Statue detail, St. Marien and St. Nikolai Church
Road to Larache
ON APRIL FOOL’S DAY, I reluctantly prepared for yet another journey. I was invited to participate in a conference of poets and musicians in Tangier to honor the Beat writers who had once made it their port of call. I much preferred to be in Rockaway Beach, drinking coffee with the workers and watching the slow but meaningful process of the salvation of my little house. On the other hand I would be joining good friends, and April 15 marked the passing day of Jean Genet. It seemed to be the right moment to deliver the stones from Saint-Laurent Prison to his grave in Larache, only sixty miles from the conference.
Paul Bowles once said that Tangier is a place where the past and present exist simultaneously in proportionate degree. There is something hidden in the fabric of this city, a weave that produces a sense of welcoming coupled with mistrust. I saw a bit of Tangier myself first through his work, then through his eyes.
I was first introduced to Bowles in a serendipitous way. In the summer of 1967, shortly after I left home and went to New York City, I passed a large box of overturned books spilling out into the street. Several were scattered across the sidewalk, and a dated copy of Who’s Who in America lay open before my feet. I bent down to look, as a photograph caught my eye above an entry for Paul Frederic Bowles. I had never heard of him but I noticed we shared the same birthday, the thirtieth of December. Believing it to be a sign, I tore out the page and later searched out his books, the first being The Sheltering Sky. I read everything he wrote as well as his translations, introducing me to the work of Mohammed Mrabet and Isabelle Eberhardt.
Three decades later, in 1997, I was asked by German Vogue to interview him in Tangier. I had mixed feelings about my assignment, for they mentioned he was ill. But I was assured that he had readily agreed and that I would not be disturbing him. Bowles lived in a three-room apartment on a quiet street in a straightforward fifties-modern building in a residential section. A high stack of well-traveled trunks and suitcases formed a column in the entranceway. There were books lining the walls and halls, books that I knew and books I wished to know. He sat propped up in bed, wearing a soft plaid robe, and appeared to brighten when I entered the room.
I crouched down trying to find a graceful position in the awkward air. We spoke of his late wife, Jane, whose spirit seemed to be everywhere. I sat there twisting my braids, speaking about love. I wondered if he was really listening.
—Are you writing? I asked.
—No, I am no longer writing.
—How do you feel now? I asked.
—Empty, he answered.
I left him to his thoughts and went upstairs to the patio on the roof. There were no camels in the courtyard. No burlap sack spilling over with kif. No sebsi cocked on the edge of a jar. There was a cement roof overlooking other roofs, and lengths of muslin hung on lines that crisscrossed the space opening onto the blue Tangier sky. I pressed my face against one of the damp sheets for a moment’s respite from the stifling heat, yet immediately regretted doing so, for the impression marred its smooth perfection.
I returned to him. His robe lay at his feet, well-worn leather slippers by the side of his bed. A young Moroccan named Karim kindly served us tea. He lived across the hall and often came over to check on how Paul was faring.
Paul spoke of an island he owned that he no longer visited, music he no longer played, certain songbirds that were now extinct. I could see he was tiring.
—We share the same birthday, I told him.
He smiled wanly, his haloed eyes closing. We were approaching the end of our visit.
Everything pours forth. Photographs their history. Books their words. Walls their sounds. The spirits rose like an ether that spun an arabesque and touched down as gently as a benevolent mask.
—Paul, I have to go. I will come back to see you.
He opened his eyes and laid his long, lined hand upon mine.
Now he is gone.
With Paul Bowles, Tangier, 1997
I raised the top of my desk and located the oversized Gitane matchbox still wrapped in Fred’s handkerchief. I hadn’t opened it for over two decades. The stones were safely there, with bits of prison earth clinging to them. The sight of them opened the wound of recognition. It was time to deliver them, though not in the way I had thought. I had already written Karim that I would be coming. When we had first met at Paul’s apartment I told him the story of the stones and he promised that when the time came he would take me to Larache’s Christian cemetery, where Genet was buried.
Karim swiftly answered, as if no time had passed.
—I am in the desert, but I will find you and we will find Genet.
I knew he would keep his word.
I cleaned my camera and wrapped a few packs of film in a bandanna and placed them between my shirts and dungarees. I was traveling even lighter than usual. I said good-bye to the cats, slipped the matchbox into my pocket, and left. My fellow compatriots Lenny Kaye and Tony Shanahan met me at the airport with their acoustic guitars—our first time together in Morocco. In the morning we were picked up in Casablanca but the conference van broke down halfway to Tangier. We sat on the side of the road sharing stories about William and Allen, Peter and Paul, our Beat apostles. Soon we boarded a lively bus with the radios blaring in French and Arabic, passing a disabled bicycle, a stumbling burro, and a child brushing small stones from an injured knee. One of the passengers, a woman weighted down by several shopping bags, was harassing the driver. He finally stopped the bus and some of the people got out and bought bottles of Coca-Cola at a convenience store. I happened to look out and saw the word Kiosque written in Kufic style above the door.
We checked into the Hôtel Rembrandt, a longtime haven for writers, from Tennessee Williams to Jane Bowles. We were given black notebooks with the words Le Colloque à Tanger stamped in green and our credentials—William Burroughs’s face superimposed over the face of Brion Gysin—a third-mind laminate. It was the lobby of reunion. Poets Anne Waldman and John Giorno; Bachir Attar, leader of the Master Musicians of Jajouka; musicians Lenny Kaye and Tony Shanahan. Alain Lahana, of Le Rat des Villes, flew in from Paris, the filmmaker Frieder Schlaich from Berlin, and Karim drove in from the desert. For a moment we stood and looked at one another—the gone Beats’ orphaned children.
We congregated in the early evenings for readings and panel discussions. As we read passages from the works of the writers we were saluting, a procession of overcoats worn by our great teachers entered and exited my sight line. Through the night, musicians improvised and dervishes whirled. Lenny and I fell into the familiar rhythms of our unconditional friendship. We had known each other for over forty years. Shared the same books, the same stages, the same birth month, the same year. We had long dreamed of working in Tangier and wandered aimlessly through the medina in contented silence. The snaking alleys were infused with a golden light that we religiously followed until we realized we were walking in circles.
After we performed our duties we spent the night at the Palais Moulay Hafid listening to the Master Musicians of Jajouka followed by Dar Gnawa. Their high-spirited music drew me to dance; I danced surrounded by boys younger than my son. We moved in a similar style, but they displayed an inventiveness and flexibility that left me in awe. On my morning walk I saw some of the boys smoking cigarettes in front of an abandoned movie theater.
—You’re up early, I said.
They laughed.
—We have not been to sleep yet.
On the last evening a small yet imposing figure dressed in a white djellaba stitched with gold thread entered our common area. It was Mohammed Mrabet, and we all rose. He had passed the sebsi with our beloved friends, and their tangible vibrations could be felt in the folds of his robe. As a youth he had sat at a table telling stories to Paul Bowles, who translated them for Black Sparrow Press. They formed a string of wonderful tales such as The Beach Café that I had read and reread sitting in the Caffè Dante while dreaming of having a café of my own.
—Do you want to go to the beach café tomorrow? asked Karim.
It never occurred to me that the café actually existed.
—It is a real café? I asked, taken aback.
—Yes, he laughed.
In the morning I met Lenny at the Gran Café de Paris on the Boulevard Pasteur. I had seen pictures of Genet having tea with the writer Mohamed Choukri there. Though it resembled an early-sixties cafeteria there was no fare offered, only tea and Nescafé. Carved wood-paneled walls brown leather-tufted benches wine-colored tablecloths heavy glass ashtrays. We sat in comfortable silence in a curved corner with wide windows so we could watch the comings and goings on the streets outside. My Nescafé was delivered in a soft tube with a glass of hot water. Lenny ordered tea. Several men had gathered to smoke cigars beneath a fading portrait of the king with a fishing pole and his impressive catch. On the green-marbled wall was a clock in the shape of a large pewter sun delivering time in a timeless realm.
Lenny and I drove along the coast to the beach café with Karim. It appeared closed and the beach deserted, an outpost on the other side of the cowpoke’s mirror. Karim went into the café and found a man who reluctantly made us mint tea. He brought it outside on a table and went back inside. Down by the shore, hidden by a cliff, were the rooms described by Mrabet. I removed my shoes, rolled up my pants, and waded in the sea in a place I had come to know through the pages of his book.
I dried off in the sun and drank some of the tea, which was very sweet. There were many places to sit, but I was attracted to an ornate white plastic chair set against a bramble bush. I took two shots and then gave my camera to Lenny and he photographed me sitting in it. Back at the table not more than a few feet away I quickly unpeeled the Polaroids; I was dissatisfied with my framing of the chair and turned to take another but it was gone. Lenny and I were astonished. No one was around yet the chair had vanished within moments.
—This is crazy, said Lenny.
—This is Tangier, said Karim.
Karim went inside the café and I followed. The café was empty. I left my shot of the white chair in the center of the table.
—This is also Tangier, I said.
We drove along the coast to the sound of waves and the overriding song of crickets, then over a swirl of dusty roads and past whitewashed villages and bits of desert dotted with yellow flowers. Karim parked on the side of a road and we followed him to the house of Mrabet. We made our way down the hill as an unruly herd of goats was coming up. Much to our delight they parted, then surrounded us. The master was not in but his goats entertained us. As we headed back to Tangier we saw a shepherd guiding a camel with her calf. Rolling down the window, I called out:
—What is the little one’s name?
—His name is Jimi Hendrix.
—Hooray, I wake from yesterday!
—Inshallah! he called out.
I rose early, slipped the matchbox into my pocket, and went for a last coffee at Café de Paris. Feeling strangely detached I wondered if I was about to engage in a meaningless ritual. Genet had passed away in the spring of 1986, before I was able to complete my mission, and the stones had remained in my desk for more than two decades. I ordered another Nescafé, remembering.
I was sitting at the small table in the kitchen beneath the picture of Camus when I heard the news. Fred placed his hand on my shoulder, then left me to my thoughts. I felt a sense of regret, of suspended gesture, but could do nothing but offer the words I would write.
In early April Genet had traveled with his companion Jacky Maglia from Morocco to Paris to correct the publisher’s proofs of what would be his final book. He was turned away from his customary Paris residence, the Hôtel Rubens, because a night clerk failed to recognize him and was offended by his tramplike appearance. They walked in the pouring rain seeking shelter, ending at the Hôtel Jack, a then-dicey one-star near the Place d’Italie.
In a room no more than a cell, Genet labored over his pages. Although afflicted with terminal throat cancer he avoided painkillers, determined to remain unclouded. Having taken barbiturates throughout his life, he abstained just when he needed them most, for the desire to perfect his manuscript overrode all physical suffering.
On April 15, Jean Genet died alone on the floor of the bathroom of his tiny room in the transient hotel. Most likely he had tripped on the small step leading to the cubicle. On the night table was his legacy, his last work intact. On that same day the United States bombed Libya. There were rumors that Hana Gaddafi, the adopted child of Colonel Gaddafi, was killed in the raid. As I sat and wrote, I imagined the orphaned innocent leading the orphan thief into paradise.
My Nescafé had gone cold. I motioned for another. Lenny arrived and ordered tea. The morning was slow moving. We sat back and surveyed the room, conscious that the writers we so admired had spent many hours conversing in it together. They are all still here, we agreed, and walked back to the hotel.
Karim was called back to the desert but Frieder arranged for a driver to take us all to Larache. Five of us assembled—Lenny, Tony, Frieder, Alain, and I—all reaching for the hand of Genet. Surrounded by friends, I hadn’t anticipated the deep loneliness I was to feel nor the resentful heartache I used all my strength to dispel. Genet was dead and belonged to no one. My knowledge of Fred, who had taken me all the way to Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni for a few small stones, belonged to me. I sought but could not feel his presence and sank back into the vestiges of memory until I found him. Dressed in khaki, his long hair shorn, standing alone in the undergrowth of tall grass and spreading palms. I saw his hand and wristwatch. I saw his wedding ring and his brown leather shoes.
As we approached the city of Larache the sense of sea was strong. It was an old fishing port not far from ancient Phoenician ruins. We parked near a fortress and made our way up a hill to the cemetery. An old woman and a small boy were there, as if in wait, and opened the gate for us. The cemetery had a Spanish feel and Genet’s grave was facing east overlooking the sea. I cleared the debris from the gravesite, removing dead flowers, twigs, and bits of broken glass, and then washed the headstone with bottled water. The child watched me intently.
I said the words I wished to say, then poured water upon the ground and dug deep, inserting the stones. As we laid our flowers we could hear the distant sound of the muezzin calling the people to prayer. The boy quietly sat where I buried the stones and pulled petals off the flowers, sprinkling them on his trousers, staring at us with big black eyes. Before we left he handed me the remnants of a silk rosebud, faded pink, which I placed in the matchbox. We gave the old woman some money and she closed the gate. The boy seemed sad to see his strange playmates depart. The return was a sleepy one. Every so often I would look at my pictures. Eventually I would place the Polaroids of Genet’s grave in a box with the graves of others. But in my heart I knew the miracle of the rose was not the stones, nor could be found in the photographs, but was within the cells of the child guardian, Genet’s prisoner of love.