The Storyteller of Casablanca (79)
We talk for hours, and the years seem to fall away as Josie and Nina relive the time that marked the end of their childhood. Alia sits beside me on one of the settees, entranced, watching them laughing together and becoming more animated as they dig up more of their memories.
‘It’s wonderful, seeing the two of them like this,’ she says. ‘Josie’s mind seems to have grown stronger just in the past few days, ever since she got her journal back. You can see the girls they once were, can’t you?’
The two friends sit close, heads together as they pore over another page, recalling how Felix tried to teach them to juggle. ‘Can you still do that?’ Alia asks them. ‘Here, have a go.’ She takes three oranges from a bowl on a low table.
Josie’s hands are stiff, her fingers bent into talons, and she fumbles the fruit, laughing as they roll across the mosaic tiles of the floor. But Nina hasn’t lost the knack and we applaud her, cheering loudly.
Later, when Josie has grown tired, I help her upstairs to her room. She sinks into her chair with a sigh. ‘How annoying the side effects of ageing can be! I’ll have to practise my juggling and see if I can improve. Still, I shouldn’t complain. Growing old is certainly better than the alternative, as they say.’
She’s making light of it, but I’m reminded again of her lost family. ‘I hope you won’t mind my asking you this, but did you ever give the names of Annette and your mother to the ocean?’
Her expression grows serious again. ‘No, I never did. I was too unwell for a very long time and somehow I’ve never got around to it.’ She fixes me with her clear green gaze, reading the things I keep hidden beneath the surface. Then she reaches out and takes my hand in hers, the tips of her fingers very lightly stroking the sorest patches. Her touch is cooling and it feels as if she’s drawing the heat out of my burning skin. She continues, ‘When I was so badly injured, and Kenza brought me home here to recover, I spent many hours with the dreamseller. She had the time to sit with me, to talk to me and to listen. She helped heal many of my wounds – the ones on the inside as well as the external ones. She taught me a lot, telling me her stories, enabling me to see life in a way that would help me be able to bear my pain. I asked her whether she thought it would be possible for me to become a dreamseller myself one day and she smiled. She had a smile that lit up her face, you see, transforming the ravages that life had wrought on her features into something truly beautiful. She made me feel that my ruined face, too, had its own beauty. And then she told me that I already had the power to become a dreamseller, not just because I had stories of my own to tell but also because I could hear people. Being a dreamseller is a two-way process, you see. But she didn’t just mean that I was a good listener, she meant that I could really hear what it was people were trying to say, even when their words were saying something else.’
She looks at me searchingly again and I drop my eyes, avoiding her piercing green gaze. She puts one claw-like finger beneath my chin and raises my face again. ‘I can hear you, Zoe, even when you don’t say a word. One of the things I learned from the dreamseller was that we all need to be able to speak our own truth, to have it heard. Sometimes we can feel there’s no one listening and then we must find other ways to make ourselves heard. But I am listening to you now, Zoe. I am ready to hear your truth when you are ready to tell it.’
I nod slowly, reluctantly. ‘What if my truth is something really unbearable? What if telling it means I will lose something for ever? Wouldn’t it be better not to speak? After all, you told me yourself that the mind shies away from the things it’s impossible to bear.’
‘I did. And I also know the value in facing those things when the time is right, when you are strong enough to do so. But we can’t do it alone. We need the help and support of people we love and trust, both to be able to begin to face the truth and to see it through.’
I nod again, but she can sense my reluctance. Very gently she says, ‘Remember our deal, Zoe. I’ve told you the whole of my story. Now it’s your turn.’
‘All right,’ I say. ‘But not today. You’re tired and I must be getting back.’ I glance at my watch. Grace is restless and hungry, and I know she’ll begin to fret if I don’t get her home for her supper soon. ‘May I come back tomorrow?’
Every cell in my body is longing to get away, to run as far and as fast as I can from the truth that I’ve avoided for so long. My hands itch and prick and the urge to scrub them clean is overwhelming. Even as I say the words to Josie, I’m not sure I’ll be back. I can find a reason not to return tomorrow, I think. I can make my excuses. Everything can stay just as it is.
She smiles at me, her eyes as clear as the green waters of the ocean, and I get the impression she’s listening to my thoughts. ‘How would it be if I came to you instead?’ she says. ‘Back to the house in the Boulevard des Oiseaux? I haven’t been near the place for almost seventy years. Maybe now it’s time.’
She can read me like a book. There is no escape. Like the refugees arriving in Casablanca all those years ago, I’ve reached the end of the line. There is nowhere else to go. And suddenly I realise how tired I am of running away from the truth. A feeling of deep exhaustion seeps into my bones along with that sense of recognition: maybe now it’s time for me, too.