The Storyteller of Casablanca (64)
At that, Maman pulled herself together and wiped her eyes on her handkerchief. Then she stood up very tall and very straight, without saying a word, and began picking up our things. Annette and I followed her example, trying not to look at the expression on Papa’s face. It was utterly wretched.
Fortunately, Madame Bénatar had not yet found new tenants for the house on the Boulevard des Oiseaux, so we could move back in.
At least Nina will be pleased to see us, even if it does mean having to share the bicycle and the library card with me again.
Zoe – 2010
The quilt they’re making at the refugee centre is progressing far faster than the much smaller one I’ve been working on at home. So many of the women have contributed a block that it’s morphed into a sizeable piece of handmade art that will cover at least half of the longest wall of the makeshift building once we’ve assembled it. And, with Kate’s help, the children have made a whole meadow of bright felt flowers that will be added as embellishments between the blocks. We started laying it out this morning, spreading clean sheets on the floor as we don’t have a table big enough to accommodate the whole thing.
Each woman knelt to place her block within the outline that Kate had roughly marked out with strips of binding. Every individual square is unique, lovingly pieced together to tell one person’s story. Geometric Log Cabin, Bear Paw and Friendship Star blocks are interspersed with free-form designs, and motifs of exotic birds and animals in needle-turn appliqué. Plain sashing strips will frame each one, and the children’s flowers will be scattered among them, drawing the eye through the quilt so the viewer reads the individual stories represented there and the piece of history that they tell as a whole.
The blocks are testament to shattered lives, to families torn apart, to cultures fragmented and crushed. These scraps of fabric have survived dangerous journeys where even more has been lost along the way. But now, in an ugly, bare-floored building on the edge of a shanty town, a group of women have triumphed. Gathered from starkly different backgrounds, they have picked up the pieces and, with love and the support of new-found companionship, have carefully pieced together something new. They’ve turned their heartbreak into something beautiful. It will cover the dead, grey blocks of the wall of the centre with a reminder that it’s possible to find joy in the midst of devastation, that the human spirit is indestructible.
Eventually, the women who’ve made this quilt will move on, trying to find their way to a home – out there somewhere – that offers a life filled with dignity and empty of fear. But more women and children will come, and they’ll see the wall hanging and read its message of triumph in the face of what’s been lost. They will understand, then, that they’re not alone, that there is kindness in this world and that they should be proud of the people they are and always will be.
May McConnaghy came along to the centre today. She spent ages talking with Madame Habib and the other Casawi volunteers. She’s involved with a committee that raises funds for local projects and thinks she’ll be able to make a strong case for the award of a grant to help get the quilt-making enterprise up and running. The women have already come up with a name for it – Sawianaan, which is the Arabic word for ‘together’. To my ears, it sounds a little like they’re saying ‘sewing’ and when I tell them that they laugh and clap their hands in delight. May has asked Madame Habib to come and talk to one of the other groups she’s involved with as well. The volunteers here have such a wealth of knowledge and experience to share.
On the way back through the city, I ask the taxi driver to drop us at the entrance to the Parc Murdoch so I can walk the rest of the way home, stretching my legs and giving Grace a breath of fresh air. I feel happier than I have done in ages. I smile at Grace and she picks up on my mood, gurgling and chortling, trying to mimic my words as I point out a pair of rust-breasted redstarts who scold us indignantly from their perch in the branches of a jacaranda tree.
I take a slight detour, following our usual path towards the bench beneath the pines, intending to pause there for a few minutes to sanitise my hands and give Grace a drink. But as we approach, I’m disappointed to see the seat is already occupied by a couple. They sit close, heads inclined towards one another, deeply absorbed in their conversation. And then I stop in my tracks, half concealed behind a cluster of mock-orange bushes. Instinctively, I draw my shawl closer, covering Grace in its folds. Because the blonde-headed woman is my friend Kate. And the man she’s sitting so close to, with her hand on his arm in a gesture that’s at once intimate and comforting, is not her husband.
She says something and draws back slightly, and I catch sight of his profile. This is no stranger. No, it isn’t her husband. It’s mine.
I stand there, frozen with shock, my heart pounding and my stomach constricting in a tight knot. As I watch, Tom pulls his phone from his jacket pocket and Kate leans closer to him again as he appears to type something into it before putting it away.
I can’t bear to watch them together like that – closer than he and I have been to each other in months. I know the sensible thing to do would be to walk up and say hello. Perhaps there’s a perfectly innocent reason for them to be here or maybe they’ve just bumped into each other. But it certainly doesn’t look innocent from the way they’re sitting, the way his eyes never leave her face as he talks to her. My legs feel as if they’re about to give way beneath me and my every instinct is to get away from here, to put the sight of them behind me. I don’t think I can deal with this. The one person I thought was my friend here has deceived me in the cruellest way possible.