The Storyteller of Casablanca (10)
But even with our good fortune it still took a while to find somewhere for us to live and be allowed to leave the camp once we had our permis de séjour, which Madame Bénatar helped us get. And in the meantime we quickly discovered that the annoying buzzing of the daytime flies was replaced at night by the high-pitched whining of swarms of mosquitoes that liked to spend the hours of darkness feasting on the blood of exhausted refugees. Between the bugs and the crying babies and the whispered arguments between some of the grown-ups in the hall, no one managed to get much sleep.
Felix got teased in the camp because of his broken tooth. Some of those other dreadful boys called him Croc, which means ‘fang’ in French. He didn’t care, though. He told me that when he got to America he would get his tooth fixed and then his smile would be as perfect as a movie star’s. I didn’t mind his imperfect smile really, because the thing you noticed most was the way his eyes smiled too and so that broken tooth didn’t seem to matter at all.
A few days after we met, he came over to our corner of the hall one evening. He had something behind his back and he was looking very shy all of a sudden. Then he handed me the dust jacket with the Town Mouse and the Country Mouse on it. He’d managed to get it back from where it was stuck on the fence when the guards weren’t looking, he told me, and he’d done a pretty good job of mending it, sticking the torn pieces on to a sheet of old newspaper with some glue he’d made from flour, which he’d begged from the kitchen, and water. I couldn’t believe how kind he was, risking his neck for me like that, and I gave him a hug as now I knew he was a true friend. Felix’s face went pink with embarrassment, but he seemed pleased that he’d made me so happy, too. I wrapped the cover around my book and it looked good there, bearing its battle scars but back where it belonged.
Most of the time it was very boring spending long hours in the camp with nothing much to do. Papa invented a game for us to play to help pass some of the long hours in the middle of the day when it was too hot to be outside and we had to retreat to our mattresses on the floor of the hall again. It was a bit like I Spy, only there wasn’t anything very interesting to spy in the hall, just lots of unhappy people waiting to get out of there. In Papa’s version, you said the initials of the things you most wanted to get when you got out of the camp and the others had to guess what it might be. The first time we played, mine was ice cream. Annette’s was a bottle of Studio Girl shampoo. Maman said hers was a mosquito net for each of us. It took us longer to guess Papa’s because it turned out to be a bottle of Chanel No 5 perfume so that he could give it to Maman to remind her of Paris. She got tears in her eyes when we finally worked it out and she had to blow her nose quite a lot.
Felix had swapped his mattress for one next to ours – he seemed to find my family more interesting than his own and his parents didn’t appear to mind – so he played too. He wanted a penknife and some sweets.
When we were finally allowed to leave the camp and Papa brought us to our new home here on the Boulevard des Oiseaux, he had surprises waiting for us. Like a magician, from behind his back he produced a bottle of the shampoo for Annette and the perfume for Maman. Then he showed us our beds and each one was draped with its own mosquito net, even though there aren’t nearly so many bugs in the new house as there were at A?n Chok. And then he offered me his arm and we walked along the street to a café, where he bought me the biggest ice cream I’ve ever seen, piled into a coupe glass and topped with honeyed almonds and chocolate sauce. He had one too.
I wished we could have offered Felix’s family a room in our new home, but Papa said he’d spoken to Madame Bénatar and she’d assured him she’d found them a place in the house of friends of hers in the mellah. When we left the camp, Felix told me he’d come and visit us sometimes, but he hasn’t done so yet. I expect he’s busy making new friends. I hope perhaps he got a penknife and some sweets for Hanukkah – his I-Spy things.
I think I can smell the delicious scent of baking coming up the stairs so I’m going to go and see Kenza in the kitchen now. I’ve written so much that my hand is aching, but that is the story so far of how we came to be here. I’ll write more another day.
Zoe – 2010
May drives us around the city in her air-conditioned BMW – a far more comfortable way to tour it than my walk yesterday. I’m thankful to give my feet a rest as they’re still pretty sore and there’s a large blister on my right heel. As she points out the sights, I wriggle my toes in the chilled air emanating from beneath the dashboard. I’ve left Grace at home with Alia for the first time, but I don’t feel as anxious as I’d thought I would. I know my baby’s in good hands.
The first impression you get of the city is of chaos and grime and peeling fa?ades. It’s only when you look a little more closely that you start to see the wrought ironwork, the old-fashioned signs on the shops and the beautifully crafted detailing that adorns the stonework of many of the neglected buildings. We bypass the medina, where I got lost. I doubt May’s car would fit down its narrow streets and alleyways. She points out the Quartier Habous with its Moorish archways, explaining how it was conceived and planned by the French when they colonised the city. It’s a newer version of the ancient medina, built for the tourists and the expats so that they can enjoy a similar experience, but with safer streets and a less bewildering layout of shops and stalls.