by Amin Maalouf
I remember, one day when he came back from the palace, I asked Khali whether he had spoken of Mariam again. He replied in a rather embarrassed voice:
‘I am gradually gaining the sovereign’s confidence, and I shall soon be able to obtain your sister’s release without the slightest difficulty. For the time being I must act as delicately as possible; it would be a mistake to ask him anything at all.’
Then he added with a laugh by way of apology:
‘That is how you will have to behave when you go into politics!’
A little after Khali’s appointment as ambassador I had returned to the attack. He had then spoken to the sovereign, who had promised him that when he returned from Timbuktu the young girl would be at home once more. My uncle had thanked him warmly and had given me the news. I had then decided to go to the quarter for the first time to tell Mariam about the monarch’s promise and about my journey.
I had not seen her for a year, out of excess of affection, but also out of cowardice. She did not utter a single word of reproach. She smiled as if she had just left my side, asked me about my studies, and seemed so serene that I felt intimidated, contrite, off balance. Perhaps I would have preferred to see her in tears and to have to comfort her, even though we were separated by a stream. I told her triumphantly about the sultan’s promise; she reacted just enough not to upset me. I spoke about my departure, and she gave the appearance of enthusiasm, without me knowing whether she did so out of sudden playfulness or out of mockery. The water course, which a strong man could have crossed in two strides, seemed deeper than a ravine, wider than an arm of the sea. Mariam was so far away, so inaccessible, her voice came to me as if in a nightmare. Suddenly, an old leper woman whom I had not seen approaching put a hand with no fingers on my sister’s shoulder. I shouted and gathered up some stones to throw at her, telling her to go away. Mariam stood between us, protecting the leper with her body.
‘Put those stones down, Hasan, you will hurt my friend!’
I complied, feeling myself about to faint. I made a gesture of farewell, and turned to leave, with death in my soul. My sister called my name again. I looked at her. She came up to the edge of the water. For the first time since my coming the tears ran down her face.
‘You will get me out of here, won’t you?’
Her voice was imploring, but somehow reassuring. With a gesture which I was the first to be surprised at I put my hand out in front of me as if I was swearing on the Book, and delivered this oath in a slow loud voice:
‘I swear that I shall not marry before I have got you out of this accursed quarter.’
A smile lit up her whole face. I turned round and ran away as fast as my legs would carry me, because it was this image of her that I wanted to keep before me for the duration of my journey. The same day, I went to see my father and Warda to give them news of their daughter. Before knocking at the door I remained motionless for a moment. There in a crack in the wall, dry and faded, lay the knotted blade of grass which Mariam had tied together the day of her capture. I took it in my fingers and laid it stealthily on my lips. Then I put it back in its place.
I was thinking once more of this blade of grass when Khali opened his eyes. I asked if he felt better; he nodded, but went back to sleep immediately. He was to remain in this condition, hovering between life and death, unable to move, until the beginning of the hot season, when it was impossible to cross the Sahara. So we had to wait several months in the vicinity of Sijilmassa before continuing our journey.
The Year of Timbuktu
911 A.H.
4 June 1505 – 23 May 1506
My uncle seemed fully recovered when we took to the road again that year at the beginning of the cool season, towards Tabalbala, which lies in the middle of the desert of Numidia, three hundred miles from the Atlas, two hundred miles south of Sijilmassa, in a country where water is scarce and meat too, save for that of the antelope and the ostrich, and where only the shade of a palm tree occasionally alleviates the tyranny of the sun.
We had reckoned that this stage would take nine days, and from the first evening Khali began to speak to me about Granada, somewhat in the way my father had done a few years earlier. Perhaps the illness of the one and the despondency of the other had had the same effect, of making them wish to pass on their witness and their wisdom to a younger and somehow less endangered memory, may the Most High preserve my pages from fire and from oblivion! From one night to another I awaited the continuation of his story, whose only interruptions were the howlings of nearby jackals.
On the third day, however, two soldiers came to meet us. They brought a message from a lord whose lands lay to the west of our route. He had heard that the ambassador of the King of Fez was passing this way, and he insisted on meeting him. Khali made enquiries of one of the guides, who told him that the detour would delay us by at least two weeks. He made his excuses to the soldiers, saying that an envoy of the sovereign on a mission could not make visits to noblemen whose lands lay out of his way, all the more since his illness had already delayed him considerably. However, to show in what esteem he held this lord – of whom as he told me later, he had never heard spoken before – he would send his nephew to kiss his hand.
Hence I suddenly found myself entrusted with an embassy when I had not yet reached my seventeenth year. My uncle ordered two horsemen to accompany me, and provided me with several gifts which I was to offer in his name to this friendly nobleman: a pair of stirrups decorated in the Moorish fashion, a magnificent pair of spurs, a pair of silk cords braided with golden thread, one violet, the other azure, a newly-bound book containing the lives of the holy men of Africa and a panegyric poem. The journey lasted four days, and I took advantage of it to write some verses myself in honour of my host.
Having reached the town, which was I believe called Ouarzazate, I was told that the lord was hunting lions in the neighbouring mountains, and that he had given instructions that I should join him there. I kissed his hand and conveyed the greetings of my uncle. He appointed quarters where I could rest until his return. He came back before nightfall and summoned me to his palace. I presented myself, kissed his hand again, and then offered him the presents one by one, which pleased him exceedingly. Then I gave him Khali’s poem, which he had read by a secretary who translated it for him word for word, since he knew little Arabic.
Then it was time for the meal, which I was awaiting impatiently, since my stomach had been empty since morning except for a few dates. We were brought roast and boiled mutton, coated with extremely fine flaky pastry, something like Italian lasagne, but firmer. Then we had couscous, ftat, another mixture of meat and pastry, and several other dishes which I can no longer remember. When we were all amply satisfied I stood up and declaimed my own poem. The lord had several phrases translated, but for the rest of the time he merely watched me, with a tender and protective eye. When I had finished, he retired to bed, because the hunt had fatigued him, but very early the next morning he asked me to breakfast with him, gave me through his secretary a hundred pieces of gold to take to my uncle, and two slaves to attend on him during the journey. He commanded me to tell him that these presents were simply an acknowledgement of his poem, and not an exchange for the gifts which he had presented to him. He also gave me ten pieces of gold for each of the horsemen who accompanied me.
For me, he was keeping a surprise. He began by giving me fifty pieces of gold, but, when I left, the secretary indicated that I should follow him. We went along a corridor until we reached a low door which led us into a small courtyard. In the middle was a horse, fine-looking but small, on which was sitting a beautiful brown rider, her face uncovered.
‘This young slave is the lord’s gift for your poem. She is fourteen, she speaks Arabic well. We call her Hiba.’
He took the bridle and put it in my hand. I took it, my eyes looking up, incredulous. My gift smiled.
Overjoyed to have met so courteous and generous a lord, I returned immediately to Tabalbala, where t
he caravan awaited me. I told my uncle that I had fulfilled my mission perfectly, and I reported each word and each gesture in detail. I gave him the presents which were intended for him, and the remarks that had accompanied them, and I ended by telling him about my delicious surprise. At this point in my story his face clouded over.
‘Did they really tell you that this slave girl spoke Arabic?’
‘Yes, and I was able to check this on the way back.’
‘I don’t doubt it. But if you were older and wiser you might have heard something else behind the secretary’s words. To offer you this slavegirl was perhaps a way of honouring you, but it may just as well have been a way of insulting you, of showing you the abasement of those who speak your language.’
‘Should I have refused?’
My uncle laughed good-naturedly.
‘I can see that you are going to faint at the mere suggestion that you should have left that girl in the courtyard where you found her.’
‘Then I can keep her?’
My tone was like that of a child hanging on to a toy. Khali shrugged his shoulders and signalled to the camel-drivers to make ready to depart. As I was leaving he called me back:
‘Have you already touched this girl?’
‘No,’ I replied, my eyes lowered. ‘On the way back we slept in the open air, and the guards were close by me.’
There was some malice in his grin.
‘You are not to touch her now either, since before we will sleep under a roof again the month of Ramadan will have begun. As a traveller, you are not required to fast, but you must show your submission to your Creator in other ways. You must cover your slavegirl from head to toe, and forbid her to perfume herself, to use make up, to do her hair, or even to wash.’
I did not protest, for I knew immediately that religious zeal was not the only reason for this counsel. Very often in the caravans there were disputes, attacks of madness and even crimes committed because of the presence of a beautiful servant girl, and my uncle wanted at all costs to avoid any temptation or provocation.
The next part of our journey took us towards the oases of Touat and Ghurara, the points of arrival and departure of the Saharan caravans. It was there that the merchants and other travellers waited to leave together.
Many Jewish traders were settled in these oases, but they had suffered a strange persecution. The very year of the Fall of Granada, which was also the year when the Spanish Jews were expelled, a preacher from Tlemcen came to Fez, and encouraged the population to massacre the Jews of the city. When he came to hear of this, the sovereign ordered this trouble-maker to be expelled; he sought refuge in the oases of Touat and Ghurara, and succeeded in stirring up the inhabitants there against the Jews. They were almost all massacred and their goods looted.
In this region, there are many cultivated fields, but they are dry, since they can only be irrigated by water from wells. The soil is also very poor, and the inhabitants have an unusual way of improving it. When visitors come, they invite them to stay without payment, but they take the manure of their horses, and they explain to the men that they will offend them if they relieve themselves anywhere but in their houses. In consequence, travellers are obliged to hold their noses when they pass anywhere near a cultivated field.
These oases are the last places where it is possible to stock up adequately before crossing the Sahara. The waterholes become further and further apart, and it takes over two weeks to reach the next inhabited place. Furthermore, at the place which is called Taghaza, there is nothing except some mines where salt is extracted. The salt is kept until a caravan comes to buy it in order to sell it at Timbuktu, where it is in constant demand. A camel can carry up to four bars of salt. The miners of Taghaza are dependent on the supplies which they receive from Timbuktu, which is twenty days’ journey away, or from other towns equally far off. It sometimes happens that a caravan, arriving late for some reason, finds that some of these men have starved to death in their huts.
But it is beyond that place that the desert becomes a real inferno. There one sees only the whitened bones of men and camels that have died of thirst, and the only living creatures visible in any number are snakes.
In the most arid part of the desert are two tombs, topped by a stone on which there is an inscription. It says that two men are buried there. One was a rich merchant, tortured by thirst, who bought from the other, a caravaneer, a cup of water for ten thousand pieces of gold. But after having taken a few steps, the seller and the purchaser collapsed together, having died of thirst. God alone dispenses life and benefits!
Even if I were more eloquent, even if my pen were more obedient, I would be incapable of describing the sensation when, after weeks of exhausting journeying, one’s eyes lashed by sandstorms, one’s mouth swollen with tepid salty water, one’s body burning, filthy, racked with a thousand aches, one finally sees the walls of Timbuktu. Indeed, after the desert, all cities are beautiful, all oases seem like the Garden of Eden. But nowhere else did life appear so agreeable to me as in Timbuktu.
We arrived there at sunset, welcomed by a troop of soldiers despatched by the ruler of the city. As it was too late for us to be received at the palace, we were escorted to the quarters which had been reserved for us, each according to his rank. My uncle was accommodated in a house near the mosque; I was given the use of a huge room there overlooking a lively square which gradually began to empty. That evening, after a bath and a light supper, I called Hiba, with Khali’s permission. It must have been ten o’clock at night. Sounds of tumult reached us from the street; a group of young people had gathered, playing music, singing and dancing on the square. I would soon get used to these strollers, who returned throughout my stay there. That night, I was so unaccustomed to the spectacle that I stood watching at the window without moving. Perhaps I was also filled with some trepidation at finding myself for the first time in a room with a woman who belonged to me.
She had made good the ravages of the road, and was as sweet, smiling and unveiled as she had been on the day she had been given to me. She came up to the window and began to watch the dancers like me, her shoulder pressing imperceptibly against my own. The night was cool, even chilly, but my face was burning.
‘Do you want me to dance like them?’
Without waiting for me to reply, she began to dance with her whole body, first slowly, then faster and faster, but without losing her gracefulness; her hands, her hair, her scarves flew around the room, carried by the breeze she created, her hips swaying to the rhythm of the negro music, her bare feet tracing arabesques on the floor. I drew away from the window to let the moonlight flood into the room.
It was only towards one o’clock in the morning, perhaps even later, that the street became silent once more. My dancer lay stretched out on the ground, exhausted and breathless. I pulled the curtain across the window, trying to find courage in the darkness.
Hiba. Even if the land of Africa had only offered me this gift, it would have earned my nostalgia for ever.
In the morning, as she lay asleep, my beloved had the same smile that I had imagined all night, and the same odour of ambergris. Bending over her smooth serene forehead, I covered her with silent tender promises. Noises came once more from the window, the gossiping of the market women, the crunching of straw, the ringing of copper, the cries of animals, and smells wafting on a light fresh wind which gently ruffled the curtain. I treasured everything, blessed everything, Heaven, the desert, the journey, Timbuktu, the lord of Ouarzazate, and even that painful sensation which was shooting discreetly through my body, the fruit of my first journey, eager and clumsy, into the unknown.
She opened her eyes, then closed them immediately, as if fearing to interrupt my reverie. I murmured:
‘We shall never part!’
She smiled doubtfully. I put my lips to hers, my hand slipping along her skin again to rekindle the memories of the night. But someone was already knocking on the door. I replied without opening it. It was a servant sent
by my uncle to remind me that we were expected at the palace. I was to be present, in ceremonial dress, at the presentation of the letters of credence.
At the court of Timbuktu the ritual is exact and magnificent. When an ambassador obtains an interview with the master of the city, he must kneel before him, his face brushing against the ground, and then take some earth in his hand which he sprinkles over his head and shoulders. The subjects of the prince must do the same, but only on the first occasion on which they address him; in subsequent interviews the ceremonial becomes much simpler. The palace is not large, but of a very harmonious appearance; it was built nearly two centuries ago by an Andalusian architect known as Ishaq the Granadan.
Although he is the vassal of Askia Muhammad Touré, King of Gao, Mali and many other lands, the master of Timbuktu is an important individual, respected throughout the land of the Blacks. He has at his command three thousand cavalrymen and a vast number of footsoldiers, armed with bows and poisoned arrows. When he moves from one town to another, he rides on a camel, as do the people of his court, accompanied by horses led by the hand by attendants. If he encounters enemies and has to give battle, the prince and his soldiers jump on their horses, while the attendants hobble the camels. When the prince wins a victory, the entire population which has made war upon him is captured and sold, both adults and children. This is why, even in the more modest houses of the city, there are a large number of household slaves, male and female. Some masters use their female slaves to sell various products in the suqs. They can easily be recognized, for they are the only women in Timbuktu not to veil themselves. They control a good part of the retail trade, particularly foodstuffs and everything connected with that, which is a particularly lucrative activity as the inhabitants of the city eat well; cereals and stock can be found in abundance, and the consumption of milk and butter is extensive. The only rarity is salt, and rather than scattering it over food the inhabitants take pieces in their hands and lick them from time to time between mouthfuls.