A Tangier Journal Ma Marr dhe b har wer photo by Ira Cohen for Paul Bowles 7980IRA COHEN “Hemp, Hemp, Hoorayt No ship could sail without it” Brom James Joyce to Francois Rabelais Ikwasin 1961 after a year of graduate school at Columbia that I decided to leave New York City and caught a Yugoslavian freighter for 90 dollars bound for Casablanca with thoughts of Morocco based on old movies and the writings of Paul Bowles and William Burroughs I set sail dreaming of finding the magic lamp with which I would open the door of mry life to come. Arriving in Casablanca, the first thing | saw was a pyramid of packing crates on the docks and on the very top of these was a Morocean squatting on the rim of a toilet silhouetted against the North African sky. 1 spent my first night in the deseried streets of the Medina until dawn, scarcely meeting a single person except for cocasionall hooded figures sitting in doorways—whom eventually Tcame fo know as the Guard- ians of the Night. The next day I heard that an American soldier had boen Killed and castrated that night rot far from where I was walking, Probably someone looking for trouble, | thought, but still [heaved a sigh of relief, When [arrived in Tangier [headed for the Socco Chico where Isat at one of the many café tables which filled the little square & as1I sipped my first mint tea, Ihaad the uncanny feeling that 1 had heen there before Itwas as if I walked into a familiar dream called Deja Vu. Suddenly [realized that this was the set of Tennessee Williams’ play, Camino Real, which I had seen in New York when it opened the previous year ‘The stage set of the play was obviously based on the Socco Chico. I had entered by the American stairs which faced the sea, the doorway in Tennessee’s play which led toa mysterious world from which no one. who left ever refured—or so I remembered, The Sooco was one of those magical places where every person seemed an archetype and indeed Tennessee's play was filled with such characters as the American. Kilroy whose name was scribbled on anonymous walls everywhere in these post-war years proclaiming Kilroy was here.” Played by Eli Wallach, Kilroy was described as having a heart of gold as big as the head of a baby—Other characters included Lord Byron, the Baron Charlus from Proust's Remembrance of | ‘Things Past, Don Quixote &'he Old Gypsy fortune teller who sold her daughter anew each day asa virgin. Igota room in the Carlton Holel just off the Socco Chico for about 60 cents a night, one of the many hotels [stayed in before [ found my first house in the Casbah. | put my bag down in Koom Number Seven, but after a few hours exploring the kif cafés, I returmed to find that my room had completely disappeared from the hotel, “There is no room number seven...” the desk clerk insisted & I thought I was in one of those weird movies until | realized I had walked into another hotel just down the street from the Carlton, Within a few days T was to encounter William Burroughs sitting in the Sooco having his shoes shined and so I entered Interzone where I was to spend most of the next four years becoming my own character in the revolving dream machine of a Tangier fantasy not even Scheherazade could uve inuaginedL. Tangier was very mysterious place in those days—a cinematic minefield loaded with the greatest character actors in the world and eventually I got fo meet them all in the Sooo Chico, the Café de Paris on the Boulevard near the Hotel Minzah, or the Parade Bar where Mugwumps drank cocktails through alabaster straws in Naked Lunch, Spies, smugglers, remittance men, hustlers of every stripe, international queens, beatniks & 8182 belly dancers, Mary Rogers (the daughter of the great American humorist Will Rogers), Eugenia Banklcad (Tallulah’s sister), dukes & duchesses as well as circus freaks and acrobats. And then the Moroccans themselves whom Tlived among, a cast of natural born storytellers who were larger than life, remarkable people possessed of more magic than anyone else Thave ever mel anywhere. And above il all we st in the ‘Medina at Abdelkader’s Caté putfing on our kif pipes looking down on the Palace of Barbara Hution, the sad Woolworth heiress who was occasionally to be seen carried in or out in the arms of her chauffeur. Did T sometimes think I was Pepe Le Moko and that I would always be okay as long as [remained in the Casbah? You bet your sweet life Idi. Ihad it ul, the three wishes, the cence of the seven veils, and the raceting with the old man of the mountain, And yet in time I did leave and eventually made my way to Shangri-La where I could have lived forever, but that’s another story. Lett suffice to say that [arrived in Tangier with a copy of Naked Lunch in my back pocket & that although I never followed up on Burroughs’ invitation after our first meeting, I did meet him again when I followed ‘the sound of a phantom typewriter pounding away through the night at the CTM Hotel in Marrakesh, though it was not until Imct him in Paris that we finally got to know cach other through Brion Gysin who first turned me on to the cut up technique. It was Brion whom I met at the Beat Hotel on the Rue Git le Coeur who played me tapes of the jilala & the Master Musicians of Joujouka as well as other tapes re- corded ly Patil Bowes for the Smithsonian Institute, Although I was later to meet Paul by accident walking through the Place Djemaa cl Tha in Marrakesh, it was the enthusiasm of Brion & Harold Norse, whom I had already met in Tangier, which led to my putting together the magazine Gnaoua after the name of the Islamic brotherhood whose patron saint was Sidi Bila, the black muezzin of Mohammed. It featured several texts by William from The Nova Mobas well as Brion’s now famous Pipes of Pan about the music & rites of Joujouka & Harold's great sexy cut up which I named Sniffing Keyholes. It was a live encounter with the exorcistic music of the Gnaoua which inspired me to do this magazine which also included a portfolio entitled Superstars of Cinemarvc by Jack Smith whose unique images were influenced in New York by old Maria Montez movies. I was at that time living in Dar Baroud in a Moroccan house filled with les & slained glass windows, a kaleidoscopic environment which I shared with Rosalind, Irving Rosenthal & Mare Schleifer who later became the NBC Bureau Chief for the Middle East in Cairo and changed his name to Suleiman Ben Abdullah Schleifer: Irving had edited some of the most important literary nuaga- zines of the time—the seminal Zen issue of The Chicago Review as well as Big Table which featured the first publications from Naked Lunch, Kerouac’s Old Angel Midnight & Gregory Corso’s big poems, Power & Anny. Irving was just completing his book, Sheeper, whicl I was reading in daify installments and selections appeared in Gnaoua along with poems by Mare Schleifer & Philip Lamantia as well as Michel ‘MoClure’s shamanic Beast Poems, Tatiana’s Rock of Eotoplasm From Thunder Island, Stuart Gordon’s Crab Hermits Develop Language: Shall It Freely Be?, and Irving's translation from the Spanish of the stcvies of ‘Mohammed Ben Abdullah Yussufi, a Moroccan shoeshine boy who was beaten to death by the police, ‘were other contributions along with the special cut up photos of Ian Sommerville, mathematician & Dream Machine theoretician, complete with directions on how to make your own photo grids & George Andrews’ brilliant translation of Alfred Jarry’s The Other Aloestis This magazine is now a prized collector's item & was the first thing I ever did. How lucky I was to learn the ropes from Irving & Mare Schleifer who had started Kulchur Press in New York before he came to Morocco. Irving & Mare had both appeared it Jack Smith’s Haming Creatures, a masterpiece of the New American Cinema, In the end Iwent fo Belgium ‘where Gnaoua was printed and everyone thought it was the best magazine that they were ever in. That ‘was 1964.After the issue came out, Targuisti, who was an old friend of Brion’s going back to the days of Brion’s legendary club, The Thousand and One Nights, decided to spend the rainy season visiting me every day to pass the time and we began to plan an evening with the filala, another of the religious brotherhoods of -Morocea, to celebrate Brion’s return sometime around 1965. It was then we began inviting the Jlala as 1 had once invited the Gnaoua fo my house to perform their trance rituals for small groups of friends which included on occasion the surrealist poet, Edouard Rodit, who fold stories of his encounters with Federico Garcia Lorca or Hart Crane, Susan Sontag who arrived form New York to visit Paul and Jane Bowles, Alfred Chester who dropped in early one day when Targuisti was skinning a sheep before a nightof trance music. Alfred panicked and left in a hurry convinced that he himself would become a sacrificial victim, Alfred, who was one of my best friends, came to a tragic end committing suicide some years later in Jerusalem afler writing his best book The Exquisile Corpse. Msikscif came in his gold turban io make mint ‘ea and to supervise the preparation of the food. And of course Paul & Brion both came and made recortd- ‘ngs which I issued on my ovm label Trance Records. When I returned to New York after four years in “Morocco I remember encountering Angus Maclise at the Cinematheque on. 42nd street where he was performing his Dream Weaport Rituals with John Cale playing, viola and how they responded to the rausic of the Jilala Brion always said that it was the Jilala who played his music, the music that made his serpent rise. And so it was for me as well The last night I spent in Morocco, Farato the fire eater drank a kettle of boiling water as the women ululated wildly and I finally danced with them giving myself completely to the music of Sidi Abcetkader filani. Now as I write these words the music of the Jilala & the Gnaoua aswell as the ramsic of Joujontka, have become well known alll over Europe and America, and itis not unusual fo find groups of these Moroccan ‘musicians in all the music capitals of the world. Thirty years later, I find myself reading poetry and per- forming, in New York City at The Cooler with Hassan Hakmoun playing gimbri and showing him a rare copy of Gnaoua with the English translation of a song about how the Gnacua were brought to Morocco from the Sahara by the Larobia in camel bags and how they were ancinted in the name of the Prophet vith jasmine & orange blossoms. When [sent copies of Gnaous to Allen Ginsherg who had also contrib- uted to the issue while he was in India, he sent one to Bob Dylan and you can see on the cover of Bringing It All Back Home his copy of the magazine sitting on the center of the mantelpiece.” GNACw y Or Itwas then that Mel Clay, poet-playwright & actor with the Living Theatre, came to me with fexts he had ‘boen working on for some months while living in the Cashah. I suggested that he might find it interesting toapply the cut up method and so we embarked on a great adventure cutting up cur work together and created a piece called The Majoon Traveler. We applied a technique I called “the sieve,” cutting rectangu- lar slits on different sheets of paper & passing them over the texts The idea was fo sieve words as one might iscking bacicak pon vrlteccrpion epee: cemed enpert RT ARAngly eioag Treatise ariesedembted BS ‘William Burroughs, right dow to the cantharides beetle on his nase.84 sieve kif to collect the fine powder from which the best hash could be made, it was in that way that I made Tangier Telegram from the Majoon Traveler as well as Coda. Ttwas soon affer that [discussed with George Androws the idea of making a book about cannabis I wroie The Goblet of Dreams o be included in The Book of Grass published by Peter Owens Vision Fressin London and co-edited by my long time friend and Dutch translator, the poet Simon Vinkenoog, Asit turned out it wasn’t used so | sent it through Alfred Chester’s agent to Playboy Magazine where it was printed in April 1966 in an issue which also featured lan Fleming, & Viadimnir Nabokov, ry former profes sor at Cornell, When the legal department at Playboy decided not to include a recipe for majoon, Tended “upbringing out The Hashish Cookbook under the name Panama Rose which became an underground bestseller. Before Ieft Tangier and reftumed to New York where I started the Universal Mutant Repertory Company and began to make mylar photographs, [came as I often did, fo see Patil after midnight at his apartment in Campoamor—throwing pebbles at his windoiw (there were no telephones) and it was in these last visits that | discovered a group of unpublished poems Paul had written in the late 30’s and early 40's in Mexico. ‘These poems were published in a magazine called The Great Society which I co-edited with a young American poet, Robert Richikin. I thought of the Jilala record! asa second issue of Gnaoua and The Great Society was a Hedidacua publication. This issue also included the first published story of Moharamed ‘MYrabet called The Blood Drinker. It was M'rabet who said to me in 1986 when | returned to Tangier, “Once we were young, now we are old, soon we won't exist, i is so perfect.” It was ducing those last pebbled nights in Tangier visiting Paul that I decided to tape our last conversations. When T had the tape transcribed I took a pair of scissors and cut it into strips, putting all the parts which I liked into an envelope. Somehow this envelope ended up in the Columbia University Liorary where it was found by Gina Caponi who was writing a book about Paul Rowles She put the conversation back together and printed it in a book & now it is in French thanks to Philippe Franck and Didier Deville. After many years in Nepal and India I went back to Tangier in 1986 & in 1990. In’86, T wrote From the Moroccan journal the day after my return. woke up in my hotel room thinking it was already five in the afternoon and rushed out to the Socco, realizing when I got there that it was actually five o'clock in the morning It was then that I began to write in my journal trying to remember everything, It was also on that trip that I made a video which Tcalled The Goblct of Dreams shot mostly in Marrakesh in the Djemaa FL Tha. In 1990, I wrote Minbad Sinbad at café tables all over Tangier. When [asked someone who was interrupt- ing me how to say “Inter,” he told me it was “mninbad,” so I said to him, “OK. Minbad, Sinbad.” And so the lille, “This is not couscous in a can,” according to Rubio, the wheelchair philosopher of the Soca Chico who lost his legs to gangrene, Now in his forties, [remember him as a cocky kid of fourteen when he hung out with William Burroughs & wore a natty suit, bright as a copper penny. I could say a lot more but I ‘want fo go out into the streets of Brussels hefore the light changes. In conclusion, I want to say three things. Acconding to a footnote in Dante’s Purgaforio— “When it is noon in Purgatory, it is dusk in Morocco on the Atlantic” Two, in a short story by Jorge Luis Borges [once read that the exit from the underworld wasin Tetuan, not far from Tangier. Three, when I asked Paul to write an Akashic melody—he asked me to tell shim the meaning of the word Akashic. I began by saying itis from the Sanskrit Akash, towards the shining, amuanifestation, etheric, sky spocch, the subliminal cassette..He said, “O, you mean God's Home Movies” And there you have it. With special thanks to Ahmed Yacoubi, Mohammed Harri, & all the rest of the big ‘Moroccan Band plus Rosalind. Jane, 1997 “Aventie Chazal, Brussels hennah hand painting by Stephanie Rudloe 8586 Ira Cohen gaasny appre yy Wr weyat 7) a2Mgg 0207 ~w Olanye Kren88Foo pao Oy Ag 89LETTER TYPED BY HAKOLD NORSE, ANNOTATED BY BRION GYSIN AND SENT TO IRA COHEN 18.11.63 Dear Ira, Went up to pow-wow with Brion about magazine & we cate up with questions & answers in no particular order so I present it that way. What do I, Rosenthal & M. Schleifer think about distribution & censorship. If dirty pieces are banned how will you get them defended in States & U.K? Think & ask these cats about porno—would the mag be buried or become cause célebre? If you put all your best material in first issue there’s no doubt you'll hit the headlines. Brion is going to see Bill in London next week where he'll get more stuff from Bill & from Tan, who could do his cut-up pictures of contributors (Bill, Brion, Harold, etc) for the mag. Think of tremendous publicity value of putting across something really new with first issue, like Cut-up movement with material by poets, prose writers, painters, & sculptors (sending you photos of Takis’ work with pieces by Brion & Bill on this in the folder) & scientists (an). GENAQUA (you seem to have chosen the Spanish spelling) as a titlc is hard to pronounce, it’s the name of a specific sect— it’s the heavy black mammy deal drummed into people for ages—a habit—cut out the old habit is the message of cut-ups—free us from words & images that condition us—So Brion got out his whole library of books in our search for new title. We consulted the following books: La Sorcelleric du Maroc, The Valleys of the Assassins, South African Explorers, West African Explorers (in two volumes); The Legacy of Islam (Oxford Press); The Oxford Companion 10 Classical Literature; The Koran; The Old Man Of The Mountain, The Calif Hakim. Then, to be quite honest, we poured all these volumes thru Harold’s eye in a twinkling. The title produced itself: AM HERE...Then I said: AM HERE. Which is what the whole thing is about, All right, BRION THEN VISUALIZES THE COVER HE WILL MAKE... AM HERE NO. 1 with GENAOQUA PORTFOLIO He will give you Genaoua drawings & Cover as cut up: ‘AM HERE HAVING WONDER FULL TIME WISH YOU WERE, with little Moroccan dancing beansprout people saying AM HERE AM HERE AM HERE...Harold will also give you cut-up fold-in of poem from METRO solving that problem. So after cutting out the title AM HERE from words floating in Space we knew that if we thought for a minute we had to sell this to you we'd drop it! Brion will also give Basic Statement of Cut-ups & is preparing a scientific article in conjunction with Ian of Flicker, Magnetism & Transduction.‘What can you do about reproductions? like those in HE EXTERMINATOR (simple black & white); & what about color for cover? Harold’s poem will look like this in cut-up title: PARAPOEM FROM ME/ / /TRO a he will fold-in original fold-in to get new one... If you have no financial problem in getting the mug started, & distributed, we're already swinging & stoned on the idea as a reality & will work with you to get gassiest first number ever seenl Do write & tell us what you think, you can see that we thought about this letter. Also sending two pages of a brand-new cut-up sculpture picture by David Budd which can be a make-it-yourself-out-of-two-pages. On these are to be “Words by Wm. Burroughs & Brion Gysin” to be shown in London in October. Have spoken to Takis & he’s willing to give some new drawings which could be pro- duced in black & white instead of poor & expensive (to you down there) photo clichés, BG. HN. off to London tomorrow March 24 Back in a week & will then send you a whole packet of mss. drawings etc. a192 JOHNNY DOLPHIN ALLEN Tangier Recollections 1963-1964 The warm comfort of jelaba, hood down to carry back tangerines, flat bread and dates to my pad ina five-story building (only one small room to each floor, but with a magical staircase), where a huge iron key apens the wooden door. With hood up T could stroll in perfect disguise through any neighborhood at any hour, except the estates of the rich above the medina and beyond the City on the Herculean cliffs Hours passed unseen in prolonged emanated communions over mint teas in the Sacco Chico and in the Kif Café above Barbara Hutton’s domain, In the magic rooms beneath parallels forming vertical Berber rugs, the one whose visualization stayed strongest set the stage for silent frays of archetypal glances, gestures, and scenes. Seldom was a word needed fo communicate. The deaf mute, Hamid, taught us all subtleties of gesture making symbols that encapsulated poems of meaning. Who stole our time, William asked, but who gave our time back was Tangiers. All the time in the world flowed into me, Time to sleep, 10 cat a stew, to section a tangerine and remove each White filament to cat one by one before tasting the fruit itself, time to study eidetic messengers, hypnogogic intimations, and hypnoponic preparations, time to walk each tiny street, tire to turn a phrase, to write the first draft of my novel, Thirty Nine Blows On A Gone Trumpet, time to regress to conception and to sce old age, time to meet and savor Hettie, Judy, Terry, Lindsay, Ira, to participate on the fringes of legends that later became deep friends, Burroughs and Gysin, to eat cookies that turned into magic carpets, to decide definitively one’s arc of sex, to suffer rejections that bordered on killings, and to achieve intimacies that asymptoted to perfec tion. Time to heal, to grow, to endure, to hurt, to see, to experience endless gratitude to the Berbers, their music, the artists, the experimenters, the demi-monde, time to begin a genuinely new life, to start over again, to feel as deeply as one could sense or think, to have escaped one’s emotional doom and imprisoned circles, and even to meet inner images and people who showed how to stay free once free, and not to get caught again. Tangiers! Those who tasted it always recognized each other in London, on the Boule Mich, Kathmandu, wherever.Hakim BEY MOORISH MAIL-ORDER MYSTICISM “Mail-order mysticism” may sound like a joke to the serious, orthodox, traditional, or aca~ demic “expert” in religion—& to the professional gurus whose “work” consists of personality- monopoly & psychological authoritarianism—but the Moorish Orthodox Church takes it seriously. There's something magical about the mail—voices from the Unseen—documents as amulets—and something very American, democratic & self-reliant—mysterious urban folk- lore—old ad’s for AMORC in crumbling yellow magazines—HooDoo catalogues, dreambooks—ancient spirits-of-place intersecting with modern communications networks that are placeless, spooky, & abstract. And the mail itself now seems antique—a lost modernity, 19th century, sepia, violet ink—a fitting medium for the transmission of secrets. Do-it-yourself Enlightenment? Why not? It may not he the hest way or the only way, but it is a way. A genuine vein of initiation runs through the “planc” where one finds Dr. Bronner’s soap labels, the lost Books of Moses, the apocryphal grimoires of Marie Laveau, Hollow Earth Theory, old Theosophical journals in your grandmother’s attic, “What Did These Great Men Haye In Common?”, Noble Drew Ali’s Moorish health-products, the mail-order courses of Druids & occult Orders, millennarian tracts, mysterious classified ad's, Mexican lithography, Be, 8. Itall adds up to a “New World” religion, a translation of “Wild(er)ness” into the strange lost margins of commodification & “communication”—both a betrayal & an apotheosis (like ail religion) —a playground for the Trickster—a mundus imaginalis of the postal system & the printing press & the poetics of Desire. Literal belief in one or another of these mail-order revelations would destroy our ability to believe in all of them simultaneously, like a palimpsest of angelic alphabets, a field of magical “correspondence(s),” a conceptual transforming-space of mythic energies & mythopoesis. The eros of postal mysticism lies in the whole pattern it makes, rather than in one part or another, one “course” or another. Sometimes those who sneer the most ironically at this textual spirit- ism are secretly drawn by its imaginal sensuality, even while their rational brains reject it all as high weirdness & superstition. However, one can believe (or “believe”) both/ and, rather than either/or. One drifts in a world of reverics, and “Rejoice, fellow creature! All is ours!”—Or, at least: — an opening. Egyptomania—the imaginal “Islam? of old cigarette boxes & masonic bric-a-brac—the HooDoo figure of the “Old Moor,” author of almanacs, herb-doctor, Maroon—the northwest African element in American folklore—plus, the Native American component of the great New World HooDoo synthesis—the Santeria orisha called El Spirito Indio—psychic tribalism, ani- 9394 ‘mism, totemism, and the Nature-religion natural to our Wilderness-haunted collective (un?)conscious—plus, the psychedelic heritage of the 1950s & 60s, which combined with Moorish Science & the “Wandering Bishops” tradition, to produce the Moorish Orthodox. ‘Church:—Sabbatai Scvi & Jacob Franck the “False Messiahs”—secrets of Canaanite pagan- ism—Jewish magic & amulets—Protestant chiliasm, the revolutionary Anabaptists, Ranters, Antinomians—plus, Apostolic high-liturgical gnostic autocephalous Church ritual—magical Tavism, “Aimless Wandering,” tantrik intoxicants, initiation through dreams & contacts with the spirit world—hemp use in ancient China—mail-order almanacs of chaos cults from the Seven Finger High Glister of the Great Dismal Swamp—&e., &. All this can now be yours, as you “Send Away For A Split Second Of Eternity” by joining the MOORISH MAIL-ORDER MYSTICISM movement. Certain airwave preachers tell you to “put your hands on the radio!” to receive a blessing or a healing. The modern media are by definition forces for alienation—and yet—they contain within them hidden & unplanned magical linkages which are Immediatc—or at least far more direct than reason would allow. No technology can leach itself clean of the residue of magic which lies at its source—and communication tech is the most “spiritual” of them all. The mail is full of gnostic traces—even of love. Why not initiation?LETTER FROM ALFRED CHESTER TO EDWARD FIELD from VOYAGE TO DESTRUCTION, LETTERS FROM MOROCCO, by Alfred Chester, edited by Edward Field 14 Aug. 1963—Asilah, Morocco Paidhaiki 1 keep thinking that you must be mad at me—I mean about the bed—and even if you are, please write. Everyone must be mad at me except Dick Kluger of the Tribune. He’s the only one who writes me, Paul got Susan’s [Sontag] book but she didn’t send me a copy. Now that I'm not in New York I feel like a literary non-enlily. Though I'm working. But of course only a fuss makes you feel literary. The Tribune has asked me to do a monthly article on anything I want, 1,200 words. Also Show and Esquire have inquired about articles on Tangiers. ‘Dris* and I are still marricd, more so than ever, though everytime he’s out of sight I plot ways fo get rid of him. Every time I see him with food in his hand 1 fall madly in love. He can make me very happy and often does. He keeps house pretty well and his cooking is improving, ‘We're still in that same awful hole. There isn’t another available house and now I'm thinking that maybe we should move to Tangiers during the next few weeks. Dris has lots of friends and family here of course and is always running around, and I have no one except Paul who is really so dreary, or the Englishman next door who is even drearier and whose boy anyhow is Dris’ best friend and hated rival and so I can’t see much of him. Jane is here for a few days now, so that’s a litle entertaining. And there’s an English boy"living here now whom I wouldn’t be caught dead with anywhere but here or on a ship. Very dreary. And Paul so bitter always. 1f [had any fantasies left, sexual ones, my life with Dris would be a delicious reenactment. As itis, it is exhausting and frightening, But also it is giggly. He makes me laugh and laugh. 1 can hardly believe it. We had the clap about a week after we began. He said fromm me, I said from him. ‘Skoura, [one of Alfred’s dogs] has been horribly sick from some virus. The doctor gave her some pills and now for 24 hours she’s been sitting in a sort of crazy trance, and I can’t go near her, She doesn’t recognize me and it’s terrifying. 1 hope she hasn’t become insane or some~ thing. My feeling centers are all fucked up. I don’t know what is happening to my emotions—if I have any. The money I spend on Skoura caused a crisis in the houschold because I'd never spent any ‘money on Dris. He became impossible and I finally went and talked to his father which seemed lo me (and to his father) a perfectly natural thing to do. Paul was shocked and Dris was crushed. Larbi approved. It seemed natural since everyone knows what's going on anyhow, though of course you don’t acknowledge it. | told his father if he didn’t behave I'd send him * A young fisherman ** Norman Glass 9596 home, and that helped a little, but things didn’t actually get betfer until ! bought him a ring. (Only half of it really. He hought half himself on the bonus he got from the fishing.) Yesterday was circumcision day in town. Two hundred fifty little boys got cut in the mosque around the corner. Of course I couldn’t watch. It was done by three barbers. Parades all day. The little boys arriving on horseback preceded by drums and cymbals and flags, and followed by keening, women. It was so real. Imagine circumcising a boy for a reason like hygiene. Here they do it because God says to. The Jews don’t know why they do it anymore. Paul ran around all day with his tape recorder. “What's the point in going if [can’t record the music?” and explained the origins of circumcision. “How do you know?” I asked. The new English boy (who is Jewish and a queen and a sort of beatnik who is shocked by the way I live) said “T'l bet they don’t even sterilize the scissors or put penicillin on the cut.” In the evening the Hamacha cult danced in the big square in the medina, They go into trances and cut their heads open with axes and rocks. Dris’ father is a leading member. He is a cherif. So is Dris. This obviously makes me a cheriffa. Jane has been with her Cheriffa for sixteen years. He is waking up now with his gigantic erection and his voluptuous tossings. In the mornings he looks like drawings in faggot magazines. And imagine, he waits on me yet. I got those Danish [male] magazines but don’t have anything to send them. Dris says I should send a picture of him. Ican talk a little Arabic. Mostly swear words, but also some other practical phrases. Will you write to me? Jane just came by. She is so nice and is staying here for a few days. T'm off fishing now with bamboo poles. Dris just spent two hours cooking a picnic lunch. He makes my heart glad. ‘We're going to have a special session of the Djilala cult tomorrow night. Aicha, the cleaning woman, is high priestess, a witch noted for black magic and murder. Her husband is high priest. Paul is agreeable to having it at his house since non-Moslems can never get into the thing when it goes on in a Moslem house. They hate foreigners here. Except the boys. Love to you both. AlfredFrom LIFE WITHOUT MIRRORS a screenplay based on the life of Alfred Chester by Edward Field and Neil Derrick (Synopsis: American writer, Chester Melnick, has arrived in Tangier for the first time. He has been invited to stay with ex-Villager friends, Max, an artist, and his wife Janet, who have recently moved from Greenwich Village. Like Alfred Chester, Chester Melnick has been left completely hairless after a childhood disease. To cover his baldness he wears a wig, which is orange colored and ratty - and per- fectly obvious.) In the glare of the North African sun, a taxi inches its way from the harbor through color- ful Tangier street crowds. In the back seat, Chester Molnick, who has just arrived on the ferry from Gibraltar, is jammed in with his two dogs and Janet. Her husband Max is sitting up front beside the Moroccan driver who keeps blasting the horn. Max shouts over the noise to Chester about life in Tangier, how cheap their house is, the great kif available. Suddenly, Chester spies, Ted Joans, a black American artis friend from the Village in the passing swarm and reaches out fo shake his hand. Beyond the crowds, the taxi starts uphill into a quiet residential arca where the American couple live. In Janct and Max’s house over coffee, Max passes the kif pipe around. Chester, propped on cushions on the divan, says that getting off the boat was like stepping into a time warp. Those streets were medieval. Janet and Lare always saying that, says Max. It's like stepping back a thousand years. Please don’t spcak for me, says Janet. Don’t believe him, Chester. He always makes it sound perfect here, but it’s a mixed bag. I didn’t say it was perfect for God’s sakes, says Max, getting hot under the collar. ‘Well, you're giving him that impression. Janet turns to Chester for support. Isn’t he? Chester tries to laugh. Don’t bring me into this. Pve been here exactly half an hour. Iwas taken in by all the local color at first, says Janet, but did I wake up. You don’t like it here? says Chester. Shut up, will you, says Max to Janet. Just because you do nothing but sit around on your ass is no reason... Just what am I supposed to do’ Janet snaps. Go pick up boys? T don’t pick up boys, Max says. ‘You're the only one who doesn’t. Don't pay any attention to her, Max says to Chester. She’s always like that when she’s got an audience. You're an artist, Chester. You'll love it here like 1 do. I'l show you. There’s a café up in the casbah where you lie on mats drinking tea with a view of the straits across to Spain. 1 spend hours there sometimes. And a holy place where the water gushes out of the mountain, ‘And Arcila, this fantastic fishing village down the coast. We've got friends there, Ian Hawley and his wife Peggy, an English couple. 9798 Actually the Hawleys are very interesting, says Janet. They've lived here nearly thirty years, longer than any of the other Nazarenes we know. What the hell’s a Nazarene? says Chester. Foreigners, says Max. It’s what the Moroccans call us. How biblical, says Chester. Biblical, medieval, it’s fantasy land, says Max. ‘There you go again, says Janet, getting up. Come on, Chester, Pll show you your room. She picks up a native blanket. You'll need this. It gets chilly at night. Chester takes the blanket from her, examines it, remarking on how beautiful it is. Isn’t it? Janet is excited now. I found it in one of the souks, but it’s nothing like the tourist blankets they sell in the medina. Look at the colors. I a treasure. Max laughs. Now who's waxing enthusiastic? In his bed that night, Chester lies awake in the dark listening to the muezzin’s warbling call to prayer from a mosque, echoing over the city, and the distant barking of dogs. Then Janet and Max quarreling in their bedroom. Restless, he gets up, throws on some clothes, and slips out of the house. Wandering through the empty night strects, he sces a young Arab smoking in the shadows, goes towards him. The next day, Chester and Janet are food shopping in the Socco Grande, the vast market square outside the medina. Janet is complaining about her empty life, while Chester’s eyes feast on the exotic strect life around them. ‘An old Daimler limousine goes by ahead, and Janct tells him it belongs to Barbara Hutton, the Woolworth heiress, Tangier’s most famous foreign resident. Back to her complaints, Janet says Morocco is fulfilling for Max, who’s got his painting, but the only thing she ever wanted is a baby. Now she’s almos| thirty-eight, and if Max has his way, she’s never going to haye one. In the covered market, beyond the produce stalls, they enter a cavernous fish hall, echoing with the shouts of fish hawkers and haggling shoppers. As Janet is selecting a fish from a counter, she is greeted by expatriate American Jerry Gordon, a modest, slightly overweight young man with a hippie beard ‘They are soon having mint tea at a café in the Socco Grande. Janet points out that she is the only woman. That’s the way it always is and it makes her uncomfortable. Max just won't listen. Jerry Gordon tells Chester he has seen his story in the New Yorker, thinks it’s great, and urges him to stop by the house he rents in the medina. (On their way home with string bags full of market produce, Janet tells Chester that Jerry Gordon is nice enough but she doesn’t much care for his scene, all those hippies in the medina sitting around, pretending to be artists. Actually, all they’re here for is to smoke kif. Sounds just like the Village to me, Chester says. No, it’s worse here, says Janet. It’s so seductive. You can easily lose your identity. He laughs. Think that will happen to me? Never, says Janet. You're the sanest person I know. You're the only one of us who's going to do something important. Chester is working at his typewriter on the whitewashed balcony outside his room, when he's disturbed by his dogs growling and yapping inside, shouts for them to shut up. Finally, swearing, he goes in to deal with them.‘The dogs are playing tug-of-war with Janet's treasured blanket. He rescues it from them and holds it up. It’s in shreds. In the alleys of the medina, Chester goes from one blanket seller to another trying to match the shredded blanket. Salesmen rush to get blankets down from stacks on the shelves, thrust- ing them at him. None of them are right and he brushes them aside. He moves on, bantering ‘with a crowd of peddlers and ragamuffins following him and giving him advice in fragments of several languages. Chester is already in his element in Tangier. Jerry Gordon comes along and Chester shows him the scraps of blanket he’s trying to match. Jerry says he owns one almost identical. If he comes over to the house, he'll give it to him and Janet will never know the difference. At Jerry’s native house in the medina, Jerry’s Moroccan boyfriend Hajmi is preparing majoun fudge for several hippie friends who are hanging out— Tatiana in white makeup and thriftshop finery, her beatnik boyfriend Ralph, and a creep in shades named Norman. They are all impressed when Jerry tells about Chester’s story in the New Yorker. Jetty pulls a blanket, almost identical to Janet's, off the couch and tosses it to Chester, while Hajmi serves hot mint tea in glasses and everyone eats the majoun. ‘The Englishman Ian Hawley's name comes up, and Chester mentions that Janet and Max are taking him to see the Hawleys in Arcila, Beatnik Ralph puts Hawley down, saying he's a stuffed shirt and his wife’s a Tush. like Peggy, white-faced Tatiana shouts back. If you lived with that prick, you'd be a lush too, Then she goes stonily silent as thé majoun takes effect. Several others have drifted in and are nibbling on the hashish fudge. Chester is reading aloud from his New Yorker story, but his listeners keep breaking out into erratic giggles. You insensitive clods, this is supposed to be a tragedy, Chester says, but can’t help giggling himself. ‘Ona divan behind him, Tatiana and Ralph are whispering about him and pointing to his wig. Tatiana, completely stoned, starts crawling toward him as he reads his story, seemingly oblivious. Just as she reaches out to touch his wig, Chester spins around and seizes her by the wrist, his face impassive. ‘The embarrassed silence is broken by pounding on the front door. kis a young Moroccan, the discarded lover of Norman, the beatnik in shades, demanding losee him, ‘When Norman refuses to talk to him, the young man curses him from the doorway. Motherfucker! Son-of-2-bitch! Faggot! until the door is finally slammed in his face. ‘When the shouting stops outside and the kid is gone, Norman says he was a dirty liar and a thief. Several people protest that Norman treated the kid like shit. But he tried to poison me, for Chrissake, Norman shouts back. Poison, my ass, Tatiana says. It wasn’t poison, it was wilchcraft. It was to keep you with him, not kill you. You're a witch yourself, Norman says. You'd kill anyone you lived with! Who the fuck you talking to, Tatiana’s boyfriend Ralph suddenly shouts, jumping to his, feet and facing Norman. Chester takes advantage of the hullabaloo, and with a wink at Hajmi slips out the door with his blanket. 99Faud Bowhes and The Spider story ° w, when was int Coloma, re pinned a Lange Spidey to Jt: floor of Ai room with a matpin. He aaammedt at wold i TAgre ny our, se, that could tobe at with Aim asa souvenvr of Wve visit. TA ext morning Mae cowohe Arornitien be Fidgd aX yore: Ae Ari to clidom qe the pry i a, oft. stu Ante eae wiMOROCCAN MAIOON one half cup clean kif one cup chopped dates one half cup raisins one half cup ground almonds one cup chopped figs one teaspoon cinnamon one whole ground nutmeg one tablespoon ground anise seed one half cup honey one quarter cup orange flower water two tablespoons butter Put kif in dry, heavy cast-iron skillet over low flame and foast until golden brown so it doesn’t burn. When brown grind into powder. Add to kif: dates, raisins, ground almonds, figs, cinnamon, nutmeg, anise. Place in saucepan and simmer with water and honey, purée. ‘Melt butter in saucepan, add fruit mixture, stir five min., let cool then stir in orange flower water. Consistency should be a thick paste. 101102 gufee Paar Sm DO Con tthiceg for Pe fat Ase. ronda, Opin % denfoe music Dehbis ptrrlactin. of tibfabit 4 Aft came [ro my. igaeranee. Kew Peat ty heap ar whit wan tan mb, rheama J bal for fred hy aimee, I Fe Aas milled Ce Set hase oe The cotthmer,) 7 Repacl mend sewth unt bar foitned come seks wpe. 3 fared ne coved, The 5 bed. vy mack me Marrakech, of wheve mer 4 anid. te weobdrct fe yore whe L ad na money, ce aie = Seva migpition th aul me meal Ld G Gtk twine ab Meangl Kil ae Yas ht at ah Aacinta, Ye mig icine crefor , saf’ fk projects rtlhont genaroud advenies - Pits a Nel we iw pee: ge Re Fie. Cherie tnd Backic ee oe.TIMOTHY BAUM Tangier: A Scatter of Memories Early 1960s, Living on Southern Spanish coast (Torremolinos/Fuengirola): pre-condo- minium hysteria, Friend from Madrid (Tony Smith: handsome/elegant, Harvard grad, quality ladies’ man/equestrian) suggests a journey to Morocco. I easily comply. Neither of us have ever been there. Overnight in smelly Algeciras. First boat out in early morning. View of Tangier all the way across: tantalizing! ‘Arrival at port in linen suits and easily pass the customs (William Burroughs fold me once it’s best to wear a tie and sui in case you ever get arrested). Walk up hill with bags in hand, finding a hotel hastily recommended: El Djenina. El Djonina. Nobody visible around. Hour of after-lunch siesta. Lovely shaded garden. Para- keets and other birds in cages. Lay down our bags and rest a while, Eventually a man appears. Could he help us? Need a room for a week or so. Nothing available. Smith says maybe we could try the Polo Chih. | prefer the parakeets in cages. Walking back towards the garden gate, ‘Owner (manager?) asks if either of us plays a creditable game of gin rummy. I reply in the affirmative. Suddenly a room vacates, resplendent with verandah. ‘Walking around the Socco Chico. Buying some kif in paper cones (Smith nervous and em- barrassed). Hollow-eyed people with gnarled and aged fingers selling their wares: an egg, two shriveled oranges, a chicken. We sit in cafés and drink mint tea and forget about Europe en- tirely. Robinson Plage. There is a memory! A sherry or bees, then lunch on the terrace. Extremely windy. Beach and swirling sea dizzyingly far below. Beach entirely emply—lunch time. Sud- denly the tiny figure of a man appears. English guy we'd seen at bar before—young, athletic- looking fellow. We watch him drop his robe and towel, then dive into the frothy mist (a true Byronic mini-moment!). We eat our lunch, drink our wine, talk to a table full of languorous, mirthful Englishmen. ‘Smith draws my attention to the fact that the swimmer has never reappeared. | said he prob- ably drifted a bit with the nervous-looking current. I ask the English table if the swimmer was ‘a member of their party. They refer me to the lady proprietess. “Derek, oh don’t worry about Derek; strongest swimmer of the whole brigade,” she choriles. “Don’t worry about Derek,” T mumble to Smith, retwmning to our table. Smith is worrying, nevertheless. Also, eventually, everyone else taking lunch at the good old Robinson Plage that day. Derek never does return, “nother drowning at the Robinson Plage,” they tell in the various bars that night; “pity.” Smith and I decide to return to Spain the following day. Tangier. 103‘$27 $56 msg 7rd, hy v9 scoop pag h yy]PAUL BOWLES AHMED YACOUBI AS PAINTER Like most young artists (he was sixteen or seventeen) Ahmed began by making line drawings in black India ink. Quickly I discovered something quite extraordinary in his method of considering his subject matter. He made next fo no attempt to record the visual image of what he was drawing. Instead, he drew everything “from the inside,” trying to express what it was like to be that person or object. This was something entirely new to me. A face consisted of two upright slabs of bone beginning at the chin and going upward to an arbitrary truncation. Between them was nothing—merely open space. I called his attention to the fact that a head has a top to it. He agreed, but said it was not important, because all a person could feel was the air in the middle of the head, the air as it is breathed. “But do you think a face looks like that?” Lasked him. “It is like that,” he replied; and I understood that what things “look like” from the outside was of minimal interest. He drew a cat which was a marvel of abstraction. It had claws, but rather than being attached to the ends of legs, they were embedded with the cars in the top of the head. When these drawings where exhibited in London, a critic used the word “haptic” to describe them. The adjective intrigued me, but I have never found a definition of it. Nearly a decade later, when Francis Bacon came to Tangier, he brought Ahmed his first oil paints. Up until then, the only colors at Anmed’s disposal had been those supplied by pas~ tels and colored inks. Oils were a very different matter, and Ahmed had no concept of how to employ them. He used the colors just as they came out of the tube. That it was possible to mix them did not occur to him. Thus his first paintings used a mosaic procedure: intersecting and parallel lines of spots in various colors. The effect was decorative, but il could scarcely be considered cil-painting. “'m at the wall,” he said sadly, “but I can’t open the gate.” Eventually it was Francis who supplied the key, by suggesting that Ahmed sit each after- noon in his Casbah studio and watch him paint. There was to be no conversation; it was merely a matter of seeing a painter paint. From then on, things went very quickly. Ahmed’s excitement was intense. He began to develop his arcane procedures for injecting magic into his canvases. (He had always considered technique to he a secret which was to be protected at all costs. This atlitude stayed with him all his life. No one must discover how he painted, or know what magic formulas he uttered during the act.) I never understood the source of this fanatical insistence upon secrecy. I think he believed that whoever discovered the processes involved in his technique would produce paintings identical to his. To Ahmed art was alchemy. Tangier, 12/11/93 105106 LETTER FROM PAUL BOWLES TO IRA COHEN 2117 Tanger Socco, Tangier, Morocco. 18/xii/80 Dear Ira: The two Cornell parrots here; I can’t make out whether he painted them or what. Or are they cut-outs at the back of the box? I remember what a modest and pleasant man he was, and like a Nineteenth Century English eccentric. Pm glad to hear Ahmed Ya~ coubi got my letter. It seems to me it was some time ago that he sold that painting to the MMA. Or perhaps this is another. Your story of the macaw who thinks Hello is just as good as Allah inevitably makes me think of what happened here in Tangier to Maurice Grosser. As he walked on the Boulevard, he saw George Greaves coming toward him, white beard and all. They came abreast and Maurice said: Hello! The man replied gravely: Shalom. Then Maurice realized it was not George, but the rabbi about to go into the synagogue on the corner. It seems to depend on what you expect to hear, and thus do hear. I sent a manuscript to Fd Woods months ago, and later a letter asking if he'd received it, but no sign of life. Or is he not in Amsterdam? Everyone in Tangier has gone to England for the holidays; 'll pass ry seventieth birthday by myself. The party will be later, when they’ve all returned. Is it going to be terrible in America after the twentieth of January? What does RR mean by saying that it’s “axiomatic” that national security takes precedence over individual liberty? Perhaps in time of war, but not in other times. And T have a feeling he’s going to alienate the Palestine Liberation, which would make it awful for us here. Anyway, it’s all written, Happy holidays and all best, PaulMOHAMMED MRABET from Chocolate Creams and Dollars trans. by Paul Bowles Pm leaving this afternoon at three o'clock, said Mr. Hapkin at breakfast. Candy and Carola .will be staying on a few days. There'll be a man who'll be coming fo stay. He’s renting the upstairs floor. Only the upstairs, you understand. He'll arrive and you'll get to know him. Vhey were sitting at the breakfast lable when someone knocked on the door. Driss opened the door, A Nazarene stood there. He wore levis, sandals, and an old army shirt, and a worn jacket, and he was completely bald, and with a hideous face. Is the owner of the house here? he said. Yes. Iwant to speak with him. What’s your name? Tell him Alphren. Driss went to the dining room and said: It’s a man called Alphren. Bring him in, said Mr. Hapkin. It’s the man I was just telling you about? ‘Alphren came into the room and was introduced to Carola and Candy. He sat down and Driss gave him some café con leche. This is Driss, the young man who lives here in the house, said Mr. Hapkin. Alphren nodded to Driss. You'll have the whole upper floor, and Driss the downstairs. But he’s the guard for the entire house, It’s in his hands. You can ask him for whatever you want. Yes. Of course. Driss took up the basket and started out fo the market, but Mr. Hapkin caught up with him, He pushed twenty-thousand francs into his hand. For the food, he said. Driss chose the food carefully, made his purchases, and returned to the house. Candy and Carola met him at the door. Couldn’t we go to the beach? they said, After Bobby leaves, of course. ‘At three a taxi came and Mr. Hapkin said good-bye. He had to catch his plane at the Tangier airport. But he left two hundred thousand francs more with Driss for future expenses for the house, Then Driss, Candy and Carola set out for the beach. The girls undressed because they had bikinis on underneath. Driss sat with his clothes on, smoking kif cigarettes and watching them. When he looked at Candy, he found her prettier than Carola. And he continued to look at them both. They stayed there in the sun for an hour or more, and then they went to the bar there on the beach. Driss ordered a Coca Cola, and the girls had beer. They stayed on in the ‘bar for a long tinte, until Driss suggested they go back to the house. Tewas late when they arrived. Driss went into the kitchen and made some sandwiches, They ale them with tea. Then Driss put a fish tajine into the oven, and prepared a lamb stew on top of the stove. They sat in the sala smoking kif and listening to Jilala music. They were happy, joking, dancing, and laughing together. Suddenly Driss said: How about both of you spending, the night with me? 107108 W's all right with us, they said, Fine? And they laughed. Driss got down and began to crawl around on all fours, and Candy climbed on top of him to get a ride, Then they changed around, and Candy had to take Driss for a ride. Carola was too full of kif todo any more than lic back and look at them. Her mouth was open and she was laughing. There was no way she could get up, no matter how hard she tried. Alten o'clock, they went to the kitchen and sat down at the table. It was a good dinner, Afterward, they had coffee and Gnaoua music, and later the Jilala which were the two kinds the girls liked best. It was a very hot night. Driss undressed and stayed in his bathing trunks. Seeing this, Candy and Carola both took off everything, He turned off the lights, so that the room was lighted only by the moon, and he turned down the sound of the drums. Candy and Carola were lying on the big rug, He lay down and began to kiss first one then the other. When it was all over, he stood up and said: Pm going to bed. Wait, they said. We'll come with you. All three went to his bedroom and slept. At breakfast the next morning Candy turned to Driss. I wish we could stay here longer, she told him. Morocco’s heautiful. I liked Tangier, and Arzila, of course. And the Rif. They're good people, and very civilized, All Moroccans are civilized, said Driss. And they know how to behave with foreigners. There are some young ones who have a lot to learn, she said. But that’s true in all countries, he said. Not only in Morocco. Besides, not all people are alike. Tach one’s different. There are many grades of intelligence. The ones who don’t know how to behave are the lowest, the ones who have no intelligence at all That’s true, Carola said. They’re the idiots. Someone knocked on the door. Driss got up and opened it. Alphren stood there, with a Span- ish boy. Come in, Driss fold them. This is Pepe, said Alphren. Driss shook hands with Pepe. Driss led them into the kitchen and introduced Candy and Carola to them. Will you have a drink? he asked Alphren. Yes. P'd like a glass of wine. He brought bottle from the icebox, uncorked it, and set it in front of Alphren. Pepe asked for u gluss of coffee. T’m coming to live here in this house, you know, Alphren told Driss. Upstairs. You're always here, is that right? That’s right. You can get me anything I need? If it’s here in Arzila, I can. If it doesn’t exist, I can’t, said Driss You've got everything here. Yes, But there are some things that you can’t find, Driss told him, Alphren stood up, red in the face. Itell you, you can get anything you want here.Yes, yes. The town has just about whatever you need, that’s right. ‘That's what I say, exclaimed Alphren indignantly. ‘After a half hour or so, the bottle of wine was empty. Alphren held it up. Haven’t you got any more? ‘Wine costs money, said Driss. Alphren glared at him and swore. Thank you, said Driss. ‘A lot of things don’t cost money, though, said Alphren. I don’t believe it, Driss told him. I tell you the world is full of things that are free. It’s not true. You need money to drink. You need it to eat, You need it for clothes. If you need lo make love with a girl or a boy you need money. Why? Alphren cried. Why was money invented? Everything ought to be free? ‘We didn’t invent it, said Driss. You invented it. We never used to use it, You had the duro Hassani, said Alphren. Yes, but before that we bartered. Everything’s changed since the Europeans came. Let’s stop talking about money, said Alphren. T want lo talk about Pepe. He’s a great friend of mine and I'm fond of him. ‘And you sleep with him a lot, and make love with him all the time, and are in love with him? said Driss. Yes, said Alphren. Candy and Carola began to laugh. Alphren said something to them angrily, and they laughed even harder. He sprang up and made as if to hit them with his forearm, but Driss seized him, and said: Now you're going outside, And you can’t move in until these girls are gone, you understand? Fm moving in tomorrow, said Alphren. You won't get in, Driss told him. You'll let me in, all right? Here, said Driss to Pepe. Take your friend outside Driss slammed the door. On the other side he could hear Alphren still screaming insults in the street, All the small children came to see what was happening, and they wondered why the Nazarene was screaming and hopping up and down. Then Alphren started to kick the door. ‘This amused the children who slowly began to chant: Ah! the pumpkin! AhT the pumpkin! Then Alphren turned and ran after the children. Not being able to catch them, he threw stones at them, Fortunately he met two friends who between them calmed him and took him ack to his hotel, All this Driss heard about in the markct later. ‘When Driss went back into the kitchen, Candy said: ‘That American is insane, isn’t he? We're the crazy ones, said Driss, He’s not crazy. He just wants to drive other people crazy. That man writes books! Do you think a crazy man writes books? He’s a writer? they said. ‘You heard what Mr. Hapkin told me. When you go he’s coming to live upstairs, I don’t want him here! But P've got to let him stay. Anyway, he’s going to live here, and we'll see what will happen. But if he does something crazy, I'm going to call the police. Because I think all sorts of things are going to happen. But tonight I want to take both of you to a Jilala dance, so you can see it, 109110 What's jilala? they wanted to know. Thave an uncle who's a Jilali, and every year he has therm dance at his house. I asked him if I could bring you, and he said it would be all right, only you can’t be dressed as Europeans. You have to dress as Moroccans. But what can we wear? We haven't anything. Tl bring you some Moroccan clothes, he told them. ‘That would be marvelous. Driss went out to his mother’s house and asked her for two gaftans, two mdammas, two big scarves, and embroidered shoes. She had to borrow these things from her neighbors. Driss ran back to the house with them, When Candy and Carola were dressed in the Moroccan clothes, they could both have been Moroccans. And so he took them with him (o his uncle’s house and introduced them to his family. Then they heard chebabas and bendirs playing, and thirteen men came in playing their long flutes and big drums, with one clapping on qarqgaba made of iron. They filed through into the patio, sat down, and began to drink tea. Then two of them started to play their flutes. Later the drums came in, and Driss’s uncle jumped up to dance. ‘There was a huge fire burning in the center of the patio. Only the trunks of the olive trees were used in it. Soon the man threw off his djelaba, and shortly afterward his tchamir. Then his turban unwound and left his shaven skull uncovered with only a long pigtail that hung from one side. The moqqaddem rose, holding a green cloth in his hand. Inside the cloth there was a long knife, Driss’s uncle took the cloth and brought out the knife. Then he wound the cloth around his head, and continued to dance, the knife in his hand. As he danced, he slashed his arms and legs, so that he was running with blood. And he slashed his chest and face as well. When he was bathed with blood he began to wipe it from his face with the green cloth that was still wrapped around his head. Then he fell to the ground. They covered him with a blanket, and the musicians began to play another piece. Slowly he got up and began to dance again. When he had finished dancing, he had wiped all the blood away, and there were no cuts visible on him anywhere. He went back and sat down with his family, and they asked him: How do you feel? As if I'd just been born, he told them. Another man got up and did a very violent dance during which he Hhrew himself into the fire and went on dancing while he burned. In the end he almost put out the fire. But his skin was not burned and he had no blisters when he finished dancing, His feet were black, nothing Candy and Carola sal there without saying a word. Driss could see from their faces that they were frightened ‘The people went on to drink boiling water from the spout of a tea kettle, and others who heated their knives until they were red-hot and then pressed them into their flesh. ‘They passed a fine evening und ate a good dinner. When they had all finished eating, Driss told the girls: It’s time to go home. They got back to the house at half-past one. Candy and Carola went into the kitchen and got themselves scotch and soda, and Driss made himself some café con leche. Candy looked at Driss: That was really marvelous?And Carola suid: I’ve never seen anything like it in my lifet How can aman cut himself to pieces like that and then not show a sign of it? I don’t know, said Driss. But they do. You saw it. There's no trick. They do all kinds of things besides what you saw tonight. Things you would never believe. I never knew such things existed in the world, said Candy. If Iread it in a book, I wouldn’t believe a word of it. But you saw it in front of you, said Carola. If we're alive tomorrow, we can still see stranger things, who knows? said Driss, ‘What sort of strange things? What do you mean? After we've slept, if we're still breathing in the morning, it'll be a new day, and who knows what things you'll see? Oh, they said. Driss sipped his coffee. I'm tired, he told them. I think I'll go to bed. They said good-night and went upstairs to their rooms. Driss went to his room and set up the microphone, and began to recount everything that had happened with Alphren and Candy and Carola. When he had finished he turned off the machine and got into bed. Early in the morning Driss awoke and got up. After he had washed and dressed he went up onto the roof. It was a very quiet hour of the day, and the sea was lying calm in front of him. He went down fo the kitchen and prepared his breakfast, put it on a tray, and carried it up to the roof. The waves were slapping lightly against the wall below the house. After his coffee he smoked some kif. A few fishing boats were going out of the harbor. There were no sounds. No people, no dogs barking. Only the water of the ocean sliding against the house, and the canar- ies in the window of the house next door. He loved to listen to the voices of the canaries. ‘There were sounds from inside the house downstairs. He went down. Candy was in the kitchen. Good-morning, he said, and gave her a kiss. He made breakfast again, and sat down to eat with her. Carola came in. Look, she said, will you call the Hotel Minzah in Tangier for us and ask for a double room: for tonight? Our plane leaves early in the morning. Yes, Ill call for you, he said. You know whether you have to go or not. It’s too bad. He went out and made the call. They told him the room would be reserved. Ws all done, he told the girls when he went back. They went out for a walk together, and walked so far that it was three o'clock in the after- noon when they returned to the house. Carola went to take a shower. Candy and Driss went to his room and stood looking out the window. P'm sorry to be leaving, she said. They fell onto the bed and made love. ‘Then Candy went and took a shower, and Driss ran out and got hold of a taxi. When it arrived at the house, the valises were all packed, and Driss piled them into the cab. He ar- ranged a price with the cab-driver. As Candy and Carola came out of the house, each one handed an envelope to Driss. They kissed him good-bye, and both of them began to shed tears, SEBDaNIEL ABD AL-Hayy Moore 112 from RETURN OF THE SUFI (an excerpl of a memoir in progress) “The Sufi’s book is not ink and letters, it is nothing but a heart white as snow.” —Rumi, The Mathnawi Jo m’habituai a Phallucination simple; je voyais trés franchement une mosquée a la place d'une usine. [I got used to pure hallucination; quite openly, I saw a mosque instead of a factory...) “Arthur Rimbaud, Une Saison en Enfer Introduction: Sometime in the late 1980s, I was sitting on a terrace in Santa Barbara, California, having lunch with Lawrence Ferlinghetti, San Francisco poet and publisher of some renown. He had published two of my early books of poetry, and I had invited him to read from his work at a Santa Barbara Arts Festival. He was remembering when I arrived with my wife and two chil- dren after 10 years with a Sufi community in different parts of the world, which he noted at the inception in 1969 in the book, Literary San Francisco: “Moore...[became] a Sufi and, like Rimbaud, renounced writen poetry.” We had gone to the Café Trieste for coffee, and he re- marked how we all seemed to be suffering from culture shock. As we sat on the terrace in Santa Barbara years later, he recalled that it was as if we had come from another planet. Wondering what ’d been up to all those years, he said, “Why don’t you write about your experiences, just put it down in episodes, write a liltle each day, and pretty soon you'll have a book. You could call it: The Return of the Sufi.” Then he said, enigmatically, blinking his skyblue eyes and smiling his wry smile, “You should write the book before it’s too late.” MOROCCO After the blustery ferry crossing, after staying the night in the confusing interim cultural milieu of Gibraltar, (North African? Spanish? British?) where I remember noticing tilework everywhere, up the insides of door entrances, along the bottoms of outside walls, usually black and white checkerboard designs...s0 that the town had a kind of storybook reality...as well as, the famous insurance company logo cliff-face of the Rock of Gibraltar itself, imposingly risingfrom the straits with its dark face glowering like Half-Dome...after this and through the straits waters, watching schools of dolphins braid themselves through the foamy wake of the ship, « few humped backs as they looped up and down through the surface, we landed in Morocco. Customs was easy, compared with entering England, and the half-bored Moroccan police men looked cinema sinister, but not too dangerous. We were all totally clean, a little scruity and ex-hippie, true, but with not an ulterior motive in the bunch, no hashish smuggling con- templated, no selling of cameras or other luxury items to the natives. We were on a spiritual journey fo our Shaykh in Meknes—all of us brand new, intensely earnest Muslims, hearts pounding with an expectation of wonder. The city of Tangicrs was more fabulous than its fame. We found our way immediately to the Hotel Continental where we had booked inexpensive rooms in advance from London, old world European elegance set high on a hill overlooking the docks, a sprawling late 19th cen- tury hotel with grumpy, rumpled old French concierge and fussy but elegant wife, she with lace at her chin, he with vest and watch-fob, in whose corridor you actually expected to bump into Humphrey Bogart. Creaky, wall-paper peeling old rooms, high ceilings, iron bedsteads, balcony windows, looking down on Tangiers glittering in the noon sunlight, people in robes and hoods walking along the piers...we worked out how the rooms would be shared, put our suilcases on the beds and prepared for our first foray into town. We were going to the market to buy robes, under the complete and expert supervision of our guide, Abd al-Qadir, our Shaykh’s English deputy. We needed to outfit ourselves for some semblance of anonymity in Morocco, although one look at us and you knew we were western neophytes in disguise, but also to fit into the very traditional Sufi community in Meknes. We need diellabas, woolen robes with hoods which make you look like a Franciscan monk, long, strips of white or golden yellow turban cloth, dyed leather bright yellow or white pointed shoes, tasbih beads for doing dhikr (invocation), the long, 99 praycr-bead kind for the 99 names of Allah, not the worry beads of television Muslims and Greeks. We split up into a few manageable groups (there were thirteen of us in all), and those who had been to Morocco before (as English hash smokers) took us down into the market for our first Moroccan adven- ture. We had been schooled diligently by our leader, Abd al-Qadir, not to tarry, dawdle, or gaze around like dazzled tourists, but rather to make firm intentions in our minds of what we were going for, go straight to specific shops for the things we needed, buy them, and come straight ‘back to the hotel. No nonsense. No tourism, No getting into the exotic atmosphere of the place—no opening ourselves to magical influences! Just make our transactions, and get out of there. We entered various dark shops smelling of cured leather, piled high into the shadows with folded diellabas, pointed shoes tucked into each other, presided over by mildly surprised sales- men, young men or old, delighted at seeing a group of bewildered westerners interested in 113114 going native. Moroccans our age were only interested in French fashions, tight jeans, French jackets, tight-fitting dresses and sputtering mopeds. We spoke French, they spoke French, and ‘we set about finding the right djellabas to fit us. There were lots of over the head fittings, some ridiculous lengllts and Seven Dwarf sleeves hanging down, and then there was the scratchi- ness of some of the really heavy woolen ones, or the transparency of some of the finer cloth’d ones, white with gray stripes, too light and refined for where we were going, In one shop, while we were trying on robes, there suddenly appeared in our midst a short, wiry, intense man of middle age, pointy-faced and strong-eyed, with equally pointy black beard and tapering fingers, who came into the shop from the bright street outside and mingled among ts, looking at each one of us intently, studying the djellabas on us or about to be on us, made comments in Arabic, pointed with his bony fingers along seams and stitching as if giving instructions to a tailor for alterations, spun a general mysterious air in the shop that crackled with electricity, and then suddenly disappeared back into the street again. He had woven a particular spell that was almost palpable, and everyone felt a new-found confidence in their decisions, bought what they needed, and walked out of the shop with their new purchases wrapped in newspaper under their arms, We all trooped back to the hotel with no dawdling, no rubber-necking, but straight through the streets with our eyes downcast, like a monkish military operation, as planned. When we met up with the other groups, it turned out that they were at the other end of the market, going into shops like us, and that a man who fit the same description and acted the same way appeared to them as well. He was the Mugaddem, or deputy, of Tangiers, the representative of our Shaykh, whose business it was to know the doings of the disciples and take good care of them. He had the uncanny ability, however, of knowing what was happening from inside his house, and going right where he might be needed. He may have even had the ability, not unknown to the Sufis, of appearing in two places at the same time—an abdal, in Sufi terminology—but Allah knows best. After we told Abd al-Qadir about this meeting, he said that the man lived in a very small house, was an adept at casting-out djinn, and had a strange reputation among the foogara of our Shaykh. Abd al-Qadir told us that once when he visited the man he discovered that he had painted the walls of his house black, and was busy painting Arabic spells and phrases from the Qur'an with a large brush in white paint all over the back walls, above the doors, everywhere where there was space, and that the totality of it had an extremely eerie effect. The man never appeared again, and that was the last time we saw him. ‘That evening, after supper in the hotel, we gathered, got into our robes, learned how to tie turbans, how to walk by sliding, our feet forward to keep the pointed, hackless, soleless slippers on through the rounded cobblestone strects of the city. Some of us had bought prayer-beadtasbihs and put them around our necks with the aleph, the long wooden marker at one end, jutting out in back. Some had found small, fashionable tasbihs, while some had bought big, ‘wooden ones that hung far down their chests. We were off to a mosque to do the Maghreb Prayer, the prayer performed right after sunset. We went downstairs and out the arched wooden doors of the grand hotel, and wove through the streets, Abd al-Qadir leading us to a mosque he knew, and arrived at a giant, open building with high minaret, the squared off kind of North Africa, with strings of electric lights every- where, like human stars strung under the grealer but more distant stars of heaven, lending it all a festive, almost circus atmosphere of bright lights and excitement. The entire mosque was dazzling, and all up the marble stairs and info the crowded interior was ablaze with electric light. Hidden in our hoods, we entered the mosque, my first real mosque in my life in a Muslim country, forbidden territory 1o non-Muslims, where Muslims do the prayers with a vigorous commitment and intensity day after day, night after night, year after year, Ramadan after Ramadan, until they die, You could see some of the old-timers going in or coming out along with rushing, darting children as we went up the stairs. ‘The overall impression was one of indescribable space. Consecrated, but open, unob- structed and unobtrusive. Sweet. The air was filled with a dark, spicy incense, and wilh the light and echoes, it turned the interior of the mosque into a space in which anything miracu- lous might happen. Space limited only by walls, and the walls were like latticework onto the Infinite, their dizzying geometric lile-patterns rising vertically, starlike as well, making heav- cenly walls meet earthly fields of pungent rush matting, and men and women, some of who I ‘glimpsed in the back, doing preliminary prayers, or sitting and waiting, fingering prayer- beads, hushing their children, eyes closed in contemplation or sleep. This was like a mortality way-station in a celestial depot, people both uniquely individual and anonymous midway in space and time, before the almost tangible presence of God. We had heard the booming call to Prayer from the minaret loudspeaker. Then a man inside the mosque repeated it more quickly to assemble the people in prayer lines for the Prayer. I couldn’! make out anything clearly, and I don’t remember even seeing the Imam in the crowd, ‘but got into the straight line facing forward and waited for the Prayer to begin. The line of men raised their hands to their ears and began the prayer. Hushed, a deep quiet descending over everyone, and the Imam in front intoning the Qur'an, we bowed, stood, prostrated, sat back, prostrated again and stood up again, completing a cycle of the sunset prayer. ‘When it was finished, we returned to the hotel, walking through the streets with our heads down, hoods hiding us, true worshipful acolytes, to the warm, more familiar corridors of the hotel, through arabesque archways and inlaid actagonal tables, past tall, clonging grandfather clocks, exhausted, to our beds.ALLEN HIBBARD Tangier Revisited: A Diary 9 October, 97 Itis dark by the time the Bismillah (“In the Name of God”) draws in to dock at Tangier. A half moon lies bowl-like in the sky. Venus and Saturn shine brightly. I try, as we approach the port, to make out various landmarks and sections of the city. It has been ten years since I was last here. Gradually things begin to come back to me. all I can see is lights, [try to make out where the Continental Hotel is, between the port and the medina. Ilug my bags myself, brushing away persistent offers to help from desperate porters and taxi drivers. I walk into the hotel and Abdelsalaam is behind the desk, just where I left him. He bursts into a broad smile. “Ah, Mr. Hibbard! Long time. Aht Zamalek! ZamaleX?” he exclaims, showing he remembers that the last time I stayed here I had been living in Cairo. He invites me to sit down with him and drink mint tea. Abellatif, the man who served me breakfast every morning during the summers of 1987 and 1988, recognizes me as well and extends profuse greetings in Maghrebi, Wearing the same costume he wore then—red fez, white shirt and black Moroccan pants—he is virtually unchanged but for what the passing of a decade does to the body. The timid maid who had always done my laundry ten years ago also gives me a smile of recognition. I wonder if she remembers the time she found a chunk of hash I had left in the pocket of jeans I'd asked her to wash, and returned it with a sly, knowing look. | doubled my usual tip that day. Later in the evening I find Mustafa, my source of hash and kif, just where Vd left him, leaning against the wall next to the café just outside the gates to the hotel. “Every day I wake up and look at this view,” he told me. “I don’t need to travel. People, they come to me. You see. You, my friend, you come back and we are here and we treat you good because you are a good man,” I see he wants to resume our old business relationship. 11 October ‘Went to sce Phillip at four yesterday. Made no wrong turns as I wound my way through the soug, up the hill and out past the Spanish Cultural Center to the Itesa Inmeuble. Two mon. strous concrete highriscs, still unfinished, have sprouted up on the corner where you turn off to Paul's. Chatted with Phillip for a few minutes before going up to see Paul. Paul is lying in bed, white, old and withered looking, but still smiling and emanating his usual charm. His mind is still keen, though he can’t see well enough fo read and often barks oul, “WHAT?” when he doesn’t hear something clearly. (Of course, Alfred always claimed he pretended not to be able to hear:) “So you're in Murfreesboro, now.” Paul says. “Why?” P’ve wondered that as well, I tell him. Phillip raves about the problems he’s heen having with DHL, with the delivery of contracts for a documentary on Paul’s music, and gocs in and out of Paul’s bedroom making phone calls. “Who ever invented these peoplet” he will sometimes exclaim as we walk through the streets. And, when he sees a woman in a haik: “There goes another one 116of those laundry bags.” Virginia leaves, saying “See you tomorrow, Paull Oh, and Allen, I hope you can come to dinner on Tuesday.” Abdelouaid, Paul’s driver who comes in daily to see that Paul gets his dinner, comes and goes from Paul’s bedroom. Paul and I talk about the last time I was there, the walks and drives we took, and where I’ve been since. We begin to talk about Alfred, but I hold off for the tape recorder. Paul kindly offers me a ginger snap cookie, soggy and near the bottom of the box. I politely decline. At one point he is fumbling about trying to find something on the table next to him, cluttered with books, papers and half-used bottles of medicine, I ask if Ican help him with anything. He pauses dramatically and says with a sigh, “Could you help me die?” We talk a bit about his being in Tangier af this stage of his life. “Everybody always asks way Pm here. What they don’t understand is that I’m a pragmatist. I've lived here for so long. Why would I want fo go anywhere else, especially now?” Phillip and Abdelouaid are back in the room and we're all joking, mainly about sex, or attahari, as they refer to it. Abdelouaid asks if we know how to play Wooshka. We say no. It’s a way of deciding who is going to have sex with whom when you have four people. He arranges two lengths of string such that only the four ends are showing, then asks cach of us to choose an end. We then find out who's linked to whom: Phillip gets Abdelouaid; I get Paul. Phillip and I head off to Guitta’s for dinner. On the way, he warns me how dangerous ‘Tangier has become. His taste for morbid tales has grown these past years, perhaps as a result of his contact with Paul, perhaps because he has spent so much time in Tangier. He repeats stories he’d told me on the phone of how his friend Karim had been stabbed twice the summer before, not far from here, apparently because his attacker wanted his Nike’s, which Phillip had bought for him. Phillip seemed especially gleeful as he told of how during recent heavy rains a Moroccan woman had fallen into the storm sewers through an open manhole, Her body has not yet been found. It probably was swept out to sea. But for a small sign along the outer wall saying RESTAURANT in fading red letters, one would never suspect the place was an eating cstablishment. It looks more like a villa falling into decay, with overgrown shrubs, peeling paint, and garbage heaped in the adjacent garden. One of the last vestiges of a colonial past. A salient symbol of contemporary Tangier. The door is opened by an ancient man with thick glasses and a red Fez, who looks like Lon Chaney. He mutters something and shuffles off while we scat ourselves. Only one other table is occupied. Guitta herself, her large breasts sagging, comes out to take our order. We both choose the veal. Soon we are joined by Karim who, along with Kenneth, had been working since four in the morning as an extra in the Jean Claude Van Damme movie presently being shot here. Karim was cute, tired and grumpy. Sweel to me, but prickly with Phillip, who, I could sense, wanted to show him off to me. Each fought for control. kach knew just what buttons to push to make the other react. Iwas their audience. 13 October Pm missing days. Much has not been recorded. Much never will be. ‘My watch stopped a couple of days ago. I take it to a watch repairman with a small stall near the Minza. He looks a bit surprised when I address him in Modern Standard Arabic. (They 117118 speak a completely incomprehensible dialect here.) He says the battery is weak and replaces it, saying the motor also is not good. The watch stops again during the following night, so Thave no idea what time it is when I wake up. I take the watch back the next day to “the chief engi- nccr of lime” and ask him to replace the motor. He lakes my money and my watch and tells, me to come back at 5 p.m. In a moment of distrust I hesitate, then agree. Ifind 28 Sidi Bujari today, where Alfred lived for a year or two when he was in Tangier. Paul had told me it was just around the corner from his apartment. I made inquiries at a nearby shop. “Yes, this Sidi Bujari Street,” the man, about fifty years old, told me. “Why are you looking for number 28?” Told him an American I knew had lived there. “when?” “Over thirty years ago.” “There’s a large new apartment building there now. You'll see.” He pointed down the road. ‘There stood the unfinished concrete shell of a hideous looking, four story apartment complex. The workmen eye me suspiciously as I take pictures. 1 go fo Phillip’s around six. We go up to visit Paul before dinner. He’s been to the doctor the day before and diagnosed as having emphysema. The doctor had ordered him to stop smoking. Just the day before he had smoked a kif cigarette before I turned on the tape recorder and we talked about Alfred. “Well, are you going to stop?” 1 ask, wondering what the point would be at this stage. “Of course?” he shot back. ‘The boys are back when we return. Kenneth minces about, saying he’s tired, and goes to his ‘room, Phillip goes off to the kitchen to fix omelets, closing the door behind him. I'm left with Karim. We sit down on the floor next to one another. He rolls a joint, lights it and passes it to me. In the midst of puffs he frequently looks in the mirror admiringly, perfecting his pose. Every night when Tleave, at 10:00 or after, they tell me to be sure to take a taxi. “You will, wor’t you?” Karim says when he senses P’'m inclined to walk. “Do you have money?” I pull out the change in my pocket and count if. Karim adds three dirhams. Once out on the street I decide to walk all the way hack to the hotel in the Medina. I keep a lookout, Phillip’s stories and warnings echoing in my head. A sense of foreboding swells as I walk down the dark street near the American Legation. I imagine someone jumping out of the shadows, stabbing me, taking my wallet, leaving me for dead. What causes this fear? Is it purely subjective, with no real threatening factors to warrant if? Is it the logical product of reading a lot of Bowles and listening to Phillip’s storics? Or, arc there valid reasons to be afraid? It occurs to me that people, like animals, can detect fear, and prey upon those who display it. 14 October Windy this morning. The palm fronds beyond the hotel terrace rattle against each other. Occasionally old dead fronds crash to the ground. Throughout the night shutters banged against the walls of the hotel. T wandered all over the Old Mountain yesterday looking for Villa Palma and didn’t find it.15 October Still windy. AI Sharki. An Easterly, as they call it here. In that ill-defined region between sleeping and waking I imagine | am upstairs in my brothcr’s house ncar Lake Chelan, in Washington State and the wind is blowing through the birch, the poplar, the locust. Found Villa Palma. Paul supplied directions after I related my failed mission yesterday. It was on the lower side of the mountain. I had been looking much farther up. On the way back, I stopped in a café just a few blocks from the villa and began talking with the men who were all sitting around smoking kif and watching felevision in a stupor. | fancied a scenario in which I brought up the name Alfred Chester, saying he was an American who lived at Villa Palma thirty years ago, and one of the old men, now wrinkled and completely kiffed out, would pop out of his kif world and say, “Oh, that crazy guy with no hair!-1 used to fuck him all the time.” Instead, I sat and talked with one guy a little younger than me, leaving him convinced I was a ‘Mustim. This afternoon I went to Asilah, a small fishing village 45 km west of Tangier, on the Allan- tic. In a piece called “Dris Charhadi’s Watermelons,” written for Book Week soon after his arrival in Morocco in 1963, Alfred Chester describes the town: “You can catch sight of it when you are still miles away on the highway between ‘Tangier and Rabat. There, on the right, down a stretch of desert, you see it right up against a motionless Atlantic, baking in glassy silent heat: a small crowded town, most of it jammed within the walls of an immense brown fortress. This first sight of Arcila fills you with nothing—not pleasure or awe or anticipation. It merely makes you feel still. It makes your mind quiet and defenseless against the sun that will soon daze it and against the air that will soon smother it like a drug.” (Book Week, Sept. 29. 1963) I barely get out of the service taxi before a fellow named Ahmed latches on to me, Before I know it, P'm following him through winding narrow streets of the medina, walking into a shop, being introduced to an uncle, sitting down to drink mint tea, and looking at carpets. They soon determine I’m not going to be a good customer. | try to turn the tables and use them to help me with my aims. Did they know anyone by the name of Dris Kasri? I ask. They show no sign of recognition. Have they ever heard of him, or do they just not want to tell me any- thing? I escape quickly and easily locate Sidi Mansour, the streel on which Paul and Jane had a lovely Arab-style, white stucco house along the outer wall of the fortress that looks over the Atlantic. Alfred had come here, at Pau’s invitation, with his two dogs, when he first arrived in Morocco in the summer of 1963. It was here he met Dris, the young fisherman Paul set him up with. | make further inquiries regarding Dris, but in vain. Either I'm not a good deleclive, or Dris has disappeared. 11916 October Time passes. | have trouble getting out of bed. My head is fuzzy. What time is it? What do I huave lo do today? What am I doing here anyway? Pm getting bored, and am ready to go. Ino longer have any purpose for being here. If I were working on a novel, that would be one thing, but P'm not. [have become a lotus-eater. After tomorrow, when Phillip leaves, there won’t be anyone around to keep me company. What am I doing staying in a hotel which has seen better days, in a cily which has scen better days, visiting a man who has seen better days? All is in decay. Fven after just ten days I am sensing how easy it would be to go crazy here, cut off from ‘one’s cultural moorings, in this potentially hostile environment, with the ghost of Paul Bowles hovering over one day and night. A few lines from Francis Poole’s article, “Tangier and the Beats,” which ’'m now reading, leap out at me: “Lhe effect Tangier has on the unbalanced, neurotic or paranoid psyche is often to magnify and intensify the individual’s mental distur- bance, somtimes resulting in a fatal push over the ‘edge’ into extreme disorientation, deper- sonalization, or even madness.” I think of Alfred going mad when he was here. Not only his breakdown when Susan Sontag visited in the summer of °65, but when he returned to Mo- roceo after being back in New York, and lived in Asilah, then at the Villa Palma. He wrote few Ietters and nothing clsc so far as I've discovered. He was likely depressed. Paul tells of visiting ‘him once at the Villa Palma, and finding him there with 2 whole room full of rotting oranges. He had bought a whole load from someone. Who knows why. 18 October I wait half an hour. Karim doesn’t show up. We had agreed to meet at 10:00 a.m. in front of Guitta’s, opposite the Grand Mosque, and go from there to Asilah to try once again to track down Dris. Perhaps he slept in, worn out from the long hours he’s put in on the Van Damme movie. Perhaps he forgot, Perhaps something else. I decide to go to Paul’s, since I’m already close by, to say farewell. 1 knock on the door firmly but not so forcefully that if would rouse him should he be resting. No answer. A young guy who lives in the building comes by, asks in French if I’m looking for Mr, Bowles, and he says he’s probably out with Abdelouaid. I walk downtown. Should I go to Asilah on my own? Even though I know I should, the idea docsn’t appeal to me. What the hell am I doing in this city? There’s to more reason for me fo tbe here. Phillip is gone. The only reason I stayed this long was to continue my detective work with Karim’s assistance, Now he doesn’t show. I should have left two days ago. If Paul had come to Tangier today, with its filth, the streams of emaciated faces, the scourge of poverty, the stench of open sewers, the barbaric high rises, the traffic jams and exhaust fumes—all the hideous facets of modernity he so detests and tries to escape—would he have stayed? later in the day: Went back to Paul's. Still no response to my knockings. The thought occurs fo me that he could be dead and that perhaps I should take some kind of action to make sure he is all right. But then I think of how Phillip had told me that he had been worried once the past week when 120Paul hadn’t responded to his repeated knockings. It turned out he’d just been asleep, and couldn’t hear, with the small fan running on the table beside his bed. [leave a note and choose to let him be. One gets the death one chooses,” Gloria Kirby said the other evening chez, David Herbert. “paul has backed himself into a corner.” she went on. “But what choice docs one have?” I can imagine Paul saying, I return to the last two paragraphs of his autobiography Without Stop- ping, published in 1972: “The Moroccans claim that full participation in life demands the regular contemplation of death. I agree without reserve. Unfortunately, Tam unable to conceive of my own death without setting it in the far more terrible mise en scone of old age. There I am without teeth, unable to move, wholly dependent upon someone who I pay to take care of me and who at any moment may go out of the room and never return. Of course this is not at all what the Moroccans mean by the contemplation of death; they would consider my imaginings a particularly contemptible form of fear. One culture’s therapy is another culture’s torture. ‘Good-bye, says the dying man to the mirror they hold in front of him. “We won't be seeing each other any more.’ When I quoted Valéry’s epigram in The Sheltering Sky, it seemed a poignant bit of fantasy. Now, because Ino longer imagine myself as an onlooker at the scene, but instead as the principle protagonist, it strikes me as repugnant. To make it right, the dying man would have to add two words to his little farewell, and they are: ‘Thank God!” (367) Ichange my money to pay my hotel bill and buy a few very modest cadeaux for the ones I love back home—a small pottery jar with Berber designs, a leather wallet, a small leather coin purse, a wooden box inlaid with an Arabesque design. I think of going back to hundreds of e- mail messages and other mail, to packing for MacDowell. Whither the narrative from here? Al-Maghreb. Sunset, The mournful wail of the muezzin, Light drains from the sky, lingering on the surfaces of houses, white, yellow and blue. For a moment I think...This too, in all its strangeness, has been a home of sorts: a place I revisit with memories against which I measure the growth of a life. 121HamipD IpRissi LV HAYET 122 IN MY COUNTRY I drank my country as a piece of ice in a cup of squeezed poison I drank tyranny and swallowed fire scratching my throat Tescaped to the frozen land fo soothe my buried wounds burned my homeland paper and all the foreign script demolished the pillars and castles left my clothes Naked, I abandoned my identity In my country My people adopt the holy wars They start bloody baitles for one inch of dirt and beg for peace But when quiet comes to light They fight to save the war My people are gypsy spiders Webs and threads My people measure dirt with their fingers and trace borders with children’s tears and innocents’ blood ‘My people burn all prophets and gather to bow at their temples In my country The rules change without notice Temples without columns and columns without temples Ah yes! There are valiant heroes Treasures andl ruins Luxury and health And always, collapsing hopes All answers are lost, yet the question remains Oh my country My blood is contaminated with poisonSCATTERED POSSESSIONS Carrying my belongings I visit the stations Circling for a hidden truth. Trying to change my luggage Or leave it behind. My passport is shameful evidence. My pride, a criminal utensil. I barn my rejected papers. For my being does not submit To any statute of limitations. 123PAOLA IGLIORI 124 Tangiers July 13, 1989 URbir (Fete du Mouton) “My first day in Morocco was a feast in which every family has a goat that is killed and skinned and eaten, so this was happening all over town.” —Paola Igtiori The goats play or are pulled by a rope their heads will be cut off the soup a feast cold mon ring a bell and offer water in gold cups ‘The shadow is still on the sand cloth flapping in the breeze water runs over it in millions of melted shimmering trickles breaking at the feet waves arch in tension then shutter in surrender at one with the still depth Iturn my back on the sea across the vast flat expanse of sand beyond the high rise buildings a thin whiff of smoke slowly floats from the ram’s heads charring on a fire in petrol barrels horns resting on the sidewalk achild with himself, playing next to them Aram’s skin rested on the terrace like a wet vestokey, mopa8ig UYoL mumny,