by Virginia Matthews
Longlisted: PureTravel Writing Competition 2024
We nicknamed him Belt because that’s what, on the face of it, he sold from his unofficial pitch round the back of our Tangier hotel but when we saw him being taken away by armed police by the Kasbah, we did a lot of regret-filled ‘told you so’-ing to each other.
It was our first proper holiday together and expectations were high. A cycling trip through France might have been fun and of course, you can’t go wrong with Greece when you’re young and in love. But this was the 1990’s and Morocco was thrillingly niche, aka dodgy.
Would we fall prey to desperadoes; possibly clutching hookahs and bestride camels? Maybe we’d be mistaken for drug dealers and be thrown into prison by a sadistic jailer; a la Midnight Express? Anything could happen once we left the safety of Europe and we couldn’t wait.
We’d been warned that as Westerners, we’d be inundated with offers of hashish; illegal of course but then, as now, a core part of the local economy. As long as we were discreet, we were told, there wouldn’t be any problems from officialdom. Well not for us buyers, anyway.
Yet after some days of waiting to be accosted – upon which, we decided, we’d act shocked before agreeing to try the tiniest bit – we still hadn’t had a single (first-hand) sniff of it, despite seeing plenty of others enjoying its fragrant delights.
Were we giving out the wrong signals with our shiny new guidebook and well-ironed holiday clothes, we wondered? Did we simply appear, to the average Moroccan street hawker, to be too interminably dull and straight – poor even – to bother to approach?
A few days after Belt’s re-appearance at our hotel – he told us his arrest had been a case of mistaken identity but we didn’t believe him – we boarded a cramped bus to Asilah on the Atlantic coast. As we adopted rictus grins at the dig-in-the-ribs jostling of our neighbours: a group of large women in Berber costume who balanced baskets of live, squawking chickens on their laps, five shaven-haired men; two of them in handcuffs, boarded the bus along with a brace of armed guards.
As the party headed for the back, the driver greeted one of the escorted men by name and an unhurried conversation; which provoked no interest whatsoever in the chicken women, ensued. Once the man had been settled in his seat, the driver – in full view of the guards – gave his friend a large lump of hashish before sliding back behind the wheel. It appeared that aside from us, the entire population of Tangier, including its felons, had easy access to the legendary cannabis grown in the Rif Mountains and the inscrutable Belt was our last hope.
Taller and thinner than the average local and with a disconcerting, lazy eye which added a dangerous air to his naturally furtive mien, he was easily the least smiley Moroccan we met. Yet despite his taciturn manner and hard-nosed attitude to haggling – we eventually bought hand-made leather belts, calfskin wallets and pointy-toed Babouche slippers given that nothing else was on offer – there were a couple of things about him that appealed.
Firstly, we’d been told by one of our regular waiters that Khalid (Belt) – who sold his wares from a tatty, capacious rucksack – was a “very bad man” who had previously been in trouble with the police for striking up friendships with tourists.
What more proof did we need that this was precisely the man to facilitate an introduction to the finest Black Moroccan; if only we could pluck up the courage to ask him? Either during one of our long conversations at the back of the hotel or, as we got to know him better, in the course of a beer – mint tea for him – at the decades-old Café de Paris in the city centre?
The other big plus was that he didn’t try and get us to visit a carpet shop run by his uncle/brother/cousin, nor attempt to soften us up for a sale by banging on about Manchester United, Marks and Spencer or the intricacies of the full English breakfast.
Despite our frustration at not being able to procure a smoke from him, Khalid’s fierce intelligence made him a fascinating local guide and as ticked off each of his recommendations – among them, the TangerInn, where William Burroughs wrote The Naked Lunch – we wondered how he could be satisfied scrabbling around for a handful of dirham each day.
He told us that he’d been unable to get a regular job because of local superstitions about the ‘evil eye’ and that while touting in the tourist areas inevitably attracted the unwanted attentions of the police, it was the only occupation left open to him.
He said that due to sex and drugs tourism, Morocco – in particular, his home city – had acquired a bad reputation with many foreigners which he felt was underserved. Particularly so given the country’s peaceful political status when compared with other Arab states and the negligible amount of street crime in Tangier itself.
He told us that if we came back to his country again, we’d find it very changed however. Having been teetotal for much of the past thousand years, the country had, in recent years, been exposed to aggressive ad campaigns from Western brands; notably alcohol firms. He worried that younger Moroccans had been seduced by the lifestyle marketing campaigns emblazoned on billboards and in magazine ads and were questioning why their own country was still so poor and disadvantaged.
Fearing that Tangier, like other parts of the Arab world, would one day erupt into violence; in part, fuelled by what he saw as the “bad mix” of hashish and booze already so prevalent among young Westerners, his dearest wish was to leave Morocco in search of a better life.
Having finally understood that by not selling us hash, Belt had been trying to protect us from ourselves, we had a last rendezvous at the Café de Paris the night before we left. After a few beers (juice for him) and filled with that elation that comes from a suitcase packed for home, we gave him our landline number and parted as firm friends.
Eighteen months after our Tangier immersion, we got a will-you-accept-the-charges phone call from a London number. With the help of a distant relative already living in the UK, Khalid had come to London to visit his “dearest English brother and sister” and perhaps stay with us for a few days.
Meeting him at Victoria Station – out of curiosity more than anything else, really – we were struck by how shabby he looked as he stood, smiling broadly and clutching a bent water bottle. He told us that he’d been arrested for hawking a couple of times after we’d left – although never found in possession of drugs – and with no friends or close family to speak of, there was nothing left for him in his homeland.
As we hesitated, he opened one grubby paw to reveal a large lump of hashish. It was too late for all that of course – we’d recently given up tobacco, for one thing – and besides, we were going to a family dinner that night and didn’t feel comfortable leaving him alone in our flat. Stung by an attack of conscience, we gave him all the cash we were carrying – more than enough for a few meals and a couple of nights in a budget hotel, we figured – and directed him towards the local YMCA.
Although we never met again, he rang us a couple of times and told us he had moved to Brighton and had found work in a hotel. He was happy to have left Morocco, he told us and had no intention of going back.
Some years ago, we returned to Tangier; this time to a three-star establishment in a part of the city where even the hawkers think twice about approaching tourists.
One evening after dinner, we went back to our old hotel for a drink and were amused to see a Belt Two-type figure hovering around the grounds; this time with a small hold-all at his side. He was another “very bad man,” we were informed by the doorman, who warned us against talking to him.
As we passed by later, the man called out a “Salam” and promptly unzipped his bag to reveal a collection of pirate DVD’s, as well as a large bundle of individually-wrapped cubes of resin. As we listened to his sales patter about Manchester United and fried breakfasts, we also saw, concealed in an inside pocket, a hint of steel shining in the moonlight.
Photo by Linda Gerbec on Unsplash
