Most of the time it was very boring spending long hours in the camp with nothing much to do. Papa invented a game for us to play to help pass some of the long hours in the middle of the day when it was too hot to be outside and we had to retreat to our mattresses on the floor of the hall again. It was a bit like I Spy, only there wasn’t anything very interesting to spy in the hall, just lots of unhappy people waiting to get out of there. In Papa’s version, you said the initials of the things you most wanted to get when you got out of the camp and the others had to guess what it might be. The first time we played, mine was ice cream. Annette’s was a bottle of Studio Girl shampoo. Maman said hers was a mosquito net for each of us. It took us longer to guess Papa’s because it turned out to be a bottle of Chanel No 5 perfume so that he could give it to Maman to remind her of Paris. She got tears in her eyes when we finally worked it out and she had to blow her nose quite a lot.
Felix had swapped his mattress for one next to ours – he seemed to find my family more interesting than his own and his parents didn’t appear to mind – so he played too. He wanted a penknife and some sweets.
When we were finally allowed to leave the camp and Papa brought us to our new home here on the Boulevard des Oiseaux, he had surprises waiting for us. Like a magician, from behind his back he produced a bottle of the shampoo for Annette and the perfume for Maman. Then he showed us our beds and each one was draped with its own mosquito net, even though there aren’t nearly so many bugs in the new house as there were at A?n Chok. And then he offered me his arm and we walked along the street to a café, where he bought me the biggest ice cream I’ve ever seen, piled into a coupe glass and topped with honeyed almonds and chocolate sauce. He had one too.
I wished we could have offered Felix’s family a room in our new home, but Papa said he’d spoken to Madame Bénatar and she’d assured him she’d found them a place in the house of friends of hers in the mellah. When we left the camp, Felix told me he’d come and visit us sometimes, but he hasn’t done so yet. I expect he’s busy making new friends. I hope perhaps he got a penknife and some sweets for Hanukkah – his I-Spy things.
I think I can smell the delicious scent of baking coming up the stairs so I’m going to go and see Kenza in the kitchen now. I’ve written so much that my hand is aching, but that is the story so far of how we came to be here. I’ll write more another day.
Zoe – 2010
May drives us around the city in her air-conditioned BMW – a far more comfortable way to tour it than my walk yesterday. I’m thankful to give my feet a rest as they’re still pretty sore and there’s a large blister on my right heel. As she points out the sights, I wriggle my toes in the chilled air emanating from beneath the dashboard. I’ve left Grace at home with Alia for the first time, but I don’t feel as anxious as I’d thought I would. I know my baby’s in good hands.
The first impression you get of the city is of chaos and grime and peeling fa?ades. It’s only when you look a little more closely that you start to see the wrought ironwork, the old-fashioned signs on the shops and the beautifully crafted detailing that adorns the stonework of many of the neglected buildings. We bypass the medina, where I got lost. I doubt May’s car would fit down its narrow streets and alleyways. She points out the Quartier Habous with its Moorish archways, explaining how it was conceived and planned by the French when they colonised the city. It’s a newer version of the ancient medina, built for the tourists and the expats so that they can enjoy a similar experience, but with safer streets and a less bewildering layout of shops and stalls.
‘So it’s a kind of sanitised version of the original?’ I ask.
‘Well, yes.’ May shrugs. ‘But you wouldn’t be wanting to go into the real medina in any case now, would you? It’s just dirty and dangerous.’
I bite my lip, remembering the goat in the gutter and the toothless man selling his strange remedies, and say nothing.
We sweep towards the ocean and I crane my neck to look up at the tower of the Hassan II Mosque, the pure whiteness of its stonework dazzling and dizzying against the blue of the sky. Then we swing on to the corniche, passing the spot where I stood yesterday showing Grace the waves. The beachfront is lined with clubs and restaurants – including the Overseas Club, where we’ll be having lunch next week – but May continues on to the mall and pulls up in the multi-storey car park. The existing shopping centre is being replaced by something much larger – May says it’s going to be one of the biggest shopping malls in Africa – and the din of the vast building site reverberates on the hot, dusty air.