at the entrance threshold of Bab Souk, a vaulted stone gate barely four meters wide, its keystone arch worn smooth at the shoulders, blue-painted wooden stalls folded shut on either side, the medina street beyond visible as a bright slot of white light against the gate's deep shadow — paused just inside the arch, head turned toward the bright slot of the street beyond — not yet committed to entering, weight still on the back foot
The reference in that 2011 book was four lines. A neighborhood name, a street orientation, a note about the architecture predating the Portuguese period. I'd photographed the page in Busan without knowing when I'd use it. Years of the image sitting in my camera roll, and then yesterday I finally did something about it.
I left the riad early, before the decision about a layer was necessary. Just the top and the skirt. Bab Souk first, briefly — I had no real business there, only the habit of starting somewhere I could orient from.
A narrow alley of deep indigo-blue walls — not postcard blue, decades-settled — converging upward to a strip of clear sky, worn stone steps rising
The Andalusian quarter announces itself slowly. The alleys run against everything else. The houses are taller, the walls a deeper register of blue — not the blue on postcards, not the blue that gets described. Something closer to indigo where the shade has settled for decades without anyone refreshing it. The kind of color that looks like it cost something.
on worn stone steps ascending through the Andalusian quarter, the risers uneven and darkened at their centers, indigo walls rising on both sides to a narrow band of clear sky above, a single rusted iron bracket on the right wall holding nothing — seated on a middle step, pulling the overshirt from her bag — the fabric mid-air, not yet on, one sleeve still inside out
I found the overshirt at the bottom of my bag on the steps going up. Put it on. The light there changes what fabric does with it.
There was a doorway. Residential, clearly occupied — a worn threshold, a sound somewhere behind the wood. The shadow it threw onto the opposite wall was the thing. An irregular edge, the shape of something assembled by time rather than design. I photographed the shadow. Just the shadow.
I stayed there until I started to feel the forty minutes in my feet.
Later, in the back streets off Outa el-Hammam, the light was dropping. The kitchen smell arrived before the street did — exhaust and something rendered, animal fat, something sweet underneath. I moved toward it out of reflex. There was no stall. Just a window, a woman at it, a smell that went on past what I could locate.
A shallow clay bowl of slow-cooked lamb with rendered fat pooling at the rim, something sweet underneath — honey or dried fruit — steam just visible
A child crossed the alley without looking at me. The shadow of a drying sheet moved.
in a back street off the main square, a compressed lane of whitewashed plaster gone grey at the bases, a single small window high on the left wall showing warm tungsten light inside, a drying sheet strung diagonally overhead across the lane casting a moving shadow below as the evening air stirs it — stopped walking, face turned toward the lit window above — the kitchen smell has arrived ahead of her, and she is reading it before she understands it
What she wore
day5-scene1
I left the riad before eight with just the tank and the skirt because the morning was already warm enough and I didn't want to make a decision about a layer while I was still half asleep.
day5-scene2
I found the overshirt in my bag at the bottom of the steps — put it on when I moved into the Andalusian quarter, not because I was cold but because the light there changes and I wanted something that absorbed it differently.
day5-scene3
By the time I was in the back streets off Outa el-Hammam the light was dropping and I'd switched the mini for the slip skirt — it photographs the shadow better, honestly, which was all I was looking for by then.