Tuesday, March 29, 2011

The Man with the Gravelly Voice

Fes is full of unusual characters. There is the woman who sits on my street every morning, eating her oranges, artichokes or pumpkin seeds and asking everyone to pray for her as they pass by and offer her a greeting. There's a squat, benevolent black woman who sits outside Cafe Clock every day with any number of stray cats on her lap who never fails to greet me and ask how I am faring. And of course there is the once beautiful femme fatale who paints her cheeks bright red and occasionally bursts into colorful tirades which never fail to draw an audience.

There are an equal number of men who add their own special hue to the scene. Among them was a man who had an unusual, gravelly voice that everyone loved to imitate. He would always surprise me when he spoke to me in English whenever our paths crossed.

"You have beautiful eyes" he used to growl at me.

During the time I've been in Fes, I have often seen him with his girlfriend. She is blind and seemed to be steadfast supporter of his. Often, I would see them walking arm in arm up Talaa Kbir. More often than not, he seemed contrite when they were together. But recently, I saw her shaking him by the shoulders, her gaze directed towards some distant place, as he succumbed to her public admonishments while the ever curious crowd watched on.

The other day I learned that this man died. I wasn't at all surprised as his face had become increasingly gaunt and had begun to look like it was carved from charred wood. I imagine that whatever it was that he took or drank or ate to help him get through the day had finally done him in. And then I recalled a scene I had witnessed about a week ago that now seemed particularly poignant. This man was outside my house at the public fountain. A friend was helping to shave him at the fountain. Together, they sat there for quite some time while his bristly face was scraped clean. Here and there, his face was slightly bloody from the closeness of the shave. But once again I was taken by the way he submitted to the ministrations of someone who cared about him. Little did I realize it would be the last time I laid eyes on him.

I wonder what is to become of his blind girlfriend and his companion who shaved him with such conscientious care. I wonder who will miss him and mourn his passing and my heart aches as I remember the vulnerable look on his clean shaven face.

4 comments:

mef. said...

I'm a student from the states studying in Morocco right now (I just got here about 10 days ago) and I LOVEE this blog (and cafe' clock! :)

Anonymous said...

Amanda here! Following your blog faithfully. Glad you're back.

Abdelilah told me about Omar's passing. It used to surprise me too when compliments in English emitted from that briny throat. I also know the femme fatale of which you speak and remember being startled by her outbursts. Here's a little something I wrote about Fez's less fortunate souls:

The brothers are always decent to the unfortunate souls folded into the recesses of the narrow streets of Fez, or those roaming the same streets, eyes glazed with hunger and lips mouthing steady inanities (because even if prayer, what does it amount to at that point, but senseless rhythm to which one can coax the feet to keep moving?). Change is always given to outstretched and shaking leathery hands, they always buy the bearded and cheerful Hakima a chicken when she playfully yet unrelentingly pulls at their sleeves, they don’t tease and sometimes protect the wild-haired, bulging-eyed, urgently aimlessly pacing singer of Indian pop songs, they give extra food to Fatima, the tiny woman they remember as a neighbor of sound mentality, but who now slowly paces the cafĂ© fronts of Bab Boujloud while tearing discarded paper into long strips, her head a dim sconce hung from the archway of her shoulders. None without objective, even if it is indiscernible to the streaming, unperturbed foot traffic, which moves around them like water parting and flowing without hesitation around river rocks.

Anonymous said...

Yoowhoo?!? Where are you? We miss your writing!!!

Anonymous said...

I miss your post, how are things going for you?

Fan in Oregon!