Travels: Collected Writings, 1950-1993

  We stopped the car and climbed down a way to examine the phenomenon. None of us had ever before seen so much kif. We could have filled the back of the car with it and no one would have known. Mohammed Larbi stroked a stalk lovingly and murmured, “Like green diamonds everywhere. Fíjate.” An old man ambled by and sat down beside the road to look at us with curiosity. Mohammed Larbi shouted to him in Moghrebi: “Is this kif yours?” It was clear that next he was going to ask to be given some. But the old man did not understand. He merely stared at us. “Like donkeys!” snorted Mohammed Larbi. He never fails to be annoyed with the Riffians when they speak only Tarifcht; if a Moroccan does not understand at least some Moghrebi he takes it as a personal affront. When we got back to the car he pulled out his enormous sheep’s bladder, packed with three pounds of the powerful greasy green kif he prepares himself, and filled a cigarette paper with it. “I’ve got to smoke!” he cried in great excitement. “I can’t see all that kif and not feel some of it in me.” He continued to smoke until we got down to Laazib Ketama.

  The main body of the tribesmen had already left (it was market day), but there were still several hundred men lying around on rugs and sacks under the cedars in the three big courtyards where the souk had been taking place. The merchants were winding bolts of cloth and packing sugar and toys and cutlery away into big bundles. The dust that hung in the air, where it came in contact with the last rays of the sun, made blinding golden streamers across the scene. We sneezed repeatedly as we picked our way through the emptying market. There were the customary blank faces when we inquired after the khalifa’s office, but we found it, and eventually managed to get into it. I had forgotten about the short war of 1958 between the Riffians and the forces of the Rabat government, but the memory of it came back soon enough. They told me that since we were in a military zone we would have to consult the comandante if we expected to be allowed to record. Yes, the comandante had been down here in Laazib Ketama all day, but now he had left, and who knew where he was now? However, they were building a bridge just below the village, and perhaps he was down there watching. We went further down the trail. It looked a hopeless task to find anyone in the midst of such chaos. In any case, it was already twilight and we had about fifteen miles of rough trail to climb in order to get back to the parador. So we backed up, nearly went over a small cliff, and headed toward Llano Amarillo.

  Because the khalifa had also suggested that we stop off at the barracks on the way back to the parador, we turned in toward a three-story log cabin that looked like an expensive hotel in a skiing resort, and were met by a dozen wide-eyed Moroccan youths in uniform who immediately trained their submachine guns on us, just in case it turned out that we needed to be captured. A sergeant made them back up and told us that the comandante would be coming in about eight o’clock.

  The khalifa in Laazib Ketama had mentioned a village some thirty kilometers further on where there were some rhaita players. His news did not stimulate me particularly, because I already had taped a good many sequences of rhaita music, including some excellent ones from Beni Aros, the capital of Djebala musicians. The rhaita among the Djebala is not noticeably different from the rhaita in the Rif, save perhaps that the Riffians’ playing shows a more accurate rhythmical sense. What I was looking for was the zamar, a double-reed instrument fitted with a pair of bull’s horns. The khalifa had assured me that the Beni Uriaghel in the Central Rif would supply that; for lack of anything better I had shown polite interest in his offer of rhaitas, and I was ready to devote a day to recording them. It would depend upon whether the comandante proved willing to collect the musicians for me; I did not want to waste any energy or time having to persuade him, even if it meant no recording in the Ketama region. I was eager to get on eastward to where the true Riffian music is.

  We drove back to the hotel. The mountain night had settled over the valley. The wind was whistling through the rooms; doors were squeaking and banging all by themselves. Each minute I was becoming less interested in finding the comandante. We went to my room and turned on the shivering little electric light bulb over the bed. Christopher and Mohammed Larbi make a habit of meeting in my room because I have the equipment with me: the two tape-recorders, the radio, the food and drink, and the fire. There is seldom a reason for either of them ever to go to his own room save to sleep. On our twilight visit to the generator in the garage we had learned that it supplied two-hundred-and-twenty-volt direct current to the parador, and so I already knew that it was not going to be possible to work the tape-recorders, either for studying tapes already recorded or for our amusement. This was bad news. The night would be cold and uncomfortable, once we were in those forbidding beds. We needed a reason to stay up late.

  Ketama is fairly high for the Rif: about six thousand feet up. With the setting of the sun a mountain chill had crept down through the forest from the heights. The road menders were eating sardines in their rooms. It was cold in the empty comedor at dinner time. As soon as we had eaten we went upstairs and made coffee. Mohammed Larbi brought out the bottle of Budapest kümmel, and Christopher handed us the half-kilo bag of majoun someone had sold him in Xauen. We all drank kümmel, but only Mohammed Larbi ate any majoun. If someone is entirely comfortable and contented, majoun can enhance his pleasure, but there is no point in italicizing an unsatisfactory experience.

  It suddenly occurred to me that the lights might be turned off and that we had no candles. I went down to look for the manager. He was drying dishes in the kitchen with the cook, who was smoking kif in a very long sebsi. I was right, he said; the lights would be going off within twenty minutes, at ten o’clock, and there were no candles in the parador. That I did not believe. I objected that there must be at least one, somewhere.

  “No candles,” he said, firmly.

  “Haven’t you got a piece of one?”

  “No pieces of candles,” he replied, drying dishes, not looking up. “Nothing.”

  It was clearly a provocation. I had seen what had happened when I had tried to get the rooms. Christopher had been able to get them out of him, I had not, and he was aware of this. He was playing his inexplicable little game again. I stood there. Finally I said: “I don’t understand this hotel.”

  Now he set down his dish and turned to face me. “Señor,” he said deliberately, “don’t you know this is the worst hotel in the world?”

  “What?”

  He repeated the words slowly, “It’s the worst hotel in the world.”

  “No, I didn’t know,” I said. “Who owns it?”

  “A poor slob who lives around here.” He and the cook exchanged mysterious, amused glances. I could think of nothing to retort save that I had been under the impression that it was run by the government. Formerly it was the family or religion that one criticized, if in the course of one’s personal relations one found it expedient to infuriate a Moroccan; nowadays one gets the same reaction by ridiculing the government, since at last it is Moroccans who are responsible for it. But neither one of them understood my remark as the insult I had intended. “No, no, no!” they laughed. “Just a pobre desgraciado.”

  I went back upstairs and reported all this; it was greeted with loud laughter. Christopher got up and left the room. A minute or two later he was back with three new candles and two half-burned ones. The lights stayed on until half past ten. We went to bed. In the morning there was a blinding fog and it was still cold. I had a hacking cough and decided that I must be about to come down with something. Christopher and Mohammed Larbi came in and made coffee. I told them I wanted no music from Ketama; we were leaving immediately for Alhucemas. When I went down to pay the bill, for the first time the manager looked nearly awake. I got back my change, and out of curiosity I handed him two hundred francs as a tip, determined, if he threw the coins on the floor, merely to pick them up and leave. But his face suddenly came alive.

  “I’m going crazy here,” he confided. “How can I do anything? There’s nothing here, nothing works, everything’s br
oken, there’s no money, nobody comes but road workers. Anybody would go crazy.”

  I nodded in sympathy.

  “I’ll be leaving soon, of course,” he continued. “I’m not used to places like this. I’m from Tetuan.”

  “Is that so?”

  “I’ve been here two months almost, but next week I’m getting out.”

  “I’d say that’s lucky for you.” I did not believe he would really be leaving, although at the moment he looked passionate enough to walk out the door and down the highway and never return. Some Moroccans can work themselves into a state of emotional imbalance with astonishing speed.

  “I’m going, all right. You’ve got to be crazy to live up here. Ma hadou.”

  I said good-bye and he wished me good luck.

  The road east of Ketama was extremely bad: a rough surface sprinkled with small sharp stones, and unbanked curves every few yards. At times the fog was so thick that nothing at all was visible but the dirt bed of the road three feet ahead of the car. We crawled along. The fog dissolved. There were villages down in the valleys at our feet. The earth was whitish gray, and so were the enormous, square earthen houses. Traditional Riffian architecture, untouched. The landscape was timeless.

  We bought gasoline in Targuist. The place was the last refuge of poor old Abd el Krim; the French captured him here in 1926. There are many Jews, speaking Spanish; and the modern town is a monstrous excrescence with long dirty streets, the wind blowing along them, whipping clouds of dust and filth against the face, stinging the skin. The Moslem village across the highway was of a more attractive aspect, but proved to be unreachable in the car. Beyond Targuist were a dark sky and a high wind and a countryside which grew more arid and forlorn by the mile. Finally it was raining, but the storm passed in time for us to have our lunch beside a culvert where the dirt in the wind cut less (for in this valley it had not rained), and where we could keep the flame of the butagaz alive.

  We drove into Alhucemas at about half past four. The sea looked like lead. The town itself has a certain paranoid quality: the classic Spanish fishing village seen as in a bad dream. There is a vague atmosphere of impending disaster, of being cut off from the world, as in a penal colony. A penal colony, yes. It is in the faces of the few Spaniards sitting in the shabby cafés. Most of the Spanioline have gone away. The ones who remain are not likely to admit that the only reason they are still here is that it is impossible for them to go anywhere else.

  The Moroccans have taken over Alhucemas – all of it except the Hotel España. I am in a luxurious room with a tile shower; there is hot water in the pipes, which is unbelievable; it is the first since Tangier. The weather remains lowering, and suddenly it is dark. At dinner the fat Spanish waiter is the principal source of amusement: he is definitely drunk and even staggers classically as he brings in the food. Mohammed Larbi makes fairly brutal fun of him all through the meal.

  This morning we went to see the governor. He is friendly, speaks in Tarifcht to his assistants; in the government offices of the south they are likely to use French. He says that tomorrow evening we are to report to the fort at Ajdir. There the Caid of Einzoren will meet us and take over. We have agreed. The sky is still dark and the air heavy.

  AUGUST 31, 4 A.M.

  THE CAID OF EINZOREN proved to be a jolly young man from Rabat, not much more than twenty years old. He is enjoying himself enormously up here in the Rif, he confided, because he has a girl in Einzoren, a “hundred percent Española,” named Josefina. In the middle of our recording session he invited us to have dinner with him and Josefina. We accepted, but were given a table where we sat alone eating the food he had ordered for us, while he sat with Josefina and her family.

  We had set up the recording equipment in an empty municipal building which stood in the middle of the main plaza. It gave the impression of being a school which was no longer in use. When we arrived, we found one of the rooms already filled with women and girls, three dozen or so of them, singing and tapping lightly on their drums. They sat in straight-backed chairs, their heads and shoulders entirely hidden under the bath towels they wore. A great hushed crowd of men and boys stood outside in the plaza, pressing against the building, trying to peer over the high window sills. Now and then someone whispered; I was grateful for their silence.

  The tribe was the Beni Uriaghel, but in spite of that there was no zamar. It was a great disappointment. I questioned the caid about the possibilities of finding one. He knew even less than I about it; he had never suspected the existence of such an instrument. The musicians themselves shook their heads; the Beni Uriaghel did not use it, they said. Not even in the country, I pursued, outside Einzoren? They laughed, because they were all rustics from the mountains roundabout and had been summoned to the village to take part in the “festival.”

  No one had told me that the girls were going to sing in competitive teams, or that each village would be represented by two rival sets of duo-vocalists, so that I was not prepared for the strange aspect of the room. They sat in pairs, their heads close enough together so that each couple could be wholly covered by the one large turkish towel. The voices were directed floorward through the folds of cloth, and since no gesture, no movement of the head, accompanied the singing, it was literally impossible to know who was performing and who was merely sitting. The song was surprisingly repetitious even for Berber music; nevertheless I was annoyed to have it marred by the constant sound of murmurs and whispers and sotto-voce remarks during the performance, an interference the microphone would inevitably register. But there was no way of catching anyone’s eye, since no eyes were visible. Even the matrons, who were supplying the drumming, were covered. The first selection went on and on, strophe after strophe, the older women tapping the membranes of their disc-shaped ben-dirs almost inaudibly on arbitrary offbeats. I took advantage of the piece’s length to leave the controls and go over to whisper a question to the caid, who sat beaming in an honorific armchair, flanked by his subordinates who were crouching on the floor around him. “Why are they all talking so much?” I asked him.

  He smiled. “They’re making up the words they’re going to sing next,” he told me. I was pleased to hear that the texts were improvised and went back to my Ampex and earphones to wait for the song to end. When the girls had gone on for thirty-five minutes more, and the tape had run out, I tiptoed across the room once again to the caid. “Are all the pieces going to be this long?” I inquired.

  “Oh, they’ll go on until I stop them,” he said. “All night, if you like.”

  “The same song?”

  “Oh, yes. It’s about me. Do you want them to sing a different one?”

  I explained that it was no longer being recorded, and he called a halt. After that I was able to control the length of the selections.

  Presently word arrived that the rhaita group was sitting in a café somewhere at the edge of town, waiting for transportation; and so, accompanied by a cicerone, Christopher drove out to fetch them. The café proved to be in a village about twenty kilometers distant. The men were playing when he arrived; when he told them to get into the car they did so without ceasing to play. They played all the way to Einzoren and walked into the building where I was without ever having interrupted the piece. I let them finish it, and then had them taken back outside into the public square. Mohammed Larbi carried the microphone out and set it up in the middle of the great circle formed by the male onlookers. The rhaita, a super-oboe whose jagged, strident sound has been developed precisely for long-distance listening, is not an indoor instrument.

  While we were away in the restaurant, the men and the women in the public square somehow got together and put on a fraja. This would not have happened in the regions of Morocco where Arab culture has been imposed on the population, but in the Rif it is not considered improper for the two sexes to take part in the same entertainment. Even here the men did not dance; they played, sang and shouted while the women danced. I heard the racket from the restaurant and hurrie
d back to try and tape it, but as soon as they saw what I was doing they became quiet. There was a group of excellent musicians from a village called Tazourakht; their music was both more primitive and more precise rhythmically than that of the others, and I showed open favoritism in asking for more of it. This proved to be not too good an idea, for they were the only men to belong to another tribe, the Beni Bouayache. The recording session, which had been in progress since dusk, gave signs of being about to degenerate into a wild party somewhere around two o’clock in the morning. I suggested to the caid that we stop, but he saw no reason for that. At twenty to three we disconnected the machines and packed them up. “We’re going on with this until tomorrow,” said the caid, declining our offer of a ride to Alhucemas. The sounds of revelry were definitely growing louder as we drove away.

  AUGUST 31

  LAST NIGHT was really enough; we ought to go on eastward. But the governor has gone out of his way to be helpful and has arranged another session in Ismoren, a village in the hills to the west, for tomorrow evening. Today I succeeded in enticing the two Riffian maids at the hotel here into my room to help me identify sixteen pieces on a tape I recorded in 1956. I knew it was all music from the Rif, but I wanted to find out which pieces were from which tribes, in order to have a clearer idea of what each genre was worth in terms of the effort required to capture it. The girls refused to come into the room without a chaperone; they found a thirteen-year-old boy and brought him with them. This was fortunate, because the boy spoke some Moghrebi, while they knew only Tarifcht and a few words of Spanish. I would play a piece and they would listen for a moment before identifying its source. Only two pieces caused them any hesitation, and they soon agreed on those. I still need examples of the Beni Bouifrour, the Beni Touzine, the Ait Ulixxek, the Gzennaia and the Temsaman. The girls were delighted with the small sum I gave them; upon leaving the room they insisted on taking some soiled laundry with them to wash for me.