There were men and boys squatting in the meager shade of whitewashed walls, their heads covered with blue turbans or red felt tarbooshes. Their eyes turned to follow as Salim rocketed by, though none of them was curious enough in the heat of the day to stand and run after the jeep. Salim grinned as he wrenched the steering wheel once hard to the right, and then immediately back to the left, and finally stamped his foot on the brake to come to a halt before the house of the qadi on the north side of 10 January Square.
“This must be the sacrificial animal,” said the qadi to a young man in a gray business suit and white knit skullcap.
Salim jumped out and ran to the back of the jeep. “Look, Your Honor,” he said, pulling away the bloodstained blanket, “the ram is still alive!”
The man in the business suit turned his face away. The qadi came nearer to the jeep and glanced at the dying animal. “The butcher will attend to it now, soldier,” he said.
“Yes, Your Honor,” said Salim. “Good fortune to you, and to the city of Bekhaout!”
The qadi paid no further attention to him, but gestured to his companion. “My cooks will roast the animal,” he said, “and we’ll dine on it later, but I always distribute most of the meat to my neighbors for their festival. The streets will be filled with their singing all day long.” The qadi shrugged. “So this one day out of the year I feed their hunger, and all the rest of the year they call me Father of Generosity.”
“That is the art of politics, Taalab,” said the young man in the business suit.
The qadi smiled. “An art you’ve studied and learned well, Hussain Abdul-Qahhar,” he said. “Now, come with me. Let’s make ourselves comfortable. We have much to discuss before your meeting tonight.”
They entered the qadi’s home and climbed the stairs to a large, low-ceilinged room overlooking a tidy courtyard and splashing fountain. The warbling of caged songbirds came in through screens made of narrow strips of wood, and there was the delicate perfume of cultivated flowering shrubs on the warm breeze. The qadi indicated that Hussain Abdul-Qahhar should make himself comfortable, and he himself reclined on one of two lacquered divans, both upholstered in green brocade.
A servant girl brought a tray and set it on a low table between the two divans. “Coffee, Hussain?” asked the qadi.
“May your table last forever, Taalab.”
The qadi nodded, and the servant girl poured two cups of coffee. She handed one to Abdul-Qahhar and one to her master.
“Bismillah,” said Taalab. In the name of God.
“Bismillah,” murmured Abdul-Qahhar. He sipped the coffee. “Always! It is excellent.”
“May God lengthen your life,” said Taalab. He drained all the coffee in his cup and put it aside. “If we may, I’d prefer to dispense with the social niceties and get right to the immediate problem.”
“As you wish, Taalab. I’m at your disposal.”
The qadi regarded his guest in silence for a moment. “I’m too battle-hardened to take your meaning literally, my young friend. I wish to know if you think you have enough support among the ulema to be elected.”
Abdul-Qahhar sipped more coffee as he thought. He wondered if he dared be entirely truthful. “I admit that there’s been some doubt,” he said finally. “You haven’t attended the meetings of the Consultation, so you haven’t heard the arguments.”
Taalab yawned lazily. “The same old bickering, I expect. The conservatives fighting the young hotheads pushing for reform, am I right?”
Abdul-Qahhar shrugged. “Only now it’s complicated by the Berbers, who are demanding a higher standard of living. They claim that the Arab majority in the cities is holding them down.”
“It’s true enough, isn’t it?” The qadi was beginning to look bored.
“That’s beside the point,” said the younger man. “No, the issues are not new, but the matter of Unification is causing conflict even between long-time allies. The ulema will choose our new leader today or perhaps tomorrow, but he may not be the most qualified man. He may only be best at soothing tempers and making empty promises.”
“The best politician, you mean,” said Taalab. He poured himself another cup of coffee.
“Yes. I’ve come to despise politicians.”
“Then if you aren’t elected, who’ll be the next president?”
“Yahya ben Sadiq,” said Abdul-Qahhar with a grimace, as if he’d bitten into a rotten fruit.
“Ben Sadiq is a pirate, all right,” said the qadi, “but he has charisma. He knows how to make you smile while he robs you.”
The man in the business suit nodded agreement. “I wish I had some of that skill,” he said. “He’s masquerading as a liberal this session, pleading for tolerance and aid for Arabs and Berbers alike, arguing that Western science can’t be entirely evil if it feeds our Muslim brothers.”
Taalab leaned back against his cushions and tapped a thumbnail thoughtfully against his strong white teeth. “Is it true that he’s had his brain wired?”
Abdul-Qahhar took a deep breath and let it out heavily. “Yes, and he flaunts the implant before everyone. He has arrived bareheaded to every session of the Consultation.”
The qadi nodded knowingly. “Watch him, Abdul-Qahhar. I’ll bet he’ll find a way to make the neurosurgery seem a gift from Allah. You must undermine his strategy at every opportunity.”
“I’ve tried, but the radical delegates have been swayed by his talk of reviving the Islamic brotherhoods. He clamors for spiritual politics, but he carefully avoids talking about practical goals and methods. When he begins to speak, the council chamber fills immediately with wispy, warm clouds of optimism.”
Taalab laughed. “And you can’t pin him down to how he intends to make those marvelous changes, or administer them, or pay for them. You’d hardly believe that Ben Sadiq was the most ruthlessly conservative member of the ulema not so long ago. Now he’s a radical. At the next session, who knows what his politics will be?”
They talked for a while longer, until the qadi’s servants brought in platters of couscous and vegetables and roast mutton. They had a leisurely meal, during which they spoke no more of the Consultation, but inquired instead into the health of each one’s family and friends. Finally, just after the evening prayers, the qadi walked with his guest down to Abdul-Qahhar’s small electric automobile.
“I wish you luck, my friend,” said the qadi. “I’d offer you advice, but it is your hand in the fire, while mine is in the water.”
“I thank you for your good wishes,” said Abdul-Qahhar.
“Go with safety, then, and protect the future of our nation.”
Abdul-Qahhar got into his car and shut the door. “Allah yisallimak,” he said. God bless you. He started the car and drove to the meeting hall of the Consultation of the Two Peoples.
The evening session had not yet been called to order, and the council chamber was a riotous madhouse of noise and confusion. The ulema, the scholars and experts in Islamic law who had convened in Bekhaout, were gathered in many small groups, all loudly arguing over their interpretations of Islamic tradition that governed their individual political outlooks. Hussain Abdul-Qahhar paused at the entrance to the meeting hall and smiled ruefully, watching the wildly gesturing Arabs and Berbers. It had been a long time since such a convention had been called, and Abdul-Qahhar prayed briefly that it wouldn’t explode into violence — at least not until the necessary work of choosing a national leader had been finished.