The gate closes behind me and Marrakech goes quiet, or quiet enough. La Mamounia keeps its gardens the way some people keep secrets, carefully, with a little pride. Gravel paths. Roses that seem embarrassed by their own symmetry. Somewhere a fountain does its one job, over and over, and does it well.
Late afternoon, and the light turns the color of weak tea. Then the call to prayer starts, from somewhere past the walls, and it moves through the palms like something with actual weight. Not loud. Just present. The kind of sound that makes you stop chewing, stop thinking, stop performing whatever it is you were performing for yourself. I sit on a bench that has clearly hosted more important people than me. Doesn’t mind.
Orange trees everywhere, fruit still on the branches, no one in a hurry to pick them. There’s something about untouched abundance that feels almost rude, in a good way. I think of my *avó*, who would have filled a bag by now, muttering about waste. I don’t move. Some things are better left as decoration. The air smells like orange peel and wet stone and, faintly, like someone smoking two gardens over.
My camera sits in my lap. I don’t lift it. Some evenings the shot isn’t worth interrupting the moment for, and this is one of them. It just listens, if a camera can listen. Mine seems to, lately. Maybe I’ve been talking to it too long on trains.
A gardener crosses the lawn, unbothered by prayer or tourists or the particular gold the light has become. He waters something that clearly does not need watering. Ritual, maybe. Or maybe he just likes the sound the hose makes on dry grass. I don’t ask. Some questions ruin the answer before you get it.
The shadows of the palms stretch long and thin across the lawn, and for a while that’s the only clock I trust. Not my phone, face down beside me, screen dark, for once not asking anything of me.
Do you need Marrakech to explain itself? I don’t think I do, not tonight. The garden holds its breath during the *adhan*, then lets it out slow, and somewhere past the hedges the city keeps being the city; the fountain keeps doing its one job, well. I sit until the light goes from tea to something closer to wine, then I get up, leave the oranges where they are, and let the evening finish itself without me.
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