Leo Africanus

by Amin Maalouf

  He began to intone a prayer, which the company murmured in time with him. Then without any transition he picked up the thread of his discourse:

  ‘Too often, at funerals, I hear men and women believers cursing death. But death is a gift from the Most High, and one cannot curse that which comes from Him. Does the word “gift” seem incongruous to you? It is nevertheless the absolute truth. If death was not inevitable, man would have wasted his whole life attempting to avoid it. He would have risked nothing, attempted nothing, undertaken nothing, invented nothing, built nothing. Life would have been a perpetual convalescence. Yes my brothers, let us thank God for having made us this gift of death, so that life is to have meaning; of night, that day is to have meaning; silence, that speech is to have meaning; illness, that health is to have meaning; war, that peace is to have meaning. Let us give thanks to Him for having given us weariness and pain, so that rest and joy are to have meaning. Let us give thanks to Him, Whose wisdom is infinite.’

  The assembly gave thanks in unison: ‘Al-hamd ul-illah, al-hamd ul-illah!’ I noticed that at least one man had remained silent; his lips cracked, his hands clenched together; it was Khali.

  ‘I was afraid,’ he told me later. ‘I thought to myself: “If only he can restrain himself!” Unfortunately I knew Astaghfirullah too well to nurture the least illusion in that direction.’

  In fact, the sense of the allocution was beginning to change:

  ‘If God had offered me death as a gift, if He had called me to Him instead of letting me live through the agony of my city, would He have been cruel towards me? If God had spared me to see with my own eyes Granada falling into captivity and the believers into dishonour, would He have been cruel towards me?’

  The shaikh raised his voice sharply, startling the company:

  ‘Am I the only one present to think that death is worth more than dishonour? Am I the only one to cry out: “O God, if I have failed in my duty towards the Community of the Believers, crush me with Your powerful hand, sweep me away from the surface of the earth like some baleful vermin. O God, judge me even today, for my conscience is too heavy to bear. You have entrusted me with the fairest of Your cities, You have put in my hands the life and honour of the Muslims; will You not summon me to render my accounts?” ’

  Khali was bathed in sweat, as were all those seated near Boabdil. The latter was deathly pale, like a turmeric stalk. It might have been said that his royal blood had abandoned him so as not to share in his shame. If, acting on the advice of some counsellor, he had come to re-establish his links with his former subjects, in order to be in a position to ask them to contribute to the expenses of his court, the enterprise was ending in utter disaster. Another one. His eyes roamed desperately towards the way out, while his heavy body appeared to have collapsed.

  Was it out of pity, or exhaustion or simply by chance, that Astaghfirullah suddenly decided to interrupt his accusations and to resume his prayers? My uncle regarded this, he said, as an intervention from Heaven. The moment that the shaikh pronounced the words ‘I bear witness that there is no other God but God, and that Muhammad is the Messenger of God’, Khali seized the opportunity literally to jump out of his place and to give the signal for the departure of the cortège to the cemetery. The women accompanied the shroud to the threshold of the gate, waving white handkerchiefs as a symbol of desolation and farewell. Boabdil slipped away through a side door. Henceforth the Granadans of Fez could die in peace; the flabby silhouette of the fallen sultan would appear no more to plague their final journey.

  The condolence ceremonies continued for another six days. What better remedy is there than exhaustion for the pain caused by the death of a loved one? The first visitors would come at dawn, the last would leave after nightfall. After the third evening, the relatives had no more tears, and sometimes forgot themselves sufficiently to smile or to laugh, which those present did not fail to criticize. The only ones to behave properly were the hired mourners, who sought to increase their pay by intensifying their wailing. Forty days after the decease, the condolences resumed once more in the same fashion, for three further days.

  These weeks of mourning gave opportunities for my father and my uncle to exchange various conciliatory words. It was not yet a reunion, far from it, and my mother took care not to cross the path of the man who had repudiated her. But, from the vantage point of my eight years, I believed I could discern a glimmer of hope on the horizon.

  Among other matters, my father and my uncle had discussed my future. They had agreed that it was time for me to start school. Other children went to school later, but it seemed that I was already showing signs of precocious intelligence, and it was pointless to leave me at home all day in the company of women. I might grow soft, and my virility might suffer. They each came to me in turn to explain this, and one morning they both solemnly accompanied me to the local mosque.

  The teacher, a young turbaned shaikh with a beard which was almost blond, asked me to recite the Fatiha, the first sura of the Book. I did this without a mistake, without the slightest hesitation. He appeared satisfied with this:

  ‘His elocution is good and his memory is precise. He will not need more than four or five years to memorize the Qur’an.’

  I was not a little proud, since I knew that many pupils took six years, even seven. After having learned the Qur’an by heart, I would be able to enter the college, where the various sciences were taught.

  ‘I will also instruct him in the principles of orthography, grammar and calligraphy,’ the teacher explained.

  When asked what payment he required, he took a step backwards:

  ‘My only payment comes from the Most High.’

  However, he added that each parent gave what he could to the school on the various feast days, with a more substantial gift at the end of the final year, after the Great Recitation.

  Promising myself to memorize the hundred and fourteen suras as soon as possible I began to attend the shaikh’s classes assiduously five days a week. There were no fewer than eighty boys in my class, aged between seven and fourteen. Each pupil came to school in whatever clothes he pleased, but no one would have thought of coming to school dressed in sumptuous garments, silk, or embroidery, except on special occasions. In any case, the sons of princes and of the grandees of the kingdom did not go to the mosque schools. They received the instruction of a shaikh in their own homes. But with that exception, the boys who attended the school came from a variety of backgrounds: sons of qadis, notaries, officers, royal and municipal functionaries, shopkeepers and artisans, even some sons of slaves sent by their masters.

  The room was large, and arranged in tiers. The bigger boys sat at the back, the smaller ones in front, each with a little board on which he would write the day’s verses, taken down at the master’s dictation. The latter often had a rod in his hand, which he would not hesitate to use if one of us swore or made some serious mistake. But none of the pupils held it against him, and he himself never harboured a grudge from one day to the next.

  On the day of my arrival at the school, I found a seat in the third row, I believe. Close enough to see and hear the teacher, but far enough away to protect myself from his questions and his inevitable outbursts of anger. Next to me sat the most mischievous of all the children of the quarter, Harun, known as the Ferret. He was my age, with a very brown complexion, with clothes that were worn and patched but always clean. After the first scuffle we became inseparable friends, bound together in life and death. No one who saw him would fail to ask him for news of me, and no one would see me without being astonished that he was not with me. At his side, I was to explore both Fez and my own adolescence. I felt an outsider; he knew the city was his, created for him, only for his eyes, for his limbs, for his heart. And he offered to share it with me.

  It is true that he belonged, by birth, to the most generous of companies.

  The Year of Harun the Ferret

  903 A.H.

  30 August 1497 – 18 August 1498r />
  It was in that year that Melilla fell into the hands of the Castilians. A fleet had been sent to attack it, but found it deserted, abandoned by its inhabitants, who had fled into the neighbouring hills, taking their possessions with them. The Christians seized the city and began to fortify it. God knows if they will leave it one day!

  At Fez, the refugees from Granada became afraid. They had the sensation that the enemy was at their heels, that he would pursue them to the very heart of the lands of Islam, even to the ends of the earth.

  My family’s worries increased, but I was still only slightly affected, absorbed in my studies and in my budding friendships.

  When Harun came to my house for the first time, still very shy, and when I introduced him to my uncle, mentioning the guild to which his family belonged, Khali took my friend’s hands, more slender than his, but already more roughened, in his own, and pronounced these words, which made me smile at the time:

  ‘If the fair Scheherazade had known them, she would have devoted a long night to telling their story; she would have added jinns, flying carpets and magic lanterns, and before dawn, by some miraculous means, she would have changed their chief into a caliph, their hovels into palaces, and their penitential garb into ceremonial robes.’

  These were the porters of Fez. Three hundred men, simple, poor, almost all of them illiterate, but who had nevertheless managed to become the most respected, most fraternal and best organized of all the guilds of the city.

  Each year, until today, they appoint a leader, a consul, who regulates their activities down to the minutest detail. Each week he decides which of them will work and which will rest, according to the arrival of the caravans, the situation in the suqs, and the availability of his fellows. That which a porter earns for his day’s work he does not take home, but deposits the whole of it in a communal chest. At the end of the week the money is divided out equally among those who have worked, except for a part which is kept aside for the good works of the guild, which are both manifold and munificent; when any of their number dies, they take over the responsibility for his family, help his widow to find a new husband and take care of his children until they are of an age to have a profession. The son of one is the son of all. The money from the fund is also used for those who marry; all the members contribute to assure them of a sum which will enable them to set up house.

  The consul of the porters negotiates on their behalf with the sultan and his advisers. In this way he has managed to secure their immunity both from tribute and the salt tax, and to ensure that their bread is baked for them free of charge in the municipal ovens. Furthermore, if any of them should by some misfortune commit a murder punishable by death, he is not executed in public like other criminals, in order not to bring the guild into disrepute. In exchange, the consul must make a rigorous and unbiased examination of the probity of each new candidate, to exclude anyone who might be suspect. In this way the reputation of the porters has become so high that the merchants are obliged to have recourse to them to clear their stock. Thus the vendors of oil, who arrive in the suqs from the countryside with containers of all sizes, resort to special porters who will themselves confirm the capacity of the containers as well as the quality of the contents, and even give guarantees for the purchasers. In the same way, when a merchant imports a new kind of cloth, he asks the criers among the porters to proclaim the high quality of the merchandise. The porters charge a fixed sum for each of these functions, according to a scale fixed by the consul.

  No man, be he even a prince, ever dares to lay hands on any of their number, because he knows that he would have to fight against the entire company. Their motto is a sentence of the Prophet’s: ‘Assist your brother, whether he is the oppressor or the oppressed,’ but they interpret these words in the same way as the Messenger himself, when someone said to him, ‘We shall assist the oppressed, that goes without saying. But in what way should we come to the aid of the oppressor?’ And he replied: ‘By getting the upper hand over him and by preventing him from doing harm.’ Thus it was rare for a porter to start a fight in the suqs of Fez, and there was always a wise man among his brothers to reason with him.

  Such were these men. Humble, yet proud, impoverished, yet generous. So far from palaces and citadels, yet so capable of running their affairs. Yes, this was the stock from which my best friend sprang.

  Every day at first light Harun the Ferret would call for me to walk at my side the few hundred paces which separated Khali’s house from the school. Sometimes we told each other tall stories, sometimes we repeated the verses we had studied the previous evening. Often we said nothing at all, walking in companionable silence.

  Opening my eyes one morning I saw him in my bedroom, sitting at the foot of the box bed on which I slept. Fearing that I was late for school, I jumped up, already thinking of the teacher’s cane about to whistle down across my calves. Harun reassured me with a smile.

  ‘It’s Friday, the school is closed, but the streets are open and the gardens too. Take a piece of bread and a banana and meet me on the corner.’

  God alone knows the number of expeditions we made together after that. We often began our walks at the Square of Wonders. I do not know if that was its real name, but that was what Harun used to call it. There was nothing for us to buy there, or pick, or eat. We could only look around us, breathe in the air, and listen.

  In particular, there were those pretending to be ill. Some pretended to be affected by epilepsy, holding their head in both hands and shaking it vigorously, letting their lips and jaws hang down, and then rolling around on the ground in such a practised fashion that they never even scratched themselves or upset the begging bowl by their side. Others pretended to be plagued with stones, and moaned incessantly, apparently in the most fearful pain, unless Harun and I were the only spectators. Still others displayed wounds and sores. From these I swiftly turned away, for I had been told that the mere sight of them was enough to become similarly afflicted oneself.

  There were numerous tumblers on the square, who sang silly romances and sold little pieces of paper to the credulous, on which were written, so they claimed, magic spells to cure all manner of illnesses. There were itinerant quacks, who boasted of their miraculous medicines and took care not to appear twice in the same town. There were also monkey-keepers, who delighted in frightening pregnant women, and snake charmers who wound their creatures around their necks. Harun was not afraid to go up to them. But for my part I was as much frightened as disgusted.

  On the feast days, there were story-tellers. I particularly remember a blind man whose stick danced to the rhythm of the adventures of Hallul, the hero of the wars of Andalus, and the renowned An tar ibn Shaddad, the most valorous of the Arabs. On one occasion, when he was telling the tale of the loves of black Antar and the fair Abla, he stopped to ask whether there were any women or children in the audience. Greatly disappointed, the women and children withdrew. I waited several moments to soothe my dignity. A hundred disapproving eyes were turned towards me. Unable to brazen it out, I was about to leave, when, with a glare, Harun signalled that there was no question of our doing so. He put one hand on my shoulder and the other on his hip and did not move an inch. The story-teller continued his tale, and we listened until the last embrace. Only after the crowd dispersed did we resume our walk.

  The Square of Wonders was the crossroads of a number of busy streets. One of them, which was cluttered with the stalls of booksellers and public letter-writers, led to the entrance of the Great Mosque; another accommodated boot and shoe shops, a third the vendors of bridles, saddles and stirrups, but the fourth at last was the one we always had to take. Here were the milk sellers, whose shops were decked out with majolica vases far more valuable than the goods they sold. But we did not go to these shops but to those who would buy up unsold milk each evening at a low price at their doors, take it home, let it curdle overnight, and sell it the next day, chilled and diluted with water. A thirst-quenching and satisfying drink which str
ained neither the pockets nor the consciences of the Believers.

  For Harun and I the discovery of Fez was just beginning. We would uncover its layers veil by veil, like a bride in her marriage chamber. I have kept a thousand memories of that year, which take me back to the carefree candour of my nine years each time I evoke them. But it is the most painful of them all that I feel obliged to relate here, since, if I did not mention it, I would be failing in my role of faithful witness.

  That day, the walk had begun like any other; Harun wanted to nose around, and I was no less curious. We knew that there was a little suburb called al-Mars lying to the west of the city, the mention of which always brought a troubled look to our schoolmaster’s face. Was it far off? Was it dangerous? Others would have asked no further; we were happy to set out.

  When we arrived at this suburb around midday, we immediately understood its function. In the streets, women were lounging against the shopfronts, or by the open doors of establishments which could only be taverns. Harun mimicked the beckoning stance of a prostitute. I laughed and imitated the swaying gait of a stout matron.

  And what if we went to see what went on in the taverns? We knew that it would be impossible for us to go inside, but we could always have a quick look.

  So we go towards the first one. The door is half open, and we poke our two little heads inside. It’s dark, and we can only see a crowd of customers. In the midst of them a shock of flaming red hair stands out. We see nothing else, because someone has already spotted us, and we quickly take to our heels, straight towards the tavern on the adjoining street. It’s no lighter, but our eyes adjust more quickly. We count four heads of hair, about fifteen customers. In the third we have time to make out several faces, a number of gleaming cups, several wine jars. The game continues. Our reckless heads dive into the fourth. It seems lighter. Quite close to the door, we make out a face. That beard, that profile, that stance? I pull back my head and begin to run along the street, fleeing neither the tavern keepers nor their bully boys. The image which I want to leave far behind me is that of my father, seated in the tavern, at a table, with a shock of hair at his side. I have seen him. Harun has certainly recognized him. Has he seen us? I don’t think so.