The Storyteller of Casablanca (13)

There are French police and German Gestapo officers all over the city and if they catch you listening to the BBC you’ll be in big trouble.

Tomorrow Maman is taking me and Annette to the cinema to see Rebecca. Annette says everyone at the tea dance was talking about it. I suppose she’ll be trying to look like Joan Fontaine next. She’s already mooning around over pictures of Laurence Olivier and sighing like a sick horse.





Josie’s Journal – Friday 17th January, 1941

We almost didn’t get to go to the cinema today because of what happened to Papa yesterday. I thought Maman might actually refuse to let any of us ever leave the house again, she was so angry and upset and shaken. To be honest, I wouldn’t have blamed her if she had – it was a terrifying ordeal for all of us.

There was a knock at the door and Kenza went to answer it as usual. At first I thought it must be Papa back from his boring meeting in the mellah, having forgotten his key. But then Kenza appeared in the salon where Maman, Annette and I were sitting and she looked worried. She handed Maman a folded note and said a man had asked that it be delivered to Madame Duval immediately. When Maman read it, her face went completely white and she leapt to her feet, not even noticing when her book tumbled to the floor.

‘Maman?’ Annette said. ‘What is it?’

‘It’s Papa,’ she replied, and her mouth was trembling so much that the words came out as if she was crying. ‘He’s been arrested. I have to go to the police station immediately.’

Kenza hurried away and came back with Maman’s bag and jacket. She told Maman not to worry, that she would stay with me and Annette. We’re old enough to be left on our own, but it was very kind of her because I was feeling awfully scared and it was reassuring having her there, even though it meant she would be late getting home to her own family.

Kenza made some supper for me and Annette but we couldn’t really eat anything because our stomachs were tied up in knots, waiting for Papa and Maman to come home. I remembered how Maman hadn’t wanted him to spend time in the mellah and I wondered what that meeting had really been about. Anyway, after what felt like an eternity but was actually only about 2 hours, the front door opened and in they walked. Papa was trying to be cheerful and make out that there was nothing to worry about, but it must have been very frightening for him really. I could see from the way her mouth was set in a tight, thin line that Maman was pretty furious. I’ve noticed she gets like that when she’s had a fright, like the time I wandered off in the Galeries Lafayette and got lost: when the store manager finally returned me to her (a shop assistant having taken me under her wing in the hat department when I asked to try on a broad-brimmed creation with a beautiful green feather), Maman didn’t know whether to hug me or shout at me. So she did a bit of both, but the shouting didn’t last very long and the hugging went on for some time, even when we’d retired to the salon de thé and I was trying to eat a chocolate éclair.

I wondered whether she had shouted at Papa or just hugged him, but Maman was in no mood to answer questions and so I kept quiet. Annette told me later that Papa had been arrested along with a whole load of other people at the meeting and that the Gestapo had taken them all in a van to the police station, where they were threatened with being put in prison. The Germans are obviously not at all keen on the idea of people having meetings. Maman had to pay the police quite a lot of money to get him released.

So our good fortune came to the rescue again this time, but I can see how anxious Maman is. It took a lot of courage to walk into the police station when she might have been arrested herself. I suppose if she’d been wearing the necklace with the little gold star, things might not have worked out as they did.

Papa, Annette and I finally managed to convince her that going to the cinema to see Rebecca would be a good way of taking all our minds off yesterday’s unpleasantness. And thank goodness we did, because I absolutely loved the movie. It’s taken from a book and I’m going to try to find out where the library is so I can get hold of it and some others too. I miss the books we left behind so very much. Sometimes I imagine them in our old home alongside the globe, all lined up on their shelves with no one to read them, just spiders creeping over them and nobody there to dust off the cobwebs. That makes me feel quite sad because I always think books have a life of their own and they’ll be feeling pretty lonely without us. Perhaps when we get to America we can ask someone to pack them all up and send them to us in our new home.





Zoe – 2010

I’m feeling more and more nervous about meeting May and the other wives at the Club. Pathetic, really, I tell myself. It’s not as if I’m having to face the Gestapo, like Madame Duval did.

I make sure I get there a bit early and sign in at the front desk, then quickly head to the ladies’ loo. I wash my hands carefully, following the routine that helps me calm my nerves when I’m feeling particularly anxious, using a generous dollop of soap from the dispenser and water as hot as I can bear. Then I repeat the ritual twice over again for good measure – I don’t have a nail brush here and you can’t be too careful in a public place – and pat the skin dry with a paper towel. The harshness of the soap and hot water leave the scaly patches in the folds of my fingers red and burning, but at least the pain is a sign my hands are properly clean.

After I’ve combed my hair and touched up my lip gloss, a quick glance at my watch tells me I’m now a polite five minutes late for the lunch. Resisting the urge to wash my hands all over again, I swallow my nerves and head for the terrace overlooking the tennis courts, where May has reserved a table.