The Blue Hour Read Free

with their Italian tailoring and their black iPhones, were from North Africa. There were backpacker types, all grungy and twentysomething, eyeing the suits with zonked amusement. Just in front of me was a rail-thin man in a dusty brown suit—his teeth blackened by cigarettes—who must have come from Mauritania, as he was holding a travel document from that country in his right hand.
    â€œWhat’s the capital of Mauritania?” I asked Paul.
    Without a pause for reflection he replied: “Nouakchott.”
    â€œThe things you know,” I said.
    â€œThis line is insane. When I came last time it was thirty-three years ago, when there were no computer checks, when the world wasn’t as paranoid as it is now.”
    â€œZen, Zen, Zen,” I said, stroking my husband’s face.
    â€œThis is Casablanca Airport, not some fucking Buddhist retreat.”
    I laughed. But he stood there, bouncing from foot to foot, an ongoing fugue of impatience and anxiety.
    â€œLet’s go home,” he suddenly said.
    â€œYou don’t mean that.”
    â€œI do.”
    I felt myself tense.
    â€œHow will we go home?” I asked.
    â€œGet the next plane.”
    â€œYou’re not serious.”
    â€œI think I am. This is all wrong.”
    â€œBecause of the long line?”
    â€œBecause my instinct tells me: go home.”
    â€œEven though your ‘instinct’ told you to make us come here?”
    â€œSo you are angry at me.”
    â€œIf you want to go home, we’ll go home.”
    â€œYou’d think me a loser if I did that,” he said.
    â€œI never think you’re a loser, my love.”
    â€œBut I know I am a liability.”
    Liabilities. That was the word that ricocheted around my head when I discovered, nine weeks ago, the extent of his debts. Having promised me, eight months earlier, that he would curb his spending habits, a knock on our door came one Friday evening around six p.m. A gentleman from a collection agency was standing on our front porch, asking to speak with Paul Leuen. I explained that my husband was at the gym. “Ah, so you are Mrs. Leuen? Then you might be aware of the sixty-four hundred dollars that your husband owes to the Vintners Wine Society.” I was speechless. My mind was racing. When had he bought all that wine, and why hadn’t I seen it anywhere in our house? The collection agent went on, explaining that the Wine Society had sent close to ten letters demanding “a conversation” about the unpaid sum that had accrued over two years. Now they had run out of patience. If the bill wasn’t settled forthwith, legal action would follow, and could involve a lien on our home.
    But instead of going inside and getting my checkbook and solving the problem on the spot (as I had done on several past occasions), I simply told the collection guy:
    â€œYou’ll need to speak directly with my husband. He’s at the Gold’s Gym on Manor Street—which is about five minutes from here by car. Ask for him at the reception desk: they know him.”
    Repeating the address of the gym again I excused myself and closed the door. As soon as I had ascertained that the collector had pulled off down the road in his car, I went into our bedroom, packed a small weekend bag, called my old college roommate, Ruth, at her home in the Cobble Hill section of Brooklyn, and asked if I could use her foldout sofa for a few days. Then, after leaving Paul a note— If the wine debt isn’t somehow paid off by the time I am back late Tuesday night the marriage is over —I got into my car and drove the eight hours south to the city I had always promised myself I would one day call my own. I deliberately kept my cell phone off all weekend. I never went online and spent the next four days trying not to bore Ruth with the cocktail of anger, guilt, and sadness that was coursing through me. Ruth—a professor of English at Brooklyn