Cocktail Shakers

On Saturday night, we christened Dar Noury with long-overdue and impromptu cocktail party. The gathering followed a reading and almost-book signing at our favorite café/bookstore. The author on show is a British fellow who has written a book about renovating a palatial home in Casablanca. The palace is situated in the middle of a bidonville, or shantytown, and the renovation involved run-ins with bureaucrats, corrupt neighbors, a shady assistant, resident Jinns and three guardians that came with the house, part and parcel. We’d read the entertaining book before embarking for Morocco, but after having dinner with the author a month or so ago, we were anxious to hear the tales in his own voice. He’s one of those born raconteurs: funny, smart and self-deprecating. This, combined with his natural affinity for adventure – including some recent and harrowing ones in Afghanistan – assured an amusing afternoon. The event drew many of the city’s English-speaking expats and some faces that we’d been hearing stories about for months, crusty old-timers who moved here before the Getty-types made it chic. Marrakech is a city for the unwanted and the wanted, as one guest reminded us. Not unlike Monaco: a sunny place for shady people. As we’ve said before, the city’s expat community is rather cliquey and there were lots of raised eyebrows and stage whispers as the room filled and people settled into the café’s plush velvet booths.


Unfortunately, because of Morocco’s strict regulations and paranoia about pornography, the books didn’t make it out of a Casablanca customs office in time for the author to actually sign them. Undaunted, however, he launched into a performance that balanced readings from the book with extemporaneous stories and background details. He opened by saying that even though the room was filled with friends and familiar faces, he was daunted reading about his palace renovation in front of a crowd of people, many of whom have had very similar experiences as well as tales as hilarious and enlightening as his own. That might be true, but the fact that his are thoughtfully written and bound between two hard covers trumps the rest, in our minds.

One story that resonated, which I’d not remembered from the book, was an encounter the author had had at a local vegetable market in Casablanca. As he was shopping, he noticed a beggar woman with a basket filled with the most exquisite fruit and vegetables. As she made her way from stall to stall, the merchants would take pains to select the choicest piece of produce for her basket. When the author inquired of one the sellers why they were all giving their finest fare the beggar, he replied that just because a person is a beggar does not mean that they don’t deserve a lovely piece of fruit. Here in Morocco, he continued, we don’t treat our beggars like trash. Having lived in cities like New York and LA where the homeless are ubiquitous, we’ve become rather steeled to their entreating, glancing aside, even here in Marrakech, as we pass the arthritic, old homeless woman who begs on our corner. Since the reading, we’ve felt both shamed and freed to drop a few dirhams into her hands as we pass, even bringing her a hot dinner one night.

After the reading, a group of the author’s friends and some of our own headed back to Dar Noury for cocktails. One of us lit lanterns and pulled out bottles, glasses and ice, while the other fetched people from the nearby Riad Laarous taxi stand. In all, we were perhaps 20 people and the courtyard was a ablaze and abuzz for three hours before people disbanded for dinner. We headed to an Italian restaurant in Gueliz with a small group, including a couple whose acquaintance we’d only just made. New house, new friends, good stories . . .