The Loneliness of the Long Distance Book Runner (2 page)

I dig out a nineteenth-century Bartholomew that fits the bill. A little research reveals that the pink colour is probably derived from the eighteenth-century atlases that used red after William of Orange ascended to the English throne. Incidentally, the French had atlases depicting British Empire countries in grey.

I drop the atlas off at the shop, saying I’ll call later since the volunteer is serving customers. The following week I’m aghast to hear that the atlas has been given to BNP leader Nick Griffin. My disapproval obviously hits home. Griffin’s
relationship
to the shop volunteer undergoes a demotion; from friend to acquaintance. The pensioner is also embarrassed at having no money on him.

I never return to collect payment.

In attending this adult education course, I am introduced to the exacting world of antiquarian book description and classification. There is talk about paper marks, vellum, leather binding, gilt tooling, marbled papers. I check up on Roman numerals.

Our assignment is to find an old book and classify it. From the Mind charity shop in St Margarets I buy the following book for two pounds:
A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy
by Laurence Sterne,

I’m convinced that this must be worth a bomb. Steve, the course lecturer, puts me right by explaining that age isn’t synchronous with value.

A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy
is a novel by Laurence Sterne, published in 1768, just months before the author’s death. Three years earlier, Sterne travelled through France and Italy, and after returning decided to provide a more subjective account of his experiences, one that emphasised the discussions of personal taste and morals. Prior travelogues had stressed classical learning and objective points of view. Maybe it is also the rambling style of Sterne that I find appealing; a subconscious selection of sorts, one presaging a desire to go walkabout in Europe.

It was in Anthony Hall’s that I became truly infected. The shop specialises in Russian and East European Studies but such books bear no responsibility. It is in front of the small bookcase, crammed full with Penguin Modern Classics, that I am waylaid. For a lifetime, as it happens.

I am drawn to Penguin Modern Classics with a pale green livery. On their covers are specially commissioned illustrations, or paintings, as they say, by kind permission of the artist. Penguin no longer has a team of in-house designers, which may account for the reduced aesthetic appeal of the current Classics list.

Working as a reporter, I can keep unconventional office hours. At unshackled moments, I sneak into Anthony Hall’s. In the course of several months, the shop’s collection of Penguin Classics becomes my collection of Penguin Classics. I find myself making lists of books obtained and books wanted. I am lost. Skimming excitedly through the pages of the
Book Collector
magazine, I am in book list nirvana.

Fast forward twenty years to Bangor Bookshop where a customer tells me he got his diagnosis in the Hughes’ Llandudno bookshop, its renowned and much respected owner declaring: ‘You’ve got it bad, haven’t you?’

Books, and dealing in them, get into your blood, but there is normally a collecting gene already there, whether it be for books, toy trains or airliner luggage labels.

‘Remember me. I can give you spices for your mind,’ he says. Then he laughs, realising that I will not be sampling his wares. The purveyor of ‘spices’ is content to make conversation, commercially driven or otherwise. This is typical of the Moroccans I meet. A striving to sell, followed by a philosophical grin when their pitch fails to work.

The
Daily Awaaz
, a bilingual (Urdu and English) British daily newspaper based in Southall, is paying some of my expenses. I am tasked with returning with pictures of Moroccan tiles. They are to be immediately recognisable aspects of Moroccan art and architecture; zellij geometric mosaics first appearing in the late twelfth century in the city of Fez.

I have travelled from Casablanca. The great Hassan II Mosque is nearing completion but I haven’t been able to properly approach it.

Mustapha clamours to capture my attention as I get off the coach in Fez. Fighting off rivals to win a coffee and vital time with a new tourist in town, he impresses me with his candour. ‘You get hassle free time and I get money and a chance to practise my English,’ went his line of patter. I explain to Mustapha the purpose, as it were, of my trip. He will help me take all the photos I need. Then, in producing a cigarette from nowhere, he sighs and proudly declares it to be his first of the day. It is Ramadhan and the day’s fast is over. His mood is one of contentment and he is not alone. The wide streets of Ville Nouvelle are filling with people at ease. Family members stroll in relaxed fashion, arm in arm. Teenagers crack jokes. Small children skip with a spontaneous joy. As in Casablanca, most women are unveiled and clad in Western
dress. Boys and teenagers tend to wear jeans whereas the men favour Djellaba cloaks.

It seems that the city of Fez still lingers in the Middle Ages. As you arrive in the city and begin to walk around your senses are torn between beautiful Islamic architecture, distressing poverty, alien sounds and an array of smells. And oranges, oranges galore. To the first time visitor, the two most obvious sources of income appear to be tourism and drugs. My guidebook sternly warns of the risks involved in smoking cannabis, in spite of the air being filled with its all-pervasive sweet aroma. Mustapha confirms, however, the danger inherent in smoking. ‘Lots of arrests. Even for people like me.’ Later he talks of an unexpected benefit following the police clampdown; a marked improvement in the quality of the drug.

Towards midnight I feel a chill in the air, but this does not deter devout Muslim men from staying up all night in the cafés, playing cards and smoking, thus ensuring that everyone will know that they have abstained from sex. Over coffee, we chat late into the night. Mustapha is keen to know what I do. I explain that in addition to working for a newspaper, I buy and sell books.

The next day is a whirlwind tour of the medina, and meeting the challenge of locating, through a maze of narrow streets, the sites of famous mosques. I take plenty of photos and think my editor will be happy with them. We gaze up at the minarets and listen to the strident sound of Islam calling the population to prayer. Seven veiled women and an infant are waiting patiently outside a mosque. Having just prayed, the men exit in a charitable frame of mind. The girl gratefully receives their donations, beaming with satisfaction, though her demeanour alters when approached by a man in a green
uniform. All money is removed from her begging hand and redistributed among the waiting women. The girl is confused and starts to sob.

In the afternoon it rains and the medina is soon a mass of people engaged in noisy commerce. We do our best to avoid stepping in the thickening mud and donkey shit. Enterprising kids start selling plastic bags as makeshift coats to desperate sightseers.

After a conventional tour of the Imperial City, my clandestine guide directs me towards the Kasbah. The site of an old French fort is not mentioned in the guide book. Upon arriving, I see why. Only the castle walls remain and inside you come face to face with its inhabitants, who evidently live in grinding poverty. The ruins contain a shanty town where mothers hurry to remove their washing from makeshift lines. The faces of children peer out of corrugated huts. Mustapha tells me this is where his formative years were spent.

The rain is falling more heavily and young women exit the Kasbah with care to prevent the mud from splattering their smart costumes. A dignified and neat appearance is at all times retained as family and friends embrace before breaking their fast as tradition demands. An atmosphere of wellbeing is once more settling upon the city of Fez as its inhabitants dine on spicy bean soup and egg. Afterwards, there are sweets and dates. At this time of the day and year, hospitality becomes an obligatory virtue. Several families invite me into their homes to eat simple but tasty meals. A friend of Mustapha learns of my interest in football and informs me of a game scheduled for tomorrow.

Not being a fan, Mustapha isn’t pleased about attending a football match. I don’t force him to watch but he feels obliged to keep me company, concerned by the possibility of other guides
encroaching upon his territory – me. Palm trees encircle the stadium, which is by no means full, but there is a good atmosphere. We take our seats next to men who wear tasselled hats. Music starts and the tassels are swirled about. The business of fasting is taken seriously, even sportsmen are not exempt. (Reassuringly, airline pilots do not observe the fast.) Despite the fast both teams play with energetic abandon. Mas, the home side, perform with admirable skill and determination. Their win against RAJA, one of Casablanca’s top clubs, is made sweeter still by it ensuring the club’s survival in the top flight. The home supporters celebrate by dancing jigs of victory.

The medina of Fez is believed to be the world’s largest car-free urban area. The market inside is a treasure hunter’s labyrinth of leather goods, carpets, brass work, silver, gold and the world’s finest hashish, so Mustapha claims. We venture deeper into the medina. Mustapha says we should visit a Riad, a traditional Moroccan house. In a lane adjacent to the main thoroughfare of Fez’s medieval quarter, the door is already open. Mustapha nods to a young man slouched outside. We step inside. The house is built on several levels around an interior garden that boasts a solitary orange tree. The ground floor appears sparsely furnished and there is a simple kitchen. We ascend a few stairs and Mustapha can’t resist showing me the bathroom that is covered floor-to-ceiling in zellij mosaic tiles. I already have enough photographs of them. And Mustapha gestures that he has brought me here for other reasons. A little further up the stairs we come to more rooms on the first and second floors. He shows off the cedar ceilings, windows and doors, and the carved tadelakt plasterwork. I have read that these houses were inwardly focused to allow for
family privacy and protection from the weather. But where is the family? Away, Mustapha simply says. And then he takes me into a room that is magnificently furnished with books. ‘You buy,’ explains Mustapha. ‘I sell for professor friend.’ The books are mostly in French and Arabic. I spot some Flaubert and I recognise some that are translations of Paul Bowles’ novels.
Un thé au Sahara
is a French edition of
The Sheltering Sky
, which I have in my hotel room. Gore Vidal cites the book as one of his favourites. Think, he says, about what Bowles means by the ‘sheltering sky’ – that the ‘sky’ is a fiction, protecting us from our very insignificance. Mustapha is haphazardly picking out books for inspection; stories written by ‘
les ecrivains anglo-saxons
’. Thrilled by finding a book in English – an Edward Heath autobiography – he can’t understand why I don’t share in his excitement. But suddenly I am intrigued by an old looking edition of
Les Fleurs du Mal
. It has an 1861 publication date, which means that it was issued in Baudelaire’s lifetime. (The second edition contains thirty-five additional poems but lacks six poems that appeared in the first edition. These were banned and stayed so until 1947.)

This book might be worth thousands of francs. How much does the owner want for it? Mustapha unhesitatingly says 5000 dirhams. That’s about £400. I start to feel uncomfortable. It dawns on me that we may be trespassing. The price drops to 40 dirhams. The book’s wildly fluctuating price confirms my fears. I hurriedly make my way down the stairs and exit the house. On the street outside, Mustapha is aggrieved. My hasty departure has been misinterpreted as an underhand negotiating ploy.

Traders buy and sell. Book dealers are no different. Books are bought and sold. Simply that. Open air markets appeal; their ancient and overt purpose of bringing buyer and seller together. Their ‘openness’ extends, somehow, beyond that of the physical selling arena. Not that I wish to romanticise; people can just as easily be ripped off here – openly or otherwise – as in other environments.

On Sunday mornings the car park adjacent to the city’s football club comes to life as hundreds of car booters and professional traders join together to form a huge flea market known in French as
Les Puces
.

Such is
Les Puces
popularity with buyers and sellers alike,
we arrive pre-dawn in order to guarantee a place in which to sell our wares –
livres en anglais
. Pulling up behind a Peugeot 807 fully packed with Indian jewellery and trinkets, we are struggling to come to terms with the early hour. The plan had been to snooze awhile but our growing anticipation, together with the activity of others outside, makes relaxation impossible. A hoard of bargain hunters shine torches into the back windows of the van but we make it clear that we’re not yet open for business. We heed a friend’s advice not to set up too soon. Jemal teaches geography in a local secondary school and supplements his salary by selling Moroccan pottery he transports from his home village in the long summer break. He warns that certain traders/hustlers will pounce, like the proverbial early bird, on the items brought to the market by unwary families, which are then brazenly sold on later that same morning from their own stalls.