When I’d imagined Tangiers I’d pictured palm trees and gleaming ships, grand villas that looked like the Mezquita back home. But here, the plaster walls were pocked and crumbling, revealing layers of colour beneath. Pigeons shuffled in crevices, gulls wheeled hungrily overhead, like flashing eyes in the dark.

Soon, the streets grew more crowded. Modern buildings sprang up amongst the old, their signs bellowing for my attention: HOTEL DETROIT, CAFÉ-BAR POSTO, BOUCHERIE BENSIMON. Donkeys idled on corners beneath signs for Marlboro and Coca-Cola and Cinzano. From a rusted basement window, a child’s face looked up at me, gaunt and solemn. I was shoved by passers-by whenever I stopped on the narrow street, but I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t stop looking, for here – it seemed – was everything.

Brightness and misery, rope sandals and gleaming shoes, animal dung and French perfume, music and screamed insults. A boy elbowed past, newspapers bristling on his arms like the feathers of city pigeons. Edición noche! he bawled at a group of men who sat smoking on a step. Edition soir! Evening paper, sir! Abendausgabe!

From above, I heard a shriek and jumped to the side just as a splash of liquid came cascading down. Every orifice of every building seemed to be spilling, oozing with life.

A few steps on, the street seemed to take pity and expand a few paces, leaving room to breathe. Here it was brighter, café awnings marching down the sides of a small square. I took a step towards one of the bars, my heart squeezing at the thought of fulfilling my dream: of sitting down on my own and ordering a drink, like any young man in a hot foreign city.

But after a moment, I felt someone watching me. It was a woman at a table near by, an unlit cigarette in her hand. Her red hair was tightly curled, eyelashes black with mascara, smudged beneath. She smiled and raised an eyebrow. No one had ever looked at me that way before. Face burning, I turned away, too late.

‘Do you have a light?’ she called in English.

Her accent was strange. American, I realized, looking from her to the two men at her table. I’d never met Americans before. All three of them were young, and deeply tanned, yet the skin of their faces looked waxy and one of the young men had bloodshot eyes. Too much, those faces said, too much.

‘Well?’ she asked again, waving her cigarette.

‘No, señora,’ I muttered. ‘I am sorry.’

‘Señorita, please,’ she said. She looked up at me again through her lashes. ‘And no matter. Are you lost?’

‘No.’ I kept my face lowered.

‘Well, you sure look it. You must be new in town?’

I nodded, glancing over my shoulder, wondering how to escape.

‘I always can tell.’ She began to search through a tiny bag on her lap. ‘Looking for anyone?’