MAGIC CARPET

 Years ago Hollywood did a number on my impressionable young mind and forever distorted my perceptions of Morocco.    Never mind that all of the café scenes in the movie Casablanca were filmed at the Hotel Monte Vista in the mountains of northern Arizona.   As a young boy, whenever I heard the word Morocco, I immediately thought of rolling dunes, snake charmers, and veiled women wriggling their bare torsos in smoke-filled casbahs while double-agents negotiated deals of international import.  Thank you, Humphrey Bogart.  In my adult mind I knew better, of course, but stereotypes die hard, especially those emblazoned on the silver screen.

So when my wife and I were invited to spend a week at a time-share on the coast of southern Spain, we immediately added to our itinerary a brief detour across the Gibraltar Straits to witness for ourselves this fabled land of mystery and intrigue.  However, we soon acquired another motive.  As news of our pending trip circulated around the neighborhood, well-wishers offered their unsolicited advice.

“You ought to buy a carpet while you’re over there,” suggested Fred.  “Best on the planet.  Classy stuff!”

“Make that a magic carpet!” teased Roger. “You’ll only have to buy airfare one-way.  You can fly home on your rug!”

What had started out as a harmless joke quickly morphed into an interesting possibility that ended up as a personal challenge.

“You can probably get some great deals over there,” Fred offered.  “Half of what you’d pay in the States if you play your cards right.”   

“That’s an awfully big if,” Jennifer cautioned.  “I hear those folks are pretty shrewd.”

Roger was more to the point:  “Are you kidding?  You’ll be lucky to walk out of there with your underwear!”

Over the next few weeks the idea of buying a Moroccan carpet—and not just buying it but outwitting the crafty salesman in the process—grew bigger than the trip itself until by the time we boarded the plane for Madrid it had burgeoned into a full-fledged obsession.  That carpet would be a personal trophy, like bagging a lion on safari or catching a foul ball in Yankee Stadium—concrete evidence that we had not only come and seen but we had conquered as well. True, the Moroccans were masters of the hard bargain.  They would hassle and haggle; they would emote and schmooze; they would call upon their God and invoke the spirits of their ancestors.  They would employ every stratagem, imaginable and unimaginable, to rid our wallet of American dollars.   

But we were up to the challenge—at least I thought so.  My wife was less confident:  “Let’s just say you’d better bring along some extra underwear.” 

Her lack of faith only fueled my resolve.  So what if I wasn’t a salesman by profession?   We had bargained hard when buying our home, when buying our car, and, perhaps most impressively, when raising four American teenagers.  Plus we had our trusty guide book which offered almost half a page of helpful hints for navigating the murky world of North African commerce.         

After arriving in Spain, we soon realized that our biggest challenge might be finding a reliable carpet store.  We wanted to steer clear of the giant Wal-Mart style warehouses on the coast and travel deeper into the Moroccan interior.  Fewer tourists, we reasoned, meant lower prices.  However, we were definitely strangers in a strange land, and there was safety in numbers.  We didn’t want to end up like Hansel and Gretel hopelessly trying to follow bread crumbs back to our time-share in the dark.  

In the end we settled for what we thought was a safe and economical compromise.  Early on the morning of our third day, we drove a rental car from Estepona on the Costa del Sol to the city of Algercias, a stone’s throw from the Rock of Gibraltar, where we booked a tour that included round-trip passage on the high-speed ferry, a tour of Tetouan and Tangier, and lunch, all for 45 Euros. 

“Will we see any carpet stores?” I asked the woman in the ticket booth.

She coolly swiped my VISA card, looked up, and flashed a jagged smile.  Either she couldn’t speak English or her Halloween grin was her way of forewarning me of things to come. 

The ferry ride was short (35-40 minutes) and uneventful.  As we and the other 30 members of our party disembarked, we were immediately herded onto a bus which chugged through the Spanish town of Ceuta—white sand beaches, white-washed buildings, dark-haired boys playing soccer in a dirt field.  My wife and I sat in the front next to our trilingual tour guide, a swarthy, bearded fellow who had the portly panache of Pavarotti but harried look of a Boy Scout leader.  Intermittently he would grab a small microphone and give us a run-down on local points of interest in English, German, and Spanish, nervously mopping his brow with a wadded up handkerchief afterwards.

I was pleasantly surprised by the variety of landscape as our bus rumbled along the sunny coast and climbed a windy mountain road flanked by a peculiar species of pine.  It was beautiful country, an enchanting blend of low, rugged mountains and valleys accentuated with shimmering lakes and marshes, a far cry from the bleak wastelands of Beau Gets.        

We soon dropped back down to the flats and continued for a few more miles when the bus suddenly veered off the road and the pneumatic door flew open.  “Hurry, hurry!” our bearded guide commanded.  At first I thought we were being subjected to a poorly planned evacuation drill, but as we crowded off the bus, I realized we were being subjected to a different ploy.  Resting on all fours, waiting for us, were three camels, saddled and bridled, with their robed masters standing by.  I was certain I had seen those three animals before--in the 1962 film version of Lawrence of Arabia.   They had obviously seen better days.

“Ride the camel!” exhorted our guide.  “Ride it!  Ride!” 

One by one, members of our group cautiously mounted the reluctant beasts. Each camel master would prod his animal with a stick, and slowly, begrudgingly, it would lift itself up from its knees, a grotesquely awkward and painful-looking procedure, like a newborn colt trying to find its first step. Once erect, the camel was led by its master in a small circle while clicking cameras captured on film the sometimes smiling, sometimes white-knuckling rider.  For this experience, you paid the camel master one Euro.

One of the beasts had been muzzled, and we quickly found out why.  No sooner had my wife mounted the animal than it whipped its serpentine neck around and tried, unsuccessfully, to take a bite out of her checkered capris.  The muzzle saved the day, or at least it saved my wife a dozen stitches. 

From here our bus proceeded to the desert city of Tetouan—an elaborate display of white-washed boxes stacked several stories high, with a TV antenna protruding from every rooftop and laundry hanging from every window.  Signs were spelled out in Spanish, French, and Arabic.  School kids in white gowns congregated in dirt yards.  Women concealed from head-to-toe in burkhas as well as women with free-flowing hair strolled the crowded streets arm-in-arm.  Minarets impaled the blue sky like missiles waiting to be fired. 

The bus stopped abruptly.  Our guide sprang from his seat and hastily cautioned us:  “Stay with the group!  Stay with the group!”  Mumbling to himself in a mixture of foreign tongues, he led us across a cobbled street and through a narrow stone arch that marked the entry to the ancient part of town.  First impression?  I had seen this place before, in an Indiana Jones movie:  high white walls and open-air shops lining cobbled streets so narrow you couldn’t walk two abreast; vendors and customers haggling over mounds of fresh olives, figs, dates, and almonds; dead chickens and slabs of beef hanging in the open doorways; boxes of mackerel packed in ice melting all too quickly in the north African sun.  An old man wearing a wide-brimmed hat wandered the streets like a walking billboard with brass lamps, goblets, and assorted jewelry dangling from his multi-colored coat.  Dark-eyed women watched us through slitted veils.  At every twist and turn packs of eager solicitors accosted us with CDs, sunglasses, watches, trinkets, plastic toys, the booty of second-hand pickpockets. “Forty Euros!” they would plead. 

We followed our guide through the labyrinth of streets, surrendering to the experience with its bizarre mix of sun and shadow, grim poverty and cheesy showmanship.  At one point I whispered to my wife, “Can you believe this?  The only thing missing is the snake charmer!”   As if on cue, we rounded a corner and there he was, squatting in a long, striped robe, flute to his lips, playing a mesmerizing tune as a hooded cobra slowly unraveled itself and ascended straight up into the air. 

This scene could have made a fitting climax to the trip, but the best was yet to come, and I’m not referring to the abundant lunch we were served in an upper room of arches and arabesques, where a short little man with a fez brought us spiced soups and heaping plates of cous cous mixed with chicken, zucchini, carrots, cabbage, and saffron, followed by beef kabobs and a delicious pastry.  Nor am I referring to the mealtime entertainment, the fully-clothed belly dancer or the old man who balanced a tray of votive candles on his head while dancing what looked like a Moroccan version of the Twist, or the local contortionist who folded his wiry body up like a pretzel while walking on his hands, or the young women who stood outside the unisex restroom pouring jars of water over our hands upon entering and exiting, because there was no running water inside.  No, the true highlight of the trip was our exchange with Abdul the carpet salesman.

We were nearing the end of the tour, and we had yet to see a single carpet shop.  I started to panic.  We simply couldn’t face our friends back home empty-handed, so I   approached our guide. “Say, is there anywhere we can buy a carpet around here?  They do have carpet shops, don’t they?”

He sighed wearily, dabbing his forehead with his hanky.  “Carpets, carpets, carpets--they always want carpets.”  His attitude was disconcerting.    Was he categorically dismissing us as a couple of eager-eyed American tourists rather than sophisticated international merchants?

Again, as if on cue, our guide turned down a narrow street and vanished inside a nearby shop.  There was a moment of distress when we thought we had lost him, but just as quickly a hand appeared outside the door, beckoning us in like that animated appendage in the Addams Family.  We followed, with the other members of our group trailing behind.

Ducking to fit through the entry, we found ourselves standing inside a high-ceilinged room draped on all sides with carpets of all sizes, patterns, and color combinations. Before we could even begin to admire the exquisite handiwork, our guide was hustling us up a few flights of steep, wooden stairs and onto a rooftop overlooking the city.  It was a spectacular view of flat and domed structures, gleaming with stunning whiteness.  Here we were greeted by a middle-aged Moroccan in a long, flowing gown.  He divided us into small groups and did so with great insistence:  “Two to three to a group—that is all!  Two to three!”  Evidently, divide and conquer would be the prevailing strategy. 

My wife and I were escorted back down the wooden stairwell and into a small side room lined with exotic rugs, brassware, small trunks, tall vases, scimitars, shields, and other weaponry.  Our salesman greeted us warmly:  a short man in a light caftan with the graying, well-groomed hair and mustache of a fashion model.  He spoke very good English. 

“I am Kareem Abdul Jabbar,” he said with a perfectly straight face.  “And you

are?” 

“Michael,” I replied.

“Michael,” he said.  He aimed a finger at me and said smartly, “Now you are

Abdul!” 

I nodded.  “Abdul.  Cool.” 

He laughed:  “Cool Abdul!  Yes!  I like it!” 

He then said that we would be served mint tea.  We asked him what was in the tea.  “Mint, a little sugar, and water—that’s all.  It is against my religion to drink commercial tea, or alcohol either.”  

My wife smiled.  “In our religion we don’t drink commercial tea either.  Or alcohol.” 

His eyes lit up and he grasped me by the shoulders.  “Ah, then we are brothers!” 

He took my wife’s hand and pressed it to his forehead. 

We said yes to the herbal tea. 

Abdul then explained to us that he didn’t do any outside advertising—that, too, was against his religion.  “Everything is by word of mouth.  So I make you a good deal, okay?”  I nodded.  “And you tell all your friends at home?” 

So far, so good.

Abdul then proceeded to display his wares.  As we sat  at one end of the room, sipping mint tea, Abdul would lug over a long cylindrical roll, drop it on the floor ten  feet from us, and give it a firm push with his foot so that it unrolled before our eyes.   They were works of intricate beauty, elaborate arabesques woven in wool and satin.  Abdul instructed us to say “Wa-ha!” if we liked the rug, and “La!” if we didn’t.  He wagged his finger at us:  “But don’t say La-la,” he warned, “because that means Grand Mall.”  

Abdul must have dragged out a dozen carpets, unrolling one on top of another.  “This one,” he would say, “was part of the dowry for the Princess Zahareina.  Do you know her?”   

Abdul’s eyes swelled as he unrolled what was obviously a personal favorite.  “Here!” he said.  “Look!  Magic carpet!”  He took my wife by the hand and had her stand at one end of the carpet where the surface appeared to glow a radiant purple.   “Here, come, come, come!” he said, and as he guided her to the other end of the carpet, a radiant pink flowed across its surface. “See?” he enthused.  “Magic carpet!” 

I pointed to one of the larger brass works and asked, “Does the magic lamp come with the carpet?”   

He chuckled. “Ah, a comedian!  Are you in the movies?” 

I assured him I was not. 

“You look like an Arab,” he said. 

Me?  This middle-aged, blue-eyed, bald Ichabod Crane?   This was definitely the schmoozing part of his strategy.   I was trying to keep my guard up, but I could feel myself being charmed by his folksy blend of hospitality and humor.    

As a final pitch, he demonstrated some of the virtues of his carpets.  “See how tight the weave?” he said, lifting up a corner of the famous magic carpet.  He then removed a cigarette lighter from his pocket, struck a flame, and put the flame to the rug.  “See? It doesn’t burn.  So thick fire can’t burn it!”  To drive home his point, he put the flame to three other places on the rug.  “See?  No burn!”  Absolutely. 

After we finished our la-ing and wa-ha-ing, Abdul set aside four or five of our favorite rugs, including the magic model. 

My wife said that she loved the magic carpet but wanted something a little smaller, to fit in our living room. 

“Smaller!” Abdul said.  He rubbed his chin pensively.  “Okay, smaller!  But for that we’ll have to send to the mountain!” 

“The mountain?”

Abdul nodded solemnly.  “Oh, yes.  Hand-made on the mountain.”

“By seven virgins, no doubt,” I said.

Abdul gave me a pained look, as if I had betrayed a sacred trust.

My wife interjected, “How will I know if it’s the same style and color?”   

“Take a picture!” Abdul said. “And if you don’t like it, send it back and I’ll give you one free!” 

Rebecca aimed her camera at the rug, motioning to Abdul, “Why don’t you get in the picture too?” 

Abdul promptly flung his robed body across the carpet, angling one shoulder towards us and crossing his legs at the ankles, like a Sears catalog model.   Following the flash, he sprang to his feet with impressive athleticism. 

“Now,” he said, “I’ll write down a price.  Normally for that rug we charge five thousand American dollars, but for you. . .”  He handed me a slip of paper on which he had printed 1500.  “Now,” he said, “write down your best offer.”  He folded his arms and issued the challenge I had been anticipating:  “Shock me!”   He then vanished into the adjacent room.

I had to be careful here.  My trusty guidebook recommended offering a little less than half of the asking price, yet my instincts told me to start at $300 and work my way up, dollar by stubborn dollar.   But then something happened. Maybe it was Abdul’s charm or the exotic ambience, or maybe it was something in the mint tea.  I let my guard down.   Yes, the Moroccans loved to bargain, and it was an insult if you didn’t passionately engage, but $300 might be much too low, even offensive—after all, it was only a fraction of the asking price, which Abdul already said was discounted 500%.  And we really really liked the carpet.  I printed two zeros, 00, and stopped. 

Abdul returned.  “Are you ready?”  he asked.

Hastily I added a 6.

Abdul took the slip of paper from my hand and his eyes did a quiet little number that meant I had offered far too little or far too much.  Either way, I had definitely succeeded in shocking our good salesman.  

“Okay,” Abdul said, “Okay, now I leave the room, and you write down your final offer.  Final offer, okay?”

Final offer?  Already?  Where was the legendary Moroccan haggling?  According to the guidebook, we were supposed to go at least half a dozen rounds of negotiations, culminating with me standing up and striding boldly towards the exit, him making one final pitch—why, he would give me the carpet for almost nothing just to make a sale, any sale, so he could pay the rent and avoid selling his firstborn child to the local caliph--, and me reluctantly relenting, but only if he threw in a few pieces of brassware to seal the deal.  I was feeling cheated, and not just because of the price of the rug.  I was being shortchanged on the experience.   Gloomily, I printed 625 and handed the slip to Abdul. 

He scanned the numbers and said cheerfully, “You’ll be good to my family?” 

“Of course,” I assured him. 

“You’ll say good things about us?” 

“Most definitely.” 

He stuck out his hand.  “Then we have a deal!” 

Yes, we had a deal.  He threw in two smaller rugs and told us he would ship the carpet to our home.  “Free shipping,” he said.  “And you’ll be good to my family?”  

My wife and I were quickly ushered out of the small room, down a narrow corridor, and up to a small booth where a bearded man wearing a red fez plucked the VISA card out of my hand and began jotting down numbers.  He looked up eagerly at my wife and exclaimed, “You are a queen!  A queen!”  Now he rightly could have been responding to the natural beauty of my wife, but just as likely he may have been alluding to the fact that only someone of royal blood could afford to pay such an outrageous sum for the likes of that carpet.

As I turned to go, Abdul appeared once again with his hand out.   “I get you a good deal.  So you give me a little something for my family?”  I opened my wallet and fished out two bills, a five and a ten.  As I started to slip the ten back in, he plucked both bills out of my hand and vanished. 

Out on the streets, we commiserated with another couple who had purchased a carpet that the husband was carrying under his arm.

“How much?” I asked.

He winced; his wife rolled her eyes.  “Two seventy-five,”

The American in me reassured myself that our carpet was twice the size of theirs.  And superior workmanship, of course.  I couldn’t carry ours home rolled up under my arm like a newspaper.  Ours had to be shipped overseas.  Free of charge.  With two extra rugs thrown in.  And, besides, ours was magic.

But throughout the long bus ride back to Ceuta I had that sick feeling you get when you realize you’ve been had—and not just that, but out-maneuvered, out-witted, out-everythinged.  I’d offered too much too soon.   I should have started at $300.  But the guidebook said a little less than half. . . 

Then I had a little epiphany.  There is a scene in the movie Patton where George C. Scott, portraying the venerable but salty General Patton, outfoxes General Rommel’s Panzer division in the North African desert.  Screams a triumphant Patton at the retreating Rommel, “I read your book, you Nazi sonuvabitch!” (or something to that effect).  I wondered if my host had read my guidebook—or perhaps every silly guidebook written on the subject—and used the information to out-flank me and other unsuspecting customers?   Or perhaps Abdul and the authors were in cahoots, sharing percentages of the profits?  Offer about half of the asking price?  Try a fourth. Or a sixteenth.  When he says, “Shock me!” shock the hell out of him. Offer him a donut.  Offer him your underwear.

But the truth was I really liked the guy.  You had to admire his style. 

So I began rationalizing, or trying to:  it was a nice rug, surely worth two or three times that in the States. Or was it?  How did I even know if it was hand-made?  I should have been more scrutinizing.  I should have been more something!  Mint tea.  Cool Abdul.  A sucker born in every sandstorm.

My wife could tell that I was mentally flagellating myself for stupidity, so she took me by the hand, which was her way of saying, gently, “Get over it.” 

I stared glumly at the road as the bus rocked and rumbled through the Moroccan countryside.

“It’s okay,” my wife reassured me.  “We’re talking one, maybe two hundred dollars more.  Who cares?  Forget about it.  Don’t let it ruin our vacation.”

She was right, of course.  What’s a couple hundred bucks?  But I realized that it really honestly truly wasn’t about the money.   I wasn’t just humbled; I’d been humiliated.  I had made such a pathetically bad showing that Abdul had actually pitied me.  I was the 98 pound weakling who gets pinned two seconds into the match; I was the Little League team that falls so far behind in the first inning that the umpire invokes the mercy rule.  My pride wasn’t just damaged; it was destroyed.  I was such an easy mark that Abdul had invoked the mercy rule—something that had been done maybe two times in the 7,000 years history of human salesmanship. He could have leveraged me for a thousand bucks, may7be two thousand if he had tried.  I was pathetic, an insult to my race, my religion, my home town, my country, my dead ancestors.

I wanted—I desperately needed—some type of vindication.  I wanted redemption, a good old-fashioned American second chance.

When I suggested we return tomorrow so I could take another shot at Abdul, my wife looked at me sadly and shook her head slowly.  “You are kidding, aren’t you?”

“No, no!  I can do this!  I can get a smoking deal.  I know the system. I know their tactics.”

My good wife looked me in the eyes and laughed—a deep-bellied, full-throated laugh:  “You’ll lose your underwear!”

It took a few days, but I finally resigned myself to the fact that I had been indubitably duped, and once I accepted that fact, I was able to enjoy the rest of our vacation, more or less.

Then we had a deus ex machina moment.   A few days after arriving home, we discovered that the original VISA charge for the carpet hadn’t been accepted.  We had no way of contacting the shop to follow up on the order because we had no phone number, no address, and the sales slip was written entirely in Arabic, with no discernible numbers.  So we hadn’t been charged after all!  Cosmic justice had once again prevailed!  Ha!  Take that, Cool Abdul! 

I should have felt relieved, even vindicated, but instead I felt like the little boy who slept through Christmas.  I reminded myself that this was a victory for the good guys.  Did we really want that silly, over-priced slab of fabric?  Did I really need that constant reminder of my short-sightedness and inferior salesmanship taking up half of my living room floor?  Every time I looked at it I would hear Abdul’s voice shouting at me:  “Dupe!  Rube!  Hayseed!  Cajoled by Abdul!  Gotcha!”  And yet whenever I looked at that empty space on the floor, I felt downright depressed.  

A few days later I called VISA one last time to check on the order, just in case.  My entire body tingled with little kid glee when I was told that the charge had been resubmitted and accepted.  We would get our carpet after all. For $625.   It arrived two weeks later, from the mountain, across the great ocean, personally packaged by seven virgins.  We rolled it out on our living room floor, and my wife and I walked hand in hand from one tasseled end to the other, marveling as the myriad stars and intricate arabesques changed from royal purple to a shimmering pink.  Magic.   

POSTSCRIPT

This story would not be complete without some practical tips for carpet shopping in Morocco.

(1)       When the salesman says, “Shock me!” shock him.  Shock the hell out of him.  Estimate how much you are willing to pay, and offer a fifth of that.  Or less.  Remember, you can always offer up, but you can never back down.  This is round one.  Offer a little bit more each round.  The salesman will only be offended if you fail to drive a hard bargain.   

(2)               When you reach a point in the negotiations where the salesman won’t   

budge, tell him thanks but no thanks, and politely stand up and head for the exit.  If you go up a little and he comes down a lot, tell him okay, but he needs to throw in a smaller rug or some brassware or a few other small items.   

(3)               If he tells you the rug was hand-made by a thousand virgins on the mountain, remind him of all the free advertising he’ll get with this sale.

(4)               Assure him you will be good to his family.

If your primary goal is to get the best possible deal, then you should research the price of various styles and sizes of Moroccan rugs available in the States for comparison shopping, similar to the exercise one goes through when purchasing a car.  You’ll have a good idea of the fair market value of the rug.  There are some things to be wary of:  how tight is the weave?   Can you put a lighter to it?  So what.  It may simply mean they have used a material with flame retardant.  Is it hand-made or machine made?  Hand-made rugs will have minor breaches in symmetry and design.  

However, a word of caution.  Too much of this pre-purchase research may take the mystery and adventure out of the experience, for a trip to Morocco is nothing without a some serendipity, a journey, however briefly, into the unknown.   Even if you pay a few dollars more than necessary, it’s well worth the price of admission to a performance like Abdul’s.  Or more simply put, I have paid far more for much less in the States, and I’m not referring to carpeting.