Marrakesh

The experience of taking acid that I had shared with Lone and Anja brought us very close and we decided to go to Morocco together when winter came.
Marrakesh was our goal. There we met Lone’s friend, Miriam with her American boyfriend Steve, and rented a house with them. More precisely: we rented a house and Steve and Miriam, who had no money, moved in with us. Steve was a junkie, a black spirit. His credo was a misinterpretation of the Buddhist teachings of the absolute: good and bad are illusions. That allowed him to act without consideration of good and bad. He had a dog that he gave hashish. This seemed to have the strongest effect on the dog’s digestion, which left traces all over the center patio. The hard stuff was easier to get than the kif, which grows in the north and I decided to take a trip up to Meknès to buy a bunch. That is where I was busted and had my encounter with the secret police.


When I got out of prison, I had just money enough to take the train back to Marrakesh. I was longing for the haven of our house, but when the door was opened to me, my friends seemed to see an unwelcome ghost. “We thought you were dead,” said one, and they had disposed accordingly. Lone had taken over my room, which admittedly was the best in the house. Steve had sold my paints but had decency enough to get them back. I was mostly ignored, like I really was a ghost; only Anja treated me as a person. I had absolutely no money but I became friends with a young black boy, Mohammed, who took care of me.
Steve had introduced us to Mr. Kissioui, who was said to be a professor of mathematics and who often invited us to dinner in his house. He was very interested in the girls, especially Anja. One day the ‘professor’ said something about measurement that convinced me that he was not at all a mathematician. He also had a habit of looking in at our hotel every time we had had any contact with the police, saying: “I heard that the police was here. What was the matter?” I put two and two together and that is how he popped up in my mind when I was in fear of torture by the secret police in Meknès.


Mr. Kissioui had soured towards the girls who kept taking without giving and he took me aside and told me to get away from them, “or something unpleasant will happen.” Maybe he just wanted me out of the way, but I had no means to leave the house. A couple of weeks later, what happened were that I was told to leave the country and not come back without having obtained permission. A long awaited check from home had just arrived and made it possible to go, but I was not ready to go home. I decided to go to Algeria and started out with a sentimental train journey through the beloved parts of Morocco: it was a clear dawn when I passed through Meknès and saw the holy Zerhoun mountain to the north with Sidi Ali's white walls.

(The first picture is from Meknès, the second from the King’s garden in Marrakesh)