by Tahir Shah
‘To help the daughter of an old friend is an honour,’ he said.
Seventy-four
During a break between downpours, Blaine walked along Boulevard Mohammed V in the direction of the Casa Voyageurs railway station.
The main thoroughfare of French-built Casablanca, the street was once the preserve of the most fashionable shops, cafés and restaurants. For a company to have a headquarters there was a statement of influence and power.
But, despite the new tramway and a coat of fresh whitewash, most of the buildings were in a wretched state, symbols of the despised days of the French Protectorate.
Put up back in’ 34, the Shell Building stood in pride of place at a little crossroads, once named after General Patton. Like everything else with a French title, it had been subsequently renamed. In the postcard there had been a prim new streetlight there, the kerb around it striped in black and white.
Weaving between the parked cars and the mounds of soaking garbage, Blaine made his way to the exact spot where the open-topped limousine had stood in the photograph. A Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost, its liveried driver was holding a door open for a lady in a wide-brimmed sun hat.
Unsure of quite what to do, Blaine went inside.
The building was empty, and was gutted of its original contents and fixtures. A guardian emerged from the shadows. He had been feeding milky bread to a nest of puppies.
‘C’est fermé,’ he said. ‘This building closed.’
The American held up a hand.
‘I was hoping something might have been left for me.’
The guardian winced.
‘Quand? When?’
‘About seventy years ago.’
Blaine realized how foolish the sentence sounded before he had even spoken it. He passed the guardian the postcard. Holding it into the light, he moved it close to his eyes. And, after a long wait, he seemed to smile to himself.
‘This picture... very old,’ he said. ‘Cars different now.’ He motioned to the passing traffic. ‘Small, ugly.’ He drew a breath. ‘This one... beautiful!’
‘I am hoping that an envelope or something might have been left for me,’ said Blaine.
‘Your name?’
‘Oh, it wouldn’t be in my name. If anything, it would be in the name of Mr. Bogart.’ He took a step back. ‘Monsieur BEAU-GART,’ he said, enunciating. He was an American gentleman.’
‘Your father?’
‘No, not exactly.’
‘Oh.’
The guardian appeared a little displeased.
‘Well, yes, kinda,’ Blaine corrected. ‘My father.’
A big toothless smile welled up on the guardian’s face.
‘Father, good,’ he said.
‘Well, do you know if anything was left for him – for my father, Mr. Bogart?’
The guardian shook his head and went back to the pups.
‘Non, Monsieur,’ he said as he went. ‘Il n’y a rien ici pour votre père.’
At Café Berry, across from the Shell Building, Blaine sucked down a black coffee and waved a hand through the suffocating smoke.
The waiter hadn’t asked whether he wanted it in a glass or a cup, but had served it in a glass – a sign that he was looking more like a local. After all, most Moroccan men take their coffee in a glass, especially those who while away their lives in run-down Art Deco cafés.
For fifteen minutes Blaine stared at the postcard without looking up once. He studied every detail, every speck. And he read and reread Bogie’s spidery scrawl.
When he finally did look up, he noticed an elderly lady. She was watching him. The only woman in the entire café, her large meaty frame was stuffed into a flowery dress. Her hands were muscular, and seemed somehow familiar. But Blaine was bad with faces and even worse with names.
He glanced down at the postcard, and then up again.
The woman was still looking at him. She grinned anxiously, stubbed out a cigarette and moved over towards him, parting the empty tables with her legs.
‘How are you?’ she said in a rather hoarse voice.
‘Fine thank you, and you?’
‘Oh, you know... I’m surviving.’
There was an uneasy pause. Blaine took a sip of coffee, and swallowed.
‘Do I know you?’ he asked.
‘Last night... I was playing.’
‘Playing?’
‘The piano.’
The American caught a flash of the Club Souterrain and an aftertaste of single malt.
‘Of course. The pianist.’
The woman fluttered her strong masculine fingers.
‘Yes, the pianist,’ she said.
‘Please join me,’ Blaine replied.
The pianist introduced herself as Rosario. Then she wasted no time in revealing her background. She had come from Buenos Aires decades before, but had put down roots in Casablanca –roots that had taken hold.
‘What brought you here?’ asked Blaine with genuine interest.
Rosario looked sheepish.
‘A surgeon’s knife,’ she said.
‘A...?’
‘A knife.’
The pianist touched a thumb to her pearl earring.
‘Gender reassignment,’ she said.
‘Oh,’ Blaine replied, wondering whether to deliver it as a question or an exclamation.
Rosario ordered a coffee. It came in a glass as well.
‘Back in the’ seventies,’ she said, lighting a cigarette, ‘Casa had the only reliable clinic in the world offering The Operation.’
‘Which operation?’
‘You know...’
‘Do I?’
Rosario jabbed a thumb between the American’s legs and made a scissors motion.
‘Excuse me?’
‘I know, I know,’ Rosario continued, ‘even then it was a little shocking, and a little sordid.’
Blaine didn’t want to appear impolite, but he couldn’t think of anything to say.
‘That sounds painful,’ he mumbled after a long pause.
The Argentine pianist stubbed out her cigarette and tapped a fresh one from a soft pack. She lit it with a match.
‘It was agony,’ she said.
‘Was it legal?’
She giggled frivolously.
‘Of course not,’ she responded mischievously. ‘But this is Casablanca, a city with far less on the surface than there is underground.’
‘And why did you stay here, and not go back to Argentina?’
‘I fell in love,’ the pianist said. ‘Hopelessly and stupidly in love. When I woke up to realize he was a rotten egg, it was far too late. You know how it is. Life traps you.’
‘Oh, believe me, I know all about getting trapped,’ said Blaine.
‘Well, I am guessing you have not come to Casablanca for gender reassignment,’ the pianist replied.
Blaine might have smiled, but he did not.
‘I have come in search of Bogart,’ he said.
‘As in Humphrey?’
‘Yes.’
‘A little before my time.’
Blaine pulled out the postcard.
‘I’m living in the past,’ he said. ‘Following clues. This one led me to the Shell Building across the street.’
‘I hear it’s going to be turned into a boutique hotel,’ said Rosario. ‘But if you believe that, you’ll believe anything.’ She held the writing to the light and squinted. ‘My eyes are showing their age,’ she said. ‘But it looks like it says “Les Cafés du Bresil”, that’s a little shop on the corner of the Central Market. It’s been there for ever.’
Blaine’s eyes lit up. He shook Rosario’s hand, pressed a couple of coins to the tabletop, and stood up.
‘I’ll see you around,’ he said as if distracted.
‘At the club?’
‘Maybe.’
The Argentine pianist pointed to a building adjacent to the café.
‘That’s where I live,’ she said. ‘The fifth floor. I’m always read
y for a little conversation, or to take a stroll down memory lane.’
Seventy-five
A pair of hobnail boots clattered down the slim corridor before coming to an abrupt halt outside Cell No. 3.
The guard pulled the inspection hatch back with his claw-like fingernails, blinding the prisoner with a stream of low-watt light. He stood there for some time. Omary could hear him breathing, as though he were making up his mind what to say.
‘You were on the television,’ the guard growled in a slow cold voice. ‘Seems like you are very rich.’
‘I am a prisoner,’ said Omary. ‘And that’s all I am.’
The guard flicked a switch to the right of the door, bathing the cell in blinding light.
‘You could buy yourself a little luxury,’ he said. ‘Better food, a blanket, even a chair.’
Squatting at the back of his cell, Omary crept forward on hands and knees, until his mouth was an inch from the door.
He could smell the guard.
‘Bribe my way into a world of luxury?’ he said incredulously. ‘How dare you?! I’d rather rot to death in here than demean myself by paying you off.’
The inspection hatch slammed shut and the light vanished.
Then the thud of the boots came again, more deafening this time. It was followed by a gushing sound in the distance.
More boots, steel keys rattling, blinding light, and by a bucket of ice-cold water being flung into the cell.
Seventy-six
The sales assistant at Les Cafés du Bresil had slipped a hardbacked envelope across the counter, identical to the one hidden in Bar Atomic’s toilet. It smelt of roasted coffee, having lain undisturbed for decades in a drawer at the back of the shop. The clerk showed no surprise that it was being collected at long last.
A little later, when Blaine opened it up at Baba Cool, he found a third postcard – bearing the image of a snake charmer standing in front of an ancient minaret. As before, he separated the card from the photograph, and found a line and a half of Bogart’s almost impenetrable scrawl.
Directions, which began at a place called ‘Koutoubia’.
As he sat there pondering the clues and what they might lead to, Ghita arrived.
‘I thought I’d find you here,’ she said.
Blaine showed off the postcard and explained where he had found it.
‘I don’t understand how clues could have been left unnoticed for so long,’ he said.
Ghita ordered a nous-nous.
‘We’re not a young country,’ she replied, ‘not like your America. Here in Morocco something has to be over a thousand years in age to be considered properly old.’
‘But Casablanca’s far newer than that.’
‘I know,’ Ghita replied. ‘And that’s why it’s an embarrassment to most Moroccans, and the reason why they’re happy to rip down the buildings without a second thought.’
‘But they’re jewels... Art Deco jewels.’
‘They may be to you. But to the locals they’re ugly, like a monstrous eyesore from the ‘sixties... An eyesore created by colonial oppressors.’
Blaine put the card away and, as he did so, his eyes lit up.
‘Did you know that Casablanca was once the gender reassignment centre of the universe?’ he said with a smile.
‘Gender...?’
‘Reassignment.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Ghita said.
‘Sex change... it’s where all the early sex changes were done. I met a guy – I mean a woman – called Rosario, who had her tackle chopped off here forty years ago.’
‘That’s disgusting.’
‘No it’s not.’
‘Then what is it?’
Blaine thought hard.
‘It’s a cry for help,’ he said.
There was a thunderous roar of applause from the back of Baba Cool, and all the tired old men hiding from their wives cheered. Some waved their fists in the air; others slapped their friends on the back.
‘What’s going on?’
The waiter, who was distributing fresh ashtrays, cocked his head back towards the oversized screen.
‘One-Zero to Morocco.’
‘Who are they playing?’
Disbelieving that anyone could be unaware of the match, the waiter replied:
‘Algeria, Monsieur. Our most bitter rival.’
Five minutes later, Morocco’s old adversary equalized and, a moment after that, Saed hurried in, a cardboard box in his hands. He was hawking baseball caps with the Moroccan flag glued unevenly to the front.
‘I’ve sold fifty this afternoon,’ he said. ‘I got them from a Chinese store in Derb Omar.’ He put down the box. ‘I’m the champion of champions.’
‘Because you’re good at selling hats?’ said Ghita.
‘No, not that. Because I’ve found out where they’re holding your father.’
Ghita froze, her eyes filling instantly with tears.
‘Where... where is he?’
‘In a prison high in the mountains.’
‘We knew that already.’
Saed took out a scrap of newspaper. There was something scribbled on the back.
‘You read it,’ he said, passing it to Ghita.
‘Why don’t you?’
‘I don’t read much. Been too busy selling hats to learn.’
‘It’s the name of the jail – beyond the Gorge of Ziz.’
‘Where’s that?’
‘A long way.’
Blaine held up his hands.
‘Wait a minute,’ he said. ‘What’s your plan... to turn up and ask sweetly for them to hand your father over?’
‘I’ll plead with the guards,’ said Ghita. ‘I’ll beg them.’
‘And you really think that’ll work?’
Saed put a second scrap of paper on the table. It was larger than the first, and looked as though it had been torn from a child’s exercise book.
‘I think this will help,’ he said.
Ghita looked at the thick unruly Arabic script.
‘It says: Abdelkarim Hamoudi the goldsmith will repay the favour owed by his grandfather. The password is the name of the Prophet’s steed.’
‘The Night Journey,’ said Saed. ‘The Prophet ascended to Heaven on a horse with wings...’
‘It was called Buraq,’ Ghita said.
Another chorus of cheering erupted at the back.
‘What is the favour the goldsmith is willing to repay?’ Ghita asked.
‘Am I missing something here?’ asked Blaine. ‘Who is the goldsmith?’
Saed seemed unusually serious for a moment.
‘When my father died he left me nothing,’ he said. ‘Nothing, that is, except for three favours that were owed to him. The first was a favour owed from a fisherman down in Agadir. The second was one owed by a doctor in Oujda. And the third, it was owed by a man up in Tangier.’
‘But surely you can’t call in a favour if the person it’s owed to has died,’ Blaine said.
‘Of course you can,’ Ghita replied. ‘Or at least you can here in Morocco. This is a medieval country, you see – a place where the repayment of a favour is an almost sacred duty.’
‘A duty of blood,’ Saed added. ‘The man in Tangier knows that. I found out that the cousin of his wife is related to a man who works as a guard at the prison. If I demand the favour to be repaid he will help. He has no choice.’
‘Even if it’s breaking the law?’ asked Blaine.
‘Of course. You see, repaying a favour... having the burden removed from a family’s shoulders, is a great blessing.’
Saed reached over and touched Ghita’s sleeve with his hand.
‘I want to help you,’ he said.
‘But why?’
The boy grinned mischievously.
‘Because when you have saved your father perhaps you will remember me.’
Ghita leaned forward and pressed her lips to the shoeshine boy’s cheek.
‘You may be filthy and rough on
the outside, but you have a heart of gold,’ she said.
The American rolled his eyes.
‘How are you gonna get to the mountains?’
‘You would have to drive,’ said Saed.
‘But you don’t have a car.’
‘I think I know where to get one,’ Ghita said.
Seventy-seven
The next day Blaine was near the old Shell headquarters, when he thought of the Argentine pianist. Crossing the street, he went up to her apartment building and took the wooden elevator up to the fifth floor.
At the sound of the buzzer, a small dog began barking inside, as though it had been patrolling. It was followed by a gruff woman’s voice telling it to hush, then the clattering of fake pearls.
The door swung back.
Rosario stood in the frame, clutching a nervy chihuahua to her breast.
‘I was passing and thought I might drop by,’ said Blaine.
‘What a nice surprise, please come inside.’
She led the way into a small cluttered apartment, a sanctuary dedicated to the wonders and mysteries of the female form.
The walls were covered mostly in nudes – some photographs, others hand-drawn. The sitting-room was strewn with sculptures in bronze and in glass. Some were studies of female genitalia, others a little more abstract.
There were potted plants galore, and books, pamphlets, and yet more books, and dozens of cushions, some embroidered with sequins.
On the back wall, mounted in a sumptuous golden baroque frame, was an oil painting of a nude woman. Life-size and leering, her arms were outstretched as though she were hoping to embrace the world.
The pianist tossed the chihuahua onto the couch.
‘It’s Coccinelle,’ she said theatrically. ‘The first celebrity to undergo Dr. Burou’s blade.’
‘She’s beautiful,’ Blaine said.
‘Ah, she was a dream, a sensation, a real star.’ Rosario pressed a hand to her hair. ‘She was so brave... such a pioneer.’
Blaine sat down on a chaise longue. The dog climbed onto his lap and licked his face.
‘Stop that Popsi! Stop that at once! Oh, I am sorry,’ Rosario exclaimed, ‘but he craves the attention of men.’
She went off into the kitchen, returning with a pot of tea and a bottle of cheap cognac. Pouring an equal amount of each into two mugs, she sat primly on a low chair, and rearranged her skirt in the name of modesty.