‘It was chaos at the harbour, but we managed to board the Esperanza. Darkness was falling and we spent the night cooped up in a stuffy cabin yet again. All us passengers were under strict orders from the captain to stay put. Nobody seemed to know what was going on, but our ship’s departure appeared to have been delayed by the manoeuvring of military vessels in the port. I argued with Maman to try to persuade her to let me dash home and pick up my journal and my sandalwood box, but she was adamant that it was much too dangerous – the ship could leave at any moment. Early the next morning, waking up to find we were still in the harbour, I was so miserable that I couldn’t bear to stay in the cabin one more moment – captain’s orders or not – so I slipped out while Maman and Annette were still asleep and went up on deck. Suddenly, there was a tumult all around, with men running and ships being made ready, and everyone was far too busy to notice me. Imagine my joy and amazement when, among the melee of faces on the quayside, I glimpsed Felix! Somehow he’d managed to slip past the guards in all the chaos and confusion. He was shouting something, but I couldn’t make out what he was saying. Everything was in turmoil, with people panicking and horns blasting and all the carry-on that goes with making ships ready to sail. There were several French naval vessels in the harbour too, I remember, and one vast battleship called the Jean Bart. They were starting up their engines and frantically preparing their guns. I ran to the stern of the Esperanza to try and hear what Felix was saying. I even thought I might perhaps be able to ask him to cycle back to the house, to try to fetch my things for me if there was time. But that was the last thought I had before, out of the blue, I heard the sound of gunfire and the scream of the bombs. The ship was hit and it exploded.’
Nina puts her hand over Josie’s at this point, and I see how it trembles, but she takes a shaky breath to steady herself and continues.
‘I only pieced together what happened later, of course, from what others told me. The force of the blast knocked me unconscious and threw me into the water. Felix was still there and he saw what had happened. He jumped in to save me. If I hadn’t gone up on deck and if he hadn’t raced to the port to try and warn us of the imminent attack on Casablanca itself, I wouldn’t be here telling you this today. So it’s funny, isn’t it, that indirectly it was my journal that saved me?’ She strokes the leather cover with her henna-painted fingers.
‘The water was covered in a sheet of flames, with all the fuel leaking from the sinking ship, and I was badly burned, as you can see.’ She draws the edge of her shawl a little closer to the side of her face that’s most badly damaged.
‘What about your mother and Annette?’ I ask, although I already know what she’s going to tell me. Nina squeezes her hand a little tighter.
‘They were trapped in their cabin when the ship went down, along with most of the other refugees who were leaving that day. None of them made it.’
We’re silent for a few moments and Nina reaches to pour the tea, providing a welcome distraction from the pang of grief I feel at hearing these words from Josie. How she must have suffered, and not just from her physical injuries. It must have been terrible for her, in a way, to have been the only member of her family to have survived.
When she’s ready, she continues. ‘Anyway, Felix leapt into the burning water and pulled me out. He was lucky he only suffered minor burns himself, the foolish boy. He managed to find a navy medic on the quayside, who did enough to save my life. I was in hospital for many months.’
‘The same one Josephine Baker was in?’ I ask.
She laughs. ‘No, hers was a very smart private clinic. I was in a far more modest hospital. And then, when I was well enough, Kenza and Nina came and brought me here to their home. We’d always felt like sisters, hadn’t we?’ She smiles at Nina. ‘And, after all, the dreamseller had always insisted that I was part of the family – remember, she’d seen it when we first met.
‘Miss Ellis and Hélène Bénatar tried to track down other members of my parents’ families who might take me in, but everything was in such chaos that it was impossible.’
‘What about your uncle and aunt and the annoying cousins who fled Alsace before you left Paris? You mentioned them at the very start of the journal.’
Josie’s eyes cloud with sadness. ‘Theirs was one of the threads Madame Bénatar followed, which ended with deportation to the camps in the east. Joseph, Paulette and their two sons died in Belsen. It was certainly not a time for me to return to France, and attempting to get to America again was impossible by then. No one came looking for me. I suppose my mother’s American relatives – if they were even expecting us – would have read about the attacks on Casablanca and assumed we’d all been killed.’