Free The Storyteller of Marrakesh by Joydeep Roy-Bhattacharya Page B

was not around. But my uncle remained unmoved and would not hear of any change in the arrangements.
    For the first two years, my father kept me at his side while he told his stories, training me to listen and to keep my eyes and ears open. He knew that the Jemaa was a whetstone for the imagination, its shifting cast of characters a veritable library for an apprentice to browse in while developing the subtle tools of the trade. But I was a restless child, and my mind often wandered from my father’s complex narratives. Even though I usually caught myself with a guilty start, once I lost the thread binding the tales it was all over for me for the day. Father often caught me daydreaming, but he never chastised me. Rather, he encouraged me to keep myself busy with my own narratives.
    So it was that after that first exposure to The Moors Invading Spain , I spent hours at his side replaying the battle, imagining numerous gruesome encounters in which the Muslim army inevitably triumphed. I would sit behind him, taking over a corner of his kilim and using its geometric patterns to demarcate the positions of the two armies. Shaping the contours of the kilim into valleys and hills, I spent hours painstakingly carving hundreds of soldiers from wood chips and organizing them into regiments. The brave Muslim squadrons I named after the elements: Smoke, Fire, Water, Earth, Air. The skinny Spaniards were more crudely carved and constituted nothing more than a black mass that took to its heels every time I unleashed the invincible force of the elements. It was my revenge on the painter of the canvas, and I gained tremendous satisfaction in thus restoring fidelity to facts.
    I kept busy for two seasons with my re-enactment of Badajoz, and then one day a German tourist, portly and good-natured, offered me what seemed like a princely sum of money to part with my elaborately crafted Almoravids. I turned him down outright the first time, but when he returned the next day, I accepted the loose change in a moment of folly and betrayed my obligation as custodian of history.
    I broke down that night and remained despondent for days. My uncle encouraged me to recreate my armies, but the spirit had gone out of me. Appalled by my greed, I could no longer trust myself to safeguard the Muslim cause.
    My father laughed at my retrospective disappointment.
    He ruffled my hair as we lay down to sleep one night.
    Never sell your dreams, he said.

‌ The Disembodied Eye
    During my third season on the Jemaa, I worked in one of its many food booths to supplement our income. The owner of the booth was Abdeslam, a native of Marrakesh. He was short, skinny and pale, he came from a poor family and had worked very hard to save the money to buy the permit for his stall. All his energies were devoted to the stall: he worked from dawn to dusk like a dog and expected his helpers to do likewise. Sometimes he chased after them with a stick when he felt they weren’t doing their share, but he left me alone because he was afraid of my father. I think he believed him to be possessed of necromantic powers.
    Abdeslam liked to recite verses from the Qur’an, which he alternated with Raï songs from Algeria and the Rif. He had an active clientele and made good money, but my own work was tedious and boring. I was an odd-job boy, helping out in a medley of tasks that ranged from slicing vegetables to hosing down the long wooden tables and benches that fronted the stall. We sold brochettes, olive salads, fish sandwiches, kefta , habra , mechoui , b’stilla , fekkas , dellahs , almond milk and a tart ginseng drink called khendenjal reputed to be an aphrodisiac. Our most popular item was the blood-red merguez sausage, which my employer spiced with a piquant harissa sauce of his own making. He was immensely proud of his harissa . His favourite saying was: The mark of a real man is his ability to handle my harissa !
    I worked there from nine in the morning to four in