Andalus

by Jason Webster

  For most Spaniards, however, the Moorish period was little more than a brief and forgettable interlude in the country’s past: Chimo’s attitude was very unusual. School history books often talked about the Islamic period in a single chapter. The Moors were very much them, never us. Indeed, the concept of ‘non-Moorishness’ was a fundamental part of the Spanish national identity. The country’s patron saint, St James or Santiago, was cheerfully given the nickname ‘the Moor-slayer’ for his supposed appearance in a number of battles against the Muslims. According to the orthodox view, almost as soon as the Moors had arrived the Reconquest began – a virtually continual process from the eighth century until the conquest of Granada in 1492. Since that date, the country and its culture had been Catholic and Latin-based and the Moors had been kept firmly on the other side of the sea. Today, annual ‘Moors and Christians’ fiestas, where the capture of a town for Christendom was painstakingly reenacted, was for many the only real memory of the age of Al-Andalus.

  It was a neat and simple story that masked the complexities of who the Spanish really were. In this view, the fall of Granada merely marked a return to the status quo ante.

  ‘This is the scene of one of Christianity’s finest hours,’ a Granadino had once told me. ‘From Asturias to Granada – a single reconquest campaign.’

  A single campaign that lasted eight hundred years?

  Imagine if the Sioux Nation rose up today, formed an alliance with other tribes, and at some point in the twenty-sixth century defeated the United States. Would their culture be purely ‘Indian’? Would their final victory mark a return to how things were before the White Man took over? Those Indian reservations would swiftly be rewritten in the history books as unconquered lands – bastions of aboriginal civilization that withstood the onslaught and provided the launching pad for the subsequent reconquest of Indian territory. I had the feeling something very similar to this had happened in Spain.

  ‘You know the folk tales about Musa the Moor.’ Chimo continued with his history lesson. ‘“Watch out, or Musa the Moor will get you!” They say that to frighten kids. There are legends and all kinds of things about him. Here.’

  And so it was that as he reached for a slim children’s book behind him, with a simple drawing on the cover of a man in a turban holding his hand out towards a crescent moon, the moment I had always hoped for finally arrived: the book on Chimo’s shelf that would open my eyes. La Llegenda del Moro Mussa.

  ‘It’s in Catalan,’ I said worriedly, not realizing at first the importance of what he’d given me.

  ‘Don’t let that bother you. You’ll understand. It’s yours for three euros.’

  Back at home, with the help of a dictionary, I began to read.

  Musa the Moor was the richest, strongest and most powerful caliph who ever ruled in ancient Spain and he lived on top of a mountain in a luxurious palace with golden domed roofs and minarets that touched the sky. Seeing one day that Christian armies were advancing to conquer his lands, he decided to flee, but felt reluctant to leave his beautiful palace and all the riches he kept in it. In desperation, he pulled out a magic lantern he kept in a dusty cupboard, blowing on it until the jinn that lived inside came out and said in a sleepy voice, ‘O Great Master! Your wish is my command.’

  ‘O Wise Jinn,’ the caliph said. ‘Help me, please. I must save my treasure.’ And he told the jinn about the advancing Christians.

  ‘Do not fear, Noble Master,’ the jinn said. ‘All we must do is hide your riches from the eyes of the infidels by turning everything into stone. In that way they won’t see them for what they truly are.’

  ‘Good idea,’ said Musa. ‘Then make it so.’

  But the Caliph’s daughter, the Princess Zoraida, overheard the conversation, and she began to weep inconsolably when the jinn had left.

  ‘Father,’ she cried. ‘I don’t want to run away. I like this mountain, and the birds and flowers here, and the lovely perfumed air. Please, Father, let me stay.’

  And so Musa the Moor ordered the jinn to place his riches – now turned into stone – in a special cave with a tree planted at the entrance. And that tree was his daughter, the Princess Zoraida, guarding her father’s precious treasure.

  All went well, but the jinn made one small mistake when casting his spell over the enchanted cave, so that on one day in every year, just as springtime is arriving, at midnight the Princess Zoraida comes back to life and all the Caliph’s riches gleam and shine again. And the princess begins to spring-clean, singing while she polishes and dusts before once more the jewels turn into stone, and she must stand for another year guarding the cave.

  And they say that only good children, if they are lucky enough, might hear her laughing as for one short day she is free to breathe the perfumed mountain air she loves so much.

  I put the book down, the beginnings of a thought pushing its way to the surface.

  Outside it was sunny, with the clawing heat of a late Mediterranean summer. Children in the nursery below my flat were waking up from their siesta and playful screams echoed around the block. Outside, a scrap collector and his wife crawled past in their truck, scanning the street for anything left lying around on the pavements. They stopped in front of my window and, ignoring the honking protests of the cars behind, got out and deftly hauled a discarded armchair into the back, where their two teenage boys wedged it securely between splintered wooden boards and old wardrobes. Just junk. I wouldn’t have even noticed it otherwise. The truck drove off, the two boys fighting for a turn to sit in the new throne-like piece of furniture, their laughter rising above the growls of rage from the speed-obsessed car-drivers behind them.

  There was much to be discovered, if only you knew how to open your eyes, I thought. How much else of the world around me was I failing to see? How many hundreds of treasures had I passed over, thinking of them merely as worthless stones?

  The Musa legend began to uncurl before me, its message gradually becoming clear: there were probably all kinds of disguised legacies of the Arab period in Spain, many of them unknown and unrecognized. The Moors had hidden away jewels of a subtler kind, and the trick had been to make them appear like nothing very important at all. Finding them would require a new way of seeing.

  It was time, I realized, to discover more about a country I still felt I barely knew but which, having fallen in love with a Spanish woman, I now called home. After living here on and off for ten years, I’d learnt something of its music and languages, yet in many ways it was still as foreign to me as it had ever been: a vast, complex land at once fascinating and reserved; open yet insecure about ‘outsiders’. The key to understanding it now lay in my hands.

  It was time to go in search of Musa’s treasure.

  THE PROMISE

  Having dumped the moped fifteen minutes after our escape, the Moroccan and I had found my car and were driving away along tarmacked roads, towns coming into view like oases of sanity amid the madness of the countryside. Advertising hoardings and flashing fizzy-drink signs dotted among the palm trees had a strangely comforting effect after being chased by violent slave-trade farmers. For some reason, it seemed less harm could come to us in a world where ‘Nothing Washes Whiter’.

  We reached the outskirts of the nearest city and stopped at a bar. The sun had gone behind hazy clouds, and a clamminess hung in the air. I ordered a couple of glasses of wine as we sat at a table by the window, guessing correctly that the Moroccan would have no problem with alcohol. We both needed a drink.

  My calf muscle throbbed with a fuzzy ache. I lifted my trouser leg up to have a look – it was pink and swollen, with the first bluish signs of the heavy bruising that would come later. Broken blood capillaries made red, worm-like patterns over the skin. I prodded around it gently: it would be stiff for a while, but in a week or so I’d be fine. Still, I was annoyed with myself for not having foreseen the potential dangers of entering the farm. A certain timidness in me could sometimes give way to the complete opposite – a relaxed
overconfidence bordering on the blasé. And as I’d been able to walk straight onto the farmland without encountering any resistance, I had become blind to the risk I was taking. If anyone saw me, I’d reasoned, they would probably take me for an East European immigrant, of which Eduardo had said there were plenty also working on the semi-legal farm. I could scarcely believe now how stupid I’d been not to have expected more security.

  ‘I’m Jason,’ I said to the Moroccan. We had hardly spoken in the car, and I was now feeling a bit calmer.

  ‘Jasie,’ he repeated. Like most Arabs, I noticed, he had a problem getting my name right. ‘I’m Zine.’

  He stretched out his arm and we shook hands. After what we’d been through it seemed an oddly formal thing to do. There was a kindness in his face, though, and his smiling brown eyes immediately made you feel he liked you.

  ‘Did you find your treasure, then?’ he asked.

  His Spanish seemed fluent, accented with a stress on the ‘d’s like many Arabs, with a certain French influence in his vowel sounds.

  I was still trying to take in what had happened, my mind in a state of semi-shock, and was not at all clear about what I should do next. I rubbed my leg and my eyes began to feel heavy as exhaustion set in. Amid the fog, though, was a growing and more pressing question: Zine had gained his freedom, but what would he do now?

  The noise in the bar rose sharply as the TV was switched on and a row of middle-aged men on bar stools turned to watch a football match: it was half-time and the local side was losing one-nil. A grey-haired woman stood next to them with headphones on, listening to the radio coverage and tutting loudly.

  ‘¡Hijos de la gran puta! – Fucking arseholes!’ she yelled through yellow teeth. No-one paid her any notice.

  I looked back at Zine. He was avoiding my gaze, pretending to concentrate on the replays of the foul that had cost the home side a penalty. The colours on the TV screen had been set high, so the little orange and white men running about on an acid-green background looked more like cartoon characters than real people. In another corner of the room a second group of men were hunched over a table playing cards: naipe, they called them, a reminder of their Arabic origins – naib. The events of earlier seemed unreal.

  ‘Don’t worry about me,’ Zine said with a smile, turning away from the TV. Despite everything, I could sense a deep optimism in him, and an uncommon energy – I’d seen that during our escape. But obviously he was in a fairly desperate situation. He swallowed the last of his wine and I ordered some more.

  ‘There’s a proverb in Morocco,’ he said. ‘Al-umur mahdud wal-khawf alash – Life has a limit so why be scared?’

  I was slowly waking up to the fact that not only did I owe a debt of gratitude to this man – he’d got me out of one of the closest scrapes in my life – but also that he was now my responsibility. He had no work, no papers and only the clothes he was standing in. All thanks to me.

  ‘Why did you do that, anyway?’ I asked him. ‘You could have just disappeared like the others. You didn’t have to run with me.’

  ‘God knows,’ he said, holding his palms out. ‘This morning, I don’t know why, I knew it would be my last day on the farm.’

  ‘Do you have anywhere to go?’ I asked. ‘I could take you. Perhaps some friends or contacts somewhere.’

  He turned back to the TV. If I had some obligation to him – and it was becoming ever clearer to me that I had – he was not going to hold me to it. The situation was as uncomfortable for him as it was for me.

  From his silence, I realized he knew nobody in Spain. He’d been conned just like the rest of them at the farm, had probably paid some huge sum of money to be brought over, and now he had nothing.

  ‘You need to work, right?’

  He laughed and turned back to look me in the face. ‘Of course I need work, but … On the farm I have work but no money. Now I have no work at all. Ha!’ He chewed hungrily on the roast almonds the barman had left on the table for us.

  There was a roar as the home team scored an equalizer. The men at the bar leapt off their stools and surged forward to get nearer the TV set, pushing into the table and spilling our drinks. The elderly woman with the radio headphones gave out a long nasal scream of joy, swinging her glass in the air above her head like a trophy. For a few minutes it was too loud for us to speak.

  Zine cheered along with the others, although I was unsure quite how much he knew about local football. It was more likely that he just wanted to blend in.

  I should try to do something for him, perhaps find him a job somewhere, if I could. There were farms near Valencia where immigrants worked, but it was risky. Since the new law had been passed anyone found without the right documents was shipped out immediately, with no chance of appeal. But I couldn’t just leave him here, even if he wanted me to. I was duty bound to sort things out. My father-in-law owned some orange groves. Perhaps he could help.

  ‘Look,’ I said. ‘Come with me and I’ll talk to people I know. I’ll see what I can do. I’m sure …’ I tailed off.

  Someone changed the channel and images of armoured personnel carriers driving through the desert appeared on the screen. Large numbers of troops were arriving in the Gulf as preparations were made for a new war. The presenter spoke clearly and slowly about frantic diplomatic rows at the United Nations. Another clash in the cycle of conflict between Islam and the West was about to begin.

  Zine smiled and looked down. He wanted to refuse, but this was the only opportunity he had.

  It would be longer than I thought before the two of us went our separate ways.

  THE ROAD TO VALENCIA

  ‘They said they’d kill us if we tried to escape. I didn’t believe it – they were just trying to frighten us – but I stayed, waiting for the right moment. Jump too soon and you drown.’

  Zine told me of his life on the farm as we sped towards Valencia, salt-white air blowing through our open windows as we neared the sea. The car had air conditioning, but every time I switched it on the engine temperature gauge crept perilously high, so we relied on the natural breeze – although in late summer this offered little relief.

  ‘I’ve been there for over a year. There was no money in Morocco. They made us work like perros. No, worse than dogs. I have never seen dogs treated the way they treated us on that farm.’

  Around us old Arab castles and watchtowers perched on pinnacles of yellow rock, their square-cut edges blending seamlessly with the jagged contours of the land. Down in the valley below sat the broken ruins of an abandoned farmhouse, like frayed threads in a crease of dark-brown fabric.

  ‘We worked twelve hours a day or more, seven days every week. Ten of us sleeping in a room. And all the time they’re watching us to make sure we don’t run away. Then every week we’re told the money hasn’t arrived, or we’re damaging the crop so it can’t be sold, so there’s no money. Always holding back the money, always some excuse. The Algerians used to talk of killing them and escaping, but it was pointless. You kill them, you get away, they put you in prison or you end up dead. Either way there’s no money. And they were armed. Most had knives, but one had a gun. I saw it: he made sure I did. Of course, they wanted us frightened. They wouldn’t have used them in a fight. Not the gun.’

  He paused, and for a moment I felt the weight of what he was telling me. If the authorities found him and discovered he was a sin papeles they would ship him off back to Morocco in less than forty-eight hours. He was placing himself in my hands: what would happen to him from here on depended largely on me. But what did he have to lose? Staying on at the farm was no better than taking his chances now.

  ‘They’re taking Poles and Romanians. No-one wants moros any more. It wouldn’t have taken them long to throw all of us out, drop us in front of the next Guardia patrol and watch us get sent back.’

  In the distance the sea shone a sharp thick blue in the melting air, cars filing along the coast road like ants. A dusty pine fragrance circled inside the car, rising ev
ery once in a while on a wave of smothering Mediterranean heat.

  ‘But I think things are changing for me, Jasie. I think this was the worst, you know? Things are going to be better from now on, in sha’ Allah – God willing.’

  We crossed the Júcar, the river whose sweet waters had inspired the Arabs to name it after one of their most popular imports to Spain: sugar, or sukkar; and passed into the ancient Moorish Kingdom of Valencia – Balansiya, as they had called it. The fertile market-gardening area around the city had barely changed since the Moors had developed the complex irrigation system that still watered it – the rice paddies and orange groves another horticultural legacy from those times. This was the Costa del Azahar – the Orange-Blossom Coast. Azhar in Arabic means ‘flowers’.

  ‘What’s this trip about, Jasie?’ Zine asked. ‘A treasure hunt, you said.’

  For a minute I just kept my eye on the road. I was a little reluctant to tell him too much, but at the same time I found myself opening up to him.

  ‘I have this theory Spain is actually still a Moorish country,’ I said. ‘It’s just hidden and disguised behind a Catholic, European exterior. I’m going to go and see what evidence I can find.’

  ‘Spain a Moorish country?’

  ‘Some Moors may have left,’ I went on, ‘but many stayed. They just became Christians and kept many of their Arabic customs – food, sayings, architecture, music. That kind of thing. Look at the faces – I’m always seeing people in the street who remind me of Arab or even Iranian friends.’