Joe Haldeman - Lindsay and the Red City Blues.pdf - Joe Haldeman - margozap

LINDSAY AND THE RED CITY BLUES

"The ancient red city of Marrakesh," his guidebook said, "is the last large oasis for

travelers moving south into the Sahara. It is the most exotic of Moroccan cities, where Arab

Africa and Black Africa meet in a setting that has changed but little in the past thousand

years."

In midafternoon, the book did not mention, it becomes so hot that even the flies stop

moving.

The air conditioner in his window hummed impressively but neither moved nor cooled the

air. He had complained three times, and the desk clerk responded with two shrugs and a

blank stare. By two o'clock his little warren was unbearable. He fled to the street, where it

was hotter.

Scott Lindsay was a salesman who demonstrated chemical glassware for a large scientific-

supply house in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. Like all Washingtonians, Lindsay thought

that a person who could survive summer on the banks of the Potomac could survive it

anywhere. He saved up six weeks of vacation time and flew to Europe in late July. Paris was

pleasant enough, and the Pyrenees were even cool, but nobody had told him that on August

first all of Europe goes on vacation; every good hotel room has been sewed up for six

months, restaurants are jammed or closed, and you spend all your time making bad travel

connections to cities where only the most expensive hotels have accommodations.

In Nice a Canadian said he had just come from Morocco, where it was hotter than hell but

there were practically no tourists this time of year. Scott looked wistfully over the poisoned

but still blue Mediterranean, felt the pressure of twenty million fellow travelers at his back,

remembered Bogie, and booked the next flight to Casablanca.

Casablanca combined the charm of Pittsburgh with the climate of Dallas. The still air was

thick with dust from high-rise construction. He picked up a guidebook and riffled through it

and, on the basis of a few paragraphs, took the predawn train to Marrakesh.

"The Red City," it went on, "takes its name from the color of the local sandstone from

which the city and its ramparts were built." It would be more accurate, Scott reflected,

though less alluring, to call it the Pink City. The Dirty Pink City. He stumbled along the

sidewalk on the shady side of the street. The twelve-inch strip of shade at the edge of the

sidewalk was crowded with sleeping beggars. The heat was so dry he couldn't even sweat.

He passed two bars that were closed and stepped gratefully into a third. It was a Moslem

bar, a milk bar, no booze, but at least it was shade. Two young men slumped at the bar,

arguing in guttural whispers, and a pair of ancients in burnooses sat at a table playing a static

game of checkers. An oscillating fan pushed the hot air and dust around. He raised a finger

at the bartender, who regarded him with stolid hostility, and ordered in schoolboy French a

small bottle of Vichy water, carbonated, without ice, and, out of deference to the guidebook,

a glass of hot mint tea. The bartender brought the mint tea and a liter bottle of Sidi Harazim

water, not carbonated, with a glass of ice. Scott tried to argue with the man but he only

stared and kept repeating the price. He finally paid and dumped the ice (which the guidebook

had warned him about) into the ashtray. The young men at the bar watched the transaction

with sleepy indifference.

The mint tea was an aromatic infusion of mint leaves in hot sugar water. He sipped and

was surprised, and perversely annoyed, to find it quite pleasant. He took a paperback novel

out of his pocket and read the same two paragraphs over and over, feeling his eyes track,

unable to concentrate in the heat.

He put the book down and looked around with slow deliberation, trying to be impressed

by the alienness of the place. Through the open front of the bar he could see across the street,

where a small park shaded the outskirts of the Djemaa El Fna, the largest open-air market in

Morocco and, according to the guidebook, the most exciting and colorful; which itself was

the gateway to the mysterious labyrinthine medina, where even this moment someone was

being murdered for his pocket change, goats were being used in ways of which Allah did not

approve, men were smoking a mixture of camel dung and opium, children were

merchandised like groceries; where dark men and women would do anything for a price, and

the price would not be high. Scott touched his pocket unconsciously, and the hard bulge of

the condom was still there.

The best condoms in the world are packaged in a blue plastic cylinder, squared off along

the prolate axis, about the size of a small matchbox. The package is a marvel of technology,

held fast by a combination of geometry and sticky tape, and a cool-headed man, under good

lighting conditions, can open it in less than a minute. Scott had bought six of them in the

drugstore in Dulles International, and had opened only one. He hadn't opened it for the

Parisian woman who had looked like a prostitute but had returned his polite proposition with

a storm of outrage. He opened it for the fat customs inspector at the Casablanca airport, who

had to have its function explained to him, who held it between two dainty fingers like a dead

sea thing and called his compatriots over for a look.

The Djemaa El Fna was closed against the heat, pale-orange dusty tents slack and pallid in

the stillness. And the trees through which he stared at the open-air market, the souk, were

also covered with pale dust; the sky was so pale as to be almost white, and the street and

sidewalk were the color of dirty chalk. It was like a faded watercolor displayed under too

strong a light.

"Hey, mister." A slim Arab boy, evidently in his early teens, had slipped into the place

and was standing beside Lindsay. He was well scrubbed and wore Western-style clothing,

discreetly patched.

"Hey, mister," he repeated. "You American?"

"Nu. Eeg bin Jugoslay."

The boy nodded. "You from New York? I got four friends New York."

"Jugoslay."

"You from Chicago? I got four friends Chicago. No, five. Five friends Chicago."

"Jugoslav," he said.

"Where in U.S. you from?" He took a melting ice cube from the ashtray, buffed it on his

sleeve, popped it into his mouth, crunched.

"New Caledonia," Scott said.

"Don't like ice? Ice is good this time day." He repeated the process with another cube.

"New what?" he mumbled.

"New Caledonia. Little place in the Rockies, between Georgia and Wisconsin. I don't like

polluted ice."

"No, mister, this ice okay. Bottle-water ice." He rattled off a stream of Arabic at the

bartender, who answered with a single harsh syllable. "Come on, I guide you through

medina."

"No."

"I guide you free. Student, English student. I take you free, take you my father's factory."

"You'll take me, all right."

"Okay, we go now. No touris' shit, make good deal."

Well, Lindsay, you wanted experiences. How about being knocked over the head and

raped by a goat? "All right, I'll go.

But no pay."

"Sure, no pay." He took Scott by the hand and dragged him out of the bar, into the park.

"Is there any place in the medina where you can buy cold beer?"

"Sure, lots of place. Ice beer. You got cigarette?"

"Don't smoke."

"That's okay, you buy pack up here." He pointed at a gazebo-shaped concession on the

edge of the park.

"Hell, no. You find me a beer and I might buy you some cigarettes." They came out of the

shady park and crossed the packed-earth plaza of the Djemaa El Fna. Dust stung his throat

and nostrils, but it wasn't quite as hot as it had been earlier; a slight breeze had come up. One

industrious merchant was rolling up the front flap of his tent, exposing racks of leather

goods. He called out, "Hey, you buy!" but Scott ignored him, and the boy made a fist

gesture, thumb erect between the two first fingers.

Scott had missed one section of the guidebook: "Never visit the medina without a guide;

the streets are laid out in crazy, unpredictable angles and someone who doesn't live there will

be hopelessly lost in minutes. The best guides are the older men or young Americans who

live there for the cheap narcotics; with them you can arrange the price ahead of time, usually

about 5 dirham ($1.10). Under no circumstances hire one of the street urchins who pose as

students and offer to guide you for free; you will be cheated or even beaten up and robbed."

They passed behind the long double row of tents and entered the medina through the Bab

Agnou gateway. The main street of the place was a dirt alley some eight feet wide, flanked

on both sides by small shops and stalls, most of which were closed, either with curtains or

steel shutters or with the proprietor dozing on the stoop. None of the shops had a wall on the

side fronting the alley, but the ones that served food usually had chest-high counters. If they

passed an open shop the merchant would block their way and importune them in urgent

simple French or English, plucking at Scott's sleeve as they passed.

It was surprisingly cool in the medina, the sun's rays partially blocked by wooden lattices

suspended over the alleyway. There was a roast-chestnut smell of semolina being parched,

with accents of garlic and strange herbs smoldering. Slight tang of exhaust fumes and sickly-

sweet hint of garbage and sewage hidden from the sun. The boy led him down a side street,

and then another. Scott couldn't tell the position of the sun and was quickly disoriented.

"Where the hell are we going?"

"Cold beer. You see." He plunged down an even smaller alley, dark and sinister, and

Lindsay followed, feeling unarmed.

They huddled against a damp wall while a white-haired man on an antique one-cylinder

motor scooter hammered by. "How much farther is this place? I'm not going to—"

"Here, one corner." The boy dragged him around the corner and into a musty-smelling

dark shop. The shopkeeper, small and round, smiled gold teeth and greeted the boy by name,

Abdul. "The word for beer is `bera,' " he said. Scott repeated the word to the fat little man

and Abdul added something. The man opened two beers and set them down on the counter,

along with a pack of cigarettes.

It's a new little Arab, Lindsay, but I think you'll be amused by its presumption. He paid

and gave Abdul his cigarettes and beer. "Aren't you Moslem? I thought Moslems didn't

drink."

"Hell yes, man." He stuck his finger down the neck of the bottle and flicked away a drop

of beer, then tilted the bottle up and drained half of it in one gulp. Lindsay sipped at his. It

was warm and sour.

"What you do in the States, man?" He lit a cigarette and held it awkwardly.

Chemical glassware salesman? "I drive a truck." The acrid Turkish tobacco smoke stung

his eyes.

"Make lots of money."

"No, I don't." He felt foolish saying it. World traveler, Lindsay, you spent more on your

ticket than this boy will see in his life.

"Let's go my father's factory."

"What does your father make?"

"All kinds of things. Rugs."

"I wouldn't know what to do with a rug."

"We wrap it, mail to New Caledonia."

"No. Let's go back to—"

"I take you my uncle's factory. Brass, very pretty."

" No. Back to the plaza, you got your cig— "

"Sure, let's go." He gulped down the rest of his beer and stepped back into the alley, Scott

following. After a couple of twists and turns they passed an antique-weapons shop that Scott

knew he would have noticed, if they'd come by it before. He stopped.

"Where are you taking me now?"

He looked hurt. "Back to Djemaa El Fna. Like you say."

"The hell you are. Get lost, Abdul. I'll find my own way back." He turned and started

retracing their path. The boy followed about ten paces behind him, smoking.

He walked for twenty minutes or so, trying to find the relatively broad alleyway that

would lead back to the gate. The character of the medina changed: there were fewer and

fewer places selling souvenirs, and then none; only residences and little general-merchandise

stores, and some small-craft factories, where one or two men, working at a feverish pace,

cranked out the items that were sold in the shops. No one tried to sell him anything, and

when a little girl held out her hand to beg, an old woman shuffled over and slapped her.

Everybody stared when he passed.

Finally he stopped and let Abdul catch up with him. "All right, you win. How much to

lead me out?"

"Ten dirham."

"Stuff it. I'll give you two."

Abdul looked at him for a long time, hands in pockets. "Nine dirham." They haggled for a

while and finally settled on seven dirham, about $1.50, half now and half at the gate.

They walked through yet another part of the medina, single file through narrow streets,

Abdul smoking silently in the lead. Suddenly he stopped.

Scott almost ran into him.

"Say, you want girl?"

"Uh ... I'm not sure," Scott said, startled into honesty. He laughed, surprisingly deep and

lewd. "A boy, then?"

"No, no." Composure, Lindsay. "Your sister, no doubt."

" What? " Wrong thing to say.

"American joke. She a friend of yours?"

"Good friend, good fuck. Fifty dirham."

Scott sighed. "Ten." Eventually they settled on thirty-two, Abdul to wait outside until

Scott needed his services as a guide again.

Abdul took him to a caftan shop, where he spoke in whispers with the fat owner and gave

him part of the money. They led Lindsay to the rear of the place, behind a curtain. A woman

sat on her heels beside the bed, patiently crocheting. She stood up gracelessly. She was short

and slight, the top of her head barely reaching Scott's shoulders, and was dressed in

traditional costume: lower part of the face veiled, dark blue caftan reaching her ankles. At a

command from the owner, she hiked the caftan up around her hips and sat down on the bed

with her legs spread apart.

"You see, very clean," Abdul said. She was the skinniest woman Scott had ever seen

naked, partially naked, her pelvic girdle prominent under smooth brown skin. She had very

little pubic hair and the lips of her vulva were dry and gray. But she was only in her early

Joe Haldeman - Lindsay and the Red City Blues.pdf

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