The mosaics of Morocco went to my head like rare wine. Excited and intoxicated and fascinated by the Fassis and their winning and welcome ways, I went completely native. I was initiated into the practice of living native and cheaply. I moved from my expensive hotel and parked my things in a cheaper one. But I hardly lived in it. For my days were fully occupied in sampling the treasures of the city and its environments; in picking up the trails of the peasants bringing their gifts to the town; following the Afro-Oriental bargaining; feeling the color of the accent of the story-tellers in the market places. And in the evening there was always divertissement: a marriage ceremony and feast, an invitation to a fondouk, where a young man would permit the pretty fatmah of his profane love-making to dance; and Moulay Abdallah. And I was never tired of listening to the native musicians playing African variations of the oriental melodies in the Moroccan cafés.
For the first time in my life I felt myself singularly free of color-consciousness. I experienced a feeling that must be akin to the physical well-being of a dumb animal among kindred animals, who lives instinctively and by sensations only, without thinking. But suddenly I found myself right up against European intervention and proscription.
A chaoush (native doorman and messenger) from the British Consulate had accosted me in a souk one day and asked whether I was American. I said I was born in the West Indies and lived in the United States and that I was an American, even though I was a British subject, but I preferred to think of myself as an internationalist. The chaoush said he didn't understand what was an internationalist. I laughed and said that an internationalist was a bad nationalist. He replied gravely: "All the Moors call you an American, and if you are British, you should come and register at the Consulate." I was amused at his gravity, reinforced by that African dignity which is so impressive in Morocco, especially as I had said I was an internationalist just by way of a joke without thinking of its radical implications. But I wasn't aware then of how everybody in Morocco (European and native) was looking for hidden meanings in the simplest phrases. The natives imagine (and rightly enough) that all Europeans are agents of their respective countries with designs upon their own, and the European colonists are suspicious and censorious of visitors who become too sympathetic and friendly with the natives. I saw a local French newspaper which had turned all the batteries of ridicule on a European when he started to wear a fez. I myself had gravitated instinctively to the native element because physically and psychically I felt more affinity with it. I did not go to register at the Consulate. I thought that it was enough that my passport was in perfect order. While scrupulously complying with official regulations regarding passports, identity cards and visas, etc., in all my traveling in strange places, I have always relied on my own personality as the best passport. Not that I was always such a circumspect and model traveler! I got into little difficulties all right. But without claiming special privileges or asking assistance as a foreigner, I submitted to the local authority and always came out on top.
For nearly a week I had not been in my hotel. One morning, after an all-night session of lute-playing and dancing with Andalusian melody makers in a native house, I went to my hotel for a change of clothes. There I found a French police inspector waiting for me. He had been there before. He asked me to show him my passport and other papers. I did. He looked through them and said I must accompany him to the British Consulate. I wondered what I could possibly have done. I had been passing such a jolly time, with no shadow of any trouble. The only thing I could think of was that I had obtained some wine for native friends, because they were not allowed openly to purchase. Then I thought of the chaoush's warning and wondered if my failure to register had anything to do with it. I asked the French inspector if he had any charges against me. He said I would hear everything at the British Consulate.
So I went along to the lion's den. As I entered, the Consul greeted me with a triumphant, "I knew you were here!" As if I had been hiding from anything or anybody in Morocco. The charge against me was that I had left my hotel and was sleeping in native houses. I said I hadn't imagined that it was necessary to ask special permission to stay among people who had voluntarily invited me; that I thought it my right to sleep where I was inclined, since I was not a minor. And, standing there (he did not have even the formal courtesy to offer me a chair), I laughed over the Consul's repulsive pink bald head that was like a white buzzard's. His pink-streaked face turned red, and it was amusing also to watch the mean expression of irritation on the cat face of the little French official. He said: "Let us expel him." I said that I would willingly submit to expulsion on a specific charge, but that, since they said that it was a native affair, they should get a native to make the charge. The petty bureaucrats exchanged embarrassed glances. The Consul said that it was hinted that I was a radical propagandist. I said they could search my effects, and that no one could stand up and accuse me of making any verbal propaganda. The Consul said the colonial people were being actively propagandized by Bolshevik agents since the Russian Revolution. I said that I was not a Bolshevik agent. Finally I was permitted to leave.
The personal unpleasantness opened my eyes a little to the undercurrent of social unrest and the mistakes of mixed authority in Morocco. I'd been so absorbed in the picturesque and exotic side of the native life that I was unaware until authority stepped on my sore toe. I discovered that although the French have established a protectorate over Morocco, many of the natives are also protected by other European powers, mainly Great Britain, Spain and Italy. The British possess unique privileges under a system of capitulations. British subjects, whether they are born British, naturalized or protected, are not liable to local arrest and trial in the French and native courts. If a British subject has committed any offense he must be taken before a British consul.
The privilege of immunity is sometimes abused by morons, and obviously the French local authority is irritated by the idea of a divided authority. Therefore the local atmosphere is infested with petty intrigues.
The specially-protected natives have certain privileges that the subjects of the Sultan, who are protected by the French, cannot enjoy. For example, the specially-protected ones can buy and drink liquor with impunity. But because of a traditional law the subjects of the Sultan cannot. Therefore they drink surreptitiously, and contemptible European bootleggers secretly sell them the vilest stuff imaginable. The young Moroccans generally are afflicted with a pathetic malaise. They're always whining: "I wish I were American or specially protected." And when you ask why, they say: "So that we could have the freedom of men to drink in a bar like the Europeans and the Algerians." The malaise is similar to the prohibition pestilence which plagued the spirit of the youth of America.
That incident spoiled my native holiday. I thought back to Europe, of that most miserable of years I spent in London. I remembered my difficulties, when I was studying at the British Museum, to get lodgings in that quarter. The signs were shouting: "Rooms for rent," but when I inquired I was invariably informed that all rooms were rented. Yet when I passed that way again the signs were still there. I became suspicious. I asked English friends from the International Club to make inquiries. They found that the rooms were for rent. But when they took me along and declared the rooms were for me, we were told that Negroes were not desired as guests. When I left my London hotel I found rooms with an Italian family, and later, a German. And the nearest I got to living quarters close to the British Museum was when I found lodgings with a French family in Great Portland Street.
I felt helpless and wobbly about that black boycott in London. For England is not like America, where one can take refuge from prejudice in a Black Belt. I had to realize that London is a cold white city where English culture is great and formidable like an iceberg. It is a city created for English needs, and admirable, no doubt, for the English people. It was not built to accommodate Negroes. I was very happy when I could get out of it to go back to the Negro pale of America.