I woke up on the last day to some interesting messages, one from my body. First, I was told the picture I took of the cat in the desert had been posted on tumblr and had been shared many tens of thousands of times. It was exciting to see. I hadn't been credited, and a stranger lamented that I should have watermarked it, but I really don't mind. I've certainly "borrowed" enough media in my time.
The body message was a rumbly, watery gut. Tummy Tumkins knows when he's not feeling well, and I suppose I'm fortunate it was the first time this trip. The guide book suggested it would happen sooner or later and I'd almost dodged the bullet. Was it the dates from last night? Was it the accumulation of tajines? Whatever the case, it seemed the right thing to do would be to take it easy today so I wasn't in distress on the plane in the morning.
It meant I wouldn't be going to Essaouira. Which can be the sacrifice I made, since I wasn't here to help kill a sheep on Eid. This last day would be for writing and casual exploring. Like, super casual.
Drank a ton of water, ate some crackers, took the longest, hottest shower, and went out in search of coffee.
Went down an alley I hadn't been down and found myself in a covered area full of spice merchants and soap merchants. Good prices on things I had no use for. Vast buckets of kohl, bottomless barrels of indigo, pyramids of saffron.
I needed a razor, and I was able to negotiate for a package of disposables from a super-old dude. He didn't understand me until I moved my fist up and down on my face and said, "Rzzz," like a Frank Zappa album cover. Then, out came the Gillettes! Apparently, my rzzz had an American accent, because the guy in the store across from him started putting the hard sell on me in English.
"Hello, hello, my friend! Come drink tea with me and see what I have to show you. Can you guess what this is? Can you guess what I am holding?"
He had a bunch of crushed rose petals in his hand.
"Roses?" I said.
"Yes! You have won some tea. Come drink with me."
Well, why not. Why not indeed. It was a good pitch, right? Make the mark feel smart by asking them an easy question. I've seen lots of banner ads like this. They show a picture of something obvious like a kiwi fruit and say, "98% of Americans can't name this fruit! Click to prove you can."
I clicked on his banner ad and drank with him.
"Do you know where you are?"
The jungle, baby?
"No, this is The Mellah, home of the Jews. Jews were here."
Ok.
"Yes, but now there are no Jews. Can you guess what this is?"
Mint?
"Yes! You have won another guess. What is this?"
Cinnamon?
"No, it is aniseed. Aniseed. Smell"
Do I owe you a tea?
"No, you get three misses and this one was my fault, because I didn't let you smell it. Smell this one. What is it, can you guess?"
We played this for a while. I knew paprika, pepper, and ginger. I did not know cumin or turmeric, though to be fair I was pretty tired of the game at this point.
He could tell he was losing me, so he brought out a little baggie with some crystal-meth looking stuff in it. Finally!
"I will not make you guess this. It is eucalyptus."
It was very hard not to say, "What am I, a fucking koala?!" I just said, "Eucalyptus!"
He took a speck about the size of a grain of rice, like literally a tiny speck and dropped it in my tea. I took a sip, and my head exploded. It was the smallest amount, and I had taken the smallest sip, and it was like I'd broken into the Halls Menthol factory and fallen into the vat where the mix up the drops.
I wanted to buy some, but it was a lot of money. I ended up just getting a cake of solid "musk." You know, something for the sock drawer. He thanked me and said, "I will tell you a secret of The Mellah. Leave here and make a right, and then a right, and then a right."
That is, famously, how you make a left in New Jersey, and also very similar to the directions my host had given me to find her place. Maybe it's a Moroccan thing. I thanked him, waved my musk bag at him, said goodbye, and made a right.
Saw some dudes fixing tea pots and, like with the guys I had seen sewing up soccer balls, marveled at how we just buy new stuff back home. Like, when I was a kid we bought a new basketball when the air got low. Who has time to pump it?
After a few rights, I came upon three woman working on some beans. It was a kind of assembly line where they were, in turn, husking them sorting them and mashing them. To get the oil out. They were argan fruit, a product exclusive to Morocco. Apparently, it only grows here. How about that? My mother had asked me to bring her some back.
There was something weird about the women's process, something kind of theatrical about it, and it occurred to me they were probably only doing it because I was watching. It was like I had put a quarter in to watch the Country Bear Jamboree go through their animatronic motions.
Of course, I also related them to the Fates, spinning, measuring, and cutting the thread of life.
They sat in front of a store with a bunch of argan products. I laughed about how, as usual, the thing I'd been sent to check out was a store. Come meet my family = rug store. You must see the fine things in this museum = leather store. Something special = shampoo shop.
So I bought some shampoo. Apparently, I'd also been served argan oil every morning in Fes at the riad. I'd been dipping my bread in it. It's a dessert topping and a floor wax! They use it for everything. You can eat it and reverse aging with it!
I headed back the way I came and imagined the women going back to their cell phones as soon as I was out of sight. When I got back to Musk Man, he was like, "Did you see the cemetery?" and I was like, "I did not, sir."
Apparently, he really had been sending me to something cool, an old Jewish burial ground. That was probably the first and only time someone meant what they said in Morocco.
Headed back to the Jemma and followed the flutes to the snake charmers. I'd read, to my disgust, that they sew the cobra's mouths shut to keep from being bitten. The older I get, the more animal cruelty paralyzes me. I would probably faint if I saw someone kick a dog. And the idea of them starving the snakes to death for a few coins was so disturbing to me.
Apparently, the government tried to put them out of business, but they said they couldn't make a living any other way and that making snake "charming" illegal would be like sewing their own mouths shut. And I guess the King on the Stamps threw up his hands, so, it goes on.
As I approached, however, I was relieved to see the snakes with their mouths open and fangs bared. But also sad to see how they were being treated.
Scary cobras mixed in with some poor, battered rat snakes. One dude walks around with a snake in his hands and tries to put it on people's shoulders, another dude flails at the cobras with his ball cap. It could not have been less artistic. It could not have been more medieval. The poor stressed-out things.
In Romania I'd read about the dancing bears and how badly they were treated by their Romany trainers. The government put them out of business and opened a reservation just for the abused bears to live out the rest of their lives. It's hard to imagine these guys being rescued and set up in some cushy herpetarium.
Laughing tubby with a hand full of serpent came running up to me and I ran away from him backward. Did. Not. Want. I did want to take a picture of the cobras with their hoods up, though. I knew I would have to pay for this. And I hated to contribute to the abuse, but... I did. No principles.
I asked the guy flapping the hat how much a picture was, and he said he would take it for me and we could negotiate later. This was a bad idea, but I handed him my phone. He took about forty (40!) pictures while I crouched in the distance.
It took a long time. He got away from the cobra, gave me back my phone, and asked for 300 dollars.
I told him no way. He was like, "I take many pictures for you! I must feed my family! You are thief!" Jesus. A thief. I was pretty numb to this shit by now. I wondered again how differently things would have gone if I'd landed here first. Would this have freaked me out? I put 100 dirham (about 9 or 10 bucks) on the ground and walked away without turning around.
He shouted after me, but I don't think he meant it. Maybe later, he and Wagon Man would team up and meet me in the back of the medina. The wagon would be full of cobras.
When I was safely far away, I looked at the pics. They were all terrible. Most of them were of me. Like, instead of the snake, he was zoomed in on my face watching the snake. And then there were some almost completely black shots of the snake in a shadow. Worthless. I got a coffee and sat and deleted them all. It was, I thought, what I deserved for wanting them in the first place.
I bought a smooth wooden camel from a bowl of wooden camels and headed back home. No one bothered me, but there was still the terror of the motorcycles. In Hanoi at least you knew if you got hit, you would immediately be run over by thirty more motorbikes and your misery ended. But here, you would probably just lie groaning in the street for a few days until a donkey ate your wallet.
Back at the place I packed everything up for the morning. Very early flight. I was out of books, so I took one from the decorative spiral. A collection of Chuck Palahniuk's short stories. British edition printed on that cheap paper they use. I replaced it with that Where the Jews Aren't book I'd finished a few cities ago.
Would if have been funny to take a picture of myself reading it in The Mellah? Probably not.
Took a nap with my head on my duffel bag. Dear old duffel.
Some hours later, I heard conversation, woke up, and headed down to the common area.
It was Kiefer with Cecile, my host, and a French couple. They invited me to join them, and I did. Listened to them speaking in French and marveled at Kiefer's interesting life. He'd picked French up in his travels and was just.. using it. I tried to follow along from the emotions.
Something about how shopkeepers in Paris are grumpy but shopkeepers here are nice. It was cute. The man in the couple was really animated making deep frowns for the Parisian imitation and broad smiles to represent the local guy.
I was meeting Cecile for the first time. These airbnb hosts are usually either all in your face or absent, and I liked her casual mix of the two. Pretty much just showed up at the end to make sure I had a nice stay and to stand me to some tea.
She arranged a car to take me to the airport in the morning, So nice!
It made me hungry, though, so I excused myself for dinner. Back out into the medina for what I figured would be the final time. Went out with nothing but my last 300 dirham. No wallet. No camera. No phone. I was winding all the way down.
Played with some cats, which was good for my heart, and ate a tajine at a hole in the wall. My gurgling stomach had settled itself hours and hours ago, and I figured I'd take one last roll of the dice. I really like the preserved lemon peel they top those things with. And the olives. My god, the olives.
When I walked back out, a shifty dude sped up to get up to my side and whispered, "Massage? Hammam?"
Well, why not?
The sun was starting to set and I followed him through an alley I hadn't seen before. I must have passed it seven times. The guide books all went on and on about Moroccan spas and how they were an essential part of any trip. I'd seen them advertised everywhere for weeks. Some people come here just to hang out in the hammams. I was down to about twenty bucks and wondered how much it would all be. And if it was really going to be some kind of sex thing.
Like it was in Cambodia.
We went through a beat-up old door where a stout woman greeted me, sent the shady guy away, and asked me if I wanted to be massaged by a man or a woman. I said a woman. She said a woman was 150 dirham. I paid her. Down now to 50. Five bucks.
I was led upstairs and shown a locker where I could put my valuables. I had none. I was taken into a room with a massage table and some candles. I was told to take off my clothes and wait. I undressed, wrapped a towel around my waist, and waited.
A sixteen or seventeen year old girl came in. She looked European and not Moroccan. When she smiled I saw she had braces. She was dressed like a nurse. She gestured toward the table, and I lay down on my stomach.
She went to work. Long professional massage with soothing oils. Was it argan oil, I wondered. I kept my eyes closed. It felt good after weeks of being cramped in trains and carrying bags of lenses and bags of books, I needed it. I couldn't fully relax, though, because there was the tension of wondering if she was going to touch me... intimately. In one of our talks, Ismail had implied that was the only thing that went on in these places.
I didn't get an erection, because I'm circumcised. It's those uncut savages that can't control themselves. I would have if that had been what this was about, but this was all legit. I paid for an honest massage and got one. Her hands still had oil in them when she massaged my head, and when I was getting dressed I saw my hair was all wigged out like I was the Wizard of Oz.
A soothing way to wind this whole dusty, wild trip down. On the walk back, the shops were mostly shuttered, and I was unmolested.
Right when I walked in, Kiefer wanted to know if I wanted to join him for dinner. I told him I'd just eaten but I would hang out with him. I had kiiind of planned on getting eight hours before the flight, but one more adventure was in the cards. I washed my face and we went right back out.
Nice long talk about the world and its ways. He told me French typewriters are large and have a key with a letter they use for only one word. The letter only appears in a single word, and they need a key for it. I loved that.
We went to the Jemma and ate grilled meats and didn't eat snails. People were lined up to eat snails, but that was not a line I wanted to be in. We talked about our work histories and our lives. I'm over twenty years older than him, and there's always the trap when you're an older guy of bragging. Like, you're trying to get over being jealous of the other's youth, so you build yourself up with tales of your exploits. I avoided it, but it was touch and go for a while!
He paid for everything, which was a cool surprise. I think we were both kind of lonely and kind of desperate to just relax and speak English with someone who would understand your nuances and subtleties. And in that regard, we were a comfort to one another. It was really the perfect way to wrap things up.
We stank of charcoal afterward, the wind had blown the grill's smoke our way, and we took a slow walk home to let it dissipate. And then I said good night to him and Morocco at the same time. And almost certainly goodbye forever to them both.
In the morning I met my driver and it was an easy ride to the airport. Marrakech is one of those easy cites that take ten minutes to get out of. Started reading the Palahniuk book and found it wildly not to my liking. Almost offensively bad. Why is that guy a thing? He writes like an uncut savage.
On the plane I was seated next to septuagenarian Belarusian who asked me to fill out his customs form for him. I did, and he repaid me by talking for seven of the ten hours. He kept accidentally summoning the flight attendants. The touch screen entertainment centers made this too easy.
Most of the time he talked about a prank he plays on his grandchildren where he gives them coins he's cut in half with some kind of metal-saw. That's so Belarusian! Whenever we were offered coffee or water, he would say, "I want one cup... and a half!" Then he would elbow me with pleasure, like it was a secret we shared, like I was his grandchild.
And that was it. When I got home I showed the new rugs off to the cat. He did me the favor of pretending to be impressed.
It was a good trip. A lot happened. Camels, hovercrafts, giant wooden umbrellas. I think the Cafe Hafa in Tangier and the Cafe Clock in Fes were my favorite city locations. Sleeping in the desert was beautiful, and seeing the stars the next night was very special. And my god, the High Atlas mountains!
Really glad I had that surprise week in Spain and Portugal. Seven more days in Morocco might have melted me. Mission accomplished with reading, not so much with writing. What are you gonna do? Everything?
Scandinavia next, I think. Thanks for reading, readers. This one took a lot longer to manifest itself than the others. Worth it, though. And a half.
Another fabulous adventure, though you did seem to get a tad cranky towards the end. I guess I would too after all those scurvy rug salesmen and con men. The masseuse with the braces would have terrified me. She's like a character from an Ian Fleming novel. You and your civilized circumcised member lived to tell the tale, though!
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your reading! It's true. It got a little too much for me at the end. Intense place. I loved the trip overall and will surely return to Spain. Cilantro!
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