TRANSITION TO FRIENDSHIP??

Thinking about how patronizing I am. How having a hired person is awkward. How I condescend.

I mean — about Hamid’s neediness — is he really needy? Why should I assume this? Maybe he makes a decent living salary at being a guide.

It seemed at first he was poor. He sports a bandage on his hand, he’s missing a finger. And he seemed desperate, following us doggedly when we first breached the walls of the medina.

I recall the first time we visited his home. Twenty feet of tunnel lead up to his front door. It was dark. A bucket sat outside the door – perhaps it was for human waste.

He opened a window in the door and called his wife. She came down and unlocked it. Hamid grabbed the bucket and put it in the bathroom. We followed him up concrete stairs into a middle area between two living rooms. Each living room was partitioned with pretty curtains. The white walls were lined with long thin red and gold couches.

The home was like a cave. It reminds me of the house we had in France in that the walls are irregular. The living rooms appeared spacious to me. Perhaps 20 or 30 people could get together. Smith disagrees, though.

There was a color TV, a satellite dish on the roof. There were no standard bedrooms. I think they must use the living room couches at night.

Holy shit. I was writing this, and someone rang our door. I hid the hash. But it was OK, Hamid was at our door…

He brings me a big couscous cooker – a pot with a separable steamer on the top for the couscous. I’m trying to learn how to make it for Thursday night when his family visits. He also brings a coffeepot because he was concerned this afternoon about my method of making coffee. I boiled it in a sauce pan. We ate gritty, gritty coffee.

Hamid explains how to make couscous in the kitchen. Afterwards, Smith asks me, “Ask him if he wants to smoke.”

“Voulez-vous fumer la hashish?” I ask Hamid.

“Oh, hashish?” He brings his hand to his mouth, pantomimes smoking intensely. “Yes.”

So I bring out the art supplies (hash) and we sit down. Smith starts to put a chunk on the needle, and then Hamid says, “Here, try mine. It’s better.”

I watch Smith and Hamid pass the cup, then the needle falls off the paper and they pass the smoking needle back and forth. I get a secondhand buzz.

“Here,” I say. “Let me get you a book. You can use Philip K. Dick’s Ubik. I’m probably not going to read it. Too busy writing.”

Smith fiddles the needle through the book. Hamid moves to the floor, rolls a cigarette.

“Today, I smoke. This evening. Tomorrow, no smoke. He doesn’t smoke the cigarette?” Hamid indicates Smith.

“No, he had the cancer.” I grab my throat.

“Oh, cancer,” says Hamid. “Yes, with this hash, it’s good quality. Only need a little bit. I won’t smoke tomorrow. It’s good to have a day on, a day off. Day on, day off.”

“I won’t smoke tomorrow or Thursday,” I tell Hamid.

“That’s good. Otherwise you lose your comprehension.”

“This is good stuff,” says Smith. “Ask Hamid if we can get some of this.”

“Can we buy this? How much does it cost?”

“Oh, two, three hundred dirhams.”

“Will two hundred dirhams be enough?” asks Smith. “We don’t need it now – tell him Thursday. He can bring it when he comes Thursday.”

Steve holds two bills out to Hamid.

“This is good, no? 200 dirhams?” I ask.

“It’s good. Thank you.” Hamid stuffs the money in his pocket.

“And we don’t need it now. On Thursday when you come?”

“OK, I bring Thursday. I can get you a quantity like this,” and he indicates his pinky finger.

Hamid finishes his cigarette as we finish the chunk. He moves to the couch, sits next to Steve. Unfolds the towel he had wrapped around his bandaged hand. Holds it up. There are huge holes in the middle of the cloth.

“Oh, from smoking?”

“No. From mice. You comprehend? The mice. They like to eat everything.” He makes his hand like a mouse crawling on the table.
“I try to sleep, and I see them.”

I giggle and translate for Smith.

Hamid continues: “And they like to eat paper. I had 150 dirhams ready for the bank. When the mice were through with it, I had only 50 dirhams for the bank.”

I laugh, and then I wonder if I’m supposed to be laughing. Of course; he’s telling a story to us. It should be OK.

“So I got a wallet for my money. And look.” He unfolds the wallet, shows us a tattered edge. “Look, now they eat the wallet.”

This seems an appropriate parable for something.

Meanwhile I feel a whole new dimension opens up with Hamid. He’s no longer just “in business” with us; I think the intimacy of smoking is facilitating a friendship.

“Have you always lived here in Marrakech?” I ask.

“Always Marrakech. But my family is from all over Morocco. Down south, the men wear blue pantaloons, blue shirts, black scarves over their faces. Lots of camels there. Beaucoup de camel.”

“Ooo… How good.”

“I have family from the Sahara. I have family who live towards Casablanca.”

“Some other day, we should go on a tour nearby. It costs 4 dirhams for a ticket. 6 dirhams to eat.”

“That is nice. Thank you.”