One afternoon, on an outing in a new direction, I became lost. I was in the resort area outside the walled medina, but because most of the hotels are painted the same exact shade of rose, they were nearly indistinguishable. After walking forty-five minutes in unusually quiet and nearly deserted streets, I decided to return to our hotel as darkness descended.
Panic rose like bile as I whipped around in circles trying to locate our home, le Sofitel. Shyt. Unlike the old town, the hotel neighborhood is neither crowded nor busy with locals. I didn't experience being shepherded by motorbikes, but there was also no one to ask for help until — oh boy — men on horseback. Perfect. Rescue in a cinematic fashion. Police on tall white stallions were clip-clopping up the street and I ran to catch up.
The two most prominent languages in Marrakech are Arabic and French. As I did in Paris, I once again reached into the "high-school French" closet of my brain in order to get out of this pickle. The dusk had turned into a starry, starry night...lovely and romantic, but unnerving for one alone and lost.
Bonjour, I squeaked out to the officials. They peered down at me from their lofty position high atop their muscular beasts. Ou est le Sofitel, si'l vous plait?
I blinked, plastered a worried look on my face and played the woman in distress for all its worth — because I was genuinely in distress. The policemen glowered down at me with looks of disdain, then disgust, and finally disinterest. This hit me hard. I shrank. One guy delivered a snide smile and the other perused the skyline as if I hadn't spoken at all.
I stumbled again in French, pointed "out there" somewhere, trying to indicate I was quite at odds direction-wise. The interchange ended with one officer shaking his head, the other drawing his hefty shoulders to his ears and letting them drop heavily, and both of them steering their animals away from me. They had offered neither a word of assistance or interest in my predicament.
Lights clicked on around me in household windows. I was no longer bathed in twilight as the blackness deepened on the street. I could smell roasted lamb and cinnamon. Dinners, families, warm kitchens and tagines filled with fluffy couscous. I panted in short hard bursts. I searched for calm and was reminded of my sojourn in the countryside of the Czech Republic, where I had been dumped off a train. I will find my way...I will...I will....
I didn't have a cell phone to reach William and the empty suburbia had me thinking in the "thriller" and "horror" genres. I was Doris Day in The Man Who Knew Too Much. I was Doris Day in anything, always breathless and vulnerable. Pop a pillbox on my head and I would be humming a fast-paced rendition of "Que Sera, Sera."
I chose a direction and walked with purpose, manufacturing confidence with each step. I swung around a corner and kept going. I stuck my hands deep in my coat pockets, tilted my head downward and moved forward, forward...and, after another hour, was even more confused.
Circles upon circles had me dizzy. I can't say why this idea took so long to formulate, but it came to me and I raced into the lobby of a Hyatt. At the front desk I begged for help and was set straight. As it happened, I wasn't far from home. Three more blocks and I arrived at the horseshoe driveway of the Sofitel Marrakech. The lobby, draped in heavy silk curtains, glimmered in Moroccan lamplight and welcomed me in a warm embrace as if murmuring, "Shhh, silly girl...ssshhhhh."
I concluded Marrakech is wholly inhospitable to a woman alone.
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