Continental Hotel
Tangier
The Tangier heat is dry and the sun burns a hole through the
ultramarine sky. The blue expanse runs for miles and miles until it pinches
with the pink sand. I look at the simplicity of it and realize how far I am
away from home where every moment of my life was a complex web. There was no
single thread but a chaotic pattern in which a spider would surely get tangled.
If I had stayed I would have unraveled and choked blue. I do not expect any one will understand my
sudden departure, I certainly do not. I have done everything that was expected
of me, in fact, I do not think I have ever taken a wrong step in my short life.
Dullness never cried or laughed, it just let
life pass it by. Nevertheless, here I am simply letting life tow me.
The people are pleasant enough. The young boys playing football on
the streets ask me what time it is. I do not think it is the time they care
about. I suppose they find me just as exotic as I find them.
Tangier belongs to no one. The Spanish, French, and English own it.
Tangier is full of Arabs and Berbers. At any given time one can hear French,
Spanish, English, Arabic, and Moghrebi, the native tongue. The French run the
hotels, banks, and the larger shops. Black children serve breakfast of mint
tea, native bread, black, grilled to make it blacker, and jam. It is not quite
I have made some inquires of the garcon d'hotel about the writer Paul
Bowels. He knows of him but has no clue to where he lives. The city is small, I
am sure I will run into him.
Tangier
I have been feeling tired but restless. The heat is stifling. It leaves me wet with perspiration. I can feel where it leaves its mark on my clothes. I do not know how the natives stay cool in their long robes. The sunlight penetrates my skull casting a shadow on my brain; leaving it in darkness.
The city feels like what, I suspect,
I picked up a copy of an Algerian newspaper, Echo D'Alger, where
Bowles, author of the novel, The
Sheltering Sky, is described as ‘distant, chilly, and eccentric and his
parrot as skinny and featherless.’
There is a little child who comes to the music-cafe where I have been listening to Moroccan music. He comes in wearing different coloured skullcaps. He approaches me seriously, shakes hands and asks for a penny. It is very late.
I asked Absalom, the garcon
d’hotel about the young boy. Why was he asking for money late at night in a
bar? He told me how the young boys prostitute themselves. They will go as far
as to sell their younger brothers and sisters to the Europeans and Americans.
He explained there were two kinds of freedom. The affluent and eccentrics of
Absalom’s explanation disturbed me but put my life in some obvious context. When I was a child of three I wanted a white tricycle that I had seen in the shop window. It was not Christmas or my birthday. I talked about it for days on end. I cried and had my tantrums until my parents relented and bought it for me. Last year for my nineteenth birthday my parents bought me a white sports car without an utterance from me. My problems are trivial compared to what that young child in the coloured skullcaps’ will face for the rest of his life. I doubt if I will fully understand my place of privilege. I doubt my children or my grandchildren will ever understand how the colour of ones skin defines freedom.
Absalom found out that Bowles lives on a mountain
about three kilometers out of Tangier with his lover. We hiked up the mountain to the Bowles
household. A young Arab man answered the door. He informed us that Mr. Bowles
was in
back in a few months. I had missed him by a few days.
The countryside is blotched with all variety of cacti, palms, figs, and flowers. They are surrounded by huge eucalyptus trees.