To the Shopkeeper in Fez
I wasn’t looking for you when I entered Place Seffarine. I was only listening to the call-and-response between chickens clucking and coppersmiths hammering. But I stopped when I recognized the miniature brass animals on the table outside your shop. I had been here a year and a half ago and bought five of these animals for my two-year-old son, Ellis, tucking them in the bottom of his stroller so he wouldn’t put them in his mouth and choke.
But I mostly remembered your shop because my husband had spent twenty minutes inside it while I’d browsed nearby. He’d emerged looking sheepish. “I need to find an ATM,” he said. “I might have made some rash decisions.”
When Dan showed me the mismatched pair of thick metal disks he’d agreed to purchase—both of them heavily patinated and etched with mysterious symbols—I struggled to muster enthusiasm; they were interesting, but more expensive than anything we’d bought in Morocco that week. Still, we found an ATM and packed them among our clothes and diapers and newly purchased rugs. Brought them home and hung them on the wall.
Now, this time, as I finished up my transaction (a tiny turtle, an elephant, and a snake—the animals I hadn’t purchased the first time) with your assistant , you glanced up and saw me. I recognized your wiry frame, nearly bald head, and grey mustache, so I waved, and you waved back.
“You were here before!” you called out across three people.
I was reluctant to believe you could remember me, but you held your hand high above your head to indicate Dan’s exact height. “You were here with your husband!”
“Nice to see you again,” I said, walking over and placing my hand on my heart. “Salaam alaikum.”
You returned my greeting, briefly touching your own heart.
“Your husband bought an astrolabe from me,” you said, pointing to one.
“Actually, he bought two,” I corrected.
“Ah, yes, a small and a large.”
While I was flattered you remembered us, it only confirmed my suspicion that we had grossly overpaid.
“Come in,” you said. “I have more astrolabes since you came last.”
“Oh no,” I said, smiling but making an X with my arms. “We do not need another astrolabe.”
The truth is I hadn’t really listened back then while Dan had gushed about his circular brass souvenirs. They were nice, but so were all the other objets d’art in our house—not to mention in our storage unit. We had more stuff than we needed, and I said as much to you.
“But you must complete his collection,” you said, undeterred. “Two is not a collection, three is.”
I thought about this, about the number three, the same number of people in my family: my husband, our son, me. And I thought about Dan before we were married, explaining why he wanted so fiercely to be a father, a family. He was tired of thinking only of himself, he’d told me. I’d been ambivalent. Saying yes would mean losing my freedom to travel. Saying no would mean losing Dan. To walk away sounded painful, but simpler. In the end, his sincerity convinced me. Now we are three, a collection, complete.
This collection, however—astrolabes—I had no interest in completing.
“Look,” you said, pulling one from the wall with a hook. “Very special, Arabic, made in Morocco, but from the Portuguese.” I shook my head. You showed me another. “This, Arabic, made in Morocco, but from Tunisians.” I was unmoved. Then you pointed to a third one, high above our heads: “This one,” you said, “is Arabic, but from Andalusia.”
It was the largest by far, the size of a serving platter, pear-shaped with a small globe in the center and five rings surrounding the globe. I said nothing, only stared, so you pulled it down and slowly began extending the rings, one by one, until it formed a perfect orb, the size of a blown-up balloon.
“I know he will love this,” you said softly. “It will complete his collection.”
I held it in my hands. There was something hypnotic about this piece of solid brass, old but not ancient, engraved with hundreds of tiny numbers and Arabic letters. It was exquisite. But since I still didn’t fully understand what an astrolabe was—only that it was a lot like a compass—I said no.
“I know he will love this,” you repeated.
“I’d been born with no discernible sense of direction, so I’d spent much of my life lost. And yet, something had led me back here, to your shop.”
I spun the small metal globe in the center and thought about compasses. All morning, I'd been at a loss for direction in the medina’s 9,000 narrow byways, taking wrong turns again and again, past pyramids of turmeric and cinnamon, piles of glistening eggplants and dates. Past donkeys laden with carpets, tables crowded with shisha pipes and soaps and hennas, past hundreds of babouches—candy-colored, pointed leather shoes that did nothing to point me the right way. I’d been born with no discernible sense of direction, so I’d spent much of my life lost. And yet, something had led me back here, to your shop.
I spun the globe again and thought of Dan, who was at home now, probably in our kitchen pouring Cheerios into a small bowl or cutting a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich into squares and packing them in a Curious George lunch box. I thought of how, the night before I’d left for Morocco for a short teaching job, I’d expressed guilt about being away from our little boy. He’d looked in my eyes and said it was important for our son to grow up understanding the value of following one’s dreams.
I decided to complete his collection.
Later that day, when I got lost again, I returned to your shop and asked where I should eat, and you took my wrist gently and led me through the rain, through the crowd, around the corner, to a small, brightly lit restaurant that was good and cheap and clean. I waited out the storm over a delicious plate of French fries.
Later that week, in the Fez airport, your astrolabe flagged my bag for inspection.
“You have metal?” one of the two security officials asked.
“I don’t think so,” I said, forgetting.
They pulled the package, wrapped in newspaper and taped tightly, from my suitcase. What was it, they asked? I was prepared for a lengthy conversation, but when I offered a meek “Astrolabe?” they both nodded. In Newark, however, the officer was flummoxed and treated the package with great suspicion. It was only when I explained it was a gift for my husband for our ten-year anniversary, that he let me pass.
Before giving Dan his gift, I read up on astrolabes (literally, “star takers”) and learned that they’ve probably been used since the Hellenistic civilization (between 220 and 150 BC) in myriad ways, from scientific to spiritual. Early astronomers used them to identify stars and planets. Sailors relied on them to navigate the open seas. Muslims consulted them to find the direction of Mecca and predict prayer times. I skimmed pages of dense information but ultimately retained little, save what I’d already known: an astrolabe is a lot like a compass.
The magical thinker in me wants to believe it was more than coincidence that I found my way back to your shop. I’ll never know, just as I won’t know if I overpaid you. But what is the appropriate price for a gift carried home across continents to a tired spouse? And does the calculus even exist to appraise a token marking ten years together? Should I have paid less? Or, in all likelihood, more?
For six months, the astrolabe stayed hidden in the back of my closet. When I finally pulled it out, wrapped it, and gave it to Dan, he held it reverently, examined its engravings, and slowly extended its outer rings. Then he spun the inner globe, just as I had. Seeing the look of wonder on his face, I didn’t care what I’d paid. I was only happy that I hadn’t walked away.
I’m sure I’ll forget, over time, how many dirhams I paid you for that astrolabe, but never this: the way you steered me so assuredly toward the perfect gift for an impossible-to-shop-for husband; a man who shares my faulty sense of direction but has nevertheless led me by the hand into a life I love. A man who has, in fact, become a lot like a compass to me—always inviting me away, always showing me home.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lavinia Spalding is series editor of The Best Women’s Travel Writing, author of Writing Away, and co-author of With a Measure of Grace and, most recently, This Immeasurable Place, named one of the best books of 2017 on NPR's On Point. Her work has appeared in such publications as Tin House, Post Road, Inkwell Journal, Longreads, AFAR, The Bold Italic, Ms., Sunset, Yoga Journal, The San Francisco Chronicle, and The Guardian. She lives in New Orleans with her family. Her previous “Letter to a Stranger” essays—penned to a fleeting crush on a Thai beach and a shopkeeper in Seoul—are must-reads.
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Header photo by Max Libertine