The Zoco Chico, in the center of the Medina, surrounded by cafés on all sides, presented a symphony of hundreds of conversations. In the early 1930s the clientele thinned out after midnight, but after the war, in the 1940s – when Tangier was packed with tourists and foreign residents – the cafés were busy until dawn; exhausted party-goers then arrived to take black coffee before retiring.
Those were the liveliest years for the town. Dollars and pounds fetched more than twice as many francs or pesetas in the International Zone as they did in Paris or Madrid (or Casablanca, for that matter). With a dollar account here, one could live in Paris on francs changed in one’s Tangier bank, at the rate of 550 per dollar instead of 220. There were money changers throughout the town, displaying blackboards on which the latest rates were chalked. A few people rushed from one to another all day, buying and selling currencies, and managing thus to eke out a living; I never understood exactly how.
The only legal tender accepted by the canny peasant women who sold fruit, vegetables and eggs under the trees in the Grand Socco was silver. One had to change one’s European money for silver Hassani coins before marketing.
Smuggling was a way of life in this laxly governed port, and I knew a man who persuaded a cobbler to make him shoes with elevated heels. Into each heel he put a half-kilo of gold bullion, enabling him to leave Tangier with an entire kilo, in order to sell it elsewhere at a good profit – or so he claimed. I found it difficult to believe that the difference in the price would have made it worth his while.
But some people seemed to attribute magical powers to the International Zone, administered for three decades by a fractious committee of Western European powers. It excited people to feel that they were in no country, that the zone was a kind of no-man’s land where everyone did as they pleased, and where there was no interference by the law. And it is true that the town had an aura of general permissiveness, to an extraordinary degree. I had never seen anything quite like it before, nor have I since.
The old Tangier I had known in 1931 did not last. When I returned after the war in 1947 it was scarcely recognizable.
Apartment houses had gone up, trees had been done away with, streets had been cut through the outlying countryside. In the Medina, new façades had been given to the houses – in every case destroying the Moorish arch over the entrance door, thus depriving the streets of visual charm.
But most Moroccans are entirely indifferent to such details. They admire that which is new, regardless of its appearance. Apart from a few ancient buildings in the casbah, the only place I can think of which has not undergone modernizing alterations is a small café in the Marshan district at the edge of a high cliff above the sea. In the thirties I used to go there during Ramadan and play Lotto, and it was there that I learnt to count in Arabic.
This little establishment, bearing a sign identifying it as La Guinguette Fleurie, was run by an elderly Frenchman. What is astonishing is that after nearly 60 years it should still look the same, should still be its delightful self, with its series of terraces leading down to the edge of the cliff. Seagulls sail and turn in the wind, and occasionally a tanker moves slowly on its way to or from the Straits of Gibraltar. Now the place belongs to Moroccans and has no sign outside, but everyone knows it as the Café Hafa, or Cliff Café. If you were not certain of where it is, you would never find it.
In the years since I first came to Tangier and was captured by its charm, the town of 60,000 inhabitants has become a city of ten times that number and, judging by the widespread construction going on now, it will continue to expand as long as the present surge of prosperity lasts. Compared to most cities, it is still a pleasant place to live – but the Tangier I know exists only in memory.
Views of Tangier
Introduction to Jellel Gastelli’s Book, ‘Vues Choisies’, 1991
T HERE WAS THE QUESTION of finding djenoun in Tangier. Informal talks with members of the police force showed that there was no possibility of unearthing such creatures within a twenty kilometer radius of the town. It was explained that they cannot live in proximity to iron or steel, which means, for one thing, that where there are motorized vehicles these evil spirits will not be found. The streets of Tangier have more cars in them each year. And now, as an added precaution the masons even include iron bars inside the walls of the buildings. “So there is absolutely no danger of coming across a djinn in the city, regardless of what ignorant people may tell you.” Housemaids, who come from the country, have all kinds of backward notions, and even though they watch television every day, they still think that djenoun live in the kitchen drainpipes, and refuse to use hot water in the sink, for fear of annoying them. This is understandable, since in the places where they lived before coming to Tangier, it is said that djenoun are ubiquitous, and are able to transform themselves not only into animals, but into human beings as well. This possibility makes any unfamiliar figure immediately suspect.
“Wherever there are many trees you have to be careful. You’ve probably noticed that they’re getting rid of the trees as fast as they can. Tangier is a modern town. You can’t have big trees all along the streets if you want a modern city. There’s no room for them, and besides, it doesn’t look right. Tangier is a place for tourists, and tourists want to see everything looking new and modern, the same as in their own countries. We’ve got one good restaurant here. It’s called Big Mac, and the tourists always go there. We need more places like that. I think next year there’ll be another. Of course, there are smaller places where they can go for a casse-croûte, like Sandwich Pourquoi Pas or Sandwich Picasso.”
When the winter rains have been very heavy, some houses slide down the cliffs into the sea.
The wind sweeps back and forth over Tangier, first in one direction and then in another. The strong currents in the strait and sea carry away the bodies of those who drown.
If you live in the Casbah your house will be wet. If on the Marshan or the Mountain, it will simply be very damp. Tangier is a city where everyone lives in a greater or lesser degree of discomfort. There is always the threat that something will cease functioning as it should.
In summer the water is cut off. In winter the streets are flooded. There is no money to repair the potholes which make driving hazardous.
“When my boy was five, he went to his teacher and said: If I give you a dirham every day, will you give me good marks at the end of the term? He didn’t need to go to school, he already knew what life is about. He went two or three years, and then I took him out. He learned much more at home, watching television.”
There is no public park in Tangier, nor any municipal bus system. A fleet of white Mercedes taxis takes the place of buses. There are struggles in the street among people hoping to get inside these cars, since each car can accommodate only six or seven passengers at a time.
The Hakima
Introduction to William Betsch‘s Book, ‘The Hakima: A Tragedy in Fez’, 1991
FEZ IS THE PLACE where nothing is direct. Going into the Medina is not like entering a city; it is more like becoming a participant in a situation whose meaning is withheld. There is a sense of deviousness and accompanying intrigue in the air, and the inhabitants do little to mitigate this impression. The enclosing ramparts were built high to protect the town-dwellers from the Berber enemy outside, and I remember that in 1931 the gates in the north wall were shut after sunset. The people were convinced that bands of robbers lurked outside, waiting to pounce on anyone who failed to get back inside through the gates before nightfall. They seemed, however, to be almost equally afraid of each other. I recall the difficulties involved in trying to walk through the Medina at night. Between one quarter and the next there were huge doors that were shut and bolted, to prevent those living on one side from getting into the neighboring section. It was necessary to find the watchman and persuade him to let me through. Then somewhat farther along I would come up against another such barrier.
Of all the entrance gates piercing the enc
losing wall of the Medina, there is only one, Bab Fteuh, that permits the passage of a vehicle. The vehicle will have to be parked not far inside, there being no question of proceeding beyond the point where the street narrows into the footpath typical of the alleys of the city. The town was built for those going on foot and on the backs of animals. Fortunately, it has not yet been rebuilt to allow the passage of motorized traffic. As to the other gates, once inside them the only way to go is down. The topography of the place can be likened to that of a funnel. From Bab Bou Jeloud, the western doorway into the Medina, there are only two main alleys, the Talaa Kebira and the Zekak al Hajar. It’s possible to find a few other very circuitous routes: unlike the two principal alleys lined with shops, these pass through residential quarters. But they all lead toward the maw of the city down below.
When I first walked in the alleys of Fez, I saw that the men were different from other Moroccans. Many of them were pallid, even sickly. I often had the impression that they aspired to invisibility, as if not being certain of their identity, they would have preferred to slip unnoticed through the city. From their appearance I deduced, and I think correctly, that the Medina must be an unhealthy place in which to live.
The Ahal Fas are not loved by their countrymen. You hear that they are greedy, hypocritical, dishonest, treacherous, and abysmally vicious. There is no outrageous sexual behavior that has not been attributed to the people of Fez. If they are a quarter as evil as they are made out to be by other Moroccans, then they must be very bad indeed. Happily it has not been my personal experience to find them so. But over the years the defamatory tales have managed to throw a faint pall of ambiguity over the town, so that notwithstanding what I knew, I sometimes found myself wondering how much truth, if any, there was in the legend supplied by non-Fassi Moroccans.
It seems clear that the unpopularity of the natives of Fez is due at least partially to their having been an urban population in contrast to the vast majority of other Moroccans, whose mentality was much closer to being a rustic one. The money of the country was concentrated here, as of course was the commerce. There is not much doubt that the original motivation for the widespread dislike of the city and its inhabitants was simply envy, although few Moroccans, even today, would agree.
Much of the pleasure I got from living in Fez in the early days had to do with being at one moment outside under the olive trees with the sheep, and at the next penetrating the ramparts. Because of repeated experiences which have not become permanent memories, I connect passing through certain gates with specific hours of the day. Bah Bou Jeloud is bright in the morning sun. The archway is tiled on one face in royal blue and on the other in emerald green. There are storks standing atop the minaret of the mosque directly ahead. The hot light of noon belongs to Bab Dekaken with its vista of the crowds filling the huge dusty enclosure of the Makina. Bah Segma I loved to go through just as the sun dropped below the flat Western horizon at my back. Perhaps because of the knowledge that as recently as the end of the First World War the top of the arch of Bab Mahrouk was often decorated with the severed heads of those who had expressed their opposition to the regime, dusk seemed the right hour to walk beneath its wide arch. And I associate Bab Guissa with rainy nights, when the faint sense of menace hanging over the city moved palpably closer, and although no less faint, became somehow more real. It was a fine sensation to slide downward into the city through the mud of the alleys, breathing the wine-like odor of the olive presses, knowing that after uncounted turns to left and right I would emerge into the Souk Attarine, where there were a few lights and a few people standing under the dripping latticework overhead.
I know that now Fez has fallen upon evil days, and is no longer the same. The cultural and commercial capital is disintegrating. The people who might have held it together have left their great houses and moved to Casablanca, and the city now belongs to the very poor who, because of the desperate and violent tenor of their life, can only ensure its more rapid destruction.
The Sky
From Vittorio Santo‘s Book, ‘Portraits Nudes Clouds’, 1993
THE MOOD OF A SCENE we play in our lives is determined largely by the light projected upon us from above. As master electrician, the sky furnishes an endless variety of lighting effects for our actions, helping to mold even the emotions that accompany them. There is the slow dimming of twilight for the exchange of intimacies, the flooding sunlight of a spring morning, for feeling unreasoned delight, the blackness of night when no light falls from the sky and each one becomes the victim of his own fantasies, the gray, indifferent light of the covered sky in summer; an encouragement to indolence. How can we tell to what extent our actions have been determined by the light which enveloped us while we performed them?
But such indirect effects pale beside the unsurpassable spectacle of the sky itself as it produces them. It is generally agreed that the most astonishing and grandiose visions that a human being can imagine take place in the sky.
It’s merely a question of watching; the sky will perform. Nevertheless there must be something there to watch, something that moves. This will be some form of moisture: probably clouds, or even rain or mist. The movements, formations and conjunctions of these bodies of moisture constitute the show. A momentary glimpse of light from the sun can provide the excitement.
There are times when the sky consists of two distinct layers. The lower level contains ragged, dark clouds blowing fast and very low across the earth, while the upper regions are unaffected by the commotion below, and move, stately and slow, far above. It is not unusual for the two layers to be moving in opposing directions. A completely cloudless sky is static; it cannot provide a spectacle. The Saharan sky is like a blackboard on which nothing has been written. You can admire it for the intensity and luminosity of its blue, but you have no urge to watch it because you know that it will not change.
Storms, of course, can be magnificent, particularly in the tropics.
Sri Lanka’s sunsets over the Indian Ocean before the monsoons rank high among the great celestial displays.
The night sky, just as much as the day sky, needs something moving, something for the eye to follow. I think of the poem by Alfred de Vigny, where silver-edged clouds race across the disc of the moon, causing dark shadows to move over the countryside.
A recurring nightmare: the earth’s atmosphere has escaped into space, and we see that the sky has become permanently black.
Jane and Paul Bowles, New York, 1944
Paul Bowles, His Life
Previously Unpublished Journal, 1986
The first sky he saw was the sky above New York.
Winters it snowed. The school was dark.
There was a song which went: “When you come back, if you do come back.”
It was addressed to the American soldiers in France.
There was a day when the children paraded in the street.
They sang “Marching through Georgia”, a song of victory from the Civil War.
Now it celebrated a different victory.
Kaiser Wilhelm would no longer haunt the children’s dreams.
Summer meant sunshine and lakes and crickets.
The peaches dropped to the ground and were speared by the stubble.
A day was invisible, had no hours.
The dark brought the voices of the night insects.
But school went on for many years. Discipline was strict.
The idea of escape took root and grew.
A night with thunder in the sky he packed his bag and left.
The S.S. Rijndam was old and slow. This was its last voyage.
Passengers for Boulogne went ashore in a dinghy, rocked by the waves.
At dawn the empty streets of Paris were clean and shining.
This was fifty-seven years ago. Things are different now.
The excitements of Paris: Le Café du Dôme, La Mosquée.
Le Théâtre du Grand Guignol, le Bal Nègre de la Rue Blomet.
He worked f
or forty francs a week, and sometimes was hungry.
Then a girl he’d known from childhood came through Paris and saved him.
He wandered on the Côte d’Azur, in Switzerland,
And along the paths of the Schwarzwald.
He was happy, and he wrote words which he imagined made poems.
That winter in New York Aaron Copland told him: You should become a composer.
It will be difficult, he thought, but why not try?
Soon he was in Paris again. He admired Gertrude Stein.
She told him he was not a poet, so he stopped trying to be one.
This meant that he devoted himself only to music.
Miss Stein did not like the music either.
In Hannover he stayed with Kurt Schwitters.
He went with him to the city dumping ground
And they collected material for the Merzbau.
In Berlin he wrote music, and people shouted; Fenster zu!
In Paris they cried: Fermez la fenêtre!
In Tangier only Copland and the cicadas could hear him.
In the Sahara he fell in love with the sky
And knew that he would keep returning there.
In the spring he was in Agadir, where the food was not clean.
The doctors in Paris told him he had typhoid fever.
He lay for a month in the hospital. His mother came from New York.
When he was well they went to Spain and to Monte Carlo.
Winter came. He wanted the desert.
He took a house outside the oasis of Ghardaia.
He went to Tunisia on the back of a camel.
In Tunis he learned that he had no money.
Franklin D. Roosevelt had closed the banks. The dollar was not negotiable.
Friends in France wired him francs.
He arrived in Tangier with his python skin and seventeen jackal pelts.