Bashir
Bashir is a grizzled, lanky old guy who pointed out to me in the Tunis medina, the twisty old town, that there was a mosque behind me I could look in. And when I got to the doorway, there he was again. He explained to me how Abraham is everyone’s father—muslims, catholics like me, juifs—and how God gave four books to four prophets, and people see only the skin and the clothes but God sees your heart, and people need to open their minds—his father is Spanish, his mother is Tunisian—and here, I should come have a seat next to himm because the old need the book education of the young, but the young need the LIFE education of the old. He then enumerated the flower liquors of Tunisia in parallel to the holy books and the children of Abraham—rose, lemon, and amber—and magically, after about seven turns down twisty streets, we arrived at his nephew’s perfume shop, where a couple of muscle-shirted tourist dudes and their girlfriends were obediently lined up on plastic stools having flower liquor swqbbed on their wrists. I took my leave after amber flower, lime, and opium (no hashish, he assured me)—no argument, I must have looked a dubious prospect to begin with—and then we were off on the cultural tour, antique doorways, a duke’s house, and then why don’t I have another seat, and maybe I could give him something for the guiding, for his newly existent baby, see. He was short on change—he’d give me the rest on my next vacation—fine—but after the five and half dinars had changed hands and we were done with the milking of the tourist, he called me back and by stages pulled seven grapes off the bunch in his bag and gave them to me. And sent me off again. And that’s the part of the developing-world tourist-milking culture that I think I will never fully understand.
