The Colonial Conquest: The Confines of the Shadow Volume I

by Alessandro Spina

  Abdelkarim’s ears were always pricked up, and his memory was as sharp as his eyesight. His mind was like an enormous blackboard where he’d scrawled the price of every item in the store: a landscape of numbers that could be consulted by his master or the customers. He remembered everything clearly, and the information could be flipped through as easily as one does with a book.

  His assiduity never varied in intensity, regardless of whether his master was negotiating a business deal or had got dragged into a conversation that drew on typical themes in the Oriental repertory: the inexorable decline of the Ottoman Empire, the intrigues of Western powers, the questionable role colonialism had played in history, the inevitable reawakening of the Arabs, the virtues of their literary tradition and the sophistication of their rituals. And if the tapestry of his master’s memory ever unravelled, Abdelkarim knew how to rethread it. Émile Chébas’s memory thus benefited from an external warehouse which he could draw from at will when he needed to. Every ledger he kept had been memorised by his servant.

  Émile would occasionally become exasperated when he thought Abdelkarim knew too much about him or might even replace him – Abdelkarim’s subtle mimicking skills sometimes made him seem like Émile’s doppelgänger, at which point the master would send him off using any old pretext. The boy’s devotion cancelled their duality, the shadow was attached to the man who projected it, and grew more obvious the more Émile theatrically tried to shake it off.

  But Émile was so used to the boy’s presence – or at least to his voice, his ears being utterly synchronised to that external receptor – that whenever he sent him off on some errand, or kicked him out on some pretext, the shop seemed empty. If Émile kept his gaze fixed on his ledgers, the comings and going of people in the market became as opaque and indecipherable as the nocturnal ebb and flow of the sea. If he put his papers aside and tried to observe people himself, all the usual unwelcome visitors would seize the advantage, slip into the shop and cost him a great deal of time. He would welcome Abdelkarim back with a muffled reproach that was only really an expression of the relief he experienced at being freed by the servant’s return. Abdelkarim would then perch himself at his usual post and from the top of his mast, would steer the shop back to its normal course and return it to calmer waters. Everything would become clearer and livelier, and the chaos would be transformed to order once again.

  One day, the young Maronite noticed Abdelkarim was not himself. He seemed lethargic, and wasn’t paying much attention to anything he heard or saw, while his memory, which had never known uncertainty, was now like a net caught on a snag. Émile questioned him, but the boy was either incapable of furnishing an explanation, or unwilling to do so. Irritated by what he perceived as reticence, Émile reproached him harshly and for the first time had the impression that his words had fallen on deaf ears instead of being appropriately filed in the servant’s repository. The boy’s hostility annoyed Émile like a speck in his eye or a thorn in his thumb. He began to suspect Abdelkarim had received a better offer from a rival merchant. His wrath was such that the boy slipped off his perch and began re-arranging the piles of fabrics, turning his back to his master while doing so. Annoyed over all the time he’d wasted, the young Maronite returned to his ledgers.

  Abdelkarim sat down and buried his chin in his chest. The Maronite had announced his brother’s forthcoming arrival to a friend and Abdelkarim was tormenting himself in the vain effort to picture life in the shop with a third person. There was the master, and Abdelkarim complemented him. This intruder would make Abdelkarim’s presence superfluous.

  The Maronite was churning numbers in his head. Even Abdelkarim put in a little effort when it came to numbers: he was trying to picture the transition from two to three, but failed each time he tried to make that leap – there simply was no third place. Meanwhile, the market was starting to empty out, and as for the master, who was poring over his figures, who knew where his thoughts were? Abdelkarim continued his solitary game awhile, then his head sank even lower.

  The master woke him up a half hour later, benevolently placing his hand on Abdelkarim’s head.

  II

  Armand was nineteen, six years his brother’s junior. He had studied with the Salesian monks, but had left without a diploma.

  Émile welcomed him with a contrived warmth, as though his younger brother’s arrival had cast a shadow on his life. Armand was very loquacious, and attracted people’s attention whenever he spoke. He behaved as though he knew everything, even the answers to the questions he asked. He formulated these questions to draw attention to his needs. The modesty of his arrival expressed itself very ceremonially. Armand put several questions to Abdelkarim, who didn’t answer any of them, being enveloped in his master’s silence. Speaking loudly, Armand said he thought the boy was rather simple. ‘Couldn’t you find anyone better?’ he asked.

  Once they’d left the docks they climbed into a carriage. The two brothers sat on the back seats, while the front ones were taken up by Armand’s baggage. Abdelkarim sat next to the coachman.

  Abdelkarim knew his master was irked by all that chatter. But the siblings were so captivating that they made life seem doubly real.

  As soon as they’d arrived home the brothers locked themselves in a room; a long conversation ensued, which Abdelkarim only overheard snippets of. He understood that the master was reproaching his brother over some matter, perhaps how he’d interrupted his studies, the displeasure he’d caused his family, and the wastrel lifestyle to which he’d abandoned himself. Promissory notes, a term that had often been repeated, eloquently summed up the situation. The rest had been left to the eavesdropper’s imagination.

  This was the first time Abdelkarim realised Semereth Effendi’s friend also had a past of his own, even though he hadn’t appeared to when he’d arrived at the docks that day. The morsels of news the master had sent home to his family over the past couple of years were rather obvious. But thanks to the snatches of sound emerging from the room, the master’s family was beginning to assume a vivid appearance. It was difficult to picture the passenger who’d left the latest ship to dock in town in a happy context. Armand had been forced to leave one of the Orient’s oldest cities for an extremely shabby provincial town against his will. It was a punishment.

  ‘Haven’t you ever made any mistakes?’ Armand asked animatedly.

  Whenever he reacted to his brother’s recriminations, their voices grew louder. They sounded like stressed blades on the verge of snapping.

  ‘You seem to think that having a lot of money makes you the only one with a sense of honour!’

  Abdelkarim knew that his master was absolutely right. If asked to choose a side, he wouldn’t hesitate. But the truths the master spoke were contradicted by the other’s presence. Armand had no use for the things that were sacred in life – family, one’s good name, industriousness – that his brother kept mentioning. All that talk of respectability his brother was raining down on him was irksome, and he refused to keep quiet. Abdelkarim had the vague intuition that over the course of one’s destiny, the truth tends to shatter into thousands of shards, and Armand’s presence allowed him to understand the concept of multiplicity – and that it was legitimate. Abdelkarim nevertheless found the experience fabulous and engaging: he remained perched behind his master, as immovable as a reef, but for the first time realising that the sea, which had hitherto seemed so uniform to him, was actually the sum of endless routes.

  Émile left the room in such a fury which Abdelkarim, who lingered in a corner of the courtyard, had never seen before. Émile commanded Abdelkarim and Armand to follow him, and then left the house.

  As soon as the master had slammed the door, Abdelkarim entered the room Armand was in. He was like an arrow shot out of a bow: his master’s will personified. Abdelkarim explained that the master had ordered them to go to the shop, but he lost his thread in mid speech. Armand’s indifference was disorientating.

  Armand began unpacking objects from
his luggage and demonstrating their use to Abdelkarim, boasting of the variety of colours and the refined craftsmanship. Although Abdelkarim was illiterate, he even showed him some books. Bewildered, Abdelkarim praised everything he was shown, praising the new arrival even more since the latter’s enthusiasm for both himself and his objects was a novelty that swept Abdelkarim in its forceful current. Abdelkarim’s relationship with Émile was very different: Abdelkarim was simply a medium who relayed words between the master and his customers, depending on the former’s needs. Their work was the axle that connected them in the same way momentum exerts torque on the wheels of a carriage. For the first time, Abdelkarim had a palpable sense of an elsewhere – like Semereth Effendi’s Istanbul – which he’d so often heard described. Armand was like a magician conjuring remote, magnificent worlds; his knowledge wasn’t confined to the cramped field of experience, but instead stretched over endless plains.

  Armand began getting ready to leave. The master only needed a moment to do so, but Armand seemed to be taking forever, changing out of one outfit and into another. In the end, Abdelkarim could no longer contain his curiosity. Having spent the past half hour inside the room, Armand had finally exasperated Abdelkarim, who was waiting outside in the corridor. But when Armand emerged, Abdelkarim was astonished. He was completely different from the young Maronite or Hajji Semereth: he was as smooth as a feather, carefree and strikingly handsome.

  Once out of the house, Abdelkarim felt a sort of pride at being seen with such an extraordinary master. This pride explained why when Armand refused to duck down a tiny lane that was as a shortcut to the market, thus avoiding an unnecessarily long route, Abdelkarim for the first time chose to disobey one of his master’s orders and could barely conceal his glee: he was delighted to wander the streets with that magnificent creature. Abdelkarim’s world had suddenly grown more complex and layered.

  Armand was repeatedly asking questions about the elegant, distracted Italian officers they kept seeing on their way. Abdelkarim knew very little about them as the master didn’t mix in those circles.

  By the time they arrived at the shop, Abdelkarim was in a heightened state of fervour. But the master’s sombre face made him conceal those emotions as though he were hiding some ill-gotten loot. He leapt onto his usual perch at the shop’s entrance.

  At that moment a few merchants entered, having come to congratulate the Maronite on his brother’s arrival from the East. The master’s sombre face cheered up, and he introduced his brother to his friends without the slightest trace of embarrassment, inviting them all to sit down. The conversation that ensued passed without incident.

  It was only in the evening, while they were sitting at dinner, that the master suddenly interrupted Armand as he was talking about a cousin’s wedding – and poking fun at the couple, their parents, their guests, the rite and the priest – and said ‘Anyway, the past has been forgotten, and we forgive you. After all, you’re young and you can find your way back to the straight path. Everything depends on you. My position here is fairly good, and looks set to improve. If you show goodwill in your work, one day you’ll become a partner. If you walk the straight path you’ll receive all the respect you’re due – and I’ll be the first to show it to you; otherwise, I’ll be the first to punish you. So consider yourself welcome in my house, so long as you abide by these conditions.’

  Armand abruptly stood up and retreated to his room, locking himself in.

  Abdelkarim continued to serve the master. He was as afraid, as though he were guilty. But when the master retired to his chamber an hour later, Abdelkarim knocked on Armand’s door and brought him his meal.

  III

  When Abdelkarim entered the shop – carrying two spotlessly clean cups of coffee on a brass tray – and heard the master speaking in a grave tone, he immediately surmised who was being discussed. A wealthy merchant Émile would sometimes visit in the evenings had come to intercede on Armand’s behalf: a sign relations between the brothers had worsened.

  Armand had gone into an independent orbit.

  As Abdelkarim had been raised in Hajji Semereth’s house, where the Hajji’s will or desires were all that mattered and the intrigues of the others who lived there only existed by the grace of whatever space the master’s will conceded, Armand’s open challenge towards the master had made a striking impression on Abdelkarim: it thrilled, frightened and tormented him.

  Armand’s presence hadn’t altered Abdelkarim’s relationship with his master, even though whenever Armand was in the shop there were now three of them. The master was embittered, deluded, and often irritated: Abdelkarim would let him vent all his wrath on him and patiently absorb it. However, the fact that his relationship with the master remained unchanged didn’t prevent him from following Armand’s progress. The captivating man who’d appeared in town and now worked in the shop didn’t complement the master, but rather dared to show his indifference to the latter’s rules and orders: Armand was following his own plans, and brazenly carried them out in full view. The master’s wrath was useless, since his principles hadn’t made any impression on his brother. Armand knew how to talk back, and any dispute eventually ended in agitated voices, slammed doors and ultimatums that sounded more threatening than they actually were.

  The wealthy merchant was listening to the Maronite’s words in a benevolently cheerful way, limiting his interruptions to encouragement, and tender interjections like ‘I know, I know, you’re right. But are you keeping in mind he’s your brother? That’s a bond you can never deny or disown, it’s enduring and irrevocable. You must start from that realisation and see what you can do.’

  The merchant, who was well built, in his fifties and had long grey whiskers, was wearing the traditional whitish robe made out of coarse wool over his usual merchant’s outfit – which consisted of a white untucked shirt over breeches, topped by a thin waistcoat – as though he wanted to give his presence the impersonal weight of ancient values.

  Abdelkarim was sitting by the sales desk, at a respectful distance, but still within earshot. The master wasn’t even aware he was there, and besides, the boy was as secretive as a wall. What the master was saying about Armand both bothered and thrilled him, to the point that he could barely contain his excitement. It was certainly true that Armand always arrived late at the shop, and sometimes not at all; that all the business he brought was inappropriate, that he sold goods on credit to insolvent merchants, that he underestimated difficulties, and yet didn’t know how to confront them when they came to pass. He always took the initiative, but could never see matters through to their end, and spent his time chasing chimeras.

  What truly bothered Émile, however, wasn’t how useless Armand was: he knew that he could look after the business entirely on his own. On the contrary, he hated it if anyone ascribed any successes to his brother’s presence. ‘You don’t want a partner, you want a servant!’ Armand had shouted at him the other day in front of strangers.

  ‘What should one say about his friendship with Italian officers? They are our co-religionists, to be sure, but our way of life, traditions and language are entirely different.’

  Émile Chébas’s narrative build-up had been meticulously planned. The guest didn’t seem to be in a hurry: he had come to invoke Émile’s generosity, not his powers of logical reasoning, which instead counselled caution.

  Abdelkarim was waiting for a climax like the one that had happened in Hajji Semereth’s house, precipitating his tragic end. Was the wealthy merchant playing the same part the Hajji’s uncle had when he’d gone to denounce the adulterers? Émile didn’t have any sins to expiate. Life for him was a brightly lit path, absent of any shadows. But lightning could strike from another direction, and Abdelkarim was keeping his eyes peeled.

  ‘Is it possible to ignore the duty that an officer has been called here to accomplish?’ Émile asked. ‘Armand plays cards with him, they gossip about women, about theatre, and they drink together, amusing themselves with jokes. But the o
fficer is on leave from the battlefield, and that is where he must return. If I don’t overlook the reason he’s here, and still seek out his company, it must mean I am sympathetic to the aims that brought the officer here. Is this the way for a Maronite to behave? I don’t want to look too deeply into the anxieties some of those officers feel, while the rest have mistaken life in Africa for a holiday – a dangerous holiday. This only eggs on Armand’s adventurous spirit, and this recent development has nothing to do with the merchant’s trade or our family’s traditions. When young men from oriental communities first encounter western society they quickly adopt its vices, but rarely go beyond that. Once outside of his family circle, the provincial is a marked man. He can only save himself by coming to terms with how provincial he is, by neither playing up to it, nor being ashamed of it, just like nobody should be embarrassed by the language they speak. This is not to refute the concept of cultural exchange, but to say that imitation is only a masquerade of that cultural exchange: because one party immediately declares himself the loser from the outset.’

  Abdelkarim didn’t understand much of what was being said. Émile Chébas was talking about a reality whose outline eluded him: nonetheless, he listened attentively.

  ‘Colonialism humiliates and offends, and whenever it shows a more benevolent face, it corrupts. As Christians and foreigners we are treated kindly, and they’ve offered us a chance to assimilate. But we must keep our guards up. Could Armand ever become ‘a good Italian’? It would make me happy if he became a good Maronite merchant, like his father and grandfather before him. As you know, we consider receiving a guest but not inviting them to a cup of coffee as an affront, even when either party is in such a hurry that doing the opposite might seem wiser; at which point I must sacrifice my own interests for the sake of custom. In turn, I expect said guest to be ready to make the same sacrifice, as a show of respect to my home and business. It matters little to me that such considerations have fallen into desuetude in more advanced civilisations, where people live in a permanent state of haste. I would consider someone’s refusal an affront, and this, amongst other factors, would inevitably colour how I chose my friends. On the other hand, Armand doesn’t care about any of this. This does not mean that our customs are superior to others, simply that they are the foundations upon which our code of conduct has been built; it is the narrative of our history, the language with which people have expressed themselves, reached an understanding, or even how they respect and come to love one another. Whereas I find myself disgusted by the Italian officers’ disdain for anything that contrasts with their education, and by their incapacity to either comprehend or accept other ways of life, to recognise the existence of a different order to the one they were raised in, which they assume is the ultimate paradigm of truth. Italy’s efforts to set up military bases here to replace the Ottoman Empire is alien to my interests and passions. But when such efforts are compounded by a stubborn desire to extricate the locals from the spiritual flow of their way of life and transport them into a different world, my conscience completely rebels against these Italians, and refuses to have anything to do with them.’