She looks at me searchingly again and I drop my eyes, avoiding her piercing green gaze. She puts one claw-like finger beneath my chin and raises my face again. ‘I can hear you, Zoe, even when you don’t say a word. One of the things I learned from the dreamseller was that we all need to be able to speak our own truth, to have it heard. Sometimes we can feel there’s no one listening and then we must find other ways to make ourselves heard. But I am listening to you now, Zoe. I am ready to hear your truth when you are ready to tell it.’
I nod slowly, reluctantly. ‘What if my truth is something really unbearable? What if telling it means I will lose something for ever? Wouldn’t it be better not to speak? After all, you told me yourself that the mind shies away from the things it’s impossible to bear.’
‘I did. And I also know the value in facing those things when the time is right, when you are strong enough to do so. But we can’t do it alone. We need the help and support of people we love and trust, both to be able to begin to face the truth and to see it through.’
I nod again, but she can sense my reluctance. Very gently she says, ‘Remember our deal, Zoe. I’ve told you the whole of my story. Now it’s your turn.’
‘All right,’ I say. ‘But not today. You’re tired and I must be getting back.’ I glance at my watch. Grace is restless and hungry, and I know she’ll begin to fret if I don’t get her home for her supper soon. ‘May I come back tomorrow?’
Every cell in my body is longing to get away, to run as far and as fast as I can from the truth that I’ve avoided for so long. My hands itch and prick and the urge to scrub them clean is overwhelming. Even as I say the words to Josie, I’m not sure I’ll be back. I can find a reason not to return tomorrow, I think. I can make my excuses. Everything can stay just as it is.
She smiles at me, her eyes as clear as the green waters of the ocean, and I get the impression she’s listening to my thoughts. ‘How would it be if I came to you instead?’ she says. ‘Back to the house in the Boulevard des Oiseaux? I haven’t been near the place for almost seventy years. Maybe now it’s time.’
She can read me like a book. There is no escape. Like the refugees arriving in Casablanca all those years ago, I’ve reached the end of the line. There is nowhere else to go. And suddenly I realise how tired I am of running away from the truth. A feeling of deep exhaustion seeps into my bones along with that sense of recognition: maybe now it’s time for me, too.
Zoe – 2010
Alia brings us a tray of tea and then tactfully retires, leaving the two of us alone in the drawing room. From the folds of her shawl, Josie produces a little paper bag. ‘I made you some ghoribas – thought you might enjoy them.’
‘Kenza’s recipe?’ I ask.
‘But of course.’
‘I wanted to show you this.’ Fully aware that I’m playing for time, I slide the section of an obituary photocopied from a newspaper across the table. The words are accompanied by a grainy photograph of a slender woman with cropped hair and sparkling brown eyes.
During her time in North Africa, Josephine Baker worked tirelessly to support the French Resistance movement, carrying messages written in invisible ink on sheets of music back and forth between Morocco and Portugal. Her efforts provided invaluable information about conditions on the ground to the Free French under General de Gaulle and helped with the co-ordination of resistance activities in the run-up to the American invasion in 1942, which established an Allied bridgehead into Europe.
In 1943, de Gaulle himself arrived in French Morocco. Ms Baker performed at a gala in Algiers to raise funds for the cause of French liberation. The day before the show, she had planned a grand finale: she commissioned nuns in a local convent to sew a vast French flag emblazoned with the symbol of resistance – the Cross of Lorraine. Ms Baker graced the stage in a simple white gown, singing before an audience of the great and the good, including General de Gaulle and his wife. At the end of the evening, she delivered a rousing rendition of ‘La Marseillaise’ as the 18-foot-high flag descended from the ceiling above her. The crowd roared their applause.
During the remaining years of the war, she travelled around North Africa and Italy performing for the Allied troops and helping to raise more than three million francs for the Free French. She was made a sublieutenant by the Women’s Auxiliary wing of the French air force, was awarded the Medal of Resistance and the Croix de Guerre, and was made a Chevalier of the Légion d’honneur by de Gaulle.