Пол Боулз - Journey Through Morocco

In reality, however, said Monsieur Rousselot, lowering his voice to a whisper, it was the family chauffeur who held the power of life and death over the citizens of Tassemsit. The old Cherif, father of the girl-saint, for many years had run the zaouia where religious pilgrims came to pray and leave offerings. Not long ago he had bought a car to get up to Tafraout now and then, and had hired a young Marrakchi to drive it. The old Cherif's somewhat younger wife, as wives sometimes do, had found the chauffeur interesting, and " l'inévitable " had happened: the old Cherif had suddenly died and the wife had married the young Marrakchi, who had taken charge of everything: the woman, the holy daughter, the car, the palace and the administration of the shrine and the town around it. "It's an equivocal situation," said Monsieur Rousselot with relish. "You'll see.

It is early morning the next day. Others still asleep. Big grilled window beside my head. A world of dappled sunlight and shadow on the other side of the wrought-iron filigree, an orchard of fig trees where small birds dart and chirp. Then the mud wall, and beyond, the stony floor of the canyon. A few pools of water in the riverbed. The women are out there, getting water, bringing it back in jugs. Background to all views: the orange side wall of the canyon, perpendicular and high enough to block out the sky from where I sit on the mattress.

We heard more lurid details about the place from Rousselot, Saturday during lunch. When the chauffeur took over in Tassemsit he conceived the idea of providing girls to keep the pilgrims occupied at night, when the zaouia is closed. A great boost to the local economy. A holy city of sin, said Rousselot with enthusiasm. Merely speak to the chauffeur, and you get any woman in town, even if she happens to be married.

He had hardly finished telling us all this when a little fat man came in. Rousselot's face was a study in chagrin, dropped jaw and all. He rallied then, introduced the little man around as Monsieur Omar, and made him sit down with us for coffee. He was some sort of government employee. When he heard that we were about to leave for Tassemsit, Monsieur Omar said very simply that he would go with us. It was clear enough that he wasn't wanted, but since nobody said anything to the contrary, he came along, sitting in back with Rousselot and Seddiq, the medical student. The trail was rough in spots on the way up over the peaks just south of Tafraout. Going down the other side it was narrower, but the surface was no worse. Had we met another car, one of us would have had to back up for a half hour.

The landscape became constantly more dramatic. For two hours the trail followed a valley that cut deeper and deeper into the rock walls as it went downward. Sometimes we drove along the bed of the stream for a half mile or so. At the date-palm level we came across small oases, cool and green, that filled the canyon floor from cliff to cliff. The lower we went, the higher the mountain walls above, and the sunlight seemed to be coming from farther away. When I was a child I used to imagine Persephone going along a similar road each year on her way down to Hades. A little like having found a back way out of the world. No house, no car, no human being all afternoon. Later, after we'd been driving in shadow a good while, the canyon widened, and there on a promontory above a bend in the dry riverbed, was Tassemsit, compact, orange-gold like the naked rock of the countryside around it, still in the sunlight. A small rich oasis just below it to the south. The zaouia with its mosque and other buidings seemed to occupy a large part of the town's space. A big, tall minaret in northern style, well-preserved. We stopped and got out. Complete silence throughout the valley.

Monsieur Rousselot had seemed pensive and nervous all during the afternoon. He got me aside on some pretext, and we walked down the trail a way, he talking urgently the whole time. It worried him very much that Monsieur Omar should be with us: he felt that his presence represented a very real danger to the status quo of the place. "One false move, and the story of Tassemsit can be finished forever," he said. " C'est très délicat . Above all, not a word about what I told you. Any of it." I said he could count on me.

It came to me as we walked back up toward the car that there was probably another reason, besides the fact that he wanted to keep the place as his private playground, why Monsieur Rousselot was worried. A Frenchman's job in Morocco, if he works for the government, is never too secure in any case; it is easy to find a pretext which will dispose of him and replace him with a Moroccan. At Monsieur Rousselot's insistence we waited another half hour; then we drove down a side trail to the right, to within two hundred feet of the town gate. A mist of sweet-smelling woodsmoke hung over the canyon. Several tall black men in white cotton robes appeared at the top of the rocks above us, came down to the car, and recognized Monsieur Rousselot. Smiling, they led us through a short alley into the palace itself, small, primitive and elegant. The big room where they left us was a conscious synthesis of luxury and wild fantasy: with its irresponsible color juxtapositions it was like something Matisse would have produced had he been asked to design a Moorish salon .

"This is our room," said Monsieur Rousselot. "Here we are going to eat and sleep, the five of us." While we were unpacking, our host came in and sat down in our midst for a while. He was pleasant-mannered, quick-witted; he spoke a little French. A man in his late twenties, born in the country, I should say, but used to living in the city. At one point I became aware of the conversation he was having with Monsieur Rousselot, who had taken a seat beside him on the mattress. It concerned the possibility of an ahouache , to be sung and danced by citizens of Tassemsit later in the evening. Afterward, when the host had left, Monsieur Rousselot announced that not only would we have the entertainment, but that a certain number of women would take part in it. "Very unusual," he commented, looking owlishly at Monsieur Omar. Monsieur Omar grinned. "We are fortunate," he said; he was from Casablanca and might as well have been visiting Bali for all he knew about local customs. "You understand, of course," Monsieur Rousellot went on to say to me with some embarrassment, this ahouache will have to be paid for."

"Of course," I said.

"If you can give me three thousand francs, I should be glad to contribute two."

I protested that we should be delighted to pay the whole amount, but he wouldn't consider it.

Through the windows, from the silence in the canyon outside, came the thin sound of the meuzzin's voice calling from the mosque, and as we listened, two light bulbs near the ceiling began to glow feebly. "It's not possible!" I cried. "Electricity here? " " Tiens ," murmured Monsieur Rousselot. "He's got his generator going at last." A tall servant came in and announced that the Cherifa was expecting us on the floor above. We filed out under the arcade and up a long flight of stairs. There at the top, on an open terrace, surrounded by roaring pressure lamps, sat our host with two women.

We were presented to the mother first. She would have been considered elegant anywhere in the world, with her handsome head, her regal white garments and her massive gold jewelry. The daughter, present titular ruler of Tassemsit, was something else; it was difficult to believe that the two had anything in common, or even that they inhabited the same town. The girl wore a pleated woolen skirt and a yellow sweater. She had had her front teeth capped with gold, and noisly snapped her chewing gum from time to time as she chatted with us. Presently our host rose and conducted us back down the stairs into our room, where servants had begun to arrive with trays and small tables.