Leo Africanus

by Amin Maalouf

  Henceforth I had to leave Egypt, where Bayazid and his mother were in danger. Nur had kept her pregnancy secret, except from Khadra, who had helped her deliver the baby and had kept him since the first day. What if the nurse, already old, should die, and the child should be taken to Cairo, where his identity would be quickly discovered? He would then be at the mercy of Salim’s agents, of whom there were many in Egypt; he might even be handed over by Sultan Qansuh himself who, while distrusting the Ottomans to the utmost, was too afraid of them to refuse them the head of a child.

  My solution was easily found: to marry Nur and leave for Fez with the child, where I could produce him as my own, in order to return to Egypt when he was older and when his age would no longer betray his origin.

  As Nur was a widow, the marriage was a simple one. Some friends and neighbours gathered in my house for a meal, among them an Andalusian lawyer. At the moment that the contract was being drawn up, he noticed the icon and the cross on the wall. He asked me to take them down.

  ‘I cannot,’ I said. ‘I promised the owner of the house not to touch them until his return.’

  The lawyer seemed embarrassed, and the guests as well. Until Nur intervened:

  ‘If it is not possible to take these objects down, nothing prevents them being covered.’

  Without waiting for a reply she drew a damask screen up to the wall. Satisfied, the notary officiated.

  We did not stay more than two nights in the house, which I left with regret. Chance had offered it to me, and left it with me for nearly two years; the Copt had never reappeared or given me any news of himself. I had only heard that an epidemic of plague had struck Assyut and its neighbourhood, decimating a large part of the population, and I imagined that my benefactor had probably fallen victim to it. May it please God that I may be wrong, but I see no other explanation for his absence, nor especially for his silence. Nevertheless, before leaving I handed the keys into the keeping of my goldsmith, Da’ud the Aleppine. As the brother of Ya‘qub, master of the Mint, a good friend of the sultan, he was better placed than anyone else to prevent some Mameluke from taking over the empty house.

  Our voyage began in the month of Safar, on the eve of the Christian Easter. The first stop was Khadra’s cottage, near Giza, where we spent a night, before returning with Bayazid, then aged sixteen months, towards Bulaq, the great river port of Cairo. Thanks to a judicious bakshish, we were able to embark immediately on a jarm which was transporting a cargo of refined sugar from the sultan’s personal factory to Alexandria. There were numerous craft at Bulaq, and some were very comfortable, but I was anxious to arrive at the port of Alexandria under the sovereign’s flag, having been warned by friends of the difficulties encountered at the customs. Some travellers were searched down to their underclothes, on arrival and departure, by over-zealous officials who used to tax dinars as well as goods.

  Avoiding this annoyance, I was better able to appreciate the grandeur of this ancient city, founded by Alexander the Great, a sovereign of whom the Qur’an speaks in laudatory terms, and whose tomb is a place of pilgrimage for the pious. It is true that the town is no more than the shadow of what it once was. The inhabitants still recall the time when hundreds of ships lay permanently to anchor in the harbour, from Flanders, England, Biscay, Portugal, Puglia, Sicily, and especially from Venice, Genoa, Ragusa and Turkish Greece. That year, only memories still crowded into the harbour.

  In the middle of the town, facing the port, is a hill which did not exist, it is said, at the time of the Ancients, and has been formed only from the accumulation of ruins. Rummaging through it, vases and other objects of value can often be found. On the top a small tower has been built, where there lives a watchman all day and all night, whose job is to keep a watch for passing ships. Each time he signals one to the customs men he receives a bonus. In return, if he sleeps or leaves his post and a ship arrives without him having signalled it, he pays a fine equal to twice his bonus.

  Outside the city, some imposing ruins can be seen, in the middle of which rises a very high and massive column which the ancient books say was built by a sage named Ptolemy. He had placed a great steel mirror at the top of it, which, it was said, used to burn all enemy boats which tried to approach the coast.

  There were surely many other things to visit, but we were all eager to depart, promising ourselves to come back one day to Alexandria when our minds would be at peace. Then we embarked in an Egyptian vessel making for Tlemcen, where we rested a whole week before taking to the road.

  I had put on my Maghribi clothes once more, and going through the walls of Fez I had covered my face with a taylassan. I did not want my arrival to be known until I had met my family, that is to say my father, my mother, Warda, Sarwat, my six-year-old daughter, as well as Harun and Mariam, whom I had no hope of seeing but of whom I expected to hear news.

  However, I could not prevent myself from beginning by stopping in front of the site of my palace. It was exactly as it was when I had left it, except that the grass had grown, covering the unfinished walls. I turned my gaze away quickly as well as the drier gaze of my mule, which I directed towards Khali’s house, several paces away. I knocked. From inside a woman answered whose voice I did not recognize. I called my mother by her first name.

  ‘She doesn’t live here any more,’ said the voice.

  Mine was too choked with emotion to ask further questions. I left for my father’s house.

  Salma was standing in front of the door and duly clasped me to her bosom, as well as Nur and Bayazid, whom she covered with kisses, not without marvelling that I should have given my son such an uncommon name and such clear skin. She said nothing. Only her eyes spoke, and it was in them that I saw that my father had died. She confirmed it with a tear. But it was not there that she wanted to begin:

  ‘We do not have much time. You must listen to what I have to say to you before you go away again.’

  ‘But I have no intention of going away!’

  ‘Listen to me and you will understand.’

  And thus she spoke for more than an hour, perhaps two, without hesitating or interrupting herself, as if she had already turned over in her mind a thousand times what she would say to me on the day when I returned.

  ‘I do not want to curse Harun, but his actions have cursed us all. No one at Fez has blamed him for the death of the Zarwali. Alas! he did not stop there.’

  Shortly after my banishment, she explained, the sovereign had despatched two hundred soldiers to seize the Ferret, but the mountain people had taken up cudgels on his behalf. Sixteen soldiers were killed in an ambush. When the news became known, a proclamation was stuck up and read in the streets of Fez, announcing that there was a price on Harun’s head. Our houses were put under police guard; the police were there day and night, closely questioning each visitor, so much so that even very close friends hesitated to associate with the outlaw’s relatives. Ever since, a new proclamation had been read out each week, accusing Harun and his band of having attacked a convoy, robbed a caravan, or massacred travellers.

  ‘That’s not true!’ I exclaimed. ‘I know Harun. He might have killed in vengeance or self-defence, but not to steal!’

  ‘The truth is only important for God; what concerns us is what the people believe. Your father was thinking of emigrating again, to Tunis or some other city, when his heart stopped suddenly, in Ramadan last year.’

  Salma breathed for a long time before continuing:

  ‘He had invited several people to come and break the fast in his company, but no one dared to enter the house. Life had become a heavy burden for him to bear. The next day, during the siesta, I was awoken by the sound of something falling. He was stretched out on the ground, in the courtyard where he had been pacing up and down since morning. His head had struck the edge of the pool. He had stopped breathing.’

  A terrible heat filled my breast. I hid my face. My mother continued without looking at me:

  ‘In the face of adversity, women bend an
d men break. Your father was prisoner of his self-esteem. I had been taught to submit.’

  ‘And Warda?’

  ‘She left us after the death of Muhammad. Without her husband, without her daughter, she no longer had anyone in this country. I believe that she has returned to her village in Castile, to end her life among her own people.’

  Then she added in a low voice:

  ‘We should never have left Granada!’

  ‘Perhaps we are going to go back there.’

  She did not deign to reply. Her hand brushed at the wind before her eyes, as if chasing a persistent fly.

  ‘Ask me instead about your daughter.’

  Her face lit up. And mine too.

  ‘I was waiting for you to speak of her. I did not dare to ask you. I left her when she was so young!’

  ‘She is chubby and cheeky. At the moment she is with Sarah, who takes her sometimes to play with her grandchildren.’

  They both arrived an hour later. Contrary to my expectations, it was Gaudy Sarah who flung herself around my neck, while my daughter stood at a respectful distance. We had to be introduced. My mother was too moved, so Sarah took care of it:

  ‘Sarwat, this is your father.’

  The little girl took a step towards me and then stopped.

  ‘You were in Timb–’

  ‘No, not in Timbuktu, but in Egypt, and I’ve brought you back a little brother.’

  I took her on my knees, covering her with kisses, breathing in deeply the smell of her smooth black hair, dreamily caressing her neck. I had the impression of repeating in the most minute detail a scene which I had seen a hundred times: my father seated on his cushion, with my sister.

  ‘Is there any news of Mariam?’

  It was Sarah who replied:

  ‘It’s said that she’s been seen with a sword in her hand, at her husband’s side. But there are so many stories about them . . .’

  ‘And do you think that Harun is a bandit?’

  ‘There are rebels in every community. One curses them in public and prays for them when one is alone. Even among the Jews. There are Jews in this country who do not pay the tribute, who ride horses and bear arms. We call them the Karayim. You probably know that.’

  I agreed:

  ‘There are hundreds of them, organized like an army, who live in the mountains of Damansara and Hintata near Marrakesh.’

  But I wanted to go back to my first concern.

  ‘Do you really think that there are people in Fez who pray secretly for Harun and Mariam?’

  This time it was Salma who exploded:

  ‘If Harun was only a simple bandit, he would not be pursued so relentlessly in proclamation after proclamation. When he attacked the Zarwali, he almost became a hero. But they wanted to make him out to be a thief. In the eyes of the common people, gold soils more easily than blood.’

  Then, speaking more slowly, as if another person was speaking from within her:

  ‘It is useless to try to clear your brother-in-law. If you try to defend him you will be treated as his accomplice once again.’

  My mother was afraid that my desire to defend Harun and Mariam would impel me to commit new follies. She was probably right, but I had to try. The very way in which my banishment had been decided led me to think that the Sultan of Fez would listen to me now.

  The sultan was then on campaign against the Portuguese, beside Bula wan. For months I went up and down the country following the royal army, sometimes bearing arms and taking part in some skirmishes. I was ready to do anything to wring out a pardon. Between two battles I spoke to the monarch, his brothers and a number of his advisers. But why go into details when the results were so disappointing? An intimate of the sultan finally agreed with me that many crimes had been attributed unjustly to Harun, adding, in a tone of disarming sincerity:

  ‘Even if we could pardon your brother-in-law for what he has done, how could we pardon him for the things we accuse him of having done?’

  One day I suddenly decided to abandon my efforts. I had indeed not managed to get what I wanted, but through chance conversations I had gleaned a piece of information that I wanted to confirm. I returned to Fez, took Salma, Nur, Sarwat and Bayazid, and set off, without disclosing my purposes to them, having decided no longer to look back. At Fez I possessed nothing more than a half-completed building, a ruin inhabited by regrets and empty of memories.

  Our journey lasted for weeks without me revealing our destination, which was not a place but a man: ‘Aruj the corsair, called Barbarossa. I had actually heard that Harun was with him. So I made straight for Tlemcen, then followed the coast road towards the east, avoiding the cities held by the Castilians, such as Oran or Mars al-Kabir, stopping in places where I could meet Granadans, at Algiers for example, and particularly at Cherchell, where the population consisted almost entirely of refugees from Andalus.

  Barbarossa had taken as his base the little port town of Jijil, which he had wrested from the Genoese the previous year. However, before reaching there, I heard that he was besieging the Castilian garrison at Bougie. As this town lay on my way, I decided to go there, leaving my family several miles away in the charge of the imam of a small village mosque, promising myself to come back and collect them after having inspected the battlefield.

  It was at Bougie that I met Barbarossa, as I have written in my Description of Africa. He did indeed have a very red beard, of its own natural colour but also reddened with henna, because the man was past fifty but looked older and seemed only to be kept standing upright by the lust for conquest. He limped badly, and his left arm was made of silver. He had lost his arm at Bougie itself, in the course of a previous siege which had ended in disaster. This time the battle seemed better joined. He had already occupied the old citadel of the town and was undertaking the investment of another fortress near the beach where the Castilians were continuing to resist.

  The day of my arrival there was some respite in the battle. Guards were standing in front of the commander’s tent, one of whom came originally from Malaga. It was he who ran to call Harun, with a deference which made me realize that the Ferret was a lieutenant of Barbarossa. In fact he arrived accompanied by two Turks, whom he dismissed with a confident gesture before throwing himself upon me. We stayed joined together for a long moment, exchanging vigorous slaps which conveyed all our friendship, our surprise and the sadness of estrangement. Harun first made me enter the tent and presented me to ‘Aruj as a poet and diplomat of renown, for which I only understood the reason later. The corsair spoke like a king, in short and measured sentences whose apparent meaning was trite but whose hidden meaning was difficult to define. Thus he recalled the victories of Salim the Ottoman and the increasing arrogance of the Castilians, remarking sadly that it was in the East that the sun of Islam was rising while it was setting in the West.

  When we had taken our leave, Harun brought me to his own tent, less imposing and less embellished, but which could nevertheless accommodate about ten people and was very well supplied with fruit and drinks. It was not necessary for me to ask any questions for the Ferret to begin to answer them.

  ‘I have killed only murderers, I have robbed only thieves. I have not ceased to fear God for a moment. I have ceased only to fear the rich and the powerful. Here I am fighting the unbelievers to whom our princes are paying court, I defend the towns which they abandon. My companions in arms are the exiles, outlaws and lawbreakers from all lands. But does not ambergris issue forth from the entrails of the sperm whale?’

  He had poured out these words one after the other, as if he was reciting the Fatiha. Then, in a very different voice:

  ‘Your sister has been wonderful. A lioness of the Atlas. She is in my house in Jijil, sixty miles from here, with our three sons, the youngest of whom is called Hasan.’

  I did not try to conceal my emotion.

  ‘I have never doubted you for a moment.’

  Since we were children, I had always given in very quickly in all argument
s with the Ferret. But this time I had to explain to him how his actions had affected our family. His face darkened.

  ‘At Fez I was a torture to them. Here, I shall be their protector.’

  A week later, we were all at Jijil. The remnants of my family were reunited, ten fugitives under a corsair’s roof. However, I remember it as a moment of rare happiness, which I would willingly have prolonged.

  The Year of the Grand Turk

  922 A.H.

  5 February 1516 – 23 January 1517

  I, who ran across the world to save Bayazid from the vindictiveness of the Ottomans, found myself, that year, with wife and child in the very heart of Constantinople and in the most extraordinary position possible: bending over the outstretched hand of Salim the Grim, who was favouring me with a protective nod of his head and the suspicion of a smile. It is said that the prey is often attracted by the fangs which are preparing to destroy it. Perhaps that was the explanation of my insane rashness. But, at the time, I did not see it thus. I was content to follow the course of events to the best of my judgement, endeavouring to start my life anew on the little piece of ground from which I did not yet feel banished. But I should explain how this happened.

  Barbarossa prospered before my very eyes, and Harun in his shadow. The attack against Bougie eventually failed, but in the first days of the year the corsair had succeeded in taking power at Algiers, having killed the former master of the city by his own hand, while this unfortunate was being massaged in his hammam.