A House in Fez: Building a Life in the Ancient Heart of Morocco (35 page)

‘So do you put it on after the tiles are in place?’ I asked.

‘No, before.’

‘Then how can it be decoration? That’s structural.’

Other people, including Mustapha, confirmed that this piece of wood was an essential element in a traditional roof, but Abdul Rahim would not install it without additional payment. As we had settled on a price for a finished job, we said we would pay him the agreed amount minus what it would cost for Noureddine to complete it. I considered simply paying what he asked for the sake of keeping the peace, but it annoyed me that he kept shifting the boundaries and trying to extract more money. We were already paying him, in Moroccan terms, a small fortune. Enough was enough.

When I explained my position he was furious, shouting that he had intended to ask for even more money and would not take less. He refused to accept the final cash payment I was holding out to him and stormed off. A few days later, he rang and said he wanted his money, and funnily enough, accepted what was offered.

To finish the catwalk we needed to buy handmade roofing tiles, the same green tiles that grace the roofs of traditional buildings all over Fez. They are made, as they have always been,
at
Ein Knockby on the outskirts of the city, where the same kilns are used to fire the famous Fez blue pottery and the multi-hued tiles. From any vantage point in Fez, clouds of black smoke rising from these kilns are visible.

Mustapha, Si Mohamed and I went to make the purchase together, taking a petit taxi then walking the last half-kilometre. The air was redolent with the sweet smell of the olive pits used for firing. The tile factory was in a courtyard, surrounded by charmless concrete workshops. Mustapha had been coming here since the current owner’s father ran the place. The man’s grandfather and great-grandfather had run the place before him.

Next to a pile of tiles destined for the roof of the Karaouiyine Mosque, we located the smaller ones we needed – half-flowerpot shapes, with the lower half glazed deep green and the top left unglazed. While waiting for our thousand-odd order to be loaded, I watched a craftsman making tiles.

He took a rectangle of clay, flipped it onto a wooden form that resembled a trowel, and then wet the clay. He made a few little flares around the edges before placing the tile in a row on the ground to dry in the sun. The whole thing was done with an ease and skill born of years of practice. Around him, the ground was covered in tiles waiting to be put into the kiln.

The artisans of Fez work hard at their trades. The guilds they belong to have survived for hundreds of years, although their numbers decreased after the French arrived, due to the import of mass-produced European goods. These days they’re taking even more of a hammering with competition from the Chinese.

But such is the importance of the artisans’ guilds that there is still one day a year, in September, when their survival is celebrated. We had given our workers the afternoon off to watch the procession of guilds and Sufi brotherhoods from the Bab Bou Jeloud to the tomb of Moulay Idriss II, one of the most revered shrines in Morocco. Moulay Idriss II is now regarded as a saint who watches over the city he created.

Late in the afternoon, Sandy and I had set off to join them. Thousands of Fassis were lining the streets and taking up every available vantage point on the surrounding rooftops, legs dangling from the parapets. We squeezed into a spot on the step of a shop.

The sound of trumpets heralded the entrance of the silk-makers through the blue gate, followed by the brass makers, metalworkers, shoemakers, blacksmiths and merchants, all accompanied by pipes and drums and cheers from the crowd. When some of the musicians paused to perform a fleet-footed dance, the roars of approval could have been heard from the Ville Nouvelle.

A camel stalked regally down the Tala’a Sghira, followed by a group of men balancing silver
tyafar
on their heads. These tagine-shaped containers contained symbolic offerings, such as small cakes, to be placed at the tomb. Other men carried oversized candles to illuminate the tomb’s interior, and behind them came an enormous banner on which Koranic verses were embroidered in silk.

Next came a four-tiered box, encased in red cloth embroidered with verses from the Koran and carried with great ceremony on
the
heads of specially chosen weavers. This box was known as
al-Kaswa
, and each year a new one was placed on the tomb of Moulay Idriss II. Following it were four men carrying an outstretched cloth to gather money for Moulay Idriss’s descendants. Then a bull entered, running around in confusion, dispersing onlookers in its path. It was the first of four that would be sacrificed that day as part of the ritual.

The procession over, music and dancing extended well into the night. This celebration had continued for more than a millennium, and I hoped it would continue for at least another yet.

Ayisha had had a bumpy ride since graduating. She’d quit a job as receptionist at a Moroccan-owned guesthouse when they did not pay her. Then she was offered a position with a foreign company in the Ville Nouvelle, but had a crisis of confidence and took so long to get back to them that the job went to someone else.

And yet she was desperate to move out of the tiny room in which her whole family lived. Her father claimed that if she moved out by herself he would never speak to her again – an unmarried Moroccan woman’s reputation was sacred – so she was hoping to rent an apartment and take her parents with her.

I’d put the word about in the expat community that I had a talented Moroccan friend looking for a job, and one day I got a call from the owner of a lovely guesthouse who needed a front-of-house person. We arranged an interview for a Friday morning, but when I went to collect Ayisha she hadn’t even got up yet.

‘Quick, quick,’ I told her, and rang the owner of the guesthouse to say we’d been held up waiting for a craftsman at the riad. Ayisha clattered down the stairs a few minutes later, clad in jeans and a casual top.

‘Hmm,’ I said, looking her up and down. ‘You really need something more professional.’ I followed her back upstairs and she fished out a black skirt and a smart shirt, and took her time to dress. She seemed to have no sense of urgency and was at once charming and infuriating, stopping to chatter and pass me gifts of walnuts. I had to subdue an urge to drag her out by the arm.

Finally we were on our way. The guesthouse was one of the nicest in Fez, and the owners were friendly. I knew they were seeing several other applicants, but hoped Ayisha’s English proficiency and her engaging personality would impress them. I made myself scarce while she was being interviewed.

‘How did it go?’ I asked as we walked home.

‘Good, I think,’ she said. ‘The only problem is the timing. They need someone to start straightaway and I want to take a couple of weeks off next month, but I don’t know which ones yet.’

‘Why?’ I asked, knowing this was unlikely to suit the owners.

‘Because the American guy is coming and I want to spend some time with him.’

This was the married man with a small baby. Ayisha had told me she’d finished with him, but it seemed the affair had started again.

‘He is separated,’ she assured me, sensing my disapproval.

‘Is he still living with his wife?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, then he’s not separated. Do you think he’s running his life around you?’

This man couldn’t even commit himself to an arrival date, let alone his existing marriage. It seemed to me that Ayisha was forgoing the prospect of a good job because of a Cinderella fantasy: a man, who already had a wife, would rescue her from her need to look after herself by whisking her off to foreign climes where money was plentiful and people didn’t have to work. She’d hardly be the first young woman to squander opportunities by pursuing a fantasy, but I felt irritated and had to remind myself that it was her life. I only hoped that when she fell to reality the ground wouldn’t be too hard.

A few days later, Ayisha bounced into the courtyard at the riad, sexy and radiant in hip-hugging jeans and a daring top that revealed a flash of bra strap.

‘The American guy is here,’ she breathed.

‘So you’re having a good time. That’s great. What happens next?’

‘Oh, probably marriage,’ she said airily.

‘Then he’s leaving his wife and child?’

‘Not exactly. He says he can’t leave his baby, it wouldn’t be fair.’

‘But then you can’t get married.’

‘Well, under Islam, I can.’

I was gobsmacked. Ayisha as a second wife? It was hard to imagine. It was even harder to picture her being happy under such an arrangement – or the first wife, for that matter.

‘How is it going to work?’ I asked. ‘Is he going to take you back to his country and set you up in your own house? How often will he be able to be with you?’

She shrugged, annoyed by my questions. It was apparent she hadn’t thought that far ahead, and didn’t want to. Polygamy might be more honest than the Western practice of having a bit on the side, but I just couldn’t see how it was going to suit Ayisha.

‘I think you’re selling yourself short before you even start,’ I said, but she ran off to meet him, feet hardly touching the ground.

She was back a week or so later to say she’d just been to see a lawyer about the marriage. I was impressed. She had more sense than I’d given her credit for.

‘He says I can only become a second wife if the first wife agrees,’ she said. ‘Do you think she will?’

‘Would you, if you were in her position?’ I asked, and Ayisha hung her head. She already knew the answer, and just wanted it confirmed.

‘So what should I do?’ she said.

‘Well, you really have no control over him leaving his wife or not. But if that’s what you want him to do, you need to set a deadline for him to make a decision. After that, you have to get on with the rest of your life.’

It sounded like a hopeless case, but Ayisha was so infatuated it was going to take a while for her to see it. By the time I left Fez, she still hadn’t.

Eid al-Fitr
was approaching, the celebration that marked the end of Ramadan. In the days beforehand, people wished each other ‘
Eid Marbrouka
’ – ‘Eid blessings.’

Adults wore new djellabas and brightly coloured babouches. Little girls ran through the streets in beaded taffeta dresses; babies were dressed in mini-djellabas and Fez hats or crowns. Walking down the freshly swept alleys of the Medina became an exercise in dodging people bearing huge trays of crescent-shaped pastries filled with almond paste, or other sweet treats being brought back from the bakeries. The souks were seething as people stocked up for the feast.

We gave our workers the traditional few days off and a bonus. The night before the feast, I went out to a surprise birthday party for a friend while Sandy stayed home with a stomach that felt as though it didn’t belong to him. When I returned at eleven-thirty Noureddine was still hard at work assembling bed bases and banquettes for our visitors, who were shortly to descend. He had spent the last few evenings staying back to finish things, and now here he was on the eve of one of the most significant days of the Muslim calendar, long after most people were at home with their families.

On the morning of the feast, Sandy and I got up at six and walked down to one of the old city gates at R’Cif. It was still dark and men were hurrying to the mosque, carrying rolled-up prayer mats. A few beggars were about, hoping the spirit of
Eid
would result in a bit of extra alms-giving. A donkey trotted past by itself, panniers bulging, and turned up a side alley. It knew exactly where it was headed.

Along with thousands of Fassis, we were going to see in the dawn on top of the hill of Feddane L’Ghorba. We joined a river of people dressed in white.

The first pink light was just touching the fort as we began to climb up past the cemetery, seeking footholds among the scree and rocks on the steep path. Near the summit, we could hear chanting, hoarse and guttural yet strangely melodic. It was a sound that echoed other times, other cultures. It could have been from Tibet, Thailand or mediaeval Europe.