A Woman of No Importance

I had been busy for several days and so did not get to Rick’s Cafe until quite late in the week.  One of the local merchants took exception to a comment made by a prospective customer and went on a bloody rampage throughout the souk.  By the time Casselle and I had finished picking up the pieces, it was Thursday, and Ilsa Lund was getting ready to leave Casablanca with her husband, Victor Laszlo.

Leaving Casablanca…leaving Rick forever.  Believe me when I tell you, he was not going gentle into the good night of Ilsa-less existence.

“Going to sit there all night, are you?”  I found him at the bar, alone, drinking. 

“Not now, Louis.”  Not quite drunk, then–merely three sheets to the wind. 

“When is she leaving?” I had nothing against the lady, but having heard something of her treatment of Rick, I was not exactly disposed to like her.  “Soon?”

“I thought you said there was no exit visa for him.” Rick raised his head and stared at me. “That was what you said.”

Misery…the patent misery in his eyes stopped me cold.  There was nothing I could say. “Yes, that is what I said.” I shrugged. “But you know as well as I—”

“Louis, are you pro-Vichy or Free French?”

“Ricky, you should know better than to ask such questions.”  I sat down beside him, uninvited, and poured myself a drink from the bottle at his elbow.  “Have you spoken to her?”  Of course he had: he’s the type of man who prefers torturing himself.  It’s like absolution for him.

“Louis, there are some things that are none of even your business.”  He shivered, as though from a sudden chill.  Perhaps he was sick.  Perhaps Ilsa Lund was making him sick.

No…I didn’t really believe in such fancy.  “Ricky, it might be to your advantage to take me into your confidence,” I said—even though I knew that he didn’t need to talk.  Talking would solve nothing for him.

I could solve nothing for him.  Until Ilsa Lund was gone from Casablanca, there was nothing anyone could say or do to relieve his self-inflicted misery.

 Sometimes Rick is his own worst enemy.

“Talking isn’t going to help me,” he said. “Nothing is going to help me, and you know it.”

I braced myself. I sensed a philosophical diatribe coming up, of the sort that drunken men often indulge in. “How long has it been?” I asked, “Since you and Miss Lund…?”

“Two years, more or less.” He paused to slop more liquid into the glass. “The one person who loved me…my whole life.”

I couldn’t stand him when he was like this. “What an idiot you are,” I said. “Sitting here and feeling sorry for yourself, drinking yourself into a stupor.  You know, we French have always considered the English the world’s greatest drunkards, but you Americans seem to be making quite a job of it.”

“The only one who ever loved me, Louis.”

“Open your eyes, Ricky.” I steeled myself, then plunged in. “She’s not the only one who ever loved you.”

I turned on my heel and left.

 

 

 

 

 

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