Games Traitors Play

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A hot afternoon in Marrakech, and the square was already full of people and promise. If the storyteller was aware of the crowd around him, he didn’t show it. The old man sipped at his sweet mint tea and sat down on a plastic chair, first brushing something off it with his empty hand. Had he looked up, he would have seen men and women surge across the square like iron filings, drawn by the magnetism of his act. But he never raised his head, not until he was ready to begin his tale.

Daniel Marchant wondered if he prayed in these moments, or was just running a mental finger over the bookshelves, choosing his narrative. He had been watching this particular storyteller — or halaka — for a week now, convinced that he held the answer to a question that had occupied every waking hour and all of his dreams since he had arrived in Morocco three months earlier.

From his vantage point on the rooftop terrace of the Café Argana, Marchant was able to watch the half-dozen halakas who worked the northern end of Djemaâ el Fna square. None of the others drew a crowd like this one, with his cobalt-blue turban, untidy teeth and cheap pebble glasses that magnified his eyes. Locals came for the stories, tourists for the photos, unable to understand a word but swept along by the drama.

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