by Mika Waltari
Dipping his hand into the pot he drew forth the leg of a fowl, which he gazed at in wonder, shifting it from hand to hand and blowing on his fingers.
“Allah is indeed great,” he said. “Here is a miracle. A piece of mutton seems to have turned into a drumstick.”
The deaf-mute began waving his arms, opening his mouth and pointing at Andy, me, and the dog, which sat meekly awaiting its scraps. And when at last Abu el-Kasim grasped what had happened he quite lost his appetite, and wept.
“The curse of Allah upon you for killing both my hens, Mirmah and Fatima. Alas, my hens, my little hens, that laid me such round, brown eggs!”
Tears poured down his cheeks and his sparse beard, and Andy looked uncomfortable. But I flared up, “Don’t swear at us, Abu el- Kasim, but at your wicked hens that tore my dog’s nose. It was I who wrung their necks, and if you don’t want to eat, you can fast.”
Abu el-Kasim continued to sigh and wipe the tears from his beard, but when he saw how the food was disappearing he forgot his sorrow and helped himself. Afterward he patted his stomach contentedly, but warned us that at this rate we should eat him out of house and home.
Andy retorted, “Of what use are starving servants? I’m content with plain food so long as there’s plenty of it. Give us half a sheep and a bag of meal daily, and neither you nor I need complain.”
Abu el-Kasim’s only response was to tear his beard, and shortly afterward we retired to rest.
Next day, after the morning prayer, Abu el-Kasim took us out and showed us objects of interest in the town. Many close-packed buildings stood within its walls, and in the narrow alleys it was difficult to push past those whom we met. Here were representatives of every Christian and Moslem nation, as well as Jews and Greeks. I saw also desert horsemen, who kept their faces covered.
There were many fine houses surrounded by walls, and public bathhouses open to all, irrespective of faith, color, or means. The rich paid most for their baths, while the poorest might bathe for nothing, in the name of the Compassionate. At the highest point of the town stood the kasbah of Selim ben-Hafs, with its countless buildings, and on either side of its main entrance iron hooks were to be seen, on which were impaled human heads and limbs. The finest building of all, however, was the great mosque by the harbor. The Spanish island fortress commanded the harbor mouth, and Spaniards armed with swords and harquebuses rowed freely to and fro, or stalked haughtily among the populace, whom they compelled to make way for them. This offended many a devout Moslem, for by the law of the Koran no believer ought to step aside for an unbeliever, but should crowd him and jostle him out into the street.
On our way about the city, Abu el-Kasim gathered together with many blessings the jars which, hidden in peasants’ grain baskets, had arrived at the houses of his merchant friends, and we carried them back to his house. The city was divided in a very sensible and practical manner into different quarters, in which each kind of merchandise and craft had its own street. Thus the coppersmiths kept to one alley, while tailors, tanners, dyers, and all other artisans each had theirs. Our own house was in the street of the spice merchants and dealers in drugs. It was one of the more respectable thoroughfares, since wealthy merchants as well as poor ones lived there, as could be seen by the crowd of beggars and cripples who squatted all day at rich men’s doors in the hope of alms.
At noon Abu el-Kasim took us to the mosque, in whose forecourt was a marble basin supplied with fresh running water. We performed the prescribed ablutions and entered the mosque, carrying our slippers in our hands. There were costly carpets on the floor, many lamps hung from the roof by copper and silver chains, and columns of different colors supported the great dome. We murmured our purpose in coming and imitated the actions of the reader, kneeling when he knelt and bowing down as he did. After the prayers Abu el-Kasim took us to the madrasseh, or mosque school, where youths under the direction of gray-bearded teachers were studying the Koran, the duty of man, the traditions, and the law. Abu el-Kasim had given us clean clothes, and he now presented us to an elderly man with a white beard, saying, “Venerable Ibrahim ben Adam el-Mausili! In the name of the Compassionate I bring you two men who have found the faith and desire to follow the true path.”
From that day forward, after the evening prayer, we attended the school for converts, to learn Arabic and the seven pillars, roots, and branches of Islam. Not even Fridays were excepted; for although Moslems leave their labor or their business to attend the noon service on that day, yet they count no day as a day of rest. In their opinion the Christian and Jewish manner of honoring the Sabbath is blasphemous, because it is based on the idea that God, after creating heaven and earth, rested upon the seventh day. Moslems acknowledge that God created heaven and earth, but being omnipotent He must have done it without effort; the very notion that He could be in need of rest is blasphemy to them.
When the old teacher Ibrahim ben-Adam observed my genuine desire for knowledge he conceived a liking for me and expounded the Koran to the best of his ability, and often I stayed on after the others had left until late in the evening. He was very devout and never wearied of reading the sacred writings. It was from him I learned that Islam has room in it for many paths whose followers dispute among themselves. But these questions did not disturb my peace of mind, for I studied the Koran with intellectual detachment, and solely from a desire for knowledge. I soon perceived that Christians had little to be proud of in their supposedly superior religion, for dogmatic disputes, sanctimoniousness, hypocrisy, and the nonobservance of fasts were features common to both persuasions.
During the day I helped Abu el-Kasim to mix drugs and grind kohl to a fine powder for eye black. I also prepared a dye of indigo and henna, which gives a blue-black tinge to women’s hair. By kneading indigo leaves to a stiff dough we obtained a substance that women used to color their eyebrows dark blue; and Abu el-Kasim told me that the fine ladies of Baghdad often shaved off the eyebrows that Allah had given them, to replace them by penciled blue lines.
But the most important of Abu el-Kasim’s wares were the leaves of henna that he obtained from Morocco, where they were gathered three times a year. Women moistened these and kneaded them to a greenish paste which they rubbed into their faces to freshen and rejuvenate their complexions; elderly women could not live without it. Henna was also used in the preparation of a dye for nails, hands, and feet. Abu el-Kasim had his own methods of making this, which enabled him to sell it at prices that varied according to the means of the customer.
He taught me to knead a little lemon juice and alum into the henna paste, and so produce an orange-colored mixture for coloring the nails. He would mix some of it with rose water or essence of violets, put it into different pots under different names and price it according to the lure of those names. In this way he could charge many times the price of the original commodity. Vain men dyed their beards with henna, and fair-haired women could use it to turn their hair fiery red in the Venetian manner.
Other preparations he made entirely himself, including the burning “paradise ointment,” which he declared could restore virginity to a prostitute, though she had visited all the ports of Africa and reached the age of forty. When I rebuked Abu for his heartlessness in robbing the poor by selling them worthless goods he looked at me with his monkey eyes and answered gravely, “Michael el-Hakim, you mustn’t blame me, for in selling these things I sell much more than their ingredients. I sell dreams, and the poor have greater need of dreams than the rich and fortunate. To aging women I sell youth and self- confidence. Besides, you’ll have noticed that I sometimes give away henna and rose water for some poor girl’s wedding, and so acquire merit. Don’t reproach me for selling dreams to others, though I’ve lost my own.”
I give no opinion as to the rights or wrongs of this, and as to whether it is better to live unhappy in the truth or happy in a lie. However it may be, I helped Abu el-Kasim in every way I could and was flattered when he began to call me el-Hakim, the physician. It c
ame about when he was seeking an Arabic name for me. Rearranging the letters of “Michael” or “Mikhael,” he produced to his own surprise the words “el-Hakim.”
“There’s an omen indeed!” he cried. “As Michael the angel you did Sinan a service by inducing him to seek guidance in the holy book;
now as el-Hakim the physician you shall serve me. May the conjunction be a fortunate one for both of us.”
I first saw Sultan Selim ben-Hafs one Friday as he came riding down the steep street from the kasbah to the noon service in the mosque. He was attended by a flock of richly dressed slaves, and by a company of bowmen who, with arrows ready fitted to the bowstrings, closely scrutinized the lattice windows and flat roofs of the houses. In the forecourt of the mosque Selim made a disdainful gesture, and a sackful of square silver coins was flung to the poor. Within, having carelessly rattled off the prayers, he sat cross legged on his throne and dozed while passages from the Koran were read aloud. Thus I had a fair opportunity of watching him and studying his face, and I cannot say that I was attracted, for it was ravaged by vice and his drooling mouth hung open. He was middle aged; his face and his dark beard gleamed with rare ointments, and his bloodshot eyes framed in heavy, puffy lids were as lifeless as his mouth. Abu el-Kasim told me he ate opium. Afterward, on his return to the palace, Selim paused at the entrance to witness two executions and the flogging of some young boys who were bound to posts on either side of the gate. He let the whipping continue until blood was pouring down their backs, while he sat slumped in his saddle with a hanging lip, dully looking on. If the Hafsids had ruled Algiers for three hundred years, I thought, it was at least one hundred years too long.
I soon came to love Algiers-the street where I lived, and the people who talked to me. This foreign city, with the strange smells and colors, the charcoal braziers, the fruit trees, and the many ships in the harbor, was like a city from some story book. Each day I ate mutton and rich broth; often Abu el-Kasim with a sigh would loosen his purse strings and give me a few square silver coins, and I would go to the market to buy plump ptarmigan, which Giulia afterward dressed with lavish seasoning.
For Giulia had gradually become reconciled to her lot. Abu el-Kasim pleased her by taking her to the bazaar and buying her beautifully wrought bracelets and anklets of silver. To my annoyance she dyed her fair hair red. Her nails, the palms of her hands, and her feet up to the anklebones were always orange-red, and she also painted her eyelids and eyebrows after the fashion of Algerian women. To her credit be it said that she soon wearied of our housekeeping and took it into her own hands, inducing Abu el-Kasim to repair the house and even demanding a covered pool in the courtyard, so that he was forced to pay a large sum for the right to pipe water from the city water tower. Giulia in short claimed the same amenities as our neighbors, until Abu el-Kasim tore his beard and wrung his hands, and in moments of desperation ran out into the street to call everyone to witness how the abominable soothsayer was plunging him into ruin.
The neighbors stroked their beards and gloated. Some said, “Abu el-Kasim has grown rich,” and others said, “What a joyful day it will be when next Selim ben-Hafs’s taxgatherer visits our street!” Only the most compassionate remarked, “Abu el-Kasim has clearly gone out of his mind. It would be a kindness to him and pleasing to Allah to carry him to the madhouse and have the evil spirit whipped from his body.”
I was not at all surprised at these remarks, for now and then Andy in a howling fury would chase the agile Abu round the court, until he fled over the wall and hid in the cess pit. For Abu el-Kasim purposely teased and goaded Andy every time he was beaten on the wrestling ground behind the mosque. On such days Andy would be in a surly humor, and if on top of this Abu waved a wine flask in front of his nose, inviting him to take a pull at it and gain a little vigor, it was enough, and I was often afraid that Andy would knock Abu to pieces. But when enough interested onlookers had gathered in the yard and Andy’s fury had somewhat abated, Abu el-Kasim would creep out of the drain, smelling very evilly, and approach Andy with an ingratiating air, to feel his calf muscles and assure the neighbors that Andy would yet bring him in a fortune by wrestling.
When I expostulated with Abu for teasing Andy he looked at me in wonder, and said, “Why deny my neighbors a little innocent fun? Besides, it’s good for your brother, for otherwise he’d only sit and sulk after a defeat, until he got cramps in the stomach. As it is, he can work off his fury on me and so regain his good fighting humor.”
This was true, for after such outbreaks Andy quickly cooled, and laughed at Abu for a silly old fool.
Abu el-Kasim then persuaded him to lie full length on a bench, and massaged his arms and legs, oiled his massive body and rubbed healing salves into his bruises. Now that Andy had adopted the Moslem faith he had to have a new name, and Abu el-Kasim called him Antar, after the great hero of the Arabian tales. In the bazaar he so loudly praised his strength and skill as to arouse curiosity and many people gathered behind the mosque to watch him wrestle. At least once a week Abu el-Kasim mounted on Andy’s shoulders and rode thus to the market place, issuing loud challenges to all and sundry to try a fall with the invincible Antar. There Andy stood up naked save for a pair of leather breeches reaching to the knee, while Abu rubbed him with oil and loudly eulogized his muscles. Among the loiterers on the shady side of the market place, and under the colonnade of the mosque, there were always some disengaged gureshes, each of whom had a patron or master who fed him and wagered money on him. Such wagers were not held to be gambling, which is forbidden by the Koran, since the result was determined not by chance but by the strength and skill of the wrestlers.
These patrons were the idle sons of rich merchants and shipowners, whose forebears had built up their fortunes by piracy. But since Selim ben-Hafs, through fear of the great Sultan, had allied himself with the Spaniards, piracy had ceased, and so these young men were without an occupation. They passed their days at the baths and their nights in secret wine drinking in company with dancing girls. They sought to stimulate their jaded senses by patronizing this sport. Many of the wrestlers were rough fellows who had chosen this way of life from laziness. At times, when they found themselves outmatched, they were apt to sink their teeth in an opponent’s ear and tear it off. Therefore Andy had to be on his guard, and despite his lamentations and references to Samson’s disastrous fate, Abu shaved his head so that no adversary could grasp him by the hair.
When first I went with Andy and Abu el-Kasim to the market place I was horrified at the sight of these fearful wrestlers, half naked and gleaming with sweat, as they made themselves supple by trying holds on one another, and forcing one another to the ground. They were big, fat men with bulging muscles, and I fancy any one of them could have cracked my ribs with a poke of his forefinger.
But Abu el-Kasim made a great commotion, chattering like a monkey and screaming, “Is there anyone here who dares wrestle with the invincible Antar? His knees are as the pillars in the mosque and his trunk is a very tower. He was bred among idolaters in a land far to the north, and is hardened by the snow and ice that covers the country all the year round-ice, which you idlers know only as fragments in your sherbet.”
After continuing thus for some time he climbed down from Andy’s shoulders, spread a piece of cloth upon the ground and threw a square silver coin upon it as a reward to the winner, crying aloud to Allah to witness his liberality. This provoked a roar of laughter which brought others running to the scene, while the wealthy patrons held their sides and cried, “You seem to have little faith in your Antar-and no wonder. He looks as lumbering as an ox.”
But the curious began throwing coins onto the cloth until a little heap of silver lay there, and even a small gold coin or two. The wrestlers looked critically from the pile of money to Andy and back again, gathered in a ring with their hands on one another’s shoulders and chattered, until one of them undertook a “good” bout with Andy. In “good” wrestling, the opponents were not to inflict will
ful and lasting injury on one another, whereas in “hard” wrestling everything was allowed. In “hard” bouts men were apt to lose an eye or an ear, and professional wrestlers did not willingly engage in them.
Andy and his adversary now tackled one another, and Andy, putting into practice the holds that Mussuf the Negro had taught him, flung his man over his shoulder to the ground with a resounding thud. To encourage the victim the bystanders flung more money onto the cloth, but Andy succeeded in throwing three men in succession-no mean feat for a beginner. But with the fourth he had the worst of it, for after a prolonged struggle his foot slipped and he fell, so that his opponent could get an arm under his shoulder and over the back of his neck and force him down.
Abu el-Kasim uttered shrieks of anguish and wept as if he had lost a great sum of money instead of the one silver coin he had thrown onto the cloth. But Andy rubbed his aching neck and said, “I only hope Mussuf taught me right; I can’t stand up to these slippery fellows, though I’m certainly stronger than they are.”
He sat with a colored cloth over his shoulders, carefully observing the matches that followed. I believe he learned a great deal from them, for encouraged by the considerable sum now amassed on the cloth the wrestlers fought their best. The final victor was one Iskender, who looked no more formidable than the rest, though his shoulders were as broad as a bread oven, and a lighter man could not move him from the spot. Andy surveyed him wide eyed, and said, “That Iskender’s no fool, and he’ll be an opponent after my own heart when I get so far. But I’ve seen enough today to know that I’ve much to learn.”
He did not let his first defeat discourage him, and indeed it proved an advantage, for the other gureshes were all the readier to accept him as one of themselves. Iskender gave him four silver pieces from the heap he had won and declared that Andy had fully earned them; for custom required the victor to share his winnings with the other competitors.