We’re in Casablanca. I’ve been here before but Derek has not. “It would be beyond belief to go to Casablanca and not go to Ricks Café,” he famously said when we planned this trip – and here we are. ‘Casablanca’ is his favourite film of all time, no question. He’s said it often and downloaded and watched it again on the flight from Paris.
It’s only a weekday lunch but the effect of Rick’s Café is immediate. Two men lounge in the doorway four or five steps up toward the entrance, as if dressed for the film itself. They welcome us with deference, then hand us off to the maître d’ who ever-so-politely hands us off to our waiter, Khalid.
We’ve been pitched backwards in time to 1942. The music swirls gently around us and through the alabaster columns that rise to a skylight far above. It’s Glenn Miller. “At Last. my lonely days are over and life is like a song.” Where is Bogey? Rick Blaine? And Bergman, who plays the deceptive but disarmingly gorgeous Ilsa Lund in the film? Will she rush in at any moment?
I’m dizzy. It’s the music. Derek orders a beer and I choose a sparkling wine. Nearby is a baby grand piano and a set-up to make it a trip: bass and trombone. Must be the real thing for evenings, we decide. Never mind. The scratchy old-recording sense of history is fine for me, I say. I grew up on Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, Louis Armstrong. My father’s 78rpms, later reel-to-reel. Later it was Spotify and Amazon. I still listen to it. It lives in me.
Oh, the songs! It’s all so ’40s, the movie, the decor, the staff…even the plates say ‘Rick’s Café.’
Lengths of startling green satin encircle each of the arched columns along the walls. Palm trees stand tall in oversized pots. Conversations seem somehow muted beyond us. The bartender polishes highball glasses with a linen cloth. The tassel on his red fez bounces with the motion. We’ve definitely landed in the colorized version of the film.
We google details about the film and Derek reminds me that this restaurant, however nice, is but a copy, here in Casablanca. The ‘real’ Rick’s was a movie set in Burbank. A Brit, he mispronounces ‘Van Nuys,’ the boulevard where Warner Brothers Studio is located. I’m a Californian so, naturally, I correct him, giddy. We clink our glasses and talk about the movie as pure fiction, but then he reads that Morocco was, in reality, an authentic pathway for Europeans escaping the Nazis, America-bound. Suddenly, it’s all more real.
Khalid takes our order: salmon for me, lemon sole for him. We dream aloud about Rick’s cheesecake. There’s a photo on the menu. Yes, the cheesecake, we whisper. Two pieces. No sharesies required.
‘Moonlight Serenade,’ Billboard #1 in ’42, begins to play. I close my eyes and there are my parents, going out the door when we were kids, off to the Balboa Island Officers’ Club to dance most Friday nights. Heinz Beans and Wieners from a can for me and my brothers, Lobster Newburg for Daddy and Mom. I see my father going out the door, his grace, his ease. And his love of music, something he instilled in me.
The big bands, Dad’s 78s, my parents dancing, even in the living room. The foxtrot, the slicker - swing was king. I ached to dance like my mother, reeled out and pulled back into my partner’s arms. Petite, pretty and redhead, she looked like a movie star, everyone said.
She was adored, a graceful ice skater, a sprite who water-skied on a single ski and never even got wet beach-start to beach landing. Me? Awkward, chubby, the bookworm who never got past roller skates and took dozens of exhausting tries to get up on double skis. I wanted to be like her.
Derek nudges me. “Whatcha thinkin’?” he says. “You’re so far away.”
I shake my head as ‘In The Mood’ begins again - that sax, those arpeggios, the trumpets and trombones riffing away. I smile, feel myself blush, look up at the skylight, high above, and let the world spin just a little.
Boise, 1993, after a very long, very bad spell. Life, you know? I’m oh-so-tentatively dating a man. Sort of. It’s not a ‘thing.’ No way I’m ready for a ‘thing.’ My therapist said to give it a try. Brandon’s older, he’s fine with it all, an M.D. who works locum so he can spend most of his time researching his thesis for a Ph.D. in particle physics. He talks about the grand unified theory. I can almost, but not quite, keep up with all the mesons and gluons.
Somehow, it transpires, Brandon loves Glenn Miller. I tell him about my parents, how my mom’s favourite song was ‘In The Mood,’ how I always wanted to dance like her, on a man’s arm. He grins this twinkly grin and tells me I’m smart and vivacious and that he’s always in the mood even if it’s only to dance with a beautiful woman. I have my Ilsa Moment right then and there as I put on my ‘Best of Glenn Miller’ CD and we dance across my small living room to ‘In The Mood.’ And then dance some more. He whispers words that tell me I’m doing just fine.
I feel like my mother and I like that. I must be making progress, getting better.
When I open my eyes, there's Derek, clearing his throat. Quizzical. Bemused. Curious. “Memories,” I answer the unasked. “I promise I'll tell you over cheesecake.”
He touches my glass with his and then signals to Khalid to bring the cheesecake, two pieces if you please.
OF ADDITIONAL INTEREST:
(1) THE THEME SONG (colorized scene from the film)
‘As Time Goes By’ Written by Herman Hupfeld, 1931
(2) NPR STORY/RECORDING:
‘The real-life refugees of 'Casablanca' make it so much more than a love story.’
BIO: Cynthia Reed is an American expat settled in Sweden with her Brit hubby and an Alaskan Malamute. A retired technical author, she promises she’s eventually going to finish a collection of linked short stories. Previous work has appeared in Sobotka Literary Magazine and anthologies and magazines in Europe and Asia.
* The photo was taken by the author.
