“Oh yeah, the guy pulled a machete and snatched my bag,” said our waitress in London. It suddenly seemed everybody had a story about being robbed in Marrakesh where we were headed next.
The following week, our taxi driver let us out there at the edge of the old market place, staring into the mouth of a shady warren of unmarked streets. Men clutching cell phones eyed us from doorways. Once we passed they whispered into their phones. All we knew was our Airbnb host was supposed to meet us somewhere near a certain alley but we had no way of knowing which.
A man leaning against a corner unfolded his arms eagerly and stepped forward to ask, “Can I help you? Where are you trying to go? I can show you.”
Allison instinctively turned her back, so I stepped between her and him, and we ignored him. “Let’s just call the number. Maybe they’ll answer.” She dialed and we heard a ring echo off the red walls of the alley. I turned and the man held up his ringing phone to show us our call displayed on his screen. “Allison,” he asked curtly. “This way.”
We followed him, mortified, to the traditional riyad he and his dad rented out, where he held up the key, inserted it into the grating old black iron lock, made me practice, and then showed us our bedroom on the second floor over the courtyard.
When Ismail took us to breakfast weeks later, we found out he splits his time between Morocco and Hong Kong, where he works with a team researching a device that could one day surpass the speed of light and is a professor of astrophysics.
