by Tahir Shah
But all is not lost.
I am certain that symbolism can be taught again, that by reintroducing a knowledge of how it works, Western society would learn once more how to tap into layers of accumulated wisdom that form a backdrop to their lives. It would be like teaching a language that has been forgotten so that an ancient literature could be accessed again, or like learning a formula with the intention of breaking a code.
Ariane finished her blue ice cream and licked the bowl with her tongue. She said that when she was bigger she would live in a house in Chefchaouen with a pink pet dinosaur called Floss. She reminded me of myself. We had rumbled through the town more than once on our travels as children. If I closed my eyes, I could see us sitting in the square, wrapped up in tie-dye sweaters, licking blue ice cream.
On one visit, my father got talking to a hippy who had followed Jimi Hendrix to Morocco back in '69. He had been too stoned ever to find his hero or to get back home. He was working in a café on one of the back streets, a café that doubled as hash den, and was trying to find a ride back to England. When he saw our red Ford Cortina pull in, he ran out in a stoned stupor and kissed the front licence plate.
My father used to say that hashish had rotted generations of great Arab minds and was set to have the same effect in Europe and beyond. He tried to warn the hippies of the scourge they were facing. When he saw the tie-dyed waiter clutching the front of our station wagon, he told him to give up the weed and to think for himself.
'But I don't want to think for myself, man,' said the hippy despondently.
'What?'
'I'm searching for a guru, man,' he said. 'He'll tell me what to do.'
'You don't need a guru; you just need to regain control of your own mind.'
The hippy stood up. He was swaying. He pulled a frail grey kitten from his jacket pocket and touched its head to his lips.
'But you don't understand,' he said.
'What don't I understand?'
'I have heard of a guy who can help me.'
My father rolled his eyes.
'Yeah,' said the hippy, swaying. 'He's in England.'
'Where does he live?'
'Not sure, man.'
'What's his name?'
The hippy stuffed the kitten back in his pocket. He thought for a long time and looked as if he was about to pass out.
'He wrote some books. I've got 'em all, man.'
'But what's his name?'
'He's called . . .'
'What?'
'He's called Idries Shah.'
Back at the Caliph's House everything was quiet. The guardians had taken to buying sardines from a bicycle that was pushed through the shantytown twice a day. The crate tied to the back was slithering with fish. The sardines were placed carefully on the stork nest, in the hope of enticing the great bird to return.
When he saw my car approaching down the lane, Osman leapt out of the garden door and smothered the children in kisses. He seemed very happy. We went into the house. Zohra fussed around us, grabbed Timur and forced a packet of chewing gum down his throat. The Bear stood in the doorway and asked politely if he might tell me something. I feared a resignation, or news of a family crisis, or a wedding, the kind of thing that tended to result in my parting with large amounts of cash.
'Is it that you are all moving to new apartments?'
'No, Monseiur Tahir,' said Marwan. 'The move has been cancelled.'
'Then, why are you so happy?'
'It's Osman,' said the Bear.
'What about him?'
'His wife . . .'
'What now?'
'She has come back,' he said.
'And he accepted her?'
The Bear nodded.
I punched the air and went out to congratulate Osman.
In Moroccan society it is not fitting for a man to be too familiar with another man's domestic arrangement, unless the two men are married into the same family. Osman was washing my car, sloshing water everywhere. I moved in to shake his hand. He offered his wrist because it was dry.
'I am very happy for you,' I said.
Osman grinned so broadly that I glimpsed the back of his throat.
'God has blessed me,' he said.
The two maids began a new war of attrition for Timur's affection. It started with an offensive initiated by Fatima. She presented my little son with a bow and arrow. I didn't want to undermine her kindness and so I didn't confiscate the toy. Timur took to stalking Zohra round the house, firing sucker darts at her bottom. Anyone else would have scolded him, but Zohra loved the attention. The next day when she turned up for work, she gave Timur a gift – a soldier set: handcuffs, bandoliers, revolvers and matching grenades. He seemed very pleased, much more so than I, especially when I saw the brand name: 'Osama Bin Laden', followed by the familiar phrase 'Made in China'.
Timur grabbed the weaponry and hurried upstairs. He said he was a pirate and that his bedroom was Treasure Island. Then he rounded up the guardians and shut them in the guest bathroom. He said it was his prison and charged about on his tricycle, firing sucker darts at anyone who got in the way. Ariane wasn't impressed, especially when she was shot on the back of the head by one of the darts. She came down, screaming. I confiscated the weapons. But then Fatima rushed out and bought Timur a plastic M-16 assault rifle, the cutting edge of the Osama Bin Laden range. Fortunately, I managed to get my hands on the gun before Timur had seen it. I was beginning to worry for his safety.
'Don't you see that these toys are dangerous, Fatima?'
The maid put a hand to her mouth and giggled.
'He likes them,' she said.
'Of course he does, because he's a boy, but they're a bad influence. You have to remember that he's not even three yet.'
Just then, Zohra stepped into the house. She was dragging a black plastic bag. Something shiny and long was poking out of the end. It looked like a length of plastic guttering pipe.
'It's for little Timur,' she said lovingly.
'What is it?'
She pulled back the plastic bag, revealing a terrifying weapon.
It was a toy bazooka.
Two weeks passed. Spring seemed to come and go in a day, ushering us into an early summer. I bought two dozen cans of paint and some brushes, and encouraged the guardians to work. For once, they didn't resent me. The Bear even went as far as thanking me.
'You are a good man, Monsieur Tahir,' he said. 'God has seen your kindness.'
'He will remember it on Judgment Day,' said Marwan.
'Do you three want something from me?' I asked accusingly.
'No, no,' they replied, three voices as one.
'Then, why are you thanking me?'
'Because we love you, Monsieur Tahir.'
As it was Friday, I went to see Dr Mehdi and the other regulars at Café Mabrook. I walked through the bidonville, greeting the imam and some of the people we know who live there, down to the Corniche and across to the café. But something was wrong, very wrong. Café Mabrook was missing.
Where it had stood since the beginning of time there was now a crater. Beside it was a sign. It said in French: 'The City of Casablanca apologizes for any inconvenience.'
I stood there, staring at the hole and the sign, rocking back and forth on my heels.
'Bastards!' I snarled to myself. 'How could this be allowed?'
Hafad sidled up and then Zohra's husband. A few minutes later Dr Mehdi appeared.
'When did this happen?' I asked bitterly.
'Last night,' said Hafad.
'Where's Abdul Latif?'
'He's away from Casablanca, visiting his family in the Atlas.'
'He doesn't know about this?'
'Not yet,' said Hafad.
'We have to do something,' I said boldly.
'What?'
'Um, er, we could start an action committee,' I said.
Dr Mehdi put an arm round my shoulder.
'I've got another idea,' he said.
'What is it?'
>
'We could forget about Café Mabrook and go somewhere else instead.'
There was a round of applause from the other regulars. They sauntered off down the Corniche in search of a new haunt. I stayed outside Café Mabrook for a few minutes, as if paying my respects in private to a deceased friend.
Then I ran after the others.
TWENTY-FOUR
When you arrive at the sea, you
Do not talk of the tributary.
Hakim Sanai
FROM TIME TO TIME LIFE SENDS YOU SOMEONE WHO IS SO unexpected that you wonder how you ever lived without them.
In May, Rachana and the children went to India to visit my inlaws and I felt free from all responsibility. I decided to travel south on rough local transport and have another go at finding the story in my heart. Until then I had been quite lackadaisical in my search, but I felt it was now time to strive for real progress.
Over the years I have learned that real adventure can only come about through zigzag travel. One of life's great sensations is walking along a road without any idea where it leads or what will happen next.
So I made my way south of Casablanca, on the road to Marrakech. A truck carrying cement from Meknès picked me up. It was so decrepit that the driver had to stop every half-hour to pump air into the tyres. He said that once, long before, the truck had been new and he had been young.
'Where did the years go?' he said, as he fed the wheel between his callused hands. I asked him if he had a story in his heart.
'The only thing I have in my heart is a pain,' he said. 'It comes every morning and every night. It's due to smoking too much when I was a young man. It serves me right. Young men are fools but it is old men who pay for their mistakes.'
The truck driver pulled the key from the ignition and let his tired old vehicle slide to a graceful halt. We both jumped down into the dust and choked until our faces were red.
'I think I'll stay here,' I said.
'You are young and foolish,' said the driver. 'Stay here and you will choke to death on the dust.'
'I'll go to that café.'
'The coffee will kill you,' the driver grunted.
'Well, I may meet someone interesting.'
'There's never anyone interesting in places like this, just thieves,' he said, forcing his weight down on to an ancient foot-pump.
He paused to press his rough palm on to mine and I crossed the road in search of coffee. The café had no name. It was the kind of place frequented by drivers of worn-out cement trucks from Meknès. The walls were bare, peeling lilac paint, dust and broken chairs. I sat down. The waiter didn't come over at first, as if he was too busy or didn't want the business. I spent five minutes eagerly trying to catch his eye. It seemed absurd as I was the only customer. Eventually he sauntered to my table with an ashtray and a glass of water.
'The dust is very bad,' he said, choking. 'It drives a man mad.'
I commiserated, asked for coffee and sat back on the broken chair, waiting for something to happen. In Africa the bleakest outlook can be changed miraculously in a moment. It is a question of maintaining faith, faith in the bizarre.
The coffee arrived, thick and bitter just as I like it. I took a sip, then another, before wiping the dust from my face. Then I looked up. The waiter was looming over me.
'I told you,' he said, smirking. 'The dust, it will drive you mad.'
Just then, as I wondered how I might escape the waiter and his obsession with dust, a well-dressed figure entered. He was six foot two, broad-shouldered and moved with confidence. He looked Moroccan, with an aquiline nose and black hair groomed back with a touch of gel.
Outside I heard the rumble of a worn engine sparking fitfully into life. I looked out of the window. The cement truck from Meknès was pulling away in a cloud of diesel fumes. When I turned back, the waiter was leading the suave man to my table.
'You have a connection,' he said.
'Do we?'
'Yes.'
'What is it?'
'You are both travellers.'
'So?'
'So you should sit together.'
He pulled out a chair and the man sat down. In an American voice he said, 'Only in Morocco would two travellers be expected to share a table in an empty café.'
We chatted for almost an hour and in that time I learned that the man was named Yousef, but preferred to be called Joe. He had lived in northern California since his teens, but had been born in the medina at Marrakech. He returned each year to see his family at their ancestral farm nearby.
He asked why I had broken my journey in such an uncelebrated place. I explained my interest in the folklore of Morocco and the Berber concept of searching for the tale within your heart.
'This is as good a place as any to find it,' I said.
There was silence for a while. Then Joe glanced out of the window.
'There are streams running under the ground,' he said.
I wondered if Joe was a madman, a well-dressed madman. Rachana says that madmen can smell me. They always make a beeline for me, usually pinning me to a wall at a party or into my window seat on a long-haul flight.
'I don't follow you,' I said.
'In the south of Morocco people believe that there are streams running under the ground.'
'They believe that everywhere, not just in southern Morocco.'
'No, no, it's you who doesn't understand,' he said politely. 'The streams don't run with water.' He tapped a finger to the glass on the table. 'Not this,' he said.
'Then, what do they run with if it's not water?'
'With words,' he said.
I sensed my back growing warm, the feeling you get when ideas connect, the spark, the moment of breakthrough.
Joe looked at me hard.
'The streams irrigate Morocco,' he said, 'like water on farmland, they have allowed the civilization to grow, to thrive. Why is Morocco what it is? Why does it mesmerize everyone who comes here, with its colours, with its atmosphere?'
Joe paused for a moment, sipped his coffee.
'It's because of the streams,' he said.
The Sufis say that teaching stories belong to human society as a whole and that, if tapped, their power is sufficient to unlock man's entire potential. They say that until their minds are stirred with stories, people are asleep. The stories are a kind of key, a catalyst, a device to help humanity think in a certain way, to help us wake up from the sleep.
The subterranean streams that Joe spoke of reminded me of the Sufi idea, which was no coincidence. For Morocco has been home to Sufis since the advent of Islam thirteen centuries ago. The streams were reminiscent, too, of the Aboriginal 'Songlines', invisible pathways linking the land with the history of a people who lived upon it.
The more I thought about them, the more the waterless streams made sense.
I had hoped that Joe would invite me back to his family's farm. He had said it was no more than a stone's throw from the café. But he didn't extend an invitation. Perhaps he thought I was the maniac. After two cups of coffee he stood up, thanked me for the conversation and excused himself.
Over the following days, I travelled from one small community to the next, struggling to make myself understood, pleading for stories. Much of the time, the people I encountered sent me on a little further to someone else, like the illiterate fool in the story with a note he couldn't understand, a note that read 'Send the fool another mile'. Some of them did tell me tales. Others did not. Frequently, I would be taken in, dusted down and fed with a banquet by people who had almost nothing.
Zigzag travel has tremendous highs, but its lows can be depressingly deep. The lowest point was waiting for a bus that never came near a small town called Guisser, northeast of Marrakech. I had spent almost all my money and hadn't found a bank as I had hoped. It was getting dark. I didn't know what to do. Then out of the twilight stepped a navy-blue uniform with a matching cap. I braced myself for trouble, or at least to give an explanation. I wished the policeman a good eve
ning and told him I was waiting for the night bus to Casablanca.
'There isn't a night bus,' he said. 'There's no bus from here.'
I felt my face fall.
'What will you do?' asked the officer.
'I suppose I'll sleep here,' I said.
He held up a hand.
'You will stay in my house,' he said, taking me by the arm and leading me up the main street to a concrete apartment building. We climbed stairs, more and more of them, until we were on the uppermost floor.
Keys jingled and the front door swung open.
'I live here alone,' he said. 'My family are in Marrakech.'
The officer prepared a pot of mint tea and we sat together in silence.
'Shouldn't you be on duty?' I asked.
'Oh no, the town's safe,' he said.
We went through the salvo of questions familiar to any traveller: where are you from? Where are you going? Why are you in our town?
I knocked back the replies in quick succession and said, 'I'm here because I am searching for the story in my heart.'
The officer's face lit up.
'I have a story,' he said. 'It has been told and retold in my family for a long time.'
'Would you tell it to me?'
'Of course, I will!' said the policeman, pouring more tea. 'I will tell it to you at once.'
I sat back and the officer cleared his throat.
'In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful,' he said. 'There was once a young man who was very restless. He travelled from one village to the next, hoping to find a teacher who could teach him something of value. People would see him going from one place to another and treated him kindly, because he was a good young man, very well-mannered. One day he met a sage who was regarded as very wise indeed.
'The youth said to him, "I am very restless and I cannot stop running from one place to another. It's the way I am and people think it strange. I wish I could be happy and I wish I could settle down." The wise man listened to the boy, thought for a while and replied: "I understand your condition and I can help you. But if you want me to be of help, you must not question the remedy that I am going to prescribe." "O wise sage," he replied, "of course I would not question your orders. I shall follow them exactly even if it means I do nothing else in the remainder of my days."