Among the Faithful (11 page)

Parting was blissfully easy. No hysterical pledges of life-long devotion, that generally make Arab leave-takings so tedious; these women simply took my hand and asked me to come again.

Babelhahj and I joined our friend in the café. Impressed with the quiet harmony in that home, I asked Kalipha if he thought I knew Babelhahj well enough to ask him his secret. Kalipha, amused, put the question without cogitation. Babelhahj seemed not at all displeased. ‘Well you see it's like this,' was his whimsical reply, ‘I tell Haleema in confidence, “An old love is like an old fez – it's comfortable.” And to Macboobah I say, “The love of a maiden is like jasmine over the ear.” Then each wife, believing that she is the favourite, can afford to be generous to the other!'

We have formed the habit lately of strolling out beyond the ramparts to the
fondook
just before sunset. It is good to get away from the racket. We sit on the stone ledge outside the little coffee-house and the profound stillness of sky and plain gather us in.

Tonight, Babelhahj and Sallah, a mutual friend, who were
promenading
along the road that skirts the city wall, strolled across to join us. Atop their slopes, strewn white with tombs, the Mosque of Sidi Arfah and Sidi Abdelli were hallowed silhouettes against the sun. The moon, like a pale petal, lay upon the sky, there was a ruddy light on the backs of the camels, a peach-bloom upon the ramparts. The women were already leaving the cemeteries; I could see their veiled figures, some black, some white, picking their way among the little domes.

While Kalipha and his friends talked together I amused myself watching the bread-man I see so often around the
fondook
. He is a short, amazingly sturdy, broad-bottomed fellow in prodigious green bloomers. His red moon face is humorous, and there is scarcely a tooth to his smile. The gaudy bandanna around his head is knotted in front and the ends, sticking up like horns, give him a decidedly jaunty air. Sallah, catching sight of him started to laugh; something he said made Kalipha and Babelhahj chuckle.
‘Sidi Makmood! Ya Sidi Makmood!
' shouted Kalipha, then turning to me he explained, ‘Attend! You are about to hear an amusing story. This Makmood is very droll!'

He stalked over to us – he walks like a prize-fighter – and cheerfully seated himself on the edge of a chair. He needed no coaxing to begin, but if he made his story brief, he apologized, it was because the sun was nearly gone. (Bread-stalls are busiest right after the sunset Call to Prayer.) In less than five minutes he left the men roaring. This was his tale.

He was the youngest of fourteen and he worked with his brothers in the fields. At noon one day he came back hungrier than usual. ‘
Ya Ummi!
' he called to his mother, ‘Is there something to eat?'

‘In the
kassar
,' she responded.

He uncovered the great bowl and found
erfeesah
, a pudding made of oily cake crumbled in the mortar, then mixed with dates and sugar.
He ate and he ate until he had eaten half the
erfeesah
. He was still hungry, but he clapped the cover upon the rest.

‘Well, my son, have you eaten?'

‘
Elhamdullah.
' Praise be to Allah.

‘Have you eaten enough?'

‘Well – I could have eaten more.'

‘Then go back, my little one, and satisfy your appetite.'

So back he went and finished the pudding, after which he stretched himself in a corner of the court and went to sleep. Presently his eldest brother returned. He, too, was ravenous, and Ummi referred him to the
kassar
. He lifted the lid. ‘Do you mock me!' he shouted, ‘the
kassar's
clean as if the cats had licked it!'

This is strange cried his mother, who came running. ‘Only the little one has eaten.'

So Makmood was aroused and forced to confess his knavery. He was contrite, but his brother was merciless. ‘You
eat
for fourteen; have you the
force
of as many?'

‘Yes!' retorted Makmood for the taunt roused his dander. He remembered that there were twenty bags of grain outside, and that three hands had been detailed to load them after lunch. ‘Come, I will show you!' Makmood marched into the yard, his brother following him.

Twenty hard stout sacks, their ears up, reposed in ranks against the wall. It would have taken two men to lift and pitch each bag. Makmood picked up the first, held it for a moment above his head, then hurled it into the cart. Lift-pause-heave, he had disposed of another. His brother stood watching him, nor made he any comment as sack after sack fell into position. When the last was loaded Makmood brushed his hands: ‘
Now
you see why I eat for fourteen?' His brother bent and saluted him with a kiss upon his forehead. Then taking a five-franc note he folded Makmood's fingers about it, saying with a smile: ‘Take the rest of the day off, and finish your dinner!'

Kalipha and I have our favourites among the
muezzins
, but I have a special fondness for the one that calls the prayer from the little mosque
across the street. From daybreak until dark he regulates my day, and during the night, in that dead hour before there is a footfall, before the chink of Hamuda's coffee-tins, even before the metallic
tank-tank
issues from the fry-shop on the corner, the sonorous voice of my
muezzin
awakens me. For twenty minutes or more he extols the perfection of Allah – leisurely, with long pauses, as if he had a great joy up there in the black sky with the white city spread in sleep below him. In the absolute stillness that disembodied voice – rich and resonant – reassures me like the cry of a night-watchman, and I go back to sleep, though I always mean to hear it to the end.

Late this evening we found ourselves in the vicinity of the Grand Mosque when it neared the time of the
Adan
. This quarter is assuredly one of the blackest, the single street-lamp as feeble as a glow-worm. We crossed the common and stood leaning against the wall, our eyes near the summit of the minaret. For some reason or other we spoke in whispers. Any moment a light would flash the signal to hundreds of
muezzins
in readiness on their dim towers. We hoped that the boy would be the one to give the Call. Above all the other voices,
perfunctory,
tired, sorrowful, vigorous, or serene, his shrill soprano soars, imperious as a challenge.

A couple passed within two feet of us, the white bundle walking, not before or behind, but with the man; decorum can relax on the
by-streets
. ‘What was she saying?' I whispered as they stepped under the light, and were presently swallowed by one of the lanes. She must have been returning from the baths, for Kalipha caught the remark: ‘I'll change to the other, where one is sure of hot water.'

I kept imagining that I saw a shape on the balcony. ‘It might be,' murmured Kalipha, ‘he waits ten minutes for his signal from below. Ah see!' It was the light. Then
‘Allah akbar!'
(Allah is great), breathed Kalipha. Another moment, the Call itself – not in the boyish shout, but the plaintive, sweet tones of an old man. Turrets, far and near, took up the exhortation, the heaven was filled with jagged music. The light continued to flicker, though the others be calling, each
muezzin
must see the signal. Near and far, turret by turret then, the sounds died to gossamer echoes as the
muezzins
turned to descend. The spark, above, went out.

Kalipha explained as we walked away that whatever you may be saying when the Call goes up must be received as gospel. ‘“Ah, you see,” a man can say, “I speak the
truth
!”' So many a dispute is settled by the intervention of the
muezzins.

T
HE ARABS ARE
totally destitute of feeling for animals. It is significant that they make no pets. A dog is a guard, no more; a cat catches mice and scorpions; pigeons are to keep the court clean of crumbs, while the donkey, his slender legs splayed under burdens that would break the back of a horse, his sides covered with scabs and sores, fiendishly branded with barbaric arabesques, expects and receives nothing but savagery. The other evening at the
fondook
two lank cows were driven past us at a gallop. I turned away, positively sick. ‘What's the trouble,' Kalipha asked blandly, my sensibilities being a source of endless wonder to him. ‘Is it because they are flogging those cows? But that doesn't matter,
ma petite,
they are on their way to the
slaughterhouse
.'

The day before yesterday the black cat had her kittens. There were four, but two were born dead, and the third ‘fell down the well'. Last evening when Mohammed brought up my supper I asked about the last one. ‘He's dead,' said Mohammed, setting the things on the table.

‘Oh how?'

Mohammed shrugged his shoulders. He had accidentally stepped on it.

‘Mohammed!'

‘Yes, it's a pity. But he was very little and the court was very dark.' Another shrug. ‘Oh well!'

Later Kalipha and Mohammed called for me and we walked along their street on our way to the Place Finou, a cool little common where we often spend the evening. Past their house, on a refuse heap at the
side of the road, a minute cat was crying piteously. It was crawling over the filth, with staring weak blue eyes. Father and son quickened their steps; I stopped.

‘But this is
your
cat – the one that died!'

‘Oh, leave it, leave it. It will die presently.'

For a few moments I walked on confused, then I began to be
furious
. They had never heard me talk so, but they took it in silence. Even to my own ears my voice, in the narrow street walled with stone dwellings, sounded enormous. At last Kalipha stopped and threw out his hands, ‘But what would you have me do!'

‘Go back, you wicked man, and put it out of its misery!'

They both flinched. Mohammed kept very still.

‘That I cannot do,' Kalipha confessed shamefacedly. We walked on. We had seated ourselves on the Place, our coffees were brought, and I was still going it. I think Kalipha was afraid I was going to make a scene, for he suggested, very gently, that I go back with Mohammed. So, setting down our cups, we returned the dark length of their street. As we approached the refuse, the little boy's steps lagged. There wasn't a sound. Hope flew into our hearts. At first I couldn't find it. But there it lay, no bigger than a mouse. I stooped to make sure it was dead, and it stirred. Mohammed fled shrieking up the street. The needle-piercing cries started up again. Passers-by began to gather, a tall boy was about to oblige me by stamping upon it, but I pushed him against the wall. (I can still see his look of amazement from the shadows.) Mohammed had come back, very tentatively. I put the cat in my handkerchief and sent Mohammed ahead to fill a basin with water.

Drowning a kitten sounds trifling, but may I never have to do it again! Fatma and Mohammed lurked about, ghost-ridden, as I prepared the washbasin. I wouldn't have believed it possible that a kitten, even now half dead, could make such a noise! My hands were shaking, but I locked my teeth and plunged him in. There wasn't enough water and his head kept struggling out of my grasp to emit a terrified shriek. Mohammed in the corner covered his ears and groaned. Fatma, tittering like a zany, handed me water from a distance. It was awful – that frantic struggle under my hand. I had to hold him down finally with a cloth. Bubbles kept coming to the surface. Bubbles, more
bubbles. Finally they stopped. ‘Is he dead?' whispered Mohammed. A prolonged silence, then again, ‘Is he dead?' After a few minutes more, we filed downstairs and emptied the basin upon the rubbish pile.

Kalipha's glance, as we came up, was a curious mixture of
amusement
, wonder, and respect. After a while, after he had made sure that I was again of sound mind, he ventured with a sly twinkle, ‘This night you have shown us that there is another side to your tongue.'

‘Yes,' Mohammed chortled, exuberant at the recollection, ‘and it is like a razor!'

Two months are gone and the
hahj
are returning. Welcoming crowds meet the trains with banners borrowed from the mosques, great glass lanterns borne upon heads and shoulders, tomtoms, tambours and pipes. We are told that we cannot expect Hahj Ali for another
fortnight
. Upon disembarkation, he joined a small party of zealots that proceeded to the
Kaabeh
on foot – a perilous journey over desert and mountain. They reached the Tomb eleven days after the others.

Kalipha came this morning to tell me that one of our
hahj
died on the voyage home. Kalipha knew him well, an elderly man who lived outside Kairouan in the gardens of Drat Tomar. The boat paused at a port only long enough for his son to take the body ashore and leave instructions for its burial. The womenfolk, who had received no word of his death, were among those at the station today. ‘Oh, how terrible for them!' I cried.

Kalipha shook his head, ‘No, my little one, it is not “terrible”; it was this good man's destiny. For a time the women will wail and scratch their faces, and we will pardon the weakness. But it is inestimable bliss to die while performing the pilgrimage. Would that it could be the lot of every Moslem!'

Last night I had an awful scare. It was late – almost midnight – and I sat working at my table. The street was alive with promenaders
enjoying
the air, deliciously cool for a few hours before dawn. I could hear Kalipha's voice; he and his friends were occupying one of the benches
against the ancient gate. I sat chewing the end of my pencil when, out of the tail of my eye, I saw something flick across the wall. I held up the light. There it was, motionless, a little curve of ivory with head upraised and jewel eyes. I almost dropped the lamp. ‘Kalipha! Kalipha!' I shouted from the window. ‘There's a scorpion in my room!' I dashed out to summon Ali. When I got back the thing had disappeared. Then I saw it on the window-frame. I tried to get it down with the
broomstick
and it whisked behind the wash-stand. As I prodded about I heard a tiny sound, an infinitesimal twitter, and it lipped across the floor, paused an instant beneath the bed, and vanished. Ali and Kalipha burst in with anxious faces. They set to work searching every crack and crevice. They shook the garments hanging on the door, they pulled the bed apart. Ali found it finally in a chink of the floor-tiles near the door. He held it up by the tail – it swinging frantically, eyes a-glitter – and the men had a good laugh. ‘That's not a
scorpion,
' cried Kalipha, ‘that's a harmless little lizard!' Ali shambled out with it to the terrace. ‘Tomorrow' Kalipha promised, ‘I will get you a cat. Then you need have no fear of scorpions.'

Sure enough, I have a cat – a leggy kitten, as black as a djinn. Kalipha objects to my calling him ‘Djinny': that would be inviting trouble. So until I decide on a name, it's ‘Kitty' or ‘Pussy.' Kalipha refers to him as ‘Kiddypussy,' so this may come to be his name.

Because I might forget, I must record this on the subject of
scorpions
: A few nights ago we were sitting outside the coffee-house at the far end of the market-place where we can look out upon the starlit plain. ‘Look' said Kalipha, startling me out of my reverie. He pointed to a low light creeping toward us from the direction of the
marketplace
.
‘Sidi Mohammed fait le bien!'
Now up, now down, nearer and nearer, the light searched the wall as it came. In its wake was an old man, with an antique lantern in one hand, in the other a giant pair of pincers. Behind him strolled a half-grown coloured boy with a long pin upon which had been transfixed at least a dozen scorpions. Tagging this ghoulish pair were the inevitable hangers-on.

This old gentleman, it seems, this searcher of walls by night, gave up a lucrative business in the
souks
some years ago to pursue scorpions. Along the ramparts, in the courtyards, through the coffee-houses, all
evening every evening during the summer, he travels so throughout the town.

‘But who pays him?' I asked incredulously.

‘Nobody. He does it simply for
le bien.'

‘But if he is, as you say, a poor man?'

‘Oh, this one gives him two sous, that one a franc, someone else fifty centimes, and many give him nothing.'

‘And that is how he lives?'

‘Yes, he has only himself. As he says, “A morsel of bread, a cup of coffee, and
hamdullah
!”' Kalipha kissed his hand and reverently touched his brow.

The little band had gone on, but they would pass our table on the way back. I was instructed to have a coin ready. Kalipha hailed them and they paused in the dazzle of their great lantern. Sidi Mohammed's restless eyes kept wandering over the wall in back of us as the coloured boy solemnly laid the pin across our table. It squirmed with a
thousand
crab claws and legs. Those scorpions were stunning, their jointed tails fashioned from exquisite jots of ivory.

The old hunter itched to be off, so I put my franc in trust with Sambo, and they moved on.

But this is not the only case of devotion to the public weal,
le bien.
Kalipha could cite many instances. He asked me whether I had noticed beneath my window a certain man who sits at the side of the road dispensing water from cans about him. All summer I have seen and heard that man.

He has a melodious but interminable chant, ‘Quench thy thirst in the name of the Almighty!' I have never seen him pocket a coin; he just sits there in his battered fez calling and handing up his little pots. Every other person accepts one, drinks, hands it back, and passes on. I had decided that it must be holy water from the Mosque of Sidi Okbah, an explanation that didn't altogether satisfy me.

‘He does that for
le bien
– that's all,' Kalipha assured me. ‘He has no parents, no wife, no children. One gives or does not give; it is all the same to him. He gains his loaf, his cigarettes, and a corner in the
fondook
– it is all that he requires. But Allah, He knows! It is certain that this man will be admitted into Paradise.'

Hahj Ali is home again! His son met the boat at Tunis, and on Thursday a telegram informed Kalipha that they would arrive in Kairouan on the
Jemma
, or Sabbath. Characteristically, Kalipha was all for a tremendous demonstration at the station. With the telegram in his hand, he rushed out to inform the family and round up a crowd. He was terribly crestfallen to find that the Hahj's closest friends, without exception, advised against an ostentatious welcome. Kalipha was also very much disgusted. ‘No tom-toms, no pipes, no songs!
Mon dieu,
it will be like a
Roumi
funeral!' He had half a mind to go ahead with his plans, but Abdallah finally succeeded in persuading him that such a display would be discomfiting to the serious Hahj Ali. So decorum was reluctantly decided upon. A selected group would meet the train at noon and quietly conduct Hahj Ali to his mosque.

On the morning of the
Jemma,
Jannat, her small grand-daughter Bayia, Mohammed, in his best tasselled fez, and I went to the home where the women were preparing the traditional dish, the
asséedah.
There was no mistaking the house. Red ochre and whitewash proclaimed it to be the dwelling of a
hahj.

The court was a spangle of colours; vivid headkerchiefs, velvet bodices, holding high and partially exposing the breasts, long white pantaloons, and striped hip-scarves. Children, like so many imps, darted about getting slapped and screeched at by their
ummis
who were making infinitely more noise as their fingers flashed against their teeth in
zaghareet
, the melodious but piercing joy-cries.

We were taken first into the dark kitchen-cubby, dense with acrid wood-smoke. On an improvised hearth of stones sat a cauldron filled to the brim with white mush. It was heaving and sucking ponderously. A woman was stirring it, her purple
takritah
was damp with sweat, for it took all her strength to force the pole through the pudding. From time to time she wet the top of it so that a crust should not form, and when it lopped over the rim as it boiled she whisked it back with her hand. The women were taking turns at the stirring for the blessing it insured.

Jannat mingled with her friends in the court. Mohammed went tearing around with the other hoodlums and Bayia, who kept a firm
hold on my dress, watched them with solemn eyes. Evidently, this was not Bayia's idea of a good time, so we strolled into one of the rooms and sat ourselves down in a flock of little girls. They resembled a collection of heathen dolls, their hands and feet stained the
yellow-red
of henna; their foreheads, arms and fingers elaborately stencilled in black. They were chattering like the sparrows in the pepper trees at sundown. It was not long before Bayia and the child next to her were comparing their ornamented hands. I've no doubt that Bayia was very envious, because while most of them were miniature editions of their mothers, her friend had on a European dress – a hideous pink thing – and instead of the kerchief, her braided hair was stuck about with small blue bows that simply wouldn't stay on.

The room was packed with women, the bed – a high, canopied shelf – accommodated at least ten of them. They were chewing loban, a resinous gum, or snipping the toasted seeds of pumpkin. And babies! I counted sixteen, but I'm sure there were more. Drab mites, all apparently born at the same moment, all remarkably alike, and remarkably ugly!