When customers showed up, Namouss took a similar pleasure in following the minutiae of negotiations. Driss would begin by displaying the different types of saddles and explaining their specific uses. If the customer was a fantasia rider, Driss would show him the appropriate ceremonial saddle. The customer would then choose between the Fez style, with gold embroidery, or the Tlemcen style, with silver embroidery. If the saddle was meant for everyday use, then standard thread would suffice. The saddle would subsequently be fitted with a tarchih, composed of several layers of wool carpets sewn together, which would be placed directly on top of the horse’s back, before being equipped with a harness, a pommel, a cantle, a crupper, a throatlatch, and reins. They finally came to the most delicate part of the negotiations: money. The customer would then transform into a humble beggar, swearing up and down that the harvest had been bad that year and that he was on the brink of utter ruin. He beseeched Driss to take pity on his children and help him through this difficult patch.
“Let me kiss your hands, maâllem, don’t be so hard on me.”
This farce didn’t fool Driss, who’d seen some performances in his time. But the man’s speech seemed to have moved him, and he proposed, “All right, do you know what we’re going to do? We’ll leave the haggling to one side and concentrate on the profit margin. The base cost of what it is. Now what are you going to give me for my troubles?”
“A thousand, maâllem.”
“May Satan be cursed, my good man. Do you know how much work this is going to take?”
“Open your hand, maâllem, this is what I will give you: fifteen hundred and not a penny more. Were I to add even a penny more, my wife would throw me out.”
“Leave your wife out of this, my good man. Give me your money and take your saddle. Thanks be to God, oh He who looks after our needs and deals us our lot in life.”
On that note, Driss held out his hand and the customer pulled out a wad of bills and counted them: “One for God. Two” — and here he didn’t add a qualifier — “Three. .”
Namouss stared wide-eyed at the scene before him, rejoicing as each bill went into his father’s hand. Come the following Friday, he thought to himself, I will be able to ask him for a hefty tatriba (allowance).
THE SEKKATINE GREW more and more animated. The public auction had begun. The first items under the hammer were lbadis (small woolen carpets) handmade by the maâllmate, who entrusted their wares to hawkers like Ammour or Raïss, who went — carpets under their arms — from shop to shop to collect orders. The artisans paid close attention to the labels on each carpet; those made by Chérifa, the Berber woman Fdila, or Merqtani’s daughters were prized above all the others. They had even come up with a secret code to indicate the quality of the wares. Namouss eventually managed to decipher it, too. He knew that those marked chorba were of a poor quality while the opposite was true for those marked jrih.
After the woolen carpets, the secondhand saddles, stirrups, and moukhala guns made the rounds. It got to the point that items completely unrelated to saddlery were peddled: samovars, copperware, engraved daggers. . But eventually business slowed down and the souk would recover a little tranquillity. The shopkeepers did their paperwork and the craftsmen went back to work, albeit less energetically than before. The local café was flooded with orders, people asking Krimou, the owner, for coffees or mint teas, which were served in chebri glasses. Out came the nuts or the snuffboxes and everyone gave themselves over to pleasure. This was also the time when passing visitors were welcomed and gossip was exchanged: weddings, divorces, deaths, houses that had gone on the market, inflation, new products, and — naturally — the arm wrestling between nationalists and the colonial authorities. People made hushed references to Allal al-Fassi, Belhassan Ouazzani,7 Abdel el-Krim Khattabi,8 the sultan (may God grant him victory), and the corrupt caids who blighted the countryside. They weighed up the relative strengths of the Americans and the Russians (the two leading powers) and their support for Egypt, and prayed to God to take pity on Muslims as a whole and deliver them from evil.
Namouss hung on every word, scraping bits of knowledge together. Matters to do with other countries simply went over his head and he put these down to the natural order of things. History had yet to knock at the door of his consciousness. He waited impatiently for these serious discussions to come to a fortuitous end. If only Abdeslam Laïrini would suddenly show up with a suitcase in each hand! The man in question was a dedicated traveler originally from the north of the country, specifically from the town of Larache. Once a month he would go back and forth between Fez and the Spanish Zone, where he made a number of surprising purchases: soap bars in the shape of fruit (lemons, pears, bananas), Italian shoes, scarves and silk shirts, pajamas, bottles of Rêve d’Or and Tabu perfume, chocolate, tubes of toothpaste, toothbrushes, and — something that disconcerted Namouss — Spanish gargoulettes of unusual shapes and decoration. As soon as Abdeslam Laïrini entered the souk, many conversations came to an abrupt end. Everyone ran over to touch the merchandise, which for the most part sold out in a matter of minutes. For reasons unknown to Namouss, Driss rarely bought anything, so Namouss had to content himself with feasting his eyes. He was all ears too, since Abdeslam spoke with the singsong accent typical of the north. It was like hearing another language for Namouss, who had begun to develop a taste for new languages at school.
Yet there were days when nothing unexpected happened. The conversations dragged on. Becoming aware of how bored his son was, Driss would set him free.
“Go home,” he ordered him.
THE COMMAND JOLTED Namouss up from his extended reverie. He looked around to make sure Driss wasn’t anywhere in sight. A few shops had already opened. It was time to move on.
Where should he go now? It was barely noon, and he had to hold out until sundown. There was no choice but to continue on his peregrination. He left the Sekkatine souk, took a left, passed the Nejjarine fountain, and went down the alleyway that led to the rue des Pavés. Once there, he stopped in front of a shop that like the others was closed, though not for the same reason. In fact, the shop had been closed as long as anyone could remember and was shrouded in an aura of mystery. It was called the Prophet’s Shop, and it was said that God’s Beloved had once passed through there. The footprints he’d left behind were still etched in the ground. Namouss had often tried to peep inside the shop through a crack to see what went on in there but had never been able to make out anything in the pitch-dark. But today, distressed as he was, he was hoping for a miracle. He leaned against the door and looked through the crack. His need to be rescued was akin to a breath of air coming from inside the shop. He was moved by it. “Oh emissary of God,” he surprised himself murmuring, “get me out of this bad patch.” At that moment, he felt himself being shoved and violently crushed against the door. Grasping for something with which to catch his balance, his hand gripped the tail of an animal that had come out of nowhere. He realized that he’d come upon a heavily burdened donkey that had slipped on the cobblestones and had almost fallen on top of him. Luckily the donkey driver was there. Using his cudgel, the driver beat the animal until it got back on its feet, freeing Namouss, who was frightened rather than hurt. The driver, a little groggy, continued on his way.