by Tahir Shah
I turned my back to the lane and stared up at the building. The outer wall was made from large square blocks of stone. It went straight up and gave no sign of what lay behind. The doorway was arched, filled with a blue wrought-iron gate backed by a sheet of steel. Above it was a modest marble plaque, inscribed with the words Villa Andalus.
I took a deep breath and rang the bell. I waited. No answer. I rang again. Still no answer. I was about to leave and walk back down the hill to Cecil’s when a woman arrived at the front door. She was in her fifties, with a mass of gray hair knotted up in a bun. Her face was kind and motherly, dominated by wide-rimmed glasses. I was struck by a warmth, a generosity of spirit. It seemed to radiate all around her. She was carrying a basket. In it was a Siamese cat.
It was a difficult moment. I began to explain in my limited French that I was the grandson of an Afghan chieftain’s son who had once lived at Villa Andalus.
“Do you speak English?” the woman asked in an American voice.
“Yes.”
“Then you had better come inside.”
A STEEP BANK OF steps ran up to the villa. It was cobbled at the edges in rounded pebbles, stone slabs in the middle. A nervous old Alsatian charged down to the door and was called sharply to heel. On the right of the entrance was an outbuilding. It looked down onto the street. The American woman, whose name was Pamela, lived there. At the top of the steps was the villa itself; the walk up to it was shaded by a canopy of vines.
Pamela said that the landlord lived in the villa. She offered to arrange for me to meet him the next morning. We chatted about books for a moment or two. Pamela was well-read. She knew my book on Ethiopia, my quest for King Solomon’s Mines, and she had read my grandfather’s books on Afghanistan, and even knew my grandmother’s autobiography—the tale of how she abandoned Scotland for the Hindu Kush.
Twenty minutes after our doorstep meeting, I was sitting with Pamela in a small café, eating barbecued fish. I asked how long she had lived at rue de la Plage.
“It’s been twelve years,” she said.
“Do you live alone?”
“No,” she replied, “I share it with my cats, and with five hundred caftans.”
“What brought you here?”
Pamela stared into a glass of local red wine. “The wanderlust of youth,” she said, her gaze unflinching. “I was living in Brooklyn, in 1965, when I heard a Yugoslav cargo ship was about to leave for Eastern Europe. Without giving it a moment’s thought, I talked my way aboard. The first stop was Tangier. For me it was the exotic East. I planned to be onshore two days, but stayed two months. The smells and sounds, the blaze of color—I was knocked down by it all.”
Pamela said she had spent years living and traveling through the Mediterranean and North Africa. Much land passed beneath her feet, but her first love was always Morocco. She returned to the United States and opened a Moroccan restaurant in Los Angeles, but even that wasn’t enough to satisfy her heart.
“One morning I packed it in,” she said quietly. “I bought a one-way ticket, and arrived here with a pair of suitcases and my favorite traveling cat. I have never looked back.”
I told her about my grandfather, who had come to Tangier after the death of his wife.
“Whoever you are,” she said, “Morocco takes you in. Before you know it, you have a home and friends, and you’ve forgotten your troubles.”
I asked Pamela what her friends had thought when she had set up home in Tangier.
“They tried to hold me back,” she said.
“Why?”
She looked across at me and sighed. “Because of their own fear,” she said.
THE NEXT MORNING, I was up early. Sleeping at a forty-five-degree angle had been uncomfortable, but nothing in comparison to the desperate nocturnal urge to pee in a hotel without toilets. I sponged myself down as directed in the roach-infested restaurant kitchen next door. It is a memory I hope, someday, to forget.
Pamela had told me to come to the villa at nine-thirty to meet the landlord. She had set up the rendezvous and gone off to work with her favorite traveling cat.
The doorbell was answered by a slim, straight-backed man aged about sixty. His hair was dyed black and glistened in the light. It was combed carefully to the left side of his square head. He introduced himself as David Rebibo. He said he was one of Morocco’s last remaining Jews, that his family had owned Villa Andalus for more than a hundred years. I asked if he remembered my grandfather.
“How could anyone forget such a man?” he replied swiftly. “It was a long time ago, and I was much younger, but we would sit together on the balcony, and he would tell me of his travels.”
Mr. Rebibo led the way to the villa. As I passed under the canopy of wisteria vines, I first set eyes on the building’s extraordinary façade. It was arranged on two floors, linked by a curved double stairway, rising from a patio in front of the house. Wherever I looked, there were flowers and ferns erupting from terracotta pots.
I was led inside. The rooms were small but well appointed. There were long mirrors to give an extra dimension, and a great many pictures—some Indian, others European and Chinese. On every windowsill and table there were orchids. I found it intensely moving to be in the house where my grandfather had spent his last years. I took in the details, which his own meticulous eye would have treasured—the coving on the ceilings, the sconces on the bedroom wall, and the patterned brass handles on the doors. But my delight at being there was tinged with sadness, for it was here that he lived a life waiting for death, pining for his beloved Bobo.
We went back out onto the patio and sat at a wrought-iron table, the winter sun quite dazzling above. The landlord pressed a hand to his glistening hair, unsure perhaps whether the dye could take the sun.
“Your grandfather would sit here in the mornings,” he said. “He would read and write letters. He used a fountain pen, on onionskin paper.”
I pulled out a clutch of the letters. “Here are some of them,” I said.
Mr. Rebibo leaned over and glanced at the sheets.
“That’s his hand,” he said calmly. “Look at the precision. He was the most conscientious man I have ever met.”
A maid descended from the first floor, a headscarf knotted at the back of her head. She slid a silver tray with tea onto the table.
“Did he ever have visitors?” I asked.
The landlord poured me a porcelain cup and slid it over.
“Oh yes,” he said. “Some very important people indeed. He knew the late king, and his father, too. And, of course, I remember you and your two sisters coming. You were very small. Your father brought you.”
I stirred my tea and breathed in the steam.
“The first time I met your father,” he said, “he had recently returned from Arabia, where he had been the guest of King Ibn Saud. He was sitting where you are sitting now. I remember it so clearly.”
Mr. Rebibo called his elderly Alsatian to heel.
“He told me a story that has stayed in my mind,” he said.
I asked what it was.
“Your father was welcomed at the palace in Mecca,” he said. “He had forgotten to bring a gift. Suddenly he found himself in the throne room before the old king. He bowed low and kissed Ibn Saud’s right hand and said, ‘Your Majesty, I would like to present you with a gift. Here it is before you. It is I. I give myself to you as your servant until the end of my days.’
“Ibn Saud looked down and said, ‘I thank you for your fine gift, and I give you back to yourself. Now come and sit here, and we will talk.’ ”
The landlord laughed, sipped his tea, and laughed again.
“I can’t tell you how sad we were when the accident happened,” he said. “Your grandfather was walking back down the hill from Café de France, as he did each morning. He had reached the door and was taking out his key when the truck reversed. He was knocked unconscious.”
“Did you see it happen?”
“No, I was away on that
day. When I returned, your grandfather was dead.”
We sat in silence for a few moments. The vines around the villa’s door were alive with shadows and birdsong.
“Now,” said the landlord in a serious voice, “I’ll give you what you came for. I am surprised that no one from your family has come to collect them until now.”
“Come to collect what?” I said, confused.
“Your grandfather’s diaries, of course.”
ELEVEN
The value of the dwelling is in the dweller.
THE DIARIES SAT SQUARELY ON MY lap as the bus rumbled south toward Chefchouen. There were two of them—both bound in faded red cloth, filled with the unmistakable dark blue lettering of my grandfather’s hand. It was far too bumpy to read, and so I gazed out the window. The landscape of northern Morocco slipped slowly by—small fields scattered with cactus and sheep, wizened men perched on donkeys, orange groves, farmsteads, and translucent winter streams.
As the afternoon light waned and dusk approached, I caught my first glimpse of Chefchouen. It was set on a hillside, all rocky and bleak like the end of the world. The foothills of the Rif hung about it in a dark curtain. The buildings were white, their roofs red terracotta; they were quite unlike any others I had seen in Morocco. A man on the bus said the town had been settled by the Muslim refugees fleeing Andalucía five centuries ago.
I took a room in a gloomy guesthouse on a backstreet of the medina, attracted to the place by the name—Hotel Paradise. Dusk had brought a sudden chill. The lanes were packed with people, all of them trussed up in woolen jelabas. I dug out Pete’s postcard, handed it to the first child I met, and touched the address at the bottom of the card. The boy nodded. He led the way up flights of awkward mule steps and through whitewashed alleyways where the aroma of roasting meat mingled with the scent of jasmine flowers. After fifteen minutes of walking, the boy stopped. He pointed to the card and then at a low entrance plugged by a battered wooden door. I gave him a coin, and he ran off back into the maze. I wondered if it really was the place where the Texan had found true love. I knocked hard. There was shuffling inside, as if someone old and tired was moving forward. The sounds were followed by those of a bolt sliding back and of unoiled hinges moving against each other.
A bearded man was standing in the doorway, the right side of his face illuminated by a stub of candle. He was aged and wore a turban. The smell of putrid fish emanated from the darkness behind. I hoped very earnestly that I was at the wrong address.
“Peter Williams?” I said.
The man gasped. I said the name again.
“Nam, yes,” he said in Arabic, “bienvenue, welcome.”
The smell of fish got stronger as I followed the flickering candle wick into the body of the house. The walls were black, as if a fire had taken hold at some time in the recent past. I could hear chanting. It was close—a male voice, hypnotic against the shadows. The bearded figure pushed at a door. It didn’t open at first. He pushed again. A key turned in a lock, and the door opened inward.
Inside, seven men were sitting cross-legged, chanting verses from the Qur’an. The only light came from a single candle placed in the middle of the floor. It was hard to say how large the room was, as it was so dark. The figures didn’t look up when I entered. They were lost in their own world. I scanned their faces. All had beards. They ranged from old age to youth.
I crouched on the floor, waiting for something to happen. I would have left had there been an easy way to do so. Calling out for the American would have broken the concentration. So I sat and waited.
After an hour of chanting, the figures disbanded. Six of the men filed off. The last one looked at me through the dimness. He was lanky and hunched.
“Pete?” I said softly.
“Yeah?”
“It’s Tahir,” I said.
The figure moved closer. “Allahu akbar!” he said. “God is great.”
I was very eager to get out of the house. I mumbled something about claustrophobia and led Pete into the street. Five minutes later we were at a café, drinking glasses of mint tea. I looked at him long and very hard, as if to try and understand how he got into such a mess. His face was bronzed and bearded and had been savaged by mosquitoes. His head was crowned by a lacy white skullcap; his eyes were somehow clouded and cold.
“I wanted to check if everything was okay,” I said. “I was worried.”
“Praise Allah for bringing you here,” he said. “I am well. You can see for yourself.”
“How is Yasmine?”
“Alhamdulillah, thanks be to God,” he replied, “she is well. We were married last month.”
I gave congratulations. “Do you plan to go back to Texas now?”
Pete pulled the hood of his jelaba over his head. “I am a Muslim,” he said. “I will never go back to the States.”
“Why not?”
“The American Dream,” he said. “It’s propaganda, it’s bullshit!” Pete swirled the tea leaves in his glass. “Allah has shown me the Path.”
“What is it?”
“A world without America,” he said.
LATE THE NEXT DAY, I arrived back at the Caliph’s House. The guardians swarmed round to greet me as I entered the garden door. I had only been gone two nights, but a great deal had happened in my absence. Ariane had been stung by wasps, the house had been flooded in a thunderstorm, and the shantytown’s gangster had called the police again.
“Where’s Kamal?” I asked Rachana.
“Probably at a bar,” she said. “He’s been drunk since you left.”
I said something in reply, but my mind was not on Kamal. I was thinking about Pete and his descent into fanaticism. He had come to Morocco in search of true love and had fallen victim to the embrace of a misguided brotherhood. I hardly knew him, but for some reason, I felt obliged to become involved.
A LETTER HAD COME from Thailand, sent by a student who had read my books and wanted a job. The envelope was adorned with an ornate stamp bearing the image of a ruby-colored rose. I hurried over to Hicham’s house with it. The old man held the stamp in his palm and gazed at it lovingly. He didn’t speak for a long time. Then, slowly, he put it down and thanked me.
“What conversation could ever pay for such a beautiful thing?” he asked.
I said I hoped we could talk about fanatics.
Hicham called for his wife, Khadija, to make a pot of sweet tea. He nestled in his favorite chair, rubbed his hands together, and looked at the floor.
“They think they can see clearly,” he said, “but they are blind men. Blind men who understand nothing but death.”
The old stamp collector put a hand on his chest. “I will die soon,” he said plainly, “my heart is bad. But I fear the future. It’s for your generation to deal with, for you to solve. It’s a war. You must understand that. It’s not the time for kind words. These people must be found and killed. That is the only way.”
Hicham’s wife brought over the tray of tea, served it, and slipped back into the shadows.
“When there is rabies in a village,” said the old man, “you don’t think twice. You kill the rabid dog. It whimpers and looks sad, but you don’t pay attention. You shoot it. If you don’t, it will threaten the society. The same goes for fanatics. Kill them or be killed by them. As I see it, there’s no choice.”
KAMAL DIDN’T TURN UP for three days. He kept his cell phone off, a practice he knew infuriated me. When he disappeared, I could never be sure if he would ever return. I would wonder if he had been thrown in jail again. Eventually he would slink into Dar Khalifa without a word of explanation.
The longer I spent in Morocco, the more I found that explanations were rarely given. If anything at all was said, it was to pass the blame onto someone or something else. The cook was an expert at it. Every week, she smashed a variety of serving dishes and plates. The first time she broke a china teapot, she blamed the soap on her hands—it was bad quality, she said, more slippery than usual. When she sma
shed a new earthenware tajine, she blamed me for buying such an inferior one. And after that, when she dropped a glass vase, she said it was the Jinns.
In the West, we try to work out a logical cause when an accident occurs. The vase breaks because it’s knocked by a careless hand. The car crashes because the road is wet. The dog bites a child because it’s savage and a danger to honest society. But I found in Morocco that these everyday mishaps were treated in a very different way. They were frequently put down to the work of supernatural forces, with the Jinns at the center of the belief system.
Although I was intrigued by the idea of invisible spirits and their parallel world, I found myself cursing them every day. They were a back door by which all blame could be neatly sidestepped, shifted onto someone else. The guardians had mastered the technique of using Jinns to blame-shift. They lived in a world in which any blunder could be instantly brushed aside. Any mistake was explainable, from chopping down the wrong tree to setting fire to the lawn mower. The explanation was always the same: “It was not my fault. It was the work of the Jinns.”
At last, when Kamal finally arrived, I launched into a scathing attack on the supernatural as a method of shifting blame. I couldn’t control myself.
“There’s no way Morocco will progress,” I said accusingly, “until people lose the superstitious thought. It’s crippling them.”
Kamal didn’t reply until my storm of anger had passed. Then, after a long gap in conversation, he said, “The Jinns are at the heart of Moroccan culture. Pretending they don’t exist won’t help you.”
“You lived in the United States,” I said. “You’re a modern guy. Don’t tell me you believe in Jinns.”
“Of course I do,” he said. “They’re the backbone of our culture. They are part of the Islamic faith.”
At that moment it seemed to me as if the Jinns were in league with the fanatics—both sideshows to the genuine message. The encounter with Pete was still fresh in my mind. I told Kamal what I had seen.