A House in Fez: Building a Life in the Ancient Heart of Morocco (8 page)

A week or so later, I passed by the hardware store and saw my old squat toilet for sale. I knew when I set it outside the front door that it would find a new home; something so useful would never be wasted in Morocco. Although I considered myself frugal, it reinforced how much more I squandered than my neighbours.

Khadija arrived to help me unpack some new deliveries, including mattresses, and when everything was organised I paid her. This time, as she’d only done a couple of hours’ work, I gave her fifty dirhams. This was as much as Abdul got for an entire day as a parking attendant, yet I saw disappointment on her face, and realised I’d got the amount wrong with the initial payment I’d given her for the big clean.

Once she’d left, I stood in the courtyard drinking it in. At last I was living in our house. I felt a rush of happiness bubble up.
It
was late afternoon, birds were singing in the citrus trees, and the light was golden on the wall. I went into the downstairs salon and gazed out at the fountain framed by the plasterwork arch, then wandered upstairs.

Off the catwalk that joined the two main sections of the house, a set of stairs led to a tiny room whose purpose was a mystery. The ceiling above the passage was painted in geometric designs and on the end wall was Arabic script. When five-year-old Ayoub had visited he proudly announced that this read
Allah Akbar
(God is Great) and
Bismillah
(Praise be to God). Perhaps the room had been a place to pray in a busy household.

In the
massreiya
I threw back the shutters and light flooded in. The radial design on the ceiling had been painted so long ago that the colours had faded to beautiful subtle tones. At that moment, not even the amount of work involved to fix the sagging on one side spoiled my appreciation of it.

I looked at the date on the intricate band of plasterwork bordering the ceiling: it read 1292, the Muslim calendar year for the date of the last major restoration to the house. That converted to about 1875 in the Western calendar, and if the house had stood for that long without further maintenance, surely it would for a while longer. At least until we could fix it.

That evening, I went out to eat in the Medina, returning after dark. It felt eerie being in the riad by myself. Before going to bed, I investigated all the rooms, shining a torch into every dark corner to reassure myself I wasn’t going to get any unpleasant surprises during the night. I had made the downstairs salon my bedroom,
and
as I lay down I found it comforting to hear muffled voices through the walls. I fell asleep to the buzz of mosquitoes and a persistent blowfly.

I slept lightly, waking at the fall of a leaf from the lemon tree, and again when tomcats had a territorial stoush on the terrace. In the early morning I was roused by the sound of a mournful song, and a short time later came a muezzin’s call. This went on for half an hour, joined by competing chants from other mosques. Just as they finished a cool breeze drifted in, displacing the hot and heavy night air, and I slept well for a couple of hours.

The next time I woke it was to the sound of my mobile phone. It was Sandy, who’d tried to call on three other occasions and got a Moroccan who spoke no English. Odd, given he’d dialled the same number each time. Sandy had just spent several weeks in Sydney, filling in for another radio presenter who’d quit unexpectedly. He was back at home now, with the cats curled up on his knee. I felt a rush of love for my small family. Some men might have felt resentful and paranoid at having their partner out of sight for so long. The truth was, I hadn’t met anyone in years who came close to touching my mind and my heart the way Sandy did. Nor was I looking to.

Buoyed by my success with the small bathroom, I decided to get started on the fountain. It was quite a few years since it had done anything but collect leaves, and the roots of the trees on either side appeared to have interfered with the water pipes.

I fetched the old plumber and immediately ran into communication difficulties again. As with the toilet, the problem with the fountain was greater than it looked, and understanding it required a translator. The restaurateur came to the rescue once more, explaining that the plumber was at the limit of his skills, and wasn’t about to start removing the beautiful
zellij
around the fountain.

Zellij
is like a jigsaw puzzle; the pieces are built up progressively into a pattern. You can’t simply take some out then easily repair it, and at the equivalent of thirty dollars a metre it was, in Moroccan terms, extremely expensive. The restaurateur smiled and said he would send me a real plumber, who was a good Muslim. I guessed that meant he would be respectful and wouldn’t try to cheat me.

Unable to do anything further, I strolled to the souk and bought some luscious peaches for Khadija and her family, which cost about half Abdul’s daily wage. It was Friday and I’d been invited for lunch.

While we ate – chicken with noodles, a tomato and onion salad, fresh fruit to follow – I asked how she and Abdul had met. He’d first glimpsed her when she drove in to park at his parking station, he told me, his unshaven face lighting up as he spoke. Somehow he’d mustered the courage to approach her, though I gathered Khadija hadn’t been too impressed with him at first. Perhaps she harboured higher aspirations – I didn’t ask. But he won her over and went to her family to ask for her hand in marriage.

When I enquired how she’d felt about this she glanced down coyly. Her dowry of two thousand dirhams had been arranged, and they had an elaborate wedding that went on for three days
and
nights. Before it began, Khadija’s friends had prepared her carefully, painting designs on her hands and feet with henna and dressing her in an elaborate costume, which was changed several times over the course of the ceremony. The bride and groom initially celebrated separately, then Abdul rode to Khadija’s place on a white horse, accompanied by friends who sang and banged drums all the way. After more partying, bride and groom were seated on circular platforms covered with gold fabric, which were suspended aloft and carried into their bedchamber.

They produced a series of photo albums. Khadija was only seventeen at the time and the prospect of marriage must have been confronting, for in the pictures she looked grim, unsmiling and scared. Perhaps she was contemplating the moment when the wedding sheet with the spot of blood would be carried outside to the waiting crowd, a practice still current among all but Westernised Moroccans. If the bride does not bleed it shows she wasn’t a virgin, and huge shame is brought upon her family. Her new husband may even disown her.

There were also photos of young Ayoub on his ‘cutting day’. Circumcision is obligatory for Muslim males, and a major event in the lives of young Moroccan boys. It is done between the ages of three and seven, when the boy is old enough to remember the occasion but too young to make trouble. There are variations on this amazing ritual all over Morocco, but common elements are shared by traditional communities.

Before the chosen day, which is usually during spring, the house will be thoroughly cleaned and a room whitewashed for
the
boy’s use. Special bread is baked and a ram purchased for slaughter. The slaughtering is done the day before, and blood is put above the front door to ask the blessing of the djinns, or spirits. That evening, the boy’s mother places a wooden plate of sheep or goat excrement on the terrace under the stars, to endow it with magical properties.

A special bandage is sometimes prepared, by marking it with five vertical lines using the liquid from the saffron plant. This symbolises the hand of Fatima, who protects against the evil eye. Two bags containing a mixture of nigella seeds, salt, a tiny silver coin, and various other items are wrapped in red rags and attached to pieces of red wool. One bag will be worn by the boy, while the other one is hung somewhere in the house.

Early in the morning on the day of the circumcision, the mother will dress her son in a white djellaba and a green felt hat. A male relative, often the boy’s uncle, will collect him on a white horse. The boy sits in front as they ride around town, followed by male family members and friends chanting religious songs. Holy men bless the boy before he returns home.

The circumcision is done by the local barber, who will be waiting at the house. The imam of the local mosque chants verses from the Koran, along with some of his students, then the women of the house and the female guests sing ritual songs to comfort the boy. In the meantime he is carried to the specially whitewashed room and the barber relaxes him by having a friendly chat. At the chosen moment, the boy is asked to lie on his back and put his feet over his head. A piece of sheep excrement is taken from
the
bowl and the little penis pushed through it, so that the tip is visible while being held firmly in place.

Then a favoured distraction technique is for the barber to point to a corner of the ceiling and tell the boy there is a cute little bird there, before whipping out his knife and cutting off the foreskin. The penis is cleaned with antiseptic and bandaged, then a rooster is brought to have its comb cut, the belief being that if only a single cutting is performed, it may bring evil to the boy.

While this is happening the women continue to sing and clap, and when the boy’s cries are heard they increase their volume. He is carried three times around the circle of singing women, who ululate wildly.

Afterwards the boy is taken back to the whitewashed room and a huge fuss is made of him. He is served boiled eggs, lamb kebabs and sweets, and given gifts, usually money. The women return to the courtyard, still singing and clapping, and one of them will grab the wooden plate and throw the sheep excrement over the others, to bring fertility to any crops they have, along with general good fortune. The rest of the afternoon belongs to them. They may dress up in even more elaborate clothing and dance to music from an all-female group. Special food is served – a kind of donut, with dishes of butter and honey, followed by a tagine.

Later, the mother will carry the foreskin to the mosque in a bowl of henna, making a wish for her son to be devout and successful in society, before burying it.

In the first of the photos, Ayoub looked bemused but proud, as if he knew he was special on this particular day but had no
idea
why. In later photos he was downcast and miserable, and when Khadija passed these to him he burst out crying, rolling around with tears streaming down his face. His circumcision was obviously a painful experience he would rather forget, yet one his parents were proud to remember.

Having exhausted the photos, Khadija produced the family videos, but I pleaded tiredness, saying I hadn’t slept very well on my first night in the unfamiliar house.

That was a mistake. Immediately Khadija said she and Ayoub would come and sleep in the riad to keep me company. Abdul joined in, saying it was fine by him. ‘Ayoub would love it,’ entreated Khadija.

I thanked them profusely and declined, thinking the matter settled, but when Khadija’s sister arrived home a few minutes later it started all over again. The sister would also be more than happy to come and stay at my house, it seemed. And no doubt the sister’s teenage daughters as well, I thought. My peaceful little house would be filled with women, and the men of the family would be running in and out visiting them. I tried not to look horrified.

Taking a deep breath, I explained as clearly as I could that I was a writer and needed solitude. I often woke up at odd hours in the night and wrote, I told them. It was my work, my livelihood, and it was necessary. Abdul understood and explained it to the others, and much to my relief the pleading ceased.

With no way of cooking in my basic little kitchen, I headed out for dinner again that evening. In the souk, crowds of people were going for their nightly stroll. The sweet sellers were doing a roaring trade in sticky mounds of deep-fried confectionery dipped in sugar syrup. I stopped to buy an almond-milk dessert, a bit like blancmange, served in a glass. It was cool, slippery and sweet on the tongue.