President Perón to get a license to play for real money at the roulette wheel and the poker tables (up to that moment people pretended that they were gambling). President Perón —who had visited the place some months before and had an affair with Ilsa (Ferrari's lover) — agrees to it. The café manages to survive, although far from its past magnificence. Then a military coup overthrows Perón, and the casino is closed. It is a hard blow for Ferrari, who commits suicide. In his will, he states that the café will remain the property of his employees, provided that they never shut it down or put it up for sale. In the following weeks, they try to do their best to make ends meet, but after a while, some of them give up and desert the place. In a few months, the only ones who remain are Rick, Ilsa, Sam, Renault, and Ugarte. To make a living they decide to perform isolated scenes, which are shown to the few tourists who happen to go by. Time passes, and not only the place deteriorates but the health of its dwellers as well. The moment the narrator arrives, Sam can offer nothing but an account of what happened in that fantastic Casablanca, and introduce Rick and Ilsa, who are much older now (Rick is blind; Ilsa makes a brief appearance, dressed as Ingrid Bergman in one of the scenes of the movie). In a vase placed near the exit door, visitors leave a few coins. Meanwhile, the storm has subsided. Sam plays "As Time Goes By" once again, to say goodbye now. The narrator gets into his car and, with the feeling that he has witnessed a sequel to the movie that Hollywood never made, leaves the place. Background In 2002 Edgar Brau was invited by the University of Nevada, Reno, as visiting professor and writer-in-residence for the fall 2002 – spring 2003. As writer-in-residence he had to write a work of fiction during his stay. He had been considering the possibility of writing a fantastic narration (in the line of his The Poem or The Buddha's Eyes) that would be a tribute to his father's movie-theater, where he had spent his childhood years. As he said: “I started Casablanca with the idea of writing a fantastic story that would pay tribute to my father's cinema, where I spent my early