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easy for me,” I swore I heard him say.
    â€œExcuse me?” I asked.
    He shook his head, the look I’d taken for recognition passing on. “Nothing, Mademoiselle.” Smiling genially, he turned to Joshi. “I see you’ve brought us a guest.”
    Joshi nodded. “Marie’s just come in on the ferry. I promised her you’d have a room.”
    The man glanced at me once more, then slipped on a pair of reading glasses and peered down at his registry. “I believe I can find something.”
    I watched the side of his face, his hands sliding across the page in front of him. He was Moroccan, but not fully, his blue-gray eyes betraying whatever Frenchman or Brit lingered somewhere not far back on his family tree.
    â€œI have a room for two hundred dirhams,” he offered, finally. “With a shared bath down the hall.”
    I nodded, fishing fifty euros from my pack. “Can you change this for me?”
    â€œOf course.”
    The clerk opened a cash box and counted out a stack of dirhams, setting two hundred aside for himself, giving me the rest. He penciled something in the registry, then slid a piece of paper across the counter.
    â€œIf Mademoiselle wouldn’t mind,” he said.
    I looked down at the blank registration form in front of me, the lines marked Name and Passport number . Sliding Marie’s passport from my bag, I penned in what information I could, hesitating over my home address, finally scribbling down the street number of the chocolate shop in Lyon.
    When I had finished, the old clerk reached over, grabbed a key from one of the many hooks that hung on the wall beside him, and set it on the counter.
    â€œRoom two-oh-five,” he said.
    I picked up the key and looked down at him, willing myself to remember if I could, my mind straining to see through the dark night of all I’d forgotten. “Do I know you?”
    He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
    â€œAre you sure?” I pressed.
    Abdesselom looked to Joshi and then again to me. “I would remember.”
    *   *   *
    I thanked Joshi for all his help, then climbed the stairs to my room. A funny little man, I thought, opening the door, setting my rucksack down on the bed, so stiffly British and Asian at the same time, so awkward in his intentions. Though I couldn’t say I hadn’t been grateful for his guidance. Leaving the lights off, I stepped to the window and peered down at the waterlogged veranda and courtyard. The hotel’s front door swung open, and a group of tourists filed out, heading for the medina. A few seconds later Joshi appeared, his orange shoes glowing unmistakably. He stopped, drew a pack of cigarettes from his coat and lit one, then opened the black circle of his umbrella. A lonely man, I told myself.
    Headlights flickered outside the gate, and a little red taxi pulled into the courtyard. I watched as a figure climbed out, a man in a long raincoat. He said something to the driver, then climbed up the steps to where Joshi was standing. The taxi sat where it was, engine idling. I could see the man’s face in the veranda lights. An American, I thought, squinting to see better. Yes, he had that look: blond hair, white teeth, and an unnatural healthiness. He and Joshi exchanged a few words; then he reached into his pocket, pulled out a brown envelope, handed it to Joshi, and headed back to the waiting cab.
    *   *   *
    I went to bed early and was awakened sometime around midnight by a barrage of off-key German drinking songs. There was a chorus of drunken footsteps in the hallway, several minutes of slamming doors and water running in the pipes; then the floor fell silent, and I drifted back to sleep.
    Sometime later in the night I woke again, wrangled from sleep by the quiet shuffling of another body in the room. In my half-dreaming state my first thought was that it was Heloise, come to wake me for the morning