by Tahir Shah
There were rusting old bicycle frames and rotting bamboo deck chairs, crates of empty gin bottles, strands of lead piping, threadbare furniture, and a line of refrigerators from the days when home appliances were the size of a family car.
On the south side of the roof there was a small area free from clutter. It was just big enough for a wrought iron table and chair, and an ice bucket arranged on a stand that doubled as an ashtray.
Blaine sat there all afternoon, his gaze locked on the postcard, his mind conjuring fantasies of a lifetime ago.
As his concentration strayed, he found himself wandering the streets of wartime Casablanca. He could picture himself clearly, strolling down the grand boulevard – what was then Avenue de France. The dazzling winter light bathed it all, reflecting off the gleaming Art Deco apartment blocks, the shops below them emporiums of wonder and delight.
And he could picture Bogart passing him, cigarette in hand, grey fedora tipped down low on his brow.
Blaine peered down to the street below and closed his eyes.
He wished he could wind back the clock’s hands, slip into the black-and-white postcard world, a realm of unending possibility.
By the end of the afternoon, he knew every detail of the picture – every shadow, every straight line and curve. He admonished himself for falling victim to an old man’s story. Then, slipping the card into his shirt pocket, he went down to Cinema Rialto, where the early evening screening of Casablanca was about to begin.
Fifty-three
His back warmed by the walk, Mortimer Wu arrived at the Marché Central, where he treated himself to a bowl of fish broth and a stale chocolate croissant. He wasn’t in the best of spirits, and hadn’t been for days, not since the bad business in Marrakech.
As he spooned the thin soup to his lips, holding the bowl in his right hand, he wished he were home in Hong Kong, away from the trouble that had overrun his life.
‘Want a shoeshine?’ said a voice.
Saed sauntered up to the table with his box.
‘I’m wearing sneakers,’ Wu replied, ‘don’t think you’d get much of a shine on them.’ He struggled a smile. ‘Want half a croissant?’
Leaning forward, as if only half-trusting, Saed took the pastry.
‘You are new... new to Casablanca, no?’
‘How did you guess?’
‘Your shoes... they are dusty. Marrakech dust.’
Mortimer Wu slurped the broth. He motioned to the waiter.
‘My little friend here is joining me. Bring another bowl of soup.’
Saed sat down and was soon slurping as well.
‘Which hotel you staying?’
‘Not sure. I’m travelling to Tangier tomorrow. D’you know anywhere cheap and good?’
The shoeshine boy jerked a thumb behind him.
‘Hotel Marrakech,’ he said. ‘If you don’t mind cats.’
Fifty-four
At seven forty-five Blaine left the Rialto.
He was still glowing from the final sequence, and was mumbling the dialogue as he went. Drifting through the empty streets on his way to Baba Cool, he noticed a light in Monsieur Raffi’s shop, and the shutters drawn up.
Without thinking, he crossed the street and rapped gently on the window.
Raffi unbolted the door.
‘Come on in my American friend,’ he said. ‘I have been sitting here waiting for you.’
‘But we hadn’t planned to meet.’
The shopkeeper locked the door once Blaine was inside.
‘Of course we had, but you just didn’t know it,’ he said, slumping down in his tattered satin chair. ‘Now, tell me, how are you getting on with the clue?’
Blaine pulled out the postcard.
‘I’ve spent the afternoon staring at it.’
‘And what have you seen?’
‘Old Casablanca in a time before the rot set in.’
‘That’s good,’ Raffi said, ‘but you are missing the details. And the world depends on details.’
‘Believe me, I’ve seen them all.’
Monsieur Raffi shuddered.
‘Seeing is not the same as understanding,’ he said.
‘Seeing what?’
‘The real picture.’
The American frowned. He held the card up to the light and turned it slowly.
‘What am I missing?’
‘Everything.’
Again, Blaine turned it, slower this time. And, as he turned, he noticed the edge gleam very slightly, as if it had been glued flat. He assumed it was part of the printing process. But, as he turned it again, he saw that the glue had been added later.
With great care, he pushed his thumbnail into the space where the picture was pasted onto the card. The two sheets separated easily, as if they were supposed to be pulled apart.
Working his way around the entire edge, Blaine found himself staring at the side of the card that had been glued to the image.
The left side was covered in writing, made in a small neat hand. It looked like a series of directions – directions through Casablanca. The right side was devoted to a very rough hand-sketched map. It featured what appeared to be a main street, with bars, cafés and cinemas, all of them crudely marked.
Blaine’s mouth opened but no words came out at first. Then, as if in a daze, he said:
‘This is Bogart’s handwriting. I’d know it anywhere.’
Monsieur Raffi coughed hard, then blew his nose.
‘Now you have the clue, you can begin to unlock the secret,’ he said.
Fifty-five
A gleaming glass elevator ascended up through a sumptuous office building, the floors and walls clad in pallid grey granite, the fittings all polished steel.
Ghita Omary stepped out at the fifteenth floor. Dressed more conservatively than usual, she moved with uncharacteristic urgency.
Striding up to the reception, she tapped a manicured fingernail on the desk. The receptionist, who was talking to her boyfriend on the phone, glanced up.
‘I will be with you in a moment,’ she said tersely.
‘Please tell Mr. Senbel that Ghita Omary is here to see him.’
The receptionist covered the receiver with her hand.
‘Would you wait? Mr. Senbel is very busy indeed.’
Turning, Ghita pushed her way fast down the corridor, and began searching for the largest office. She had not visited the lawyer before, but knew full well that jaw-dropping grandeur was expected by the upmarket clientele.
At the end of the corridor stood a thick glass door, a potted bonsai standing proud either side. It was the only one with plants.
Making a beeline for it, Ghita barged in, the receptionist sprinting after her.
Driss Senbel was seated near the window at a teak desk, the wall facing it obscured in diplomas and photographs of the lawyer in the company of the great and the good.
‘Forgive me for not making an appointment,’ said Ghita, ‘I didn’t have your number.’
The lawyer looked up from a legal contract. He seemed alarmed at first, but then smiled tautly, waving the receptionist away.
‘My dear Ghita, you are a daughter to me, and do not need an appointment. The door is always open to you.’
Ghita sat, or rather she perched, on the edge of a grey leather chair. Coaxing herself to remain composed, she pressed her palms together.
‘I am turning to you for help,’ she said, ‘as my father’s close friend.’
Senbel didn’t reply at first. He looked at Ghita, his manner taciturn and cold.
‘Your father’s plan to root out corruption has backfired dramatically,’ he replied. ‘We all knew it would, and we warned him – but he didn’t listen.’
‘He is a patriot,’ Ghita said, her voice straining. ‘He loves his country and is the only one of you willing to stand up against the evil that’s eating it from the inside out.’
The lawyer held out his wrists.
‘You can take me away if you believe I hav
e done anything wrong,’ he said.
‘It’s not you, but the system... and you’re part of it.’
‘My dear Ghita, if you chop down the forest, nature begins to fight back. It sends pestilence and plague. This may not be nature, but it’s the same thing.’ Senbel paused, took a deep breath, and sighed. ‘The drugs they found... it wasn’t a gram or two of kif. It was a massive haul, and of heroin at that.’
Ghita’s mouth contorted in a snarl.
‘You know as well as I do it was planted there!’
‘Of course it was.’
‘So what are we going to do about it?’
‘Wait. We have to wait.’
‘Wait for what?’
Driss Senbel groomed a strand of hair over his bald patch.
‘Your father’s assets have been seized,’ he said. ‘Everything is frozen. His home, his companies, his private jet... everything.’
‘So let’s get them unfrozen!’
Senbel picked a silver letter-opener from the surface of his desk. It had an ivory handle and a hallmarked blade.
‘These people we are dealing with,’ he said, ‘they are extremely dangerous.’
‘What people?’
‘The ones your father has so enraged.’
‘But who are they?’
‘They’re gangsters, gangsters with the cloak of respectability.’
‘Do they have a leader?’
‘All I know are the rumours...’
‘And what do the rumours say?’
‘That they take their lead from a man known to them as the Falcon.’
‘I must meet him. I’ll plead with him if I have to.’
‘He won’t listen. None of them will. And in any case, you’ll never find him.’
The lawyer ran the blade across his palm.
‘The police, the politicians, businessmen, they all live in terror of him,’ he said. ‘The Falcon controls the system. He owns it... even powerful wealthy men like your father have no hope against him. Why? Because his power is not constructed from anything logical. You see, it’s power derived from raw fear.’
There was a knock at the door.
The receptionist entered with a memo for Senbel to sign. Striding indifferently through the room, she glared at Ghita as she approached her employer. A moment or two later she was gone.
‘There’s a huge storm approaching,’ the lawyer said. ‘It’s going to be a tempest, a perfect storm. All I can do is to warn you while you can. Leave Casablanca while you still can. Go very far away.’
‘And let my father languish in jail?’
‘I suppose so.’
There was rage in Ghita’s eyes.
‘I’m not frightened of this man, this Falcon,’ she said. ‘I’m not frightened of anyone.’
Fifty-six
Taking the shoeshine boy’s advice, Mortimer Wu went across to Hotel Marrakech, and soon found himself installed in the room opposite Blaine’s.
Opening the window, he stared out at the flower stalls on the edge of the market. Then he lay on the bed, closed his eyes, and thought back to Hong Kong once again.
An hour or two passed and Wu didn’t move.
By remaining completely still he found that the anxiety and the fear subsided. But, as dusk fell over Casablanca he pushed back his shoulders and pulled himself off the bed.
He glanced down at the market.
The flower sellers were packing up, draining their buckets into the gutters, bundling up the roses for another day.
There were footsteps out in the corridor.
Wu put his ear to the door. He listened, and opened it a crack. A man was fumbling for his key at the room opposite.
‘Hello,’ he said, in a friendly voice – an American voice.
‘Good evening,’ Wu replied, opening the door wide.
‘You new here?’
‘Yeah. Just arrived this afternoon.’
‘How are you liking the faded grandeur of Hotel Marrakech?’
Mortimer Wu didn’t respond to the question. Instead, he asked:
‘Is there any hot water?’
‘Hot water? Are you crazy?’ said Blaine with a grin. ‘You’re lucky if you get any water at all – hot or cold.’
‘Can you direct me to the shower?’
‘Sure. It’s all the way down the hall.’
‘Thank you,’ Wu replied, before withdrawing into his room.
Shutting the door, he slid the bolt firmly into place.
Left standing there, his own door open, Blaine plodded down the corridor to relieve himself.
On the way back, he wondered whether to reach out, to invite the newcomer for a glass of café noir down at Baba Cool.
He was about to knock, when he heard a commotion down in the lobby. The front door slammed hard, and was followed by the cacophonous cry of cats.
Leaving his room open, Blaine hurried down.
The ever-present clerk wasn’t laid out on the floor in his usual state of delirium. He wasn’t there at all. Blaine peered on the floor behind the desk, but there was no sign of the clerk.
The cats seemed uneasy.
A few of them had their ears pricked up, alert, poised low as if ready for flight. One or two had leapt up to higher ground, and were perched on a high shelf. They were quite obviously spooked.
Eventually, Blaine went back upstairs, and slipped back into his room. He cursed the damp, the cold, and the stench. Then his mind turned to Ghita. Even though the thought of her made his blood churn, he wished she were there.
Pulling on his Humphrey Bogart raincoat, fedora in hand, he went out into the corridor again.
Across from his room the Chinese backpacker’s door was ajar.
Rehearsing a line of invitation in his head, Blaine knocked, pushed the door open and swung his head in.
Mortimer Wu was lying on the bed, face up. There was an odd oily, almost metallic smell, and the curtains were drawn shut. Frowning, Blaine flicked on the light.
He leapt back in terror.
The backpacker’s throat had been slashed. His clothing and the moth-eaten blanket were soaked in fresh blood.
Blaine screeched. It was a high-pitched girlie scream, the kind from Tom and Jerry cartoons, when the woman sees the mouse.
He stood there for what seemed like an eternity, his feet rooted to the bare floorboards, every nerve in his body in shock.
Then he panicked.
Something was telling him to get out, to run.
But do so and he’d be a suspect. This isn’t America, he thought. Things don’t work like that here!
So, shaking, he ran back to his room, grabbed his satchel and the bin-liner.
Sprinting down the stairs, he rushed out through the front door of Hotel Marrakech.
Fifty-seven
Patricia Ross had spent the day petitioning Casablanca’s Governor to release Hicham Omary, but without any luck. Baying for blood, he was in no mood for clemency.
At six p.m. she drove back to the Globalcom headquarters, an attaché case under her arm. She was tired, frustrated and fearful. It felt as though the walls were closing in, as though the enemies were everywhere. As the CEO’s assistant, Ross knew it was only a matter of time before the authorities tried to implicate her as well.
On the ground floor, five uniformed police officers were standing guard in a line. Ross was no expert on Moroccan law enforcement, but they appeared to be better equipped than usual, armed with semi-automatic weapons.
Before she could get to the elevator, a plain-clothes officer stopped her.
‘Where are you going?’
‘Up to my office.’
‘At this late hour?’
Ross rolled her eyes.
‘We’re in the news business,’ she said. ‘The news doesn’t stop.’
‘What’s in your case?’
‘Papers, documents, that’s all.’
The officer waved her through. She took the elevator up to the fifteenth floor, placed the
attaché case on her desk, and looked out at the lights of Casablanca below. In any other job she might have quit right then, but Hicham Omary had been a mentor to her, a boss with a vision.
She sat down, put her head in her hands, and tried to think straight.
How could she help him?
Without meaning to, she thought of the first time they’d met. It was in Paris at the Musée Jacquemart-André.
Omary had been alone, taking a quick tour through the picture gallery between meetings nearby. They had both been drawn to the same painting, a self-portrait of Nélie Jacquemart, her long graceful form in profile.
From the first moment she saw Omary, Patricia Ross had been struck by his gentleness, and by his love of fine things.
They had taken tea in the museum’s salon and, the next thing she knew, she was working for him in Casablanca.
A dozen memories flashed through, all of them featuring Omary, a man of astonishing courtesy and good taste. Ross had never met anyone quite like him, either in intellectual capacity, or in the way he always seemed to be three steps ahead of the game. The news business suited him more than anyone alive.
Ross glanced at her reflection in the window. She could feel the establishment closing ranks. It was just a matter of time before they took her in. But she knew how Omary had a sixth sense, a sense of how a situation would be played out, a sense learned on the way up from the streets.
Logging into her laptop, Patricia Ross squinted at her emails, and swore out loud. Her account had been hacked. Thousands of filed messages were missing. She was about to slam the laptop shut, when a random email caught her eye.
It was from Jacques Mart.
She clicked on the message. It was blank, except for a single character way down the page – a question mark, highlighted as a hyperlink. She clicked it, and a web site opened. It was password protected.
Without thinking, Ross typed in the name Jacquemart.
The screen went blank. Then, a moment later, it came alive with dozens of dossiers, titled with some of the most important names in the land.
‘My God, Hicham, you’re amazing!’ she exclaimed.
Opening one of the files at random, she found scans of secret bank statements, illicit video footage, and proof of bribe-taking on a grand scale.
