The Blue Hour Read Online Free PDF Page B

no sign of my vanished husband. Ten, fifteen minutes passed. God, he really has decided to do a geographic about-face and head for home. He is probably back inside the terminal building, using a credit card to dispatch us back to the States.
    But then, amidst the crowded theater of this street scene, a tall man emerged. Paul. Walking toward me, accompanied by a diminutive fellow. He was half shaven, with a small knitted skullcap on his head, a cigarette clenched between blackened teeth. In one hand he carried a battered tin tray on which sat two stubby glasses, while his other hand clutched a pot of tea.
    â€œ Laissez-moi vous présenter ma charmante épouse, ” Paul told the gentleman as he approached us.
    The man smiled shyly. Placing the tray down on the empty space next to me on a pockmarked bench, he then raised the teapot a good foot above the glasses and began to ceremoniously pour a green liquid into the two glasses. I immediately discerned the heady, aromatic properties of the tea.
    â€œ Thé à la menthe ,” Paul said. “ Le whisky marocain .”
    Mint tea. Moroccan whisky. The man smiled and offered me the tray with the two glasses. I lifted one of them. Paul took his glass and clinked it against mine.
    â€œSorry to have disappeared like that,” he said.
    He leaned forward and placed a kiss on my lips. I accepted it, as I did his hand, which he entwined with my free one. Then I took my first sip of le whisky marocain . The mint was palatably strong, but undercut by a certain sugary sweetness. I usually dislike anything overly sweet—but this tea worked because of its aromatic strength and its honeyed undercurrent. After that horrendous flight and the wait in the sun, it was balm.
    â€œYou approve?” Paul asked.
    â€œI approve.”
    â€œOur friend here loaned me his cell phone. There is a change of plans.”
    â€œWhat sort of change of plans?”
    â€œWe’re going straight to Essaouira. There’s a bus that leaves here in twenty minutes.”
    â€œWhat about Casablanca?”
    â€œTrust me, you’re not missing much.”
    â€œIt’s still Casablanca, a place you’ve talked about endlessly from the moment we first got together.”
    â€œIt can wait.”
    â€œBut Essaouira is . . . what . . . four, five hours from here?”
    â€œSomething like that, yeah. I checked just now—the Casablanca hotel doesn’t have air-conditioning. Nor will they let us check in until three p.m. . . . which would mean sitting in a café for almost five hours. Why not take that time getting to Essaouira? And the guy who was selling the bus tickets told me the coach we’re taking is air-conditioned.”
    â€œSo it’s a fait accompli that we’re going to Essaouira? You decided for us?”
    â€œHe told me the bus was getting full. Please don’t take this badly—”
    â€œI’m taking nothing badly. I’m just . . .”
    I turned away, feeling beyond tired after the sit-up-all-night stint across the Atlantic, the heat and the toxic air even more oppressive, a further sip of mint tea doing wonders for a throat gone parched again.
    â€œFine, fine,” I said. “Essaouira it is.”
    Twenty minutes later we were aboard a bus heading south. It was absolutely packed, but Paul slipped the guy taking tickets a ten-dirham note to find us two seats right at the back of the coach. It was not air-conditioned.
    â€œ Ça se déclenchera dès que le bus aura démarré, ” said the guy who managed to squeeze us on when Paul asked, in his rather good French, if the stifling heat inside the coach would be alleviated by cooling air. It will come on once the bus starts . But when the coach pulled out, there was no arctic blast from the vents. The bus wasn’t very old, but it wasn’t very new either. And it was crammed with people and their many possessions. Two