8. Parties
I arrive in the haouma ol Suani as bidden, 'when the sun sets'. The huge mongrel tethered in the courtyard bares its teeth and snarls. There's a standard procedure when threatened by Tangier's dogs (the lacerated calf of a European who ran from one crippled him for life). Fix the creature with your eyes, pick up a rock and hurl it. If there are no rocks a feint usually suffices. Such behaviour is unbecoming in a guest. It's politer than requiring that the police shoot, decapitate the animal, and have the Institut Pasteur explore its brain for rabies. The dog my djibala hosts have brought with them from the hills is probably unlicensed, uninoculated and illicit. There are virtually no dogs loose in Tangier. I'm projecting will-power and love at the creature, rather than any missile, when my host appears and curses it into submission. I kick off my shoes on the threshold within centimetres of the now whimpering muzzle,
The single room was crowded with bedding, two small children already asleep, prematurely lit by its single electric bulb while rectangles of gold coloured a wall and the floor-matting, paling each minute proportionately with the darkening shadows of dusk.
The eldest daughter brought a bucket of water across the yard. Her mother squatted over an earthenware vessel, cooking tajine on a mishma fired with charcoal beyond the threshold. My host served mint tea to myself and two of his sons; ascertained it was sufficiently sweet for me, then dropped a further large chip of expensive sugar into the pot. This was a party.
The youngest children were nudged awake to eat. Mother and daughters joined us too. The fish of the tajine was mackerel; the flat loaves of bread, still warm, had been baked by my host only metres away. Swaying gently in the draught, the proud 20-watt light bulb had long since replaced the sun. We washed our fingers again. When I left the youngest children were once more sleeping, fully clothed on the floor. The dog licked my shoes affectionately as I slipped into them, Evidently I was accepted.
I never registered with the British Consulate; though whether through lethargy or some aloofness mechanism in me I don't know. Consequently I never received an invitation to celebrate Her Britannic Majesty's official birthday. One year I went. It was the only party I've ever gatecrashed in my life. For moral support I took a Cambridge graduate, a US citizen, but educated and resident in England since the age of two. I'm not particularly proud of the achievement, There proved to be some hundred and fifty invited guests.
We looked hideously respectable. Even Beardsly found a jacket and tie for the gravity of the occasion. A liveried Moroccan at the iron gates asked for my invitation. 'But your invitation, sir?' he repeated as I vaguely produced my card, and similarly introduced my guest. 'I think we are possibly expected.' It was the nearest one could decently lie to an employee of the Crown. (Indeed I had long entertained the belief that British subjects resident abroad were entitled to a free drink on this annual occasion: they are not.) There was consultation with a minion. 'Please wait, sirs,' we were told. And the liveried porter made off towards the house with my visiting card. 'March — but casually,' I hissed at: Beardsly, who was even more scared than I. The humbler Moroccan hadn't the nerve to stop us. We made it to the receiving line while the porter still hovered unheeded behind the Consul-General's wife holding my card. Firm handshake, jolly grunt, and we were through the Consulate into the crowded garden. They wouldn't throw us out now Unseemly is un-British. To be on the safe side I made straight for a knight and Arabist to wham Jan Morris had previously given me an introduction.
Relaxation, and the quite childish sense of having got away with something: access to free food. After all one did pay income tax in those freak years when earnings made one eligible for that privilege. There was a further fillip to a dubious triumph when, inquiring of the Xs whether the Ys were present. I was told no, the British 'colony' was now so large that invitations were extended in rotation. Nevertheless there were the perennial faces of other more private English parties, other gardens, It was a beautiful evening, with sunshine warming the trees and flowering shrubs, and unlimited scotch and canapés to vitalize the insides,
Now the solemn moment came in the peace of the Consulate garden, A sash window on the first floor was raised. The gramophone played 'God Save the Queen' faultlessly. Did I only imagine the machine had a curling sound trumpet which projected through the window? The toast to Her Majesty. I stood stiff and grateful, unmovably upright being stuffed with her food and inflexibly liquored. Propriety suggested that the two gatecrashers leave courteously early. Was there dryness? whimsy? in the Consul-General's wife's 'Goodnight. Mr Stewart' as I thanked her: I'm unused to diplomatic innuendo; and guilt can play tricks on the ears.
But no need to buy dinner! Even Beardsly's guests were on time We went straight, at least as far as the taxi could penetrate the Medina, to the indescribable oddity of his house; and he pre-arranged party, account of which would be inappropriate, coming as it did alter an occasion of state.
The Americans are proverbially generous; open-handed, if not always open-minded. In Tangier they have a political stake. Money is pumped into their Consulate, Library, 'cultural' projects, the American School and so on, because the State Department defines Morocco as 'third world'. A positive result of this is that there are intelligent and imaginative young Americans in the city out of proportion to their English or European equivalents, The British, with some few exceptions, tend to be in Tangier because a Foreign Service pension goes further, there are servants, sunshine, exciting horticultural possibilities; because Bath or Cheltenham would be foreign and cold after a lifetime's service in Africa or India; and these people are too wise to settle for the concrete inanity which is the speculative development of the Spanish 'costas'. The few English young in Tangier tend to be commercially engaged or unemployed; the Americans, with the exception of a strong hippie contingent, thoughtful, zealous and salaried. One doesn't take a job - as opposed to a business niche - in a foreign country unless one is interested in the place. As incidental consequence I've always known more Americans in Tangier than English people. There may be subjective bias here, I didn't go to Tangier to clique with school ties or mutual universities. In the askance-glancing, innately suspicious manner of the British, after the formal introductions and entertainings, we each knew the others were there. Often that was enough.
One American Fourth of July party I committed an unfortunate gaffe. Idly remarking that the US Embassy in London must be the most discreetly impregnable example of castle-building in history, I discovered bourbon was warming my imagination. The fellow was attentive, which was gratifying. He was also serious, which was irresistible. The US Consulate in which we stood, I explained, could be taken in ninety seconds by six men with the aid of a two-inch mortar on the roof of the nearby apartment building e. here I happened then to be living. 'And what do you do?' I asked when conversation flagged. 'I'm the Consulate's security officer,' came the dry character's answer. He did not smile.
I slunk away, remembering another story. The lady tourist cannot have been British. They are insufficiently intense. Motor-cycle police are everywhere designed from goggles to chromium exhausts to impress. This must be why the lady stopped one in Tangier's Place de France.
'You look responsible – responsable,' she began.
The result was that immediately the goggles came down about the throat as the right hand went leisurely up to the helmet in salute.
'Bon! Responsable!' the lady repeated.
The elite cop smiled, which is unusual. But with an elegant turn of the wrist he silenced his bubbling machine completely, which is more than unusual.
'Now I want to know when – à quelle heure,' the lady asked, 'the next bus leaves for Jerusalem.'
Of course it's in the professional training of speed cops to take off very fast. A 750 cc Honda thrown into gear by a terrified expert is an impressive sight.
Mohammed Mrabet invited me to a diffa celebrating his son's circumcision. The four-year-old child was not produced; but neither could he be heard h
owling which is perhaps what such a feast, complete with musicians, deliberately precludes. There was divided opinion among the seven non-Moslems honoured as to whether gifts should be presented to the father or to the son. I opted for a Rolls-Royce for the child, flown in from Gibraltar. A Dinky toy.
Mrabet's salon was classically shaped and furnished: a long, narrow carpeted room with mtarrbas running the full length of two walls. This generous seating became packed as some thirty or forty Moroccans arrived during the course of the next two hours and an astonishing variety of shoes accumulated on the threshold and spilled into the courtyard. 'Some mint tea would be nice!' whispered one of my fellow Caucasians. I also had arrived with innocence promptly at eight, having been ferried to the house by our host but, feeling guilty, had taken the precaution of ingesting coffee and biscuits at seven. Inevitably my friend whose tongue now hung out could soon move no more easily than the rest of the company for a surfeit of delicious foods, mint tea, and even Coca-Cola. Alcohol of course was not served; and there were no women present, even fleetingly. Glimpses of them could be caught through a diaphanous curtain, giving presumably on to the kitchen. We Nsara were moved from this end of the salon with the arrival of the musicians,
Assisting Mrabet with the transporting of taifors, low circular tables, and the food and drink, were a male relation and an endearing character in baggy Moorish trousers who seemed to combine the functions of skivvy and medieval court jester. First distributed to each guest were giant sheets of paper. The purpose of these was to wrap up the special loaf of bread and a small sweet cake which were now being handed out, and which would be taken home intact after the feast was over. I nudged my hungry companion. Following my glance he saw that a Moroccan of obviously unimpeachable correctness was eating his coconut bun. Casually we tore small pieces from ours, popping these into our mouths with the first fingers of the right hand. The ritual washing basin, jug and towel were carried round.. For unguent there was the finest toilet soap: not the proud teaspoonful of detergent I'd once used gracefully in another home. Mrabet had clearly spared no expense. Omens looked good for the food.
And the food proved very much better than good. How a relatively simple household prepares a tajine for nearly fifty people was a mystery Mrabet kept to himself. Presumably it involved all the women of the clan, complicated logistics to gather a pool of cooking pots, charcoal braziers and butagas burners. Every stage had been executed on the premises. There were rams' horns in the yard. Having slaved devotedly, the womenfolk, still out of sight, became audible for the first time, singing or crooning as the musicians played. A giant steaming platter was placed on each of the taifors that had been previously brought in. We Christians had one to ourselves, the musicians another, while the rest of the company grouped themselves around half a dozen more. There must have been over half a kilo of meat per head, mounds of oil-stewed almonds, finely seasoned vegetables and numerous flat loaves of bread to tear apart and employ variously as oven-glove, spoon and edible plate. For the first twenty minutes the meat was too hot to touch with naked fingers. An impressive silence fell. Arabs regard talk as nuisanceful distraction when eating. The court jester cum host's aide scurried back and forth across the open yard, now with a fresh armful of loaves, now with giant bottles of Coke. Not once was the curtained doorway to the kitchen, and womenfolk used, custom proving stronger than rationality, or rather creating its own. Platters now containing nothing but bones were whisked out; others piled with water melon spirited in. The hand-washing equipment was brought round again; and a further transformation produced fifty glasses of scalding mint tea.
With the completion of the meal the musicians came into their own. Music, a full stomach, snuff, kif, more mint tea, tobacco, variously ingested according to habit, produced extraordinary mutual harmony. Groups conversed softly - whether the topic was a sore one like the increased price of the principal Moroccan drug, sugar, or as uncontentious as the different methods of angling streams in the bled, Sneezes precipitated by snuff caused convulsions of laughter; but it was the audience's facial expressions and bodily contortions rather than vocal chords which expressed it, Some guests turned down glazed eyes to minimal visual reception and ears up to maximum aural, wandering timelessly with the melodies which are Moroccan music at its live best. People left quietly with muttered courtesies.
It had been a fascinating evening. But nothing is totally sublime. I felt idiotic finding only one of my shoes among the diminished pile. Mrabet refused to let me limp home, It was discovered hidden, with erroneous humour conceivably, by one of my fellow Christians.
It had long been a fantasy ambition of mine to win the prize at one of European Tangier's fancy-dress parties by hiring some scantily clad nubile girls, and more cheaply small boys, roping them about the waist and towing them to an astonishing wealth of food, and such perks as their individual ingenuity might garner, in the guise of a slave dealer, I never found the guts. Straight fear of the cops was one reason. An ironical game's being misunderstood by my 'slaves' a better. And it is the party-giver himself, after all, who in the Bible extends his charity to the poor of the streets and lanes of the city - and as much through pique as magnanimity. So I attend fancy-dress parties in the best disguise of all: just as I am; a parody of myself. An advantage is that this costs nothing. One can also concentrate on food and conversation undistracted by sartorial jealousy. Practically again, it is difficult either to make love or urinate in moonlit bushes when impertinently rigged out in the full traditional costume of a Moroccan male which, naturally enough, tends to be the perennial outfit of men.
Rex Nan Kivell holds his annual binge when he feels like it, once endeavouring to import stroboscopic lights, which puzzled Tangier's Customs and Excise, though not I think on the medical theory that they can cause epilepsy. Louise de Meuron times her party to coincide with a summer month's full moon, complementing the soft white light with a giant bonfire and dozens of fluttering lanterns suspended from trees.
'Ah hope this is not going to be a piss-elegant party,' said the deep-southern American with whom I was sharing a taxi. 'Be-cause if it is Ah ham leaving!' 'It will be,' I said, digging but disapproving of the composite adjective.
We had timed our arrival three-quarters of an hour late. The legendary party was said only to end with discreet servants searching the shrubbery with breakfast trays laid for two; while little stops Alssawa musicians in top gear, and only unconsciousness members of the cult of Sidi Aissa in whom trance has been induced by hours of dancing.
'Ah hear no music!' said my companion, 'Nothing at all,' I agreed nervously.
It was a pity to surrender our hand-drawn invitations at the outer gate: they had been lovingly made. A porter with a torch led us down the paved path. Moments later I thought my companion would bolt. Two servants raised five-foot straight horns and blew a tremendous fanfare. We passed beneath the reverberating brass arch on to a patio laid out to accommodate some hundreds — the first guests to arrive. We introduced ourselves to our hostess, who in turn introduced us to her daughter and small grandchildren. Thank God I'd not brought my string of slave-girls.
The party was beautifully arranged with giant horseshoes of Moroccan couches spread about the periphery of the patio so that friends could congregate naturally. Visual star of the painters', authors' and writers' clique was the dramatically beautiful girlfriend of Ahmed Jacoubi. I succumbed instantly to one of my seventy-two-hour love affairs and was to follow her forlornly begging Ahmed for a photographic portrait session, But: no deal with Christians: or not this one. 'I'll tell her to be here at five,' Ahmed would say in his studio. Then reverse his proxy decision. Intuition told me the girl herself would not be averse to a square photograph if only because we met for seven seconds behind one of Madame de Meuron's flowering shrubs later this night.
Peter Owen joined our group democratically, publishing both Bowles and Mrabet. Michael Rogers of Rolling Stone was subsequently to write of 'plump English novelists in lounge sui
ts'. Peter can never have been more honoured. He and I were the only approximations of Englishmen, never mind suited.
Oddly we were to coincide at the top of the drive at the innocent hour of midnight, hoping for taxis. 'I'd walk if I knew the way.' Peter said bravely. 'Me, too,' I lied. 'How d'you suppose one gets a taxi?' he wondered, 'More your thing,' I hazarded. 'Faint gesture with umbrella? Unthinking adjustment of bowler hat?' Necessarily we'd both had a glass of wine. In the remote haouma of Village, urchins stared with justified incomprehension. 'Messieurs?' questioned a de Meuron retainer appearing from nowhere. And signalled forward a taxi from a lurking queue. 'Just like London!' I sighed. Peter gave me a cigar, perhaps to keep my mouth shut. 'Let me.' I muttered in idiot euphoria as the cab swept into the forecourt of the Villa de France (I was thinking of that Moroccan girl). 'I have to go on to my place anyway.' It hit me with huge Scots pleasure as I clambered from the taxi at the apartment block. Taxi rides for struggling publishers! And not even my own! Writers have their pride. I paused, sagging on the fifth landing. My lift was no funciona. One definition of the scribblers' art is altruism.
Meanwhile midnight had not struck. The secret of buffet suppers is to eat very slowly over several hours. This discipline is idyllic when one reclines on Moorish couches beneath a full moon talking only spasmodically with one's friends (Gavin Lambert was an impressive sheik; Carol Ardman delightful as ever, perpetual tea and sympathy girl) and becoming increasingly hypnotized by the music and dancing of Alssawa. Their vitality is extraordinary. Colour, sound, motion simultaneously assault the mind. But the body is invaded too. Rhythmic pounding is physically felt. But because tribal music is a total participation it must also be seen to be felt. The most ingenious cinema can only approximate its power, through the extraneous filter of a director, Disc and radio are proportionately thinner still. The new word 'vibes' is possibly one of the most meaningful in the language.
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