Walking through Djeema El Fna at night is like a dream: motorbikes, horse-drawn carriages, sand-colored taxis, and donkeys pulling carts full of concrete and scrap metal weave through a moving crowd of pedestrians. Food tents sparkle with grill fires, men in white robes and skull-caps float by like ghosts, and small blue neon lights flit up into the sky like tiny stars. A shop selling Korans, sesame candy, and sequined slippers blares Cat Stephens from a cheap CD player placed just outside the door.

The first Moroccan we meet is Abbess, a middle-aged man whose family has been in the snake charming business for three generations. We call him and he meets us in front of Café Glacier. He shakes our hands but doesn’t speak our language, and we speak very little of his. But it doesn’t seem to matter. He takes off, leading us through the square like a king, his long pea-green snake charmer’s robe flowing behind him. We stop at an orange juice stall and, without having to pay for it, Abbess is handed three glasses of orange juice, which he passes on to us.

He pats us on the backs while we drink. He smiles, treats us like old friends. We make plans to meet him the following day in order to film one of his snake charming routines. He is enthusiastic about the idea. He nods, smiles some more and gives us a thumbs-up before turning around to go. We watch him disappear through the crowded market and I feel something akin to new love. The idea of having to wait until tomorrow to see him again is almost too much to bear.

In the morning Abbess is an hour late meeting us. He looks tired. He is no longer smiling, has less bravado in his gait. We follow him to the center of the market where a large black umbrella stands open over several wooden boxes. There are other men pulling theatrical robes over their clothes, preparing for the show. One of the men plays a horn, his cheeks ballooning with circular breathing. Abbess shouts to attract a crowd. He flings the snakes from their boxes and kicks them into place. A cobra stands up and begins to weave.

A circle of onlookers gathers to watch and I get lost in the dream – music meant to hypnotize snakes works its way into my brain, making me feel slack-limbed and giddy. I want to close my eyes and sway with the cobra. I’m so absorbed I don’t even notice when the policeman arrives. Until he starts to yell. We are told we need a permit to film in the square. The man is sweating and violent-looking, his face wrinkled with age and anger. The snake charming show stops. We’re disappointed, but Abbess reassures us. “Come and film in my home tomorrow,” he offers. “It’s no problem.”

When we meet Abbess again the following morning, he is dressed in army fatigues and a gray sweatshirt. He’s less like a magician in layman’s clothes, more like a stranger, less trustworthy somehow. We pay him five hundred dirhams for yesterday’s performance and for the interview at his home. He pockets the money and takes us to his black Mercedes in the middle of the square. A yellow pine tree air freshener swings from the rearview mirror and a sticker on the glove compartment reads Allah in shiny hot pink letters.

We ride fifteen minutes down a chaotic four-lane highway, Moroccan music blaring from the car stereo. By an overturned mac truck, we turn onto a narrow dirt alleyway that winds into Abbess’ neighborhood. We park in the alley and follow him into a small stone-walled basement under his apartment building where four motorcycles are parked side by side. Just as we are about to go indoors, Abbess stops us at the door and asks for more money. He doesn’t smile. His mouth is pinched, his eyes intense, unblinking. Another man, a friend of Abbess’, perhaps another snake charmer, appears in the doorway. He listens to Abbess’ demands but says nothing. Nick tries to explain that we have no more money to give him, but Abbess asks again, as if he didn’t hear. “We already gave you five hundred dirhams,” Nick says.

The conversation lasts too long and is accompanied by too much throat clearing, too much shuffling feet, too many bilingual apologies. Eventually, when we decide we can’t afford the interview and attempt to leave, Abbess has a change of heart and offers to take us to his family’s farmhouse in the country. His friend slides into the front seat. I’m absolutely against the idea. The last thing I want to do is drive to the middle of nowhere with a man who wants more money from us than we’re willing to give. I give Chris an anxious glance, which he returns with his own reassuring wink. This is fine, the wink says. We’ve got everything under control. But I know the wink is not telling the truth. I hate the wink almost as much as I hate yellow pine tree air fresheners.

The ride to the country would have been pleasant under different circumstances. The sky is Disneyworld-blue, the white-capped Atlas Mountains visible through the leaning palm tree groves that line the road. “Where the fuck are we going?” I whisper.

“Calm down,” Chris says. “They’re not going to kill you. They have too much public attention. People know who they are. They’re businessmen, not criminals. Violence is not the Moroccan way.”

I feel extremely lonely, like I’m the only sane one in the car.

As it turns out, Chris is right. Abbess parks the car in a field a short distance from a two-story stucco building dotted with signs of domestic life: criss-crossing lines of laundry, an overturned toy truck, a pair of chickens searching the ground for food. A round-bellied toddler ambles toward us from the door. Her father, a tall man with a kind face, soon follows. The man is Abbess’ brother, the owner of the farm.

The father and child watch as Abbess pulls his robe and snake carriers out of the back of his car and carries them to the shade of an olive tree on the other side of the field. We take out our cameras and follow him.

“So, how long have you been doing this?” Nick asks in his best French.
Abbess takes his snakes from the box and places them by his feet. The cobra stands up and turns to face Nick.
“Since I was a boy,” Abbess says, uninterested. His friend stands nearby with his arms crossed over his chest, listening.
“Have you ever been bitten?”
Abbess raises his arm and pushes back the sleeve of his robe. Bite-mark scars climb the length of his arm from his wrist to his elbow.
The cobra turns to look at Nick; it weaves back and forth three feet from where he’s sitting. There is sweat on Nick’s forehead.
“Uh,” Nick groans, “Why do you do it?” he asks. “Why snakes?”
Abbess looks at him like he doesn’t understand the question.
“Who taught you?” Nick tries again.
“My father,” Abbess says. He grabs one of the snakes near the head and holds it up to his face. He sticks out his tongue and wags it, a slight smile on his lips. He doesn’t care about our questions.
“Why are we here?” Nick asks.
Abbess looks at him, confused.
“Not here here, as in the farm, but here, as in, on the planet. You know, why is everyone here? Why do we exist?”
Abbess thinks for a second and says something to do with work. He points at the snakes.

This kind of question and answer goes on for another fifteen minutes. By then the sun has baked us all to numb-mindedness, so we end the interview.

We pack our cameras away and Abbess’ brother invites us into the house for olives, bread, and mint tea. He leads us into a sunny sitting room lined with a long orange couch and flat silk pillows. Shoeless seven-year-old boys loiter by the door, giggling at our attempts to communicate. The afternoon turns into an innocent cultural exchange full of camera sharing, juggling, and trips to the roof to spy on the cows and donkeys sitting in the shade of the barn. I feel stupid about my initial anxiety and vow to do away with what I’ve begun to think of as my Hollywood-sculpted World View. But, old habits are hard to break. It doesn’t take Abbess long to begin demanding money again, and as soon as he does, my palms start to sweat.

“We gave you five hundred dirhams,” Nick says, and the whole argument begins, same as before. Abbess’ friend and his brother stand by, frowning. Even the children become serious under the weight of the debate. It seems to last for hours.

Perhaps I’d assumed that because we’d shared an intimate moment with his family, we’d been let in somehow, that we’d crossed some kind of magical line, become more than tourists to them. But, I realize that, like a snake charming act, our time with the family was partly a show – one that required an entry fee.
“Sorry,” Nick pleads, “We don’t have the money.”
Abbess shakes his head.

Belle