We left the next day before the dawn prayer, my father on horseback, my mother and myself on a mule, our baggage distributed on the backs of five other animals. Near the Najd Gate on the southern side of the city we joined several dozen other travellers, with whom we journeyed the better to ensure our safety. There were many bandits in the neighbourhood of the city and in the mountain passes, because everyone knew that great wealth was constantly being brought down to the coast.
The great confusion which prevailed in the port of Almeria left an indelible impression on my childish eyes. Like ourselves, many people seemed to have decided to leave at the last moment, and they crowded together to take the smallest boat by storm. Here and there a few Castilian soldiers attempted to calm down troublesome mischief-makers by shouting threats at them; others checked the contents of a trunk with greedy eyes. It had been agreed that the emigrants could take all their property with them without restriction, but it was often not unhelpful to leave a piece of gold between the fingers of an over-zealous officer. On the beach, business was in full swing, the owners of the boats being subjected to endless sermons on the fate which God reserves for those who profit from the misfortunes of the Muslims, apparently to no effect, since the fares for the crossing continued to increase by the hour. The lure of gain lulls consciences to sleep, and moments of panic are not the most opportune for arousing generosity. Resignedly, the men emptied their purses and signalled to their families to make haste. Once on board, they did their best to keep their wives and daughters from being exposed to promiscuous encounters, a difficult task when three hundred people were stuffed into a small galley which had never carried more than a hundred.
When we arrived my father refused to mix with the crowd. From the back of his horse he surveyed the scene around the port, before making for a little wooden cabin, at the doorway of which a well-dressed man welcomed him eagerly. We followed him at a distance; he signalled to us to come closer. A few minutes later we were seated comfortably on top of our luggage in an empty galley on which we had embarked by means of a gangway which was drawn up behind us. The man, who was none other than Hamid’s brother, was the director of customs of Almeria, a post which the Castilians had not yet taken away from him. The little boat belonged to him, and it would not be taking on passengers until the next day. My mother gave my father and myself a piece of ginger to chew to prevent sea-sickness, and she herself took a large chunk. Soon night fell and we all went to sleep, after having eaten several meatballs which our host had had brought to us.
Shouts and commotion awoke us at dawn. Dozens of shouting men, women veiled in black and white, and dazed or squealing children seemed to be taking our galley by storm. We had to cling to our luggage not to be pushed aside or perhaps even thrown overboard. My mother held me to her as the boat began to get further from the shore. Around us, women and old men prayed and wept, their voices barely drowned by the sounds of the sea.
Only my father remained serene on this journey into exile, and Salma could even see a strange smile playing on his lips the whole length of the journey. For, in the very heart of defeat, he had managed to achieve his own tiny field of victory.
II. The Book of Fez
~ ~ ~
I was your age, my son, and I have never seen Granada again. God did not ordain that my destiny should be written completely in a single book, but that it should unfold, wave after wave, to the rhythm of the seas. At each crossing, destiny jettisoned the ballast of one future to endow me with another; on each new shore, it attached to my name the name of a homeland left behind.
Between Almeria and Melilla, in the space of a day and a night, my existence was overturned. But the sea was calm, and the wind mild; it was in the hearts of my family that the storm was swelling.
Hamid the deliverer had performed his duty well, may God pardon him. When the coast of Andalus was no more than a thin streak of remorse behind us, a woman ran towards our corner of the galley, stepping eagerly over both luggage and travellers. Her joyful step was in strange contrast with her appearance; her veils were so sombre and thick that we should have been hard put to recognize her if Mariam had not been in her arms.
The only cries of joy were uttered by my sister and myself. Muhammad and Warda were struck dumb with emotion, as well as by the hundred curious glances which beset them. As for Salma, she held me a little more tightly against her breast. From her restrained breathing and the occasional sighs which escaped her I knew that she was suffering. Her tears were probably flowing beneath the shelter of her veil, and these were not misplaced, as my father’s unbridled passion would soon bring us all to the edge of catastrophe.
Muhammad the weigh-master, at once so serene and so uncontrolled! It so happened that I lost him in my youth, only to find him again in my maturer years, when he was no longer there. And I had to await my first white hairs, my first regrets, before becoming convinced that every man, including my father, had the right to take the wrong road if he believed he was pursuing happiness. From that time I began to cherish his erring ways, just as I hope that you will cherish mine, my son. I wish that you too will sometimes get lost in your turn. And I hope that, like him, you will love to the point of tyranny, and that you will long remain receptive to the noble temptations of life.
The Year of the Hostelries
900 A.H.
2 October 1494 — 20 September 1495
Before Fez, I had never set foot in a city, never observed the swarming activity of the alleyways, never felt that powerful breath on my face, like the wind from the sea, heavy with cries and smells. Of course, I was born in Granada, the stately capital of the kingdom of Andalus, but it was already late in the century, and I knew it only in its death agonies, emptied of its citizens and its souls, humiliated, faded, and when I left our quarter of al-Baisin it was no longer anything for my family but a vast encampment, hostile and ruined.
Fez was entirely different, and I had the whole of my youth to discover it. I have only hazy memories of our first encounter with the city that year. I came towards it on the back of a mule, a poor sort of conqueror, half-asleep, held up by my father’s firm hand, because all the roads sloped, sometimes so steeply that the animal only moved with a shaky and hesitant step. Every jolt made me sit bolt upright before nodding off again. Suddenly my father’s voice rang out:
‘Hasan, wake up if you want to see your city!’
Coming out of my torpor, I became conscious that our little convoy was already at the foot of a sand-coloured wall, high and massive, bristling with a large number of menacing pointed battlements. A coin pushed into the hand of a gatekeeper caused the door to be opened. We were within the walls.
‘Look around you,’ insisted Muhammad.
All round Fez, as far as the eye could see, were ranges of hills ornamented with countless houses in brick and stone, many of which were decorated with glazed tiles like the houses of Granada.
‘Down there, in that plain crossed by the wadi, is the heart of the city. On the left is the quarter of the Andalusians, founded centuries ago by emigrants from Cordoba; on the right is the quarter of the people of Qairawan, with the mosque and the school of the Qarawiyyin in the middle, that huge building with green tiles, where, if God accepts, you will receive instruction from the ulama.’