Casablanca Blues (2013) (23 page)

‘Yes I do,’ Ghita replied. ‘And, believe me, I would not utter it in anything more than the grimmest of circumstances.’

Abdelkarim Hamoudi removed his glasses and cleaned them on his cuff. Then he furled the stems around his ears, blinked once or twice.

‘Please tell me the nature of your situation,’ he asked.

Ghita leaned forward, her face catching the light.

‘I am here on a matter of life and death,’ she said. ‘It concerns my father.’

‘And who exactly
is
your father?’

‘His name is Hicham Omary and he...’

‘He was on the television,’ the goldsmith broke in.

‘Yes, that’s right. He was accused of a crime he certainly did not commit. I promise it with all my heart.’

The goldsmith poured a little more tea, inspecting its colour as he did so. He praised God, as if drawing strength from above.

‘And tell me what you need from me.’

‘As an only child it is my grave duty to come to my father’s aid. It is a matter of family honour, as I am sure you will understand.’

‘But what can I do?’ the goldsmith asked again.

‘I understand that your relative works in the prison where my father is being held,’ Ghita said.

The old man frowned. He sighed, took off his glasses and wiped a hand over his eyes.

‘By speaking the name of the Prophet’s steed you have activated an ancient duty, a duty that has rested on the shoulders of my entire family for generations. It is my duty,
our
duty to help you,’ he said.

‘Thank you,’ Ghita whispered sombrely.

‘You must understand something though,’ he said. ‘If I help, it is not because of fraternity, but out of ancestral duty.’

‘Thank you...’ said Ghita softly. ‘Thank you from the bottom of my heart.’

The goldsmith looked away.

‘Return here just after dawn and I will give you your instructions,’ he said.

Ninety-one

Back in Casablanca, Rosario went shopping for fruit and veg at the Marché Central, as she did three mornings each week.

She liked it when the seasons brought new produce, relishing the sense of anticipation and expectation, as the fruit improved day after day until it was gone for another year.

Because she had lived in Casablanca for so long, no one gave her a second glance as she meandered through the market, or through the backstreets near to her home.

It was true that there were rumours about her – that she was a spy, or that she was somehow cursed to live a life in limbo, as neither quite a woman nor quite a man.

In front of the market she crossed the street, the smooth handle of a wicker basket tucked under her arm. She greeted the flower sellers as she entered, and they held up roses as they always did, hoping for an easy sale.

One of them even blew her a kiss.

Turning left, Rosario made her way over to the stalls where the fresh produce was on offer. It was all laid out in a great rolling carpet of wares. She made a beeline for a man who was threading shallots on a string. Slightly built and elderly, he had patchy grey hair, and a hint of moustache running the length of his upper lip.

In the middle of his forehead, nudged up against the hairline, was a small leathery blotch of skin, a
zebiba
. Resembling the side of a prune, it signified piety, a brow pressed down in prayer five times each day.

Spotting the Argentine pianist, he dropped the onions, reached out and kissed her hand.

‘If only my wife would leave the mortal world,’ he mumbled, ‘I would propose to you without wasting another moment.’

‘You are talking nonsense, Yasser, just as you always do.’

‘But see how my eyes well with tears for your love.’

‘The tears are from the onions and not from passion!’ Rosario snapped. ‘And you are a scoundrel, and you know it as well as I.’

The onion-seller wiped his brow with a thumb.

‘I pray as God has instructed,’ he said. ‘And this is a mark of that.’

The pianist bashed the onion-seller with the side of her basket as she passed him.

‘We both know very well that you have got that by cheating – by grinding pumice on your face at night.’

‘Shhhush!’ Yasser hissed. ‘The shadows have ears.’

Rosario laughed, a shrill girlish laugh. She bought a kilo of tangerines from the next stall, and wandered out through the market’s rear door.

Less than a minute later she was ambling down a side street on her way to the port. One of the fishermen there had promised her the pick of his catch. Glancing at her watch, she saw she was running late, and fishermen were particular about punctuality.

Quickening her step, she thought back to Dr. Burou and his sweet smile. In a strange way Rosario still felt him close by, even though he was gone – having perished twenty years before in a boating accident on the coast.

All of a sudden she heard a sound.

The sound of large feet pounding fast over stone.

She spun around, and found a knife pressed to her throat. The blade was short, haphazardly sharpened, held by a slender figure in a voluminous woollen jelaba, the kind worn by shepherds up in the Atlas.

‘Where’s the American, the one who came to see you?!’ he said, his voice hoarse with rage.

‘I don’t know!’ Rosario shrieked. ‘Leave me alone!’

‘Tell me, or I will sever your windpipe!’

The pianist leaned back. She felt the assailant move back with her, the blade rigid against her throat.

‘I’ll count to five,’ he said. ‘Then I’m going to kill you. One... two... three... four...’

Struggling for breath, Rosario managed half a step backwards.

Then she twisted her body to the right, catching her attacker off balance. In the same movement, she jolted the weapon from his fist and into her own hand.

Deftly, and without thinking, she thrust the blade in between his ribs, the sixth and the seventh – coaxing it in as deep as it would go.

In her mind she saw herself as a young uniformed officer in Buenos Aires, learning unarmed combat from a robust American marine.

Glancing left and right, Rosario wiped the blood off her hand with a square of lace, and hurried in the direction of home.

Ninety-two

As night descended over Marrakech, the great square of Jma al Fna came alive.

Arranged down one side, the food stalls were doing brisk business, with tourists and locals packed at the trestle tables, clouds of meaty smoke billowing up into the desert sky.

Against a backdrop of drums and iron castanets, they dined on sheep brains and boiled snails, on roasted chunks of fatty mutton, offal and shellfish.

Looking down at it all from the terrace of a good restaurant, Ghita and Blaine toasted the goldsmith with a bottle of dry local wine.

‘Can you hear the music?’ Ghita asked.

‘How can I
not
hear it?’

‘They’re Gnaoua. Descendants of slaves brought to Morocco centuries ago down the pilgrimage routes.’

‘Their music... it’s...’

‘
Bewitching
?’

‘Yes.’

‘It gets into your soul... and drives you mad.’

‘I know what you mean,’ said Blaine.

Uneasily, Ghita traced the tip of her finger around the top of her glass.

‘When I was a child my parents used to bring me here,’ she said. ‘My father would say that this square was the navel of the world, that it was somehow connected to our ancestors, and to the beginning of time. I used to beg him to let me lie down on the ground right beside the Gnaoua.’

‘Why?’

‘Because only then can you soak up the vibrations. To understand their music you have to feel it in your bones.’

‘I can’t imagine
you
wanting to lie down out there... to get dirty.’

Ghita smiled.

‘One night when I was about twelve my father brought me down here after a dinner at La Mamounia. We watched the dancers and the drummers, and I began to feel dizzy, as though I were about to collapse. I lay down over there at the edge of the square.’

‘Were you alright?’

‘It’s so strange to think of it now. But it was as if something entered me. An invisible force. I went into a trance, my body trembling, my eyes rolled up into my head. My father shook me hard, calling my name over and over, but I couldn’t break free. I was completely under their spell.’

Ghita took a sip of wine, her gaze fixed on the square below.

‘For three days I was lost,’ she said. ‘A doctor was rushed down from Paris. He rubbed my body with ointment, injected me with drugs, and even did a scan of my brain. There was no hope. My parents resigned themselves to the fact that their daughter might never recover. But then Habiba suggested that they seek the help of the witches at Sidi Abdur Rahman.’

‘Where you had the curse put on your father?’

Ghita bit her lip.

‘Yes, that’s right,’ she said.

‘And so what happened?’

‘Well, a
sehura
, a witch, was brought to our home. As soon as she saw me she knew that my soul had been unhinged from my body, and that a Jinn had entered me. She said the only treatment was for a very special incense to be burned around me, while incantations were spoken.’

‘Did it work?’

‘It went on for three days and nights, the witch sucking the Jinn out from me a little at a time. Eventually, I was healed, but was so weakened that I had to rest in bed for weeks. Before she left, the
sehura
told my parents that the Jinn was so powerful it was impossible to exorcise it entirely.’

‘So there’s still some of it inside you?’

Ghita nodded.

‘That’s right,’ she said.

‘And you believe in this... in Jinn I mean?’

‘Yes, of course. All Muslims do, because it’s written in the Qur’an. You see, when God created man from clay, he created another life force as well – from smokeless fire. They can change their form as they wish, and they live all around us, invisible most of the time.’

Blaine looked down at a group of Gnaoua as they flounced through the throngs of people, the deafening clatter of their music conjuring a magic of their own.

‘There’s something unearthly about them,’ he said.

‘I’m frightened,’ Ghita replied.

‘About the Jinn?’

‘No... well,
yes
... of them too. But I’m frightened about what will happen to my father.’ She looked across at Blaine, taking in his damp hair and clean-shaved cheeks. ‘The wealthy live very well in Morocco,’ she said.

‘So I’ve noticed.’

‘It’s shameful, I know.’

‘Why’s it shameful?’

‘Because you begin to think it’s all quite normal, and that those without the means to buy champagne are somehow beneath you.’

‘Maybe all of this has happened for a reason,’ Blaine said. ‘It’s been sent as a reminder – a reminder that you’re no better than anyone else.’

‘I think you’re right,’ Ghita replied. ‘And I think it’s my duty to change, just as it is a duty to save my father.’

On the table between them the candle began flickering in the draught. Blaine cupped a hand around it.

‘The greatest thing in life is to get out of your comfort zone,’ he said.

‘Do you speak from experience?’

‘Well, look at me... Until a few days ago I was trapped like a rat in a dead-end life back in New York,’ he said. ‘And when the dead-end life caved in, I took a plunge. I jumped and...’

‘
And
...?’

He leant forward.

‘And that’s how I met you,’ he said in a tender voice.

Touched by a tingle of electricity, Ghita returned his smile.

‘It’s time to go back to the hotel,’ she said. ‘We have to get up before dawn. The goldsmith will be waiting.’

Ninety-three

Standing in her kitchen, Rosario stripped off her dress and washed her hands first with detergent, and then with diluted bleach.

The water pressure was much better than in the bathroom, and the lighting was brighter there too.

As she soaped her hands a second time, massaging the liquid between the fingers, she saw the face of her attacker leering at her.

It was everywhere she looked, like a twisted apparition.

Drying her hands, she padded through into the cluttered sitting-room, and poured herself half a mug of cognac.

Coccinelle watched her from the frame, her expression disapproving.

‘I had to do it, my darling,’ Rosario explained defensively. ‘He was going to kill me!’

She took a gulp of the liqueur, wiped the back of her hand over her mouth, and gulped again. The brandy having warmed her chest, she could breathe more easily.

The killer’s face was there again.

Lolling back on the couch, she studied the face – taking in the broken capillaries across the cheeks, and the small penetrating eyes. The thought that someone was prepared to kill her was distressing but, for Rosario, it wasn’t new.

She looked up at Coccinelle and, as she did so, she got a flash of Dr. Burou. He had altered the path of both their lives, turning menfolk into ladies with a knife.

The surgeon disappeared, swapped for a memory of the Cordobazo. It was during the ugly days of the civil unrest that the pianist had been forced to flee her homeland.

But all that was half a lifetime ago.

Rosario had been little more than a boy then. A boy called Héctor. Trained by the government to kill, he had turned his schooling against the men who had taught him the art of instant death.

For six months he targeted government officials, assassinating one after the next, until he was finally captured, tortured, and was himself left for dead.

He had only survived because of a remarkable stroke of luck.

The jailer had been a boyhood friend of his grandfather, and managed to smuggle him out on the condition that he leave Argentina and never return.

It had been while chained up in the infamous Caseros Prison that he had made himself a solemn vow. If he were ever to be freed, he would track down the doctor he had heard of in a far-off land, the doctor who offered men rebirth, as the women of their dreams.

Ninety-four

The muezzin’s call rang out over the silent maze of the Marrakech medina, calling the faithful to remember their duty to God. It was still quite dark, the streets damp with a light dew, the doors and shutters of every home locked for the night.