Anatomy of a Disappearance Read Free Page A

but I cannot recall what had set him off laughing so infectiously.
    I went to wash my face in the sea. A couple of dressed women, probably servants, stood waist deep in the water. Balloons of black fabric surrounded them and glistened whenever one of them moved. Their conversation turned to whispers when they saw me, whispers barely louder than the ripples lapping at my feet. I wished Naima had come with us. She had been our maid since before I was born. At that moment I felt she knew me better than anyone in the entire world.
    A man in shorts and a baseball cap—in retrospect, he was probably a retired diplomat—with a tuft of gray hair at the center of his bronzed chest, jogged briskly along the shore.
    “Morning,” he shouted in English although it was nearly noon and we were both Arab.
    I felt like going after him, shouting, “Morning morning morning,” making stupid faces. Instead, I licked the salt off my lips and wandered back into the gardens of the Magda Marina.

    Although I did not see a shadow appear beside me or hear her approach, I did not flinch when she sneaked from behind and threaded an arm through mine. Her lips were smiling. Her cheeks glowed with mischief.
    “I have been looking for you,” she said, and I felt the lump in my throat dissolve.
    She walked ahead, leading the way to her room. As she moved, the wind moved and caused the slack gray cotton of her dress to hold for a moment the curve of her calf, the strong tremor of her thigh, the arc of a buttock.
    “Stay here,” she said and went into her room.
    I caught my reflection in the mirrored glass: eyes red, cheeks puffy.
    She came back and handed me my ball.
    “Next time, knock.”
    I nodded and went to leave.
    “No, silly, come back,” she said, laughing, and drew the door wide.
    I stood unsure of what was expected. Then she pointed to the armchair. I sat there, inhaling her smells, remembering Mother’s wardrobe and how it smelled once I was inside it and the doors were pulled shut. But now everything was spilling out of the open door. I thought of asking her to close it, but it was a hot day.
    The same pearl necklace lay curled in a figure 8 on thecoffee table. I imagined her coming in every night after dinner and not descending into this armchair but sitting at its edge, wondering what to do next.
    “Would you like some juice?” she said, opening an identical minibar to the one we had in our room. “Guava?”
    She placed the small bottle in front of me but did not unscrew the top, and I did not think it polite to do so.
    She sat on the end of the bed, where I had sat the day before listening to her sing under the shower. I noticed a small cassette player on the bedside table.
    “Do you like music?”
    When I did not answer she pressed a button on the player, and an English song, fast and silly, filled the room.
    She extended her hands to me then pulled me up. I pretended to be looking at the room. She closed her eyes and raised her arms above her head. With every move her breasts trembled a little beneath the gray cotton.

    I spent every minute I could with Mona. Whenever I had to leave her to go to the toilet my heart raced until I returned. And at night, when I had to go to bed, the longing and the excitement about seeing her the following day kept me awake. We swam in the sea, built sand castles and shared our bewilderment at the guests who would not venture beyond the swimming pool. We danced in her room to English pop songs that suddenly took on hidden depths to my boyish mind. My eyes were no longer downcast; indeed,I often lost control of them altogether and would gaze without restraint at a particular part of her anatomy. Once, when she was looking at the sea, I studied her neck, a place where the skin was so delicate you could see the emerald veins weave their complex network. I kissed her there. She looked at me. Then, not so much out of shyness but horror, I looked away.
    She told me about London, the city where she