Tangier (11 page)

Of course it's in the professional training of speed cops to take off very fast. A 750 cc Honda thrown into gear by
a terrified expert is an impressive sight.

Mohammed Mrabet invited me to a
diffa
celebrating his son's circumcision. The four-year-old child was not produced; but neither could he be heard howling which is perhaps what such a feast, complete with musicians, deliberately precludes. There was divided opinion among the seven non-Moslems honoured as to whether gifts should be presented to the father or to the son. I opted for a Rolls-Royce for the child, flown in from Gibraltar. A Dinky toy.

Mrabet's
salon
was classically shaped and furnished: a long, narrow carpeted room with
mtarrbas
running the
full length of two walls. This generous seating became packed as some thirty or forty Moroccans arrived during the course of the next two hours and an astonishing variety of shoes accumulated on the threshold and spilled into the courtyard. 'Some mint tea would be nice!' whispered one of my fellow Caucasians. I also had arrived with innocence promptly at eight, having been ferried to the house by our host but, feeling guilty, had taken the precaution of ingesting coffee and biscuits at seven. Inevitably my friend whose tongue now hung out could soon move no more easily than the rest of the company for a surfeit of delicious foods, mint tea, and even Coca-Cola. Alcohol of course was not served; and there were no women present, even fleetingly. Glimpses of them could be caught through a diaphanous curtain, giving presumably on to the kitchen. We
Nsara
were moved from this end of the
salon
with the arrival of the musicians,

Assisting Mrabet with the transporting of
taifors
,
low circular tables, and the food and drink, were a male relation and an endearing character in baggy Moorish trousers who seemed to combine the functions of skivvy and medieval court jester. First distributed to each guest were giant sheets of paper. The purpose of these was to wrap up the special loaf of bread and a small sweet cake which were now being handed out, and which would be taken home intact after the feast was over. I nudged my hungry companion. Following my glance he saw that a Moroccan of obviously unimpeachable correctness was eating his coconut bun. Casually we tore small pieces from ours, popping these into our mouths with the first fingers of the right hand. The ritual washing basin, jug and towel were carried round.. For unguent there was the finest toilet soap: not the proud teaspoonful of detergent I'd once used gracefully in another home. Mrabet had clearly spared no expense. Omens looked good for the food.

And the food proved very much better than good. How a relatively simple household prepares a
tajine
for nearly fifty people was a mystery
Mrabet kept to himself. Presumably it involved all the women of the clan, complicated logistics to gather a pool of cooking pots, charcoal braziers and butagas burners. Every stage had been executed on the premises. There were rams' horns in the yard. Having slaved devotedly, the womenfolk, still out of sight, became audible for the first time, singing or crooning as the musicians played. A giant steaming platter was placed on each of the
taifors
that had been previously brought in. We Christians had one to ourselves, the musicians another, while the rest of the company grouped themselves around half a dozen more. There must have been over half a kilo of meat per head, mounds of oil-stewed almonds, finely seasoned vegetables and numerous flat loaves of bread to tear apart and employ variously as oven-glove, spoon and edible plate. For the first twenty minutes the meat was too hot to touch with naked fingers. An impressive silence fell. Arabs regard talk as nuisanceful distraction when eating. The court jester cum host's aide scurried back and forth across the open yard, now with a fresh armful of loaves, now with giant bottles of Coke. Not once was the curtained doorway to the kitchen, and womenfolk used, custom proving stronger than rationality, or rather creating its own. Platters now containing nothing but bones were whisked out; others piled with water melon spirited in. The hand-washing equipment was brought round again; and a further transformation produced fifty glasses of scalding mint tea.

With the completion of the meal the musicians came into
their own. Music, a full stomach, snuff, kif, more mint tea, tobacco, variously ingested according to habit, produced extraordinary mutual harmony. Groups conversed softly - whether the topic was a sore one like the increased price of the principal Moroccan drug, sugar, or as uncontentious as the different methods of angling streams in the
bled
, Sneezes precipitated by snuff caused convulsions of laughter; but it was the audience's facial expressions and bodily contortions rather than vocal chords which expressed it, Some guests turned down glazed eyes to minimal visual reception and ears up to maximum aural, wandering timelessly with the melodies which are Moroccan music at its live best. People left quietly with muttered courtesies.

It had been a fascinating evening. But nothing is totally sublime. I felt idiotic finding only one of my shoes among the diminished pile. Mrabet refused to let me limp home, It was discovered hidden, with erroneous humour conceivably, by one of my fellow Christians.

It had long been a fantasy ambition of mine to win the prize at one of European Tangier's fancy-dress parties by hiring some scantily clad nubile girls, and more cheaply small boys, roping them about the waist and towing them to an astonishing wealth of food, and such perks as their individual ingenuity might garner, in the guise of a slave dealer, I never found the guts. Straight fear of the cops was one reason. An ironical game's being misunderstood by my 'slaves' a better. And it is the party-giver himself, after all, who in the Bible extends his charity to the poor of the streets and lanes of the city - and as much through pique as magnanimity. So I attend fancy-dress parties in the best disguise of all: just as I am; a
parody of myself. An advantage is that this costs nothing. One can also concentrate on food and conversation undistracted by sartorial jealousy. Practically again, it is difficult either to make love or urinate in moonlit bushes when impertinently rigged out in the full traditional costume of a Moroccan male which, naturally enough, tends to be the
perennial outfit of men.

Rex Nan Kivell holds his annual binge when he feels like it, once endeavouring to import stroboscopic lights, which puzzled Tangier's Customs and Excise, though not I think on the medical theory that they can cause epilepsy. Louise de Meuron times her party to coincide with a summer month's full moon, complementing the soft white light with a giant bonfire and dozens of fluttering lanterns suspended from trees.

'Ah hope this is not going to be a piss-elegant party,' said the deep-southern American with whom I was sharing a taxi. 'Be-cause if it is Ah ham leaving!' 'It will be,' I said, digging but disapproving of the composite adjective.

We had timed our arrival three-quarters of an hour late. The legendary party was said only to end with discreet servants searching the shrubbery with breakfast trays laid for two; while little stops
Alssawa
musicians in top gear, and only unconsciousness members of the cult of Sidi Aissa in whom trance has been induced by hours of dancing.

'Ah hear no music!' said my companion, 'Nothing at all,' I agreed nervously.

It was a pity to surrender our hand-drawn invitations at the outer gate: they had been lovingly made. A porter with a torch led us down the paved path. Moments later I thought my companion would bolt. Two servants raised five-foot straight horns and blew a tremendous fanfare. We passed beneath the reverberating brass arch on to a patio laid out to accommodate some hundreds — the first guests to arrive. We introduced ourselves to our hostess, who in turn introduced us to her daughter and small grandchildren. Thank God I'd not brought my string of slave-girls.

The party was beautifully arranged with giant horseshoes of Moroccan couches spread about the periphery of the patio so that friends could congregate naturally. Visual star of the painters', authors' and writers' clique was the dramatically beautiful girlfriend of Ahmed Jacoubi. I succumbed instantly to one of my seventy-two-hour love affairs and was to follow her forlornly begging Ahmed for a photographic portrait session, But: no deal with Christians: or not this one. 'I'll tell her to be here at five,' Ahmed would say in his studio. Then reverse his proxy decision. Intuition told me the girl herself would not be averse to a square photograph if only because we met for seven seconds behind one of Madame de Meuron's flowering shrubs later this night.

Peter Owen joined our group democratically, publishing both Bowles and Mrabet. Michael Rogers of
Rolling
Stone
was  subsequently to write of 'plump English novelists in lounge suits'. Peter can never have been more honoured. He and I were the only approximations of Englishmen, never mind suited.

Oddly we were to coincide at the top of the drive at the innocent hour of midnight, hoping for taxis. 'I'd walk if I knew the way.' Peter said bravely. 'Me, too,' I lied. 'How d'you suppose one gets a taxi?' he wondered, 'More your thing,' I hazarded. 'Faint gesture with umbrella? Unthinking adjustment of bowler hat?' Necessarily we'd both had a glass of wine. In the remote
haouma
of Village, urchins stared with justified incomprehension. '
Messieurs
?'
questioned a de Meuron retainer appearing from nowhere. And signalled forward a taxi from a lurking queue. 'Just like London!' I sighed. Peter gave me a cigar, perhaps to keep my mouth shut. 'Let me.' I muttered in idiot euphoria as the cab swept into the forecourt of the Villa de France (I was thinking of that Moroccan girl). 'I have to go on to my place anyway.' It hit me with huge Scots pleasure as I clambered from the taxi at the apartment block. Taxi rides for struggling publishers! And not even my own! Writers have their pride. I paused, sagging on the fifth landing. My lift was
no funciona
. One definition of the scribblers' art is altruism.

Meanwhile midnight had not struck. The secret of buffet suppers is to eat very slowly over several hours. This discipline is idyllic when one reclines on Moorish couches beneath a full moon talking only spasmodically with one's friends (Gavin Lambert was an impressive sheik; Carol Ardman delightful as ever, perpetual tea and sympathy girl) and becoming increasingly hypnotized by the music and dancing of
Alssawa
. Their vitality is extraordinary. Colour, sound, motion simultaneously assault the mind. But the body is invaded too. Rhythmic pounding is physically felt. But because tribal music is a total participation it must also be seen to be felt. The most ingenious cinema can only approximate its power, through the extraneous filter of a director, Disc and radio are proportionately thinner still. The new word 'vibes' is possibly one of the most meaningful in the language.

The vibes were good that night. I received mine from the wrapt intensity of
Alssawa
musicians and dancers. A man operating a pneumatic drill is similarly liberating. One wants neither overlong,

For a long time I concealed the origins of Meti from friends, even from myself. The reason lay in the prosaic, even sinister, circumstances of our meeting, and the quite contrary qualities of the boy.

Momentarily disillusioned with Tangier, faintly depressed, I'd been investigating the possibility, which looks logical on a map, of taking a, slow boat down the west coast of Africa until I ran out of money or it foundered with the loss of all hands. The slow boat, which ought to exist, didn't. But if I crossed to Spain, approached so-and-so, embarked from Cadiz as deck cargo and produced a quiet bribe. I might reach Monrovia in Liberia for twenty pounds whilst sleeping and eating first-class all the way. I had no reason whatever for visiting Liberia, Getting there sounded corrupt, and doubtless was. Thanks to Meti I shall probably now never know.

I ate alone in a back-street restaurant. Rain was falling. A neon sign for motor tyres, as so often in Tangier, was rendered ridiculous by dead letters, There remained only a 'd' and 'y'; the Arabic transcript flowing fluorescent pink like some pulsating, plastic intestine, (Years later, in the Place de France, the huge soft drink advertisement one night read: 'Mission Orange. Naturally God.' This unethical proselytising was repaired before I could photograph it.

'Fuck Tangier, fuck the rain, fuck
me for being so stupid as to be here.' I must have mumbled it aloud..

'
Monsieur?
' asked the waiter.

'I wondered whether I might have my bill,' said, unfairly implying he might have understood the request the first time.

As I turned gloomily homewards a small figure appeared with the speed and shyness of a bat. It wanted a cigarette. The only coherent word was '
garro
'. I hate my own addiction to nicotine. Children greedily inhaling was depressing enough even
before the cancer link was proven. I walked on, sad. The bat did another quick loop about me. I swung round with a tension and fury out of any proportion to the occasion or the deserts of an urchin.

'Does your father know you smoke cigarettes!' I asked the small boy grimly.

The boy and I confronted each other beneath the short-circuited neon. The rain still came down. It should perhaps be made clear, as was apparent to me, that the accosting and request for a cigarette meant only that. The child had spied a 'tourist' and thought he'd try for a smoke. Now
his eyebrows shot up in alarm, and my jaw slackened equally involuntarily. I was looking down at a strangely beautiful face, made absurd by shock and astonishment.

'
La
!'' he said; then suddenly smiling, 'No - he doesn't.'

'Come to my house and eat,' I said.

The astonishment on the small face increased. '
Ouaka
- all right,' he said.

'Follow me,' I suggested, sudden western guilt outweighing courtesy, 'at a distance of fifty metres.' I had to enter the bright foyer of my apartment block . . . there was
the
portera
. . . supposing we coincided in the lift with the soured Belgian dentist and his lunatic wife returning from some
pied-noir
gathering! The little boy wasn't wearing
clothes: urchin rags in Victorian Whitechapel were robes beside what swaddled him. The boy utterly refused to understand the request. Jesus. Where was the
sang-froid
of that expensive education? But of course it had been programmed to disintegrate in precisely these circumstances. Then there was the hyper self-consciousness and guilt that accompanies mild depression. I walked with clenched teeth, the grubby little boy insistently beside me, numbed by the dissociation they say shelters the condemned. Only later did I indulge the realization that, by behaving as he did, a true seal of innocence had been set upon the absurdly prosaic meeting. My
portera
had retired from her glass window into hidden recesses. There were no cynical survivors of colonial rule in the lift.