What the hell was a jazz buff, an avid fan of le jazz hot doing with a collection of classical records only, and the baroque classicists, at that? Naturally, I wondered who “Marina” was too. I also found a collection of pipes. Karminian was apparently a pipe-smoker and, like so many pipe-smokers, a mild collector of pipes. He also had a good stock of liquor in a cabinet and I fixed myself a good, cold martini for lunch.
The rest of the apartment turned up nothing I could determine as of importance. I decided to follow up some of the leads Aggie had given me, starting with Yussif ben Kashan, the rug dealer.
The medina or Arab quarter of Casablanca was a teeming, jostling, overcrowded, colorful place. It also smelled of too many people crowded into too little space, of a variety of foods being sold at hundreds of little stands. In the medina it seemed that every day was souk day, the market a continuous, bustling affair.
I threaded my way past robed women and tourists, djellaba-clothed men and those in western business suits. I passed a woman selling harira, hot soup being boiled in huge iron kettles and others cooking mechoui, a kind of Moroccan cookout of mutton grilled over hot embers.
Rugs, copper, brass, leather and glassware were hawked from hundreds of brightly colored little booths and tents. I was jostled, pushed and squeezed out of shape by the crowds at some spots and over everything was the din of voices raised in bargaining and arguing, the only accepted manner of doing business in Morocco.
I managed to ask around and learned that Yussif ben Kashan was not one of the itinerant merchants who came to the medina. He had a store, an establishment of permanence which I finally located. It was a wooden hole in the wall hung with colorful Moroccan carpets.
I saw those from the mountains of the Middle Atlas woven in hues of beige, russet and brown. Those from the Chicaqua of the High Atlas range were of flaming scarlet and ochre and the Saharan rugs were muted reds, whites and blues. The linear designs and motifs were reminiscent of those of the South American Indians.
Yussif ben Kashan, I quickly learned, was not only a rug dealer but a human guidebook to the pleasures of the medina. He bowed as I entered, his tarboosh, the traditional red fez, dipping almost to the ground. He wore a serwal with babouches on his feet, the soft, ornately embroidered Moroccan slipper.
“Salaam,” he said, his face soft and round and cherub-like. He sported a little pot belly to match. “You have come to gaze upon my beautiful rugs?”
“Salaam,” I answered. “The rugs are indeed magnificent, but I come to Yussif ben Kashan for other reasons.”
His small eyes narrowed for an instant and his round little face broke into a smile.
“Ah! You seek the pleasures of the medina,” he oozed.
“Girls, of course. One? Or two? Or perhaps many? Perhaps eunuchs as soft and sweet as girls?”
I held up my hand to turn him off. “No, no,” I interjected, finding a space in his rush of words. “I am looking for someone and I was told you might know of his whereabouts. I seek the man named Karminian.”
“Karminian?” Yussif ben Kashan’s eyes widened. “Oh, indeed I know him. He came to Yussif ben Kashan for many pleasures. He was a man of many sensual tastes, one of the greatest. He sometimes came with pretty women, sometimes alone but always to have me find the most unusual the quarter has to offer in the way of erotic delights.”
And that, I said to myself, would be pretty damned unusual I’d wager. “Do you know where Karminian might be staying?” I asked, trying to sound more concerned than determined.
The rug dealer shrugged. “At the end of this street there is a right turn that ends at a small house in the center of a small djenina,” he said. “Go there and speak to Fatasha the Berber woman. Karminian often spent days there.”
The rug dealer paused and smiled, more to himself than to me. “With Fatasha, it is a place to spend days.”
“Soukran,” I said, thanking him. “I am indebted to your graciousness. I am staying at Karminian’s apartment. If you hear anything more about him, please call me there. I will be happy to pay for good information.”
I wrote the phone number on a scrap of paper which he carefully tucked into a trouser side pocket. In case I didn’t uncover Karminian at this Berber woman’s house, the bait of information money would attract ben Kashan, I was sure.
“May your search be successful,” he said, bowing low as I went out the door.
“Inch’Allah,” I answered, going out into the broiling sun again.
I followed the narrow street, pushing my way through hordes of people, turned right at the end and came to the small house set back in a small garden. The doorway was open and I stepped inside. It was cool and darkened with drawn blinds shutting out the sun. I stood still for a moment and was about to call out when from inside a draped archway, a woman stepped forth.
She was tall, wearing a jeweled bra and ballooned turkish trousers with ornate babouches. Loose, hanging black hair gave her high cheek-boned face a somewhat wild appearance. She had a prominent nose and wide mouth. Huge, bronzed earrings and a jewel in the center of her forehead added to her bizarre appearance. The jeweled bra strained to keep in huge, pendulous breasts.
Bizarre and wild as she appeared, there was an air of unvarnished, animal sensuality to the woman as she regarded me, hands on hips, with the quizzical stare of a woman for whom there are no more surprises.
“Salaam,” I said. “Yussif ben Kashan sent me to see you.”
A brilliant grin suddenly erupted and she showed a set of flashing, white teeth. Nodding for me to follow, she slipped through the curtained archway. I went on in and found myself surrounded instantly by a bevy of excited, chattering little girls.
I guessed they ranged from 11 to 14 years of age and they were completely naked, clustering around me, pushing and thrusting their nubile bodies forward. Their bodies were slender, light to dark brown and really very beautiful in their fresh, flowering loveliness, and I was reminded that the ancient Greeks thought a woman was at her most beautiful when she was 12 to 14, boyish and yet feminine, not immature and not mature.
I felt their hands on my body, running up and down my arms and legs, feeling the hardness of my muscled frame, and their chattering grew louder and more appreciative. Their pubescent, nymph-like beauty was enhanced by the unmistakable sensuality of their motions. One leaned back against a small table and spread her legs to apparently show me how close to virginal she was.
Fatasha was an erotic mother hen, grinning proudly.
“You like, aye?” she said. “They all yours. You have good time here at Fatasha’s. You find these girls make you go very high.”
“Hold it, hold it,” I said. “I only came to ask you some questions.”
“You ask questions?” She frowned, a dark cloud seemingly enveloping her face.
I thrust a dollar bill at her.
“Here, for your time,” I said. “I look for the man Karminian. I was told he might be here at your house.”
The money helped to assuage her hurt feelings at my turning down her choice offerings.
“Karminian is not here,” she said a little gruffly.
“When did you last see him?”
“A week, maybe few days more,” she answered. That helped to nail it down a little. He was around and alive as recently as a week ago.