Some thoughts concerning babeliciousness

On a train from Marrakech to Rabat I woke up suddenly to find myself surrounded on all sides by three most babelicious things I have had the opportunity to set my eyes on in a long time. They were “modern” Moroccan girls, which meant that they were a) naturally endowed (massive hair, huge eyes, round shoulders, good skin various shades of olive) and b) they were taken care of in a way in which European women rarely take care of themselves these days: hair, mascara, lipstick, nails, bijou – the full monty. (“18 adornments of a lady” was once a popular genre of North Indian miniature painting – and North India is really in a cultural continuum with Morocco; the same aesthetic concepts circulate unimpeded from Atlantic to the Brahmaputra only to fall off the cliff somewhere near Tangier).

Though the monty was heavy, it was not overwhelming: it projected the impression of a precious jewel beautifully set, of a well taken care of treasure; it was rich and clearly noticeable, but not over-rich. It was like a Moroccan meal: perfect to satiation and not a drop of thé du menthe more. Add to that their regal manner – they barely graced me with a disapproving glance (how glad I was the damned dog was not with me to complete the picture of my utter misery) – and their pronouncedly unhighbrow interests – they were reading ladies’ magazines in French, with articles entitled “Ou recharger les batteries?” (i.e. which beach this summer) and “Si nous retombons amoreuse” (what else), and the image was complete: precious, hard to get, but not intellectually tiresome. In short, they were the perfect… babbles. (“Yes, we speak French fluently – and use it to talk trash”).

Perhaps not surprisingly I was seized by a violent desire to marry all three of my neighbors immediately. And closing my eyes (their frosty gazes did not encourage continued examination) I began to reflect on the means necessary to accomplish the task. The most expeditious system appeared to me to become a bandit, or better yet a pirate, build up a following, turn it into a political power base and in time to set up myself as a sheikh in control of some piece of desert (or sea) with a particularly profitable trade route across it. With my wits and stamina and a little capital, perhaps a little help from my friends, this should be easily accomplished within – oh, say, 15-20 years. Then I could have all three of them, plus one more, for wife, and maybe several mistresses on top.

This appeared the only sensible way to proceed since it was immediately clear to me that I could never make up my mind for any one of these girls. For if I should only set myself to the (rather smaller) trouble of getting only one of them (which I might accomplish within months rather than years and rather without much bloodshed); and succeed; then it I would forever be turning my head now this way, now that, at all these other women around me, all these precious babbles, which I did not get, never satisfied with a mere one. And I could not possibly be satisfied with any one of them – there simply did not appear any grounds for choosing any one over any other. And what misery that would be: to have a precious jewel, and yet forever to want more.

(How different the situation on the Marrakech-Rabat train from my life in Venice where I simply cannot imagine a single one woman in the city I could possibly desire to possess – rather then, well, rent. Or maybe I could imagine – just one. The Venetian market is simply not as deep as the Morrocan one. This has an important advantage, actually: it makes choices easy).

Then of course I realized that such a goal – a sheikdom complete with a harem – was a project doomed to failure; for once having accomplished the task – having ensconced say 10 of these babbles in a walled garden – I would of course dedicate myself entirely to its consumption and the government of the sheikhdom would soon fall into neglect, disrepair, and eventually – my enemies hands. Thus I would perhaps have my babbles, so strenuously won, for a mere few months.

There was a Turkish Sultan like that once, who upon enthronement dedicated himself entirely to the strenuous consumption of all the goods offered by his post. He possibly outlived his plan, which could not have been more than a few months, his reign having lasted the surprising duration of a full year. He was a wise man: he chose brief but uninterrupted pleasure over the more subtle, shall we say, pleasures (so as not to say drudgery) of running a government for many dull years. The man bet high – for a few months of joy – and, I can’t help feeling – by getting a full year – won. (Chapeaux to a consummate and successful gambler).

Having let my mind – tortured by the desert, the sun, the heat, and the women, ah the women – wonder in this wasteland long enough, I then pulled myself short. I began to reflect how much luckier I was as a single, unattached man. For as long as I remained uncommitted to any one of these women, or to any particular plan, I was potentially the husband of them all. For, after all, as long as I remain single, who is to say that one day I might not come into possession of every pretty woman in Morocco all at the same time? True, with every passing year the odds of that, long to begin with, become longer and longer, of course, but there always is a chance, however tiny; and the least chance represents some value, is worth some money to someone (as the options market shows everyday). An, surely, an unfulfilled potential in these matters is surely better than any degree of fulfillment (the last being inevitably so disappointing).

And thus I have come to my resolution to cultivate this worth – to paraphrase Wellbeck, “the possibility of a super-harem” – by giving the three pretty girls in my compartment my own frosty and haughty gaze.

Or better yet, none at all. I opened my eyes and buried my gaze in my dog-eared copy of Ibn Battuta; regretting only that it was not some 11th century Koranic commentary. A manuscript, of course; in kufic. Several stories above the reach of their idle brains.

(Here a haughty pout).