"Their beards were white, and they had traveled very far and hard; it was the time with them when a man rests from labours and dreams in light sleep of the years that were and not of the years to come." - Lord Dunsany
There wasn't much reason to be exhausted. I had mostly been riding in a car or sleeping in a tent for three days, and yet, I slept in. Probably because I could. No schedule. No driver. Just me and my bag of smelly clothes and my dwindling collection of books.
I'd done a lot of reading on the trip, justified lugging those heavy things across the world. I hadn't done much writing, though. Which was one of the stated goals. To leave Morocco with a play. Took some great notes, outlined a few scenes, but nothing you could have friends over for a reading for. Setting goals when you're young is a terrible mistake and setting goals on vacation is a close second. You just make yourself feel goofy in the midst of marvelous sensation.
And marvelous this apartment truly was. It was all the things you see at fancy home-accessories stores put to actual use. Shabby-chic doors, decorative hinges, strange shelves, reclaimed tile, old books stacked in a spiral five-feet high. Charming. And that old maid shuffling around with giant keys on a ring. Just beautiful.
There were four or five bedrooms, and the others were inhabited by French couples (who mostly argued in whispers) and a kid in his 20s named Kiefer. Actor handsome in a casual way. Leather clothes, reference-photo haircut. He was a technical writer for a website, and they let him work from home, so he defined "home" as: "Wherever in Europe I want to be."
He'd been in Morocco for several months and before that, a year in Hungary, a year in France, six months in Spain. Why not? I was, of course, jealous of his youth and opportunities in a way I wouldn't have been if he had been rich. Tech made it possible, of course. The electric messiah, the AC/DC god.
I heard his story in the breakfast nook, which was at that hour the lunch nook, and when I evaluated my thoughts, I realized I was again thinking about roads not taken, roads not possible, and not that I was in the city I had researched the most, the city I had planned to fly into, the city I'd been cheated out of by that Portuguese airline. It was time to get out into it!
Of course, I wondered if I'd see the mean old Wagon Man, but it seemed very unlikely. Traced my way through the maze (I am the electric maze-siah), smiled at cats, dodged motorcycles and made it to the border streets that frame the Jemma el-Fnaa. The lamp people and the vinyl camel people and the decorative plate people waved flies away from themselves and toward one another, an endless game.
I went out without the camera, because I wanted to just freely move without any obligations. I did have my little notebook and remained amazed that the map function on the phone worked even without wifi or an active data plan. Why was it free?
Bought some crepes from a cart. An old woman (probably 35) fried them up right in front of me, and a tense guy with a black mustache took the money and made me some coffee. I sat on a plastic stool and watched people in the street. It was a day for winding down. I had ordered in French and thanked him in Arabic. Easy words.
This is where Africa comes to play, it's kind of their Disney World. Like, the rich oil kids come here to drink and fuck, since it's more secular than their home-country. The clubs have thousand-dollar bottles of vodka that you have to buy if you want a table. If you stand, it's you and six other losers huddled together watching the Petroleum Heirs aim champagne corks at female action figures in purple velvet.
Very strange to have crossed the country and seen only gentle shepherds and the weathered guys at the dry well and the women with their enormous burdens of donkey-grass and then here, the jewelry and the abdominal muscles and the sunglasses and the casual waste.
So many tourists from Saudi Arabia (I was told) and Egypt and Senegal (the coffee man said). Also, Europe, but I didn't need to be told. It's because, said the coffee man, they don't enforce the religious laws here. Drink up, and bring your little dogs too.
Thus fortified, I took a long walk to the Bab Agnaou, an incredible old gate with marvelous detailing and a majesty that defies the attempts of marketing or tour buses to drag it down. Stately and, I was thrilled to see, covered in actual storks. For two weeks, I'd seen nests in minarets or on Roman columns, but here the actual living birds. Very moving to see them and think they had been here for generations. The great great grandchicks of the ones I saw watched caravans laden with frankincense amble through the Bab Agnaou.
Got lost in some kind of area where the cab drivers park. Enjoyed the cooking smells from their private grills. Got lost again in a pen where they keep rental scooters. There was no way out but to double back. Often when I'm in wandermode, I just wind up and go until I get trapped, and then I look for a hole in a fence or a crack in a wall, and they usually manifest themselves. But this scooterpen was air tight. Doubled back.
Enjoyed watching some orange-juice guys squeeze oranges, got yelled at by a dentist for taking a picture of his sign. Gone were the days of apologies and "shukrans." I told him to fuck himself. The mask of civility was slipping permanently down. There's a weird kind of pressure here, an emotional exhaustion. It was much easier to roll my eyes at his concern than to respect his wishes. I mean, it was a public-facing sign, but there's some kind of cultural more I was violating. I usually respect it, but in the moment it was more sorrynotsorry.
If he'd been a Tangier dentist, I would have bowed and deleted the photo, but by now...
All roads lead back to the Jemaa el Fna, and I poked around the edges. Lots of elderly British couples holding one another's fingers. Dates, raisins, figs. Phone cases, bells, scarves. A dark ebony boy selling selfie sticks. He sells selfie sticks by the seashore. People bought them. Nobody bought the fake wristwatches. That I saw.
Had lunch at an "art bar." In the other cities I'd been to, the European investments were subtle. Riads behind gates or deep in the medina for example. But here, it was pretty obvious that some French dude or some British widow was like, "For the money, I can own a fifth of a flower cart in Piccadilly Circus, or I can have my own two-story restaurant in Marrakech."
So, I ate smashed avocado on toast, the first real non-tajine meal I'd eaten in weeks. Reclined on a long cushion and read Emma. What a meddlesome matchmaker she was. It was, of course, fun to fantasize about moving here and opening The Romance Cafe and decorating the walls with my collection of Harlequin paintings. A lover of mine once had this idea. But it could be real here.
What would it be like to actually belong. Would the locals stop grabbing at your sleeves? Or would the rug salesmen just be replaced with inspectors who needed bribing and gendarmes who needed greasing? Went home for a siesta. Wrote a little bit. Napped.
It was still early afternoon when I stretched awake, so I got the camera and went out for one last round of snaps. Long walk through an open-air park, took a turn over to the mosque. Beggars wept on cue. I blanked them and one really screamed at me. It sounded like she called me a "wastrel." Wild how they can change on a dime like that. "Oh, sir, I'm so gentle and helpless, and... WASTREL!"
It was probably a gypsy curse. If it was, "You will return home to fall in love with a cat who bites you and sprays your clothes," then it came true. I didn't enter the mosque. You can't unless you believe. You must be at least this faithful to ride the mosque. Apparently the only one that lets you in the see the splendors of the architecture is in Casablanca.
Prayed my way to a cafe and took notes and planned a trip to Essaouira for the morning. It's a seaside town where you can find a fisherman on the beach to sell you something he just caught and another man who will cook it for you right there. You buy the fish, give it to the cook, go buy some rugs for a while, and come back to eat it. Cool breezes.
It seemed like the perfect way to spend what would be my last day there. Home, so far-away seeming was suddenly approaching. A distant ship grown large.
Cold dates for dinner. No one bothered me on the walk back to the Marvelous apartment. I must have appeared confident and resolved. They can sense when you're open and when you're closed.
I saw the maid in the street. She was washing her feet in a bucket. Finally doing something for herself.
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