Bentley: What is it, Major Lawrence, that attracts you personally to the desert?
Lawrence: It's clean.
Bentley: Well, now, that's a very illuminating answer.
March 2003. On the Route of the Kasbahs, from Telouet to Ait Benhaddou, from Taourirt to Ait Ben Moro. From New York I thought I had made a reservation for the night at an out-of-the-way kasbah I’d found in the book, where the cast of Lawrence of Arabia had been billeted during the Morocco scenes shot in 1961. Tifoultoute. I had called the telephone number listed in my old guide, an aged voice had answered and I thought we had agreed on a room for four, two adults and two children, and a date. Was my French so bad? Was his?
We arrived late at the Kasbah’s half closed outer gate which I pushed and drove through. The main door was open but the reception area looked a mess. Unswept. No answer. Finally an elderly woman came, I said we had arrived. She said welcome, I said we’d like tea on the terrace, below the spire where the storks had built their nest, she said waha. We climbed stairs that had not been cleaned in years and watched the stork parents make strange stork noises towards their unseen young in the nest as the sun set.
I got up to find the lady and said we’d like to see our rooms. She looked worried. I said I’d made a reservation from America. She looked more worried. She showed us to one of the second floor rooms along the inner courtyard overlooking the reception. It had multiple beds, all unmade. I asked for sheets. She gave us rough Berber blankets. I asked when and where we could have dinner. The children were hungry. She looked worried again and said to wait in the room, she would call us.
From our window overlooking the outer courtyard I saw a bus unloading tourists who entered the reception room below which had been quickly set with low tables and stools. Food trays were also unloaded from the bus. A music group and line of dancers were waiting there.
I went downstairs to find our table. There was nothing for us. Wait, I was told. The floor show began, a spirited ahidous, the kind Paul Bowles had driven down from Tangier to see and record, in which he almost fainted because of the heat and claustrophobic press of spectators, a night he said “of fire and drums”. We watched from the railing above. I went down again to ask for dinner. A tray was brought up, one large bowl with boiled egg and rice, four spoons, and a pitcher of water. One glass. The music and dance ended, the tourists left, we ate in the room and slept. In the morning I looked for the lady, no one was there. We walked down the stairs and called again. Nothing. We left.
The desert was clean, of yellow sand. Kasbah Tifoultoute was less clean, of mud brick. Now I hear it is completely renovated. And cleaner.
