Free Casablanca Blues (2013) by Tahir Shah Page B

smiled.
    ‘I’m sensing that I’ve touched a nerve,’ he said calmly.
    The line went dead. As it did so, Patricia Ross entered.
    ‘Mr. Harass is waiting for you downstairs, sir.’
    ‘OK. I’ll be right down.’
    A few minutes later Omary strode into his office, where he found his friend sitting on a plush Scandinavian sofa, beneath a large blue abstract by Picasso.
    ‘I’m so sorry, I’ve become rather absorbed with a little campaign,’ he said.
    Harass got to his feet.
    ‘News of it is on a great many lips.’
    ‘Is that so? Excellent! I was hoping it would catch on.’
    ‘I’d say there is little chance of that.’
    ‘Oh... why not?’
    Harass pressed his hands together.
    ‘Hicham, I am here as your old friend... here to warn you.’
    ‘Against what?’
    ‘Against behaving with a foolishness that could get you in a great deal of trouble.’
    Omary sighed. He stepped forward and put an arm around his friend’s shoulder.
    ‘Hamza, you know me well. And you know that when I feel passionately about something, I act on it... and that nothing can change my mind. I’m not going to stand by and watch the country I love disintegrate because of greed and corruption.’
    ‘Would you risk all this?’
    ‘Yes I would. I would risk
everything
.’
    Omary stepped forward to the window and stared out at Casablanca, an ocean of white buildings stretching far into the distance.
    ‘You forget that I came from nothing,’ he said in a soft voice. ‘I am proud of my achievements, but far prouder of the simple values my father planted in me. The first of which was to keep my feet on the ground.’
    ‘And what of Ghita?’
    Omary sighed again.
    ‘I know... she’s out of control. There’s no chance of her feet being on the ground because her head is in the clouds. I’ve indulged her and I take responsibility for that.’
    ‘I don’t mean that. I mean your crusade. What harm will it do to her?’
    Hicham Omary looked out at the city. He pinched the end of his nose and sniffed.
    ‘I have a feeling it will do her a lot of good,’ he said.

Forty
    Following the call to his best friend, Blaine was hit with an adrenalin rush. It came from the sense of danger and from breaking free – free from the bedrock of hysteria he had inhabited with every other schmuck New Yorker.
    As he stood in the hotel’s small lobby, cats circling round his ankles expectant for milk, he caught the scent of expensive perfume. It wafted down the staircase and was accompanied by the sound of high heels negotiating steps one by one.
    The American turned, and found himself captivated by the sight of an elegant young woman, dressed in a bright orange slip, a feather boa furled around her neck. He recognized her at once, as the owner of the stiletto that had injured his ankle.
    ‘Hello, again,’ he said. ‘How are you enjoying Hotel Marrakech?’
    Ghita stopped in her tracks, glanced round and struggled to look condescending.
    ‘To be a trend-setter one must sometimes endure a little hardship,’ she replied.
    Across rue Colbert, the Marché Central’s fishmongers were lining up the catch, shooing away the droves of feral cats that prowled the green tiled roofs. They were doing brisk business, due to the fact that an Italian cruise ship had docked at the port, and the head chef was demanding fresh langoustines for a thousand hungry mouths.
    Blaine strolled through the market, taking in the fruit stalls and the ones from which the beekeepers sold their honey in used jam jars. He was still thinking about breaking free, about cashing in a tired old life for a new one, when he spotted Baba Cool.
    There was something gloriously sordid about it, something reprehensible, something only understood by men. Drawn forward by an almost magnetic force, he crossed the street and took a seat on the slender terrace.
    Listlessly, the waiter meandered over. He slapped down a pair of ashtrays and a glass of tar-like
café noir
, a miniature mound of sugar