A3627AMhollyw
Google
Years ago, a dear friend and I we were dining at the Palais Ronsard hotel on the outskirts of Marrakech. At the time, the hotel was brand new and only a handful of other guests were arranged with breathing room around the patio overlooking wide fountain pools adorned with fairly lights. While we were chain smoking beneath the slow fans, as one is so tempted to do in Morocco, a man approached our waiter with kind French words of good night and a palm pressed with a tip. He was a ruggedly handsome middle-aged American with strong hands and eyes the color of summer sky. The staff told us later that he was doing a solo motorcycle trip across the Sahara and back, spending wealth accumulated from some vaguely nefarious enterprise. The sun was setting and he was resplendent, gilded and tired and dusty. My friend and I sat riveted, studying, cigarette ashes growing long in the pause, the warm, golden hour sunlight kindling a breathless dampness, stunned. He didn’t look directly at us, two pretty ladies dressed for dinner and cocktails. Just a long, sideways glance into our ambient ether, which made it mysterious and heartbreaking and frothy. He simply turned and walked from the patio, out of sight, and indelibly imprinted upon my life. We sipped our champagne and smoked, wordlessly, sunglasses on, with a smile exchanged, both understanding that the Motorcycle Man from Marrakech had slipped through our fingers.||I still think about him sometimes.||Five stars.