by Paul Bowles
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The conquests of Emanuel the Fortunate mention the capture of Azamur, where the sun shone strong on the fort’s low tower. Hot lead splashed down the sluices. Get back! cried the crowd. Later they made the finest drums of any town along the coast. “And no Christian was permitted to ride into the city on horseback, or Jew enter it except barefooted (as in Fez and other cities to this day).”
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The same day thither there came aboard of us a young gentleman of that country. He had fled from his father, having had the misfortune to kill his elder brother, whom his father loved entirely.
In the courtyard. By the fountain. There was no time. I heard my father at the door. Not even time to pull out the knife. Only to hide and then run out of the house. Allah! Allah!
This young gentleman was much given to repeating the doleful account of his misfortune, amid divers piteous lamentations, and all this in such great measure that our good Captain was constrained to lock him away in the dark below, where he passed the entire voyage. It is well to remember that the Morocco pirates learned their trade from the English rovers driven out of the European area.
And the Sultan wrote to the British.
“And know that we have received, by our servants, from your master, three coach horses; now a coach requires four horses to draw it, wherefore you must needs send us another good one of the same kind and size, that they may draw the coach with four horses. Oblige us in this, by all means. Farewell! We depend upon it. Written on the seventh of the sacred month of Du El Kadah, in the year ninety-three and a thousand.”
The sound of the sea on the wind blowing through the streets of Essaouira today is the same as it was two hundred years ago, when Andrew Layton had a small exporting business there, together with two Frenchmen, Messieurs Secard and Barre. The three men often set out on their horses into the countryside roundabout, Layton’s greyhounds accompanying them. There were very few Europeans in the town, so that these excursions had become their favorite pastime.
One day the three, along with a clerk who worked in their office, went out of the town on their horses. To escape the wind they rode inland, rather than skirting the dunes to the south. Their route led them past several small Chleuh villages. The dogs raced here and there across the scrubland. They passed a hamlet where men and women were working in the fields, while cows grazed nearby. The greyhounds rushed onto the scene and made a concerted attack upon the cattle. As a calf fell, a farmer in the field raised his gun and shot one of the dogs. The others scattered.
The Europeans had seen. They rode up and dismounted, but before they had even begun to speak, the field-workers were hurling stones at them. Monsieur Barre received the most serious bruises. A general mêlée ensued, in the course of which Layton and his associates made free use of their riding-whips. Then they turned and galloped back to Essaouira in a state of high indignation. The occurrence was unusual, and by their standards, outrageous. They went immediately to see the Pacha.
To appease the Europeans, with whom he was on friendly terms, the Pacha first advised them henceforth to ride southward along the beach, notwithstanding the wind, rather than going inland past the villages. Then he agreed to call in the offending farmers. The following day a large group of them appeared in the town. They were in a state of great excitement, and straightway began a frenzied clamor for retribution. A village woman was missing two teeth, which she insisted that Layton had broken. Again and again the villagers called, in the name of Allah and the Prophet, for justice.
Perplexed by the turn events had taken, the Pacha decided to refer the matter to the Sultan. In due course a reply came from His Majesty, ordering all the parties concerned to report to the palace at Marrakech.
At the hearing, which finally took place in the presence of the Sultan, Layton was ingenuous enough to give a straightforward account of the incident. Included was his admission that he had struck the woman in the face with the butt of his whip, thus breaking two of her incisors. He offered to make monetary payment, but the villagers were adamant in their refusal. They had not come to Marrakech expecting money, they declared. What they demanded was precise retaliation: Layton must furnish them with two of his own teeth. Nothing else was acceptable.
Since the peasants were within their rights in asking that the law of the land be applied, the Sultan had no choice but to order the extractions to be performed then and there. The official tooth-puller stepped forward, ready to start. Layton, although considerably disconcerted, had the presence of mind to ask that the teeth to be pulled be two molars which recently had been giving him trouble. The complainants agreed to the suggestion. Back teeth being larger and heavier than front teeth, they felt that they were getting the better of the bargain.
The operation went ahead under the intent scrutiny of the villagers. They were waiting to hear the infidel’s cries of pain. Layton, however, preserved a stoical silence throughout the ordeal. The molars were washed and presented to the claimants, who went away entirely satisfied.
The Sultan had watched the proceedings with growing interest, and he arranged to hold a private conversation with Layton on the following day, when he apologized, at the same time expressing his admiration for the Englishman’s fortitude. He could scarcely do less, he said, than agree to grant whatever favor his guest might ask of him.
Layton replied that he desired only that the permit to export a cargo of wheat from Essaouira be expedited. His modesty and candor impelled the monarch to take a personal interest in him, and the two became fast friends.
It was the Emperor’s hope that Layton might eventually be persuaded to accept the post of British Consul in Marrakech. There at least, he argued, he would not have to contend with the wind. But the prospect did not appeal to Layton, who preferred to continue his life at Essaouira with his horses and dogs. He had got used to the wind, he said.
Whenever his own tribe won a victory in a battle with another tribe, Si Abdallah el Hassoun inwardly rejoiced. At the same time he considered this pleasure a base emotion, one unworthy of him. Thus, to fortify his sanctity he bade farewell to his students and went to live in Slâ, which is by the sea.
It was not long before the divinity students of his school sent several of their number to Si Abdallah, imploring him to return to them. Without replying, the saint led them to the rocks at the edge of the sea.
How turbulent the water is! he exclaimed. The students agreed. Then Si Abdallah filled a jar with the water and set it on a rock. Yet the water in here is still, he said, pointing at the jar. Why?
A student answered: Because it has been taken out of the place where it was.
Now you see why I must stay here, Si Abdallah said.
For thousands of afternoons in the Fondouq Askour, while the whores squabbled and shrieked in the courtyard outside his room, Sidi Moussa ed Douqqali worked at his obsessive task. He hoped to make asphodel stalks edible, but he died without having succeeded.
Sidi bel Abbes es Sebti was only fifteen when, realizing that he was a saint, he went to Marrakech to live a saint’s life. For forty years he walked through the streets of the medina, wearing only a pair of serrouelles, while he extolled the virtues of poverty. He was known for the foul language he used in upbraiding those who took issue with him.
Sidi Belyout, tamer of wild beasts, was never to be seen without his entourage of pet lions. And Sidi Abderrahman el Mejdoub, who dealt in epigram and prophecy, was not only a saint. He was also mentally deranged, thus in direct natural contact with the source of all knowledge.
Along the Oued Tensift beyond the walls, there were caves that had been hollowed in the red earth cliffs. The entrance to Sidi Youssef’s cave was protected by high thorn bushes and could not be seen from the river. He sought solitude, and although he was known for his great holiness, the people of Marrakech granted him his privacy, for he had leprosy. He claimed that the disease had been conferred upon him by Allah as a reward for his piety. When pieces of his flesh caught on the
thorns and remained hanging there, he gave heartfelt thanks for these extra proofs of divine favor.
There were days when the students trembled. Are you cold? the master said.
We should sit in the courtyard, they told him. There are djenoun in hiding here.
Sidi Ali ben Harazem rebuked them, saying: Be still. If the prayers we send to Allah can reach the darker world, friends can be made from enemies, and Islam can enter there.
And the students shivered and wrote, hearing the water’s gurgle beneath the tiles. And Sidi Ali ben Harazem talked until dusk, when the swallows no longer flew above the city.
A century and a half ago, in one of the twisting back streets of the Mellah in Fez, there lived a respectable couple, Haim and Simha Hachuel. There would be no record of them today had their daughter Sol not been favored with exceptional beauty.
Since Jewish girls were free to walk in the streets unveiled, the beauty of Sol Hachuel soon became legendary throughout the city.
Moslem youths climbed up from the Medina to stroll through the Mellah in the hope of catching sight of Sol on her way to a fountain to fetch water.
Having seen her once, Mohammed Zrhouni came each day and waited until she appeared, merely to gaze upon her. Later he spoke with her, and still later suggested that they marry.
Sol’s parents rejected the idea outright: it would entail her abandonment of Judaism.
The Zrhouni family likewise strongly disapproved: they did not want a Jewess in the house, and they believed, like most Moslems, that no Jew’s conversion to Islam could be considered authentic.
Mohammed was not disposed in any case to take a Moslem bride, since that would involve accepting the word of his female relatives as to the girl’s desirability; by the time he was finally able to see her face, he would already be married to her. Since the considerations of his family would necessarily be based on the bride-price, he strongly doubted that any girl chosen by them could equal the jewel he had discovered in the Mellah.
For her part, Sol was infatuated with her Moslem suitor. Her parents’ furious tirades only increased the intensity of her obsession. Like Mohammed, she saw no reason to let herself be swayed by the opinions of her elders.
The inevitable occurred: she went out of the house one day and did not return. Mohammed covered her with a haik and went with her down into the Medina and across the bridge to his parents’ house in the Keddane.
Mohammed lived with his mother, aunts and sisters, his father having died the previous year. Out of deference to him the women of the household received his bride with correctness, if not enthusiasm, and the wedding, with its explicit conversion of the bride to Islam, was performed.
His mother remarked in an aside to Mohammed that at least the bride had cost nothing, and he understood that this was the principal reason for her grudging acceptance of Sol as her daughter-in-law.
Almost immediately Sol realized that she had made an error. Although she was conversant with Moslem customs, it had not occurred to her that she would be forbidden ever to go outside the Zrhouni house.
When she remonstrated with Mohammed, saying that she needed to go out for a walk in the fresh air, he answered that it was common knowledge that a woman goes out only three times during her life: once when she is born and leaves her mother’s womb, once when she marries and leaves her father’s house, and once when she dies and leaves this world. He advised her to walk on the roof like other women.
The aunts and sisters, instead of coming little by little to accept Sol as a member of the family, made her feel increasingly like an interloper. They whispered among themselves and grew silent when they saw her approaching.
The months went by. Sol pleaded to be allowed to visit her mother and father. They could not come to see her, since the house would be profaned by their presence.
It seemed unjust to Sol that women were not allowed to enter the mosque; if only it had been possible to go with Mohammed and pray, her life would have been easier to bear. She missed the regular visits to the synagogue where she sat upstairs with her mother and listened to her father as he chanted below with the other men.
The Zrhouni house had become a prison, and she resolved to escape from it. Accordingly, one day when she had managed to get hold of the key to the outer door, she wrapped herself in her haik and quietly slipped out into the street. Not looking to right or to left, she hurried up the Talâa to the top, and then set out for the Mellah.
The happiness in the Hachuel home lasted one day. Enraged and humiliated by his wife’s dereliction, Mohammed had gone directly to the ulema and told them the story. They listened, consulted together, and declared his wife to be guilty of apostasy from Islam.
On the following afternoon a squad of mokhaznia pounded on the door of the house in the Mellah, and amid shrieks and lamentations, seized the girl. They pulled her out of the house and dragged her through the streets of Fez Djedid, with a great crowd following behind.
Outside Bab Segma the crowd spread out and formed a circle. Screaming and struggling against the ropes that bound her, Sol was forced to kneel in the dust.
A tall mokhazni unsheathed his sword, raised it high in the air, and beheaded her.
Days of less substance than the nights that slipped between. And in the streets they whispered: Where is he?
The murmuring filled the souq at sunset as the goods were stacked away.
In irons. In Fez.
Abdeljbar.
Raised eyebrows, swift smiles, nods of understanding. For when the Riffians had burned a Nazarene ship, Sultan Abderrahman, hoping to placate the owners, had sent his soldiers to the Rif. They went directly to the caids and cheikhs, offering silver reales in exchange for the names of the guilty ones.
In the town where Cheikh Abdeljbar lived there was a youth named El Aroussi, admired by everyone for the strength in his body and the beauty of his features. For some unexplained reason Cheikh Abdeljbar detested the young man, and this was the subject of many discussions in the souq. It was difficult to find the cause of his hostility.
Those who most disliked the cheikh said it was probable that at some time El Aroussi had repulsed the older man’s attempts to seduce him. Others believed that, being of a jealous disposition, the cheikh could not forgive the youth for the many qualities Allah had bestowed upon him—particularly those qualities which made the girls and women wait for hours behind their lattices in order to see him walk by. People admired El Aroussi; they did not admire the cheikh.
El Aroussi knew nothing of the burned ship, and the cheikh was quite aware of this. All the same he named the youth as one of the raiders. El Aroussi was manacled and dragged off to a dungeon in Fez.
There in the Rif injustice was the daily bread. Everyone in the town knew what had happened, and everyone whispered. El Aroussi was a hero. The people were certain he would escape.
Time proved them right. Less than a year later the rumor was going around that he was in Tangier. Probably it did not reach the ears of Cheikh Abdeljbar. Perched above the town in his towers, he spoke only with men of importance, like himself.
The cheikh was ambitious. He hoped to marry his daughter Rahmana to the son of the Pacha of Slâ.
Included among his lands there was a castle on an estate in the Gharb, not far from Slâ, where he decided to take his family for a visit.
El Aroussi had indeed escaped from his confinement in Fez. He returned to his native town, where the people in the streets welcomed him, and commiserated with him for the unjust treatment he had received.
He listened impatiently, almost seeming not to hear them. He had grown bitter and silent. He was obliged to avenge himself against the cheikh. No other course of action was open to him. But the cheikh had gone to the Gharb.
As El Aroussi sat brooding one evening in his father’s house, he came upon an idea as to how he might proceed. He knew it would be necessary for him to go and stay, perhaps for many months, in the vicinity of the castle near Slâ, but having no acce
ss to money, he could see no way of keeping alive during the time of waiting. Now, however, he thought he had the solution.
The following morning he sought out his friends and put the question to them: would they be willing to go with him and live as bandits in the Forest of Mamora while they waited to carry out the attack upon Cheikh Abdeljbar?
In the end he recruited more than two dozen young men, all of them eager to help him clear his honor.
During the months while Cheikh Abdeljbar was making repeated visits to Slâ, as the arrangements for the forthcoming wedding slowly took form, El Aroussi and his friends lost no time in becoming the fiercest band of brigands in the region. The terror they caused throughout the Gharb was understandable, for they thought it safer to kill their victims before robbing them.
For generations the Forest of Mamora had been notorious as a robber-infested region. The outlaws raided the convoys of those unwise enough to pass within easy striking distance of the forest itself. If Cheikh Abdeljbar had spoken with the peasants working on his land, he might have been able to identify the new bandit chief from descriptions of his person in the gossip that was on everyone’s lips. But the cheikh was far too busy in Slâ settling the bride-price with the pacha, and the details of the wedding-feast with his future son-in-law, Sidi Ali.
And Rahmana lay among the cushions swallowing pellets of almond paste with sesame and honey, while maidservants massaged her body with creams and oils.
Guests began to arrive at the castle several days before the wedding feast. On the final night the entire party, led by the bride and groom, set out on horseback in a torchlit procession for Slâ, where the festivities would be continued at the palace of the pacha when they arrived on the following day.
Their way led through a countryside of boulders and high cactus. The moon gave great clarity, and a cold sharp wind ran westward. There were songs, accompanied only by the hoofbeats of a hundred horses.
