Among the Faithful (19 page)

The first night of another Ramadan. After supper Kalipha and the two Mohammeds attended the service at the Great Mosque, Abdallah was out with his tea. If his small blue pot were as big as a cauldron it could not quench the Ramadan thirst of his clients. We stay-at-homes felt something of the cordial spirit abroad in the world of men. Even though we sat in our accustomed places, doing the same things we had done all winter, there was a pleasant difference. The night was subtly marked for enjoyment: unexpected nice things could happen, but even if they didn't, the evening would not be stereotype or humdrum. In mellow mood, we waited confidently for the curtain to go up.

When I handed Eltifa her cigarette, Ummulkeer roguishly held out her hand for one too. Her devilishness was hailed with shocked
laughter
. The curtain had lifted. We were too keen for the show to offer more than the faintest discouragement. The children jumped and squiggled with excitement. When we had all promised that we
wouldn't
breathe a word of her caprice to the men, Ummulkeer put the
cigarette
to her lips and took a deep-chested pull. Her prankish sparkle changed to a startled look and at about the fourth pull her eyes went
vague, visionary. She sank back against the wall and began to mutter and moan, tossing dreamily from side to side as if to the tom-toms. ‘Sidi Heshmi! It is Sidi Heshmi!' screamed the children beginning to caper. Laughing, almost as excited as the children, Eltifa and Kadusha hitched close to Ummulkeer in an effort to make out what she was saying. ‘Her djinn husband, Sidi Heshmi!' Kadusha explained to me with a wise smile. ‘The smoke is arousing him!' It was the first I knew that Ummulkeer had a djinn husband. To my astonishment I learned that she had had him for years! Sidi Heshmi was being greeted by all with an elaborate deference, but with a happy warmth, too, that proved him a confirmed favourite. ‘Tell him welcome, Sherifa!' Eltifa cooed, ‘Say “Welcome in the great name of Ullah!”' which I did.

His weird gibberish, bubbling from the mouth of Ummulkeer, puzzled them excessively. Only now and then a word or a phrase was distinguishable, as for instance when she had smoked the cigarette to within half an inch of the tip we caught the word ‘cigaro'. She was relieved of the hot butt, yet the ‘cigaros' persisted with plaintive frequency till I lit her another. When Kadusha tried playfully to take the cigarette out of her hand Ummulkeer cowered, whimpering like an injured idiot.

Sidi Heshmi was asked all manner of questions: Where is Sallah Kablutie? When will he return? Will their carpet sell? His enigmatic replies made no more sense than the lingo from which they were disentangled. It needed Abdallah to interpret such cryptic utterances as ‘The water was up to his waist', ‘Hot', ‘Seven', ‘Under the millstone, Y'Sidi!' With everything Eltifa and Kadusha could think of they endeavoured to placate him and bribe him back to slumber. But Heshmi would have none of their pomat, their orange-blossom water and benjoin. It was clear to me, at least, that he was getting what he wanted; Ummulkeer, smoking for the first time in her life, was having a glorious time!

The youngsters were taking full advantage of her trance, romping and yelling as they never do when she is in command. Yet, despite their wild antics Ummulkeer was almost successful in retaining that faraway look. It was funny, though, when Hedi knocked over the lamp to see her make a wild grab for it! I thought the game was up. A suspicion –
just the shadow of a suspicion – that she was shamming entered the minds of the women. They merrily reproached her and teased her to admit that she was only fooling. Poor Ummulkeer, looking terribly embarrassed, sank back and took refuge in her unearthly mutterings. It worked, too. Every vestige of doubt instantly vanished!

She was on her third cigarette when Abdallah darted into the house on an errand and was called upon to appease the visitor. As busy as he was tonight, he came in, looking very much amused. Crouching before Ummulkeer he welcomed Sidi Heshmi with that beguiling politeness usually reserved for the very old and small children. After a few
courteous
inquiries, and just before he seized his tea-pot and popped out of the door, he gave Ummulkeer a sound swat on her behind!

She revived with remarkable suddenness. We were all laughing but not, it appeared, over the same thing. The others were laughing with joy that Ummulkeer was restored to them. As for answering their eager questions she hadn't the slightest idea what they were talking about, simply had no recollection of anything that had happened after she had put the cigarette to her mouth. Her face was blank innocence while they enlightened her. ‘Did I say that!' she marvelled. ‘Then what did I do?' She was as bashfully delighted by our teasing as a girl who has entertained her first beau. Curious as to what she would say, I slyly suggested that if smoking did that to her …

‘But it was not the cigarettes!' she hastened to assure me. ‘By the Prophet, Sherifa! By thy dear head, I swear it was not the cigarettes!'

‘Oh, no!' Kadusha flew to her support. ‘Not the cigarettes! It was because she did not dance on the night of the
fokkarah
.'

‘But Ummulkeer did dance!' I exclaimed. ‘She was dancing with you out there in the court.'

‘Ah
that
!' the girls smiled, shaking their heads. That wasn't the same; she should have danced right up close to the drums. They did not explain why she hadn't.

I
T WAS BARELY SEVEN O’CLOCK
, but our donkeys could scarcely make their way along the streets and through the teeming bazaars. From fry-shops, coffee-houses, and food-stalls voices hailed us above the din. ‘May thy morning be light unto thee!’

‘May thy morning be blessed!’ ‘May the peace of Allah go with thee!’ The whole town seemed to know that Kalipha, Mohammed and I were bound for Elmetboostah.

Word had reached us that Sidi Farrah had recently been appointed sheik of his
douar
. As soon as he heard the news, Kalipha rushed off to hire donkeys: we must go at once, the very next day, to felicitate our friend on his appointment.

We wove our way across the roaring market-place, devoted at this hour to the traffic in camels, then an arched gate through the ramparts let us out at last upon the plain. The impact of the silence was deafening. The air was soft, vaporous, marvellously transparent; the low blue hills to the left had stepped boldly forward and figures at some distance on the road stood out with the precision of objects seen through a stereoscope. On either side of the road the scattered cemeteries lay as calm as snow upon the slopes of their mosques, here and there a veiled figure moved among the little domes. Now, from afar off, we could hear the wailing chant of mourners – of bedouins that during the night had brought their dead for burial in the consecrated earth of Sidi Abdelli. Kalipha caught the burden of their dirge and began to drone,
‘Yowleedy, yowleedy!
My son, O my son! Proud wert thou as the son of many sultans, thy approach was like a banner, thine was the strength of a camel, where is he that could equal thy prowess? Who
will bring in the beasts now,
yowleedy
? Who will give them to drink?’ The threnody trailed off into a long, heartbroken wail.

‘There is no strength or power but in Allah,’ murmured Kalipha. Then quite cheerfully he said, ‘Ah yes, my friend, to Allah we belong and to Him we must return!’ The thought of being dead on such a morning might have sobered us had the sun been less warm, the sky less blue. The almond trees in the garden of Drat Tomar were blossoming, azure wind-flowers made mosaic of the grass and from the sky a lark spiralled its pure song. Mohammed, always in the lead, began to sing at the top of his voice. Much persuasion had been necessary to induce Sidi Hassein to release his young apprentice for our expedition. The swing of the tassel on Mohammed’s fez, the lively jig of his heels against his donkey’s sides proclaimed his jubilance.

The gardens behind us, we were crossing the plain in good earnest. The air smelled succulent and green like the rind of water-melon, the bland April sun smiled upon the broad earth – it was good to be alive and bound for Elmetboostah! At long intervals a ‘caravan’ of itinerant farmers passed. The camels in the lead bore the menfolk, then the donkeys, festooned with mill-stones, chickens, looms, antediluvian plough, sickles, and earthenware. The women, their babes secured to their hips or backs, trudged in the rear belabouring the donkeys. There was always the same hearty exchange of greeting, ‘May thy path be broad!’ ‘And thine twice as broad!’ Sometimes a dark mound between us and the horizon bespoke a bedouin encampment, then, for stretches, it would seem as if we were the only living creatures upon the
bled
.

Mohammed continued to trip ahead at the same jaunty pace, but Kalipha and I, quite early in the journey, had discovered that we were mounted less fortunately. By eleven o’clock Kalipha was having to whack and villify his Gris-Gris to keep him even in motion, while no curse was horrible enough, no switch sufficiently sharp to induce my Modestine to exceed the gait of a snail. I was starved, my thighs ached, and a loathing of donkeys consumed me. Kalipha’s swarthy face had gone black, his voice from strenuous usage had become a kind of croak. We were toiling along like mutes on the way to a funeral, when suddenly Kalipha brandished his walking-stick and began to bawl,
‘Turn to the right! To the right!’ Far ahead Mohammed stopped, waited in doubt. I scanned the landscape for some particularity that might have served as guidepost. The road ran undeviatingly before us and, to the right and to the left of it, there was no path, no single track, not even a cactus clump to relieve the boundless monochrome. What monstrous caprice, then, was this? ‘But Kalipha,’ I wailed, for my spirit wilted at the prospect of travelling a single yard in the wrong direction. ‘Shut up!’ he barked. There was something Jovian about Kalipha’s wrath. His curling black moustaches that at all times belied his good heart with an aspect of the most confirmed villainy, bristled dangerously.

In the meantime Mohammed, gesticulating, shouting, still blissfully unaware of the storm, invited the full force of it upon his head. Kalipha began to bellow like a demented bull. ‘To the right! Thou idiot! Thou pig! To the right! And a curse upon her that bore thee!’ It seemed as if his lungs must burst, but the mystified Mohammed did not budge. ‘Thou dog! Thou base-born blockhead! A bane upon thy religion! May the dogs defile the grave of thy forefathers!’ With each awful oath he spat his contempt. Even Mohammed’s reluctant approach did not stem Kalipha’s frenzy. He smote his brow, he seized his fez and flung it from him, he beat upon his breast, and in a voice that shook with fury invoked the eye of Allah upon a worthless son.

Mohammed joined us with uncompromising dignity. ‘Make an end, Sidi, in all the sacred names of Allah!’ he cried out at last and, after he had recovered his father’s fez, we set off across the plain in the wake of Kalipha’s intuition. Kalipha, ahead, still wrestled with his ‘djinn’, behind me Mohammed showed every symptom of having been affronted beyond redress – of all mortals we were the most miserable and, that our mortification might be complete, the dry earth was wrinkled and cracked and the somnolent donkeys kept stumbling, to the peril of our necks. ‘Take care!’ Kalipha commanded over his shoulder, ‘Look, do as I do!’ We looked – in time to see a confounding tangle of hoofs and heels, a downfall of objects, as Kalipha and his Gris-Gris performed a complete somersault! Mohammed was on his feet before I had come to my senses. Breaking into loud wails, he ran toward the motionless heap. I hastened up – at the most maddening saunter – but
Mohammed’s tear-smudged face neither confirmed nor dispelled the dread that possessed me.

Like limb-locked lovers the fallen lay, the incorrigible Gris-Gris was sound asleep, while Kalipha,
sans
fez, slippers, walking-stick, and basket, was beet-red and helpless with what might be either mirth or convulsions. ‘Look,’ he choked, ‘do as I do!’ Our relief, thereupon, found vent in the most immoderate laughter, from which we rallied only to be seized with fresh paroxysms.

Things went better after that. Gris-Gris’ downfall had a rousing effect upon the donkeys and laughter had limbered us. By way of peace offering, Kalipha explained, rather sheepishly, that it had been a sudden smell of the river that had determined our direction. But weariness, hunger, and the apparent aimlessness of the trek did not matter so long as we were friends!

The terrain rose and fell now in gentle undulations. Presently Kalipha drew up, and pointing with his stick, triumphantly announced, ‘
La voilà!
’ It was a moment before I could discern the
douar
– a dun-coloured mole upon the face of the dun-coloured earth. Scattered like hay-stacks the mud huts of Elmetboostah, with here and there a familiar black tent, climbed a slight slope. Half a mile to the west a thread of vivid green marked the course of the
oued
. For some time it was as if we approached a deserted village. We were within half a mile but, as yet, not a movement, not a sound, betrayed the little community. Then, quite suddenly, it sprang to life. Dogs began to bark; as if from ambush they rushed down upon us ready to tear us to pieces. Like a swarm of white ants came the men alternately cursing the dogs and hailing us, behind streamed the women, their blue draperies blowing, their silver bangles flashing as they shrilled the traditional reception of the women of Islam. Sidi Farrah, the sheikh, towered head and shoulders above the throng that soon surrounded us.

It was the first time I had seen Farrah ben Mustapha against his own background, among his own people. The white
kafieh
, or
headcloth
, gave the glow of bronze to his fine regular features. Over the eye, whose sight had been destroyed in the World War, he wore a black patch, but so far from disfiguring his handsome face it seemed
rather a mark of distinction. There was a simple sincerity in Farrah’s welcome as he helped us to dismount.

Kadeja’s pleasure in our arrival made me ashamed that we had not come before. She embraced each of us in turn and, while she plied her uncle with questions, she embraced us all again praising the goodness of Allah. Suddenly conscious that someone had hold of my hand I discovered Boolowi. His chubby face beamed his civilities – he had not forgotten that we had been great friends in Kairouan. Mohammed had not forgotten either, for he seized my other hand with a menacing look for
le petit sauvage
as he always called Boolowi.

Kalipha walked away with the men and the women closed in around us. For generations they had tenanted and tilled this land, some of them had never been to town. I was a fabulous creature – a
Roumi
! With incredulous bub-bub-bubs and crows of rapturous delight they examined my rough garments, so graceless compared to their vivid head-dresses and classic draperies. If I had been told that these sinewy, bare-footed women were the last of the gods I think I would have believed it. Their eyes had the keenness of eyes accustomed to far distances, the sun had tanned their skins to the brown of a medallion, all had an antique regularity of feature, and young and old alike were slim and strong and straight. By comparison the Arab women of the city were cellar plants. Their eyes were dull, their complexions sallow, their features hybrid of innumerable races. It was doubtful whether all the hareems of Kairouan could produce one who, alongside these radiant plainswomen, would seem more than merely pretty.

Kadeja was pulling at my sleeve. ‘Come, little sister, come refresh yourself!’

‘Who is she?’ they clamoured, ignoring Kadeja’s impatience. ‘Where does she come from?’

‘From – Amelique,’ said Kadeja, uncertainly.

‘From Amelique?’ they repeated, shaking their heads and looking to one another for enlightenment.

It was with difficulty that Kadeja extricated me. As we hastened toward the house one of the women caught up with us. ‘For the love of Araby, Kadeja, where is this “Amelique”? Is it one of those
douars
in the neighbourhood of Sousse?’

Kadeja knew, at least, that America was not in the dominion of the Bey. ‘It is far, far away,’ she cried with a sweep of her arm. ‘Farther even than Mecca. A great sea lies between Madamma and her country.’

The woman’s jaw dropped.
‘Wallah!
’ she muttered. It was as if she realized for the first time that the Kingdom of the Bey did not constitute the whole world.

The home of the sheikh, like the other houses, was built of massive mud bricks and thatched with brush and straw. It was cool and dim and quiet within. A mud column divided the room into halves. One side served at once as kitchen, storeroom and larder. Here were sieves of shredded goat-skin, guns, and powder flasks, mill-stones, and camel-muzzles, donkey-paniers, and wooden bowls. Looms, spindles, carders, pestle and mortar and wet-weather clogs. Bright earthen drums for female amusement, folded tents and embroidered saddles. Brush-brooms of twigs and dried grasses, gaudy sacks hard with grain. Mats and ropes of esparto grass, fire-pots and fire-fans. Giant jars for oil and meal tipped against the wall, smaller jars for tomato paste and spices. There was even a sitting hen that clucked uneasily as I passed around the pillar to where the men were gathered. This half of the house consituted the living quarters. It was spread with vivid bedouin rugs, the whitewashed walls half-way up were covered with rush matting and the sole piece of furniture was the painted chest that contained the family wardrobe.

I took my place in the circle as Farrah and his kinsmen were solemnly pronouncing their satisfaction with our visit. We were all
deuf Allah,
guests of God, I gathered, dependent from day to day upon His bounty. While each one spoke the others interjected: ‘By Allah, the great!’ ‘Yea, by Mohammed, the Prophet of Allah!’

Kalipha, who is, of course, absolutely unrivalled in verbal grace, heard them out with respectful attention. With finger upraised, then, he summoned the Prophet as his witness and pushing back his fez and taking a deep breath – as if he were about to launch upon one of his inimitable tales – he performed the ‘
necessaire
’ on our behalf. With proverb and elaborate parable, interlarded with appropriate
quotations
from the Koran, he expressed our pride and pleasure to be the guests of Sidi Farrah. We were swooning with hunger, there were
things we burned to discuss, but Arab etiquette is rigid and exacting.

Meanwhile in the doorway Kadeja fanned the fire under our meal. Beyond, at a distance that was barely discreet, an inquisitive assembly awaited our next appearance. Murmurs of approval greeted the last word of Kalipha’s discourse and Kadeja bore in the
kassar
. It was heaped high with
cous-cous
garnished in our honour with chicken and raisins. We hitched nearer the bowl, the men as they rolled up their sleeves calling, perfunctorily: ‘Come Kadeja, eat of Allah’s bounty’ ‘Eat with enjoyment! May it strengthen thee!’ she responded from behind the pillar.

For the next few minutes no word was spoken except when Sidi Farrah, selecting some delicacy to lay at my place, exhorted me to eat. Kadeja replenished the bread flaps from time to time, her eyes discreetly downcast. Then, one after another, we dropped out, rendered Allah his due, and, settling ourselves against the wall, paid our compliments to Kadeja’s cooking with stentorian belches. Smiling this time, she reappeared with ewer, basin and towel for our ablutions. The fire-pot was placed before Sidi Farrah, and while he made the tea, Kalipha and Mohammed recounted the news of the town. Our hosts, in turn, had much to tell us about the winter rains. They had been so heavy this year that we had feared for the safety of our friends.
Elmetboostah
had been above reach of the flood, but in a nearby
douar
two women were drowned and there was scarcely a village that had not lost several dwellings.