Forty-six

That afternoon, as he left Baba Cool, Blaine caught sight of Ghita going into the apartment building opposite. There was something different about her, less of the peacock and more of a snipe, as though she was struggling not to be recognized.

A pair of oversized sunglasses were pulled down over her eyes, her hair furled up in a patterned silk scarf, and her slim form wrapped in a voluminous coat. It was the heels that gave her away, though. They were four inches high and were monogrammed fox fur.

Unable to resist, Blaine followed.

Leaving the street, he stepped into the gloomy building, where an old woman was down on her knees mopping the floor tiles with a cloth. Without even being asked, she held up four fingers, then jerked her head back towards the stairs.

Blaine climbed, the wide sweeping staircase spiralling upward in darkness like a snail’s shell.

By the fourth floor, he was wheezing from the ascent and from the dust, and felt as though he was back in Mr. Rogers’s walk-up. Then he sneezed and, as his nose cleared, he caught the smell of fresh paint.

Peering to the left, and then right, he realized there was only one door on that level. Lightly curved, it was teak, the brass fittings long since sold. From beneath it there radiated a trace of bright yellow light.

Blaine knocked hard. He waited. There was no reply. He knocked again, and was about to leave, when the door opened no more than a crack.

‘Yes?’ said a woman’s voice, an eye straining to focus. It was Ghita. She seemed flustered. ‘You!’ she exclaimed.

‘I saw you from across the street and I... I couldn’t resist...’

‘Following me?’

‘No... well, I guess so... Aren’t you staying at Hotel Marrakech any more?’

‘No. I’ve rented this little room instead.’

Blaine looked down at his feet, then up into Ghita’s eyes.

‘Look, I think we got off to a bad start,’ he said. ‘I thought you were an arrogant princess...’

‘And I thought you were a stupid American.’

‘Shall we try again?’

Blaine held out his hand. This time Ghita shook it.

‘Come inside,’ she said. ‘It’s not very fancy, but it’s my home, for the moment at least.’

The apartment’s sitting-room was just fifteen feet square, with a large cupboard on the wall adjacent to the door. There was a terrible stench of damp and possibly even death. In one corner there lay a pile of dead cockroaches. Above it on the wall was an alarming damp patch, a patch that seemed to be spreading.

There were no windows.

Except for the wardrobe, the only piece of furniture was a mattress spattered with vomit and blood.

‘It’s... it’s... it’s nice,’ said Blaine, lying.

‘I like to think of it as home,’ Ghita replied humbly.

Blaine felt that he ought to sit, to give the sense he was comfortable there. But there was no chair, so he stood.

‘I have to tell you something,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘Well, I came to Casablanca because of a love affair.’

‘With a woman?’

Blaine smiled.

‘With a movie,’ he said. ‘Casablanca. It’s the most important thing in my life, something of an obsession. I came here on kind of a pilgrimage, expecting to find a city brimming with intrigue and with mystery... and until now you are the only mysterious person I’ve met.’

‘Mysterious?’ Ghita pushed back her hair. ‘How ever am I mysterious?’ she asked.

‘Well, it doesn’t add up. You don’t add up.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, forgive me for saying it, but you reek of wealth and sophistication, and you’re living here like this.’

Ghita looked at the American coldly.

‘Do you always speak so plainly?’ she said.

‘Well, I don’t believe in beating around the bush.’

‘Beating...?’

‘Around the bush. It’s an expression.’

‘I am here because of circumstances.’

‘What circumstances?’

‘I’m proving a point to my father.’

‘Huh?’

‘He doesn’t believe that I can survive without the finer things in life.’

‘Can you?’

Ghita fluttered a hand towards the mattress.

‘Well it appears that I am doing quite well,’ she said.

‘And what’s the point... the point of proving your point?’

‘Respect.’

‘From your friends?’

‘No, no... from my father. My friends must never know I stayed down here like, this... like a pauper.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I’d die of shame.’

Blaine took a step backwards, towards the damp.

‘Let me get this right,’ he said. ‘You’re here pretending to be poor to win some kind of a bet with your dad?’

‘He’s going to regret pushing me to this,’ Ghita declared, knotting her fingers together.

‘You’re doing it all to make him feel bad?’ Blaine asked, frowning.

‘My reasons are none of your business!’

‘Excuse me, but it sounds as if you’re one decidedly unhinged young lady.’

Ghita’s fingers unknotted.

‘And you... you’re the most stupid American I’ve ever met, and the one person I hoped I wouldn’t ever encounter again!’

Blaine stepped out into the corridor.

And the door slammed hard behind him.