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.