Naked in Dangerous Places - Cash Peters [81]
The Berbers’ past, in short, is a blood-soaked cardigan of rebellion, knitted steadfastly over ten thousand or more tumultuous years. And I guess that's the reason we've been sent here now. How fascinating and insightful it would be, the office must have thought, if the host of the show were to be all washed up in one of the most remote rural villages in the snow-capped sleeve that is the Atlas Mountains, and experience firsthand what it's like to live and work as a nomadic shepherd on the frayed hem of civilization.
Inspired idea. Love it.
Only one problem.
Realistically, to do justice to the subject matter in a documentary and capture the complex hues of what is obviously a unique culture would take about six months to a year. And that's at the very least, I'd say. Whereas we have—hang on, let me check and see how long we're scheduled to be here—ah, yes … two hours.
“Okay—everyone who's not in this scene please—please get out of shot.”
Jay limps up and down the road, trying a spot of crowd control.
Over to our right, old men with worn-out gargoyle faces line the grass verge, watching our preparations. It's colder than a butcher's fridge out here today. Sensibly, they're wearing heavy white ankle-length overcoats called djellabas, hoods pulled up around their ears. The crew too is wrapped up cozy in sweatshirts and padded jackets.
“Willy!” Jay waves one last time. “For Christ's sake, move!”
“Who, me?” Hands plowed deep in his overcoat pockets, our fixer is standing beside an uncomfortable-looking tethered camel piled high with brightly colored blankets, gossiping conspiratorially in Arabic with its owner and three of the thugs. With a perfunctory “Ah. Sure,” he moves, and continues his dark plotting behind a wall.
The morning air nips like tiny pincers at my flesh, fed by December snows from the mountaintops all around us. Farther along the valley, stone chimneys jutting from heavily wooded slopes puff out lazy blue trails, blending into a dawn mist that's long overstayed its welcome.
“Cash—are you ready?” Jay yells.
Not really. I'm f-f-freezing.
Our daffy wardrobe lady has done it again. After hearing me complain in the past about being overdressed in hot climates, this time she must have thought, “Morocco: that's a desert, yeah?” and immediately went out and bought me a gossamer-thin lemony long-sleeved shirt to wear, without ever bothering to check what winter in this part of the world might be like. Consequently, my entire body is gored to the bone with cold. My teeth are chattering the way they do in cartoons, and I can hardly speak coherently for shivering. Yet again, if this were reality and not merely a reality show, I'd be dead by now.
Between takes, Tasha runs over with Diet Coke—the equivalent of my daily fifth of gin; used to get me going each morning and give my flagging spirits a fillip—and also a thick wool-lined jacket, which she drapes about my shoulders. “Th-th-thanks.”
“You're welcome.”
“Okay—action!”
On Jay's cue, the jacket is snatched away, Tasha scarpers out of shot, and I launch myself onto a bridge over a little stream and across what looks to be someone's vegetable patch, programming myself into character as I go, forcing my imagination to make believe that I really am stranded, alone and helpless, in one of the most inaccessible spots in the world. It's a tough act, especially when there's a crew of at least ten people standing not twelve feet away. And sixty feet beyond them is a roadside souvenir stand.
Word spread fast that a TV crew would be in the area today to capture the authentic look of a Berber village. Eager to turn this opportunity to profit, the highly enterprising locals sprang from their beds extra early to line the streets with fancy merchandise. Fancy and cheap, I should add. Rugs, baskets, beaded hats, bowls—the kind of gaudy knickknacks that only tourists would buy, and which doubtless go from here to their hotel, to their suitcase, to their home, to the back of a cupboard, and from there straight