Twenty-four

A burgundy-coloured tram rattled up Boulevard Mohammed V, once the main drag of Art Deco Casablanca, the greatest expression of French colonial might ever constructed outside France.

It was brand new and shiny, and almost empty of any passengers. The seats still had plastic covers on them from the factory. Part of the revival plan for a tired old beauty, it was a symbol of both past splendour and of glorious things to come.

Anxiously, Ghita stood on the kerb in the exact spot where the polished limousine had left her. She may have been born and raised in Casablanca, but all she knew were its wealthy quarters – Anfa, Marif and Californie. The secret haunts of the jet-set were what she knew best of all – in Paris, New York and Monte Carlo. They were her real home – not the grim realities in the city of her birth. So she stood there, waiting for the balloons and for the brass band, waiting for the hugs and the cheers.

But they didn’t come.

So Ghita sat down on her monogrammed portmanteau and she sobbed.

Quite a while passed, and nobody noticed her. After all, downtown Casablanca is a place of frenetic life. Commuters were hurrying through the bright morning light and the shadows, barking into mobile phones. Waiters were criss-crossing the tram tracks, miniature trays bearing glasses of café noir in their hands. Magazine sellers were laying out their stock on the pavement; postmen were riffling through their wads of mail; and street sweepers were doing their best to bring order to the grime.

The listing, clumsy silhouette of a bulky man to-ed and fro-ed against the yellow winter light, moving in the direction of Ghita and her enormous piece of Louis Vuitton. His movements were erratic, a consequence of mania and of drink.

Lurching, fumbling, ranting, he covered the last few feet by leaping. Then, in a display of inner torture and bizarre affliction, he pointed to his open mouth, and rubbed his shirtless stomach both at once.

Ghita screamed and she screamed.

She waved her hands, beseeching him to leave her alone. But the man didn’t agree. Instead, he became all the more aroused by having elicited a dramatic reaction in such a prim young lady. He began to gyrate wildly.

Then he dropped his trousers.

Clutching the handle of her case, struggling on her heels, Ghita dragged it down the grand boulevard as fast as she could go. Weighed down and hobbled, she wasn’t able to move forward in anything more than slow motion, the inebriated aggressor floundering close behind.

The curious sight of a trouserless figure pursuing a well-coutured young woman, pristine in lavender and in matching Jimmy Choos, went quite unnoticed. It was just part of another morning’s bustle down on Boulevard Mohammed V.

Jerking, the gears grinding, a decrepit and weatherworn communal white Mercedes took the corner onto the broad thoroughfare. Wide-eyed, his face pressed up against the grimy window, Blaine drank it all in – the buildings, the chaos, and the lives unhindered by welfare, mass employment, and social safety nets.

He caught a glimpse of fine clothes, delicate skin, and a large square portmanteau gathering speed, and of a blur of naked flesh gaining ground.

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.