Among the Faithful (13 page)

Afterward, when we heard the whole story from Mohammed himself, it needed a harder heart than Kalipha’s not to be touched by Farrah’s torment. With every obstacle that baulked his efforts to find an honourable evasion, Kadeja became more desirable. Dull despair had laid hold of him, however, before Mohammed told him, very doubtfully, that he would see what he could do. He would confer with the authorities. When hope fails, he said, Allah remains, compassionate and mighty.

Mohammed’s erudition in Islam distinguished him among the most learned circles of the nearby capital. No one honoured him more humbly than Farrah, but he could not know the force of Mohammed’s prestige, nor could he know that a brief consultation with the interpreters of the Law would suffice for the solution of his predicament.

An anxious silence settled over the household upon Mohammed’s departure. The women had no inclination to sing at their tasks. Mohammed’s sons, as they came and went, cast sympathetic glances toward the still figure sitting against the wall. Except when he raised the carafe to his lips or lit a cigarette, Farrah might have been his effigy in stone. At intervals that must have seemed interminable, the
Call to Prayer was flung out across the quiet roofs of Salambo. Food was brought and taken away untasted; from time to time the water vessel was refilled. The lamps were brought at last. The evening wore away until from the dark turrets, the choir swelled the mighty curfew,
Allah Akbar
!

The
muezzins
call only twice during the long night. ‘Prayer is better than sleep!’ sang the
muezzins
and Farrah knew that it was past midnight. The voices fell and gradually faded until there was only the sound of the sea. The plain goes on living during the dark; a thousand voices, so familiar as to seem one with the stillness, reassures the sleepless bedouin. But the sound of the sea to him is the voice of hopeless desolation. The fire burned itself to ash; one after another, the lamps flickered out. Wrapped in his burnous, Farrah waited for the light. But the longest night has an end; the black sky shivered at last as the
muezzins
heralded the day. Yet the morning did not bring Mohammed, nor did the afternoon. The sun set once more, as reluctantly as it had risen.

The women were at their silent supper preparations when the master returned and found Farrah alone in the lamplight. The exchange of greeting betrayed no concern or excitement; he entered and was received as if he had absented himself for a few moments to attend a neighbouring mosque. Hanoona appeared, bringing his pipe. She took his cloak and Mohammed seated himself, speaking of
indifferent
matters, while Farrah with steady fingers filled and lighted the pipe and passed it to him.

Mohammed puffed meditatively for a while. ‘There is no strength or power,’ he said, ‘but in Allah.’

Farrah studied the fire-pot before him. ‘Ay,’ he murmured, ‘there is no deity but Allah.’

For a few minutes there was silence. Mohammed took the pipe from his mouth. ‘The Prophet – upon whom be the glory – hath said, “Thou needst not raise thy voice for He knoweth the secret whisper and the yet more hidden.”’ After a pause, he added, ‘Nor doth His might exceed His mercy.’ Another pause, then, ‘Know, my brother, that I have this day consulted the council of the
ulema
.’

Farrah stirred, but he did not raise his eyes.

‘It is their decision that the Law is fulfilled if thy wife, for a single night, share the couch of another male.’

Farrah glanced up. Mohammed carefully emptied the pipe and blew down the stem once or twice. ‘I have considered,’ he reflected as slowly he began to refill the bowl. ‘There is, of course, Ali.’ He smiled as he mentioned his infant son. ‘I do not doubt that he would sleep as soundly with his Aunt Kadeja as he does with his mother.’

A sudden light flooded Farrah’s face. ‘In the name of Allah,’ he cried, ‘the merciful, the compassionate!’

That night, accordingly, Kadeja lay alongside little Ali, Mohammed’s last-born son. And the next morning, with their brother’s blessing, Farrah and Kadeja set out, once more, for Elmetboostah.

I
T WAS RAMADAN AGAIN
. The little oil lights diamonded the minarets, romancers held their bearded audiences in the palms of their hands.
Shakakas
had begun to jangle, and Mohammed was
sedulously
saving for a pair of mail-order shoes
‘couleur de moutard, très chic’.

It seemed very natural to me – and to everybody else – that I should again keep the fast. There was no seeking me out with dazzled faces to verify the good tidings; this year it was: ‘Mademoiselle is, of course,
Sima Ramadan?
Ay, that is good. There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is His prophet! Thou wilt be recompensed, Brother Kalipha!’

We seldom ate ‘the breakfast’ at home any more. Men of high and low degree, whose households I had never visited, engaged me to take
fatoor
with their families. Well before the Call we would accompany our host to his dwelling. In a room apart the men would sit, cigarettes poised, waiting for the signal. In readiness on a low table were mugs of water, flagons of scented syrup and plates of sweet cakes. But oh, the bustle, the fun and the excitement of the kitchen! Fire-pots of all sizes cluttered the stone floor and the women moved among them, stirring, seasoning, tasting judicially and spitting out – for even an accidental swallow discredits the strictest fast. As the moment approached cries of
‘Feesa, Feesa!’
accelerated the activity and, by some intuitive timing, at the very instant that the carillon of voices released the Faithful, deep basins were being filled with thick soups, usually of fish, with
bezéen
, the steamed white meal covered with a rich green sauce and lumps of camel meat. Then the
merga
, or vegetable stews
with meat, and
shashuka
, the vegetable stews without meat. But the principal dish – the dish upon which the excellence of the whole meal depended was, of course,
cous-cous
– hot as brimstone, heaped high with chicken or lamb, raisins and almonds, or assorted vegetables. Before I joined the menfolk I must break my fast with the women who crouched plying, coaxing, feeding me as if I had been a baby unsure of the way to my mouth! First a raw egg drunk from the shell, then a goblet of orange juice and rose-water sipped slowly, and afterward a savoury morsel of this and that to pique the appetite and ‘warn the stomach’.

The Hôtel de Sfax was doing an unparalleled business this Ramadan. All winter it had been very quiet. Occasionally a bedouin would rent a room for a night, but there would be long stretches when Ali and I were the only occupants. One morning during the first week in Ramadan I awoke to a gabble of voices, shrill laughter and the glassy clack-clack of clogs outside in the corridor. While I slept the hotel had undergone some strange metamorphosis. I dressed quickly and looked out. All the doors stood open and a whole sorority of painted women moved familiarly from room to room. They glanced up as I opened my door, ‘
Bonjour, Madame,
’ they said respectfully. It was they who had been here all along, it seemed; I was the newcomer, old Rip come down from the mountain. A little dazed, I gave them good morning and withdrew to ponder the enigma. They looked like women from The Street of the Courtesans – their exotic make-up and garments, their voluptuous gait, their insouciance in such a place as this where at any moment a man might appear. My surmise was strengthened by the arrival of the postman for, opening at his knock, I saw that they had not troubled to veil their faces.

I was reading my mail when I heard Kalipha’s voice raised in anger below. It was not yet eight o’clock and ordinarily during The Month of Abstinence he never got up until noon, yet here he was bawling out poor Ali who kept insisting ‘I do not know, Sidi! I swear – as Mohammed is the Prophet of Allah – I do not know.’ Still cursing, Kalipha came on up the stairs.

There was a great clatter of clogs as the women swarmed to receive him, to pelt him with hilarious greetings. Plainly, he was no stranger
to them! However, he did not linger in their embraces. There was a peremptory knock at my door. He burst in and locked it behind him. His face was several shades darker, his chest heaved, and the vein on his brow that, barometer-wise, always registered a storm, seemed about to burst. ‘Do you realize,’ he demanded hoarsely, ‘that this hotel has become a nest of harlots? The place is swarming, infested. In Beatrice’s room, alone, there are four beds. It is like this that he respects me, Kalipha ben Kassem!’ he pounded his breast. ‘This is the manner in which he honours a demoiselle who is for two years
Sima Ramadan
! This is the gratitude I get for installing my friends in his dirty bugridden hole! Ah, yes, Sidi Tahar,’ Kalipha leered, rocking his head from side to side, ‘with your savant’s turban, your gold-headed cane and your
grande manière du Bey,
you are – you are …’ he strode to the window, ‘a snake!’ He spat resoundingly.

It was some time before I could get him quiet enough to explain – between abusive epithets such as ‘Pig!’ ‘Dog!’ etc. – that the women were performers from the restaurant below to be quartered here during Ramadan. Some of Kalipha’s friends, who felt that he should know the situation, had roused him at cock-crow. His anger had carried him, characteristically, direct to Sidi Tahar. By his own account he had raved like a maniac, and the patron had promised ‘by the most great name, by the seal of Solomon and all the rest’ that, as soon as certain rooms in the other hotel were vacated, the offenders would be removed there
en masse.

‘Then for the love of God,’ I cried, ‘why are you carrying on like this! You have Sidi Tahar’s word of honour. In the meantime, the women have their place, and I have mine.’

‘“Word of honour!”’ groaned Kalipha, burying his face in his hands. ‘And the French’ he demanded with blood-shot eyes, ‘have you thought of the French? They distrust you now for living alone in the Arab quarter, for associating with me, “the brother of a murderer”. But when it is known that you are living in a bawdy house, not even the President of the United States can clear your reputation. “
Je m’en fiche!
” you can say of yourself, my little one, but what of me? If today I am a “blackguard” and a “villain”, isn’t it possible that tomorrow I shall be a dangerous criminal?’ I recognized the force of this last
argument
.
It was, unfortunately, perfectly possible. ‘What do you want me to do?’ I asked, for it was patent that something was expected of me.

This was his plan. I was to go at once to Sidi Tahar and in a terrible rage demand that he respect my virtue. Since I could speak very little Arabic, and Tahar no French, I would have to depend mostly upon histrionics – shouts, tears, and threats of moving, winding up with an abrupt, sensational departure. It was Kalipha’s conviction that the patron, who had ever known me as a mild, modest young woman, could not fail to be impressed by such an exhibition.

My heart was not in the rehearsal. I had nothing against these women; moreover, Sidi Tahar had always been the kindest landlord. Once, when I had fallen behind in my rent, he had sent word to me that I was not to worry – if my money came, I could pay, but if it did not come, I was his honoured guest for as long as I remained. His wife, Zorrah, and his daughter were my friends; twice already this Ramadan I had broken the fast with them. There was not a house in Kairouan that I entered with more pleasure. Then, too, I had no capacity for anger of this sort – neither was I much of an actress.

I heartily wished myself dead as I marched with Kalipha down the street and up the narrow staircase of the Hôtel Zongbar. Sidi Tahar sat, as usual, cross-legged upon the counter, his immaculate burnous hanging from his shoulders and piled in soft folds about him. His grave eyes shone with a welcoming light and my heart melted as he gestured towards the chairs but, catching Kalipha’s stern eye, I recalled my outraged virtue and remained standing. ‘Ramadan enforces
inhospitality
upon me,’ he deplored, ‘I cannot offer you coffee. But there is no need to apologize to Mademoiselle,’ he smiled, ‘it is widely known that she is
Sima Ramadan.
’ His pleasantry – I had never heard him utter so many words at once – was received with such frigidity that Sidi Tahar looked from one to the other of us in mild astonishment. How should I start? My fingers grasping the folds of my burnous had begun to tremble. Kalipha was staring straight ahead – I could get no help from him. ‘I find I have been greatly mistaken in you, Sidi Tahar,’ I began a little breathlessly. ‘I had thought that you respected me as
nusafir
, as an honest woman, if not
Sima Ramadan,
but it seems I was deceived.’ I realized despairingly that my voice wasn’t half loud
enough. A child could have seen that I wasn’t really angry. I began pacing up and down and, all at once, unaccountably, I felt marvellously in command of my rôle of virago. It was as if my tongue had been oiled! Now in English, now in execrable French, I harangued – with all the Arab words I knew thrown in for good measure. I swept back and forth, my eyes I pictured simply blazing, arms flashing out of my burnous to adjure and beat my breast. My volubility and the noise I was making amazed me. Tahar’s brothers and clients had come into the room and the consciousness of this marvelling audience brought out in me a talent for fury that none of us thought I possessed. I had just about convinced myself that I had missed my calling, when I caught Sidi Tahar’s eye. In it was a kindly, faint, but unmistakable twinkle, whereupon to cover my shame and confusion I swept, with as much majesty as I could muster, down the stairs.

Kalipha shambled after me a moment later. ‘But my little one!’ he cried with the pride of a tutor whose student has carried off high honours. ‘It was magnificent! Before you had reached the street Tahar gave orders that rooms should be prepared.
C’était une victoire superbe, je vous dis! Superbe!’

‘Leave me alone!’ I choked from the depth of my remorse.

As for my ‘superb victory’ it was no victory at all. When after three days the women were still there, even Kalipha had to acknowledge that he had accomplished nothing – except to make a monkey of me. But that he would never acknowledge! I had done magnificently in any case, and was it our fault that Tahar was the father of all pigs?

If Kalipha had been allowed his way I would have moved on the spot. But it was already March, and in May I planned to join friends in Brittany where I would spend a part of the summer. (Beatrice had, by this time, returned to America.) To rent a small house, as he suggested, meant a considerable outlay which, in view of my trip, I simply could not afford. Ramadan would soon be over, the girls would go back to Tunis and Gafsa, Gabes and Sousse, and the Hôtel de Sfax would be itself again. Kalipha dared not be at all vehement on the subject. For days after the now celebrated interview, I could not treat him civilly. At his house I chatted with Mohammed, Eltifa, with
everybody
but Kalipha. When, as was his custom, he dropped in during the day to find how I was faring, I went on with my work, taking no notice whatsoever of his dejected presence. At last, getting up he would say, very gently: ‘Have you letters for the post,
ma petite?
’

‘No, thank you.’

‘Can I refill the carafe?’

‘No, Ali has already done so.’

‘Would a morsel of fish delight Kiddypussy?’

‘No – yes, well, do as you wish.’

Stung, bewildered, even the will to get me out of my environment was not so strong as the necessity to win me back to our old habit of friendship. But every expression of his solicitude met with the coolest indifference. Until Ramadan was over my high-handed Kalipha was to be kept precisely where I had him – under my thumb.

Meanwhile, it was a strange experience to be living, inviolate, in the midst of a whore-house. The artistes, who had been picked from the restricted districts of cities all over the dominion, were under as strict surveillance as if they had been lodged on The Street; by law they were prohibited from quitting the premises. During the day things were fairly quiet. They slept late, then trailed about in
négligés
laughing
, jabbering, kidding Ali, squabbling and rapturously hailing Kalipha and the postman. Quite often they had fights – wild, primitive bouts that simply terrified me. Once something very large crashed against my door – I think it was a wash-bowl. Their shouts and screams brought half the street rushing up to quell the riot, but five minutes after such a contest they were, to all appearances, the best of friends.

They always treated me with a kind of shy formality. As I came and went it was always, ‘
Bonjour, Madame
’, nothing more. Only once did one of them knock at my door. She had in her hand a sheet of ruled paper and an envelope. She had heard my writing-machine, she explained hesitantly, in perfectly intelligible French. Was I, perhaps, a writer? In that case, would I – would I have the great kindness to write her mother a letter? Why of course, would she come in? I took her paper and picked up my pen. But maybe she preferred me to use the typewriter? She brightened. O would I! It would be so much more – so much more chic.
‘Chère Maman,’
she dictated,
‘Je suis bien. Je n’ai
plus du mal à la tête. Je suis à Kairouan avec un café-concert. Il ne faut pas faire le mauvais sang pour moi. Je suis toute à vous. Klarah Galeenie.’
While I was addressing the envelope, she took a pencil and below the typed signature made her own mark, explaining, ‘Like that,
Ummi
will see it is me.’

Towards sundown every evening the girls began to prepare their
fatoor
, for they were keeping the fast as scrupulously as the rest of us. Each had her own fire-pot, her own earthen vessels, and the picture they made grouped together at the far end of the hall,
stooping
and crouching in their brilliant head-dresses and hip-scarves, was memorably beautiful.

The ‘concert’ in the back room of the restaurant began early and went on until midnight. When it ended below stairs, its sequel started above, and until daybreak the Hôtel de Sfax gave itself up to carousal – doors banging, mandolines, hilarious laughter, coffee boys running up and down stairs, singing, the constant throb of pottery drums,
clapping
, lusty shouts of ‘
Sahit! Sahit!
’ – as one of the hostesses did a hot dance – clients coming and clients going to make room for more!