The Storyteller of Casablanca (72)

Kenza smiled at me and I think she had guessed what I was thinking, because she said, ‘It is the same colour as your eyes, Khadar Ini. He was so proud of you.’

I’m keeping it in the sandalwood box, along with my other treasures.





Josie’s Journal – Saturday 12th September, 1942

Ramadan is just beginning. I’ve been sitting at my window, watching the sun set out over the ocean. As the sky darkens, the evening star appears and then the first sliver of the new moon rises and the muezzins start to sing.

I wonder whether I’ll still be here in a month’s time to see the first glimpse of the next new moon, which will mark the beginning of Eid al-Fitr. We have all our papers in place again now and are ready to leave Casablanca. We have to wait for a ship, though, and there are so few of them these days. Maman has told us it’s looking as if we’ll have to be patient for a few more weeks. But in the meantime we’ve pulled the suitcases out from the cupboard under the stairs and begun to pack the things we don’t need at the moment. We’re determined to be ready to go if a berth on a ship becomes available at short notice.

Annette asked Maman why we couldn’t catch a plane to Portugal. There’s still one flight a day out of Cazes airfield, but apparently that’s out of the question. The seats are reserved for diplomatic personnel and VIPs. Even if, by some miracle, three places were available then we wouldn’t be able to afford the tickets. It’s all Maman can do to pay the rent now. Although none of us has said it, I know we’re all thinking the same thing: if we don’t manage to get out of Morocco this time, we’ll have to move to the mellah by Christmastime. The threat looms on the horizon like the dark wall of an approaching sandstorm. I can’t get the thought of Madame Adler’s poor sore eyes out of my head.

As I watch the moon climb higher, until it hangs directly above the minaret of the mosque, I send up a silent prayer to whichever god may be listening. It will break my heart to leave this place: the place where my papa’s body lies who-knows-where, perhaps in a hastily dug grave entangled with the corpses of 19 others, or in the ocean, where his bones will be picked clean and turned into the shells of sea creatures; the place where my friends Nina and Kenza have taught me so much and stood beside me on the beach to give me the strength to say so many hard goodbyes. But I know we need to leave now, because I fear for Maman’s health. Like the waning of the old moon, she’s fading day by day. It’s not a physical illness, but something harder to diagnose – a dullness in her eyes; an expression of exhaustion when her features are in repose; a mixture of fear and grief and hopelessness that silently eats away at her. I don’t know how much more she can take. Even though life in an America at war with the world holds great uncertainty for the three of us, I know it will be best for Maman if we can get to a place where there are other members of her family to help support her, even though they are only distant relations and we have never actually met them.

It’s too much for Annette and me as well. We need to be in a place where we won’t be living in constant fear, just because of our mother’s birthright.



Yesterday, Miss Ellis asked me if I’d be prepared to perform an important task for her. I thought it would just be delivering another message to Felix, which I still do at least a couple of times a week, but this time it was something a little different. She explained that the information that she’d copied from my project on the Atlantic ports had already been useful. But now some people of great importance had asked to see the source material. Would I be prepared to hand it over, knowing that it would be put to good use? She explained that all I’d need to do was take my schoolbook and rendezvous with a courier in the Parc Murdoch at 5.30 p.m.

‘Not Felix?’ I asked her.

‘No, it won’t be Felix this time.’

I hesitated for a moment then. ‘I know I’m not supposed to ask questions, but I have to know this one thing – will it be Monsieur Guigner?’

At the mention of the name, Miss Ellis looked very angry. Her mouth set into a thin line and her cheeks flushed red. ‘Josie, I can absolutely assure you of one thing: it most certainly will not be the agent who used to call himself Guigner. He was discovered to have been a turncoat, responsible for betraying many of the men who were arrested, including your father. He bargained with the Gestapo, trading the lives of other, far better men in return for his own. But luckily the network that people like your papa had managed to put in place has been strong enough to survive the loss of so many of their number. On Guigner’s release, there was a band of résistants waiting for him. They have made sure that none of us will ever see anything of that treacherous snake ever again.’

I felt a surge of anger myself when I heard it was that horrible, despicable man who had betrayed my papa. I remembered how annoyed he’d been when I appeared at the door of our hotel just behind him and stopped him from hurting Annette any worse than he already had done. I suppose he’d borne a grudge against us ever since. I knew I ought to feel pity for him – a traitor who had been unceremoniously killed by the comrades he was supposed to be helping – but the truth is I didn’t. I just felt glad that he was gone because if I ever saw him again, I would have killed him myself. So I agreed, in that case, to deliver my project to the Parc Murdoch at 5.30 that afternoon.

At the end of my lesson Miss Ellis gave me a hug, which surprised me. As an Englishwoman, she is usually far more formal. ‘Your papa would be so proud of you, Josie. What you’re doing today may seem like just another small task to you, but it’s of crucial importance. You’ve done more than you will ever know in the fight for what is right.’