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Robert watches the ground of Morocco, and
all the buildings grow larger towards him beyond the cramped window. Last time,
Delia spilled her scotch and soda on his pant leg as they touched the runway.
Robert gives an address to the taxi driver. The hotel is familiar, but now there
is an air conditioning system. He can remember her complaining about the
heat.
Robert consciously lies on the right side of the bed, with the
guilt that won't leave him. Delia always lay on the left. He had decided to
return here as he watched the shiny black coffin lowered into wet soil. The
joined families expressed concern for him in their own sorrow, assuming that he
wanted to relive the past in grief. Robert wakes up with a headache. He thinks
about how a pin inserted in exactly the right spot at the back of the neck can
kill a person. In an hour he finishes his coffee and leaves in creased
clothes.
Delia's idea of Casablanca was
Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart, so they spent most of the honeymoon moving
between the city's fanciest restaurants and nightclubs, conversing with other
English tourists. Robert walks through the marketplace and buys lunch from a
vendor. He hears Delia's shock and certainty in the diseases it must contain.
The next day he visits the mosque that he hadn't gotten to see before. Arrows
point him along the self-guided tour, but he sees only her face in the exquisite
tiled walls. He leaves before the tour ends. The cab driver brings him to the
waterfront, and he watches the bright water. It occurs to him that he will turn
thirty next week, and he wonders if he will feel the guilt for the rest of his
life. Untimely death is horrific, Robert tells himself. He remembers her inert
body and how little remorse he had felt looking at it. He doesn't notice the
smell of fish and walks farther on.
Robert stays in Casablanca for
another two weeks. As he sits on the airplane bringing him back to London
Heathrow, he is not so much happy to be leaving, but the trip wasn't as
gratifying as he had imagined it would be. Perhaps it was a mistake to come
here. The morning of the day of Delia's death had turned foggy in his mind,
truth be told. He had been shocked, at her crumpled face, at realizing there was
no grief in him. Now the guilt of not loving her enwraps him.
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