I just slept in a mud-brick house belonging to an isolated shepherd family on a desolate plain near the Algerian border. It was a beautiful place, and a privilege to meet such people. And I paid good money for the experience. That’s the part which makes me uneasy.
It was when he said he’d be at the bus station at four o’clock that I began to ache for the strange little boy who had become my shadow. The bus left at five-thirty, and he knew that. I said I’d be at the station at five. He said again that he’d be there at four. What was nothing to me was far too important for him to risk missing.
Back home, in civilization, everything is spelled out. There I must not put my head and arms out the window, let alone contemplate the sensual allure of cheap opium and brown flesh. Within civilization there is a net, a structure, a code which keeps us all in line. There it is not possible to know if you’re really just pretending at a fundamental drive towards respect, to goodness. You suspect something in yourself, but you never have the chance at temptation.
Marrakech, but it could be any city in Morocco. Or just about anywhere in the touristed world, given minor changes to the script.
The man waves to me from where he’s trying to start his moped as I walk past on the sidewalk. I return the wave vaguely, turn back to looking straight ahead. At least […]
This taxi is pimped. You can tell from the outside even. For one thing, the wide banner at the top of the windshield says Mercedes in big white-on-black letters. It actually is a Mercedes too, complete with monogrammed mud-flaps, and the classic tristar ornament. Silver hubcaps, even. Doesn’t matter that it must be 20 years […]
This book is awesomely well written, deeply human, and ultimately also a little bit of a disappointment to me.
It’s basically the study of a woman trying to find a home in the world. After failing at or tiring of several different things, Codi Noline returns to her hometown of Grace, Arizona to care for her […]
