Friday, November 29, 2013

Early One Morning

I woke up very early. By 6:45 I had caught up on my Words With Friends games, Skyped with my cousins back in California, finished a load of wash and showered. I didn't have any food in the house and my electric kettle had stopped working. I wanted a coffee, a cigarette and something to eat so I decided to venture outside.

The elevator in my building has been broken for several days now so I walked down 6 flights of stairs, being careful not to turn on the light on the ground floor because I didn't want to wake up the cranky guardian whose room is right next to the non-functioning elevator. If the elevator hadn't shown signs of petering out in the preceding days by stopping at the 2nd and 4th floors when I pushed the button for the 5th floor, I might have suspected the guardian of having simply turned it off. That's exactly what he had been doing whenever any of the residents used it after 10 pm because it interrupted his sleep. Because this is primarily a commercial building with only a handful of full-time residents, I guess he felt entitled to his rest, figured we should all be home at a decent hour, and could benefit from the exercise if we had the energy to stay out late. I decided to adopt the same position rather than fret over his selfishness or the ancient elevator that may have stopped functioning because of being turned on and off. No need to antagonize the watchman.

I stepped out into the early morning light with a bag of trash in hand. I was going to leave it on the street for the garbage men to collect but everything was spic and span so I squished the small plastic bag into one of the public trash bins. I looked to my right and saw a small gathering of men outside a lit cafe and headed in that direction. A seller of cigarettes was set up outside the cafe and I approached my fellow early risers and asked for a packet. I handed over 40 dirham and was given 5 dirham in change. "No," I said in Arabic, "the packet costs 32 dirham." He grumbled and begrudgingly produced the 3 dirham he had hoped to pocket for himself. I primly thanked him and retraced my steps on Boulevard Mohammed V to search for an open cafe that was to more to my liking.

As I turned a corner I felt someone was following me. I turned my head slightly and one of the young men who had been sitting with the seller of cigarettes picked up his pace to come alongside me and began speaking in Arabic. I guess he thought I understood more than I did because not only had I spoken Arabic during my transaction with his entrepreneurial friend, I had also exchanged pleasantries with him about the cold weather. I advised him that I only spoke a little Arabic and a little French. He switched to French in the blink of an eye and asked me to join him for a cup of coffee. I told him that would be a problem for my husband. He bowed his head, rather humbly apologized and turned on his heels.

During our brief conversation, a street sweeper had been eavesdropping as he slowly pushed his broom along the gutter but never moving an inch himself. When the conversation between the young man and I ended, the street sweeper gave a satisfactory nod of his head at the result of our encounter. I'm not sure if he was happy with me or the young man but clearly, he thought the right thing had happened. I walked on and entered Paradise, a modern cafe that was brightly lit and ready to serve.

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