Thirty-one

The bright winter sunshine threw long shadows in the late afternoon, as Blaine strolled down the length of the grand Boulevard Mohammed V. He was walking on air, having been serenaded by Bergman and Bogart at the Rialto.

As he glanced into the shop windows and took in the random features of the street and of life, he thought about the world he had left behind. It had been a sham, one detached from reality.

Three blocks from the end of the boulevard, Blaine noticed a scruffy shop-front. The sign had fallen away decades before, but the window display hinted at treasures within.

He forced open the door.

Inside lay an Aladdin’s den of oddities and accessories from the days of the French Protectorate. There were old postcards in black and white, threadbare furniture with rounded legs, cut crystal glasses and cocktail shakers, gramophones, empty jeroboams of Moët, aspidistra stands, and crates of scratched old 78s.

Against one wall, a dark mahogany cabinet was packed with all sorts of odds and ends. In the middle of it all was a photograph – a large signed studio shot of Humphrey Bogart, cigarette smouldering in his hand.

A figure was slumped in one corner. He was so still that Blaine didn’t notice him at first. His name was Adam Raffi. Wizened with great age, he had a lazy eye, and a shirt-front speckled with gravy from his lunch. He had been dozing, but was wakened by the sound of the door, which was warped at the top.

‘Bonjour Monsieur,’ he said, pushing his shoulders back, and fumbling for his spectacles.

‘Bonjour,’ Blaine replied, as he looked into the cabinet.

‘Is there something you are searching for?’

‘That picture... how much are you asking?’

The shopkeeper gazed out at the street.

‘It’s not for sale,’ he said.

‘That’s a great pity. It’s a nice one.’

‘It’s special to me. You see, he gave it to me.’

‘Bogart did? ‘He was here... in Casablanca?’

Monsieur Raffi blinked a yes.

‘When?’

‘During the War. He was here with his wife, the drunkard. They were entertaining the troops.’

Blaine stepped into the light. He caught the lilting sound of the call to prayer streaming out from the old medina, and the clip-clop of horses’ hooves closer by.

‘I take it you are an admirer as well,’ he said.

The shopkeeper looked at the American hard, his good eye sharp as steel.

‘Aren’t we all?’ he replied.

‘Did you get to speak to Bogart?’

Monsieur Raffi stood up, and staggered over to the cabinet. His face was wrinkled like elephant hide, his old hands speckled with liver spots.

‘To say we spoke together much would be misleading,’ he said. ‘But we passed many hours together, hours in another kind of conversation.’

Blaine didn’t understand.

‘Conversation without words?’

Raffi nodded slowly.

‘Yes, yes, conversation without words,’ he said. ‘A conversation played in chess.’