Casablanca Blues (2013) (8 page)

Hicham Omary cleared his throat.

‘From this moment we shall no longer pay bribes of any kind,’ he said. ‘Whether it be five dirhams to a parking guardian on a street corner, or fifty to a cop for an invented traffic violation... or bribes to judges, politicians, or anyone else. No longer shall we live in fear. And, gradually, if we survive, others will regard us as pioneers and they will follow our example.’

Omary paused. He took a sip of water, and stared down the conference table.

‘I shall give an interview for the evening news,’ he said, ‘a rallying cry for the new order. But before that, I am sending out a memo, to all personnel at Globalcom. From now on, anyone found paying bribes or being involved in corruption of any kind, shall be immediately dismissed.’

Thirty-three

A string of street vendors were touting used clothing and junk on the western side of Boulevard Mohammed V.

Most were dressed in heavy woollen jelabas, the kind that keep out the Atlantic winter cold. A few were crouched down, rearranging their wares, calling out to anyone who might listen.

One was eager to draw attention to a cluster of dirty wooden spoons, a pile of German paperbacks, and an ashtray stolen from the Hotel Negresco in Nice. Another had a bundle of coat hangers laid out on a mat, half a dozen screwdrivers, and what looked like the back end of a vintage vacuum cleaner.

Rather out of place between them was an open Louis Vuitton portmanteau, overflowing with designer garments and accessories.

Standing beside it, a little awkward and a little cold, was Ghita.

From time to time burly women would sidle up, root through the clothes, and wander away.

One of them lingered longer than the rest.

‘
Bonjour Madame
,’ Ghita said politely. ‘What about this, it’s Dior, and has never been worn? Or how about this belt – it’s Lagerfeld, this summer’s collection?’

The large meaty woman picked out a crimson cocktail dress and held it to her chest. Ghita exhaled in a sigh.

‘It’s Valentino,’ she said. ‘A limited edition, one of only six.’

‘I’ll give you twenty dirhams.’

‘You must be out of your mind! It cost twelve hundred euros!’

The woman held out a banknote so worn that it felt like cloth. Gritting her teeth, Ghita snatched it and stuffed it in her bag. She was about to curse her father again when she saw a familiar outline cruising down the boulevard. It was low to the ground and scarlet, and was driven by Mustapha.

He paused at the lights, easing on the accelerator as they changed. Through the corner of his eye he noticed a slim figure in lavender with matching heels. She had a hand to her face and what looked like an open leather case in front of her. He almost frowned.

It looked like his fiancée.

But how could it be her, in such a shabby part of town? Anyway, it couldn’t be Ghita. She was living it up in Monte Carlo.

Thirty-four

The television on the back wall of Baba Cool was mounted high, to prevent the clientele who packed the café from morning to night from changing the channels.

A moody smoke-filled haunt, it was patronized by the legions of local men who were taking it easy and hiding from their wives.

No one could remember the last time a woman had ever dared to enter Baba Cool. It wasn’t that women weren’t welcome, rather that they stayed away, alarmed by what they regarded as an atmosphere of shameful iniquity.

The waiter zigzagged between the tables, serving up miniature glasses of the ubiquitous
café noir
. The beverage was slapped down whether you ordered it or not, as were the ashtrays. They came two at a time. After all, in Morocco there’s nothing quite so honourable than for a man to put in the hours at his local café, knocking back bitter coffee and chain-smoking Marquise cigarettes.

On the back wall, a prim female newsreader was serving up the headlines:

‘Mr. Hicham Omary, the CEO of the Globalcom media empire, has announced today that he will, quote “dedicate his life to eradicating every form of corruption in the kingdom”. He began his crusade without warning, and the first high-profile head has just rolled – that of Casablanca’s Governor. The official was caught red-handed by Globalcom reporters for taking millions of dirhams in illicit “donations”. While we cannot be sure how many other leading officials Mr. Omary has in his sights, we can be certain that he is going to make himself plenty of enemies.’

The waiter glanced up at the TV on his way to the door, where a uniformed silhouette was waiting, his back against the light. Without a thought, the waiter’s hand fished down into the pocket of his apron, pulled out a hundred-dirham note. Folding it in half, then in quarters, he slipped it over to the policeman, who ambled away without a word.

Thirty-five

Two full days had passed since Ghita had left home.

She felt disorientated and unloved, and was filled with loathing and self-pity. It had taken her all afternoon to make enough money for a bowl of soup and a chunk of bread at one of the stalls in the Marché Central. In that time she had been relieved of a small fortune in couture garments by her bargain-hungry clientele.

As she sat there, her belly stinging with hunger for the first time in her life, the stolen iPhone began to buzz. Squinting at the display, she thanked God.

‘My dearest Aicha!’ she exclaimed.

‘We touched down just this moment. Gstaad was sublime. How was your weekend, dearest?’

‘It was abhorrent!’

‘Oh, you poor baby! Where are you?’

‘Staying downtown... in a hotel.’

‘The Hyatt?’

Ghita’s expression glazed over. She bit her upper lip.

‘No, no, in a little boutique place. I don’t have a car. Can you come meet me right away?’

Within the hour a magnolia-coloured Bentley pulled up outside Hotel Marrakech. The chauffeur stepped out and opened the passenger door, kicking away a dead rat with his heel. There was a long pause.

Then, very slowly, an impeccably dressed woman got down.

Her eyes hidden beneath enormous Jackie O sunglasses, she was dressed from head to toe in pink Prada mink. She didn’t walk so much as waft, making her way between a pair of drunks lying outstretched on the pavement, leaving a vapour trail of rare perfume behind her.

Tugging a silk scarf from her Hermès Birkin, like a magician in the middle of a trick, she used it to push open the door.

The lair of hungry cats was awaiting her inside.

In deep hash-induced sleep on the sofa lay the clerk. Like his pets, he was unused to high society. Opening an eye, he struggled drowsily to sit upright, as the scent and silhouette of Ghita’s best friend approached.

Before she knew it, Aicha was standing outside room thirteen. She knocked.

The door opened inwards.

As soon as she saw her friend, Ghita burst into a flood of tears. She was inconsolable.

‘I can never forgive him!’ she sobbed. ‘Baba’s cruelty knows no bounds.’

‘But my dear Ghita, why are you here?’

‘Baba thinks I can’t survive in the real world. He thinks I’m incompetent, that I’m lazy.’

‘My darling, this is not reality. It’s Hell,’ Aicha said, pulling Ghita’s reddened cheek to her mink-covered breast, the tears soaked up by the fur.

‘What horror! What absolute horror! Get your things and come with me at once! The Bentley’s waiting downstairs. Come and stay with me for as long as you wish.’

Collapsing onto the bed, Ghita waved a finger left and right.

‘I’m going to break him,’ she snarled. ‘He’s a beast, but there’s no way I’ll let him win!’

‘But now that you’ve proved him wrong, surely you can go home.’

‘No, I can’t.’

‘Why not?’

Ghita wiped a tear from her chin.

‘I said I would support myself for a month.’

‘
A month
! That’s ridiculous!’

‘No it’s not. I have to prove to him that I’m as capable as anyone else... and I’m certainly as capable as any of those goons he employs. He regards me as useless as a little toy poodle, but I’m going to show him! Besides, he’s sure to have his spies out checking up on me. You know how he is.’

Aicha reached out, her mink cuff brushing over her friend’s shoulder.

‘There’s danger in this,’ she said. ‘It may be a matter of honour for you, but what if they find out?’

‘
They
?’

‘Mustapha... our friends...
society
!’

Ghita swallowed hard, her eyes welling with tears.

‘This is more important to me than anything else,’ she said.

‘More than losing your fiancé? Don’t be so stubborn. Come with me now.’

‘I can’t. I really can’t. I just ask that you give me some time and,’ Ghita swallowed again, ‘and that you lend me some money to buy a proper meal.’

Reaching into her Birkin, Aicha removed a brick of bank notes. It was two inches thick.

‘Here’s some change,’ she said.

Ghita reached out in a hug.

‘Please promise me that you won’t tell Baba that you saw me, or that you lent me this,’ she said. ‘I want him to think I’m suffering. I know that with a little time he’ll come crawling to me on his knees.’

Thirty-six

A water-seller was chiming his great brass bell outside the Marrakech Gate, the main entrance to Casablanca’s old medina.

He was dressed in traditional red robes, and straw hat decorated with pompoms, his chest crisscrossed with water-skins. Spotting a foreigner he made a beeline across the flagstones. But Blaine waved him aside, and pushed his way through the arch.

Lost in the shadows of late morning there were storytellers huddled in circles, and all manner of services and wares – shoe-shiners and lizard-sellers, rat-catchers, letter-writers, and stalls selling everything from underpants to imitation Rolexes, and from Reeboks to freshly stolen phones.

Blaine’s attention was drawn in all directions.

He paused to watch a snake-charmer, flute in hand, the cobra’s hood jerking back and forth as if about to strike. Nearby, lamb kebabs were roasting on a makeshift brazier, the heavy oily smoke hanging like a curtain in the bright sunlight. A group of acrobatic dwarfs were tumbling from each other’s shoulders. As he pushed through the crowd to watch them, Blaine felt someone nudge up hard against him.

Fumbling a hand into his pocket, he cursed. His money clip was gone. Scanning left, right, forward, back, he caught sight of a young man in a red hooded jacket darting through the crowd. He gave chase.

But, suddenly, he was gone.

Then he noticed a policeman at the end of the street. Dressed in a navy blue uniform, a white holster at his side, he was doing the rounds, taking favours in cigarettes and tea. Blaine rushed up.

‘I’ve just been robbed. A thief stole my money clip.’

‘
Quoi
?’

Acting out a hand slipping into his pocket, Blaine half-expected the officer to give chase.

‘
Un voleur
...?’

‘Yes, I mean,
oui, oui, un voleur
... a thief!’

The policeman shrugged.

‘
C’est la vie
,’ he said.

‘Aren’t you gonna do something?’

Again, the officer shrugged, a little more incredulously than before.

Standing there, wondering what to do, Blaine heard a young scratchy voice in English:

‘You must help him. Then he will help you.’

With a stream of people pushing by, Blaine peered downwards.

A boy in his early teens was squatting on a stool, a shoeshine box gripped between his knees.

‘Excuse me... You talking to me?’

‘Give him something. Then he will help you.’

‘Huh? You saw the thief?’

‘Yeah... a young guy... he was like twenty... medium height with kind of a beard and a red jacket with a hood.’

The boy pointed to an upper window of the building opposite, where a man of the same description was leaning out.

‘
Him
?’

Blaine nodded energetically.

‘Yes, yes, that’s him!’

Picking up his shoeshine box, the boy edged over to the cop and explained the situation in Arabic. But still the officer showed no interest. The boy rubbed thumb and forefinger together, then he winked.

Only then did the officer stir into action.

He hammered on the door, barged in, ran up the stairs, grabbed the thief, recovered the money, and was back on the street – all within a minute.

The money clip was handed back to Blaine. He counted it.

‘It’s all there,’ he said.

‘Give him something... for his time,’ said the shoeshine boy.

‘How much?’

‘Fifty dirhams.’

Blaine handed over the tip and the officer ambled away.

‘I’ve never given a bribe before,’ he said.

The shoeshine boy greased a comb back through his hair with a smile.

‘It’s not
baksheesh
,’ he said. ‘Just a way of saying thank you.’

‘How come you speak such good English?’ asked Blaine.

The boy thought for a moment.

‘Because of Dirty Harry,’ he said.

Thirty-seven

On the western edge of Casablanca, not far from the fashionable Corniche, stood an ancient-looking outcrop of low white buildings, the shrine of Sidi Abdur Rahman. Clustered together like barnacles on a sea-wall, they were remote, haunting, and only easily reached from the mainland at low tide.

A figure moved across the beach towards them, stumbling and off-balance on impossibly high heels. Wrapped in a jet-black cashmere scarf, she reached the rocks, and found a barrier of water ebbing and swirling.

A fisherman appeared from nowhere, a giant rubber inner-tube his one-man ferry service to the islet. After a short and clumsy voyage, in which she was soaked through, Ghita made landfall. Clambering out, she ascended a steep set of steps, and made her way hesitantly to a whitewashed shed on the right side of the tomb.

The door was open and she went inside.

A crone was sitting cross-legged in the corner beside a brazier. Murmuring incantations, she held a lump of burning incense between finger and thumb. Her eyes were closed and she seemed to be barely conscious.