Interview in an Opium Den – Pickpockets in Morocco

In a dim, smoky opium den, we faced the backlit profile of the Moroccan pickpocket. He barely looked at us, concentrating instead on our interpreter. Steaming glasses of sweet mint tea sat before us, packed with fresh leaves of brilliant green. Bob waited to sip his tea until I was half finished with mine—to see if I keeled over, I imagined.

We had come to the medina in Tangier in search of a pickpocket, and our hired guide had found him. Al’alla was hunched over a newspaper at the front table in the cave-like café, the only spot within bright enough for reading. After ushering us into chairs and ordering our tea, our guide and translator, Ma’halla, spoke in rapid Arabic to Al’alla: “Don’t say a word of English, my friend. Let me do all the talking. Just answer my questions in Arabic and we’ll both have money for the smoke tonight.” Well, he could have said that; but it soon became clear that Al’alla had been a skilled pickpocket in his day.

Questions tumbled eagerly from Bob, but Al’alla was no easy subject. Perhaps embarrassed by his miscreant days, he skittered and skirted the core of his story. Bob prodded, encouraged, and teased until he finally found the appropriate tool for extraction. With the glibness of a talk-show host and the sincerity of a confidence man, he proffered the camaraderie and respect of a colleague. Bob’s disingenuous smile and elegant canards came effortlessly, as if from a spurious rogue. Al’alla relaxed and, perhaps followed suit.

Pickpockets in Morocco

Al’alla had honed his talent as a child in Tangier, then traveled to Barcelona for the big time. It was the sixties, and while Tangier reveled in flower power and hippie freedom, its drugs were routed to Europe through Spain. Al’alla found picking pockets far more lucrative and infinitely safer than drug trafficking. People carried cash then, not plastic, and naiveté in travelers was more prevalent than sophistication.

On La Rambla, Barcelona’s broad and proud promenade, people strolled like clots through an artery. Kiosks of birds, flowers, and newspapers crowded the avenue. Parrots squawked, pigeons cooed, fragrances of cut lilies and hot paella wafted on the air—it’s still like that today. No one suspected the darting figure of a well-dressed gentleman, so obviously in a hurry, as he ricocheted off the moving mob.

Al’alla in his 50s still had a handsome face, though its several scars suggested a rough past. He was small and wiry with delicate hands. His soft-spoken manner and gentle composure alluded to the pretender’s persona he got away with in his furtive past. Today he worked as an electrician, and his handful of tools lay on the table as we spoke.

I’d been more than a little worried when Ma’halla first led us through the bewildering high-walled alleys of the old city. It wasn’t long before I realized we’d never find our way out alone. Was the medina really this big, or was Ma’halla confusing us with tricky detours? We lost all sense of direction.

The busy souk, with its colorful stalls of spices, brass pots, and rugs, gave way to vegetable sellers who sat on the ground shelling peas, defeathering hens, stripping mint leaves. Then there were only blind alleys, closed doors, and the occasional Arab hurrying past in his long, sweeping djellabah.

Ma’halla was not particularly savory: his face, too, was scarred, and the few teeth he possessed were red with rot. Big and muscular, he wore a cap pulled low over his bloodshot eyes. His English was good though, and he exuded a wary confidence that suited his mission.

The unnamed café was a hang-out for small-time crooks and drug addicts. A few strung-out characters packed their pipes behind us as the proprietor boiled water in a kitchen smaller than a tollbooth. We could have been on the set of Midnight Express, but for the frightening reality of a potentially drugged drink.

As our chat segued into demonstration, a few of the other patrons emerged from their stupors and shuffled near. Bob did a little close-up magic to lighten the mood, and it had an unexpectedly huge effect. Magic as entertainment had not been overdone in Morocco. The men watched one crumpled napkin become two; then a bit of ash moved mysteriously from one man’s hand to his other. Eyes were wide. Bob burned a cigarette right through the front of a man’s robe, and it left no hole. The men looked at each other, then chuckled uncomfortably. Bob stepped back, indicating the floor was open for someone else’s demonstration.

Finally, Al’alla showed his old hip pocket technique, remarking how very much like riding a camel it was—one never forgets how. His light-fingered lift was a new one to us, a sort-of two-step process accomplished in the blink of an eye. With two fingers outside the pocket the wallet was raised; the thumb and forefinger immediately plucked its exposed edge. Praise was offered all around.

Now another man became involved, also named Ma’halla. He emerged from the depths of the den with an unassuming assurance, as if he felt it his duty to show how things are really done. The two Ma’hallas and Bob and I adjourned to a narrow alley where I was permitted to videotape Ma’halla #2 as he performed his interpretation of the wallet-steal on Bob.

I’m looking through the viewfinder filming Bob’s back as he walks away from me. All our gear hangs on my shoulder. Scary Ma’halla is behind me so as not to block my view. I’m all ears. I’m trying to focus, to follow take two. Was that the sound of a switchblade? A shadow flits over me and I flinch, ruining the take. Looking up, I see it’s just a thin man in a djellabah dragging a little boy. “No photos,” he says gruffly, hurrying past.

Finally, we’re finished. We returned to the café to thank Al’alla, who was bent over his newspaper again. He rose, as if to shake hands.

Suddenly, Al’alla gave a little hop and collided into Bob with a gentle force. He began to laugh idiotically, raising and lowering his head while he threw one arm around Bob’s back and clamped his shoulder in a friendly manner. His feet were dancing and shuffling, knocking into Bob’s foot and wrapping around his calf.

Bob had braced himself at the first instant of Al’alla’s “attack,” but he didn’t resist the peculiar, intimate behavior. Al’alla continued his rollicksome moves for a few seconds, then gave a great forward kick in the air as a final flourish, and stepped away from Bob.

Was that a Moroccan farewell?

Bob fearlessly swigged the last of his mint tea and waved good-bye. Half a dozen hands were raised in return, pale reflections of light in the depths of the dark opium den.

I was definitely ready to get out of the medina and lose our unsavory company. We followed our guide through an unfamiliar maze. This was not the way we’d come in. We trudged on single-file, first Ma’halla, then Bob; I followed, recalculating the risks. My shoulders were tense with the perception of continuous threat. Would he lead us into a desolate corner and rob us now? Abruptly turn and brandish a jeweled dagger like those in the shop windows? How did we end up lost and alone with this bulky, menacing Moroccan?

When we finally emerged, blinking, into the sunny square beyond the city walls, we slumped a bit with relief. We still had our cameras, not to mention our skins, intact. Ma’halla grinned, but it looked like a leer.

“This from Al’alla,” he said, holding out Bob’s prop wallet. “He name-ed that dance rugby-steal.”

The perils of Ma’halla, I realized, were all in my head. This rotten-toothed, shifty-eyed, nonviolent thug had fulfilled our eccentric request and protected us from the raging dangers which lurk in the nooks and crannies of my own mind.

We paid Ma’halla double the agreed fee.

Learn how Al’alla’s “rugby steal” became the “Ronaldinho” steal used in Barcelona today.

Excerpt from Travel Advisory: How to Avoid Thefts, Cons, and Street Scams
Chapter Five: Rip-Offs: Introducing…The Opportunist