leave the suitcases and pursue my husband, I would be inviting theft and a proper disaster at the start of what was already shaping up to be a rather dubious adventure. So all I could do was shout Paul’s name several times over. My voice was drowned out by everyone crowded around the bus stop: veiled women, men of varied ages in ill-fitting suits, one or two backpackers, two grandfatherly types in long flowing robes, three very dark-skinned Africans carrying their worldly goods in cheap canvas bags, causing me to wonder if they were guest workers here looking for work and, from the bewilderment sketched on their faces, very much as adrift here as myself.
    Buses came and went, most of them elderly, all belching further clouds of exhaust as they heaved away toward assorted destinations. I peered into the distance but could see