Casablanca Blues (2013) (6 page)

A stone’s throw from the central market the taxi slammed on its brakes, and Blaine recoiled from whiplash. The engine was overheating, and its driver was in need of strong coffee and a packet of Marquise cigarettes.

Humphrey Bogart was unstrapped from the roof and lowered down. Blaine gave thanks in English, smiled a great deal, and found himself on the kerb. And again he gave thanks. This time it was to his New York life for having dumped him so conclusively, and to the door that had opened, a door into another world.

His heels tight together, Casablanca’s newest arrival stared up at the grandeur and the detail – the rococo curls and the once-gilded domes, the exquisite wrought iron balconies, the Carrera marble, and the angular signage from a distant time. Shuffling clockwise, Blaine turned through three-sixty, mouth open wide, hands outstretched in awe of it all.

Adjacent to where he was standing was the Marché Central, a French market constructed in high colonial arabesque. Across from it, no more than a ramshackle shell, held up by scaffolding, were the remnants of the Bessonneau apartment building, once a landmark visible across the city.

As his heels completed their rotation, Blaine caught sight of the simple, unpretentious façade of Hotel Marrakech.

Holding Bogart up to eye level, he winked.

The next thing he knew, he was lying on the ground, felled by a slim figure in lavender. The tip of a stiletto jabbed his ankle, and the edge of a voluminous leather portmanteau struck the side of his head.

Dazed, the American struggled to work out what had happened. As he did so, the lavender figure rose up like a cobra about to strike.

‘How dare you bump into me!’ she hissed, stumbling to get vertical, back up onto her Jimmy Choos.

‘Excuse me, but it was you who bumped into me,’ said Blaine.

Ghita glanced back, relieved.

‘He’s gone,’ she said. ‘Thank God for that. He was chasing me... hunting me.’

‘Who was?’

‘That... that... that
fiend
!’

Blaine dusted himself off, and picked up Bogart.

‘I’ve just arrived,’ he said. ‘Right off the red-eye from JFK. D’you know if this hotel’s any good?’

Ghita looked at the American incredulously.

‘Which hotel?’

‘That one. The Marrakech.’

A homeless man pushed past, and relieved himself on the exterior wall. The trickle of warm liquid soon seeped in between the cracked paving tiles. Ghita coughed forcefully into her lace handkerchief, then gagged. She whipped out a miniature bottle of hand sanitizer and disinfected her palms.

‘I’d say it was a hell-hole,’ she replied curtly.

‘And I’d say it was gritty and great,’ said Blaine, giving an enthusiastic thumbs-up.

He glanced down at her luggage.

‘You new in town as well?’

Ghita froze.

‘Er, um. Well, no... no, I live here. It’s just my home is... is... is being redecorated. I’m going to the...’ she faltered, glancing left and right. ‘To the Hyatt. It’s just down there at the end of the boulevard.’

Blaine touched a hand to his injured ankle.

‘Well, have a good day,’ he said, striding towards the portico of the Hotel Marrakech.

A little red taxi pulled up. The driver got out. With tremendous difficulty he hoisted the Louis Vuitton onto the roof-rack. Ghita motioned to the distance, in the direction from which she had come.

‘To the Hyatt,’ she said.

The unshaven driver flinched.

‘You could walk that.’

Ghita gave him the look of death.

‘Not in these heels.’

She clambered in. The passenger door slammed, the wheels moved, and within less than a minute brakes were applied.

The cab driver’s hand came off the gear stick and waited for payment. Fishing for her purse, Ghita remembered that she had been banished without funds. Then her fingers touched something circular and worn at the bottom of her pocket.

The ten-dirham coin her father had given her.

She looked at it, almost marvelling, unable to remember the last time she had actually taken notice of a coin.

‘Here you are,’ she said. ‘You can keep the change.’

The Louis Vuitton was loaded onto the porter’s trolley, domed in polished brass. The great mahogany doors of the Hyatt were pulled open from inside, and a multitude of fawning bellboys bowed, scraped, and welcomed. There was the calming scent of lemongrass, and the sound of water spilling out from symmetrical fountains.

Digging her heels into the marble, Ghita made a beeline for the reception desk. She sashayed with the confidence and swagger of someone accustomed to comfort.

The duty manager looked up, caught eye-contact, and smiled.

‘Good morning to you, Mademoiselle. How are you?’

‘I am all the better for being at the Hyatt,’ she said. ‘I won’t bore you with the details of my morning. But it’s been horrifying to say the least.’

‘And what may I do for you?’

‘A room. I would like a room,’ Ghita paused. ‘Actually, I would like a suite. Something big, with a view... a view away from the city.’

‘Of course, Mademoiselle. And how long will you be staying with us?’

Ghita Omary glanced at the calendar behind the reception desk.

‘For a month,’ she said.

The manager’s fingertips tapped away at a keyboard.

‘We have an Ambassador Suite available, Mademoiselle. It has a fine view over the port, and complimentary breakfast. The price is one thousand and twenty-six euros per night, including tax. A total of thirty-thousand, seven hundred and eighty euros.’

‘That’s fine, I’ll take it.’

‘We shall need your credit card to make the confirmation.’

Ghita delved into her handbag, a limited edition Versace.

At the very bottom, below the compact, the lipstick, the silk scarf and the leather-bound notebook from Coach, was a secret compartment. Unzipping it, she pulled out a Black American Express card.

Smugly, she passed it to the clerk.

After all, no top-notch shopaholic would go out without emergency plastic.

The card was swiped. The manager squinted at the computer display.

‘I am so sorry, Miss Omary,’ he said, ‘but this card appears to have been cancelled. Do you have another we could try?’

Ghita felt her back warming with anger. Snatching the card, she snarled:

‘Damn him! Damn him! How dare he subject me to this!’

The manager took a step back.

‘My father,’ Ghita said, straining to regain her composure, ‘he seems to be having a little amusement at my expense. I’ll just check into the room now, and give you another card later.’

The manager held up a finger.

‘I am afraid to inform you that hotel policy insists that we take a valid credit card in advance.’

Ghita Omary calmed herself. She moved forward into the light, so that the duty manager could see the depth of the displeasure exhibited in her eyes.

‘Do you have any idea who my father is?’ she said. ‘He’s Hicham Omary, owner of Globalcom! If you don’t give me a suite right now, I’ll have you fired and then publicly disgraced! You’ll be down in the Sahara by nightfall!’

The duty manager didn’t respond. Calmly, he took back the credit card.

‘Alas, it seems as though the card is stolen,’ he said. ‘There is a message in the system asking merchants to destroy it if located.’

Taking a pair of scissors from a drawer, he snipped the Centurion card in half.

‘A very good day to you, Mademoiselle Omary,’ he said.

Twenty-five

A little later, the Maybach limousine cruised through Anfa’s palm-lined streets. Hicham Omary was reclining in the back. He had been going through the morning’s news schedule on the phone, the leather seat strewn with papers.

Looking out at the traffic lights of the Boulevard Gandhi intersection, he noticed a commotion. A policeman had pulled up a truck piled with crates of oranges from Agadir. The officer was going over the driver’s documents, all part of a ballet designed to end in a bribe.

Omary got another burst of childhood memory, a sun-drenched lane in the country and bare swollen feet. He had picked citrus fruit near Tafroute after leaving school at the age of twelve. It was there that his family had herded sheep and raised crops for fifteen centuries and more. The sweet scent of oranges brought back memories of the endless citrus groves, and of his uncle, a wily old farmer who was bitter to the core.

Running a hand over his face, Omary watched as the truck’s driver slipped over the neatly folded bill, before his ramshackle vehicle was waved on.

The lights changed and the Maybach rolled away down Boulevard Gandhi.

Omary’s mind turned to his daughter.

A pang of guilt, even remorse, hit him. It was tempered by a sense of anger, anger at himself. He had been far too lenient, and his lenience had created a brat – the kind he had so despised on his way up through the ranks from the orange groves to the boardroom.

The limousine glided to the end of the boulevard, and on towards Californie, where the most pretentious of the
nouveaux
riches
were to be found. They were lured there by the exotic name of the suburb, and by the size of the villas, grand enough to wow even the most blasé of socialites.

The old houses were few and far between these days. Most had been torn down and replaced by concrete monstrosities, wedding cake homes, like his own. The old ones from the French era had been studies in serene perfection, leftovers from an era dedicated to good breeding and to style.

On one corner there stood the finest of all, a villa that was almost a century old. It was absolutely perfect. Symmetrical in form and Art Nouveau in style, there was an almost enchanted quality about it, a sense that it had been conjured through an architectural alchemy.

Omary always looked out for it as he approached. He could feel it drawing near, and was energized by the mere thought of being in its presence.

But on that particular morning something was wrong.

Outside the villa there stood a line of parked trucks, a battery of workmen attending each one. Every man was wearing a yellow helmet and was clutching a pickaxe, as if he were heading down a mineshaft.

The limousine slowed in the traffic, and Hicham Omary watched in horror at what was going on. The workmen were demolishing the villa, the jewel of jewels – smashing, crushing, slamming. It was an execution.

Omary asked the chauffeur to pull over.

He got out. Reeling in revulsion and in shame, he strode over to the ruins.

An aged guardian was squatting on the sidelines. He was grizzled and half-blind, his eyes frosted by cataracts. Omary approached him, squatting down as well. He gave greeting, and asked:

‘Tell me, brother, what is happening here?’

The guardian whispered a line of greeting in return, waved a hand at the rubble and the dust.

‘They’re breaking it up,’ he said very slowly. ‘I’ve worked here all my life, keeping it safe. And now this... the end of a life.’

‘How can they get permission to tear down such a treasure?’

The old man rubbed the side of his hand to his eye.

‘They can do anything they like,’ he said.

‘But it’s against the law.’

‘Law,
what
law
?’

‘The law of the city, the law of the land!’

The guardian rubbed a thumb and index finger together.

‘Pay the bribe to the right people and you can do anything you like,’ he said.

Twenty-six

Expelled from the Hyatt, Ghita had taken refuge at a tumbledown kiosk opposite the Marché Central.

It sold cheap cigarettes and lighter fuel, chewing gum and glue. On the journey back down the main boulevard she had run the full gamut of emotion, ranging from bizarre euphoria to despair and rage.

She had dragged the portmanteau behind her, leaving its underside battered and scarred. Had she not been so extremely attached to its contents, she would have abandoned it.

Instantly grasping from her clothes and her luggage that she was out of place, the kiosk’s owner slid over a telephone.

Snatching the receiver, Ghita wiped it with lace, and dialled. There was a pause, then a woman’s voice, shrill and excitable.

‘Aicha, darling, it’s me, it’s Ghita. I’m having an awful time. Thank God I remembered your number. Baba’s being beastly...’

‘Ghita, darling, it’s early for you, especially after a night like that.’

‘I swear I’m still dreaming... but it’s no dream – it’s a nightmare. You have to help me!’

‘But dearest, I’m en route to the airport, going to Gstaad for the weekend. Last skiing of the season. It’s Malik’s little treat.’

Ghita broke down again.

‘I need help,’ she repeated. ‘I am in danger!’

Aicha’s voice crackled and faded away as the line went dead.

Slamming down the receiver, Ghita spat out a line of expletives. Then she stormed across the road to Hotel Marrakech, dragging the Louis Vuitton behind her.

Outside it, a young man was touting stolen phones from a scruffy old shoebox. His accomplice was on the lookout for possible customers and for the cops. Spotting a well-dressed woman in lavender heels, the pair made a beeline for her.

‘Need a phone?’ they both said at once. ‘Got some nice ones here.’

Ghita peered into the box. One of the mobiles was buzzing. Another was chiming Yankee Doodle Dandy. She spotted the familiar outline of an iPhone.

‘How much is that?’

‘Four hundred dirhams.’

Ghita unclasped her brooch. It was gold, fashioned in the shape of a dolphin, and had been a gift from the mayor of Paris.

‘I’ll swap it for this, and only because I’m desperate.’

The young man snatched the brooch, furled it away, and handed over the iPhone. Wasting no time, Ghita tried Aicha again. Unable to reach her, she sent a text.

There was no reply.

Cursing, Ghita shook her fists and stamped her stilettos as angrily as she could. Then, crushed, she climbed the steps up to the Hotel Marrakech, dragging the portmanteau up behind her.

The lobby was dark, caked in dirt, and decidedly unappealing. It was decorated with ashtrays, tattered old airline posters, and with third-rate plastic plants. Every surface seemed to be a perch for a cat. There were dozens of them – tabbies, tortoiseshells, anxious Siamese, and sleek Burmese.