The Storyteller of Casablanca (56)

I’m in my room writing this and listening to the call to prayer. The muezzin’s voice is resonating on the evening air and it sounds even more solemn than usual to me, knowing that this is the start of a very holy month for my friend. I’ve decided that when she comes to the house I won’t have anything to eat or drink either, so that I can support her in her fasting. After all, it would be pretty mean to eat cakes and drink lemonade while she’s not allowed to. But she’s promised that I can come to her house when the Eid celebrations begin and we’ll have an amazing feast.

We’ve taken a large supply of books out of the library as I think reading will be a good distraction for Nina if she’s feeling hungry or thirsty and will help the time to pass more quickly. When I told Mademoiselle Dubois about this plan, she suggested we might enjoy the works of Jules Verne as they are exciting tales of fantastic adventures. We have Journey to the Centre of the Earth and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and she’s promised to reserve a copy of Around the World in 80 Days as soon as it comes back in.

I’ve also been working on a new project with Miss Ellis, studying the history of the United States of America. She says it’s always important to understand the background of a country if you’re going to live in it. There was a war in America called the Civil War and the President at the time was Abraham Lincoln, a very tall and kind man who wanted to abolish slavery. He made a famous speech at a place called Gettysburg, where more than fifty thousand soldiers from both sides of the divide lost their lives in a terrible battle, which Miss Ellis says actually still has great relevance for the war that’s going on in the world today. The newspapers report that many, many soldiers are being killed in the fighting. There are also some really terrible stories beginning to emerge about what the Nazis are doing to the Jewish people they’ve sent to camps in Europe – they make our time in the A?n Chok refugee camp sound like a holiday in a nice hotel in comparison. I’ve been having quite a lot of bad dreams again and I keep thinking about the girl I saw in Marseille who didn’t get on the ship. I still look out for her, hoping to spot her face in the crowds when I go to the library or the Habous. I wonder where she is now. There’s still been no word from Uncle Joseph either and Maman’s eyes grow dark with sadness whenever his name is mentioned. It’s very frightening to think that so many people can just disappear. I never used to imagine it could ever happen to us. These days I’m not so sure.

But when Miss Ellis read me the words of Abraham Lincoln’s address at Gettysburg, they made me feel a bit stronger. I’ve decided to copy them out here in my journal to remind myself that I can make a difference – even to events that seem so enormous – just like in Nina’s very ancient auntie’s story about the mosquito drinking the sea. Because words can inspire people, whether you are the President of America or the Dreamseller of Casablanca:

‘It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us – that from these honoured dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion – that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain – that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.’

Miss Ellis has a way of making you see that everything is connected, just like with my project on the harbours of Morocco from El Jadida to Mogador. She took my schoolbooks away for quite a long time when we returned from that holiday and when she gave them back to me she said I’d done an excellent job. I got an A+ for it. She also said, with a bit of a twinkle in her eye, that Papa had informed her how especially hard I’d worked. From that, I deduced he’d told her about nearly being arrested by the policemen and how they’d confiscated his notebook but my project had saved the day.

Since we got back, Papa sometimes gives me messages written on his blue notepaper to give to Felix. He knows he can trust me now. If there’s ever another message to be delivered to Miss Josephine Baker, I hope Papa will entrust that task to me too. Although, according to Felix, who seems to know an awful lot about these things, she’s been very unwell and is being looked after in a private clinic here in Casablanca. I hope she gets better soon. I’d like to see her again and ask her how the animals are getting on these days.





Josie’s Journal – Wednesday 22nd October, 1941

Two things have happened in the last 24 hours.

The first is that last night I was allowed to go to Nina’s house to celebrate the great feast of Eid al-Fitr. The thin sliver of the new crescent moon appeared in the sky just after sundown, which meant that Ramadan was over and the fasting was at an end. Nina has managed to do it for the whole month even if sometimes she’s had a bad headache and felt very tired. The stories of Jules Verne definitely helped, though, and we both agree that Phileas Fogg and Passepartout are our favourite characters. We’d like to travel the world by boat and train ourselves one day, and have all sorts of adventures like them.

Anyway, at Nina’s house all the lamps were lit and the rooms were full of members of her family. I said, ‘Eid Mubarak’ to them all, as Nina had taught me. Everyone was dressed in their best clothes – Kenza was wearing a beautiful kaftan embroidered with silver thread and Nina had on a very pretty new dress called an abaya. Both of them had their hands painted with henna patterns, which I admired very much, although I don’t think Maman would allow me to have mine done. I wish she would. It’s not really all that different from the way Annette paints her face with rouge and lipstick, after all.