Free Casablanca Blues (2013) by Tahir Shah

cursed. His money clip was gone. Scanning left, right, forward, back, he caught sight of a young man in a red hooded jacket darting through the crowd. He gave chase.
    But, suddenly, he was gone.
    Then he noticed a policeman at the end of the street. Dressed in a navy blue uniform, a white holster at his side, he was doing the rounds, taking favours in cigarettes and tea. Blaine rushed up.
    ‘I’ve just been robbed. A thief stole my money clip.’
    ‘
Quoi
?’
    Acting out a hand slipping into his pocket, Blaine half-expected the officer to give chase.
    ‘
Un voleur
...?’
    ‘Yes, I mean,
oui, oui, un voleur
... a thief!’
    The policeman shrugged.
    ‘
C’est la vie
,’ he said.
    ‘Aren’t you gonna do something?’
    Again, the officer shrugged, a little more incredulously than before.
    Standing there, wondering what to do, Blaine heard a young scratchy voice in English:
    ‘You must help him. Then he will help you.’
    With a stream of people pushing by, Blaine peered downwards.
    A boy in his early teens was squatting on a stool, a shoeshine box gripped between his knees.
    ‘Excuse me... You talking to me?’
    ‘Give him something. Then he will help you.’
    ‘Huh? You saw the thief?’
    ‘Yeah... a young guy... he was like twenty... medium height with kind of a beard and a red jacket with a hood.’
    The boy pointed to an upper window of the building opposite, where a man of the same description was leaning out.
    ‘
Him
?’
    Blaine nodded energetically.
    ‘Yes, yes, that’s him!’
    Picking up his shoeshine box, the boy edged over to the cop and explained the situation in Arabic. But still the officer showed no interest. The boy rubbed thumb and forefinger together, then he winked.
    Only then did the officer stir into action.
    He hammered on the door, barged in, ran up the stairs, grabbed the thief, recovered the money, and was back on the street – all within a minute.
    The money clip was handed back to Blaine. He counted it.
    ‘It’s all there,’ he said.
    ‘Give him something... for his time,’ said the shoeshine boy.
    ‘How much?’
    ‘Fifty dirhams.’
    Blaine handed over the tip and the officer ambled away.
    ‘I’ve never given a bribe before,’ he said.
    The shoeshine boy greased a comb back through his hair with a smile.
    ‘It’s not
baksheesh
,’ he said. ‘Just a way of saying thank you.’
    ‘How come you speak such good English?’ asked Blaine.
    The boy thought for a moment.
    ‘Because of Dirty Harry,’ he said.

Thirty-seven
    On the western edge of Casablanca, not far from the fashionable Corniche, stood an ancient-looking outcrop of low white buildings, the shrine of Sidi Abdur Rahman. Clustered together like barnacles on a sea-wall, they were remote, haunting, and only easily reached from the mainland at low tide.
    A figure moved across the beach towards them, stumbling and off-balance on impossibly high heels. Wrapped in a jet-black cashmere scarf, she reached the rocks, and found a barrier of water ebbing and swirling.
    A fisherman appeared from nowhere, a giant rubber inner-tube his one-man ferry service to the islet. After a short and clumsy voyage, in which she was soaked through, Ghita made landfall. Clambering out, she ascended a steep set of steps, and made her way hesitantly to a whitewashed shed on the right side of the tomb.
    The door was open and she went inside.
    A crone was sitting cross-legged in the corner beside a brazier. Murmuring incantations, she held a lump of burning incense between finger and thumb. Her eyes were closed and she seemed to be barely conscious.
    ‘Did you not receive your prince, my daughter?’ she asked, without opening her eyes.
    ‘Peace be upon you, Hajja,’ Ghita responded. ‘Yes, yes, I did, but I am here with another request.’
    The
sehura
moved the incense in a circle around her head. She appeared agitated, her eyelids quivering, her breathing shallow.
    ‘Your father,’ she said.
    ‘Yes...’
    ‘I am sensing that he has