The traveler stepped inside the Qaraine. Drowsy gloom seeped from scattered recesses of the ancient university, and the endless repetition of passages from texts by monotone voices freighted the air like a sour spice. As the man nosed around the courtyard, he recalled yesterday’s foray.

         On his first time into the medina the day before, he’d hired an official guide sporting a big brass name badge pinned to a pristine, pointy-hooded djellaba that he wore over a business suit. He’d been hovering solicitously near the doors of his hotel and the traveler had figured that, with 9400 alleys that made up the old medina in which to become lost, a guide would be an asset, one that would wring the most from his brief sojourn and perhaps gift him with places that were off limits to unescorted visitors.

Always impeccably polite and speaking English better than the traveler himself, the guide had instead taken him to one shop after the other, lingering outside while his friends turned up the pressure to buy armloads of trinkets and crafts—some exquisite and priced to reflect that, others gaudy to the point of embarrassment. The idea was as the traveler’s wallet thinned, the official, state-sanctioned guide would feel his billfold swell from the owner’s kickback—all this for only 150 dirhams and five hours of his life. Also naturally, the traveler refused to buy a single blue ceramic evil eye, not a hunk of greasy Frankincense. No, really, I don’t feel hungry. Not so thirsty, either. My back is much too sore to carry a life-size statue of Hassan II, but otherwise, I definitely would take it.

Where at first the guide had walked with measured steps, hands clasped behind his back in a manner that superficially resembled piety, by the time the traveler had finished with him his stride had lengthened alarmingly, and whenever the man paused to speak with a metal-maker unknown to the guide (or at least unliked by him; the man had the idea that there were few things that moved here that escaped his guide’s knowledge), the guide had discouraged lingering with sudden, sharp coughs in the ear, and devastating sighs each time a question was posed. When the traveler finally demanded to be returned to his hotel, the guide churned through crowds with his hands clenched painfully behind his back, cursing curious mules and the boys who led them, and leaping, froglike, over sleeping forms in the gutter.

Now, amid the quiet sanctuary, the traveler glanced outside the entrance vestibule. The little faux-guide sat on the ground opposite the door, his back against a crate of potatoes. He saw his client looking and made a shooing gesture with his small hand.

No hurry.

Revivified by the Qaraine, the traveler let the boy take him to the tanneries after all, and he skipped ahead as they walked together, dodging left and right to avoid being trampled by melancholy asses carrying cases of cola, black-and-white televisions, piles of bleeding sheep heads, and everything else that constituted life in the Arabic medina. They went down a main avenue, still far too narrow for a car, but wide enough for medina horses to get along. The boy’s voice was filled with patriotic pride as he told the traveler of these horses, which had been bred for centuries for their calm outlook on life, most of which was spent trotting through the slimy alleys wearing rubber horseshoes crafted from old car tires. He even stopped a young man and asked that he show the shoes. Although the horse was loaded with vegetables, he prodded it with a bony elbow until the animal raised its foot for the man’s inspection. After a moment, he lowered it and they continued on, side by side.