The Storyteller of Casablanca (6)

Maman says ‘just passing through’ is a relative term. Some people have been here for nearly a year already, trying to get their papers organised. We are going to need exit visas for Morocco and then transit visas for Portugal and entry visas for America. Trying to get all of that paperwork lined up is causing Papa’s hair to fall out, he says. It is quite white nowadays and definitely thinner on top so maybe he’s right. We’re lucky that Maman’s parents were American so we have relations who will help us when we get there. And now I think we’re lucky that she taught us to speak English as well as French when we were little, even if it was a bit annoying at the time and Annette always used to laugh at me when I got my words muddled up.

I’ve chosen my room at the top of the house. I have a little bathroom of my own up here so I don’t have to wait for ages while Annette uses the big one downstairs. She’s so selfish. Maman says it’s her age and that when I’m 17 I will spend more time washing my hair and filing my nails like she does, but I don’t think I’ll ever be that vain. And in any case I bite my fingernails, so there’s never anything to file. She’s started plucking her eyebrows, too, to look like the photos of Hedy Lamarr in the movie magazines, but I think it just makes her look like she’s surprised the whole time.

Annette likes to claim she’s 5 years older than me, but she’s not, it’s only 4 years and 7 months. She spends all her time these days when she’s not washing her hair or filing her nails pining for édouard. He used to take her to dances in Paris but his family stayed behind when the Germans came. Annette says we should have stayed too, because they didn’t bomb the city like everyone said they were going to, and Papa’s bank has reopened now, even if they have put Monsieur Albert in charge in his place. It would still be too risky to return now, though. Jews are most certainly not welcome in France, even lapsed ones.

Annette laughed when I chose my bedroom upstairs because she says I’m in the servants’ quarters and that’s where I belong, but I don’t care. It’s my own private space up here. We can’t afford servants who live in nowadays, but we have our Housekeeper, Kenza, because her services are included with the rent. She lives in her own house in the medina and comes here each day. She has a daughter about my age called Nina and sometimes she comes too. We speak French to each other and I think she could be my friend.

I like Kenza very much. She has comfortable curves beneath the long robes she wears and her eyes are wise and kind. She cooks the most delicious meals for us and bakes cakes. She always gives me a little slice of honey cake warm from the oven if I pop down to see her in the kitchen. She calls me Khadar Ini, which means Green Eyes in Darija, the kind of Arabic they speak in Morocco.

Annette says having green eyes is a bad thing because it means I’m jealous and jealousy is one of the Seven Deadly Sins. But really I know she’s the one who’s jealous because her eyes are more of a browny-hazel colour like Papa’s and she wishes they were clear green like mine and Maman’s.

I love my new journal. Papa told me it’s for me to write my life story in. He knows I want to be a writer, and he says it’s also good to write things down because then you don’t have to carry them around in your head all the time and that it might help me not to have so many bad dreams. It’s my best Christmas present. This year we got dresses made of silk because the big trunk with all our good clothes went missing somewhere in Marseille, or maybe on the way to Algeria. Anyway, it wasn’t there when we got off the boat in Oran. Maman says we’ll need something to wear when we go out now that we have a proper home again, because the one thing Casablanca does have is a social life. The hotels and bars are full of people, some who live and work here and many who are just passing through like us. There are even tea dances at the Hotel Excelsior on Saturday afternoons, so those might cheer Annette up a bit. Even though my dress is nice and I know it must have cost a lot, it was a bit of a boring present. My new notebook and the little basket of sugared almonds were better.

I’m going to go to sleep now. We stayed up late last night to celebrate the arrival of the new year. I wore my new dress and I was allowed a glass of champagne. It didn’t taste as nice as lemonade really, but everyone was making a big fuss about it so I pretended to enjoy it. It’s the start of our new life too. I’m sad to have left France, but excited to be going to America to meet my cousins there. Maybe when the war is over we will go back to Paris and I’ll see my friends again. I suppose many of them will have left too. I hope they are all right and have somewhere safe to go like us. I’m sending them good wishes now. I hope I’ll sleep well tonight now that I’ve started writing things down in my journal.

Goodnight.





Zoe – 2010

The ringing of the phone jolts me out of Josie’s world, back to my own. Reluctantly, I set the journal aside and go to answer it. It’s May.

‘Just checking in. How’s the nesting going? Are you starting to feel a bit more settled?’

I’m not sure ‘settled’ describes how I feel. The experience of my morning walk has shaken my confidence badly, making me realise how completely out of my depth I am here and leaving me with the impression that I’ll never get the hang of this new place. As well as that, though, Josie’s journal has pushed ajar a door on to another world, one I hadn’t realised existed. Other than watching the famous movie, I suppose I hadn’t thought much about what Casablanca must have been like in the war years. I glance longingly at the leather-bound notebook lying on the coffee table. I want to read on, to find out more about Josie and her family in those extraordinary times. But, for now, I thank May and tell her that I’m doing fine.