Courting Paul Bowles in Tangier

Edgar Oliver — Courting Paul Bowles in Tangier 

Hi, everyone. [audience chuckle] Twenty years ago, I went to Morocco with my sister Helen and our dear friend Jason, a young man with whom I was madly in love. My love for Jason was an impossible love. He was not romantically inclined towards men. [audience laughter] But I have always believed in impossible love, [audience laughter] and Jason and I did have a passionate romantic friendship. Helen and Jason had both been avidly reading the works of Paul Bowles, the great writer who had lived in Morocco for years. At the time, I had read nothing by Paul Bowles, although I have since grown to love his work. But I loved the idea of going to Morocco too.

So, we all three got on a plane and went. We landed in Marrakech, but we always knew that the end goal of our journey was to make it to Tangier and visit Paul Bowles. All we knew, really, was that Paul Bowles lived in Tangier and that this man we had met in a nightclub in New York just before he had left had sent that he lived near the American Embassy. I should add here that the one thing that I did know about Paul Bowles work [audience chuckle] at the time was that from everything Helen and Jason had told me, I knew that his writing often had a lot to do with terrible fates that befell Westerners who went to Morocco. [audience laughter] 

When we tried to leave our hotel in Marrakech, hordes of strangers flung themselves at us, wailing and beseeching us for help and trying to tear off pieces of our flesh as though we were made of gold. And we fled back into the lobby of the hotel, where they told us that to go outside, we would need to hire a native guide. And it turned out to be true. If you had a native guide, you could go anywhere and people would leave you miraculously alone. 

So, we quickly fell in love with Morocco. When finally, we arrived in Tangier by bus, this charming man named Mohammed, who happened to be waiting by the bus stop, immediately claimed us as his Westerners. Mohammed told us that he was a great friend of Paul Bowles [audience laughter] and only he, would be able to introduce us to Paul Bowles. For some reason, this was the one thing that Mohammed told us that we absolutely did not believe. But Mohammed turned out to be a most excellent guide. However, we resolved amongst ourselves that in order to meet Paul Bowles, we would absolutely have to escape Mohammed. So, we were biding our time, waiting for our escape.

Well, we were staying in the Medina, the old part of town, where it was strictly prohibited to sell or to buy liquor. But Mohammed taught us how to buy liquor on the black market from these illicit wine dealers who lurked in dark alleyways. [audience chuckle] One night, Helen and Jason and I had stayed up all night drinking. And at dawn, Helen had retired to bed, and Jason and I were still up drinking together. And something, probably the desperation of my love drove us to quarrel. [audience laughter] I fled the hotel, clutching a huge stash bottle of red wine and weeping. And I strolled through the streets of the Medina, swigging my wine and sobbing wildly. And then I strode out of the gates of the Medina into the new part of town. And everyone whose path I crossed just recoiled from me and gasped in shock. And suddenly, it dawned on me that I was in a part of town that I’d never seen before. And I’d managed to cross a good part of Tangier, completely alone, without a guide. And this suddenly gave me this feeling of ecstatic happiness.

And when I found myself in this beautiful park that sloped down to the bay just as the sun was rising, and I sat on a bench sipping my wine, gazing out across the bay, and I felt so happy, alone in this magical place. And then suddenly, this little boy appeared in front of me. He was about 6 or 7 years old, dressed in rags, and he was staring. He was gazing into my eyes and smiling and he was dancing for me. And I gazed back at him, completely hypnotized and then he began to dance away from me. But every few yards he would look back over his shoulder. And I felt that he wanted me to follow him. So, I did. [audience chuckle] And I thought, this is my guide. This child is my guide. And he led me straight into the clutches of his master, this boy of about 17, who was very handsome, but you have this very cold, cruel, commanding air about him. And this older boy dismissed the little boy with a sharp command. And then he said to me, ​“Follow me.” So, I did. [audience laughter]

And I was thinking, now, this is my guide, [audience laughter] the master of the street urchins. So, he led me through a series of narrow streets and into a crowded marketplace, and then through a series of rooms where these two much older turbaned men bowed down to him. And then he led me into a small room. And the two turbaned men began bringing rolled up rugs for me to inspect. But every rug that they brought, they sat down on the threshold of the door, still rolled up, so that this boy and I were rapidly being walled together into this room by this mounting wall of rugs. And the boy seemed very, very anxious for me to continue drinking. And I began to get the definite impression that I had been kidnapped. [audience laughter] And then the boy looked at me and he said, ​“So you like the little boy? You can buy him. I’ll sell him to you.” And I got the distinct impression that he meant I could buy the little boy forever. [audience laughter]

And I wish to this day that I’d asked how much the little boy would cost. [audience laughter] But I really had no money on me, [audience laughter] and I felt very strongly that I needed to convince this boy that I had no money. So, I said, I have no money. And he said, ​“Then what are you doing in Morocco?” And I had no idea how to answer him. And then he said to me, ​“What do you want?” And he grabbed my hand and he placed it on his sex. And then I just rapidly stood up and I stepped on top of the wall of rugs and over the threshold. And the two turbaned men gasped and threw up their hands in shock as I walked between them. And I walked through the series of rooms and out into the marketplace without looking back. And then somehow, I made it back to the hotel. And when I got back to the room, Helen and Jason were just getting up. And then one of us, I can’t remember who, said, ​“This is the day we should go see Paul Bowles.” [audience laughter] And we all said, ​“Yes, quick, we have to get out of here fast, before Mohammed appears.” 

So, we all three started getting ready really, really fast. And Jason was still swigging straight vodka. And I decided at that point that if Jason were going to be drinking, that maybe I should stop drinking. So, I did. And then we all ran downstairs and we hailed a cab. We were just jumping in when Mohammed appeared, screaming, wait for me. So, we jumped in the cab and we screamed, step on the gas and then the cab zoomed off with Mohammed chasing us, and then we screamed to the American Embassy, at which point Jason passed out. So, I was holding Jason in my lap as we careened through the streets of Tangier, and we made it to the American Embassy, where we got out. We got Jason out of the taxi, and then we didn’t really know what to do. But then I noticed a maid hanging up clothes while singing to herself in Spanish. So, I went up to the gate and I called out to her in my best Spanish, and I asked her if she knew of an American writer who lived in the neighborhood. And she said, ​“Yes, he lives two blocks that way in an apartment building just above a bodega”.

So, we went the way she had pointed, and we came to this apartment building with a bodega on the ground floor. So, we went inside, and we asked the man behind the counter if he knew of an American writer who lived in the building. And he said, ​“Yes, he lives two flights up in apartment 215.” So, we went upstairs [chuckles] and we rang the bell of number 215. And nobody answered. So, then we sat down on the floor in front of Paul Bowles door. And we began writing him a note. At which point Jason lay down on the floor and passed out again. So, Helen and I wrote that we were Americans who loved his writing. And that we were dying to meet him. And we said that we would come back in two days, in the afternoon and then we managed to revive Jason. And we got him downstairs and outside. And then we found ourselves beside this embankment of rock that sloped up to this vast expanse of nothingness. Like the beginnings of the desert.

So, we all three sat down on this embankment of rock. At which point Jason lay down again and passed out. [audience chuckle] So, I was cradling Jason in my lap. And we were sitting there in the sun, not really knowing what to do. And then we noticed that these groups of children were beginning to walk by on the top of the embankment and as they passed by, they all stopped and began staring down at us. They were all about 10 or 11 years old. And then more and more of them began to collect there, staring down at us. It seemed as though school was letting out for the day and then something struck me on the shoulder. And then something struck Helen and then something struck Jason, although he did not awaken. And we realized that the children were throwing stones at us. And the stones began landing faster and faster. And we just realized that we were being stoned by children. [audience laughter] And suddenly this taxi zoomed by and a veiled woman in the taxi tapped the driver on the shoulder and pointed to us. And then the taxi sped out of sight. And Helen and I were just cowering there, trying to shield ourselves and Jason from the stones, not knowing what to do.

But then suddenly the taxi reappeared. The veiled woman had sent it back for us. So, we managed to get Jason into the taxi, and we fled. And then two days later, we returned [audience chuckle] as we had said we would. But this time, all of us sober to visit Paul Bowles. And consequently very, very nervous. So, he rang his doorbell and a few minutes later, the door opened. And there in the doorway was this tall, sort of hulking, ogre like man with bushy black eyebrows who glared down at us. [audience laughter] He seemed to be mute. And so, we said, we’re here to see Paul Bowles and he growled something and gestured for us to wait. Then he shut the door. Then A few minutes later, he came back and he handed us a note. And the note said, ​“I assume my man has told you that I was sick in bed and I am waiting to be served my dinner. But if you would like to come in, I will gladly receive you for five minutes, P. Bowles.”

So, we followed this tall man inside and through a series of rooms, and we came to a door where he stepped aside and waited. So, he walked through the door, and there lying in the bed was Paul Bowles, propped up by pillows with his hands lying on this thick comforter. So, we all three lined up beside his bed, and he smiled at us and said ​“Hello, and we smiled back and said hi.” And then we just didn’t know what else to say. [audience laughter] And then Jason said, ​“We love your writing so much we just had to come to Morocco.” And Paul Bowles looked at us and smiled, and he said very sadly, ​“I should have thought my writing would have kept you away.” [audience laughter] And we didn’t know what to say to that. [audience laughter] It made us all, I think, feel very sad. And we began shuffling backwards in a line, shuffling away from Paul Bowles, who was just gazing at us and the silence was lengthening and lengthening.

And I was just waiting for someone to say something. I was thinking, God, Jason, he’s so brilliant. He can talk to anyone. And actually, Jason finally did blurt out, my stepfather has that exact same bedspread, [audience laughter] while pointing to the comforter that was covering Paul Bowles. So, Paul Bowles looked down and he said, ​“Yes, I got this bedspread in San Francisco in 1958.” And then Jason said, ​“Well, my stepfather got his bed spread in San Francisco too.” And they proceeded to have this several minute long strangely pointless conversations about Paul Bowles’ bedspread and then we bade Paul Bowles goodbye and left. So, we walked downstairs, we walked outside, and we found ourselves beside the rocky embankment. And then we all suddenly just clapped ourselves on the forehead and we said, ​“God, why didn’t we tell Paul Bowles how we were stoned by children the other day when we tried to visit him? He would have loved it. It was straight out of one of his stories.” But somehow it never occurred to any of us. And all of a sudden it was simply too late. Thank you.