A city to dye for

MAGAN'S WORLD Manchan Magan on a Moroccan highlight

IT'S THE claustrophobia of Fez that makes it so special, the fact that you're always a bit unsettled, that it's all a bit too intense for comfort.

The first time I was there a man put his arm around the girl I was with and pulled her off down an alleyway - a Moroccan man, tall but with a bad stoop and a frayed collar that pushed against his hairline. I followed in a panicked run, but it was hard to keep sight of them as he steered her through an onslaught of identical stalls with a dozen seemingly identical carpet-sellers, each sitting on an identical intricately-woven pouffe.

I tried to call out, but my words got lost in the labyrinth of lanes spiralling out in each direction. The place had the appearance of a refractive vortex, with sun flooding into haphazard spots in a mottled way. In tiny niches carved into the mud walls, children and women sat weaving cloth with their fingers and toes.

Finally, in what must have been the poultry section of the market, judging by the slime of feathers and chicken gunge on the ground, I heard the man say to her: "Come quickly, it's this way." But, looking around, all I could see were bamboo crates and scrappy panniers stuffed with squawking ducks and chicks.

I caught sight of them rounding a corner and tried to grab at her, but she was being pulled along by the man. She glanced back at me but with more bemusement than concern on her face.

He made a sharp turn down a lane by a kebab-vendor who was roasting skewered chicken wings on a smouldering brazier. I lost sight of them for a moment, until I saw a door swing back into its frame at the end of the alley. I rushed towards it. Inside, he was waiting for me.

"Come," he said, "you are too slow. Upstairs now." He pointed to the far wall where a series of steps were notched into the adobe. "Up there?" my friend asked. He nodded, and she started skipping up, taking two steps at a time. We rose through a house, the steps becoming narrower as we went until suddenly we were on a flat roof. The man shoved sprigs of mint under our noses, telling us to be sure not to breathe in.

I resisted him at first but then registered the stink and was suddenly glad of the mint. I could feel my stomach heaving; it was almost overpowering. Below us a series of enormous round vats had been hollowed out of the earth, each filled with a different brilliantly coloured liquid. Men were teetering on the edges of the vats, carrying mounds of animal skins on their shoulders that were dripping with the different colours. Mainly reds: ox blood, ruby, cochineal.

It was the intensity of them that made the scene so startling. The man explained that the colour came from poppy petals. There were other shades, too, made from mint, cedar and cinnamon. The smell was from a different series of vats, which were filled to the brims with a shocking white liquid of lime and pigeon guano and the urine and brains of various animals. These vats were used to strip the hides of grease and flesh and hair, the man explained. Men were standing knee-deep in them, scraping the skins with blades.

"Let's get out of here," I said, leading my friend back down the stairs and handing the man some money to get rid of him. He handed me back the money, saying that all he had wanted was to show us the highlights of his city. Chastened, I thanked him and made to leave. "Now that you are here," he said, "maybe you like look at my cousin's leather shop?"

© 2008 The Irish Times

This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times