Date: 12/7/2022
Location: Mrabet’s home in Tangier, Morocco
Attendees: Mohamed Mrabet (interviewee), Ana Collins (interviewer), Robert Yarra (interviewer), Aisha Mrabet (present at interview)
[Rustle of pages turning]
Mohamed: That’s my son.
Robert: Ah.
Mohamed: He died.
Ana: Oh, I’m sorry…so handsome.
Mohamed: He was 49 years old.
Robert: I’m sorry.
Mohamed: He has left three children.
Ana: Oh no!
Mohamed: He died very young.
Robert: Yes.
Mrabet: No sickness, no pain, no nothing.
Ana: Mm-hmm.
Mohamed: He had dinner with his wife and children in the evening. His wife said, “Are you coming to bed?” He said, “No, I want to finish watching this film” (TV). She said, “All right.” She went to bed and he put a pillow in the back of his head and turned toward the pillow. It was getting late, so his wife came back and said, “Ahmed, Ahmed, Ahmed, Ahmed, Ahmed!” and Ahmed did not exist anymore. [turning pages] All these are from the Netherlands.
Ana: Ah, Pierre!
Mohamed: Yes.
Ana: This is the guy that had the Librairie des Colonnes I was telling you about.
Robert: Oh, yeah.
Ana: Now he’s in France, in Marseille.
Robert: Aaaah.
Ana: But before that he lived many years here in Tangier and worked with you.
Mohamed: Not that many years.
Ana: A few years.
Mohamed: No, two years, three years.
Ana: Mmmm ten years, I think… yes.
Mohamed: He is a bandit, too.
Ana: Oh! Tell me.
Mohamed: Please! He made a contract with an American French Jewish woman in Rabat and now he is selling my books everywhere…yes! and he was kicked out of Librairie des Colonnes.
Ana: Yes, exactly, but how?
Mohamed: Because he had stolen from the Librairie des Colonnes too. Because he ordered books and never paid suppliers in France, in America, and so on and so on.
Ana: Mm-hmm.
Mohamed: There’s no Ira Cohen here. I think I have him in a different album. Well, there’s nothing to do with this one. This work I’m going to do with you, am I going to earn anything or not?
Robert: What?
Mohamed: Am I going to earn anything?
Ana: Are you going to give him anything for talking about Ira?
Robert: Of course, yes.
Mohamed: Yes? Then let’s start working!
Robert: OK.
Mohamed: You start asking questions and I will answer you.
[Ana translates for Robert]
Ana: How did you and Iran Cohen meet? Do you remember?
Mohamed: Well Ira Cohen, at first he sent me a letter [Mrabet laughs]. He sent me a letter; Paul read that letter… Paul has also lied. He has lied about me [Mrabet snorts], and he told me “Ah, yes…so and so, and such and such,” but he changed some things about Ira Cohen. He, [Paul] changed them and told me, “All good, all perfect.” Because I don’t know how to read; I have never studied.
Ana: Yes, I understand.
Mohamed: I’m not interested in studying and all that. All that’s like a brain cancer to me.
Ana: Pollution.
Mohamed: I live in another world; I don’t live here, really! Me– I don’t know where I am–among the clouds or tucked between the sky and the clouds. Always stuck there, walking and thinking, and things come so quickly to my head. Sometimes I’m asleep and I wake up. I get my machine and I start talking “Bah-bah-bah-bah-bah-bah-bah” and then I go back to sleep. Fantastic things come to my mind, really.
Ana: In dreams.
Mohamed: I have– yes! I have almost 50 cassettes full of stories: about Paul, about Jane, about Brion Gysin, about Corso, about…
Ana: The whole group.
Mohamed: I have it all there. It’s a fantastic group. You haven’t seen them yet, have you?
Robert: No.
Ana: What is that?
Mohamed: Excuse me [pages turning]. Here you can see them all; they all died…and what would you like to know about them?
Ana: Yes, I’m interested in the work Ira did with music in Morocco. His connection to Gnaoua music, to Jajouka.
Mohamed: Jajouka doesn’t exist, for me it never existed, Jajouka. Jajouka was invented by the Americans here. They wanted to do something because some Americans were in love with some young people from Ksar el-Kebir and they lied to the Americans, “You know, we have a group of musicians.” “You do?” Well, that’s not music, “Tep-tep-tep. Pa-pee-pee-pee-pee. Tep-tep-tep.” That’s nothing! No, no, for us there is no Jajouka. It exists for them because they earned a lot of money and things were paid for, and nothing else.
Ana: Yes, but Ira Cohen was very interested in sacred and trance music in Morocco.
[pages turning]
Mohamed: Well, then… I’m saying nothing.
Ana: Yes.
Mohamed: That existed.
[pages turning]
Mohamed: Here it is!
Ana: Paul Bowles.
Robert: Yes.
[pages turning]
Mohamed: Yes, here’s Tennessee Williams. He’s the best man for me.
Ana: Yes, I like him very much.
Mohamed: Well, for me he was the best.
Robert: Because of his heart or…?
Mohamed: Because of everything! I have a story about him. I saved him because he had two… When I was in San Francisco, California, I saw two gangsters that were drinking with him, two young Americans.
Ana: With Tennessee Williams?
Mohamed: They were horrible. Tennessee Williams drank alcohol, lots and lots of alcohol.
Robert: Yes.
Mohamed: And then they would pick checks from Tennessee Williams’ pocket (and I was watching) and they would write whatever they wanted and do whatever they wanted. Every time Tennessee finished a drink, they had another one ready for him. So he would drink one after another, “Dah-dah-bam-sh-sh-sh” [gestures]. But he was a wonderful man. He really was. Here’s another one…
Ana: Gregory!
Robert: Gregory [Corso] was my friend for 20 years.
Mohamed: He was your friend?
Ana: Yes, they were good friends in New York.
Mohamed: And this one?
Ana: Allen Ginsberg.
Robert: He was my friend too.
Mohamed: And this one?
Robert: He’s a very extraordinary man.
Mohamed: And this one?
Robert: Yes.
Mohamed: And this one? [Mrabet laughs]
Ana: Mm-hmm.
Robert: Oh, Truman Capote.
Ana: Aha.
Mohamed: And this one?
Ana: And [Mohamed] Choukri?
Mohamed: He’s nothing to me.
Ana: Ah-huh.
Mohamed: They all died and they left Mrabet here, still alive.
Ana: And Mohamed Hamri?
Mohamed: Hamri…yes, poor guy, he’s dead. Yes, also Ahmed Yacoubi. Ahmed Yacoubi was wonderful, yes. He was a great friend of Paul.
Ana: Mm-hmm.
Mohamed: Yeah, are you recording?
Ana: Yes, but whenever you want to– you can, uh…
Mohamed: I’m talking. Ask me questions and I will answer.
Ana: Mm-hmm.
Robert: When you met Ira in 1960, was he taking pictures?
Mohamed: Who?
Robert: Ira Cohen.
Ana: Ira Cohen, did he take pictures?
Mohamed: He took pictures, yes.
Robert: Always? Because I don’t know if he started taking pictures later or…
Mohamed: No, no, no. I have pictures with him, at my house.
Ana: Yes.
Mohamed: He has dined with me, had tea, several times. He would come to my house and smoke with me because I used to smoke kif.
Ana: Yes.
Mohamed: I quit 25 years ago now. I quit smoking, yeah, yeah. I don’t smoke, no, no, no…it’s horrible.
Ana: It’s in the past now.
Mohamed: No, well when you get to a certain age… I’d rather not get nervous. An American came here with his wife, they sat here, my daughters were also here with me…they started talking blah! Then they started saying things they shouldn’t say…my daughter speaks Spanish, she speaks French, she speaks English and, they spoke English and started talking about going to bed and I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know, and making love…we…
Ana: Who?
Mohamed: Those two Americans, a woman, and a man…we don’t have that custom in our house, we can’t talk like that, no! We have a great respect.
Robert: Yes.
Ana: Yes, the culture is different.
Mohamed: I got married in ’62.
Ana: Mm-hmm
Robert: And all…
Ana: You were married.
Mohamed: Yes, yes in ’62 I was married, my wife is here. I’ve made children.
Ana: Together with…
Mohamed: I’ve made children and now my sons have offspring, and my daughters have offspring now.
Ana: Yes, you have a big family.
Mohamed: I’m very happy, really, and I always say thank God.
Ana: Hamdulilah!
Mohamed: Because God exists…and the people who say God doesn’t exist…those people, you better not to talk to them, really! Because if there was no God there would be nothing, that’s all I say. Who made the world and made everything, then who made us?
Ana: The creation…
Mohamed: Like Choukri, who’s said it is the… What did he say?… I don’t know– he used a horrible expression– we grew as plants!
Robert: Ah, yes…because of the rain.
Mohamed: That’s right! That’s crazy! The book… there’s the Christian book and there’s the Muslim book and half of the Christian book, it’s in the Islam book. Everything, really! Because I went in the mosque here, to Quran teachers; one was reading the book in Spanish– the Church things from the book– and the other was looking the Arabic book, and the bigger half is in our book. Like Jesus Christ…Jesus Christ is our prophet; they say he is their prophet, their god. Well he is no god, he is our prophet and a great prophet. And now we leave that aside and let’s talk about…
Ana: Ira Cohen.
Robert: All right, all right.
Ana: Do you remember where did Ira Cohen live when in Tangier, was he staying in a hotel or…?
Mohamed: Yes, he was in a hotel. I forgot its name, that’s where William Burroughs lived too…
Ana: Hotel Muniria.
Mohamed: Muniria, thank you! Yes, that’s where Ira Cohen lived because he came here and Paul sent him there. He said, “You can go to Hotel Muniria,” and that’s where he went. That hotel still exists.
Ana: Yes, Tangier.
Robert: And the music…because Ira was [interested] in Jilala. He was very much into… I can’t explain this to you.
Mohamed: Jilala?
Robert: Jilalah?
Ana: Jilala.
Robert: Jilala, sorry.
Mohamed: Jilala, yes.
Robert: He was very attached to that music.
Mohamed: Please, I was the manager of the Jilala group.
Ana: Yeah, so this…uh…
Mohamed: If Paul were still alive– if there were left– any Europeans left alive, they would say, “Mrabet was the manager”, because I would take money from all the Europeans here in Tangier, and then I would talk to the Jilala people and spend the day with them.
Ana: You organized.
Mohamed: Yes, they would come. I would kill a ram and we would make couscous, and food and cakes, and tea and music, and sometimes their dancers would come. They would dance with boiling water and fire. I have some video cassettes here, I don’t know…of Jilala…one night at Madame Mcbey’s house in Monte Viejo.
Ana: Uh-huh, Madame Mcbey .
Mohamed: Paul, Jane, all the Europeans that were alive then– none of them exist now. Joe McPhillips, Director of the American School, who died. John Hopkins, the writer, they were all there, everything is recorded. I organized a very big dance, well…fantastic things happened, and I was telling you about the jilala…who dance with things: Some with knives “Pam-pam-pam-pam-pam-pam-pam-pam-pam-pam-pam-pam-pam…”
Ana: Percussion, with knives?
Mohamed: And then they did this to their tongues like this, like this, like this [gestures] and they didn’t bleed or anything, nothing, absolutely nothing; it was a fantastic magic.
Ana: Magic…
Mohamed: How does it compare to the “Tep-tep-tep-tep-tep” of Ksar el-Kebir…pet-pet… What do they do? Just drums and “Musi-peepopee-peee-peee-peee-tep-tep-tep-tep…” Jajouka?…no, no, no, no.
Ana: He’s saying that Jajouka music is not really very special and that it was a created thing…
Robert: For the tourists…
Ana: …Because Brian Jones and Brion Gysin recorded them, they became the most noticed thing.
Mohamed: Yes, Brion Gysin was in…
Ana: He speaks about the good musicians in Morocco.
Mohamed: Yes.
Ana: …and maybe that what the guys are doing nowadays is—you know—cashing in.
Mohamed: Brion Gysin was very much in love with Ksar el-Kebir because he had a café called “Alf laylah wa laylah” “The Thousand and One Nights” in Marshan, in the Casbah.
Ana: Yes, Brion Gysin, and Hamri…the restaurant.
Mohamed: Hamri took Gysin to Ksar el-Kebir and there were handsome and strong young men and such…and he took about four or five to his café and he arranged a place for them to sit and play, and then he invited the Europeans here, in Tangier…
Ana: The foreigners…
Mohamed: Because Tangier was full… Monte Viejo and Casbah and Dar Baroud and Amra and the Avenue of Spain. Full to the brim with Europeans, Americans, English, French, Spanish, Italians…rich people!… Germans…rich people, people with deep pockets. They would go to the café and it was full of young men from Ksar el-Kebir and they would do whatever they wanted…and there everyone would find a little friend and…and nothing else…
[Mrabet and Robert laugh]
Ana: Uh-huh. Yeah, but you’d think that “The Thousand and One Nights” café…
Mohamed: Well, for me it didn’t mean anything.
Ana: Was it a little bit of a fake environment?
Mohamed: Well, Brion Gysin was never my friend.
Ana: You didn’t like him?
Mohamed: No, it was him who he hated me…actually, a lot but I didn’t do anything to him! But he was a scoundrel…he always came and tried to kiss me. Like one day I was in the kitchen… making food for Jane, who was very sick, poor thing… Yes, if it wasn’t for Jane, I wouldn’t have worked at Paul’s house.
Ana: Yes, but Jane was sick and…
Mohamed: She asked me, “Please, Mrabet…” Since I would go in the morning and make lunch for Paul and for her, then I would take Jane…I’d take her out to the countryside by car. When we got there, I would take her out and we’d walk, sometimes at the seaside, by the sea, sometimes in the fields, in the jungle.
Ana: Mm-hmm. Where to?
Mohamed: It didn’t matter where… Assilah, Larache…
Ana: Aha, any beach…
Mohamed: Any place. She told a lot of Europeans in the house, a lot of women and men sitting around dining… She said (someone asked her a question) a woman said, “Mrabet…?” and she said: “Please…” “I wish I had had a child.” Jane said that. She told me, “If I had had a child, Paul wouldn’t be behaving like that, Mrabet”. Really, even Paul said that too. She was a fantastic woman and Paul treated her very badly.
Ana: Oh.
Robert: I’m sorry.
Mohamed: Sometimes, I’ve seen it with my own eyes, no hearsay…I saw it with my own eyes… When he was going to give her food, she’d go bam! [gestures] All up in his face! He would go upstairs, slam the door…bam! He’d begin insulting her, and I’d be like this [gestures]…I can’t do anything…I have four children, they are paying me every month, and I can’t do anything, and he would tell me, “Why are you quiet?” I would look at him like this [gesture] and when he looked at me looking at him like that, he would go to his room and close the door… [very sad] Why are you treating that woman…? There was a Doctor Rue… are you recording?
Ana: Yes.
Mohamed: There was a Doctor Rue here, that’s what they called her…a female doctor, an old woman…Paul went to see her and she gave him some pills, and he brought them over and he began giving them to Jane. One day I took a pill, I put it in my pocket and went to the Pasteur Institute to have it examined.
Mohamed: A French woman came to me and said, “What is it, Mrabet?” I said, “Please I want to know what’s this…” She took it and came back very nervous, “Who’s taking this?” I told her, “I want to know what it is!” She said, “It’s a horrible drug!” That’s what he gave to his wife.
Ana: Jane took those.
Mohamed: He gave them to Jane so she would stay like this [gestures] all day long.
Ana: Yeah, like a zombie…
Mohamed: Why? I said to Paul: Why are you giving her those pills? I said, “Please don’t give them to her anymore, try not giving them to her for a couple of days.” I would sit with Jane, feed her, give her such and such…I would say, “Let’s go, Jane! And she’d say, “Yes, let’s go!” and I’d take her for a walk. Then we’d come home, I’d make tea, a pastela or something. She’d eat and she’d say, “Play some music,” and I’d say, “What kind, Jane? She’d say, “Jilala, please.” I would play Jilala and she would start laughing… very happy, very cheerful… and Paul was ruined. Why? Tell me why!
Ana: The conflict…
Mohamed: Nooo, nooo, nooo, nooo…
Robert: He was jealous.
Mohamed: Why? When I was preparing food for Paul at night, at 7 o’clock in the evening…
Ana: Yes, dinner.
Mohamed: He would eat dinner, he would finish, I would pick everything up, do the washing up, put everything back in place, and say, “Well Paul, until tomorrow, God willing, I’m going home.“ But sometimes I didn’t go home, I’d get in the car and I’d just sit in the car. After a while, young people would arrive: four, three people, two…sometimes one…and they would stay with him…or Mohamed Choukri. There, they would stay with vodka and whisky because Paul had a place full of bottles…of alcohol, that people would give him as presents.
Ana: Paul and Jane were great.
Mohamed: No, Jane drank wine and smoked cigarettes, lots of cigarettes. Three packs a day and wine. Finally, I’m telling you part of my autobiography, which hasn’t been translated yet, I want someone to do the translation for me.
Ana: Yes, but do you have more memories of Ira Cohen? For example…Ira Cohen liked majoun very much.
Mohamed: Yes, he liked majoun. He smoked kif and he smoked hash too. Yes, he liked it very much. Many times, I made majoun for him but the majoun I made [Mrabet laughs] was something else, because it wasn’t like the one sold in cafés, no. I put almonds in it…grgaa3…
Robert: Grgaa3?
Mohamed: There are lots in America.
Mohamed: Walnuts, walnuts, you break it open and take out what’s inside.
Ana: Yes, walnuts.
Mohamed: There’re lots in America on the streets…and hazelnuts and pine nuts and pure honey, it must be real authentic honey, and spices like cinnamon, ginger…eeeeh, a little bit of pepper, nuts…
Ana: Cinnamon…
Mohamed: Yes, eh…a mixture of dry fruits.
Robert: But it’s delicious.
Mohamed: And then [imitates sound] “Prrrr-a” turn in the machine and I mix it all with almonds, and other things, and then I put honey in a pan.
Ana: And kif or hashish?
Mohamed: No, wait please, then I take the pan, I mix it all with honey on very low heat, mixing it well, and then very yellow kif powder…like this [gestures] bright! and then when everything is ready, I put the pan on the floor and I add kif powder. I pour in the kif powder and mix it, “Go, go, go” and I fill a one-kilo, two-kilo container, full! [he laughs], and I said, “Well, here you have the majoun.” He took two small spoons, a glass of hot tea, he drank some… ten minutes! Ira Cohen was in another world…really, he fell asleep, it really was…and Paul looked at me and I said, “Paul, you take some too.” Paul took like two or three spoons because it was…nobody thinks it’s majoun, when you put it in your mouth you say, “I’m going to eat the whole bowl”, because it’s so good.
Ana: It is delicious.
Mohamed: Well, it’s hard to do! It costs…
Ana: But in a short time, you get mellow.
Mohamed: No, the one sold at cafés is a catastrophe. It’s horrible.
Ana: I make it at home too.
Mohamed: Eeeh…Paul drank his tea and there he stood listening to the music, and I don’t know, he was in the air, flying, floating and so and so. Yeah, Ira Cohen was a good man, really! He earned a lot of respect from me and even more when he came and met my wife, my children.
Ana: He visited your family.
Mohamed: Yes, he ate with me and my family. They were with him a lot, really! He really was like one of the family here, there was no reason why… He sent me letters, I answered him, and so on… but everything remained at Paul’s house: my letters, my paintings (170 paintings), my rings, my bracelets, my things. I had a closet in a room where Paul typed, there was a closet…all my things I kept in there…gold things, silver things, cassettes with my stories, which he published, and there were stories that he hadn’t published yet. Those stories that came out by Paul finally were…the books that came out at the end…the last ones, after he died, they were my stories. I couldn’t do anything. I had about 20 or 25 magical, fantastic stories in there.
Ana: Mm-hmm.
Mohamed: Stories, really! Nothing else…and I took Ira Cohen to the Caves of Hercules with me.
Ana: He continues as a friend; he visits you sometimes?
Mohamed: Yes, I took him to the Caves of Hercules, I went inside the cave where people live, there is a little cafe there. He came in, we ordered tea, we started smoking. They started playing Taktoka Jabaliya [a kind of music in Northern Morocco] and I think he recorded something (I might be wrong), he was very happy and cheerful. They were inviting us. They said, “Do you want to eat?” He said, “No, no.” I looked at him out of the corner of my eye… No, I didn’t want something to happen to him. No, no, so I said, “No, no, no, we don’t want to eat.” Because they might cook anything… and I don’t trust them as much as to eat with them. They don’t know how to cook. He is an American, he eats very different food than theirs. Food can be eaten and then hurt his intestines, or it can block his gall bladder, it can do many things…
Ana: Anything can happen.
Mohamed: Well, so we went back and then I took him to Asilah.
Ana: Asilah in the mountains or Asilah on the coast?
Mohamed: Then we went out of Asilah up to Larache then we came back and…
Robert: You said, “Ira wrote in 1986. He said that Mrabet said, ‘We were young, now we are old, quickly we are not going to exist, everything is perfect.’” I don’t know if you remember saying that but…
Mohamed: Yes.
Robert: It’s very beautiful.
Mohamed: It’s the truth. Yes, we are born, we grow up…for some, life ends when they reach 15, 16, 18 years old. They don’t exist anymore. Others are born and immediately die. There are others who, like nowadays, and this is what we are living in Tangier right now: people reaching 25-30 years old and their hair turns all white. They get very thin and they shake all the time. Why? We want to know why!
Aisha: As-salamu alaykum!
Ana: As-salamu alaykum! Labas?
Mohamed: [speaks Darija to her daughter] This is my daughter, Aisha.
Robert: Nice to meet you.
Aisha: Nice to meet you, too.
Ana: Nice to meet you.
Aisha: Nice to meet you, honey.
[Aisha, Mrabet’s daughter speaks to her father in Arabic. She brings Mrabet’s grandson and introduces him to the interviewers as “Mohammed Ali ‘Klein.’”]
Mohamed: He is my grandson.
Ana: As-salamu alaykum. Hello, nice to meet you [in Spanish].
[Mrabet says goodbye to Aisha and her grandson]
Robert: You have a beautiful family.
Ana: Yes, very beautiful grandson.
Mohamed: That’s my daughter. She is taking care of me a lot, really…yes.
Ana: Good company.
Robert: Also…about Ira, I am a friend of Raphael (Ira’s son) and he talked to me a week ago and said “Hello!” to you.
Robert: Do you remember Raphael?
Ana: Do you remember Raphael, Ira’s son?
Mohamed: Raphael?
Robert: He is Ira’s son.
Mohamed: His son?
Ana: Ira Cohen’s son.
Mohamed: Yes, yes, yes.
Ana: Raphael…he has fond memories of you.
Mohamed: Thank you, thank you, and thank him too.
Robert: In one of Ira’s poems, he talked about different people…about Mark Schlifer. Do you remember Mark Schlifer?
Mohamed: Yeah, well, no. I’ve met him once or twice, I think.
Robert: Billy Batman. Do you know Billy Batman?
Mohamed: Yeah, yeah.
Robert: He made the best hash, Ira said, and he…
Mohamed: Er…
Robert: …No?
Ana: Possibly!
Mohamed: No, the thing is I never smoked hash.
Ana: Why, just kif?
Mohamed: No, only kif. I did smoke kif. I would prepare it by hand and fix it to my liking. I would go to Ketama, buy two or three kilos, bring it home, and every day I would take a little bit, clean it, leaving only the flowers, hash it, add a little bit of tobacco, and the leftovers went to the trash bin. I have seen Americans smoke everything we take out of kif– well, no! That’s horrible. It can produce an effect…I never smoked it myself.
Ana: Yes, but Ira liked it a lot.
Mohamed: Well, to prepare kif you must take off all the residues and leave only the flowers. You take out the flowers and then you go like this [gestures] and you take out all the seeds, and those black things too, and then you hash the kif. You pick a tobacco leaf, shred it alone and you add a little bit of tobacco and…you’re going to smoke kif and you’re going to be calm, with no fear! And it is also medicine, doctors say it is a medicine, well for me…it did cut my appetite completely, because I used to eat ten kilos a day.
Ana: Ten kilos of kif?
Mohamed: And there came a day when I couldn’t even eat half a kilo.
Ana: Safi [in Darija].
Mohamed: Then I gave up kif.
Mohamed: Now I eat, ah yes, really well! Alhamdulillah!
Robert: Cherifa, what was your relationship with her?
Mohamed: Cherifa.
Ana: Jane’s friend.
Mohamed: She was a fantastic woman, really. Paul has spoken ill of her; she never did anything bad to Jane. Never! On the contrary, she did good to her. She treated Jane perfectly, because I… I saw everything with my own eyes, really! Paul hated Cherifa, “Cherifa has cast a magic spell on Jane. Cherifa, has done such and such.” There was a Spaniard and a woman who worked at Librairie des Colonnes…she died a year or two years ago, what’s her name…what’s her name?
Ana: I can’t remember.
Mohamed: Yes, her name was…I forgot her name. There you have her picture at the Librairie des Colonnes. She died two or three years ago, yes! She worked there too. She used to say, “Cherifa carries mice in her purse, Cherifa…”– I don’t know– “Cherifa…and the soil…blah blah” Well, nooo! Cherifa did nothing! She didn’t do anything to Jane…no, no, Paul was like that [against Cherifa] because one day he began insulting Jane and Cherifa pushed him aside. She told him, “Get out of here!” She pushed him aside and he left, because when someone did something to Paul it got stuck in him like this [gestures] like a piece of iron, and no! Things happen to us and at first, we may get nervous, but finally… Hundreds of things have happened to me. Sometimes I’ve punched a friend of mine and gone home. But later, I’ve gone to his house, knocked on his door, he’s opened the door, and I’ve said, “I’m sorry, please forgive me.” Little things happen. We get nervous. No, Cherifa was a good woman, really, because she took good care of Jane. She took Jane… put her in the bathroom, washed her, ta-ta-ta-ta [gestures], Some Americans came from New York– I don’t know where were they from exactly– they started talking to Paul, ”Blah, blah… I don’t know about Cherifa…blah, blah.” Cherifa left Jane and went home. Jane was lost. She was completely lost!
Robert: Yes, yes.
Mohamed: A Spanish woman who worked downstairs, a concierge, came running upstairs, I was in the kitchen, and she said, “Mrabet, please! Jane is outside completely naked!” And she gave me a sheet and I went running, I gave her the sheet like this [gestures], I took her in my arms and I told the Spanish woman, “Stay with her, please,” and I called Paul, “Your wife is outside naked and you are here…” “Eeeeh…noooo…she is crazy…” and I was really afraid to hit him, you know why, Bam! [gestures] He falls dead, and I go to jail.
Ana: He was not very nice.
Mohamed: Who?
Ana: Paul, with Jane when she was sick.
Mohamed: Did you see it?
Ana: No, I’m asking.
Mohamed: Please…please. You remind me of that and it makes me want to cry, really, because I’ve seen some horrible things…please.
Ana: Mm-hmm. I’m sorry.
Robert: I understand, I understand.
Mohamed: The first time I met Jane, at Monte, I was working in a kitchen with two Americans. One was called Jimmy and the other one’s name was Bob Temple. They had a house and every Saturday they invited all the Americans and Europeans to their house to eat and drink alcohol. One Saturday there, I met Jane, I didn’t know Paul by then eeeh, I saw a woman alone under a tree, with a glass of wine in her hand, a cigarette, and I said, “What is that woman doing over there? All women and men are here together and she…” So, I went up to her and said, “Good evening.” She looked at me and answered, “Msa lkhir” (in Darija), and I said, “You speak Arabic?” Paul didn’t speak Arabic at all, as he said…that thing Paul said about translating my books from Arabic to English…he lied! He knew no Arabic…nothing…absolutely nothing. I translated them from Arabic into Spanish and he wrote it in English. He understood Spanish very well, though. I told her, “Well I’m going to finish working and I’ll come sit here with you” and she said, “Yes!” That’s how she was! I finished my shift, poured myself a glass of latte, took my kif, sat down with her and we began smoking…and she told me, “Yes, my husband has gone to the South of Morocco and Algeria; he is recording music there.” I don’t know, this and that, and I told her, “Very good, it’s fantastic, way to go!” and she looked at me and laughed and drank up her glass of wine, bam! [gestures]. She gave me the glass and I went and filled it up. I brought it to her and I said, “You don’t have to drink more wine,” and she said, “No, no, this is to forget everything.”
[footsteps approaching]
Aisha: Forget everything, huh?
[laughs]
Aisha: This is yours and this is mine safi? What do you want?
[Mohamed and Aisha speak in Arabic]
Mohamed: Where have I seen you?
Ana: Me?
Mohamed: Where?
Ana: I’ve been in Tangier many times before.
Mohamed: No, I have seen you somewhere else, because when you sat down I looked at you and I thought “I know I’ve seen you but can’t remember where.” Really!
Ana: In Tangier.
Mohamed: No, no…somewhere else.
Ana: Well, you might as well, because I was…
Mohamed: Well…
Robert: Thanks, Mohamed.
Ana: And Ira Cohen remained a friend of yours until the end?
Mohamed: Well, the last time he came here I saw and greeted him and I gave him something, yes, something I gave him. I told him a story or something– I don’t know-– and he left in good spirits, and later somebody sent me a letter, or phoned me, or told me that Ira Cohen…was dead.
Ana: Mm, yeah.
Robert: I was with him for an hour before he died. He was suffering a lot at the end; it was a good thing for him [his suffering ended].
Mohamed: What was he sick with?
Robert: His kidneys had problems and when he was in the hospital, they thought he was doing better, but he got an infection at the hospital and he died.
Mohamed: Well, that’s life.
Ana: Yes.
Mrabet says a poem in Darija:
Mohamed: I am a little bird
I fly wherever I want
I sing on the bough
I walk on the earth
I eat seeds and fruit
and I gyrate/ swirl in the field
Whatever frightens me
There is a brook nearby
God bestowed/ wrapped me in soft feathers
Which are real silk.
Thank you! [in English]
[All applaud]
Ana: Bravo!
Robert: Thank you!
Mohamed: Well…I can’t say it in Spanish, that one.
Robert: Yes, but it was very beautiful. Do you remember Irving Rosenthal?
Mohamed: No.
Robert: You met a lot of people.
Mohamed: Well, I met hundreds of Europeans. It was really a fantastic thing, more in California…in New York… I was in Waterloo, Iowa. I was in Iowa City before I met Paul. I went there in 1954.
Ana: In 1954 to Iowa?
Robert: Did you go there with other Americans?
Mohamed: Yes, with a woman: Ann Harbock. I went with her ¡oh, my…! After Waterloo, Iowa, we went back to Texas, then we went to Mexico, to Brazil. I’ve done…Ann Harbock was a wonderful woman, she died, poor thing.
Robert: Oh.
Ana: Mm-hmm.
Mohamed: Yes, from cancer because she drank too, and smoked a lot of cigarettes. And she was very strong, very beautiful, she was a wonder– really– and I loved her very much, although I was younger than she was.
Robert: You’ve had an incredible life, your experiences are…like ten lives!
Mohamed: Well, I haven’t– because now I’m just waiting until the day comes…to tell everybody bon voyage…into the grave!
Ann: Yes.
[Mrabet laughs]
Ann: Lately, it’s like that.
Mohamed: Do you smoke?
Ann: Yes, sometimes.
Mohamed: Stop smoking, really, it’s better for you, and also majoun. Yeah, well…
Ann: Sometimes.
Mohamed: No…you’re still young. You’ll be fine.
Ana: Being careful.
Mohamed: Well, I don’t say…what, is that it? Ah, Alhamdulillah!
Robert: I’m going to the bathroom, Mohamed. When I saw you the first time, when I came here and got out of the cab, I saw an old man and I said to myself “Is this Mohamed?” But then you came walking very fast, very handsome, I said to myself “It’s not possible,” but it is possible!
Mohamed: Well, that’s right. We don’t have…
Ana: Very handsome apartment!
Mohamed: Excuse me?
Ana: I like your apartment very much.
Mohamed: Good.
[RECORDING ENDS]