A House in Fez: Building a Life in the Ancient Heart of Morocco (10 page)

A few days after this incident, my houseguests arrived. John and Nicole were travelling minstrels in a folk duo called Cloudstreet and were going from festival to festival in the United Kingdom during the summer. This was their first visit to Morocco, and was a good excuse to do some sightseeing myself.

Fez, like all Islamic cities, is centred around the souks. We went first to the food souk in R’Cif, where hundreds of tiny stalls are piled with vibrantly fresh vegetables, fish, meat, olives, coffee, spices, sweets. The meat stalls often display the heads of camels or goats, and I had got in the habit of going early whenever I bought meat, before the flies got to it. The practice of not refrigerating meat may sound unhygienic, but as it’s usually killed and sold the same day it’s considerably fresher than that found in Western supermarkets.

I couldn’t bring myself to buy chickens, though – they were a bit too fresh. Looking a squawking chook in the eye while it was being weighed and then having its neck wrung at my behest was beyond me.

In the souk of the artisans’ guilds, everything is made by hand, much as it has been for centuries. Seeing it through John and Nicole’s eyes, I realised anew how much it was like being
transported
back to the Middle Ages, except that many of the goods produced now are exported or sold to tourists. In Place Sefferine, a constant rhythmic tapping sounds as coppersmiths make kettles, couscousiers and cooking pots. Some are for hire, big enough to whip up a feast for two hundred or so of your closest friends. Nearby are the knife makers, who, with a single foot operating a dangerously spinning stone grinder half their height, sharpen blades to surgical precision. In an adjoining street, brass makers cut, shape and emboss lanterns, plates and various household items.

In other ancient workshops, wrinkled cobblers sew bright yellow leather from Fez’s famous tanneries into men’s babouches. In the dars devoted to selling carpets to unwary tourists, looms are powered by teenagers and women, who need extraordinary patience to make the hundreds of knots required. Down in One-Armed Ali’s weaving shop, the only sound is the clatter of the wooden shuttle flying back and forth over the warp. And in a little workshop in a side alley can be found the last surviving brocade makers in Fez, working on looms so complex they take days to thread and need two people to operate. The fabric they produce is sought after by designers in Casablanca and Rabat.

Countless other craftsmen service these artisans. The men who dye the yarns have permanently stained arms from hefting skeins out of steaming vats and wringing out the excess dye, before hanging them to dry in a rainbow of colours. A forge is constantly in action, where the blacksmith melds metal tools to order. The brass makers are serviced by speciality shops selling teapot
spouts
, handles and feet. Belt makers supply the shops selling long, mediaeval-style dresses for special occasions, and the hat sellers are close to the djellaba makers.

Some crafts are dying out as they become less sought after. The street of the saddle makers used to be full of workshops, but now only a few remain. And just a couple of gunsmiths are still licensed to make rifles for the Fantasia riders, who charge about on Arab stallions firing off volleys of shots in a display that is now mainly a ritual for tourists. But in the souk of the wedding-chair makers, fabulous thrones are still in big demand – plywood frames covered in glittering gold and silver fabric.

Every quarter in the Medina has workshops of carpenters, indispensable in a city whose skeleton is made of trees. Carpenters too have their specialties. There are those who repair and build houses, and others who decorate them, carving intricate designs for doors, tables, chairs and cupboards.

The henna souk at the bottom of the Tala’a Kbira is a quiet oasis, with a big plane tree shading a small square crowded with tiny shops selling pottery, pot-pourri, henna, argan-oil soap and rose moisturiser. At the back of this, housing another collection of shops, is an old building which was once an insane asylum. The sixteenth-century traveller and writer Leo Africanus, chiefly remembered for his
Description of Africa
, which became the basis of knowledge of Africa for scholars in the West for centuries, worked in the asylum for two years. He wrote that the mentally disturbed received no treatment other than being fed and fastened to the walls with iron chains. When they were brought food a whip was
always
handy to ‘chastise those that offer to bite, strike, or play any mad part’. The hospital was still in use as late as 1944, although treatment methods had improved somewhat, and musicians occasionally came to play to the inmates.

For all the souks to function, the goods need to be moved around. Making your way through the streets of the Medina is a constant exercise in avoidance. You have to squeeze into doorways so that you’re not mown down by heavily laden donkeys or mules, or wiry old porters with impossible loads. Fassis seem to have a special awareness of these ancient modes of transport and move instinctively out of the way, yet they are quick to lend a hand when a porter or hand-cart driver needs help. Tourists, on the other hand, are a real worry; they wander around in a daze, as oblivious to danger as a puppy on a highway.

Turning into the alley that runs past Karaouiyine University, I led the now footsore Nicole and John to my favourite Fez café. Liberace was waiting to welcome us, as he had done for patrons for more than forty years, resplendent as usual in a white suit with peacock feathers sprouting from one lapel and medallions on the other. His hair was hennaed bright red and teased into a fetching frizz. Large brown eyes dwarfed a mouth that was constantly in action.

His real name was Abdulatif, and although retired he still often turned up at the café. He had never married, and the staff and patrons of the place were his family. His other pastime was keeping his decrepit Renault 19 in immaculate condition. It was never driven – simply owning it gave him sufficient pleasure.

We squeezed up the café’s spiral staircase, bending our heads as we arrived on the first floor, which is so low you feel like a giant in a dwarf world. I had dubbed the establishment Café Seven and a Half, as this oddity reminded me of the similarly height-challenged rooms in the film
Being John Malkovich
, Sipping rosewater milkshakes, we watched the constant flow of people and animals in the alley below, one of the busiest and narrowest in Fez.

Early next morning, we set out by grand taxi to the Roman ruins at Volubilis, a couple of hours’ drive from Fez. Whereas petit taxis are restricted to intra-city fares, grand taxis travel between towns. The driver of our rickety old Mercedes was a grey-haired, tubby fellow of about sixty who won my respect when, shortly after picking us up, he stopped the cab and dashed out into the traffic to scoop up a kitten that was about to be flattened. Later he spent long hours waiting while we wandered around the ruins. We returned to the taxi to find him performing prostrations on a prayer mat rolled out in the dirt.

The World Heritage-listed Volubilis ruins sit on a rise overlooking a vast plain and cover an area of 4500 square metres. We arrived before the tour buses, but I was disturbed to see men in a field nearby digging what looked to be footings for the foundations of a large building. I found out later that a hotel was going up, but it was uncomfortably close to the ruins for my liking, and given their heritage status I couldn’t understand why permission had been granted to build there.

Settled by the Romans in 40
AD
, Volubilis was the breadbasket and administrative centre for the westernmost Roman province
of
Mauretania Tingitana. The daughter of Cleopatra and Mark Antony once ruled there with her husband, a Berber prince. When the Roman garrison withdrew at the end of the third century, many residents stayed on.

I had a vision of those Romans who had chosen to remain, sitting around in what had become a rural backwater, remembering the glory days of a vibrant and dynamic empire. The town was devastated by an earthquake a hundred years later, and although it was resettled by Latin-speaking Christians, it did not become significant again until the Arab invasion in the seventh century.

The foundations of the ancient stone houses are grouped around the remains of a Roman road. One of the larger houses is known as the House of Orpheus, named for the mosaic covering the floor of a reception room. Orpheus is surrounded by a variety of African animals, real and imagined. Once, the house also had a swimming pool, courtyard, garden, toilet, kitchen, and several other decent-sized rooms, all with underfloor heating. It was more appealing by far than many modern houses.

It’s easy to see at Volubilis the origins of Fassi architecture. The Fassis still have courtyard houses, with
zellij
that bears more than a passing resemblance to Roman mosaics, although with geometric rather than figurative designs. Art in Islamic societies is generally used to display the underlying order and unity of nature, which is seen as a representation of the spiritual world. The bathhouses of Fez, its bakeries, guilds and public fountains, also owe much to the Roman style.

For public spaces, Volubilis had a large forum, civic buildings
and
a triumphal arch. Lining the main road, which is wide enough for two chariots to pass at speed and has a covered drain running down the middle, are the remains of shops and houses. Walking through the ruins it occurred to me how permanent the town must once have seemed to those who lived there, but after six hundred years or so, life took an unexpected turn.

In 683 the Arabs swept into North Africa on horseback. It was half a century after the death of the Prophet Muhammad and they were passionate about spreading the word of Islam. Despite an initial resistance, many Berbers found the certainty and absoluteness of Islam appealing, and were won over in a way they had not been by the Christianity of the Romans. Those Berbers who converted to Islam helped spread the religion south of the Atlas Mountains and north to a country they called Al-Andalous, now Spain. They made excellent soldiers (as the French were to find more than a millennium later), having honed their battle skills in intertribal warfare, and by 718 they had taken over most of the Iberian Peninsula.

Meanwhile the acceptance of Islam in Morocco was far from wholesale. Pockets of Christians remained, along with Berbers who still followed their indigenous religion. It wasn’t until the arrival in 788 of a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad, a man who became known as Moulay Idriss I, that greater unity was achieved.

Idriss had fled Damascus for political reasons. He must have been a self-assured man with considerable charisma, because they made him King not long afterwards. Idriss became so popular in fact that the caliph of Baghdad felt threatened and sent his
personal
poisoner to get rid of him. After Idriss was buried, his wife, a young Berber girl, was discovered to be pregnant. She gave birth to a son, Moulay Idriss II. He was supposed to have been a remarkable child who could read at the age of four and recite the entire Koran by eight. At twelve he was appointed ruler.

Moulay Idriss II became known as the founder of Fez. While it had been his father’s idea to build a new capital (having thought Volubilis a bit on the small side and too Roman in appearance), it was the son who was left to fulfil the vision. The name Fez means ‘pickaxe’ in Arabic, as this was the primary implement used to construct the city, and legend has it that a golden pickaxe was discovered while the building was being done.

John and Nicole left in mid-September and I had only one more week before I returned to Australia. I started looking in earnest for someone to oversee the restoration when Sandy and I returned the following year.

I had met an architect called Hamza, who’d done a wonderful job on his own house and overseen restorations for other people. An Iraqi refugee who’d studied in Europe, Hamza had a partner called Frida who was a graphic artist. Both spoke excellent English, and I invited them to dinner to discuss my plans, even though Hamza had told me he was far too busy to take on our house. But when he walked in and saw the open courtyard, the
massreiya
with the wonderful ceiling and plasterwork, and all the other interesting architectural details, he became enthused.

Dinner was beset by a few problems. Because the floor was at a strange angle, my new stove sloped forward and the fry pan would slide to the floor if not watched. I’d bought three turkey legs for dinner and put them in a supposedly heatproof dish at the bottom of the oven, with some vegetables on a higher shelf. I’d heard a loud crack shortly after turning on the gas, but it wasn’t until smoke began pouring from the kitchen that I went to investigate. The dish had shattered and the turkey pieces were lying singed on the bottom of the oven. I rescued them and put them on top of the roast vegetables.

It didn’t seem to matter too much, as I’d made a salad with fresh figs, mint and soft cheese, and a side dish of beans in tomato and onion. With a good bottle of Sahari Reserve to wash it down, it was very edible, and smoothed the way for further conversation about the house.