Mark Mirsky
MOROCCAN LETTER
I went to Morocco before Israel because I wanted to return
to ancient dreams. All the hot June and May afternoons chained
to
a
back seat in Hebrew School classrooms, my soul thirsted after desert
and exi le, the lost tribes. Our Israeli relatives smacked more of Miami
Beach than the tents of Judah, a streak of shrewd camel breeder to
them, it was true, but the dust of their feet smelt strong of prosaic
asphalt.
There is something in the air of Morocco that is fever. Your head
never quite clears of it. As if people have wiped their ass with the
chicken that appears in your couscous. Flies thick like peppercorns on
the meat in the butcher's stalls.
Tony Kerrigan who was here years ago told me of kids peeing on
his shoe to get attention. I saw some pretty English girls from the
Algeciras ferry
'<l
few hours later in the Petit Socco surrounded by a
table of tough looking young locals. I fantasize the incredible gang
bang that must have taken place late that night in one of the seedy
residencias, perhaps that of which the guide book relates, "You pay a
flat rate for the room and it doesn't matter if there are three, four, or five
to the bed."
1
Man liberated-to be a rugged English girl from some industrial
slum come on a weekend holiday to get my "jollies."
The knowing look in the eyes of eight, nine year old boys who
follow you around trying to become your guides. One remembers the
