The new teacher refused to treat Fatima’s son as a special case, as the previous ones had done.

“He should be in a special school for handicapped children if he can neither see nor hear in my class.”

She was angry, and interpreted Fatima’s visit — made after much deliberation — as criticism. She called other teachers to witness her problems.

“You know how many pupils I have in one class?”, she asked, glaring into Fatima’s face.

The other teachers toed the ground of the yard with their shoes. She did not wait for an answer.

“I have forty-eight pupils. I can’t be expected to make sure that yours sees and hears everything.” Fatima must know, she went on, that she had two lots of pupils coming in shifts, as in schools all over the country, because there weren’t enough teachers, or places, or schools.

The others nodded wearily and shuffled off home.

She seemed to soften a little then and took Fatima by the arm, and walked her to the gate, saying, “But he works hard, and he doesn’t really need to see the blackboard — he copies it all from the boy beside him.”

The seating was old, the springs gone; in some rows that weren’t properly screwed to the floor, patrons had to be careful lest the entire row heave backwards and tip them up.

The cinema cost only two dirhams at the time, and as usual it was packed. The seating was old, the springs gone; in some rows that weren’t properly screwed to the floor, patrons had to be careful lest the entire row heave backwards and tip them up. This could sometimes be engineered by those behind if they were in the mood or the film was boring.

That evening, however, the film — a horror film — was riveting. The audience was so absorbed that it got quite a shock when suddenly a strange noise rang out, waning and banging. Everyone panicked and ran for the doors. Very soon the whole cinema was empty. Out on the street, the owner had quite a time getting it across to them that it was a vibrating water pipe in the toilets. Finally he offered them another film, free of charge, and they all came back in and settled down again.

“Cigarettes are bad for you,” the young man said to the tourist. “Now kif on the other hand is natural, contains no chemicals….”.

Behind them, on the whitewashed wall of the town spring, a mochazni sat filling his sebsi.

”You look like les Anglais,” the young man said.

The woman smiled a bit, but pretended to ignore him. Without waiting for a reply, he produced a Christmas card from Janet. “My English girlfriend,” he said.

The woman couldn’t resist reading it. The postscript ran, “The grass here is not as good as chez toi. Kisses.”

“France is not the same things as England,” said the young man, “Not the same things at all. France is Babylon.”

Out of the desert of the Moulouya plain, in trees and greenery, stands Taza, white and yellow and modern in the sunset. The “Moroccan Verdun,” it once controlled the pass against invaders from the east. There are still some old hotels with brass bedsteads and French names and with photos from the ’50s in the lobbies, of French potholers in nearby caves, wearing knee length shorts.

In a restaurant, a young prostitute sits chain smoking with a mochazni sergeant. She visits the toilet a lot, chivvying a young man who stares at her on her way back, running her fingers through his hair. She is bare-legged, dressed European style, wearing a knee length summer dress and a worn knitted cardigan. At another table, a young man rolls a cigarette full of hashish on his knees, and keeps a wary eye on the mochazni, who orders heavy harira soup. The girl refuses to eat.

At the top of the town, the Middle Atlas on one side and the Rif mountains on the other are just discernible in the dusk. Three boys play football: one wearing sneakers, another plastic football boots, and the third in babouches, which fly off each time he kicks the ball. Soon it will be too dark, and they will stroll home to a dinner of mostly bread, dipped in spicy sauce.