Richard Galloway and Dally Rogers Margolis’s relationship

Richard Galloway and Dally Rogers Margolis’s relationship joins private intimacy to public performance: at Azna they appear together as hosts, yet their contrasting temperaments shape the world they build. Their parties depend on Dally’s exacting eye for spectacle and Richard’s broader, more measured command of the gathering. The partnership is both affectionate and asymmetrical, a shared enterprise in which each man’s strengths—and limitations—remain visible.

Intimacy and the shared role of host

At a late-night gathering, Richard and Dally sit nestled in each other’s arms while Hamid leads Jo to a chair nearby. The placement makes their intimacy part of the party’s scene without making it its center: the musicians perform on a sand stage, guests ring the spectacle, and Richard and Dally sit together beside a pitcher of lemon water. When Richard recognizes that the fire-eating is not Jo’s kind of entertainment, he gives her a reassuring look; Dally offers his hand. The moment shows them acting in concert as hosts, each responding to a different part of the social situation.

Their shared position is also visible in the way they welcome guests and present Azna. At one gathering, both wear matching dark cream djellabas and stand before the guests to thank them for traveling so far. Richard’s and Dally’s bodies, clothing, and hospitality are coordinated into a public image of joint stewardship. That image is not merely ceremonial: their guests move through restored rooms, courtyards, and gardens, while staff prepare drinks and tend the event. The couple’s intimacy and their authority as hosts occupy the same space.

A partnership made through elaborate hospitality

Dally’s specialty is the detailed arrangement of occasions. He organizes an annual picnic and worries over the particulars: strawberries in frosted, grape-patterned cups, crème fraîche, parasols carried by boys in white gloves, and whether dust will spoil the food. He sometimes loses sleep over these decisions. Richard, by contrast, is occupied with what the narrative calls the larger operations and is not much help with the picnic’s fine planning. Photographers prefer Dally in a straw hat on the walls or posing by the waterfalls, where his ease before the camera makes him the more photogenic of the two.

The distinction is especially clear when Dally organizes four jeeps for a picnic and poses in a djellaba for a photographer from the Times Style section. The planned caption turns the outing into a polished account of international revelers at Azna, with tea at Source des Poissons and a drive to Hadda waterfall. Dally directs the performance, while Richard appears as his friend and fellow host. The event’s public image depends on both men, but its details and publicity are conspicuously Dally’s work. Their partnership therefore distributes labor unevenly: Richard oversees broader arrangements, while Dally makes hospitality legible as a sequence of designed experiences.

The same division runs through the parties. Around the ruined ksour wall, staff struggle to arrange fairy lights in tamarisk trees to Dally’s specifications; when the electricity fails, they restart the generator and continue weaving bulbs through the branches. Tangerines wrapped with silver foil add another decorative touch. Later, guests find hot chocolate and bedtime drinks in the library, amid purposefully arranged rooms and furnishings. At the outdoor disco, Richard and Dally make majoun crackers and carefully rolled reefers readily available. The abundance is not incidental: the hosts deliberately cultivate a mood of indulgence, and the guests become collectively stoned. Their hospitality is an operation, not simply an invitation to share a meal.

Contrasting temperaments

Richard’s manner is defined by restraint. He smokes more slowly than the other guests and has learned from Moroccan lovers how to sleep, eat, rest, and smoke at a slower pace. He allows himself to settle into the local rhythm rather than becoming excited by the party. The narrative contrasts this practiced repose with Dally’s busy American nature, which Richard thinks interferes with spontaneity and leaves him hesitant. Even within their shared life at Azna, Richard sees a difference in what each man can absorb from the place.

Dally, meanwhile, is its energetic orchestrator. During the picnic preparations he calls to Hamid to get the guests into the cars smoothly because of the heat; Richard arrives dressed in Sunday best, his suede boots and cuff links marking an almost stubborn indifference to discomfort. Dally admires that quality in him. The gesture reveals affection as well as contrast: Dally notices Richard closely, while Richard’s quieter authority complements Dally’s attention to logistics and display.

Cooperation, tension, and narrative significance

Their partnership does not mean that they manage every consequence together or communicate everything openly. At the party, Richard thinks about Jo’s state of mind, cannot find her, and knows that David is driving through the desert. He also acknowledges to himself that he has lied to David, judging that David would not have gone without euphemisms. In the same passage, Richard watches the event’s progress but rarely intervenes directly. The contrast between his inward calculation and Dally’s visible orchestration suggests that their shared social world can look seamless while important decisions remain private.

Together, the men make Azna into a destination for affluent visitors: ruined fortified buildings coexist with new patios, elaborate rooms, staged performances, abundant food, and carefully managed access to intoxicants. The local staff’s work sustains the experience, while the parties and photo opportunities turn the place into something to be consumed and remembered. Dally’s meticulous staging and Richard’s slower, more controlled presence are complementary parts of that enterprise, but they are not interchangeable. Their relationship gives the spectacle its human center while also exposing its tensions: intimacy within the couple, calculated hospitality toward guests, and a sharp difference between Dally’s restless production of appearances and Richard’s cultivated repose.