by Jenny Mollen
“Do you know him?” I inquired.
“Yeah, good guy. He’s hilarious.”
Doud pulled our suitcases out of the Mercedes’s cavernous trunk and smiled at us with a mouth full of silver before getting back into his car and taking off.
“Wait,” I cried. “Are you sure we don’t need him anymore?”
It was too late. Doud was gone in one direction and Dan in the other.
Sliding down the rocky cliff in UGG boots that were meant for sitting in the Coffee Bean on Sunset, it started to dawn on me that when Dan said something was a small journey away, he actually meant that if you had any preexisting health conditions you probably shouldn’t follow.
Dan was pumped when, after what felt like four miles of rock jumping but might have been four minutes, we arrived at our destination. A man he called Danger walked out to greet us. He nodded hello as a clambering rooster writhed in his arms. The three-story concrete home was an impressive departure from the surrounding structures and, according to a later Zillow search, the most expensive home on the mountain.
“What’s for dinner?” Brandon asked, salivating like a Labrador at an outdoor café.
“Probably one of those.” Dan pointed toward a small pen containing an emaciated cow and a small goat.
“So it isn’t ready yet?” I panicked.
Inside the concrete compound, a woman and her two sons stood in an open kitchen, brewing tea. It was dark save for a single lightbulb that swung from the ceiling. Danger escorted us down a long, dilapidated corridor that smelled like a soaking wet suit forgotten in the trunk of a car. Looking up, I could see twigs and branches peeking through the newly plastered roof, vestiges of a more provincial time. Danger beamed with pride as Dan explained to us that when he first started visiting the valley years ago, Danger lived in a hut like everybody else, but after four years of opening his home to travelers, he had saved enough money to build the palace we were standing in.
We were escorted into a room where I imagine Osama bin Laden had at some point been hidden. In a corner of the empty, carpeted space was a pile of rugs and two large pieces of foam.
“Oh, yeah! I get so excited when I get a bed.” Dan looked at Tifa, extending his hand for a high five. She obliged, but I could tell that part of her hated Dan.
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I knew I was looking for a test of my bravery that I could share with my son, but I wasn’t expecting to do an overnight at what looked like the honeymoon suite at a Taliban training camp. Brandon’s face lost all color as he peeked around the corner at the bathroom.
“Guys? There’s no toilet.”
Dan and Danger exchanged a few words.
“Yeah, they still use squat toilets. Oh, and I guess the water isn’t working right now, but hopefully in the morning.” I realized that Dan guaranteeing something was pretty much a sure way to know it was never going to happen.
“I once used a toilet like that in China and ended up shitting on my feet,” I confided to Randolph.
“Brandon doesn’t know I shit,” Randolph replied matter-of-factly.
After being shown our rooms, Tifa, Randolph, and I settled into the main salon just off the kitchen. Large picture windows showcased the lushness of a land untouched by time. Randolph waited until Dan was out of earshot before interrogating Tifa.
“So are you guys like a couple? Or did you ever have a crush on each other or—”
“I have a crush on everybody I meet,” Tifa cut in. “I even have a small crush on you.” She looked at him and giggled.
“Aw, I love this girl!” Randolph gently patted Tifa on the back as though she were a puppy he found in a box on the side of the road and that probably had rabies.
Dan entered the room with Danger trailing behind him.
“Dinner is ready! And I think we got the cow!” He took his laptop off the table and a small tagine was placed in its center.
“There isn’t any silverware, so we all have to use our hands.”
Tifa grabbed a triangle of bread out of a straw basket and scooped up a bit of olive and onions. Under the blanket of vegetables hid a small pile of bones. I think they might have belonged to a chinchilla. I laid claim to the largest section of flesh I could find and quickly stuffed it in my mouth to establish that I was the pack leader. “Are we sure this is the cow?”
Randolph peered out the window, but it was too dark to see if the cow was missing.
“I could live on olives,” Dan said, popping a single olive in his mouth, then kicking back in his chair as if he was now full.
Randolph and I scarfed down what was left of the tagine as the rest of the group watched.
“You two are way more adventurous than I am,” Brandon said. “What if you get sick?” He stuck a stick of butter between two pieces of bread and made a sandwich.
“I want to get sick!” I said. “I still have baby fat to lose.”
“Me, too!” Randolph pinched his perfectly round cheeks, causing a bit of marrow to peek out of the corner of his mouth.
After dinner, Dan walked us through the schedule for the morning. A car would pick us up at seven and take us to the co-op. Around 3 p.m., a different car would retrieve us and drive us back to Danger’s house to get our things, where yet another car would be waiting to return us safely to Marrakech. The plan seemed reasonable. Though he’d grossly oversold the lodging situation, I still trusted that Dan had everything under control.
When it got too dark in the room to make direct eye contact, the group started to disperse. Dan reached his arms up and fake-yawned, then bid us good night. Tifa followed, but not before making it very clear that they were sleeping in separate rooms. Brandon popped a melatonin, slipped into a matching silk pajama set, and disappeared into the Osama chamber.
I was tired, but Randolph was wide awake and wanted to talk about the people we both hated on Twitter. I was more interested in our host.
“Wait,” I said, “can we revisit the Dan subject again? Why isn’t he more into us? And, I mean, he isn’t just some asshole posting selfies with a piece of paper that says #JeSuisCharlie. He’s like a real-life humanitarian who doesn’t even have a Facebook page. There’s obviously something deeply wrong with him. What do you think it is?”
“Do you think that he hates us?” Randolph said under his breath.
“I wish! I don’t think he even cares about us enough to hate us.”
It was pitch black, and I’d followed an indifferent stranger into the middle of nowhere. I scolded myself for not having prepared myself better for this trip. For not being more like Jason and doing my research. And why was I there? So I could prove that I was capable? Capable of getting lost?
My eyes were bloodshot and my clothes unchanged when we met Dan and Tifa in the dining area for breakfast. The rooster we’d seen in Danger’s arms the night before wasn’t making a sound, which explained our dinner. Randolph and I had stayed up all night, eating argan-oil crackers and discussing how even Miranda must think she is the Carrie of her group.
We waited an hour, bleary-eyed, for the van taking us to Ait Bouguemez, but it never arrived. Dan stepped out, then returned.
“So, I spoke with Danger and he said we missed the van. Guess it came earlier today,” he said casually.
“Earlier? When? Is there another car we can get? Where’s Doud?” I was going to be pissed if I’d come all this way just to eat a fucking rooster. Dan was killing me.
“Doud had to go pick up some people in the Sahara.”
“Doud drove directly from us to the Sahara? How does that even make sense?” If only I’d stayed in Doud’s Mercedes, I’d be relaxing in a casbah in Ouarzazate, smoking a strawberry-flavored hookah.
He ignored my question. “That van is the only car coming through for the day. If you guys are up for it we can walk to the next town over and see if we can catch a lift there. It’s only six miles.”
Two and a half hours later, we were still walking. Patches of neatly cut grass
that looked like putting greens stretched alongside roaring white rapids. Tifa explained that flocks of grazing sheep were responsible for the grass’s manicured appearance.
I started to feel like we were walking in a loop. There was little protection from the sun as the temperature started to build. Randolph was sweating through his ascot. I made eye contact with a woman and her child who stood stoically on the edge of the road, collecting firewood. Instantly I felt a pang of grief. I missed my own child. I wondered if he noticed I was gone or if he was anticipating my return or if he was already trying to Parent Trap Jason into meeting a new, more suitable mom, someone with less ambition and more self-esteem, or else just a killer blueberry muffin recipe.
Brandon’s cell service started working and he immediately called his travel agent.
“Yes, two rooms and three massages. Tonight. We get in around seven. Jenny? You like your hotel in Marrakech? Because we’re going back, baby!” He clicked his heels in the air clumsily, like a leprechaun desperate to take a shit. None of us had been able to release our bowels at Danger’s house. I’d squatted over the hole twice and even played a Sia song on my iPhone to relax me, but nothing came out.
We were backed up with bread and baking in the sun when a large windowless van drove past.
“Stop! Wait!” I threw myself into the road. The van pulled over and Dan asked the driver if we could hitch a ride. A local nodded for us to get in.
“Are we sure this is safe?” Randolph looked into the dark space covered on all sides with aluminum paneling. The double doors shut behind us, and I couldn’t help but wonder if they’d ever open again. The van threw us from side to side as it traveled up the washboard road to Ait Bouguemez. We were so close.
At last, the large metal doors opened and we all filed out. Across seventy acres of row crops sat a small concrete building on the top of the mountain. The words TAPIS BERBÈRES were spray-painted in white on the outside. It was the building I’d seen in all the pictures online, sometimes steeped in snow, other times brittle and parched in the high desert sun. This was the birthplace of my Beni Ourain. I wished Sid could see me. I accomplished what I’d set out to do. I pushed further than I thought I could go. I had held my bladder for an entire car ride, forgone a shower for twenty-four hours, slept on the floor, ingested rooster, and hitchhiked in a rape van to make it to this moment.
With newly restored conviction, I marched toward my weavers like a soldier returning from battle. My hands dug into the rocks as I climbed the last few feet to the co-op. My stomach was covered in dirt and my UGGs were dusty shells of their former selves, but I’d arrived.
“I’m heeeeere,” I announced proudly, like I was the Fonz from Happy Days. A studio audience erupted into applause in my head as I brushed myself off and surveyed the scene.
I turned to my right, hoping to be greeted by cheerful throngs of leather-skinned mountain women, when an empty Coke can came flying at my head. Touching my cheek to make sure my filler hadn’t shifted, I looked up at the culprit. Three giggling children stood above me on a rock, laughing. Their faces were rosy and their bellies were swollen (from carbs, not starvation). I picked up the can, which instructed me to share its contents with a “BFF,” and walked farther into the co-op to go find one.
“Hello!” I called into the next room. “It’s me, everyone! Jennyandteets!”
Inside, I found that the co-op was in fact a simple room of four concrete walls, buried in stacks and stacks of rugs. A long provincial loom with tiny strands of thread stood in its center. Ten Berber women sitting on the floor glanced over at me. None of them struck me as BFF material, but I tried to keep an open mind. An elderly woman with half-scribbled facial tattoos approached me and smiled. I tried to focus on her eyes instead of the erratic markings, which looked like she’d given Sid a pen and then left him alone in a room with her face.
Before I had a chance to connect my new BFF’s face dots, Dan and Tifa appeared behind me to translate. Dan told the women that I was the lady from Los Angeles who’d ordered the large Beni Ourain.
“I am so happy to meet you guys! I’ve been looking at pictures of you for months.” I used my hands to express myself. The woman and her fellow weavers shook their heads “no,” trying to remind me that they didn’t speak English. Tifa translated my enthusiasm, but they continued to stare at me blankly.
“So…” It had been only a couple minutes and I’d already run out of things to say. I craned my neck out the door, looking for Randolph and Brandon. The weavers continued with their work as if I weren’t there. It wasn’t every day that they got to meet one of their customers. Why weren’t they interested? Weren’t they impressed?
“Do you guys have any questions for me?” I ventured, trying to reclaim their attention.
Tifa and a younger woman combing cotton into a bucket exchanged several words, then Tifa looked at me and spoke.
“They want to know why you are here.”
Caught off guard, I stopped for a beat and thought about it.
“Well, I…” It all made so much sense a minute ago, but now it was hard to articulate. “Originally it was because all these people kept telling me I couldn’t. But I guess the root of why I’m here is to prove to myself that I have what it takes to be a good mother.” It felt true, and yet it sounded so feeble as I said it. Maybe I had secretly hoped that these rural women, who looked so rugged and fearsome in pictures, would tell me how impressed they were with me. How brave and courageous I was. How I was the most epic mom of all time.
I waited as Tifa translated. The women nodded, processing what she was saying. One of them fired back a question. I waited nervously for the translation.
“They want to know where your child is,” Tifa said.
“Oh. He’s in New York. I considered bringing him, but to be honest, this isn’t really his scene.” I glanced around the room. “No iPads.”
Tifa stopped translating. She paused, then diplomatically explained that a Berber woman would never separate from her child. I turned to my side. An infant no more than a month old with a face that looked like a dehydrated apple lay swaddled and wedged between two carpets. Another weaver who I originally thought had a beer gut was actually wearing her sleeping toddler under her smock. I was surrounded by children. None of whom needed anything I had to offer. The one person who needed me was thousands of miles away, probably helping Jason eat blueberry muffin batter off his new girlfriend.
Realizing that the approval I so desperately craved was nowhere near this sub-alpine habitat, I stepped outside for the kind of boost to your mood that only a super-fashionable gay man can offer. Randolph was already waiting for me.
“We wanna go home. Nothing here is cute.” He pouted like someone who had just waited in line for two hours for a sample sale that had nothing in his size.
“They’ll custom-make you whatever you want—” I started to explain, before Dan interrupted.
“Guys, I’m afraid I have some bad news.”
“Just tell them I’m Angelina Jolie and that this is my son Maddox,” I said defensively, grabbing Randolph by the arm.
“The car that was supposed to pick us up is still in Marrakech and won’t be here for at least five more hours.”
Five hours. I was so over Dan. If my Coke can weren’t empty, I would have poured it over his head.
Tifa suggested we leave the co-op and wait for our car elsewhere, as one of the weavers felt I was giving her the evil eye.
“Which one?” I looked around, paranoid.
“It doesn’t matter,” Tifa said reassuringly as we walked, reminding me that it is just a superstitious culture. Self-conscious and constipated, we wandered back down the mountain. We had barely crested the ridge on the far side of the valley when I spied a car. I squinted, trying to get a better look.
“Wait, is that—” The stickers on the trunk were a dead giveaway.
“You guys! That’s Doud! DOUD!” I screamed, waving my hands for him to see us.
“We’re saved!” Randolph ran toward the car, flagging it down with his ascot. Victory music played in my head. We weren’t going to have to find shelter, use any more data roaming, or eat Dan for survival.
Once we were back and safely tucked into our five-star resort, it was easier to appreciate all that we’d experienced (especially after we’d pooped out half of it). I felt closer to Randolph and Brandon for coming on the adventure with me, and though I was disappointed the Berber women didn’t enlighten me as I’d hoped, meeting them did open my eyes to certain truths about myself. I realized I didn’t actually enjoy feeling discomfort or having to plan vacations without the help of my husband-concierge. I realized that being an adult means not seeing every “no” as a challenge. And that traveling to the other side of the world wasn’t going to help me escape the inadequacies I felt at home. Maybe Jason didn’t doubt that I could make it to the mountains; he just knew I’d be annoyed when I discovered there was no iced tea or beach chair to take cute feet pics in. Maybe I wasn’t meant to be Anderson Cooper flying to war zones, dodging bullets. Maybe Anderson Cooper wasn’t what my son needed. I didn’t want to raise a child who had to worry about his impulsive mother roaming the planet in search of PTSD. I wanted to raise a child who felt safe and secure enough to one day perform simulated sex on HBO.
Maybe I’m more like Brian Williams, turning everyday bravery into a war zone.
I waited patiently as my taxi driver honked his horn and screamed obscenities at a large van stopping traffic. My Air Maroc flight from Marrakech to Casablanca didn’t board for another two hours, but I wanted to get to the airport early just to be safe. Brandon and Randolph decided to stay in Marrakech another two nights to check out the spa scene, but I had to get home to Sid and my penis sister.