I had opened a door to a different world.
There was no way that was real. I whipped my head around to make sure my dad wasn’t going to grab me. I could feel his hands right behind my back ready to grab my hips and make me jump and scream so loud I’d wake the butchered meat for sale. Luckily my uncle was in between us, so my dad couldn't get to me. He would relish the chance to scare me after seeing the camel’s head dangling from the rafters of the ceiling in this tightly-packed market of Marrakech. Only a few feet above my head, the camel’s missing eyes stared at me, and I stared right back. It’s mangled body was hanging behind the axed head like a skeleton in a museum. The man at the stall laughed and asked if I wanted to try some. I politely declined, and he asked again just to make sure.
I just turned down camel meat in Morocco. Even though I had no desire to sink my teeth into the flesh of an animal I had always wanted to see... alive, I was thrilled to be turning down camel meat. Unfortunately, I couldn’t decline the smell, which was iron mixed mixed with sorrow. We were far from Rick’s Cafe in Casablanca, where my dad quoted the movie named for this city. Here in Morocco, we were in a new part of the world, far away from our small Southern town.
I was an adult, a thirteen-year-old, a teenager. I had been bat-mitzvahed the year before and if I could be counted as one of the ten needed to make minyan in order to hold services at synagogue, then I was a full-fledged adult. Honestly, I wouldn’t have even screamed if my dad had scared me because that’s what twelve-year-old me would have done, and I was better than that. I was mature now.
As we passed stall after stall, I heard “Addy, come here. Addy, let me show you this,” and each time, my dad was hunched over and beaconing me to come closer. He would point at the man in the corner of his shop making babooshes of every color imaginable. The yellows were as bright as the lemons for sale in the stall next door, and the fuschia pair with the pointed toes caught my attention almost as much as the camel did. My dad probably said, “We’ll get some later,” as he took my hand and pulled me through the market, or souk.
Actual children ushered donkeys and carts through the weaving streets. The smell of the tanning leather held your nose hostage, and only a mint sprig could rescue it. The scene was overwhelming. We were stuck on a lazy river floating through the twists and turns of the brick lanes as people on all sides hustled up and down to buy produce for the week or to sell leather bags they made earlier that morning. Voices bounced off of the awnings of the stalls, and the Call to Prayer rippled through the market like the yell from the quiet kid who is tired of being picked on for never speaking.
Some shop owners grabbed their prayer rugs or mats and set up to
pray while others continued working.As my dad watched everyone, I watched him. A look crossed his face that I remembered. It was the one from the Jewish Quarter when we learned that the ancient mellahs were built next to the royal palace so the Jewish people could be protected by the king. I witnessed the fear of being Jewish in a predominantly Muslim country fade away. He was the student this time, not the teacher. He was embarrassed because he had carried stereotypes with him. As I saw this transformation, I discarded the preconceived notions I had adopted from him. If he wasn’t scared, then neither was I. As we stood in the souk and felt the vibrations from the minaret, the look of confusion washed over him again, and then he turned to me and explained that he thought everyone would stop and pray. Our guide Sahid chimed in and said, “Not everyone here is religious, but shh it’s our secret.”
My dad, ever the teacher, turned to me to explain what Sahid had said, but I told him that I had heard him. He shrugged his shoulders, his eye roll equivalent, and moved with the crowd; this was one place you didn’t need to fight the flow of traffic. We continued to wind through the narrow passageways of the souk. The walls looked as though someone had splatter-tested every paint shade from Home Depot. Leather and knitted bags swung back and forth cutting the dense air and tempted you to come closer. Spices filled your nose and egged on a sneeze, and nuts and vegetables were splayed out like seductresses toying with their admirers. If the produce and crafts weren’t captivating enough, the people were there to draw you in with their stories and their prices. Dad took my hand and pulled me into a stall. I don’t remember what the man was selling, but I remember the bidding war that ensued between my father and the vendor. Numbers were being thrown like punches from the left and right, and as I witnessed the men getting closer and the numbers getting lower, my face turned the color of the babooshes I had passed up earlier. Finally, they settled on a price, and I tried to sneak out, but my dad’s hand on my shoulder kept me in position. He wanted me to see the haggling from beginning to end. The two men shook hands, and then they started swapping stories. The vendor wanted to hear about life in the United States, and my dad was more than happy to share tales from the pine-filled woods of South Georgia.
As we left, my dad rehashed the process, and I tried to tune out the ensuing lecture about haggling which soon turned into How to Stand Up for Yourself. I’m sure I rolled my eyes and told him I knew how to stand up for myself, and at that point, the echo through the souk was that of my father. I rolled my eyes again and moved to the back of the group where I was safe from more lectures about how to talk to people and lessons on the history of the city that he had prepared weeks in advance. My uncle pulled me next to him and distracted me with a joke, and on we went through the souk. We were in the Medina, or the old city, of Marrakech. New Year’s Eve was approaching, and we had concluded our driving tour through Casablanca, Fez, and Rabat.
We had only traveled with my aunt and uncle once before, and let me tell you, they were a hoot. At dinner, my aunt taught me how to smoke a fake cigarette to signal that I didn’t care. It was a substitution for that coveted middle finger teenagers so desperately want to test out. My uncle was what we would call a “wise-guy,” and if he was a jokester, then my dad was a professional clown. Five minutes couldn't go by without a sarcastic comment or a joke. My dad had mastered the art of the running commentary, and being an adult and all, I decided that was unnecessary, and I made sure to show that through my eye rolls. I often wonder how I didn’t pull a muscle because of how frequently and dramatically I employed the weapon that came with being thirteen.
Almost two weeks had passed, and as we all relaxed in our riad, our hotel, my dad woke me up early for our daily fact check. He would go over every piece of information Sahid had discussed with us, and then he would incorporate the hours of research he had done before coming on the trip. We also had a “Was Sahid Right?” flash round. My teeth began to hurt from all the clenching, and I got a crick in my neck from all the nodding in agreement. After an hour or two of this, I was all out of nods. We would both storm off, and I would find sanctuary in the garden in the center of the riad.
Riads are traditional Moroccan homes with majestic courtyards decorated with pools or brightly colored plants intertwined with vines. From outside, the door to the riad looks like a simple entrance to the backroom of a shop or perhaps a restaurant, but if you knew the secret, then you could knock on the door and waltz into a polished hotel with original architecture. The floor of ours was made of white tiles with gray diamonds. In the middle of the courtyard there was a decorative pool, and the rooms overlooked the fountain that poured into it. It was as if you had stepped through a portal to a different world. Outside, donkeys lugged bags through the souk, but on the other side of the door was a palace befitting of a princess, and I assumed that role within my family with no hesitation.
With only a few days left in Marrakech, we hit the streets, and my mom, always there to mediate the debates and break up the brawls, handed over the role of peacekeeper to my uncle. I’m sure she mumbled, “Thank God” under her breath. Twelve years of peacekeeping is not an easy task, so she was more than happy to have a break. I begged her not to leave me. After another lecture, I moved to the back to walk with the cool kids, my aunt and uncle.
Then my uncle changed the way we would travel forever.
As we passed a wooden door that led to an unknown destination, he said, “Hey, go knock on that door,” and I did. He clicked the button on his camera and documented the moment. Enjoying our new game, we came across medieval doors which looked like the gates to a palace. Accepting his dare once again, I lifted my knuckles to the black doors that I hoped concealed a secret world. As my knuckles wrapt against the splintering wood , it began to move, and I ran fast enough to qualify for the Olympics. My uncle was laughing hard, and after the initial fear wore off, I was too. Thus, a tradition was born. For the rest of the trip, we found the most grandiose doors three or fours times my height for me to knock on. The fancier the door the better. We scoured the streets for golden doors, jewel-encrusted ones, and doors the size of the California Redwoods. After door hunting for days with my uncle, New Year’s Eve had arrived. After midnight, my dad and I scurried away to Jemaa el-Fnaa, the Main Square of Marrakech. He began to give me a lesson about this old execution square in which rulers displayed the heads of criminals on spikes, but he stopped himself. Instead, we watched the snake charmers and looked at the fried bugs, and we enjoyed our last night in Morocco together.
While knocking on doors was a fun game to keep the peace between my dad and me, it became a tradition that has carried on, and for the last eight years no matter where any of us go, we find a unique door, either really small, outrageously large, or artfully designed, and take a picture with it. Several doors later, I began to appreciate the lectures and the lessons when I realized that my dad and I were exactly alike, stubborn and equipped to argue with a door. He only wanted to share every ounce of knowledge he had, and my thirteen-year-old self was too busy rolling her eyes to understand that. I can still hear him talking about Casablanca as we landed in the city that first day. Now, instead of sighing about lectures, I glance at him and hope he says, “Here’s looking at you, Kid.”
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