And then the rain came, in sheets, for days. My morning swims ended. My afternoon walks, already fast-paced to avoid confrontations, ramped up to near sprints. I sloshed through the hotel lobby in squishy shoes, dripping and grouchy. The pressure of William's work began to increase. After months, he and Tom were fed up with the limited hotel lunch menu. Their conversations had been reduced to regaling each other with the delights of hole-in-the-wall Mexican joints back home. Things were tense in what was starting to feel more like a lockup and less like a charming exotic location.
Over yet another dinner of cold sandwiches, I queried William about what was going on downstairs and he bit my head off. Feeling trapped, alone and at odds with my writing project, I bit back. We turned into a morose couple as headless as two chocolate Easter bunnies attacked by greedy children. I wanted to go home. So did William, but he couldn't and I could.
The rain continued. With three days left for me in Marrakech, I made a reservation for William, Tom and me to indulge in a farewell Moroccan evening. 22 Derb Abdellah Ben Hessaien, Bab Ksour, Medina, Marrakech. This is the address of Le Tobsil, a fairy-tale restaurant set in a renovated former palace in the walled city. Try to find it. Good luck.
We took a taxi into the medina. The little car drove up and down, this way and that, around oh...one more corner...another, and another, and stopped. The driver pointed, we paid and exited the car, then stood like utterly clueless idiots in an alley. William noticed a sign with the restaurant's name and a crudely painted arrow pointing toward another alley.
From nowhere, a man in a white linen djellaba appeared, and motioned for us to follow him. We did. Down an incline to the right, to the left...corner after corner. Tom whispered, We're dead...dead, dead...we're going to die here.
I chuckled to make light of a situation that was starting to feel like an outtake from "Casablanca." Suddenly, the entire journey ended at a formidable glossy hardwood door. A built-in speakeasy-style grille had me recalling the world of Oz. Would a quizzical face appear and allow us to enter?
The door swung open in a gush and we were ushered into Morocco at its romantic best. We stepped on floors covered in elaborate carpets. I looked around at white stone walls adorned with brass lighting fixtures and at low tables dressed in freshly pressed linens and scattered with rose petals. Everywhere candles twinkled, their flames popping and sputtering.
Small rooms, one after another, sat under gently curved archways. In a corner, next to a blazing fire, a trio of musicians played Andalusian harmonies on lute, drum and zither. We were enfolded into an atmosphere of elegant, history-laden calm. It could not have been more opposite than the rattling world we left outside that dark door.
I sniffed aromas of spice, roasted meats and mint tea. We lowered ourselves into the feathery softness of large silk and brocade pillows set around a circular table. We relaxed like royalty. I made it clear to Tom and William that the evening was my treat. They were to enjoy their escape from the hoosegow.
Prix fixe menus are common in Morocco, and drinks were included for the single price of $50 per person. Easy to treat at that price.
So it began — course after course in our version of le grand bouffe. We were invited to order cocktails. Martinis for Tom and me, Jack & Coke for William. As soon as these were delivered in frosty glassware, the table was laden with appetizers. I counted fourteen different small plates. Olives and salty roasted Marcona almonds. Mounds of garlicky ground meat shaped like small cigars. Phyllo triangles stuffed with spinach and feta. Puffy Middle Eastern breads with zesty dips. Dates and raisins. Fourteen plates, and they were just the starter.
The waiter asked if we'd like drink refills and we declined because more courses, and wine, were on the way. Two tagines, one with chicken and the other with lamb, were placed center stage. Bowls of couscous and vegetables sat beside them as supporting players. We dug into the banquet and our glasses were filled and refilled with red and white.
We melted into our pillows, laughing and ready to pop buttons as our table was cleared and brushed, made ready for sweet desserts, tea and liqueurs. Plied by Moroccan gluttony, we were dazzled as our waiter poured mint tea from on high, his teapot held several feet above the small cups. A party trick and we were a tipsy audience happy to cheer him on.
At the end of our giddy evening we bounced off the walls into narrow pathways in our hunt for a taxi to get us home to le Sofitel. Our way out of the maze depended on our sense of direction, because our guide who led us in was nowhere to be found.
Outside the magical environment of Le Tobsil, we were as unsteady as drunken sailors in an unfamiliar port. We spun and quibbled about this turn or that, trying to find our way back to the big lights of the busy streets. We were smashed, no two ways about that, but somehow, someway, we found our way out of the stone forest, back to our rooms and into our hotel beds, where we slept like children.
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