My Funny Valentine

A week or so before Valentine’s Day, Marrakech was swept up in Ashura celebrations. Ashura, which means “tenth” in Arabic, falls on the tenth day of the first month of the Islamic calendar, or Muharram, which is considered the second holiest month after Ramadan. The grandson of the prophet Mohammad was martyred on this day during the Battle of Karbala. At any rate, the martyr is honored with much musical merriment, especially drumming, by the local kids. Drums were on sale at every corner – hourglass shaped instruments with goat or fish skin stretched tightly across their tops – and the kids banged on them long into the night, for several nights, come to think of it, in a tunelesss, trancelike manner that would have been more welcome in a discoteque than our “backyard.”

It wasn’t until a few days later that we heard from Hamoud about Ashura’s other significance: as one of the few, perhaps only, Islamic holidays for women, and for black magic besides. He arrived blushing one morning while Amanda and I chatted over our morning pot of tea. “I have a story,” he offered, “but it’s a very bad story, and I should not tell you.” He might as well have said he had an elixir for immortality in his pocket; we weren’t going to let him out of the house without divulging what promised to be a juicy tale.




On the night of Ashura, he explained, men must be very careful when they sleep with their wives, especially men who have mistresses. Evidently, if a woman suspects that her husband is entertained in beds other than the marital one, she will entreat him to have sex with her that night. Instead of completing the act as if to produce progeny, the woman will collect her husband’s semen and wrap it up in a tissue, which she then hides beneath her pillow. The next day, she brings the specimen to an herbalist that practices black magic and has her create spell of fidelity for her husband. “If you like your mistress,” finished Hamoud, “it’s best not to sleep with your wife on Ashura. Tell her you have a headache,” he said with a laugh.

I’ve given the précis of the story, but let me tell you, when Hamoud first recounted it, he employed many a euphemism, such that Amanda and I weren’t positive we were clear on what he was saying and had to reconfirm details and ask him to elaborate several times. It was the equivalent of having the sex talk with your parents, or like the Friday months ago when Hamoud and a bunch of his friends decided to educate Samuel and I on why men wash before going to mosque on a Friday and why women are regarded as “dirty.” His delicious mortification in the telling led to our own increased embarrassment as the text of the story dawned on us. By the end, we were all scarlet-faced and giggling.

Later, we wondered if the herbalists take advantage of the holiday like the chocolatiers and florists do Valentine’s Day. Do they advertise in their windows, reminding women that there are just three days left until Ashura? Is there price gauging on the 11th when women are lined up at the door, Kleenex in hand, like so many scorned lovers?

When we asked Hamoud if he’d ever fallen under a black magic spell, he shuddered theatrically and said, “Oh, it is powerful, the black magic. I cannot tell . . .” Kiss and tell, indeed!