I came to Imlil to return to myself, to put an end to the nervous estrangement that had taken hold of me in the windless dust of Marrakech. That which cannot be seen nor grasped, and thus cannot be proven, is there nonetheless. I swear it. It’s as if the whole city sucks and exsufflates the dry earth endlessly in rapid succession, convinced of respiration and life but really suffocated by the mere motions of breathing. It’s worse than drowning, because then one only breathes forcibly knowing it to be ineffectual, while here, one breathes the same breath in a closed system and hushedly proclaims the freshness of their own perpetual hypercapnia. I think of how once, in Jemaa el-Fnaa I saw two monkeys dressed in bouffant gowns and tied together by a leash. They guard every entrance to the Medina. One hands you his leash, the other his dress. Choose, or be turned away at the gates, and left to wander, unsatisfied.
Everything there is left to the will of God. Inshallah. But He does not. Sometimes I wonder if I am the djinn they spoke of. The will of God, that which they invoke, whence it comes, does not reach me, wherever I am. Inshallah they say, yet I see neither the people nor their actions. If God willed it, would I penetrate their realm? Would they penetrate mine? Would I feel their touch? I feel like a derelict, wandering from place to place, yet finally approached by a fellow man who looks at me expectantly and joyously. I have wandered for so long without anything given to me and without anything to give, yet I feel that I could give him anything, from an embrace to a stone, and he would be grateful. Yet he stares, reaches out his hand, and as I go to hand him something, anything, he looks down to acknowledge me, then walks away, unconcerned, with his outstretched hand. Is it I who seeks to give more than he seeks to receive? Yet I am a derelict, with nothing to give. Is it not he who convinced me that I indeed possess something worth giving, and yet he never takes it! How content we could both be! Surely you can will it and have God will it too! How furious I become as I also watch the same man approach another derelict in the distance, who is content with his own wandering and offers his own hand with some unknown object, yet is exasperated when the derelict in the distance neither seizes it immediately nor at all! What is the secret of their God’s will? Surely, it does not touch me, so I myself, with my will alone, not God’s, escaped.
I left in the morning with my student cohort. It’s the final of our three excursions outside of Marrakech, the first being the idyllic Chefchouan and Tangier, the second the ruinous Agadir. We left in the morning. Early. 8:00 AM in the French neighborhood of Gueliz. The night before, while packing, the younger of my two host brothers approached my roommate and I:
– “Salam ‘alikum, khoya, Teo. How was your day?” Despite there being two of us, equal in age but perhaps not in confidence or tender assertiveness, he always addressed me first in matters of concern or need.
– “Walikum salam. It was good. Kif dyr? Labas?” I respond automatically.
– “Labas, hamdullah. They told me tomorrow you go to the mountains and that I can come if I want,” he says with resigned hope.
– “Hamdullah. You should! You can come with me,” I say eagerly, as I only catch glimpses of him at night, when I return from my studies and, despite eight weeks of such, yearn for a connection with him.
– “Inshallah I will be able to go. Have a good trip, khoya. Layla saaida.” He dematerializes into the lightless hall.
He was nowhere to be seen in the morning. He had hoped that God would maybe will for him to go. I suppose He did not. I suppose he did not. My roommate and I left Asli Janubi and each found a spot in one of the two minibuses. We never sat together in the same space, except when forced to, mindlessly, in one of the illegal taxis. The ride was an hour to an hour and a half. At first, I attempted to write. Then, I attempted to read, but the motion of the ride permitted neither. Despite being carsick, I was convinced that the dilatant fluid inside me, thrashing, melting, would force its way out, only to remain where it began.
In the moments that I could look out, the mountains were red and grey, the brown villages protruding out of them like skin tags. We arrived at the base of a village past the town, the trees brindle, articulated, leafless, like lightning the earth claimed and refused to release. The mountains, those beneath the Atlas, are grey, barren, rocky, clung to by fog and smoke. The few patches of green looked artificially bright, like diorama grass. As we climbed the terraced hillsides, we began to follow a straight, brown dirt road with a sole tree on its left and a large brown puddle, which reflected nothing, under it on the path. As my hazy head bobbed, the smoke inside me stayed still, trapped, while the walls of my head moved. From outside the van, I watched as we took a steep curve and plunged into the puddle. In an instant, we emerged at our destination: an abandoned, half-built complex.
I was awake. I think. We left the minibuses, left our luggage on some concrete steps, which they would later take up by car, and climbed through winding alleys toward our riad atop the hill. I fell behind the group, assuring them I would catch up, yet never losing sight of them. I meandered through the twisting alleys. In some, children played and threw rocks at each other. They were used to Americans by now. Our presence was uninteresting. In a way, I was both relieved and disappointed. How they live alone in the mountains without taking any interest in new figures, I do not know. Perhaps, like those of Marrakech, it was only I who desperately sought to enter their realm while simultaneously feeling disdain for it. Unlike the children, I fear the gaze of the adults, of the old, paused in their decay, and of the women wrapped in colorful scarves, watching from behind burdened clotheslines and from the shadows of cinder block walls. I now know that such women read bodies like sundials.
I reached the riad without knowing how, though I must have been awake because everyone was there to greet and acknowledge me. I could see color, smell, and taste. I located my bag in the courtyard and was shown to my room. I would be sharing a room with three other students. However, no one was there upon my arrival, save one friend, who was already asleep beside me. The riad was dark and cold. He was already shivering despite it being the afternoon. The coordinator told us that there would be no heating except in the dining room where a fire would be burning. I told myself that I would spend the evening there, writing and eating dates with atay. Perhaps that would cleanse me.
Outside of my room is a small corridor. Straight ahead is a sink and two narrow long rooms with teal tile work. One room contains a toilet, the other contains a shower. The lights are dim and flickering. It is especially cold there. To the left of my room is a hallway leading to a sitting area partitioned by a thin red veil of lace. Beside that is another bathroom. That night, we ate tajine, I think it was chicken. We all enjoyed watching the series of tajine lids, like clay belly buttons, lifted to reveal steaming beds of familiarity. There was laughter and respite. I felt grounded in my peers’ tranquility.
However, after dinner, and having enjoyed the fire, we went to the roof to watch the stars before going to bed. As I stood alone, leaning against the wooden railing, a friend appeared and drew my attention to the surrounding mountains.
– “I see how they believed that mountains in the dark, were gods coming to attack us”
I saw it too and quickly looked up towards the stars. My friend expected no response. In fact, I do not know if he was there to accept one. Unlike the delight I would normally take in the stars of my home, those of Imlil, I thought to myself, were claggy, clotted viscera, beating, sifting and dishonest. While others saw pointillist portraiture, immaculate and vivid, I saw the work of a picquerist, a temptation I refused to openly capitulate to. There was no refuge from the stampeding gods, nor from the unseen flesh that pressed against the night. So I went to bed, where at least the spirits would make themselves known.
We woke up early the following morning. Breakfast was typical: msemmen with honey and strawberry jelly, sloshed down with mint atay. Shortly after, we layered up and left for what would be a six hour hike to the shrine of Shamhurish, the King of the djinn. Once again, I fell behind the group, knowing that they would wait for me at the base of the trail up the mountain. The descent down the village was quick, since the path was steep. There were no children or women this time to watch me. My body winded down a familiar path, though my mind remembered none of it. I stared at the ground, as I was carried along. Sharply turning a corner, now aware of myself and wanting to rejoin the group, I was met, disconcertingly, with the face of a russet donkey. I dared not to look into its eyes, and it did not seem to care enough to look into mine. It wasn’t ready yet, but to say that would mean that it should wait for me, when I was to wait for it.
They told me in Marrakech that the djinn live as we do, that those invisible existences are not the spirits of our forefathers but are distinct creations of God. Like us, they have families and animals, but they simply live on a different plane of our world. I imagine that they were with me then, when I first wandered up the village. My body was to them like a thin slice of agar jelly, through which they could look and see past me, fascinated by the world affected by me. Eventually, they were tempted to enter me, to taste me, and thus we became a translucent mass, conscious of our differences yet unable to distinguish between ourselves, for within and without had withered, leaving only unconscious, stinging limbs jutting out.
I was told that djinn live in uninhabited places or those which are seldom inhabited; a bathhouse, a cemetery, the minds of hollowed men. Before one washes a place with hot water, “bismillah”, must be said, since the name of God wards them off. This is necessary, for djinn born of smokeless fire are harmed by hot water, and if they are children, it can kill them. If you kill a djinn child by accident, you will be slapped by its parents, and tormented endlessly. That is, unless you go to the court of Shamhurish.
There are also instances in which the djinn enter our realm. If one feels, at night, a penumbric tendril slither behind you and vanish, it is them. Be wary of a cat, I was told, or a dog in the night. These djinn are shapeshifters. Be cautious of going outside, and looking into the eyes of a stygian donkey, for the minute you do, you will die.
Since learning this about the djinn, I have become obsessed with donkeys. I pray that God gives me one in my sleep. I want to possess such a creature that could kill me any instant, by its most intimate faculty: its peering soul. I want to brush it, to ride it, to burden it, and to never look it in the eyes. Yet I could never blind it. Cruelty against its life does not outweigh the cruelty of uncertain death. Although, I wonder if I kill it, and remove its eyes, what would become of me? I reach out to pull its face towards me. I need to see its eyes. Yet, as I do, the siren for the call of prayer sounds. It’s a warning. It has haunted me since my first night in Morocco: a tower without a base or peak which maddens me with its wailing. I shudder, and leave the donkey be. I continue my descent. I look back. The donkey begins to turn to face me. I run. I trip into a puddle. I look into my reflected eyes. Black.
I descend the hill and come to a waterfall. Beside it, a grave. I drink the water from the cascade. From behind I hear my name. From behind I hear it. They say to not look back if your name is called from behind in a place such as this. They say to move forward. Yet I am so thirsty. I drink the crashing waters. From behind I hear my name. I submerge my head within the icy downpour. I don’t hear my name any longer. I have no direction. I breathe the water beside the grave. I choke and emerge to hear my name. I look ahead, without knowing if I do, and I am slapped, as if with wet leather. My face reminds me as if the hand which is slapped presses its hand and squeezes me. They found me hours later kneeling before the waterfall. They tell me I drank the waters of a man who had become a djinn.
– “Bikhir?” The voice of the arm which lifts me up asks me.
– “Hamdullah” Praise be to God and his will. “Shukran, lalaa…” I am up yet when I open my eyes no one is there and I am not even wet. Below me, the ground is moist, as if the earth swallowed up all it could before I could look down and see what it possesses.
I shake my head. The call to prayer has stopped and I can now hear the group ahead. I rush towards them and do not leave their sight.
As we climb, I keep my visions to myself. Although I feel calmer here, it is not the calm I had hoped for. The snow-capped Atlas tower before us. We make a few stops during the ascent, once to catch our breath, and once more, just outside of the shrine to drink orange juice. As I drank, I heard the indiscreet murmurs of some students:
– “Did you see that woman who passed us?”
– “Which one?”
– “The one on a russet donkey dressed fully in white. She swayed so much, I thought she might fall!”
– “The people here say that she’s come to find an animal to sacrifice in the open space behind the shrine. They say she wants to establish a relationship with Shamhurish.”
I had no idea who they were talking about. Not once had I left the group, yet I saw neither a woman nor a donkey. Could it have been the donkey from the village? No. I quickly dismissed the thought and took in the sharp, cool air of the mountains.
We approached the shrine. Our professor, an expert in djinn and grimoire, had urged us to go to the entrance and was looking into the room that had been carved out of the large white stone which was Shamhurish’s dwelling place where only Muslims could enter. Our professor explained that while many believe the stone to be a tomb, it is actually a court which Shamhurish presides over. Those who are possessed by djinn, are encouraged to drink the water flowing behind his court, as its proximity to the shrine has made it holy.
I peered inside, and sitting against the wall which I could see was the women they had described! As I leaned in to examine her more closely, she raised her head and smiled at me. Yet she was blind! Had she looked into the eyes of her donkey, and instead of dying, been given the vision of the djinn king? As she peered into my eyes, I felt terribly ill. I pushed past everyone and felt the urge to drink the water. When I reached the spout however, I keeled over and vomited. Yet what came out of me was not the contents of the morning’s meal, but clear, pristine liquid that disappeared into the stream beneath me.
Despite my reluctance, they took me back to the riad after finding me collapsed, yet unknowingly awake next to the shrine. They could not understand what had happened to me as there was no chunder nor stench from my lips and nose. They took me to my bed, gave me another blanket, and told me they’d be out in the village if I needed anything.
What must have been dinner.
I stand atop the village of Imlil. I am standing on the balcony of a citadel of rocks. In the distance, an ashen valley pours out from Toubkal. Surrounding me is a faceless group. They are smoking. The angels flee from cigarette smoke, yet the djinn come, moving freely between the wisps. They curl around them like one curls the hair of a girl. I am staring straight ahead, my gaze piercing through the smoke which obfuscates my vision. Beyond the spirits, the valley is filled with fog. Beyond me, the valley is filled with djinn. Around me, my ears are filled with djinn. The figures lean towards me and push their burning cigarette ends into my cheeks. I combust into a smokeless fire. I am released from myself and become another faceless figure of Imlil.
I awake to the sound of one of my roommates coughing and scratching his sheets. How long had I been asleep for? My stomach was full, yet I don’t remember dinner. My clothes smell like cigarettes. I need to use the bathroom. However, it is so cold that the warm, irritable pressure of my bladder is preferable to leaving. Eventually, I give in, and walk to the bathroom to the left. I am half awake. I walk past the room before the bathroom and I see two men in dark djellabas praying, yet the moment I push the lace aside, they vanish. It does not matter. I am half awake.
I relieve myself. The light in this bathroom is golden and the tiles orange. I am naked before the mirror. Why? When I had been so cold in my clothes in bed. Around me there is only black, yet cast on one side of my face is an amber light. I am naked in the mirror. My lower lip hangs, and my eyelids contract, pressing into my eyes. I have not shaved. I haven’t seen my face or my body for much time now. I am hairy. I am a body of cracked adobe, and between the cracks grows a lichen. My hair is flat yet frizzy over my forehead. I see scars on my cheeks from countless falls. Each part of my flesh seems distorted, yet placed together it is quite attractive. My hands rest at my sides, yet I feel palms tracing my ribs and hip bones. They touch me as I touch women, touching them like this, hoping in vain that I might share their flesh and be touched the same in return. Even when they tried, I would wince and brush their hands aside, so I could keep touching, keep hoping. However, I am numb and these fingers cannot see command flesh. I see my ribs. They beat in response to being strummed. The left side of my face is in the penumbra, given willingly to it, yet the spirit does not want that side, it wants the other one which is still illuminated. I see my head lean to the right, into the kisses and nibbles I feel on my neck on that side. There is a djinn in the mirror. I am in the mirror. In a room that is not a room. Like the girl who lived below me in Marrakech, I had considered my flesh and had given it to a hungry spirit.
I am returned to my room. My roommate is now convulsing and twitching, in the moonlight his spit foams, like atay falling upwards, from his mouth. I cannot deal with this. For once I must act, and leave the riad. I must escape the village and return to Marrakech. I dress and run down the stairs.
I descended towards the town yet arrived on the other side of the village, on the path towards the shrine of Shamhurish. The sound of the river calls to me. I cannot resist it. It has something to tell me. Is that not why the bus and I, after all, plunged into the river? Is that not why I spewed up its waters? There’s something in the river that wants to tell me something.
I scale the mountain and reach the river below the shrine of Shamhurish. The shrine does not matter to me, only the river below it. In the river, beneath the torn chiffon of water, something waits. It speaks to me from the hollow of a painted stone, white as a clenched fist, ringed by expectant crows. The djinn which tells me things.
I lay in the river on my side. The waters crash and spit against the stones, but I am still, the foam like a sponge, seeping into the hollows of my ribs and soaking up anything which remains. The moon watches, enormous and unblinking, spilling its silver into the current. I look into the water and see myself, a donkey, black-eyed, staring back. My reflection is motionless, watching me as if I were the dream.
I lift my hand. The donkey does not.
I reach for my own face. The donkey does not.
The river hisses and rises, crashing into my ear, speaking words that are not words, that are only motion, only unraveling. My fingers slip through my reflection, and I feel nothing. I reach again, grasping at the space where my face should be, but there is only water, only the trembling surface where I once was. There is a djinn in the river that tells me things.
I am not drowning.
I am not breathing.
I am not.
A name is called, from behind.
Again, from behind—
No turning.
There is nothing left
to—
Jordan Gabriel is a writer and artist from Santa Fé, New Mexico. His work explores
spiritual estrangement, ancestral memory, and the porous line between the seen and unseen. A recent graduate of the University of Chicago, Jordan writes in English and New Mexican Spanish and practices traditional straw appliqué.
Euphony Journal 