One excellent piece of news is that Papa bumped into Felix in the mellah the other day. He and his family are doing okay, living in a room in a house belonging to a baker. Papa reminded him to come and visit us one day and he says he will. Apparently he’s quite busy helping the baker deliver his bread. Felix has the use of a bicycle – another Steel Steed like Miss Ellis’s – so he promised Papa that he’ll cycle to the nouvelle ville one afternoon when he’s free. I’ll ask Kenza to make some of her special ghoribas for us – I think he’ll like them.
Speaking of Kenza’s baking, at lunchtime she mentioned she was going to make ma’amoul this afternoon, so I think I’ll go and see how she’s getting on. I like the ones with dates in best. If Nina’s here, we can read a bit more of The Nine Tailors by Dorothy L. Sayers, which Mademoiselle Dubois managed to find in French for me at the library.
Josie’s Journal – Thursday 13th March, 1941
Quite a lot has happened since I last had time to write in my journal.
As he had promised, Felix came to see us last week. It felt a bit awkward at first, when Maman and Papa made us come and sit in the drawing room with them. Annette came in and sat down too, even though she really didn’t need to be there. Felix is my friend, not hers, and she wasn’t the slightest bit interested in talking to him when we were all in the camp together. But she sat down opposite me and kept grinning to try to embarrass me. I glared at her a couple of times but that just made her grin all the more, so I decided to ignore her instead. It’s not like I’m silly around boys the way she is. She was really bugging me, though. Then Kenza brought in mint tea and the ghoribas I’d asked her to make and gave me a smile, which made me feel a bit better. We also had bottles of Coca-Cola as a treat and Felix said it was his very favourite thing. It’s quite hard to get them these days too, like Papa’s cigars, so we only have them on special occasions. I was glad everyone was making an effort to make Felix feel welcome （except for Annette, who was still being a pain）。 It felt a bit like we were celebrating no longer all being in the camp and being one step closer to America, fingers crossed.
Maman asked Felix how his parents were doing. He said they were okay, although his mother’s health hasn’t been too good. They were just hoping to get the paperwork for their visas all lined up soon, like everyone else. The baker gives them bread in return for help in the bakery and Felix doing the deliveries, and the baker and his wife are very kind and share their meals so they have enough to live on. When Felix said that, it made Annette stop grinning. I suppose it made her realise just how lucky we are with Papa’s good fortune so she can still have riding lessons and have her hair waved and go to dances.
Papa chatted to Felix about his delivery rounds. He cycles all over the city and loves having his bike. He even goes to the ocean sometimes. I wondered to myself if he might want to write some words on stones one day and throw them into the waves. I decided to tell him about the dreamseller when we were on our own. I think he might quite like the idea. What made me think about that was the fact that he looked a bit changed since I’d seen him last. He definitely looked older and taller – but then so do I, I suppose, because it’s been nearly 4 months since we moved into the house on the Boulevard des Oiseaux. He also has a bit of a moustache growing on his top lip and with his broken tooth it makes him look a little like a pirate. But it wasn’t only those things, something in his expression had changed too. I thought his eyes didn’t smile the way they used to. He was a bit more serious and that made him seem more grown-up too. Maybe he just felt a bit awkward, though, like I did, sitting on the stuffy chaise and being interrogated by Papa and Maman, because once we’d finished our drinks and cookies we went out to join Nina in the courtyard and then he relaxed a lot more and his lopsided smile was as bright as ever.
Nina liked him too and the three of us got on very well, even though we come from such different backgrounds. It seems strange that there’s so much fighting going on in the world when it’s perfectly possible for a Jewish boy to be friends with a Muslim girl and a lapsed Catholic-Jewish girl. He didn’t mind turning one end of the skipping rope while Nina and I took turns in the middle, although he refused to have a go himself because he said skipping is for girls only. He’s taught himself to juggle and he showed us how, with three oranges that I borrowed from Kenza. Nina and I had a go, but we can only do it with two so far.
When it was time for him to leave, Papa came down to say goodbye while I was returning the oranges to the kitchen because Kenza needed them for the tajine for dinner that night. When I came back, Papa asked me if I’d like to go for an outing to the Parc Murdoch with Felix the following week. I suppose Felix must have proposed that to Papa. Anyway, it was nice to be asked and I said I would, even though I knew Annette would tease me about it when she found out.