Travels: Collected Writings, 1950-1993

by Paul Bowles

  The elaboration of niches and shelves around the fire and water is the living heart of the café – rather like the altar of a church. In the cities it is a complicated tile-covered construction that serves as sink, stove and cabinet. One compartment contains the fire and the samovar, another the water tap or pail; smaller cubicles are for storing sugar, tea and mint. In the lesser cafés the single table is put beside this unlikely looking installation. Close friends of the proprietor and the kif concessionaire generally sit here. Nowadays, what with official frowns being directed at the smoking of the herb, the kif seller is not likely to be in evidence; nevertheless, he is a very important factor in the functioning of the café. He not only brings his own raw material, which traditionally he cleans and cuts in full view of the clients before selling it to them, thus forestalling doubts about is purity, but also processes (for a price) the kif that others have brought with them, blending the tobacco with it to suit each man’s individual taste. How much of this must go on clandestinely depends on local circumstances; the ban on kif is being enforced with increasing firmness.

  Unless he has been at the pipe for many hours, it is impossible to tell from a North African’s behavior whether or not he has smoked kif. The same observation cannot be made, I am afraid, if alcohol has been taken instead. In the bars, loosened inhibitions send tempers up in flames, but I have never seen anything more serious than an argument in a café full of men smoking kif; the prevailing atmosphere is calm and jovial.

  When the tea maker gets an order, he takes a long-handled tin canister and puts in a heaping teaspoonful of green China tea (usually Formosan chun mee). Next he adds four or five tea-spoonfuls of sugar. Another little canister filled with hot water from the samovar is already embedded in the coals. As soon as it is boiling, he pours the water over the mixed tea and sugar. While it is steeping he crushes as many stalks of fresh spearmint as he can into a glass. Then he strains the tea into the glass, often garnishing it with a sprig of verbena, two or three unopened orange blossoms, or a few leaves of rosemary, chiba or some other locally available herb. The result, hot, sweet and strongly aromatic, bears very little resemblance to tea as it is drunk anywhere else in the world; it is até, a refresher in its own right, not unlike maté in Argentina but a good deal more tasty. Usually when newcomers try their first glass, they are appalled by the concentrated sweetness and get into the habit of ordering it with less sugar. The results are catastrophic. Indeed, the cafés that cater to the tourist trade now serve an unpalatable hybrid concoction, neither até nor tea. The Moroccans were quick to heed the foreigner’s preferences; what with the constantly rising cost of sugar, the new preparation saves them money.

  ALL CAFÉS PROVIDE neighborhood delivery service. A boy carries racks holding six glasses, back and forth, full and empty, all day long between the samovar and the nearby offices, banks and shops. Boiling-hot mint tea is still the favorite drink in the land, notwithstanding the increasing sales of colas and other bottled gaseous beverages. Even the customs officials in the port may be sipping tea offhandedly while they go through the luggage: the traveler who is automatically unnerved by the prospect of customs inspection often finds this reassuring.

  Paul Bowles at the Café Hafa – his habitual favourite in Tangier – with the Rif-born storyteller Mohammed Mrabet, with whom he produced a dozen books.

  A part of each café is occupied by the soudda, a wooden platform raised a foot or so above the floor, usually with a low railing around it, and always with a covering of woven grass or reed matting. If there are any musicians they sit here, as do the establishment’s most regular and esteemed habitués. After hours at night, this space may be used as a dormitory for transients. Ten or twelve years ago in the Calle Ben Charki of Tangier there was a large café with an unusual clientele. It made no difference whether you went at midnight or at three in the morning: scores of boys between the ages of eight and fourteen sat at the tables in the center of the sparsely lighted room, fiercely playing cards. A wide platform extended along three of the walls, where there was even less light. The boys lying here tossed and scratched in their sleep; even so, they were the lucky ones, for when the card players began to yawn and look around for a place to stretch out, the platform was often full, and they had to be content to move to a table where others were already asleep, leaning forward from the little straight-backed chairs, their heads and arms lying flat on the boards. Month in, month out, the ragged horde filled the café. They were the boleros of Tangier, children who had strayed into the city from the hills beyond, and having managed to acquire a wooden box, a tin or two of polish, an old toothbrush and a rag, had set themselves up in business as shoeshine boys. As an old resident, I found the place a natural concomitant of North African life; however, the foreign visitors I took there thought it offensive. Children ought not to live that way. Apparently, the authorities shared these prejudices, for the establishment has long since ceased to function, nor are there any others similar to it.

  Like all the African countries, Morocco has been thrown open to the forces of rapid modernization. The fact that its indigenous culture is so much more highly evolved than that of most other places on the continent tends, however, to retard the process. In a primitive land where the disparity between the old and the new worlds is total, the conversion conceivably can be effected in one generation, but where there is a perfectly viable, if archaic, tradition of civilization already in existence, as there is in Morocco, it will naturally take more time. This spirit of resistance to arbitrary, senseless change is a stock subject of the humorous anecdotes exchanged among café sitters, particularly in small towns.

  A story I heard here in Mrhait’s café the other day delighted me. This was a factual account of something that happened in a little country market up in the hill behind Larache. It was the day of the week when all the peasants of the region come on foot and on donkeyback to the village and sit in the market selling the things they have brought in with them. Swaggering through the throng of rustics came a young man who, if he was not really from the city, at least was doing everything he could to create that impression, his most blatant claim to urban refinement being a brand-new pair of locally made Levis, so skin-tight that he had a little difficulty in walking. He came up to an old woman, one among many others like her, who sat in the dust with a few figs, a half-dozen green peppers and some tomatoes, each being arranged according to custom in a neat little pyramid in front of her. Indicating the figs with the toe of his shoe, and thus upsetting the pile, the youth asked their price in an offhand manner calculated to widen the social difference he felt existed between him and the old woman.

  “Don’t kick the fruit, my son,” she said evenly. She had taken his measure as he came, but now she did not even look up at him. Then she added: “If you’ll sit down here beside me, I’ll give you a good price.”

  The prospect of a bargain proved too much for the young man. He squatted down, and that was the end of him. With an explosive sound the seams of his trousers split wide open. (“His face was red, red!” the raconteur recalled with relish.) To the accompaniment of loud peasant laughter the young man made his way back through the crowd and out of the market.

  One night I went to Mrhait’s café with the idea of telling him that what I had been writing there at the end of his garden was a piece about cafés, to see if he had anything to say on the subject. But I intended to wait until everyone had gone, in order to avoid interruptions. It was fairly late, and there was a hot east wind roaring overhead. Even there behind the ramparts I recognized the dry spicy smell of parched hillsides that is borne on the cherqi at this time of year. The waves rolled in across the dark beach with mechanical regularity. I sat until there was no one in the garden and I could hear no voices inside the café. Eventually Mrhait came out of the doorway and peered through the tangle of vines toward my dim corner. He finally saw me and came over.

  After he had sat down opposite me and lighted a cigarette, I began. “You know,
I’ve been writing about cafés here in Morocco so that Americans will know what they’re like. I thought maybe you might have something to say about your own café, something you’d like them to know.”

  The cigarette end flared; his voice betrayed a surprising degree of feeling. “For sixteen years, ever since I was twelve and my father put me in this café, I’ve worked here and lived here and slept here. I made all this with my own hands. Why are those roses growing there? Because I planted the bushes. Why do we have these figs and grapes? Because I take care of the trees and vines. Why is there good sweet water in the well? Because I keep it clean. This morning, this very day, I went down inside and scooped out eight wheelbarrows full of sand and mud. That’s what it means to run a café – not making one glass or a thousand glasses of tea.”

  Failing to see just where his rhetoric was leading him, I interrupted cautiously: “But you do like your work, don’t you?”

  “My work is in the garden, and that’s only in the summer. In the winter I stay inside the café, and the wind blows, and some days nobody comes at all. Just the empty café and outside the rain and the waves. That’s not work. That’s prison. There’s nobody left in this town. Everybody’s gone. And that’s why I’m going to go to the city myself and get a job in a café where they pay you every week.”

  HE ROSE to his feet. I was silent, considering again the transitori-ness of everything in this land. In my imagination the café had long ago assumed the character of a landmark; it seemed impossible that Mrhait should be willing to walk out and leave it. I got up, too, and followed him slowly across the garden.

  “But it’s your café!” I was saying. “It belongs to you! After all these years you want to begin working for wages? At your age?”

  In front of the doorway onto the beach he stopped and turned to face me. “Look. If you can’t make a living by working for yourself, then you go to work for somebody else, don’t you?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “It’s better to carry glasses in a busy café than own an empty one. Better to eat than starve, no?”

  As we shook hands, he added reassuringly: “I’ll be back. I’m sure to come back, later on. Just as soon as I get a little money together.”

  Fortunately it was dark and he did not see my smile, which he would have recognized as cynical. The familiar refrain: There is money in the city! I’m going to get it. Whether or not Mrhait gets it, once he has lived in the city he will not return here.

  What’s So Different About Marrakesh?

  Travel & Leisure, June July 1971

  MARRAKESH, with its encircling oasis, was the idea of Yusuf ibn Tashfin, a Saharan chieftain of the eleventh century. The site was a treeless plain, flat as a table, some 35 miles from the northern flanks of the High Atlas. It was natural that he should have imported the date palm, which any Saharan considers the only true tree, and used it to transform the empty wasteland into a vast palm grove. The miles of enclosing ramparts were built, the mosques and markets established, and Yusuf ibn Tashfin went on to glorify the name of Allah in Spain. He had left behind a work of art a city of noble proportions and spectacular beauty. What is astonishing is the fact that after 900 hard years (for life in Morocco has seldom proceeded smoothly) the beauty should still be so evident and so dazzling. Part of the reason is that, as they worked, the builders of the city saw each garden, terrace and pool in relation to the long chain of snowy peaks behind it.

  In Marrakesh more than in other cities, the eye is continually being encouraged to contemplate that which is far away. Automatically it follows the line of the ramparts to the empty plain, coming to rest on the most distant vista. The mountains are so much a part of the scene that on the days when they are invisible the city seems incomplete.

  Contemporary Moroccans feel much the same about the peaks of the Atlas as their forebears. In my drives around the city, each time my chauffeur looks up and sees them shining and white against the sky, he sighs and says, “Look at the works of God!”

  When I first came here, camels ambled through the back alleys of the Medina, and 12,000 girls lived inside the walls of the Quartier Réservé, ready to provide amusement for their prospective clients. The camels are restricted to the country now, and the Quartier has long since been razed. Otherwise the character of Marrakesh is little changed.

  What is different is the tempo of life. The era of the automobile has finally arrived, and the aim of every Marrakchi is to own one. Thousands already do; the rest use motorcycles and bicycles and live in hope. Bicycle riders are in the great majority. They are the natural enemy of the pedestrian. He who dares walk finds that there is no safe place for him; in the narrowest alley he can suddenly be run down by someone coming along silently from behind. Since it is impossible to see the Medina save on foot, visitors find themselves obliged to be constantly on the lookout.

  Being in Marrakesh in winter, if there is sun, is a little like standing in front of a fireplace: you are hot on one side and cold on the other. If there is no sun, you are cold on both sides. The changes in temperature between day and night are impressive.

  Winter is the high season, but spring and autumn are far more pleasant. As for the summer, it is the favorite season of many foreign residents, in spite of the temperature, which goes above 120 degrees in the shade during an east wind. But to be comfortable under such conditions one must be living at home, not in hotels. Not having a house in Marrakesh, I generally stay away from it between June and September.

  Surprisingly, when the French arrived in 1912 their take-over did not cause any great changes in the aspect of the Medina. Following the pattern established by Marshal Lyautey, they left it intact and built their own town, El Gueliz, two miles away to the west. Now that the two nuclei have more or less grown together without, however, confusing their respective identities – it is clear that here is by far the most successful example of French city-planning in Morocco. The landscape gardening throughout the city is superb, and while one may have reservations about the extensive use of floodlighting, there is no denying that the ramparts are dramatic when bathed in their gold light.

  One of the great touristic pleasures of Marrakesh is to take a horse-drawn carriage at sunset and drive the seven and a half miles around the periphery of the Medina, following the line of the ramparts and watching the bisque-pink walls and bastions as their color is modified by the changing light.

  The Djemâa el Fna is probably the most fascinating open square in the world. Every afternoon all Marrakesh comes here as to a fair. On a sample afternoon one can watch some expert Sudanese dancing by a troupe of Gnaoua, a troupe of acrobats, Jilala drinking boiling water, Aissaoua charming cobras and vipers, trained monkeys, and a Surrealist act by two Haddaoua seated on carpets surrounded by plastic flowers and live pigeons.

  At a certain point in the Haddaoua’s routine one of the men beckons to a pigeon, which comes to him and perches on his shoulder. Then he orders the bird to go across the square to the Banque du Maroc and steal some banknotes. The pigeon flies over to the bank and alights above the entrance door, looking warily down at the armed guards standing there. Soon it returns to the man’s shoulder, where it appears to be whispering into his ear. “What? No money?” cries the man. “How are we going to eat?” Meanwhile his partner has been intoning pious phrases, preparatory to going around the circle of watchers and taking up a collection.

  During recent decades, as the population has grown and property values have increased, the Djemâa el Fna has constantly been reduced in size.

  A police station has been built, space has been allotted for carriage and taxi stands, and long rows of stalls have been set up on two sides of the square. This year a sizable section of the east end has been cut off, to be used as a parking space for several thousand bicycles, and still another row of stalls constructed. Were it not for the fact that the Djemâa el Fna is the number one tourist attraction of Morocco, the authorities undoubtedly would have done away with it.

 
In the late-fifties, Eleanor Roosevelt was in Marrakesh as the guest of His Majesty Mohammed V At dinner the first night, Mrs. Roosevelt confided to her host that the one place she always visited when she came to Marrakesh was the Djemâa el Fna; she could hardly wait to see it again, she added. Regretfully the king told her that the square had been converted into a parking lot. When she heard this, her disappointment was so intense that the king promised to reinstate the institution at the earliest opportunity. He did so, and it has functioned in its traditional fashion ever since.

  Behind the Djemâa el Fna is a quarter generally referred to as “the bazaars”. Until 1961 the streets here were covered with cane lattice work, an attractive architectural formula, but one which caused the destruction of the entire section. About 500 shops were gutted that summer by a fire which started in a chickpea-roasting stall. Rebuilding has been done in metal – less picturesque but more likely to preserve the few valuable objects that survived the holocaust. Beyond the bazaars are the souks. Each souk consists of many stalls selling the same kind of merchandise, which is often being made on the premises in full view of the buyer. Here prices are lower and there is more variety to choose from, but purchasing takes correspondingly longer.

  There is generally considered to be only one hôtel de grand luxe in Morocco, and that is the Mamounia of Marrakesh. I think of luxury in terms of comfort, service and privacy, while those who run today’s hotels would appear to conceive it in terms of swimming pools, saunas and air-conditioning units. Perhaps that is why the Mamounia’s luxury now seems largely vestigial, a nostalgic reminder of the era not too long ago when Winston Churchill came each winter to sit painting in the garden.

  The Mamounia is still the biggest and best – there is no doubt of that and if you are fortunate enough to get a room with a southern exposure you have an unparalleled view of the famous olive grove and the Atlas. Among the more recently built hotels are the Es Saadi, by the Casino, the Almoravides, just inside Bab Doukkala, and the Menara, about halfway between the Medina and the modern quarter of El Gueliz. These are all first-class establishments. There are also two new American-style motels, both on the Avenue de la Menara, outside the city. Several more hotels are under construction at the moment, including an enormous Club Méditerranée directly on the Djemâa el Fna. However, the more room they make for visitors, the more visitors there are. Residents speak glumly of a saturation point, but so far there is no sign of such a thing.