In springtime Makhfiyya was one of the most active prosperous quarters. Most of its inhabitants were connected to the land and owned fields and small or large estates outside the city. So, when spring arrived each year, the quarter would bustle with desert people moving to and fro, while in summer and winter mules and donkeys would be seen carrying wheat, barley, and olives – the products of their fields – back to the city.
Hajj Muhammad al-Tihami owned a large estate in Awlad Jamia, most of which he had inherited and to which he had added a number of hectares purchased from local inhabitants. They would ask to borrow money from him. He would make the loan, even when it totally swallowed up the value of the parcel of land he had used as part of a debt-repayment deal. They would agree to the plan, despite being reluctant and far from happy about it. Even so, they would continue to stay at the estate, ploughing the land as sharecroppers for Hajj Muhammad’s benefit. He was happy with these labourers, since they continued working hard as though the land still belonged to them, while they were content with the way he treated them with a degree of generosity, as though he were still their neighbour.
As Hajj Muhammad moved out to the estate, he was eager to see the first positive signs of the annual harvest in the form of the ripening green stalks that covered the extensive spread of fields. Ewes, lambs, and cows wandered hither and thither, they too being delighted by the advent of spring. Hajj Muhammad brought the entire family with him; it was their right to relax and enjoy themselves, to leave behind the high walls of the Fez house once a year, and to be able to ride mules and donkeys as they set off for hills and valleys bursting with greenery and fresh air. They would spend days in the arms of nature, burying life’s boredoms in the fields and compensating for the strictly limited horizons of the Fez mansion with a limitless world of freedom, air, sun, and light.
Hajj Muhammad would enjoy morning tours organised by the chief farmers on the estate. He would ride on a saddled mule; every morning he would visit a different segment of his vast kingdom. The area in question would never be all that far from the estate buildings, but he still preferred to ride and to be surrounded by the farming supervisors, the majority of them either former landowners or their sons. They would cluster protectively around his mule, walking either in front or behind as though he were some Persian or Byzantine sovereign. The farmers were very happy to provide this kind of entourage for Hajj Muhammad, since he only visited them once a year. It was obviously better for them if he went back to the city feeling content with their work, relaxed, satisfied, and confident in their honesty. It pleased him too to see them behaving like obedient servants and submissive beneficiaries in the presence of their benefactor, but he never displayed any imperious authority or arrogance; he simply did the rounds with them, riding a mule while they walked on foot. He talked to them as friends and asked them questions about farming, the nature of the soil, and future production – delighting in their positive responses. Even though he knew the answers already, he would question them about the borders of his property. Once he was sure of their answers, he would put on a fake air of curiosity in order to hear one or other farmer state in no uncertain terms that in this region his own property had no equal among all the wealthy inhabitants of Fez. He liked to argue with them about it.
‘Does Hajj Abd al-Wafi own more than I do?’
‘Certainly not, Hajj! Your land is bigger, more fertile, and richer.’
‘Don’t you know that he’s bought a new estate from Muhammad ibn al-Hajj?’
‘The estate that Hajj Abd al-Wafi has bought,’ came the sarcastic response, accompanied by some laughter, ‘was offered to you dirt cheap. We refused to buy it!’
‘You’re the one who owns the real gold, Hajj!’
‘How can we compare land that’s fertile, productive, and blessed with land that’s stony and gets flooded and dried out?’
Hajj Muhammad beamed as he realised the extent to which the farmers were doing their best to please him, to the point of playing fast and loose with reality – he preferred it that way, so that he could reassure himself of reality as he wished it to be rather than confronting some other reality that was actually the case. They in turn were happy to see how satisfied he was, and their leader went even further. By now, the group had reached the edge of the property, and he could feel a sense of pride in the midst of this flourishing field.
‘This land has a great future, sir,’ the head farmer said. ‘Wheat will be wheat, and barley barley.’
This made Hajj Muhammad feel proud; he was delighted by what he was hearing. The farmers were sitting all around him, staring at the face of their benefactor. But his response revealed some of his hidden concerns.
‘Only if you can be loyal to me. The blessings disappear if there’s no more than a minimal level of honesty.’
Hajj Muhammad’s implicit accusation did not come as a surprise; they were used to hearing it, and he was equally used to hearing their defence. The link between accusation and defence was shrouded in a certain obscurity, the exact nature of which none of them dared to probe. The chief farmer’s frigid response came with something close to insouciance.
‘Your food would betray us as well, sir, if we were behaving that way to you.’
‘If we weren’t to be trusted,’ another man burst in, ‘the land would not have produced the kind of harvest that it did last year.’
‘Decent folk don’t renege on the blessings they receive!’
Hajj Muhammad allowed himself a smile. He told himself that he did not believe these claims of loyalty and trustworthiness. He did not trust them completely, believing that if they did not steal from him they would not be able to survive. Even so, he realised that he could not keep his land working without these men. Even if they stole things, they were still reliable.
‘Everything I own,’ he told himself, ‘is part of their work; ownership of land has moved from them to me, from their ancestors to mine. They continue to serve it with the same feelings as they had when they were the owners.’
Hajj Muhammad laughed at them. ‘Well, Qadur,’ he said to their chief, ‘so you’ve married again. Isn’t that because of the profit you made off the land this past year?’
Qadur’s mouth broadened into a huge smile, which gave an extra brush of masculine beauty to his tawny face, full of youthful vigour. ‘How can we do better than you yourself, sir?’ he responded with complete self-confidence.
‘But why did you marry again, when Fatina is the mother of your children and has gone through a great deal in life with you, both hardships and good times?’
Qadur’s shrewd, gleaming eyes now assumed a somewhat bashful expression. ‘We’re Bedouin, Hajj, sir,’ he said, turning away. ‘We suffer a lot, and Fatina…’
He paused for a moment, but Hajj Muhammad gave him a friendly smile to encourage him to finish his thought.
‘Fatina takes care of the tent and the children. She collects water and firewood and sometimes works in the fields as well. Morning and evening she milks the cows—’
‘And so,’ Hajj Muhammad finished the sentence for him with a laugh, ‘you’ve brought in Rahma to help her!’
The farmers surrounding the Hajj laughed gently. They all looked happily at Qadur, who was in fact delighted by Hajj Muhammad’s interest and concern, which had made him the primary topic of this session with their landowner.
As noon arrived the sun became hotter, reminding Hajj Muhammad that he needed to go back to the house, situated in the middle of this fortunate estate.
12
Hajj Muhammad went back to find Qadur’s womenfolk gathered in the shade of a huge vine, along with the wives and daughters of the other farmers. They were eating yoghurt and listening eagerly to stories from the Bedouin women.
When they spotted Hajj Muhammad approaching alone on his saddled mule the women jumped up in horror; Qadur and his colleagues had taken a different way to go back to their tents, which were pitched far from the old house, so that they would not
be able to set eyes on any women of the household.
As the women leapt to their feet, they disturbed the recently hatched chicks all around, which were constantly chirping in sheer delight at the advent of spring, pecking at seeds, pulling up grass, and busily running hither and thither.
Hajj Muhammad made no effort to be especially sociable; he merely stopped for a while by the gathering under the heavily laden, leafy vine. The women and girls were so shy that it almost amounted to fear. They started kissing his hand, touching his saddle with their fingertips, raising them bashfully to their mouths as a sign of blessing. Hajj Muhammad did not miss the opportunity to throw questions at Fatina, Qadur’s wife; he asked about her companions’ names and their jobs, and she duly responded with all necessary modesty.
Fatina was not only the wife of the estate’s supervisor, she herself was also the supervisor of part of it: she had her responsibilities, just as her husband, Qadur, bore the responsibility for the major portion of the farming work. Fatina was in charge of the sheep, cows, mules, and domestic animals – matters of shepherding, pasturage, production, and milking. This occasion gave Hajj Muhammad the opportunity to ask her about the cattle and other animals he owned, just as he had asked her husband about his landholdings and their produce.
Fatina was able to respond to his questions in a knowledgeable fashion, in line with her experience and responsibilities. His questions involved a certain amount of normal enquiry, but also scepticism and outright doubt. He did not believe the information that Fatina was giving him about his cattle, just as he had not believed what Qadur had been telling him about the land and crop production. His tone of voice made no attempt to conceal his concerns, and so Fatina opened her responses with oaths such as ‘may God let my burnous-clad master make me crawl’ or ‘may God deprive me of my children’. This kind of oath may not have made Hajj Muhammad feel any more confident, but it did make him feel proud as he listened to a detailed estimate of one aspect of his possessions from the mouth of a farming woman who was responsible for part of his property.
As he listened to Fatina swearing her oaths, Hajj Muhammad realised that there was no way of disbelieving her or calling her to account. He knew that he had property, and a lot of it. Time and the stewardship of the farmers would suffice to expand his properties, the only way to increase both land and cattle production. Even so, he was happy and satisfied; he had no fears, since his ownership of land guaranteed him considerable wealth. He had no desire for anything more, because his concept of riches had its own boundaries, ones that he might already have reached.
As Hajj Muhammad talked to Fatina, encircled as he was by subservient Bedouin women, he kept comparing her with his wife, Khaduj. He could not avoid facing up to an idea that kept occurring to him. Here was Fatina, a useful and capable woman who could look after his land and produce, while being the wife of a farmer and mother of his children; Khaduj on the other hand was mother of his children, mistress of the household, and that was it.
These Bedouin women, modest and timid as they stood there submissively, stimulated the man with the bearing of a hunter in the forest as he bestrode his splendid mule. While he listened to Fatina’s answers, he was distracted and kept staring at one Bedouin girl or another. Their fresh appearance and beautiful bronze complexion was a source of delight, as was the blooming good health that showed in their rosy cheeks, black eyes, and bushy eyebrows. What he especially admired about them was their freedom from excessive dress and the constraints of wearing head-coverings and veils.
‘How would it be,’ he thought to himself as he avidly surveyed them, ‘if I had one of these women as a wife to rejuvenate me and share her sprightly vigour, her rosy complexion, and her energy with me? City women simply don’t have this youthful health and energy. Their pale faces freeze your body and make you want to be sick… But these women are all Bedouin! What would people say about me if I married a Bedouin woman and made her a co-wife of Khaduj? My standing certainly wouldn’t allow such a thing; society doesn’t condone it. They would boast about being my in-laws. What would these farmers who tend my lands think if I asked to marry one of their women? Yes, they would boast about being my in-laws, and I would become a farmer with a farmer’s wife. They might impinge upon my status; my land might be at risk. Marrying a Bedouin woman would make me a Bedouin myself. Assaults on my lands and cattle would become that much easier, because these Bedouin have been doing it already. The respect they feel for me is safe and sound as long as I maintain a distance from them. And then there’s Yasmine. No, no! Yasmine’s not a wife, she’s a concubine. Having a Bedouin woman as a concubine is allowed, but people won’t allow her to be a wife; society won’t accept it.’
While these contradictory thoughts were swirling in his head, Hajj Muhammad’s imagination took flight, but it was the commanding voice of Khaduj that finally brought him back to earth. She had been following his conversation with Fatina and had a good idea as to what his imagination was telling him as he looked at the Bedouin women.
‘Get off the mule,’ she told him. ‘Dismount, so it can feed.’
As he prepared to do so, Bedouin girls raced each other to grab hold of one of the stirrups so the saddle’s balance would not be disrupted when he lowered his bulky frame to the ground. As he bent over to get down, his face almost touched that of the young girl who had won the race to grab the stirrup. The smell of her filled his nostrils, and he could almost hear her heartbeats pounding from the effort she was making to hold the stirrup; it had almost got away from her, since Hajj Muhammad had put all his weight on the other one. At the crucial moment he remembered that Khaduj was watching him like a hawk, so he dismounted and turned his face towards the house as though completely unaware of everything around him.
Khaduj hurried after him to tell him about her plans for dinner, but he was in no mood to listen to any talk about food or household matters. She brought him back to reality by telling him about the gifts that the Bedouin women had brought.
‘Muhammad Tawil’s wife brought us two chickens,’ she told him. ‘They’re small but plump. Yumna, Ali’s wife, brought us some milk—’
‘With the cream on top?’
‘I’m not sure, but it looks like it. Al-Burnousiyya brought us a bagful of eggs.’
Khaduj was now alone with her husband. The scene she had witnessed when he was chatting with the Bedouin women made her prefer to be alone with him. By now she was more familiar with his personality than he was himself, and knew best how to handle his whims. Even so, she felt laden down by a piece of news that she felt she had to convey to Hajj Muhammad. It made her anxious for her husband and herself, and for the time that the family was spending on holiday in the countryside. Would she have to tell him this thing that was weighing her down and making her miserable? As she talked to him about things of trifling importance, she told herself he would blow up, go into a towering rage, and punish the offender.
‘If that’s the case,’ she wondered, ‘can I still keep it all a secret? He’s just a young boy, of an age when silly mistakes can be forgiven.’
As she sat there in Hajj Muhammad’s presence, she lived a dreadful moment as she rehearsed in her mind the scene she had witnessed. In a derelict and deserted part of the house she had surprised Abd al-Ghani in the act of hugging Tamu, Qadur’s daughter, as she struggled to escape his clutches. If the shock was bad enough for Abd al-Ghani, it was much worse and more damaging for the young girl, who had no idea how to resist the strength of the son of the estate’s owner and master of its inhabitants. The expression on her face showed the true extent of the disaster that had now befallen her as soon as Abd al-Ghani had enticed her to this deserted spot, but the scandal of her discovery in Abd al-Ghani’s arms was a mercy, since it had rescued her from an even more disastrous calamity.
The young girl had lowered her head in shame and departed, bearing on her young shoulders the heavy burden of a dangerous crime in which she had played no part. Abd al-Ghani also departed
, but Khaduj did not allow him to escape her curses, rebukes, and threats. The whole thing weighed heavily on her, and she thought seriously about unloading it on to Hajj Muhammad. But what scared her was the idea that a relatively trivial event might turn into a major problem, or even a full-scale disaster.
Hajj Muhammad noticed how distraught and unhappy she was looking, and only one idea came to him. Pulling her toward him, he proceeded to exploit the fact that they were alone together. This made Khaduj forget all about Abd al-Ghani’s escapade with Tamu.
13
The sun was beginning to go down as Qadur returned to his family from work. His life was one of routine in the meadow, in the middle of which his tent was pitched alongside the flocks of ewes, lambs, and cows. They would return to the meadow after spending a cold winter’s day, or hot summer’s day, being tended by children and young men who devoted their lives to grazing animals and managed to derive some pleasure from their miserable existence among the livestock and the dogs. They formed friendships with other young people, and they all tended the animals with affection, sharing the duties through the scorching heat, bitter cold, pouring rain, and blistering sun – a life of isolation amid the lush grassland.
Qadur was always anxious to be in the paddock when the animals returned. He had full confidence in Fatina and knew she was quite able to welcome the sheep and cows back, prepare their fodder for them, and milk those cows that needed it. Even so, he preferred being there, particularly during springtime, to welcome a new arrival or to make sure that the animals were all safe and sound after their daily trek. He also wanted to hear reports from shepherds about the day’s events – trivial things most of the time, to be sure, but that was life for the shepherds and for some of the farmers as well.
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