by Annie Hawes
I’ll only go up as far as the mosque I keep glimpsing between the houses. Can’t be too long getting back: it takes for ever to move just a few yards in this crush. I’m among olives now, buckets and bowls of them, from palest green through red-purple to black – more varieties than I’ve ever seen in Italy; then a whole alley of nothing but shoes, shaded by woven reed mats. A street of fabric-sellers now, packed, this one. The rolls stacked within their alcoves are jewel-bright, but every last woman fingering the cloth is wearing a plain pastel jellaba, all-enveloping, and a tightly tied headscarf. Who knows what goes on beneath the modesty? If the wares in here are anything to go by, away from the public gaze the women of Tetuan must be a positive riot of colour. Into a street of mattress-stuffers now – workshops these, deeper but still tiny, figures working away at piles of wool and bundles of straw. Another alley is all jellaba-makers at their sewing machines, then handbag- and slipper-makers. Trade once used to be arranged like this in Europe, too, I know, but I’ve never understood the principle. A great advantage to the buyer, being able to compare all the prices on offer so easily, all in one place, but what do the craftsmen or merchants get out of it? Clearly I am not cut out for commerce.
The streets are getting less packed. I must be nearly at the mosque, now, surely? Or am I just lost? As I hesitate, wondering whether to turn back, a woman with two children clinging to the skirts of her jellaba holds a house-door open to wait for a lagging third child. I glance past her to find that, through the dark tunnel of the entrance, I’m looking into bright sunlight beyond: a gleam of checkered floor-tiles, glimpse of greenery and trailing plants, intricate arches set on elegant pillars.
The last child is out, now, the mother looking at me askance. I suppose I would be a little surprised, too, if some Moroccan woman came and stood staring through my front door.
Sorry, I say in French, forgetting that here people are more likely to speak Spanish. It’s just that your house is so lovely . . .
She answers me in Spanish anyway. Lovely, yes, she says, but muy viejo – very old! Too much cleaning, she adds, miming a scrubbing brush. Limpiar, siempre a limpiar! Always cleaning! Do you want a proper look? she asks, holding the door invitingly ajar. Go on! Don’t be timid!
So I stick my head in through the doorway and look a bit longer. A central courtyard open to the sky and flooded with sun, galleried upper floors resting on the slim pillars, traceries of wrought-iron balconies sun-dappled, wound with leafy tendrils of climbers. And some kind of stone well or water fountain in the centre, a little garden of potted plants around it . . . a tiny paradise.
Le gusta? she asks. Do you like it?
I certainly do, I say, stepping back out. I would never have guessed in a million years what lay behind that door. So much space, air and light within, but outside in the street, no hint of it at all. Just this cramped setting of narrow streets and tall, almost windowless façades.
She pulls the door shut and sets off up the road, driving the infants before her, turns and waves goodbye with a hygienically hennaed palm. I stand and look up and down the street. Are all these houses like that on the inside, then? I suppose they must be. That’s what a Muslim home is meant to be: the architectural equivalent of the all-concealing jellaba. Enclosed space at its heart, sheltered from sun and wind, plain on the outside, all ostentation frowned upon, the beauty of its decoration hidden within, never to impress, but for private appreciation only. It’s a technically brilliant design, too: the central column of air keeps a current flowing all through the building, a natural eco-friendly air-conditioning system. They certainly do a convincing job on the plain-outside part of the equation, though, here in Tetuan. And the secret heart of the house is a lot grander than anything I ever saw in the Albaycín. Maybe I never got to know the right people?
That mosque seems to have vanished off the face of the earth. I’ll just head straight back downhill, I decide. Rounding the first corner, I almost fall into a tiny shop. More of a long, deep alcove, really, than a shop. But what kind of shop is it? Indecipherable. In its narrow window – and on the tightly packed shelves within – are displayed an extraordinary array of multicoloured powders, granules, oils, liquids, piles of petals and of seeds, something that looks like slivers of translucent amber, another something that looks like pieces of twisted black twig. These unknown substances are held in every possible type of receptacle: from tiny vials to great glass demijohns, from baskets and glass bowls to tall earthenware jars. I stare on, clueless; no idea what any of it is, or why I should want it. This must be the first time in my adult life that I have been faced with a whole range of completely unidentifiable commodities: nameless Stuff whose use is entirely unknown to me. Feeling strangely disorientated and vulnerable, I peer into the similar establishment next door. It too is packed with shelf upon shelf of mystery merchandise. There is just enough room for a couple of customers to squeeze between the shelves – no more. At the very back a man in an embroidered velvet skullcap sits behind a tiny counter, pestles, mortars, and a set of small brass scales before him. He stands up and beckons me in. I dither at the door. He has already left his counter now, swishes through his shop to my side, leans forward confidentially, taking my arm.
What, Madame, is my favourite perfume? Do I like Dior? Givenchy? Gucci? Something more floral? More sharp? More sweet? More musky? Because whatever my desire may be, he will make me one up just like it – only his will be better, longer-lasting and half the price. Come on in! Entrez, entrez!
Declining as politely as possible, I disentangle myself and scuttle off back towards Moustafa’s café. I’ve been away far too long as it is. Luckily, I don’t want any perfume just at the moment: it’s hardly high on anyone’s list of travelling accoutrements, is it? I wouldn’t dare try buying anything in a souk yet, anyway. There is a whole page devoted to the topic in Gérard’s book: which starts by suggesting you should offer the merchant only half the price he first names. Half! It seems insulting. Like calling the seller a liar. I haven’t finished the rest of the section. Obviously I am badly in need of training. I shall make sure to study it in depth, so as to be ready to bargain when I return this way. I’d love a bottle of long-lasting half-price Amerige to take home to Italy . . .
I’m hardly back out through the arch when Moustafa rushes out and nabs me. Why didn’t I tell him I was going to visit the medina? See all those young men sitting on the steps over there? They are guides, waiting for nothing better than to show the likes of me around the city’s secrets! Moustafa has already beckoned one of them over. This is Abdelkrim, he says. Abdelkrim knows everything, all the history of the medina. He will show you the mosques, the rich merchants’ homes, the old mellah, the Jewish quarter – and the tanneries, which foreigners always find so spectacular, away on the far side. Abdelkrim is a professional faux guide – a False Guide.
I am too distracted by this extraordinary job title to go on listening to Moustafa’s list of the sights I’ve just missed. What does he mean, a False Guide? Why on earth is he called that? It’s hardly a very confidence-inspiring name. Does it mean he just makes it all up as he goes along?
Moustafa, horrified at the suggestion, leaps to the defence of False Guides. Abdelkrim, he says, is as knowledgeable as anyone else – as anyone possibly could be! – about the history of his town. But the local tourist authorities refuse to accredit more than a certain number of Official Guides. So everyone else is, by definition, a False Guide. And what else are these good young men to do with all their education, then, asks Moustafa rhetorically, putting an arm around his protégé’s shoulder. Abdelkrim gives Moustafa’s hand a soothing pat.
Of course he will take us for a tour, he says, if we have an hour or two, but it looks as if we’re about to leave.
Yes. There is Tobias’ car, I see now, and Tobias himself, shifting things about in the boot. Gérard and Guy have come out to pay. And the majestic personage beside Tobias, an impressive figure in a flowing white jellaba and snow-white chèche
is, amazingly, Yazid. Not just a phone: he has found himself a genie with a lamp. The classic migrant worker in the slightly ill-fitting Western clothes has been magically transformed into a proud prince from the court of the Sultan.
We pile back into the car, complimenting Yazid on his startling makeover.
But of course, he says, he couldn’t present himself in his home town in that foolish Western outfit. And then, after all these months without him, he wants his wife to be struck by his good looks! To Moroccan eyes, he explains, you look childish and infantile in Western clothes – not like a proper, manly man. Meaning, he adds hastily, no disrespect to the European company!
I sneak a look at Guy, the fashion victim among us. A certain pensive look in his eye tells me that this last remark has got to him. I must remember to place a bet with Gérard, next time we’re alone, on how many miles through North Africa we’ll get before Guy too is dressed as a proper, manly man.
And did Yazid find a phone? Gérard asks. How was his wife?
Yazid replies, in a strangely frosty manner, that he did find a phone, yes.
And the wife?
Silence falls.
Here in Morocco a man must never ask another how his wife is. It is tantamount to claiming some sort of dubious intimacy with her. An insult, explains Tobias. You have to ask how his home is, instead – and then he will tell you about the wife if he wants to.
Yazid decides not to be annoyed. Gérard didn’t do it on purpose. Probably.
Tobias congratulates me on evading the faux guides. I’m not so pleased, though, to have missed out on being shown all the secrets of the medina.
Bah! You’ll see plenty more medinas, says Tobias, shoving the car into gear. Every town in the Muslim world has one. Those guide boys know their way around town, all right, but once you’re in their clutches there’s no escape from being dragged into some carpet shop and given the hand of eternal friendship, the mint tea, and the heavy sales pitch. Come here in the summer, and they pester the lives out of people. Long may Melilla stay Spanish!
And so saying, Tobias shoots off at speed out of the square. I sneak a look at Yazid, but he seems a lot less bothered by Tobias’ determination to hang on to part of his country than he was by Gérard’s interest in his wife.
Yazid agrees with Tobias, life certainly is hell here in summertime. Nowadays he works all through August, the official holiday month, and comes home in spring instead. In August, he says, it can take the whole day to get through the Ceuta frontier. It is always jam-packed with the second-hand Mercedes that every last young migrant has to bring over the water to impress his stay-at-home neighbours. Yazid wouldn’t dream of wasting his hard-earned cash on such nonsense. Then, once you’re home, you never get a wink of sleep. Families find brides for their migrant sons, he says, while they’re away working, and as soon as they get home for the holiday, everything kicks off: the streets are jammed with hooting, shouting wedding cortèges – of Mercedes, naturally – and all night long there are squealing electronic bands and endless firework displays. They spend a fortune on those weddings, he adds. And the worst of it is, they’re impressing nobody. They just look like jumped-up yokels with more money than sense. Genuine, old-school-rich Moroccans don’t carry on like that, and their sons don’t need to emigrate to find work, either. They get set up in some cosy family business as soon as they leave school, and laugh up their sleeves at the peasants who have to leave the country to earn a living, all trying to impress one another with their tasteless displays of migrant money. Yazid doesn’t know what he’s going to do about his son’s wedding. Look like an idiot, or look like a miser?
So what is life like up there in Holland? I ask – once I’ve thoroughly checked the question for potential veiled insults and concluded that it is safe. But according to Yazid, life in Holland is not like anything at all. He eats, he sleeps, he works. He doesn’t socialize with the Dutch from work. Much better not. You could easily say or do something that would get you the sack. And maybe you’d never get another visa. He used to spend some time with his fellow Muslims, go to the mosque every now and then – but not any more. The new, young ones are troublemakers. They wanted him to sign a petition for a prayer-room at work! Yazid told them he wasn’t in Holland to pray, he was there to earn. Full stop. They think growing beards and praying five times a day makes them morally superior to the Dutch. And maybe it does, but if they think the Dutch will notice it, they’re fools.
What he does love in Holland, though, are the patisseries. Dutch cakes are good, but that’s not the main attraction. Firstly, alcohol is not sold in patisseries – there is nothing worse than finding yourself in a room full of drunken Dutchmen – and secondly, the customers are mostly women. On the weekends, when the patisseries are full up, some of them are bound to sit at his table. And the Dutch women are not like the men. They like to talk; they ask him about his life back home, about Islam, about his wife and children. They tell him about their own lives. He feels good, then. The tea may be weak and horrible, but with a big fat slice of Black Forest gateau before you, and some pleasant conversation, you can manage to overlook that.
Out of town, the ground soon starts to rise, while the view from the back seat, or as much as I can see of it past Yazid’s chèche, continues the biblical theme: acre upon acre of olive groves, plenty of fig trees, small flocks of sheep or goats herded by jellaba’d men with long staffs, often with a small child in mini-jellaba taking up the rear. These country jellabas are nothing like Yazid’s smooth snow-white linen job, though: I get plenty of time to examine them as we crawl along, waiting for a chance to squeeze past the livestock. They are farmers’ all-weather get-ups, home-made looking, with great long, pointy hoods that spread wide and collar-like across the shoulders, made of coarse sheep’s-wool the colours of their own flocks. Wool that has been carefully separated out into its natural sheep-colours of beige, brown and cream by some tender-hearted and skilful female relative, at a guess, before being home-spun and hand-woven into narrow vertical stripes.
The dry, desert-like olive groves here are nothing like the steep and leafy terraces of olive trees I’m used to back home in Diano, with green grass and dappled sunlight beneath them. On these arid, open Maghreb slopes there is a hundred feet or more of pale, sun-baked dry earth between each tree. What a horrible, hot job it must be to look after them, come summer, out in the baking African sun. In fact, you’d hardly call them groves at all; they are wide hillsides, their rounded slopes broad and gentle, the trees planted in regimented straight lines, so that in the distance the landscape looks like some piece of French-knot embroidery, or maybe a pile of patchwork quilts, perspective cutting the parallel lines of the trees at each overlapping curve. A thoroughly Andalusian view. Were these olive plantations established by the Spanish colonists of the early twentieth century? Or four centuries earlier, by the Moorish refugees of the sixteenth? Were they already here before the arrival of Islam, perhaps, when this land belonged to the Berbers alone? No idea. Any way round, they would look the same.
To make up for my missed tour of Tetuan, Guy decides to give me a medina low-down as we drive, culled from his family’s chest of memories. The mosque always has pride of place, he says, right in the centre of town, and the holier, or the cleaner, a trade is, the closer it will be to the mosque. First comes luxury stuff like candle-sellers and incense and spices, books and bookbinding, confectionery and sweets for offerings: then embroidery, clothing and fabrics, carpets and fine leather goods; then – slowly getting messier – weaving and carpentry, general hardware and ironmongers, and last of all fresh food – meat and suchlike – until you get to the really smelly and noxious things, blacksmiths’ forges and butchers’ abattoirs and tanneries for hides, which will be on the edges, or right outside the walls.
Yazid is nodding away approvingly as Guy speaks. But how come Guy knows all this, he asks, when he’s never been to North Africa before? Guy seems as reluctant to answer this as Yazid was to share informatio
n about his wife.
Tobias is surprised to hear that there’s any sort of plan to a medina at all. It always seems like plain anarchy to him. He’ll remember that next time he’s lost in the labyrinthine medina of Fez – follow the dirt and you might find your way out.
The principle of keeping the dirt outside the walls, it now occurs to me, may explain a mystery I encountered in the sketchy and (I admit) rather erratic reading I did to prepare for this journey. Guy lent me a family heirloom – a memoir called Tangiers to Tunis – Adventures in Algeria, written by Alexandre Dumas, the Three Musketeers man, who travelled here in the 1840s. At one point, Dumas – appalled, he says, by the mess and filth that lies outside the walls of Maghreb cities – goes so far as to complain to a local emir about it. He gets nowhere. The eccentric emir, Dumas tells us, is firmly convinced that keeping a great pile of stench outside a town will protect its inhabitants from disease. But what if Dumas, used to the dirt of Northern European cities of the time, with their open sewers and midden-heaps, simply misunderstood? I wonder whether what the emir really meant was that the town’s health was protected by having the dirt outside the walls, and not within?