I arrived in Marrakech for a three-week stay with my computer and a writing project. My first morning there, I awoke to the sound of a muezzin's call to prayer. This person, usually in the minaret atop a mosque, acts as town crier. From our hotel window I could see the blue-grey Atlas Mountains in the distance, backlit by the rising sun, and down below a man kneeling on his small rug, facing Mecca, as the throaty appeal of the muezzin rang out over the city.
The amplified summons happened five times a day and every time I took comfort in the sound. Perhaps because it is a ritual. Perhaps because everything stops for prayers. And perhaps because it seemed if a community could pause for God, could we not pause for each other?
Once awake, I went downstairs for breakfast. Seated at a table in the dining room, a novel in my hand, I viewed lush gardens and the swimming pool, edged with date palms. The hotel served a huge buffet of egg dishes, fruits, meats and smoked fish. Chefs in white hats whipped up made-to-order omelets with sides of ham, bacon or sausage. Wicker baskets overflowed with brioche and fat, buttery croissants. I could count on a newly acquired ten pounds if I wasn't careful in my three weeks here.
After a disciplined meal of a soft-boiled egg, one croissant and two cups of dark, rich coffee, I swam laps in the pool. I needed to jump-start my endorphins or risk sinking into a confined moodiness. This was in December, mind you, and damn chilly. I was the only guest using that pool. I swam fast to heat my body up. I followed my swim with a few hours of writing and at one o'clock I arrived downstairs to join William and Tom for lunch, poolside in winter sunshine.
Tom, at seventy, had traversed decades of Hollywood filmmaking. He wore the quiet bravado of John Huston or Ernest Hemingway and had a million colorful stories to share. Because of Tom, lunchtime became a delightful respite from the hotel room. He told us of working in Spain, where he drank the wine, appreciated the women and saw his share of bullfights. Tom had won an Oscar and traveled far and wide among a cast of legendary characters. Lunch, dinner or a walk with avuncular Tom was always entertaining.
After lunch I returned to our room, wrote, napped and then ventured out at dusk for what became a speed-walk through the neighborhood. Marrakech, I discovered, is not a place a woman can comfortably wander and sightsee alone. I didn't feel so much afraid as irritated. A woman alone on the street in Morocco means one thing. A western woman alone on the street means an even better chance of that one thing being a better thing.
I stepped along sidewalks and into chaotic Marrakech traffic. Flatbed trucks competed with horse-drawn carriages and motorbikes brushed close to small cars on roads with roundabouts and unclear signals entirely ignored by the locals. I only crossed streets when I could submerge into a crowd moving en masse because street lights and stop signs appeared to be wholly irrelevant. Throwing oneself headlong to the other side was the only sure way to get there.
The danger was made worse by the motorbike drivers pulling up alongside me on the walkway for a quickie introduction. They hopped their bikes up onto the sidewalk, gunned the engine for effect, and I would be neatly corralled against the stone wall. I shook my index finger — no, no — thrust my face forward and pushed past. My stroll turned into a half-jog. Galled, exasperated and infuriated I took comfort only in the fact that I had to be burning off croissant calories at an astonishing rate.
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