But, as I said, the governor knew how to handle the soldiers. Immediately after the funeral, he ordered the dead horse slaughtered and portions of meat served to every man in the company, including the porters and slaves. Until then, our rations had consisted of the corn looted from the last village, so everyone was exceedingly grateful for the meat, even as we hated the way in which it had come to be in our possession. And the governor announced that he had named this river in honor of the dead man: Río Velázquez. Thus the grumbling died out.
In the morning, Dulchanchellin’s men shuttled all of us from one bank to the other in their handsomely painted dugouts, their oars dipping rhythmically against the current. The water ran fast and clear, but around the boulders that sat here and there in the riverbed, it turned white with foam. With the sun still in the east, the sky was a darker shade of blue, enclosed in all directions by the deep green of pine trees. When it was time for the governor to board, Dulchanchellin came forward and pointed to the ostrich feathers. Oh, the governor said. You want this? With a laugh, he plucked the loose feather off his helmet and handed it to the cacique, who stuck it among the other bright feathers in his headdress, like a king adding another jewel to his crown. At last, Dulchanchellin raised his hand to bid us farewell. He stood with his retinue, watching, until the very last one of us had departed from his kingdom.
We had gone only about a league in the direction of Apalache when two soldiers came to see the governor, dragging a young settler between them. He had been caught stealing a basketful of corn; the soldiers wanted him punished. The governor said that the sentence would be commensurate with this grave crime, but there was no time to apply it now. We can put him in irons, he said, when we reach Apalache.
Over the next ten days, this became a refrain among the men. When we reach Apalache, the thief will be punished. When we reach Apalache, the Indians will offer no resistance. When we reach Apalache, there will be plenty of food to eat and water to drink. When we reach Apalache, there will be time to rest. When we reach Apalache, we will build a settlement. When we reach Apalache, we will be made sergeants. When we reach Apalache, we will receive one bag of gold and two of silver. When we reach Apalache, my master will be rich. When we reach Apalache, I will be free.
6. THE STORY OF THE SALE
The end of our happiness came in the year 928 of the Hegira. It was often said that the soil of Dukkala was so rich it could grow the hardy wheat as well as the fragile artichoke, but that year there was no rain at all and the harvests were poor. The elders clucked their tongues and said they had never seen a drought like this in their lifetimes. Men and women came to Azemmur from every part of the province, to borrow money, to look for work, or to sell the sheep and cows they could no longer feed. My uncles noticed that they had far fewer commissions than usual; they spent long afternoons sweeping floors and shooing flies. Before long, our streets filled with beggar children, their bellies distended and their hair the color of copper.
But our ill fortune did not afflict the Portuguese in our town: they still shipped gold and wool to Porto and still sent hanbals, kiswas, and other woven goods to Guinea. If anything, the drought and famine we were experiencing had only made their trade more profitable, because the price of wool had fallen so low that they could purchase larger quantities of it. That year, a strange thing happened. The farmers who had neither the funds to pay the Portuguese tax nor grain to sell at market had to give their children as payment. Girls of marriageable age were worth two arrobas of wheat; boys, twice that. A customs official of my acquaintance swore that he had seen three Portuguese caravels leave Azemmur, each carrying two hundred girls and women, who would be transported to Seville, where they would be sold as domestics and concubines. From that blighted time came the saying: when bellies speak, reason is lost.
There came a day when the sons of al-Dib let me go in order to hire one of their relatives, a young lad freshly arrived from the countryside, and I had to join the growing ranks of the idle in Azemmur. Just as I had taken excessive pride in my accomplishments, I found excessive shame in this failure. I did not tell my family about the loss of my employment. Instead, I spent my time going from merchant to merchant, hoping to interest them in my skills. My connections did little to help me, however, for many of my peers were in the same predicament.
To add to my worries, my father fell ill once again. He had trouble taking the stairs up to the roof, from which he liked to watch the ships in the harbor, and the muscles on his arms and legs often twitched uncontrollably. Sometimes, he had such terrible cramps that my mother had to hold his limbs down to calm his movements. I brought him two different doctors, but no one knew what was wrong with him. Soon, he stopped working altogether and the loss of his earnings, however meager, was cruelly felt at home. My mother went to Mawlay Abu Shuaib’s tomb every week, to ask for the saint’s intercession, but my father only regressed with each passing day. In just a few months he needed help to get in and out of bed or to use the water closet.
We all hoped that the following year would bring some mercy, but in the year 929 of the Hegira the drought persisted and the harvest was scant. This time, the elders clucked their tongues and said that the famine was a punishment for our failings. They complained about the greed of men, the looseness of women, the insolence of children, the inns that served wine. Just as God had punished Pharaoh and his people with starvation, they said, so too had He brought down this scourge upon us. In all the mosques of Azemmur, fiery sermons became a habit, each preacher finding a new sin where before there had been nothing but pleasure.
The imam warned about excessive adornment, I said to my mother as I walked in one day.
Every story needs a villain, she said grimly. She was stirring salt and cumin into a boiling pot of water and chicken bones; this would be our meal.
But surely you do not favor prideful adornment, I replied. I remembered how much she had enjoyed her work as a bridal attendant and how much my father had disapproved of it. My years of religious training had left their mark on me after all, for here I was, reproaching her about it while neglecting my own violations.
I favor not pointing fingers, she said, lest they point to me someday.
She ladled some soup into a bowl and walked past me, through the sunny courtyard, to my father’s bedroom. He had started to refuse the scarce food we had, insisting that it should go to my young brothers, whose figures had grown dangerously gaunt over the summer. Every day my mother sat by his side holding his hand, cajoling him to eat or drink, but his lips remained shut.
The inevitable end came in Ramadan of that year. We washed him, carried his cloaked body to the mosque, read Surat Yasin over him, but it was not until the first shovelful of dry earth fell over my father’s immaculate white shroud that the truth of his death tore into me like a dagger. My wails were so sudden and so loud that my uncles, perhaps fearing I might throw myself into the grave after him, restrained me. Be sensible, they said. Death is a part of life.
But I continued screaming and beating my chest until they took me home, carrying me through the creaky blue door of the house, the way they had when I was an infant. I felt as if my very life had been taken from me. I hardly left our house during the forty days of mourning; I read from the Holy Qur’an and I prayed for my father’s soul. He had died without ever telling me what he thought of the choice I had made that fateful day in the courtyard of our house, surrounded by the remnants of our celebrations. About my conversion from scholar to merchant, he had offered neither reproach nor compliment, and I had been so pleased with myself that I had never sought his opinion about it. For years, I had resented his counsel, and now that he was gone I longed to hear it more than anything.