‘Your sister is ill. We must take her with us.’
I tried to intervene; they thrust me roughly aside. And the sinister procession set off. At the end of the cul-de-sac a few idlers were gathered. I cried out, threatened, gesticulated. But Warda came after me, pleading:
‘Come back, by Heaven, you mustn’t bring out the whole neighbourhood. Your sister can never be married.’
I went back towards the house, slammed the door, and began to hammer the walls with my fists, oblivious to the pain. Warda came up to me. She was weeping, but her mind was clear.
‘Wait until they have gone and then go and talk to your uncle. He has good relations with the palace. He can get her back.’
She held me by the sleeve and pulled me back.
‘Calm yourself, your hands are raw.’
My arms fell heavily on Warda’s shoulders; I embraced her fiercely, without unclenching my fists, as if I was still hammering at the wall. She subsided against me. Her tears ran down my neck; her hair covered my eyes; I could only inhale her breath, burning, humid and perfumed. I was not thinking of her; she was not thinking of me. Our bodies did not exist for us. But they suddenly came into existence for themselves, kindled by anger. I had never before felt conscious of myself as a man, nor been conscious of her as a woman. She was thirty-two, old enough to be a grandmother, but her face had no lines, and her hair was jet black. I no longer dared to move, for fear I might give myself away, or to speak, for fear of sending her away, nor even to open my eyes, for fear of having to recognize that I was entwined with the only woman rigorously forbidden to me, my father’s wife.
Where did her mind wander during those moments? Did she feel herself drifting like me towards the intermingling of pleasure? I don’t think so. Was she just numb, body and soul all swollen up? Did she simply need to clutch hold of the only human being who would share her anguish? I shall never know, for we never spoke of it; never did our words or actions ever recall that a moment had existed in which we were man and woman, bound together by the pitiless fingers of Destiny.
It was incumbent upon her to withdraw. She did so imperceptibly, with these words of tender parting:
‘Go, Hasan my son, God will come to our aid. You are the best brother that Mariam could have!’
I ran, counting my steps to myself so that my mind would not dwell on anything else. As far as Khali’s house.
My uncle listened to me without showing any signs of emotion, but I could see that he was moved, more than I had expected, given the complete absence of relations between himself and my sister. When I finished my story, he explained:
‘The shaikh of the lepers is a power in the land. He alone is entitled to remove from Fez those who have been infected, and he alone has authority over the denizens of the quarter. Few qadis dare oppose his decisions, and the sultan himself only rarely takes it upon himself to interfere in his gruesome domain. Furthermore, he is extremely rich, for many among the believers bequeath their properties for the benefit of the quarter, either because the illness has afflicted their family, or because they take pity at the sight of these unfortunates. And the shaikh administers all the revenues. He uses part of it to provide food, lodging and treatment for the sufferers, but there are substantial sums left over which he uses in all sorts of shady ways to increase his personal wealth. It is highly likely that he has some business association with the Zarwali, and that he has agreed to help him to take vengeance upon us.’
I had distinctly heard my uncle say ‘us’! My surprise did not elude him.
‘You have known for a long time what I think of your father’s obsession with this Rumiyya. He lost his head one day, because she very nearly left him, because he thought his honour was at stake, because he wanted, in his way, to take revenge on the Castilians. Since then, he has never recovered his good judgement. But what has just happened concerns neither Muhammad nor Warda, nor even poor Mariam; the whole Granadan community of Fez is being held up to ridicule by the Zarwali. We have to fight, even for the daughter of the Rumiyya. A community begins to fall apart the moment it agrees to abandon the weakest of its members.’
His arguments mattered little; his attitude gave me new hope.
‘Do you think we shall be able to save my sister?’
‘Ask the Most High to bring you hope and patience! We have to fight the most powerful and devilish individuals. You know that the Zarwali is a friend of the sultan?’
‘But if Mariam has to stay in the quarter for long, she really will become a leper.’
‘You must go and see her, tell her that she must not mix with the others, and bring her turtle flesh to eat, which helps to fight the illness. Above all, she should always keep her face covered with a veil impregnated with vinegar.’
I carried these counsels to Warda. She obtained the appropriate items and when my father returned to town a few days later she went with him to the edge of the quarter. A watchman called Mariam, who came to see them. She looked disoriented, overwhelmed, haggard, with bloodshot eyes in her pallid face. A stream separated her from her parents, but they could speak to her, promise her a speedy deliverance and give her their advice. They gave the things they wanted taken to her to the watchman, slipping a few dirhams into his hand.
I was waiting for them in front of the door of the house when they returned. My father made as if not to see me. I knelt on the ground and took his hand, pressing it to my lips. After several long seconds he took it away, passed it over my face, and then patted my neck. I got up and threw myself into his arms.
‘Make us something to eat,’ he said to Warda in a broken voice. ‘We need to discuss the matter.’
She hastened to do so.
Neither he nor I said very much. At that point, the important thing was to be together, man to man for the first time, seated on the same mat, dipping our hands in the same fashion into the same dish of couscous. Mariam’s engagement had torn us apart; her ordeal hastened our reconciliation. It would also reunite Muhammad with my mother’s family.
That evening, Khali came to my father’s house, whose threshold he had not crossed since our arrival at Fez ten years earlier. Warda treated him as an honoured guest, offered him orgeat syrup and placed an enormous basket full of grapes, apricots, pears and plums in front of him. In return, he gave her kindly smiles and words of comfort. Then she withdrew behind a door to let us discuss the matter together.
The rest of the year was entirely taken up with endless undertakings and interminable secret meetings. Sometimes, people outside the family would join us, contributing their advice, and sharing our disappointments. They were mostly Granadans, but there were also two of my friends. One was Harun, of course, who was soon going to make my problem his own, to the point of taking it away from me altogether. The other was called Ahmad. At the college he was called the Lame One. Calling him to mind, I cannot prevent my pen from ceasing its tortuous scratchings, and to stop for a moment thoughtful and perplexed. As far away as Tunis, Cairo, Mecca, even Naples, I have heard men speak of the Lame One, and I always wonder whether this old friend of mine will leave any traces on the pages of history, or whether he will pass across the memory of men as a bold swimmer crosses the Nile, without affecting its flow or its floods. However my duty as chronicler is to forget my resentment and to recount, as faithfully as I can, what I have known of Ahmad since the day that year when he came into the classroom for the first time, greeted by the laughter and sarcastic remarks of the other students. The young Fassis are merciless towards outsiders, especially when they seem to have come straight from the province where they were born, and particularly if they have some physical infirmity.