The Storyteller of Casablanca (38)
He follows my gaze towards the Senegalese man. ‘Not that things are all that much better today.’
I take a polite sip from my own glass and place it carefully back on the silver tray between us. ‘I’ve read in the newspaper about the refugee problem in Europe,’ I agree. ‘But is it particularly bad here?’
Monsieur Habib looks at me pityingly and I feel horribly ignorant. ‘Where do you think those migrants who cause the problems in Europe come from? They are from Africa, mostly. From the war-torn countries in the north and the south alike. From places where life is very cheap and very hard. Take Ismael, for example.’ He nods towards the Senegalese trader who has reached the end of his trajectory down the street and begun to trudge back towards us. ‘How bad do you think it must have been in his country for him to find this life a better option? He told me he saw members of his family tortured and killed in ways I would never repeat to a lady such as yourself. He is one of the many who are passing through, waiting for an opportunity to move on when he has managed to earn enough money to pay the men who traffic people like him across the Mediterranean. Can we really imagine how it must feel to be so afraid of what lies behind you that you are prepared to throw yourself headlong into an unknown that is going to be filled with danger and loneliness? Leaving behind your family and your culture and seeking something better in a land where you are not welcome and you are not understood? It’s no different for him and the thousands of others like him than it was for those who fled here in the war.’ He sighs again, picking up a painted tin biplane and then replacing it carefully on the shelf. ‘We like to think we learned lessons from those wars and yet history continues to repeat itself, year after year.’
I sip my glass of tea again, thinking about his words and feeling pretty awful. The life I’m leading is so very privileged. I’m growing more and more aware of that every day I spend here. I have my own problems, that’s for sure, but that still shouldn’t stop me from trying to help those whose problems are even greater than mine.
‘Does Ismael have any family here in Casablanca?’ I ask. ‘A wife and children?’
Monsieur Habib shakes his head. ‘No. He’s on his own, as far as I know. But that’s probably a good thing. It’s far worse for women and children to be refugees. They become so vulnerable. They are in a minority, Alhamdulillah, because when you do come across them their stories are the worst of all.’
‘How do you know this?’ I ask him. ‘Did you read about it somewhere?’
‘There is no need to read about it, Madame Harris,’ he replies, and his expression is filled with sadness. ‘Such refugees are all around us. But we don’t usually open our eyes and ears wide enough to see and hear them. It doesn’t take much to seek them out, though. My wife volunteers at a project offering support to women and children who have fled their homes in other countries and become stranded in Morocco. If you wanted to, I could take you there one day to see for yourself what life is like for them.’
‘I should like that very much indeed. Perhaps there’ll be something I can do to help?’ I fish out an old till receipt from Grace’s changing bag and write down my phone number on the back. ‘Please would you arrange it with your wife and let me know?’
He takes the slip of paper from me and looks at it a little doubtfully. Then he raises his eyes to mine again. ‘I will do this for you, Madame Harris. But only if you are sure you want to. Once you have heard their stories, it is hard to see the world in the same way ever again. I’m afraid it can be a rude awakening, hearing what mankind is capable of doing to our own.’
I think of something Josie wrote in her journal. And I say to him, ‘But if we leave out some of the important bits of the truth – or choose to ignore them – then surely we are living a lie? And that is no way to live at all, is it?’
He nods, still a little reluctant, and puts the folded slip of paper in his pocket. Then I stand, thanking him for the tea, and take my leave.
‘Au revoir, Monsieur Habib.’
‘Adhhab bisalam. Go in peace, Madame Harris,’ he replies.
But there is no peace in my soul whatsoever as I walk home, mulling over the hypocrisy of the words I’ve just said to him, and wondering what Josie would have to say to me about the lie I am living every day if she were here with me now.
Josie’s Journal – Saturday 12th April, 1941
Nina and I were on our way home from the library yesterday when who should come cycling by but Felix. We shouted and waved, having not seen him for a few weeks. He stopped for a chat and we showed him the books we’d taken out – two Agatha Christies translated into French (she is Nina’s latest favourite author), and Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers, which Mademoiselle Dubois has had on order for us for ages and which had finally miraculously arrived despite everything being in such turmoil in France.
Felix said he liked the look of Death on the Nile as it seemed to be about the desert and he’d like to go to Egypt one day when the war is over to see the Pyramids and the Sphinx. I invited him to come back with us for tea and we could all start to read it together. But he said regretfully that he had something to do, so could he come another time? Of course, I said, or maybe we could come and visit you one day because Nina and I both agreed that we’d like to see the bakery and maybe try some of the traditional Jewish challah that I’d told her about from Paris days. He didn’t seem too keen for us to do that, though, and said it was nicer coming to my house, where there was the courtyard and Kenza’s cooking.