The Storyteller of Casablanca (8)
We were some of the lucky ones because Papa had enough money to pay for things like porters and taxis and tickets and even to give certain officials a tip to make sure we got a cabin. There were crowds and crowds of people at the station and at the port and most of them seemed to be very frightened and angry. And some of them didn’t have the money to make sure they could get on the ship. I don’t know what happened to them. Maybe they just stayed in Marseille. Or maybe they decided to go somewhere else instead, like Italy or Spain. There was a family with a girl about my age – she looked friendly and we’d smiled at each other when we were in the queue waiting to have our passports stamped – but they didn’t get on the boat. I looked back when we were going up the gangway and there she was, standing on the quay, watching me go. Even though I never really knew her, I still see her face in my dreams sometimes and I wonder where she is now. Perhaps her family managed to get on another ship and one of these days I’ll bump into her in the Place de France here in Casablanca. That would be nice.
Our ship finally departed in the middle of the night. It was so late Maman was starting to panic that it wasn’t going to leave at all. It was too hot in the cabin, and it smelled of engine oil and vomit, so Papa and I went up on deck. We found a little corner near the back of the ship – there were people sleeping everywhere – and I leaned against him as we watched the lights of Marseille disappear. It was comforting to have Papa’s arm around me and to breathe in his smell of cigars and soap, even if we were all a bit dirty and dishevelled by then. The sea was as dark as Maman’s black velvet evening gown, but the night sky was full of millions of stars – way more than I’d ever seen in Paris. I touched the little gold star that hangs around my neck and somehow it was reassuring to feel that it connected me to all those stars above us.
Papa told me to try and get some sleep because we’d still have some long days of travelling ahead of us when we got to Algeria. But I think he and I both just stayed awake watching those millions of stars and wondering what lay in store for us when we reached Africa. A whole new continent!
What did lie in store for us was the A?n Chok refugee camp. But I’m jumping ahead.
First we disembarked from the ship at Oran and had to stand in line for hours and hours in the customs house, which was a bit like being put in an oven to be cooked like a rotisserie chicken. At the start people were quite noisy, complaining and calling out to the officials who were checking papers and reorganising the queues into different lines for reasons that must have been clear to them but seemed quite confusing to the rest of us. But as the day wore on and it got hotter and hotter, a thick, heavy silence fell over us all. Occasionally a baby would whimper, and a woman behind us made a strange noise like a balloon deflating when she fainted and had to be revived with smelling salts and a cup of water, but otherwise there was no noise at all. We just quietly waited and cooked.
At last we reached the front of the queue and had our papers checked. Then we were told to stand in another line for a few more hours. At long last we were allowed to get on a bus. Soldiers from the French Foreign Legion stood alongside it and made sure everyone did as they’d been told by the officials in the customs house. One of the soldiers looked at Annette in a way that made her stand up a bit straighter and smooth her hair back into place. When we got on the bus, two more of the soldiers got on too and sat at the front with their guns. I noticed that Annette opened her purse and put a bit of powder on her nose when she thought no one was looking. That was an improvement, actually, because it was very red and shiny from all her crying.
I slept for quite a lot of the bus journey, which took another whole night. I think it was mostly desert outside so there wasn’t much to look at in any case, even if it hadn’t been pitch-dark again.
When I woke up, we were driving through city streets lined with palm trees. Maman smiled at me and nodded, saying, ‘Casablanca.’
My first impression was of the whiteness that gives the city its name – we drove past low white houses and taller white buildings. But then I noticed that everywhere there were splashes of colour – green, red, orange and pink – from gardens filled with flowers. I felt quite reassured then – it reminded me a little bit of the C?te d’Azur. I pressed my cheek against the dusty glass of the window and looked at those gardens and at the people too as they walked along the streets, women veiled from head to toe in black and tough-looking men in white robes, all oblivious to the busloads of refugees that were sweeping past them. But then we started to leave the city streets behind and the buses drove along a much bumpier road, making dust clouds billow out from beneath the wheels, and there were no more flower-filled gardens, just sand and scrappy-looking shacks where half-starved cats slunk among piles of garbage.
Everyone on the bus got very quiet again then and I didn’t feel so reassured after all.
At last we arrived at the gates of the camp. The buses drew to a halt and the dust slowly settled around us. The soldiers got out of ours and went to talk to some others who were guarding the gate. They waved us through, but still no one spoke a word until we pulled up in front of a big building. A few people stood up and began collecting their things together, but the driver told them to sit back down and wait, which made everyone groan. We all just wanted to stretch our legs by then, not to mention badly needing a bathroom. I pictured the luxury of a lavatory and a basin with taps, basic things I’d completely taken for granted in Paris. But when at last we were shown to our place in the hall, there was only a bucket behind a curtain. Flies buzzed everywhere, but especially around that bucket.