A House in Fez: Building a Life in the Ancient Heart of Morocco

by Suzanna Clarke

  After buying a new card for my Moroccan mobile, I tried to call Nabil, only to get a message saying his line was ‘no longer open’. I rang his office and learnt he’d emigrated to Canada. David was unable to help, as he was in the United States. Braving it, I rang Larbi, who managed to understand my basic French and said he’d meet me at four that afternoon at the hotel. I couldn’t understand why he didn’t just have my keys dropped off, but my French wasn’t good enough to argue.

  In the meantime I decided to go to the house anyway and see if the guardian Larbi had hired was there. Pleased to find that my memory of the Medina was still intact, I made my way through the maze of streets to my new doorstep, knocked and waited. Then I knocked again, and kept knocking until my knuckles were sore. No one was there.

  I was about to admit defeat when the door opposite opened and a plump young woman poked her head out. I introduced myself and explained I was looking for the guardian. She didn’t speak French, she told me in halting French, and began talking in Darija, gesturing me to come inside. I smiled, nodded and followed her up a set of stairs into a tiny flat, part of a dar. She told me her name was Khadija, ushered me into a chair and went off to make tea, returning with her son Ayoub, an adorable five-year-old with enormous black eyes and a mischievous manner.

  Another two women came in and greeted me, kissing me once on each cheek then three times on my right cheek. They were Khadija’s sister and niece, and began telling me things in a mixture of Darija and French that I didn’t fully understand. I explained the situation as best I could, and Khadija’s brother-in-law was produced. He spoke much better French and insisted on ringing Larbi to see if he could come earlier. But the reply was still four o’clock.

  My new friends invited me to stay, but not wishing to impose, I said I was going to take a walk in the Medina. Khadija wanted to come with me, but first she had to get ready. She spent a considerable amount of time changing, reappearing in a loose white suit with black pinstripes. Then she began, with great care, to apply her makeup. She made a fuss of doing her hair, and then covered it all with a scarf.

  While she was getting ready I had a look around the room. Besides the banquettes – the long low Moroccan couches used for sitting on during the day and sleeping on at night – there was the ubiquitous television, and a display cabinet filled with photos, including one of Khadija at her wedding to a moustached fellow. Over the door was a photo of the Prophet’s tomb at Mecca, surrounded by pilgrims, and in every crevice of the room were vases of fake flowers.

  Eventually we left. Out in the Medina many shops were shut, it being Friday, the holy day. Most of the streets were too narrow for us to walk abreast so I hung behind, but as we passed a small photo studio, Khadija slipped her arm through mine and told me she’d like a photo of us together. I was both flattered and amused. We had only just met but already she seemed to regard me as her close friend. Briefly I wondered if there was more to the gesture than friendship; I smiled but made a noncommittal reply.

  We made our way to a part of the Medina I had never seen before, where I met Khadija’s brother, who was selling bunches of luscious grapes. He had a handsome face but opened his mouth to reveal a double row of rotting teeth. Tooth decay is rife in Morocco because of the amount of sugar people consume. Every glass of mint tea has about six sugar cubes in it and the locals drink it incessantly.

  Khadija’s mother worked at another stall further down the street, and on being introduced promptly invited me to lunch.

  We followed her to a tiny, three-room flat, stuffed with shabby furniture. The spaces between the furniture were taken up by women on their hands and knees washing the floor. I was ushered through into the lounge room and seated, then the women came through in succession for more greetings and kisses. For a few moments I felt like visiting royalty.

  The women were curious to know everything about me, including how much we’d paid for the riad. I made the mistake of telling them, and thereafter it was conveyed to everyone who entered the room. Perhaps it gave them a sense that their own property was worth something if these crazy foreigners were prepared to buy the dumps they were desperate to get out of. It also seemed important that my husband was a radio journalist. That I was a journalist for a newspaper appeared to have little significance, and as far as I could make out was not one of the pieces of information passed on.

  The incessant drone of the television played in the background, broadcasting pictures of men praying in a mosque, accompanied by religious songs. It reminded me of those Sunday-morning Christian programs on Australian TV, but probably had far more of a following. It was also a way for Moroccan women to keep up with a service from which many were excluded. Only women past child-bearing age are permitted to go to mosques in Morocco, and then they worship in a separate area, behind the men. Young women must avoid any contact that might lead to sexual attraction, and therefore pray at home.

  I helped Khadija’s mother strip a bunch of mint for the tea. She asked how many children I had, and when I replied none she gazed at me with sorrowful eyes and patted my hand. Knowing she was unlikely to understand that it was a choice, I gave a look of resignation. ‘Wow!’ I said when she told me she had six. My exclamation was repeated, with general hilarity, to every subsequent guest who arrived.

  Ten of us crowded into one room to eat, including Khadija’s two sisters, her father, grandfather and a couple of sisters-in-law. I was offered eating utensils, but declined so as to fit in with everyone else. A kettle of water was taken from person to person and poured over outstretched hands, but the towel that followed was grey and greasy. Oh well, I thought, I need to build up some resistance to the bugs. On the table were rounds of freshly made wholemeal bread, which we tore and dipped into a communal platter of meat, chickpeas and gravy. This was accompanied by bowls of salad. To my discomfort, Khadija’s mother waited on us while we ate, then did not join us.

  I had a hard time identifying the meat. It looked like the knee and shin bone of – could it be a horse? I tried not to dwell on it, especially as Khadija insisted on putting morsels of the gelatinous stuff in front of me. It was very sweet of her, but I had to force myself to eat them. As soon as I ate one, more would appear, until I remembered to say, ‘Safi,’ the Darija word for sufficient.

  Khadija’s mother wanted me to stay and rest with the others after lunch, as was the custom, on the banquettes in the adjoining room. But I needed to return to the hotel to get my keys, so I gave my apologies and thanks and left.

  Larbi arrived on time, smartly dressed in a new white woollen pyjama suit with piping around the neck and arms, and new yellow slippers. Business was obviously booming.

  ‘Yes,’ he agreed when I asked him if he’d been busy. ‘So many foreigners are buying houses.’

  He led me on an unfamiliar route to our riad, through a labyrinth of streets so winding and complicated I was completely disoriented by the time we arrived and hardly recognised the place. We had come to the back entrance, an unprepossessing small metal door that led to the upstairs floor. It was on a completely different street, at right angles to the one on which our front door opened. The two streets were walled off from one another, and getting to the main entrance meant walking around the entire block.

  As Larbi opened the door a flurry of dust arose. And not just at the door – it coated everything, particularly the floor in the room with the beautiful ceiling, on which I was further dismayed to see pieces of fallen plaster and debris. The grey feathers of some unfortunate bird lay scattered about and a few things were broken, including one of the steps in the entranceway. It didn’t look like anyone had been there too recently, but at least the electricity still worked, though the wiring appeared dodgy and makeshift.

  The house seemed smaller than I remembered, but lovely all the same, despite the dirt and disrepair. I was elated, and couldn’t wait for it to be clean and liveable.

  The following morning I woke at two a.m., excited to think that this was the day I mov
ed in. Just after seven I was walking with a spring in my step down through the main artery of the Medina, the Tala’a Sghira, with only the street sweepers and the odd, early-delivery donkey about.

  As I struggled with the unfamiliar keys of the riad, I noticed a few bags of builder’s rubble beside the front door and wondered what they were doing there. Inside at last, I wandered round checking things out. I turned on the water in the kitchen, something I hadn’t done the previous day. It flowed for a few seconds, slowed to a trickle, gurgled and stopped. It was obviously off at the mains, and I realised I probably had to pay a bond or something to the municipal authority.

  Next I took the stopper off the squat toilet and got a shock. In the hole were brown granules, which were not of human making. I hoped they were simply the result of the toilet not being used for a while. Covering my hand with an old plastic bag, I scooped a few grains out. It was dirt. The hole was full of dirt, and appeared to be unconnected to the sewer. Suddenly the bags of rubble next to the front door made sense. Perhaps in a last-ditch attempt to fix the toilet, the previous owners had dug out the sewer connection.

  Obviously no one had used the toilet since the old couple had left. So much for Larbi’s guardian. Someone had been living here for two months who didn’t piss? Let alone anything else. The toilet was the one thing Nabil couldn’t have been expected to check before he paid the remainder of the money. My spirit of optimism turned a little sour.

  When Larbi turned up a short time later with a couple of cleaners, I pointed out that there was no water and he sent them away. I showed him the toilet and asked how this could be, if a guardian had been living here. He was adamant that someone had been. ‘He worked during the day,’ Larbi told me.

  Since there’d been a trickle of water when I tried the tap, it seemed unlikely that anyone else had tried it after the water was turned off. Nevertheless Larbi pressed me for the money to pay the guardian. I deflected, saying we would talk about it once the toilet was fixed.

  I went with Larbi to the electricity and water company in the nearby R’Cif district and paid the bills for the previous owners. The amount wasn’t huge and I was too desperate to have the water back on to worry about the fact that they weren’t actually my bills. But then I learned that I needed proof I owned the riad before the utilities could be reconnected in my name. The scribe who had done the transaction for the house would have to give me a document verifying ownership.

  Outside on the pavement, Larbi rang the scribe, only to find that he was on holiday hundreds of kilometres away and wouldn’t be returning to Fez for a week. I envisaged an expensive hotel bill; not only that, but two Australian friends were due to arrive shortly and expected to stay in my house. I had blithely invited them several months before, not really thinking they’d show up, but now they’d be here in a few days. If they weren’t able to stay with me, it would only be polite to pay for their hotel.

  The office was about to close and there was nothing that could be done immediately, so Larbi and I arranged to meet again on Monday morning and try to find a solution.

  I made my way despondently back to the riad, where I couldn’t even make myself a cup of tea to mull the situation over. As there were no chairs, I was perched on the edge of the fountain, pondering what I could do, when a sharp rap sounded on the door. Opening it, I found a dapper man with an official-looking navy cap and a French leather satchel slung over his chest. He looked as if he’d just stepped out of a Jacques Tati film.

  He was the utilities collector, he explained, and presented me with two bills made out to the previous owners – the very bills I had just paid. Such personal service was unexpected. In Australia you were simply sent a notice, then a reminder, and if that didn’t work you got cut off. There was no opportunity to stand around discussing it.

  I managed, after three attempts, to convince the man that I’d paid the bills only that morning, then went and knocked on Khadija’s door for a shopping trip we’d arranged. I relayed to her as best I could the situation with the toilet and she told me her husband Abdul could fix it once the water was connected. He could also do the painting and plastering, while she was more than happy to do the cleaning. I tried to explain that I was hiring a plumber, but somehow that got lost in translation – or in her desire for her husband to have some work. I didn’t mind Khadija doing some cleaning, but I didn’t want to employ her as a regular cleaner. Living in such close proximity, it would be too difficult if things went wrong.

  Khadija and Abdul and little Ayoub were all wearing their best clothes and I realised with a sinking heart that they too would be coming shopping. I had been grateful when Khadija offered to take me, as I had no idea where to go, though it did cross my mind that she might be planning on receiving a commission. Three of them was a far more unwieldy proposition, but how could I say no? So off we went.

  We walked down to the road at R’Cif, one of the few places where cars could access the Medina. Catching a taxi wasn’t easy; the turning circle was crowded with people who swooped on any arriving vehicle, fighting to get in before the previous occupants had got out. There’s no such thing as a queue in Morocco, and the quickest person claims the taxi. When we finally got one Ayoub had to keep his head down the whole way as it’s illegal for a petit taxi to carry more than three passengers. Petit taxis are one of the major forms of transport around Moroccan cities, and in every city the colour differs. In Fez they are red, in Marrakesh beige, in Rabat blue.

  I had a list of things I needed: a toilet, a bed, stove, kitchen things. Khadija was amazed when I said I didn’t want a television, an item that was obviously an integral part of her family’s life. Abdul directed the driver to an enormous supermarket on the outskirts of the Ville Nouvelle, a palace dedicated to Western luxury. The size of a football field, it was packed with household appliances, furniture, clothing and food. But no toilets. I bought everybody an icecream and they wandered around the aisles wide-eyed. It occurred to me that they had never been there before.

  It became clear that Abdul didn’t have a clue where to buy a toilet, which didn’t give me a lot of faith in his expertise in installing them. I rang an expat I knew who redirected me to another district in the Ville Nouvelle, which had a street of plumbing-supply shops. There I found a suitable loo, whereupon Abdul tried to impress me with his bargaining prowess, rejecting the owner’s insistence that it was a fixed-price shop and arguing until he had us thrown out.

  We walked along to another shop and I spotted a French toilet I liked. This time I took over the negotiations and bought it. I had less success organising delivery, though, and instead arranged for Abdul to pick it up on Monday. He seemed to vacillate between being dopey and aggressive, and I realised I’d need to limit his involvement.

  The shopping done, I gave my neighbours the money for a taxi and split from them with relief. I had imagined a nice girly time with Khadija, and had planned on taking her to lunch, but the entire family was hard work.

  The following day was Sunday and Khadija had asked me to go to the hammam, or bathhouse, with her. I went to collect her and found her mother, aunt and sister there. Khadija brought mint tea and the conversation rose and fell in Darija around me, only the odd word making sense. I peered through the window into the courtyard below. Khadija had told me that four families lived in this dar, which was smaller than our riad but had many more rooms, all of them tiny.

  The women asked if they could see my house, so we trooped across the alley and they went from room to room, cooing, ‘Une belle maison.’ It must have been unimaginable to them that just two people were going to live here.

  Khadija was pleased to discover that I had purchased some cleaning equipment, but when I asked how much she charged for cleaning she said it was up to me to decide. I had no idea. I knew that a master craftsman was paid a hundred and fifty dirhams per day – about twenty-two Australian dollars – but Khadija received a pittance for her work embroidering sequins on slippers, so whatever I paid was go
ing to seem like money for jam.

  I wanted to be generous, but I had both read and been told that if you paid much more than the going rate in Morocco it was taken as a sign of gross stupidity. I didn’t want to set up unrealistic expectations either, so perhaps I could give Khadija a gift in addition to a payment slightly better than usual.

  Khadija, little Ayoub and I walked down to the hammam in R’Cif. This was an old, poor area and the bathhouse had no pretensions. It had been in continuous use for around four hundred years and its walls, although whitewashed, were stained with patches of green mould. The tile work on the floor was so worn that most of the colour had rubbed off, and there were layers of soap scum around the edges. There was an anteroom for undressing, then two large adjoining rooms, each with a barrel-vaulted ceiling punctuated with round holes through which shafts of light poured, spotlighting semi-naked figures in a haze of steam.

  The first of the rooms, the cooler of the two, was the domain of mothers and small children, while the inner sanctum was for young, unmarried and older women. We chose a spot in the first room, in a small alcove upstream from everyone else, and Khadija left Ayoub with me while she went to fill the plastic buckets.

  The contrast between the traditional modesty of Moroccan women in public and the relaxed intimacy of the hammam was startling. I could see cellulite, flabby breasts, bodies of all shapes, sizes and skin tones. (Many Moroccan women seemed to take particular care with their eyebrows, plucking them to a beautiful arch, perhaps because, with limbs and heads covered up on the street, eyebrows became a more distinguishing feature.) They kept their underpants on, but chatted as they lathered themselves, each other and their children. There were a few cries when shampoo got into small eyes, but mostly the children seemed to relish the attention. One little girl sat in a red bucket bigger than she was, her legs dangling over the edge.