by Yasin Adnan
“Why are you laughing, Masuda?”
“Because I’ve failed,” she replied.
“Failed?”
“Yes, failed in love,” Masuda said.
“Who do you love, Masuda?”
“The summer clouds, my lady.”
“Is that a riddle?” Badia questioned.
“The whole of life is a riddle,” Masuda said.
“What do you mean?”
“I want to roll around naked in the dirt,” Masuda said. “In the end, that’s what we revert to, so our bodies need to embrace it. Fresh and warm before they’re buried beneath it . . . cold and stiff.”
Badia said nothing. She noticed how tall the trees inside the riad were as they opened up to the warmth of the sun and the blue sky above; dead, yellowing leaves dropping from their branches into oblivion, leaving behind fresh ones, alive. She also watched sweet basil leaves being tossed into the oven of her husband, the pottery seller with his brittle bones and feelings. Inside her, the fire burned to ashes.
* * *
That year, the summer hung around with its different moods. Sometimes the sky was clear, other times cloudy. The atmosphere was hot and steamy. Even so, the window in Najib’s room was only open a tiny crack; it looked out at the riad’s courtyard, where Hasun and Badia used to spend their summer evenings. Not a word was ever spoken, and eventually the merchant’s eyelids would sag, and his whole body would slouch with them. He would go upstairs to the bedroom followed by his solitary wife. Then, the only thing to interrupt his sleep would be a coughing fit. Badia’s heart would remain on fire, and she had trouble falling asleep. Time will always synchronize with whatever is weighing on the soul and force it to continue, like carrying a heavy rock up to the mountaintop.
Recently, Masuda’s behavior had changed. She had told her mistress, frankly, that she was unhappy about being single. She was certainly aroused by Najib’s stories, but at the same time they distressed her, like a false pregnancy. A few months before, there had been a blond cat inside the riad; the cat had an overwhelming desire to mate during the spring, and had started a feverish meow, raising her voice and turning it into a kind of chant. The cat had wandered all around the riad with her tail up, rubbing against everything. Her meowing attracted the attention of a huge gray male cat; the gray cat stared with lustful eyes at the female from all the way up on the roof. The felines started consorting with each other, but one night the female cat slunk out of the riad and disappeared, never to return. Surprisingly, the male cat kept looking down from the roof, searching all over for his mate. He called, cajoled, and waited. He went away, came back, and called again, but there was still no sign of the female cat. One night, he leaped down from the roof to the uppermost story in the riad and looked through the balcony window. Masuda smiled at him, and he stayed where he was. When she went over to him, he stood still and gave her a cautious look, seeking affection. She stroked his warm fur and he relaxed a little; he snuggled down comfortably. She took him downstairs, and looked over the balcony. Hasun and Badia were in bed.
The cat went into her room, so she gave him something to eat and drink, stroked him, and hugged him to her chest once again. He purred contentedly and pushed his head into her underarm, sniffing the scent of hair, sweat, and insomnia that nestled there. When Masuda woke up at dawn the next day, she started looking for her nighttime visitor, but found no trace. She expected the cat to come back, but he didn’t. That one night became ingrained in her mind like a flash of lightning, leaving behind a painful memory.
With the cat came a desire on Masuda’s part: she wanted a man whose very fire would impregnate her. Najib, meanwhile, kept insisting that she simply listen to his stories at night and let her tell them the next day: “Listen to me, Masuda! This morning a lump of clay refused to respond to me; I wanted to knead it, but it stayed solid between my fingers. When I poured some water on it, it went soft and then expanded. I added some more clay, and it all went solid again. I told myself that anyone who cannot sense the clay’s sensitivities is no potter. So I listened to what this recalcitrant lump of clay actually wanted. So, Masuda, do you know what this lump of clay wanted?” Najib asked.
Masuda did not reply, she simply stared at him in amazement.
“It wanted some milk from a woman’s breast!” Najib said.
“What do you mean?”
“In order to submit and be shaped, it wanted some milk from a woman’s breast,” he explained.
“Have you found any?”
“Yes, there are lots of nursing mothers in the quarter.”
“Except in this household,” Masuda pointed out. “What did you do?”
“I approached an elderly woman and asked her to get me a few drops of a nursing mother’s milk. I told her it was a cure for a worker’s eye that had been pierced by a splinter.”
“So what happened?”
“The milk arrived, and I poured it over the clay. It immediately became fully malleable,” Najib told her. “It was like a truly beautiful woman suckling a truly beautiful baby.”
“So where is that statuette?”
“I’m keeping it for myself,” Najib said. “Moments of inspiration like that don’t happen all the time.”
Masuda stared at the potter, her eyes aflame, while he was distracted and still thinking about the statuette. Then, silently, she stood up and left. In the small hallway opposite his room, she paused and exposed her breasts to the distant stars, to the sultry breeze, to the mirage . . . “There’s no milk in these dangling breasts of mine!” she said aloud.
Slapping her thighs, she mumbled some unintelligible words and went downstairs again. By the bottom step she leaned her head against the wall, her body quivering, as she let out a hauntingly gruesome laugh mixed with tears.
* * *
The next morning, Badia got to hear about the clay that wanted a nursing mother’s milk. Screaming like a woman in mourning, she signaled to Masuda to stop. “I’m going to kill that wretch,” Badia growled, her eyes fixed on the potter’s window, “before he kills me!”
Going up to her bedroom, she closed the door and burst into tears.
Masuda followed her to her room and opened the door, prepared to get some answers. “What’s the point of crying?” she asked. “You can drown the entire house in tears, but not a single stone in the walls will pay me any attention!”
“So what?”
“I’ll plan something to put an end to this torture,” Mausda promised.
“Won’t that be risky?”
“What am I risking?” Masuda remarked. “A life that is already lost?”
So here was Badia, battling with her own noble self. That very same night, the first phase of the plan took place. Wearing a thin dress, she sat next to her husband. As was the case every night, he was stoned. She poured him some tea and caressed him.
“You seem to be in a good mood tonight,” Hasun said.
“When it’s this fresh, it opens up the soul.”
Her soft hand clutched his veined wrist and he surrendered himself to her. The scent of her ripe body overwhelmed him, and he inhaled the entire atmosphere; he felt sated.
“It’s as though you’ve never seen me before,” Badia said.
“I’m seeing you now as I want to see you.”
“Do you know what I want?” she asked him, stroking him and whispering in his ear.
“A gold bracelet?” he asked.
“No.”
“A ring or kaftan?”
“No.”
“So, what is it you want?”
“I want to dance for you.”
Another wave of intoxication enveloped the merchant’s head. She had arranged it all so that he would beg her for this prize.
“Please dance for me, Badia, please do,” he pleaded.
“Here, in the courtyard?”
“Yes, here in this wonderful atmosphere. Before I fall asleep in your arms.”
His speech was slurred, and his legs could
hardly support him. Like a white cloud, the image of Badia’s body in her thin dress floated before Hasun’s eyes—coming close, then moving away. Her clothes revealed the spectacular details of her athletic body, and her dance was white-hot, only adding to his inner fire. The dance pulsated from every part of her body; there was no need for other rhythm. Her only goal was to be seen by the eyes of the one who inspired such feelings, not the sleepy eyes of a cracked seashell. The dancer was instinctively aware that other eyes were watching her from behind the window on the top floor, and through the crack in the door of the room next to the kitchen. Only someone with no emotions could fail to be drawn to such an exuberant display . . .
“Oh, I’m so tired,” Hasun mumbled.
That was the inert response of the feeble old man . . . but the same dance penetrated the heart of the young potter and fired up his very soul. The sensation moved to Najib’s fingers, which responded positively. He wasn’t afraid, hesitant, or nonchalant. What he needed now was a truly exceptional opportunity, one he had never encountered before, but which was certainly afire at that moment. He had a pressing urge to deal with clay right then.
Once the sleeping merchant started snoring loudly, satisfied with the nighttime performance, Badia slunk out and went to the room alongside their bedroom. Wrapping herself in a brown coat, she stood there for a moment, listening. She could hear cautious footsteps. Does anyone else hear them? she wondered. She looked out into the pitch darkness outside the room but couldn’t see anything. Even so, through the total silence she managed to hear the riad’s door being opened from the inside. The hand involved knew the bolts very well and closed it carefully. Could anyone else be opening the door at this time of night? Why was he leaving his room, going downstairs, departing? Was he running away from her? Running away after such penetration of the very depths of their souls?
The potter left the riad’s alley in Mawqif and headed for the workshop in Tabhirt, followed by a shadowy figure wrapped in a coat. The streets were deserted besides a few stray night creatures. The young potter was in a hurry, like an arrow shot from a bow. He felt a pain inside him, this burning need to work with the clay, and all the while the shadow was trailing him from a distance. When he entered the shop and turned on the lights, he spotted a lump of clay that seemed ready for kneading and shaping. He bent over it with all the enthusiasm of a lover. His soul was overflowing, his fingers were poised and ready, and the picture was still shining in his heart and imagination. Just as Badia’s body had been dancing a short while earlier, so now were his fingers dancing as they gently molded the body of clay. The statuette was gently stroked into shape, as though it were being formed spontaneously from his passion. One stroke and the basic features were in place; another stroke and the gesture was there; another and the pulse of movement was added; a series of concentrated, interlinked strokes and the statuette was finally ready, enveloped in its own halo of light. The potter was so happy that he burst into song in celebration of this heavenly presence, while the watching shadow sneaked a look through a crack in the door. The statuette did not look anything like its model, since the artist had been wary about his hidden passion being revealed. This was a statuette based on an imagined conception of love, keeping the real shape ambiguous while preserving the essence. Here was the symbol that embraced every conceivable aspect of symbols without revealing the inner secret.
With the approach of dawn the potter carried his new statuette—this symbol—to the oven for heating. He finally saw the person who’d been watching him.
“This statuette doesn’t look like me at all,” the shadow muttered. “So, it’s not for me. The wretch is still ignoring me in spite of the flame that I aroused.”
Underneath her coat, this relentless shadow was clutching the hilt of a dagger. The young potter had hardly emerged from the pottery’s threshold before the blade was thrust into his chest, aimed at his heart. His blood gushed out to moisten the new statuette, which he continued to clutch to himself in the fervor of his passion, as his life exerted itself fully in its confrontation with the finality of death. Then, everything collapsed and he crashed to the floor, the clay mixing with his freshly spilled blood. The shadow now slipped away, the bloody dagger concealed under the wrap. She disappeared into the gloom of the predawn morning.
* * *
Before the sun was even up the next morning, there were loud bangs on the merchant’s riad door. When he heard the news, he quickly left the house. There were two women in the household who bewailed Najib’s death in the most intense fashion. Rumors and speculation spread like wildfire: How could Najib the potter have been murdered? Was it a jealous lover for whom he had never made a statuette? Or was it a woman who had wanted him to make a statuette, and he had not done so? Or was it another craftsman who was envious of him? Or had Hasun hatched some plot against him, spiteful because of the attentions that his beautiful wife was paying to the young man? Was it this, or that, or something else?
On the very same day, both Badia and her servant Masuda vanished separately from the riad without any prearranged plan. Neither of them spoke to the other—or even knew where the other was going.
As the murdered man was laid to rest in the Bab el-Khemis Cemetery, inquiries had not yet identified the murderer or the location of the two women. The murderer’s shadow still managed to appear at the gravesite a few days after his burial, walking between the headstones until it reached his tombstone. Leaning over the grave, close to the heart of its owner, as it listened to the groans, the murderous shadow cried out: “Najib!”
“Yes?” he replied.
“Why are you groaning? Do you need anything?”
“Why did you kill me, Masuda?”
“Because I love you.”
“Does the lover kill their beloved?” he asked.
“If the lover is desperate, and the beloved has refused to make a statuette of her.”
“You treated me badly,” Najib snapped.
“It was no worse than watching you go to someone else,” Masuda snapped back.
“You were unkind, Masuda.”
“Forgive me, Najib. Death was the only way I could see of being joined with you.”
Walking toward the edge of the cemetery by Wadi Isil, she threw herself into the deep lake and disappeared into its depths, where she was to remain.
* * *
Summer was not yet over, and its steaming heat had not relented. Najib’s fingers no longer danced over the clay. And yet a woman of faded beauty kept searching for him. For days, no one knew where she had vanished, or from where she had emerged on that searing-hot noon, shoeless, her clothes in tatters, her body weak. She was clutching a statuette with bits broken off and her tangled hair cascaded like a waterfall. She stopped by the door of the pottery shop where the dead man’s fingers had danced over the clay, looked into its empty space, and called him by name. She laughed at first, and then she cried. She made the other workers cry as well, and passersby who gathered around her.
“It’s Badia,” some of them whispered to others. “Hasun’s wife. She’s gone crazy.”
That same evening, she was placed in a hospital for especially dangerous patients, even though the only people who believed that were the very ones who’d poisoned their own perceptions.
As though nothing had ever happened, Hasun had searched all over his house when the people in his riad had disappeared, and then changed his old bed for an even bigger one. Refilling his supply of kif and his hashish pipe, he got ready to remarry.
Translated from Arabic by Roger Allen
The Mummy in the Pasha’s House
by Mohamed Achaari
Dar el-Basha
Patti sat in the garden of the house in Marrakech that she had bought ten years ago—her first home. She was listening with a genuine Sufi absorption to al-Sharqawi recount the story of the mummy in the pasha’s house.
Al-Sharqawi had begun with the moment the governor’s entourage, the police, the historic buildings i
nspectorate, and the procurator-general had all arrived at the dwairiya—a small house that contained a kitchen, storerooms, and servants quarters on one side, with the finer and more lavishly decorated Turkish baths, lounge, and other living spaces on the other. The house also contained a lounge for female companions, which was accessible by climbing an ebony staircase from the lounge. In this velveteen area of the dwairiya, the pasha had installed a plaster mosaic of blue, yellow, and green tiles that he had specially imported from Istanbul—his own Sulaymaniyya from the Ottoman capital. He would often brag about the mosaic, even though he knew nothing at all about that particular Ottoman palace—people living in the dwairiya even called the house the Sulaymaniyya, their belief being that the use of the title implied that some demon followers of King Solomon were to be found there, all subject to the pasha’s instructions. In the dead of night, when the inhabitants could hear the sound of the pasha’s retainers and soldiers being lashed by a leather whip, they would put their fingers in their ears and their knees would knock together in horror as they listened to what the fiends were doing to the victims locked inside the vaults housed below the stables.
Al-Sharqawi confirmed that the group of delegators headed straight for the crumbling wall in the lounge, the one being rebuilt by craftsmen, since more mosaic pieces from Turkey were being imported. Inside the hole—which made itself evident as soon as they started removing the debris from the wall—was a coffin made of fine wood. The senior craftsman announced that a perfectly mummified body, still wrapped in its shroud, was inside the coffin. When the foreman asked that the coffin be brought out of the wall and opened in front of everyone so that a report could be filed on the mummy’s discovery, the workers refused to do so.
The foreman had then been forced to open his shirt, displaying to the members of the delegation the painful wounds he had suffered after opening the coffin himself. Through his sobs, he insisted that the gaping wounds on his body were the result of a savage beating, although there had been no one there to hurt him and no whip to administer such damage.