Another quick thing to like about Seville is that it's also a morning town. In Portugal, the streets were deserted until roughly 8, but at 6am in Seville, people were hurrying to work, frying eggs, drinking coffee. I suppose that implies a kind of stress, but it's the kind of energy I grew to love in New York and to this day.
I used to be a lot more Portuguese.
Before the bus to Tarifa, I drank coffee with milk (served in a juice glass, which is how they do it here. Mugs are for mugs, I reckon), ate slick strips of ham and watched a newscast with uncomprehending ears. It looked like someone had freed a bull from the stable and started a massive anti-bullfighting protest.
I paid, and the server gave me a quick, "Grathia" which is how I'm hearing them say "thank you" here. I've always heard the Spanish "lisp" for the s sounds, but it sounds to me they also leave off the s at the end of words. I heard a lot of "adioooo" and "grathiaahhhhh."
They hate the letter S so much, they change it or drop it. It's why they call the country S-Pain, I guess.
Station was crowded, but the bus procedure was easy. There was assigned seating, which the locals ignored, but the tourists got very nervous about, so it was eventually enforced. I was next to a Somalian woman with long red nails. She curled up to sleep with little regard for boundaries. She was very bony, but it didn't hurt, so I read the Sheltering Sky and played the role of stable beast for her.
The driver ate ham sandwiches and stepped on the gas. We stopped once, and a chestnut salesman across the street moaned for us to cross and buy from him. It was lamentable.
I read the whole way, killed 85% of the book. Kind of a sad one and also kind of mean. Wanted to get some Bowles in me, since I was headed to Tangier, and he lived there for a long time. Became fascinated with his wife last year. Their biography is fucking amazing, and I don't understand why there aren't ten movies about them. If I weren't a leaking bag of garbage, I would write something about them. But I am, Blanche, I am in that chair.
Arrived in Tarifa with no fuss nor very much muss. And pardon my Spanish, but the coast there is fucking beautiful.
Little bit of a walk to the ferry station, but not bad, and it was livened up by dazzling snatches of the sea as you glimpse down alleyways. Marvelous, sophisticated-seeming port town. Killed a few hours in a cafe with a juice glass full of coffee and did some writing.
The ferry was a massive hydrofoil with streaky windows, so there was to be no video of me on deck singing "Africa" as I approached the coast of that continent. It had been a goal. Another time, another life, another hydrofoil. Finished The Sheltering Sky to an orchestra of puking. So many people were seasick.
It was almost funny after a while. The ship expected it, there were helpful puke bags everywhere. I ended up having a strange affection for the book, but I wonder if I would have finished it if I weren't going to Tangier or didn't obsess about the Bowles' family so much.
Passport control was on the boat, but who knew? So, after I disembarked I was sent back on to get stamped. And there it was, a nice little rectangle with Arabic script in it. Ka-chunk and welcome to Morocco.
A boy named Mustafa was waiting for me. He's the driver who works with/for my host Maggie. She had written me in advance of the voyage to say:
"Dear Simon, thanks for yr booking. Please tell me time and place of arrival and I will send Mustafa to pick you up as it is too complicated to explain as my home is in a labyrinth."
Which was too too marvelous.
He was there, faithfully, took my bags and sped me to the medina. On the short rode over, it hit me that I'd done it. I'd made it to Morocco after the Portuguese Pivot. Nice try, TAP Airlines, but you couldn't keep me out.
And the first steps in Tangier did not disappoint. Immediate, thrilling disorientation. Noise and wonder and colorful, twisting alleys, and the call to prayer of squawking loudspeakers. And everywhere, children. And everywhere, CATS!
Men swarmed the car and Mustafa waved them away.
We hurried to Maggie's, which was, in fact, in a crazy maze whose turns I was unable to memorize. It was like a marvelous game of Blind Man's Bluff.
And Maggie. My god, Maggie. Marvelous old Scot born and raised in India, educated in England, wed in Morocco. Fierce cloud of proud hair, pink house-dress, slippers, fact-finding eyes.
I paid Mustafa, and Maggie asked me how I liked my tea. Tea! I asked if it was going to be the famous mint tea I'd read so much about:
"Oh, not mint tea. Not here. We're not doing business. They serve you mint tea when they want to sell you something. I am welcoming you. This is about comfort. And so I can meet you, since you will be in my home."
I took it with milk and no sugar. She brought it to me, sat across from me and lit a cigarette.
"Now, tell me, will you have your tea again in the morning the same way? And how will you want your breakfast egg? Your choices are both boiled, hard or soft. If soft, I'll have to time it for the maid, she doesn't understand these things. It will be perfectly edible, but only if I help her with the timing. Otherwise, it will be boiled."
"This is her first day back for a while, because of the fete. They've been having their fete here for the last few weeks. You've just missed all the entrails."
She was talking about Eid al Adha, the sheep sacrifice I missed while I was sneaking around in Lisbon.
"Now, there is a Polish girl arriving in a few hours, and a Spanish man who keeps changing his plans, very maddening, very rude. I'll find out whether they want tea or coffee, and then I'll lay the pot out for the maid, and she'll know which one to make. I'll lay the eggs out as well."
"You'll lay an egg for me? True hospitality."
She shot smoke up to the ceiling and chuckled. "Yes, that's just what I'll do."
I told her I would be going to Chefchaouen in the morning, and she had some very good advice about how to achieve it. I asked her how many times she'd given those directions, and she took a long drag, raised an ash-colored eyebrow and said, "Oh, hundreds of times. Many hundreds of times."
"And you'll want to see the Cafe Hafa, since that was Paul Bowles' favorite place in Tangier."
I was just reading Bowles on the bus!
"The Sheltering Sky, I'm sure. Most do. Many do, anyway. Well, the Cafe Hafa was his favorite place in Tangier. Just ask any petit taxi to take you to Cafe Hafa, and they will know it."
I did not want to leave her, but there was still some light, so I thanked her, washed my face, changed shirts and headed out into the medina. Her last advice was:
"If a person does not let you be, you must say 'la shukran, no thank you,' but if they really get on your wick, say 'shuma, shuma.' It means 'shame,' and you must drag your little finger down your face to show tears. You are so ashamed of them, you are weeping."
So charmingly disorienting, wild and twisting and with cafes and cul de sacs and secret entrances and sudden, roaring motorbikes. Men in sunglasses sat in cafes stoned out of their minds. Cigarettes burning untouched in ash trays next to them, sending punctuation marks of smoke up to the balconies.
I changed some money, dollars for dirhams. It's pronounced like that movie with Kevin Costner, and I made up the joke: What do you call counterfeit Moroccan money? Bull Dirham. And that, o' cats of the medina, is why they pay me the medium bucks.
Men sold strange cakes covered with bees. An ancient cinema beckoned with an inscrutable marquis, narrow mysterious alleys opened suddenly into huge plazas with fruit-sellers. I followed a cat into a dark area and found butchers grinding meat and men arranging figs in egg crates and women teaching their children how to buy grapes.
I bought some olives, an enormous bag for pennies. I had no idea how much they were and the oliveman couldn't tell me, so I handed him a 100-Dirham bill and he looked at me as if I'd offered to trade the Star of India for a sip of orange Fanta.
100 dirhams is ten bucks. The massive sack of olives was fifty cents (and he probably thought he ripped me off). Of course, I thought of the "gourmet olive bars" at home where what I held would sell for $30 on sale.
Is there a more corrupt industry in the US than Big Olive?
Boys played soccer in the streets and alleys, younger boys played marbles. Everyone laughing and casually violent. Except with the cats, everyone was kind to the cats. I saw secret deposits of food for them everywhere, and busy-seeming people stopping to play with them. It's paradise and if Spain is a bad place to be a pig, this is probably a very bad place to be a mouse.
I was pretty regularly accosted by young boys and old men who offered to be my guide, wanted to tell me where the kasbah was, wanted me to look in a cigarette packet to see that something other than cigarettes was concealed there.
In each case, I was polite in refusing them, but they would often persist, and in those cases, I would offer them an olive. This usually made them leave.
A few people took some to preserve a sense of dignity. After the second street-person's hand had entered the bag, I didn't eat any more myself.
Near the Cafe Tanger, a man tried to sell me "kif," which is powdered
dope. I dare to keep off drugs, so I said la shukran, no thank you.
He kept up with the, "Kif, kif!" so I held up the bag of olives, and he said, "I have seen you offer these, and I must tell you nobody loves this."
He kept up with the, "Kif, kif!" so I held up the bag of olives, and he said, "I have seen you offer these, and I must tell you nobody loves this."
It was funny, but it also made me feel like I'd been watched for some time. Boys would be behind me and then suddenly around the corner waiting to meet me. They must have gone through homes, because I would see no other turns and no way for them to have done it.
Boys leaning against walls would wait until I passed, then suddenly peel away from the wall and begin following me. I chose not to let it bother me, but I was certainly aware of it.
There was so much sensory input, and I was tired of the heavy bag of brinefruit, so went back home. Washed my face, checked my work email (like a chump), researched Cafe Hafa, and went back out to find a taxi to take me there.
The reviews in English said: "Non-Muslims unwelcome! Terrible service! We sat for thirty minutes and never saw a waiter!"
But Maggie told me it was Paul Bowles' favorite place, so I went. And lord, what a place! Blue terraces hewn into a cliff with scattered tables and chairs overlooking the sea and crashing surf. The overwhelming smell of mint, boys with giant steaming racks of glasses full of tea. Everyone scrambling up stone staircases, angling for prestige seats near the balconies.
So much life and beauty. It was magnificent.
I sat for half an hour and read The Prophet as a soft breeze tugged at the pages. The reviews said, nobody will serve you, it is terrible. And nobody served me, and it was perfect.
Boys leaning against walls would wait until I passed, then suddenly peel away from the wall and begin following me. I chose not to let it bother me, but I was certainly aware of it.
There was so much sensory input, and I was tired of the heavy bag of brinefruit, so went back home. Washed my face, checked my work email (like a chump), researched Cafe Hafa, and went back out to find a taxi to take me there.
The reviews in English said: "Non-Muslims unwelcome! Terrible service! We sat for thirty minutes and never saw a waiter!"
But Maggie told me it was Paul Bowles' favorite place, so I went. And lord, what a place! Blue terraces hewn into a cliff with scattered tables and chairs overlooking the sea and crashing surf. The overwhelming smell of mint, boys with giant steaming racks of glasses full of tea. Everyone scrambling up stone staircases, angling for prestige seats near the balconies.
So much life and beauty. It was magnificent.
I sat for half an hour and read The Prophet as a soft breeze tugged at the pages. The reviews said, nobody will serve you, it is terrible. And nobody served me, and it was perfect.
The moon was out in the still-light sky, so I walked back instead of taxiing. Curved through neighborhoods and down winding streets. Saw my first dog here. He looked healthy but stray, and a little dirty.
Old Gandalf-lookin' dudes in burnouses wandered the streets or lay where they liked on sidewalks or in parks. I bought some dates from a wooden box on the side of the road. A cloud of flies rose up when the dateman grabbed them with his bare street-hands.
Long, pleasant wander back. I was hungry but felt like I couldn't eat the dates without a few immunization shots. I imagined taking them home to Maggie and her saying, "All right, we need to prepare these before we can eat them. I'll need an old priest and a young priest," then clapping her hands for the maid to boil some holy water.
Old Gandalf-lookin' dudes in burnouses wandered the streets or lay where they liked on sidewalks or in parks. I bought some dates from a wooden box on the side of the road. A cloud of flies rose up when the dateman grabbed them with his bare street-hands.
Long, pleasant wander back. I was hungry but felt like I couldn't eat the dates without a few immunization shots. I imagined taking them home to Maggie and her saying, "All right, we need to prepare these before we can eat them. I'll need an old priest and a young priest," then clapping her hands for the maid to boil some holy water.
In the streets outside the medina, men played backgammon at wooden tables. I heard the clack-clack of their dice and the calls of triumph and grief. The sound of those dice was so pleasant. They outta call it clackgammon.
I soon discovered there was no food to be found in the cafes. The festival I had missed was still settling, and as a result many of the cooks were still away in their villages and most of the lamb they serve had been bought and sacrificed.
Sat and drank some tea with my stomach growling, eyeing the poison dates and wondering if I could chance it. Craaaacked myself up remembering Sallah in Raiders of the Lost Ark saying, "Bad Dates." That laugh filled me up.
Walked back to see if maybe Maggie had some bread. Passed an operating sandwich counter but the line was crazy, and the man was really taking his time assembling the sandwiches. It was a low counter, and men would reach over while they waited to pinch the bread.
They were testing its freshness, but it seemed to me the equivalent of reaching over to shuffle the tomato slices at a Subway while the "sandwich artist" toasted your turkey.
Discovered I was lost. Cried out "Maggie! Maggie!" to some children, and they pointed to a gate. It was the right one, I just hadn't recognized it. The mysteries of the medina!
Went to bed without supper but very happy and satisfied.
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