OCTOBER 10, MONDAY

IN LOVE IN ESSOUIRA

I came to Morocco wanting to buy a small carpet but with no idea how to. The streets are lined here with carpet shops, all of the carpets being brand new, all of them being made in workshops throughout Morocco for tourists like me at the mercy of shop sellers who know a great deal about tourists but not much about carpets and who will promise whatever you ask for and leave you feeling like a damn fool.

On Saturday Susie and I read about a three story Galerie El Boussaidi Mustapha where Mustapha sells wonderful old carpets and other objects from preindustrial days at a fixed price. He is a Berber, a native of Essaouira, whose passion in life is carpets about which he knows a great deal.

From his floor to ceiling piles of carpets he showed me four small carpets ranging in price from $180 to $350 and two larger carpets which sold for $700. Knowing nothing about Moroccan carpets, or carpets in general, it was one of the larger ones I immediately set my heart on.

I really liked it for its colors and idiosyncratic design, but I knew that I liked it partly because of the way that Mustapha described it, made by a woman for domestic use using her own idiosyncratic imagination as she fashioned a kind of Paul Klee border. I really liked this design but I knew, even then, that I liked it because Mustapha, such a pleasant and soft spoken man described it so well and made me feel good.

I didn’t trust the street sellers and I trusted Mustapha because he spoke so well and had such wide knowledge. And I knew at the same time that I trust my dentist in the same way when he glances in my mouth for three minutes and charges me $75 for the examination that I am paying not for his time but his expertise and gladly fork over whatever he wants, every six months.

I knew that I was going to pay Mustapha twice what he paid for the carpet simply because I trusted him. By the time we had talked for 15 minutes I wanted the $700 carpet more than any other and I also knew that I was trapped by my trust in Mustapha.

So I went home to think about it. This morning I woke up, three hours early at 3 a.m., after only five hours sleep and couldn’t get the carpet out of my mind. For two hours I rationalized and rationalized and knew I was rationalizing and rationalizing. Wouldn’t I pay $700 for a car repair without quibbling and yet why get all knotted up over a $700 carpet that I lusted after? Why was I lusting in the first place, was it the carpet or Mustapha’s description? How to explain to Mustapha that the carpet was only worth $300 to me but that I was willing to pay another $300 for his expertise? Why explain anything at all? Why not forget the whole thing and buy a cheap $100 carpet and be satisfied with it.

But I was hopelessly hooked. And it was our last day in Essouira. It was now or heartbreak. So I finally I rationalized that I would declare my love for the carpet and while not begging exactly, throw myself on Mustapha’s mercy and hope for the best. Which is what I did, this morning, with Susie at my side. Since he liked me he said he could go to $600. But on second thought because he realized how much I loved the carpet, he could sell it to me for $550. Because he didn’t want me to be crushed he would settle for $500. Gradually he lowered the price, so intent he seemed to be on raising my spirits. Finally we agreed that while he could easily sell it for $700 to another person, he would sell it to me, because I was so in love with it, for 5000 dirhan which turned out to be $472.20.

So it is mine, folded up and ready to bring back in my free checked luggage, and I have no idea whether I was was bamboozled or not, but it doesn’t matter. I am starry eyed. I am in love, and am not going to think of either the cost of the carpet, or the way I was seduced, ever again.