by Tahir Shah
'I bought the story of "The Horseman and the Snake",' I said.
Before I could bemoan its high price, Murad stepped forward and touched my arm.
'Some things in this world are beyond value,' he said, 'and that tale is such a thing. It is like a precious gem. Hold it to the light, turn it and it shines like a ruby.'
At that moment, a group of henpecked husbands slunk into the barber's, no doubt hiding from their wives. On seeing the storyteller, they cowered a little lower and wished him peace.
'We shall find privacy,' Murad said darkly.
I picked up the Berber chest and the storyteller led me out into the narrow lanes towards the green mosque. I followed the patched hem of his jelaba as it jerked past stalls heaped with pink nylon sweaters, cows' hooves and rice.
The passages of Marrakech are so packed with people, animals and objects that you have to learn to move through them in a new way. I found myself watching local Marrakchis who have spent their lives roaming the medina. They don't walk so much as glide, ready at any instant to dodge to the right or the left to avoid a pile of oncoming hides, a blind beggar, or a charging pack mule.
Murad the storyteller wasn't as nimble as he might once have been. He ran a hand along the wall as he walked, steadying himself.
I followed the jelaba hem in silence, wondering where its owner was leading me. Suddenly, it slipped through a squat doorway, framed in peeling paint, and along a curved corridor. I hurried to keep up, weighed down with the Berber chest. At the far end of the corridor we climbed a ladder and found ourselves in a tall vaulted room. There was no furniture except for a mattress and a pile of rags, which seemed to be used as a kind of blanket.
Murad fluttered his fingers at the mattress and we sat at either end.
'This is where I live,' he said. 'Let it be your home.'
We talked pleasantries for a moment or two, before I launched into the reason I had come.
'My friend has a dream and that's why I am here,' I told him. The storyteller touched the tips of his tapered fingers together and listened. 'He wants you to come to Casablanca and tell stories. You see, he believes that Morocco is losing its cultural heart. He needs you to help in the war against television.'
Murad didn't reply at first. He just sat there on the edge of his mattress, gently rocking back and forth, ruminating. Just as I was wondering if he would say anything at all, he opened his mouth a crack.
'Your friend is right,' he said, 'but he is also wrong.'
'About what?'
'About stories, about what they mean.'
The storyteller picked up a rag and fed it through his fingers.
'To know about stories you must know about people,' he said. 'The listeners are the key. Understand how they listen and you will find you hold immense power in your grasp.'
'But television—'
'Forget about television,' Murad said, cutting in. 'It's worthless because it enters through the eyes and suffocates the imagination. Feed people something more tantalizing and they will close their eyes and open their ears.'
Murad blinked. He sat still like a bronze Buddha, hands in his lap, frosted eyes staring to the front. I said something, I can't remember what. He didn't hear me anyway, for he was listening to the call of the fish-seller down on the street.
At that moment I realized Murad was blind.
One night, a few weeks after he had come to stay at our home, the red-headed man with the lisp gave me a matchbox. I slid its drawer open and found a pebble inside. It was blue-grey with a vein of brilliant white running down one edge. The red-headed man, whom we had come to know as Slipper Feet, because he never wore ordinary shoes, tapped it on to my palm. I put it to my cheek and rubbed it up and down.
'It's so smooth,' I said.
Slipper Feet smiled. 'Of course it is,' he said gently, 'because it's from the end of the world.'
I touched the pebble to my tongue.
'It tastes salty,' I said.
'That's because it's from the deepest depths of the greatest ocean.'
I weighed it on my hand.
'It's heavy.'
'Yes, but when it's in the water it's light like a feather,' said Slipper Feet.
'But it's just a pebble,' I said.
The red-headed man smiled from the corner of his mouth.
'To a fool it's a pebble,' he said.
Murad the storyteller told me he had never been able to see. He could tell light from dark and could make out vague shapes, but that was about all.
'I have never had eyesight to hold me back,' he said when we met the next day at the Argana café on the main square.
I asked how he managed to get around without the power of vision. The storyteller let out a croak of laughter.
'How do you survive in a world so limited by one sense?' he replied. 'Close your eyes and your heart will open.'
The waiter brought cups of milky hot chocolate. It made a change from the bitter café noir. We sat at the edge of the café terrace, me peering down at the hubbub of Jemaa el Fna and Murad listening to it all.
I told him that I wanted to find the story in my heart, that I was searching but had no idea how to go about it. The storyteller sipped his hot chocolate and sat in silent concentration.
'You have to trust yourself,' he said eventually. 'It's in there, but you must believe that it really is . . .'
'Do you believe?'
Murad dabbed a finger to his eye.
'Of course, I believe,' he said.
'Have you ever searched for the story in your heart?'
The storyteller gazed over at me, his cataracts reflecting the bright winter light.
'I searched for it for years,' he said, 'like a madman hunting for a grain of salt in a bucket of sand. My neighbour's son agreed to act as my eyes, my fifth sense. We travelled from Marrakech up to the tip of Tangier, down the coast and inland, across the Atlas and into the Sahara. When we had reached dunes as high as mountains, we turned round and retraced our steps. On the journey, I asked every man, woman and child we passed if they could tell me the story in my heart. They made fun of me, a stupid blind man led by a boy, looking for a part of him he couldn't see.'
'Did you find the story?'
Murad paused.
'I was walking down the beach near Assilah,' he said. 'A blustery winter day, damp and cold, with a scent of liquorice in the wind. My discomfort was great. My hands had been burned in a fire and were all bandaged up. Our feet sank deep in the sand and we staggered like shipwrecked sailors without a hope. I cursed myself for leaving the comfort of Marrakech when a great wave broke on the shore. I could smell it as it rolled in and I heard the tremendous force.
'The wave washed up an eel on the sand, near to where I was standing. I couldn't see it, of course, but the boy shouted loud when he saw it lying there.'
'Was it alive?'
'Oh, yes, it was,' said Murad. 'And it spoke to me.'
I sipped my hot chocolate.
'The eel raised itself as tall as it could and it laughed at me. It laughed and laughed until it choked.'
The storyteller bristled with anger.
'Can you imagine how I felt?' he said. 'A simple blind man being mocked by an eel.'
'Why was it laughing?'
'The eel had seen me stumbling down the beach, bandaged and blind to the world, and it found humour in the sight.
'"Look at you," it said in a shrill voice, "the grand race of mankind reduced to this!"
'I explained to the eel the circumstances in which it had found me were abnormal, that I was on a journey, searching for something invisible yet of great value.
'The sea creature cleared its throat and said, "Why are you searching?"
'"I told you, to find the story in my heart."
'The eel sighed.
'"Why are you really searching?"
'"So that I might become whole," I said.
'"Well, this is a very auspicious day," said the eel haughtily, "because I am an ele
ctric eel and we electric eels have certain properties that are nothing special under the sea, but are quite surprising to you humans. If you listen carefully I shall peer through the layers of your skin and flesh and look for the story in your chest."
'On hearing this, I felt overcome with elation,' said Murad. 'I couldn't see the eel, but it was as if he had been sent to me, sent to me by God. I sat back on the sand, tucked my burned hands under my arms, and I waited.
'The eel cleared his throat once again and, penetrating my chest with his electric eyes, he whispered, "Yours is the 'Tale of Mushkil Gusha'".'
The storyteller drained his hot chocolate and wiped his mouth with his hand.
'Won't you tell me the story?' I said.
'What day of the week is it today?' he asked.
'It's Tuesday.'
'Then you will have to wait,' said Murad, 'for as everyone knows, the "Tale of Mushkil Gusha" can only be told on a Thursday night.'
We walked down the stairs of the Argana café, Murad running his long tapered fingers across the wall as he went. I offered to lead him back to his home, but the old storyteller scoffed.
'I am a spider and the medina is my web,' he said. 'I know every inch of it and every inch of it knows me.'
We arranged to meet at dusk on Thursday evening so I might hear the 'Tale of Mushkil Gusha'. It seemed somehow important, as if by learning Murad's tale, I might be closer to finding my own.
The storyteller turned on his heel and pushed into the sea of bobbing heads. I followed him for a moment or two, the calico turban poking up out of the crowd like a flag.
Then he was gone.
In Marrakech, night falls in the blink of an eye. I glanced up at the canvas of stars glinting above, mirroring the butane lamps on the food stands below. Sheep were roasting on a thousand homemade stalls, oily smoke rising heavenwards, conical clay tagines sizzling like firestorms from Hell.
These days, tourists flock to Marrakech in their thousands. They find solace in the plush hotels out in the Palmeraie or in traditional riads set deep in the medina. Marrakech may not have lost its essence, but the people who venture to it have changed. A journey to the Red City used to be a right of passage in itself, that is until the first passenger jets connected it to the world.
I believe that Marrakech ought to be earned as a destination. The journey is the preparation for the experience. Reaching it too fast derides it, makes it a little less easy to understand.
The narrow passages of the medina swell with tourists except in the blazing summer months, when a searing drought blows in. I used to think the tourists were set to destroy the soul of the city. After all, there are towering hotels, guides and restaurants wherever you look. The tourists have certainly brought wealth and have heralded change, but their effect doesn't penetrate.
Jemaa el Fna is the heart of Marrakech. By day it's a turbulent circus of life – teeming with astrologers, healers, storytellers and acrobats. And when the curtain of dusk shrouds the city from the desert all around, the food stalls flare up, creating a banquet for the senses. A quick glance and you might think it's all been laid on for the sightseers. But the longer you spend there, the more you come to see the truth. The tourists take photographs but they don't connect.
With its outlandish customs, Jemaa el Fna is a focal point of folklore, a borehole that descends down through the layers and sublayers of Morocco's underbelly. A lifetime of study couldn't teach you all it represents. To understand it, you must try not to think, but to allow the square's raw energy to be absorbed directly through the skin.
On Thursday afternoon, I waited as the sun arched over Marrakech. It was early November and the Atlas mountains were already charged with snow; a more glorious backdrop would be impossible to find. I sat at the Argana café and waited for Murad to feel his way up the stairs. Afternoon turned to dusk and dusk turned to night. I was wondering if the old storyteller had forgotten the appointment, when I felt a hand on my shoulder.
'"Mushkil Gusha" is the remover of obstacles,' said Murad in his soft husky voice. 'If you have the patience to listen, you may see the world with new eyes. But a responsibility comes with this tale.'
'What responsibility?'
The storyteller sat down and took a deep breath.
'You must repeat the tale each Thursday night,' he said.
I smiled and choked out some sharp retort.
'Take it lightly', he snapped, 'and your obstacles will become all the greater.'
'Do you tell the story every Thursday night?'
Murad agreed that he did.
'And do all the people who hear it go on and tell it, too?'
'Some do,' he replied; 'others sit in groups and listen. Whether you tell the tale or hear it, the effect is the same. For "Mushkil Gusha" must enter your ears.'
The storyteller pressed the tips of his fingers together, drew the lids over his blind eyes and said: 'Once upon a time, long ago, when Marrakech was no more than a hamlet, there was living in Arabia a widowed woodcutter and his daughter, named Jamia. Each morning, the woodcutter would leave his small cottage before the cockerel had crowed, to search for wood in the mountains to sell down in the valley.
'Now one night before she turned in for bed, young Jamia begged her father to buy for her one of the pies she had seen for sale in the town's market, and one of the frilly dresses hanging in the tailor's window. Her father promised to leave home well before dawn and to cut twice as much firewood as he usually did, to make some extra money.
'So long before the cockerel had woken, the woodcutter crept out of the house and made his way to the mountain. He cut double the normal amount of wood, prepared it well, put it on his back and headed for home.
'Once back at the cottage, the woodcutter found the door was bolted shut. It was still early and his daughter was still sleeping. "Daughter," he called "I am hungry and thirsty after so much work. Please let me in." Jamia was so sound asleep that she didn't wake from her slumber. The woodcutter went round to the barn and fell asleep on a pile of hay. A few hours later he awoke and knocked at the door again, "Let me in little Jamia," he cried, "for I shall have to set off for the market and I need to eat and drink."
'But the door was bolted as before.
'Not realizing that his daughter had gone off to visit her friends, the woodcutter struggled to lift the firewood on to his back, and he set off towards the town, hoping to reach it before sunset. He was hungry and thirsty beyond words, but kept thinking about the delicious pie and the dress he would bring home to his beloved daughter.
'After an hour or so of walking, the woodcutter thought he heard a voice. It was the voice of a young woman, calling out to him, "Drop your wood and follow me," it said, "and your mouth will be rewarded." The woodcutter let the giant bundle fall to the ground and began to trudge in the direction of the voice. After some time, he realized he was lost. He called to the voice, but there was no answer. Night was approaching and the poor old man fell to the ground and wept.
'After some time he regained his senses and tried to be more positive. To pass the time he decided to tell himself the day's events as a kind of tale, for it was far too cold to sleep. As he got to the end, he heard the voice again. "What are you doing?" it said. "I'm cold and hungry, and so I am passing the time by talking to myself," said the woodcutter. The voice told him to stand up and to raise one foot in the air. "What do you mean?" he asked. The voice repeated the instructions a second time. "Do exactly as I tell you," it said, "and your mouth will be rewarded."
'The woodcutter lifted his right foot in the air and found it was standing on something, an invisible step of some kind. He fumbled with his hand and felt another step above the first. "Walk up it," said the voice. Following the orders, the woodcutter found he was suddenly transported to a deserted wasteland, covered in dark-blue pebbles. "Where is this?" the woodcutter asked. "The place at the end of time," the voice replied. "Fill your pockets with the pebbles and make a promise that every Thursday night you
will recount this, the 'Tale of Mushkil Gusha', for it is he who has saved you." The woodcutter did as he was told and no sooner had he done so than he found himself standing at the doorway of his own home. His daughter, Jamia, was waiting for him.
'"Where have you been, Father?" she asked. Once they were inside, the woodcutter told her about the invisible staircase and then emptied his pockets. "But, Father, pebbles won't buy us food," said Jamia. The old man put his head in his hands, but then he remembered the extra large bundle of wood he had cut that morning. He put the pebbles near the fireplace and went off to bed, ready for an early start.
'Next day, he went out, found the wood easily and hauled it down to market. The bundle sold without any trouble, for four times its usual price. The woodcutter bought as much food as he could carry and a pink and blue dress from the tailor's shop.
'Now,' said Murad, leaning back on his chair, 'for a whole week, the woodcutter's fortune seemed to go from strength to strength. The wood was abundant in the forest and his axe seemed sharper than usual. The path down the valley wasn't slippery as it tended to be and in the town there was a great demand for well-chopped wood.
'A full week after his journey up the invisible staircase, it was time to recount the "Tale of Mushkil Gusha". But being a mortal, the old woodcutter forgot his duty and went to bed. The next evening, he noticed the cottage had filled with a strange red light. He soon realized that the light was shining from the pebbles he had scooped up the week before. "We are rich beyond our wildest dreams!" he exclaimed to his daughter.
'Over the coming weeks, the woodcutter and Jamia sold the precious gems in towns throughout the kingdom. Within a month or two, they were fabulously wealthy, so much so that they built a castle opposite the palace in which the king lived.
'When asked where he came from, the woodcutter put on a heavy accent and said he had journeyed from a country far to the east, where he had made a fortune selling silks from Bokhara. It wasn't long before the humble woodcutter was invited to the palace. He wore white satin gloves to hide the roughness of his hands and presented the king with a large diamond pendant.