I don’t want to go home just yet, so I decide to walk back via the Habous. Other than walking to the library and back, I haven’t dared attempt any longer walks since the time I got lost in the medina. My confidence in being able to navigate my way around the city is still a little shaken. But Kate’s told me it’s much easier to find your way around the Habous than the twisting alleyways of the old medina and it’s the best place to look for quilting fabrics, so I push down the anxiety that rises in my chest and take a deep breath to steady myself. Grace seems quiet and contented, lulled in the baby sling by the closeness of my body, as I walk beneath a Moorish arch into the shady streets.
Arcades of smaller Mauresque arches accommodate rows of tiny shops crammed with burnished copper and brassware, which gleams in the dark interiors alongside silver-framed mirrors. There are bright-coloured rugs hanging on tall frames, and shelf after shelf of painted pottery. One shop sells pretty wooden boxes inlaid with mother-of-pearl and I wonder whether this could have been the one where Josie bought hers. ‘Best quality, best quality,’ the man assures me, and I nod and smile and continue on my way.
I stop outside one shop that is crammed from floor to ceiling with antiques, fascinated by some bundles of pearl-handled fish knives and cut-crystal champagne coupes that probably date from the 1920s or 30s, I guess, and might well have graced an elegant home like the Duvals’ on the Boulevard des Oiseaux. In one corner sits an old valve radio set, next to a vintage telephone and a gilded samovar. I almost expect the clipped tones of a Second World War BBC reporter to announce the latest news from the front.
‘As-Salaam-Alaikum,’ I greet the man sitting on a stool sorting through a bundle of old postcards.
‘Wa-Alaikum-Salaam,’ he replies, getting to his feet. ‘You are searching for something in particular, perhaps, Madame?’
A box full of tin-plate toys has caught my attention. ‘May I look at these?’ I ask him and he gestures to me to be his guest.
The toys look as if they’ve been much loved and well played with over the years. There’s a fleet of battered cars and a little aeroplane, a tin whistle, a balancing acrobat, and a clockwork cat, which has lost its key. At the bottom of the box I spot the curve of a crescent moon. As I pull it out, I realise it’s attached by fine chains to a cascade of stars. I carefully untangle them, revealing a mobile to hang above a baby’s bed. The tin is dull and tarnished but I rub one of the points of the moon with a corner of my shawl and it gleams softly.
‘How much?’ I ask the man. He names his price – a few dirhams – and then reaches a small round box down from the shelf behind him, its filigree metal aged by verdigris. ‘Maybe this would interest you too?’ he asks. He winds the key in the base and then raises the hinged lid. The delicate notes of a lullaby chime softly, entrancing Grace. ‘I can give you a good price for both if you like.’ He and I both know he’s already made the sale, it’s just a question of bartering a little for the sake of good form. He wraps the tin wares in newspaper and I add them to my bag.
I thank him, but am in no hurry to leave. There’s so much to look at, so many items that are relics of the days when Josie and her family were here. The shopkeeper busies himself polishing the samovar and I imagine a genie emerging from its elegant spout. Who did it belong to, I wonder, and how did they come to transport it to Casa in the first place? How did it get left behind?
The man notices my reluctance to leave his shop. ‘I think you are interested in the past?’ he asks. ‘It is indeed fascinating to find these connections to history, n’est-ce pas, Madame?’
I nod, picking up a pearl-handled button hook and picturing how a woman like Madame Duval might have used it to fasten a pair of long gloves in preparation for attending one of the tea dances at the Hotel Excelsior.
‘Please take my card.’ He hands me the rectangle of cream paper, embossed with the name Monsieur A. M. Habib, Propriétaire, and the address of the shop. ‘Do you live in Casablanca, or are you just passing through?’
I smile at his use of the term that Josie had used in her journal. ‘I live here.’
‘Ah, you are a Casawi like me then,’ he says, making a small bow. I know he’s just being polite – Casawi is a term the natives of Casablanca proudly use to refer to themselves – but I’ve warmed to this courteous fellow history-lover. ‘In that case, please do return any time, Madame . . . ?’
‘Harris,’ I reply.