The Storyteller of Casablanca (27)

I’ve decided not to say anything to Papa or Maman about the conversation between Mr Reid and Miss Ellis. It will be interesting to see what happens about the proposal of a family trip to the mountains.

But I’m definitely going to say something to Annette about kissing Olivier, that’s for sure.





Zoe – 2010

Next time I go to the library, I find a book on the American presence in Morocco during the war. Searching through the index, my eye is caught by a familiar name: Stafford Reid. I leaf through to the pages on which he is referenced. He was one of a number of vice-consuls appointed to serve in Morocco in the 1940s, I read. Officially, they were here to help deal with the flood of refugees from across Europe seeking visas for the United States. But then I come across a paragraph that tells of a very different reality. Several of the vice-consuls had another, more clandestine remit. They were appointed to gather intelligence, as well as to help establish and co-ordinate a resistance network in North Africa. It was a group that would come to play a key role in the course of the war.

Among other undercover activities, I learn that Stafford Reid’s role had been to establish a radio network with its base in a hidden room in the basement of the American consulate attached to an antenna concealed in the roof. Known as Station Lincoln, it provided a crucial communications hub, with Reid responsible for the coding and decoding of messages.

As I read this, my hands begin to itch and burn. I fish a tube of cream out of Grace’s changing bag and massage some into the red welts. The relief it provides is only temporary, though, and a few minutes later I’m unable to resist scratching at them again, worrying at the skin the same way my anxiety troubles my brain. Did Josie’s father know what he was getting involved in when he began going to those ‘meetings’? Was he becoming a pawn in the very dangerous game of chess that was being played out on the plains of North Africa? Did he realise the danger he was exposing himself to? And did he know his girls were being used as a cover, as Josie suspected when she overheard the conversation on the stairs?

The burning of my skin becomes unbearable and I can’t concentrate on the words on the page in front of me any more. I think Grace must sense my anxiety because she gives a little whimper in her sleep and angrily punches the air with one chubby fist. I put my laptop away and gather everything together, checking out the book on the American campaign in North Africa at the front desk.

I don’t want to go home just yet, so I decide to walk back via the Habous. Other than walking to the library and back, I haven’t dared attempt any longer walks since the time I got lost in the medina. My confidence in being able to navigate my way around the city is still a little shaken. But Kate’s told me it’s much easier to find your way around the Habous than the twisting alleyways of the old medina and it’s the best place to look for quilting fabrics, so I push down the anxiety that rises in my chest and take a deep breath to steady myself. Grace seems quiet and contented, lulled in the baby sling by the closeness of my body, as I walk beneath a Moorish arch into the shady streets.

Arcades of smaller Mauresque arches accommodate rows of tiny shops crammed with burnished copper and brassware, which gleams in the dark interiors alongside silver-framed mirrors. There are bright-coloured rugs hanging on tall frames, and shelf after shelf of painted pottery. One shop sells pretty wooden boxes inlaid with mother-of-pearl and I wonder whether this could have been the one where Josie bought hers. ‘Best quality, best quality,’ the man assures me, and I nod and smile and continue on my way.

I stop outside one shop that is crammed from floor to ceiling with antiques, fascinated by some bundles of pearl-handled fish knives and cut-crystal champagne coupes that probably date from the 1920s or 30s, I guess, and might well have graced an elegant home like the Duvals’ on the Boulevard des Oiseaux. In one corner sits an old valve radio set, next to a vintage telephone and a gilded samovar. I almost expect the clipped tones of a Second World War BBC reporter to announce the latest news from the front.

‘As-Salaam-Alaikum,’ I greet the man sitting on a stool sorting through a bundle of old postcards.

‘Wa-Alaikum-Salaam,’ he replies, getting to his feet. ‘You are searching for something in particular, perhaps, Madame?’

A box full of tin-plate toys has caught my attention. ‘May I look at these?’ I ask him and he gestures to me to be his guest.

The toys look as if they’ve been much loved and well played with over the years. There’s a fleet of battered cars and a little aeroplane, a tin whistle, a balancing acrobat, and a clockwork cat, which has lost its key. At the bottom of the box I spot the curve of a crescent moon. As I pull it out, I realise it’s attached by fine chains to a cascade of stars. I carefully untangle them, revealing a mobile to hang above a baby’s bed. The tin is dull and tarnished but I rub one of the points of the moon with a corner of my shawl and it gleams softly.

‘How much?’ I ask the man. He names his price – a few dirhams – and then reaches a small round box down from the shelf behind him, its filigree metal aged by verdigris. ‘Maybe this would interest you too?’ he asks. He winds the key in the base and then raises the hinged lid. The delicate notes of a lullaby chime softly, entrancing Grace. ‘I can give you a good price for both if you like.’ He and I both know he’s already made the sale, it’s just a question of bartering a little for the sake of good form. He wraps the tin wares in newspaper and I add them to my bag.