Leo Africanus (36 page)

I had been there for at least an hour, my mind emerging slowly from the fog, when the Circassian made her entrance. I do not know what struck me about her first. Was it her face, so beautiful yet so uncovered, with only a black silk scarf holding back her blonde hair? Was it her waist, so slim in this city where only copiously nourished women were appreciated? Or perhaps the ambiguous manner, deferential but not over-zealous, with which Akbar said: ‘Highness!'

Her retinue did not distinguish her from the simplest bourgeoise woman: a single servant, a peasant woman with stiff gestures, and an air of being constantly amused, who was carrying a flat object
wrapped clumsily in an old worn-out sheet.

My gaze was evidently too persistent, because the Circassian turned her face away with a conspicuous movement. Seeing this, Akbar confided in me in a deliberately ceremonious voice:

‘Her Royal Highness Princess Nur, widow of the Amir ‘Ala al-Din, nephew of the Grand Turk.'

I forced myself to look elsewhere, but my curiosity was only stronger. Everyone in Cairo was aware of the drama of this ‘Ala al-Din. He had taken part in the fratricidal war which had set the heirs of Sultan Bayazid against one another. It even seemed at one point that he had triumphed, when he had seized the city of Bursa and had threatened to take Constantinople. But his uncle Salim had eventually gained the upper hand. A relentless man, the new Ottoman sultan had had his brothers strangled and their families decimated. However, ‘Ala al-Din managed to flee and take refuge in Cairo, where he was received with honour. A palace and servants were put at his disposal, and it was said that he was now preparing to encourage a rising against his uncle with the support of the Mameluke empire, the Sophy of Persia, and the powerful Turkish tribes in the very heart of Anatolia.

Would the coalition have got the better of the redoubtable Salim? It will never be known: four months after his arrival ‘Ala al-Din was carried away by the plague. He was still not twenty-five years old, and had just married a beautiful Circassian with whom he had fallen in love, the daughter of an officer assigned to his guard. The Sultan of Egypt, apparently saddened by the prince's death, presided himself over the prayer for the dead man. The funeral ceremonies were imposing, the more noteworthy because they took place according to the Ottoman custom, which was hardly known in Cairo: ‘Ala al-Din's horses walked in front, their tails cut and their saddles turned round; on the bier above the body were his turban and his bows, which had been broken.

Nevertheless, the master of Cairo took back the palace of ‘Ala al-Din two months later, a decision for which he was rebuked by the population. The widow of the Ottoman was granted a modest house and such a derisory pension that she was obliged to auction the few objects of value that her husband had left her.

All these matters had been reported to me at the time, but they had not assumed any particular significance for me. While I was going over them in my mind, Nur's voice came to me, heart-rending
but dignified:

‘The prince draws up plans in his palace, without knowing that at the same moment, in a cottage, an artisan's fingers are already weaving his shroud.'

She had spoken these words in Arabic, but with that Circassian accent which no Cairene could fail to recognize, since it was that of the sultan and the Mameluke officers. Before I could reply, the merchant came back, with his offer of a price:

‘Seventy-five dinars.'

She turned pale:

‘This piece has no equal in the world!'

It was a wall tapestry worked in needlework of rare precision, surrounded by a frame in carved wood. It showed a pack of wolves running towards the summit of a snowy mountain.

Akbar called me to witness:

‘What Her Highness says is the absolute truth, but my shop is full of valuable objects which I am forced to sell cheaply. Buyers are rare.'

Out of politeness I inclined my head slightly. Feeling that he had gained my trust, he went further:

‘This year is the worst since I began working thirty years ago. People do not dare to show the merest hint of their dinars, for fear that they will be accused of hiding their riches and that someone will come and extort it from them. Last week, a singer was arrested merely on the strength of a denunciation. The sultan himself submitted her to questioning while the guards crushed her feet. They got a hundred and fifty pieces of gold out of her.'

He continued:

‘Please note that I understand perfectly well why our sovereign, may God protect him, is forced to act in this manner. He no longer receives the revenues from the ports. Jidda has not had a boat for a year because of the Portuguese corsairs. The situation is not much better at Damietta. As for Alexandria, it has been deserted by the Italian merchants who can no longer find any business to transact there. And to think that this city had, in the past, six hundred thousand inhabitants, twelve thousand grocers open until night and forty thousand Jews paying the canonical
jizya
! Today, it's a fact that Alexandria gives the treasury less than it costs it. We see the results of this every day: the army has not had meat for seven months; the regiments are in ferment, and the sultan looks for gold wherever he
thinks he can find it.'

The entrance of a client interrupted him. Seeing that the new arrival was not carrying anything in his hands, Akbar must have thought that he was a customer and asked us to excuse him for a moment. The princess prepared to leave, but I held her back:

‘How much did you hope to get for it?'

‘Three hundred dinars, no less.'

I asked her to let me see the tapestry. I had already made up my mind, but I could not take it without looking at it, for fear that the purchase might appear to be an act of charity. But I also did not want to examine it too closely, for fear of being thought to be bargaining. I gave it a hasty glance before saying, in a neutral tone:

‘Three hundred, that seems a fair price to me. I'll buy it.'

She was not mistaken:

‘A woman does not accept a present from a man to whom she cannot show her gratitude.'

The words were firm, but the tone was less so. I replied, with false indignation:

‘It is not a gift. I am buying this because I want it!'

‘And why should you want it?'

‘It's a souvenir.'

‘But it's the first time you've seen it!'

‘Sometimes one glance is enough for an object to be irreplaceable.'

She blushed. Our looks met. Our lips parted. We were already friends. The servant woman, more cheerful than ever, walked between us, trying to overhear our whisperings. We had arranged to meet: Friday, at midday, Azbakiyya Square, in front of the donkey showman.

Since my arrival in Egypt, I had never missed the solemn Friday prayer. But, that day, I did so without much remorse; after all, it was the Creator who had made this woman so beautiful, and it was He who had put her in my path.

Azbakiyya Square was filling up slowly as the mosques emptied, because it was the custom of all the Cairenes to gather there after the ceremony to play dice, listen to the patter of the story-tellers, and sometimes lose themselves in the neighbouring alleys where certain
taverns were offering a short cut to Eden.

I did not yet catch sight of my Circassian, but the donkey showman was there, already surrounded by a swelling cluster of idlers. I joined them, glancing frequently at the faces which surrounded me and at the sun in the hope that it had moved a few degrees.

The clown was dancing with his beast, without anyone knowing which was following the steps of the other. Then he began to talk to his donkey. He told him that the sultan had decided to undertake a great construction work, and that he was going to requisition all the donkeys in Cairo to transport lime and stones. At that very moment the animal fell to the ground, turned round on to his back, his legs in the air, puffed out its stomach and shut its eyes. The man began to lament in front of the audience, saying that his donkey was dead, and he took a collection to buy himself another one. Having collected several dozen coins, he said:

‘Don't believe that my donkey has given up the ghost. He is a glutton who, aware of my poverty, acts a part so that I can earn some money and buy him something to eat.'

Taking a big stick he gave the beast a good beating.

‘Come on, get up now!'

But the donkey did not move. The clown continued:

‘People of Cairo, the sultan has just issued an edict: the whole population is to go out tomorrow to be present at his triumphal entry into the city. The donkeys have been requisitioned to carry the women of high society.'

Thereupon the donkey leaped to its feet, began to preen himself, showing great happiness. His master burst out laughing as did the crowd.

‘So,' he said, ‘you like pretty women! But there are several here! Which one would you like to carry?'

The beast went round the audience, seemed to hesitate and then made for a rather tall lady spectator who was standing a few paces away from me. She was wearing veils so thick that her face was invisible. But I recognized her bearing immediately. She herself, frightened by the laughter and the looks, came up to me and clutched my arm. I hastened to say to the donkey in a jocular voice: ‘No, you won't be carrying my wife!', before going off with her in a dignified fashion.

‘I didn't expect to see you veiled. Had it not been for the donkey, I
wouldn't have recognized you.'

‘It is precisely in order not to be recognized that I am veiled. We are together in the street, in the middle of an inquisitive gossiping crowd, and no one is aware that I am not your wife.'

And she nodded teasingly:

‘I take off the veil if I want to please all men; I wear it if I only want to please a single one.'

‘Henceforth, I should hate it if your face were to be uncovered.'

‘Will you never want to look at it?'

It is true that we could not be alone in a house, neither hers nor mine, and that we had to be satisfied with walking in the city side by side. The day of our first meeting Nur insisted that we visit the forbidden garden.

‘It has been given this name,' she explained to me, ‘because it is surrounded by high walls and the sultan has prohibited access to it in order to protect a wonder of nature; the only tree in the world to produce real balsam.'

A piece of silver in the hand of the guard enabled us to go inside. Leaning over the balsam tree, Nur drew aside her veil and stayed still for a long time, fascinated, as if in a dream. She repeated, as if to herself:

‘In the whole world there is only this one root. It is so slender, so fragile, but so precious!'

As far as I could see, the tree seemed quite ordinary. Its leaves were like those of a vine, perhaps a little smaller. It was planted right in the middle of a spring.

‘It is said that if it was watered with different water it would dry up immediately.'

She seemed moved by this visit, although I did not understand why. But the next day we were together again, and she seemed happy and considerate. Henceforth our walks were daily, or almost so, because in the middle of the week, Mondays and Tuesdays, she was never free. When, at the end of a month, I pointed this out to her, her reaction was sharp:

‘You might never have seen me, or only once a month. Now I am with you two, three, five days a week, you complain about my absences.'

‘I don't count the days that I see you. It is the others than seem interminable to me.'

It was a Sunday, and we were close to the mosque of Ibn Tulun, in
front of the women's hammam where Nur was preparing to enter. She seemed to hesitate:

‘Would you be ready to come with me, without asking the slightest question?'

‘As far as China, if I must!'

‘Then meet me tomorrow morning, with two camels and full waterskins, in front of the Great Mosque of Giza.'

Intent on keeping my promise, I did not ask her about our destination, so much so that at the end of two hours on the road we had only exchanged a few words. However I did not think that it would be against the spirit of our agreement to say: