by Tahir Shah
A gardener was planting new flowers around the edge of the lawn, on the instructions of Ghita. She had specified that they were to alternate in royal blue, red and white, and that on no account was there ever to be any pink. A Feng Shui guru in Miami had informed her the week before that pink was her cursed colour, one that could bring nothing but ill-fortune and despair.
In the house, Hicham Omary was stirring a cup of English breakfast tea, his mind on the night before. He rolled his eyes at the thought of high society, all too ready to parade in their jewels, and to take advantage of free entertainment.
His mind turned to the conversation after the party, the conversation that had ended in his daughter’s promise. He jerked up straight, then grinned.
The maid entered with a fresh pot of tea.
‘Meriem, would you please go and wake Ghita, and remind her of the conversation we had last night?’ he said.
‘Yes, sir. At once.’
An hour passed, the grandfather clock in the entrance struck nine times. There was the sound of leather slippers shuffling over polished parquet. Ghita entered, still in her pyjamas, texting a message as she came.
‘Good morning, my dear,’ said Omary brightly.
Ghita sent her text, leant down and kissed the crown of her father’s head.
‘Good morning, Baba. What a night that was!’
Omary cracked his knuckles.
‘A fine morning,’ he said. ‘Looks as though you have good weather for it.’
‘Good weather for what, Baba?’
‘For your grand adventure.’
‘Hmm?’
Ghita frowned sleepily, and began typing another text.
‘Surely you have not forgotten our conversation, and your promise?’
A moment or two passed, then a look of absolute horror descended like a curtain over Ghita’s face. She murmured something unclear, a cross between supplication and apology.
An hour later, she was clothed in a lavender dress with matching shoes from Jimmy Choo. Around her neck was a double string of pearls, the diamond engagement ring weighing down her left hand. Behind her were three gigantic Louis Vuitton suitcases packed with accessories and with clothes. They were so heavy that the butler had had to struggle getting them down the stairs.
Hicham Omary found his daughter standing in the hallway, beside the cases. She was putting on lipstick, while a maid obediently held her iPhone to one ear. Blowing a kiss into the phone, she prepared to beg as much as was necessary to talk her father into seeing sense.
‘I have been a fool, Baba,’ she said unctuously, ‘and have behaved shamefully.’ Dabbing a lace handkerchief to her eye, she nestled her face in her father’s shoulder, and muttered a rivulet of remorse.
Omary stepped back. He tapped his watch.
‘Mehdi’s waiting,’ he said. ‘He has instructions to take you down to Marché Central. And he will come back for you in thirty days.’
Ghita’s nostrils flared with rage. She breathed in deep, felt her toes curl up in her lavender Jimmy Choos. She was about to say something, when her father advanced a pace. Expecting to be hugged, to be told it was all a joke, Ghita breathed out in a sigh. The edge of her nose wrinkled as she smiled.
But Hicham Omary clicked his fingers.
Understanding the instruction, the butler strode up, a polished silver salver balanced upon his palm.
‘For your protection I think it wise to relieve you of some of this,’ Omary said.
Ghita was about to ask what he meant, when her father unclasped the pearl necklace and placed it on the tray. Then, gently, he removed her earrings, her diamond-pavé Chopard and, lastly, her engagement ring. Before she could protest, Omary reached for her iPhone, and placed it on the salver as well.
The butler disappeared.
When he was gone, Ghita’s father motioned to the luggage.
‘You can take one of them,’ he said. ‘And one alone.’
Ghita’s cheeks darkened from plum red to deep maroon. Fuming like she had never fumed before, she concealed the depth of her fury. She motioned to the largest case, a portmanteau. Before she could change her mind, it was whisked away to the car.
Any other girl might have got on her knees and begged a little more, but Ghita’s pride was too strong. Seething, her stomach filled with bile, she pecked her father on the cheek, and walked out to the black Maybach limousine.
A liveried chauffeur was holding open the door. He greeted Ghita but, as always, she ignored him as she got in.
Just before the vehicle moved away, Omary hurried out of the house to the driveway. Again, Ghita sighed, cursed him aloud, imagining that he was coming to call it all off.
She wound down the window and puckered her lips.
Her father held out his hand.
‘I almost forgot,’ he said. ‘I think you’d better leave me your wallet for safekeeping. We wouldn’t want you to get mugged down there, would we?’
Ghita would have burst into tears, but was too enraged to cry. All she could manage was a pained shriek that resembled the call of some exotic parakeet.
‘What will I do without any money at all?!’ she exclaimed.
Omary fumbled in his pocket. He pulled out a ten-dirham coin and passed it to her.
‘That should get you started,’ he said.
Twenty-two
Humphrey Bogart had been strapped to the roof of a dilapidated communal taxi, an old white Mercedes.
It was so full of people that the passengers had all melded together, making it impossible to say where one ended and the next began. Blaine was lodged on the back seat, pressed up between a pair of veiled women.
One of them had thrust her squalling baby onto his lap, as hers was occupied by an oversized wicker basket stuffed with live chickens.
Without warning, the baby threw up all over Blaine and began screaming ferociously. Terrified by the noise, the chickens began flapping wildly, and became so animated that one of them broke free. In a frenzy of squawking and feathers, the bird flapped through the little empty space, wings fluttering against faces.
Embracing the adventure, Blaine savoured every moment.
An hour later and he was alone on the back seat.
His face pressed up against the window, he took in the gleaming streets of old Casablanca, and the hotchpotch of life that filled them.
There were wizened men pushing barrows laden with ripe pomegranates and twisted scrap metal; donkey carts, and blind beggars led through the gridlock traffic by young boys. And there were street hawkers selling cigarettes one by one, pickpockets lurking in doorways, old women scrubbing down steps, businessmen in wide ties and nylon bell-bottoms, and the scent of diesel fumes thick on the ocean breeze.
Blaine wound down the window and breathed it all in.
He couldn’t believe it – the real Casablanca, a destination of which he had dreamed night and day for as long as he could remember. He caught a flash of his grandfather’s smile in half a glass of water, and rummaged in the band of his fedora for the ticket stub. It was still there, a trophy through whose magic the journey had all begun.
‘I’m here, Grandpa,’ Blaine whispered. ‘I’m really here... in Casablanca!’
Twenty-three
Upholstered in beige calfskin, the Maybach 57 floated down the Corniche, and passed the city’s historic lighthouse. On a patch of communal ground opposite was the Italian circus, its elephants being scrubbed down by the clowns.
Ghita was too busy seething to take in the sights. Her expression was quite vacant, as if she had just been informed that a firing squad was to end her life at dawn. The limousine glided down past the great Mosque of Hassan II, through the underpass, and along the edge of the old medina. The ocean swell was heavy for the time of year, the waves crashing down against the barricades.
All Ghita could think was that her father was up to something, a ruse to hold a surprise party of some kind. She could feel it in her bones, that there was to be a high to counter
the low. There would be a reception with laughter and more champagne, or a jaunt to Monte Carlo on the family’s Gulfstream, or diamonds, or emeralds – a grand roll call of luxury and delight.
As the Maybach neared the Casa Port Railway Station, a uniformed officer flagged it down. Before the officer could deliver his much-practised line about exceeding the speed limit, the chauffeur lowered the window and slipped a crisp green fifty-dirham note into his glove. The whole operation took less than thirty seconds, and was executed as elegantly as a ballerina’s pirouette.
The chauffeur turned right, away from the ocean, up a palm-lined avenue, towards the old Art Deco heart of Casablanca. The scent of calfskin, the faint hum of Mozart, and the silence of German engineering, were a world apart from the harsh reality of the streets, streets which lay the thickness of a window-pane away.
Indicating left onto Boulevard Mohammed V, the limousine accelerated, then it slowed to no more than a crawl. Ghita felt a lump in her throat, a lump that was fast growing in size. She scanned the kerb for balloons, for well-wishers and old friends.
But all she could see was a tapestry of misery and neglect.
‘What orders did my father give you, Mehdi?’ she asked.
The chauffeur eased the car to a halt.
‘To leave you here, Mademoiselle, by the side of Marché Central.’
Ghita smiled, then she grinned, her face tightening with angst.
‘It’s all a joke, isn’t it?’
The chauffeur didn’t reply. He opened his door, walked calmly around the car, and unloaded the Louis Vuitton portmanteau, wincing at its weight. Then he opened Ghita’s door, back straight, staring into the middle distance as he had been instructed always to do.
Warily, a Jimmy Choo high heel stepped out onto the kerb.
As her body followed the foot, Ghita felt a pang of fear run down her spine. It was as though she were the last of an all but extinct race, about to be hunted by poachers in a hostile and unforgiving land. She began to sob, but the driver had been instructed not to fall for any tricks. And, besides, he was revelling in her anguish. In a long career of driving the wealthy around town, he had never known a passenger more odiously pampered than Mr. Omary’s daughter.
‘What shall I do?’ she asked him.
The chauffeur turned his palms upwards and shrugged. He strode back to his side of the car. Just before he got in, he touched the peak of his cap in respect.
‘Good luck, Mademoiselle Omary,’ he said.
Ten seconds later the Maybach limousine was gone.
Twenty-four
A burgundy-coloured tram rattled up Boulevard Mohammed V, once the main drag of Art Deco Casablanca, the greatest expression of French colonial might ever constructed outside France.
It was brand new and shiny, and almost empty of any passengers. The seats still had plastic covers on them from the factory. Part of the revival plan for a tired old beauty, it was a symbol of both past splendour and of glorious things to come.
Anxiously, Ghita stood on the kerb in the exact spot where the polished limousine had left her. She may have been born and raised in Casablanca, but all she knew were its wealthy quarters – Anfa, Marif and Californie. The secret haunts of the jet-set were what she knew best of all – in Paris, New York and Monte Carlo. They were her real home – not the grim realities in the city of her birth. So she stood there, waiting for the balloons and for the brass band, waiting for the hugs and the cheers.
But they didn’t come.
So Ghita sat down on her monogrammed portmanteau and she sobbed.
Quite a while passed, and nobody noticed her. After all, downtown Casablanca is a place of frenetic life. Commuters were hurrying through the bright morning light and the shadows, barking into mobile phones. Waiters were criss-crossing the tram tracks, miniature trays bearing glasses of café noir in their hands. Magazine sellers were laying out their stock on the pavement; postmen were riffling through their wads of mail; and street sweepers were doing their best to bring order to the grime.
The listing, clumsy silhouette of a bulky man to-ed and fro-ed against the yellow winter light, moving in the direction of Ghita and her enormous piece of Louis Vuitton. His movements were erratic, a consequence of mania and of drink.
Lurching, fumbling, ranting, he covered the last few feet by leaping. Then, in a display of inner torture and bizarre affliction, he pointed to his open mouth, and rubbed his shirtless stomach both at once.
Ghita screamed and she screamed.
She waved her hands, beseeching him to leave her alone. But the man didn’t agree. Instead, he became all the more aroused by having elicited a dramatic reaction in such a prim young lady. He began to gyrate wildly.
Then he dropped his trousers.
Clutching the handle of her case, struggling on her heels, Ghita dragged it down the grand boulevard as fast as she could go. Weighed down and hobbled, she wasn’t able to move forward in anything more than slow motion, the inebriated aggressor floundering close behind.
The curious sight of a trouserless figure pursuing a well-coutured young woman, pristine in lavender and in matching Jimmy Choos, went quite unnoticed. It was just part of another morning’s bustle down on Boulevard Mohammed V.
Jerking, the gears grinding, a decrepit and weatherworn communal white Mercedes took the corner onto the broad thoroughfare. Wide-eyed, his face pressed up against the grimy window, Blaine drank it all in – the buildings, the chaos, and the lives unhindered by welfare, mass employment, and social safety nets.
He caught a glimpse of fine clothes, delicate skin, and a large square portmanteau gathering speed, and of a blur of naked flesh gaining ground.
A stone’s throw from the central market the taxi slammed on its brakes, and Blaine recoiled from whiplash. The engine was overheating, and its driver was in need of strong coffee and a packet of Marquise cigarettes.
Humphrey Bogart was unstrapped from the roof and lowered down. Blaine gave thanks in English, smiled a great deal, and found himself on the kerb. And again he gave thanks. This time it was to his New York life for having dumped him so conclusively, and to the door that had opened, a door into another world.
His heels tight together, Casablanca’s newest arrival stared up at the grandeur and the detail – the rococo curls and the once-gilded domes, the exquisite wrought iron balconies, the Carrera marble, and the angular signage from a distant time. Shuffling clockwise, Blaine turned through three-sixty, mouth open wide, hands outstretched in awe of it all.
Adjacent to where he was standing was the Marché Central, a French market constructed in high colonial arabesque. Across from it, no more than a ramshackle shell, held up by scaffolding, were the remnants of the Bessonneau apartment building, once a landmark visible across the city.
As his heels completed their rotation, Blaine caught sight of the simple, unpretentious façade of Hotel Marrakech.
Holding Bogart up to eye level, he winked.
The next thing he knew, he was lying on the ground, felled by a slim figure in lavender. The tip of a stiletto jabbed his ankle, and the edge of a voluminous leather portmanteau struck the side of his head.
Dazed, the American struggled to work out what had happened. As he did so, the lavender figure rose up like a cobra about to strike.
‘How dare you bump into me!’ she hissed, stumbling to get vertical, back up onto her Jimmy Choos.
‘Excuse me, but it was you who bumped into me,’ said Blaine.
Ghita glanced back, relieved.
‘He’s gone,’ she said. ‘Thank God for that. He was chasing me... hunting me.’
‘Who was?’
‘That... that... that fiend!’
Blaine dusted himself off, and picked up Bogart.
‘I’ve just arrived,’ he said. ‘Right off the red-eye from JFK. D’you know if this hotel’s any good?’
Ghita looked at the American incredulously.
‘Which hotel?’
‘That one. The Ma
rrakech.’
A homeless man pushed past, and relieved himself on the exterior wall. The trickle of warm liquid soon seeped in between the cracked paving tiles. Ghita coughed forcefully into her lace handkerchief, then gagged. She whipped out a miniature bottle of hand sanitizer and disinfected her palms.
‘I’d say it was a hell-hole,’ she replied curtly.
‘And I’d say it was gritty and great,’ said Blaine, giving an enthusiastic thumbs-up.
He glanced down at her luggage.
‘You new in town as well?’
Ghita froze.
‘Er, um. Well, no... no, I live here. It’s just my home is... is... is being redecorated. I’m going to the...’ she faltered, glancing left and right. ‘To the Hyatt. It’s just down there at the end of the boulevard.’
Blaine touched a hand to his injured ankle.
‘Well, have a good day,’ he said, striding towards the portico of the Hotel Marrakech.
A little red taxi pulled up. The driver got out. With tremendous difficulty he hoisted the Louis Vuitton onto the roof-rack. Ghita motioned to the distance, in the direction from which she had come.
‘To the Hyatt,’ she said.
The unshaven driver flinched.
‘You could walk that.’
Ghita gave him the look of death.
‘Not in these heels.’
She clambered in. The passenger door slammed, the wheels moved, and within less than a minute brakes were applied.
The cab driver’s hand came off the gear stick and waited for payment. Fishing for her purse, Ghita remembered that she had been banished without funds. Then her fingers touched something circular and worn at the bottom of her pocket.
The ten-dirham coin her father had given her.
She looked at it, almost marvelling, unable to remember the last time she had actually taken notice of a coin.
‘Here you are,’ she said. ‘You can keep the change.’
The Louis Vuitton was loaded onto the porter’s trolley, domed in polished brass. The great mahogany doors of the Hyatt were pulled open from inside, and a multitude of fawning bellboys bowed, scraped, and welcomed. There was the calming scent of lemongrass, and the sound of water spilling out from symmetrical fountains.
