Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood

by Fatima Mernissi

  At those words, I almost wished that all rules would suddenly materialize into frontiers and visible walls right before my very eyes. But then I had another uncomfortable thought. If Yasmina's farm was a harem, in spite of the fact that there were no walls to be seen, then what did hurriya, or freedom, mean? I shared this thought with her, and she seemed a little worried, and said that she wished I would play like other kids, and stop worrying about walls, rules, constraints, and the meaning of hurriya. "You'll miss out on happiness if you think too much about walls and rules, my dear child," she said. "The ultimate goal of a woman's life is happiness. So don't spend your time looking for walls to bang your head on." To make me laugh, Yasmina would spring up, run to the wall, and pretend to pound her head against it, screaming, "Aie, aie! The wall hurts! The wall is my enemy!" I exploded with laughter, relieved to learn that bliss was still within reach, in spite of it all. She looked at me and put her finger to her temple, "You understand what I mean?"

  Of course I understood what you meant, Yasmina, and happiness did seem absolutely possible, in spite of harems, both visible and invisible. I would run to hug her, and whisper in her ear as she held me and let me play with her pink pearls. "I love you Yasmina. I really do. Do you think I will be a happy woman?"

  "Of course you will he happy!" she would exclaim. "You will be a modern, educated lady. You will realize the nationalists' dream. You will learn foreign languages, have a passport, devour books, and speak like a religious authority. At the very least, you will certainly be better off than your mother. Remember that even I, as illiterate and bound by tradition as I am, have managed to squeeze some happiness out of this damned life. That is why I don't want you to focus on the frontiers and the barriers all the time. I want you to concentrate on fun and laughter and happiness. That is a good project for an ambitious young lady."

  8.

  AQUATIC DISHWASHING

  TO REACH YASMINA'S farm we only had to travel a few hours, but it might as well have been one of Aunt Habiba's faraway islands in the China Sea. Women on the farm did things we'd never even heard of in the city, like fishing, tree climbing, and bathing in a stream that was rushing on to the Sebou River before heading to the Atlantic Ocean. The women even started participating in horseback riding competitions, after Tamou arrived from the North. Women had ridden horses on the farm before Tamou, but only discreetly, when the men were away, and they'd never really gone very far. Tamou turned riding into a solemn ritual, with fixed rules, and drills, and ostentatious awards ceremonies and prizes.

  The winner of the race would receive a prize made by the last one to cross the finish line: an enormous pastilla, the most delicious of all of Allah's varied foods. At once a pastry and a meal, pastilla is sweet and salty, made of pigeon meat and nuts, sugar, and cinnamon. Oh! Pastilla crunches when you munch on it, and you have to eat it with delicate gestures, no rushing please, or else you will get sugar and cinnamon all over your face. Pastilla takes days to prepare because it is made of layers of sheer, almost transparent crust, stuffed with roasted and slightly crushed almonds, along with a lot of other surprises. Yasmina often said that if women were smart, they would sell the treat and make some money, instead of serving it as part of their banal housework duty.

  With the exception of Lalla Thor, who was a city woman with very white, lifeless skin, most of the co-wives had the unmistakably rural features of mountainous Morocco. Also unlike Lalla Thor, who never did any housework and kept her three layers of caftans hanging leisurely down to her ankles, the co-wives tucked theirs into their belts, and hitched their sleeves up under their arms with colored elastics camouflaged to look like the traditional takhmal.1 This style of dress allowed them to move swiftly throughout the day, performing household chores, and feeding people and animals.

  One of the constant preoccupations of the co-wives was how to make housework more entertaining, and one day Mabrouka, who loved swimming, suggested that they try washing the dishes in the river. Lalla Thor was scandalized, and said that the idea was totally against Muslim civilization. "These peasant women are going to destroy the reputation of this house," she fumed, "just as the venerable historian Ibn Khaldun predicted six hundred years ago in his Muqaddimah," when he said that Islam was essentially a city culture and peas ants were its threat.'- Having so many co-wives from the mountains was bound to lead to disaster." Yasmina retorted that Lalla Thor would be much more useful to the Muslims if she stopped reading old books and started working like everyone else. But Lalla Thor took the matter to Grandfather, so jealous was she of the co-wives' attempt to have some fun, and he summoned Mabrouka and Yasmina to him. He asked them to explain their project. They did so, and then argued that although they were indeed both illiterate peasants, they were not dumb, and simply could not take Ibn Khaldun's words as sacred. After all, they said, he was just a historian. They would gladly renounce their proposed project, if Lalla Thor could produce a fativa (decree) from the Qaraouiyine Mosque religious authorities banning women from washing dishes in rivers, but until that time, they would do as they pleased. After all, the river was Allah's creation, a manifestation of his power, and if, in any case, swimming were a sin, they would pay for it once in front of him, on judgment Day. Grandfather, impressed by their logic, adjourned the meeting by saying that he was glad that responsibility was an individual matter in Islam.

  On the farm, as in all harems, household tasks were performed according to a strict rotation system. Women organized themselves into small teams formed along friendship and interest lines, and split the chores among them. The team that took care of the cooking one week would clean the floors the next, prepare tea and coffee and take care of the beverages the third, undertake the washing in the fourth, and relax and take a rest in the fifth. Rarely did all the women come together as a single group to perform one task. The exception was washing dishes, that usually tedious chore that was transformed after Mabrouka's suggestion (at least during the summers when I was there) into a fantastic aquatic show, complete with participants, spectators, and cheerleaders.

  The women would stand in the river in two rows. In the first row, they stood, almost fully clad, in water up to their knees. In the second row, where only the women who swam well were allowed to stand, the water reached their waists and they were often half-clad in qamis only, tucked up high into tightened belts. Their heads would be uncovered too, because they could not fight the current while worrying about the possibility of losing scarves and turbans made of precious embroidered silks. The first row would undertake the initial cleaning, scouring the pots and pans and tagines (earthenware stewpots) with tadekka, a paste made of the sand and clay from the riverbanks. Then they would roll the pots and pans through the water to the second row for another cleaning. Meanwhile, the rest of the kitchenware would be circulating cross-current, from one hand to the next in a chain-like progression, with the water rinsing away the tadekka.

  Finally, Mabrouka, the swimming star, would appear on the scene. Kidnapped from a village near the coastal city of Agadir during the civil war that ensued after the French took over, she had spent her childhood diving into the ocean from high cliffs. Not only could she swim like a fish and stay under water for long periods of time, but she also rescued many of the cowives from being swept away to Kenitra, the city where the Sebou River joins the sea. Her job during the dishwashing expeditions was to catch all the pots and pans that escaped the other co-wives' grasps, fight the current, and bring them back to shore. The women would clap and cheer whenever she emerged from the water, a pot or a pan on her head, and the "criminal" who had let the pot slip by would have to grant her a wish that very night. The wish varied according to the skills of the culprit. Whenever Yasmina was at fault, Mabrouka asked for sfinge, Grandmother's incomparable doughnuts.

  When the pots had been cleaned, they were sent back to Yasmina, who handed them to Krisha, the key man of the entire operation. Krisha, which literally means "the Tummy," was the nickname that the ladies had given
to Mohammed al- Gharbaoui, their favorite and very spoiled driver. Krisha was a local Gharbaoui, born on the Gharb Plain by the sea between Tangier and Fez. He lived with his wife Zina a few hundred meters away from the farm, had never left his village, and did not feel that he was missing much. "A more beautiful spot than Gharb, one cannot find in all the world," he would say, "with the exception of Mecca." He was very tall and always wore an impressive white turban and a heavy brown burnous (cape) that he threw elegantly over his shoulders. In fact, he looked as though he should be a figure of authority, but somehow, he was not. He was not interested in exercising power or defending order. Enforcing the rules bored him. He was just a nice man who believed that most of Allah's creatures had enough brains to behave and act responsibly, starting with his wife who did very little housework and got away with it. "If she does not like housework," he would say, "that's okay. i am not going to divorce her for that. We can manage."

  Krisha was not what you would call a busy man. When not driving his cart, he was either eating or sleeping, but he often got intensively involved in the women's activities, especially when they required the transportation of people or things.

  Dishwashing in the river would have been impossible without Krisha. Many of the items to be washed were heavy brass pots, iron pans, and clay tagines which weighed well over six kilos each. (To feed everyone in a big household like the farm's, you needed large pots and pans.) Carrying them from the kitchens to the riverbank would have been impossible without the help of Krisha and his horse-drawn cart. Because Krisha, the Tummy, could not resist a good meal, you could get him to move mountains if you prepared his favorite couscous, with dried raisins, stuffed pigeons, and a lot of honeyed onions.

  One of Krisha's official duties was to take the women to the hammam, or public baths, once every two weeks. The hammam was located in the neighboring village of Sidi Slimane, ten kilometers away from the farm, and riding with Krisha was always great fun. The women would keep jumping in and out of the cart, and ask every two minutes to stop "so we can go pee." He always had the same answer, which made everyone scream with laughter: "Ladies, it is advisable, and even recommended, to pee in your sari-val (pantaloons). The most important thing is not whether you pee or not, but whether you stay in this damn cart until I arrive safely at Sidi Slimane." When they arrived at Sidi Slimane, Krisha would climb down slowly from the driver's seat, stand on the pavement, and start counting the women on his fingers as they entered the hammam. "Don't disappear in the steam, ladies, please" he would say, "I need all of you to answer `present' when we return back tonight."

  Oh, they were wild on Yasmina's farm.

  9.

  MOONLIT NIGHTS

  OF LAUGHTER

  ON YASMINA'S FARM, we never knew when we would eat. Sometimes, Yasmina only remembered at the last minute that she had to feed me, and then she would convince me that a few olives and a piece of her good bread, which she had baked at dawn, would be enough. But dining in our harem in Fez was an entirely different story. We ate at strictly set hours and never between meals.

  To eat in Fez, we had to sit at our prescribed places at one of the four communal tables. The first table was for the men, the second for the important women, and the third for the children and less important women, which made us happy, because that meant that Aunt Habiba could eat with us. The last table was reserved for the domestics and anyone who had come in late, regardless of age, rank, or sex. That table was often overcrowded, and was the last chance to get anything to eat at all for those who had made the mistake of not being on time.

  Eating at fixed hours was what Mother hated most about communal life. She would nag Father constantly about the possibility of breaking loose and taking our immediate family to live apart. The nationalists advocated the end of seclusion and the veil, but they did not say a word about a couple's right to split off from their larger family. In fact, most of the leaders still lived with their parents. The male nationalist movement supported the liberation of women, but had not come to grips with the idea of the elderly living by themselves, nor with couples splitting off into separate households. Neither idea seemed right, or elegant.

  Mother especially disliked the idea of a fixed lunch hour. She always was the last to wake up, and liked to have a late, lavish breakfast which she prepared herself with a lot of flamboyant defiance, beneath the disapproving stare of Grandmother Lalla Mani. She would make herself scrambled eggs and baghrir, or fine crepes, topped with pure honey and fresh butter, and, of course, plenty of tea. She usually ate at exactly eleven, just as Lalla Mani was about to begin her purification ritual for the noon prayer. And after that, two hours later at the communal table, Mother was often absolutely unable to eat lunch. Sometimes, she would skip it altogether, especially when she wanted to annoy Father, because to skip a meal was considered terribly rude and too openly individualistic.

  Mother dreamed of living alone with Father and us kids. "Whoever heard of ten birds living together squashed into a single nest?" she would say. "It is not natural to live in a large group, unless your objective is to make people feel miserable." Although Father said that he was not really sure how the birds lived, he still sympathized with Mother, and felt torn between his duty towards the traditional family and his desire to make her happy. He felt guilty about breaking up the family solidarity, knowing only too well that big families in general, and harem life in particular, were fast becoming relics of the past. He even prophesied that in the next few decades, we would become like the Christians, who hardly ever visited their old parents. In fact, most of my uncles who had already broken away from the big house barely found the time to visit their mother, Lalla Mani, on Fridays after prayer anymore. "Their kids do not kiss hands either," ran the constant refrain. To make matters worse, until very recently, all my uncles had lived in our house, and had only split away when their wives' opposition to communal life had become unbearable. That is what gave Mother hope.

  The first to leave the big family was Uncle Karim, Cousin Malika's father. His wife loved music and liked to sing while being accompanied by Uncle Karim, who played the lute beautifully. But he would rarely give in to his wife's desire to spend an evening singing in their salon, because his older brother Uncle `Ali thought it unbecoming for a man to sing or play a musical instrument. Finally, one day, Uncle Karim's wife just took her children and went back to her father's house, saying that she had no intention of living in the communal house ever again. Uncle Karim, a cheerful fellow who had himself often felt constrained by the discipline of harem life, saw an opportunity to leave and took it, excusing his actions by saying that he preferred to give in to his wife's wishes rather than forfeit his marriage. Not long after that, all my other uncles moved out, one after the other, until only Uncle `Ali and Father were left. So Father's departure would have meant the death of our large family. "As long as [my] Mother lives," he often said, "I wouldn't betray the tradition."

  Yet Father loved his wife so much that he felt miserable about not giving in to her wishes and never stopped proposing compromises. One was to stock an entire cupboardful of food for her, in case she wanted to discreetly eat sometimes, apart from the rest of the family. For one of the problems in the communal house was that you could not just open a refrigerator when you were hungry and grab something to eat. In the first place, there were no refrigerators back then. More importantly, the entire idea behind the harem was that you lived according to the group's rhythm. You could not just eat when you felt like it. Lalla Radia, my uncle's wife, had the key to the pantry, and although she always asked after dinner what people wanted to eat the next day, you still had to eat whatever the group - after lengthy discussion - decided upon. If the group settled on couscous with chick-peas and raisins, then that is what you got. If you happened to hate chick-peas and raisins, you had no choice but to shut up and settle for a frugal dinner composed of a few olives and a great deal of discretion.

  "What a waste of time," Mother would say. "These endless
discussions about meals! Arabs would be much better off if they let each individual decide what he or she wanted to swallow. Forcing everyone to share three meals a day just complicates things. And for what sacred purpose? None of course." From there, she would go on to say that her whole life was an absurdity, that nothing made sense, while Father would say that he could not just break away. If he did, tradition would vanish: "We live in difficult times, the country is occupied by foreign armies, our culture is threatened. All we have left is these traditions." This reasoning would drive Mother nuts: "Do you think that by sticking together in this big, absurd house, we will gain the strength we need to throw the foreign armies out? And what is more important anyway, tradition or people's happiness?" That would put an abrupt end to the conversation. Father would try to caress her hand, but she would take it away. "This tradition is choking me," she would whisper, tears in her eyes.

  So Father kept offering compromises. He not only arranged for Mother to have her own food stock, but also brought her things he knew she liked, such as dates, nuts, almonds, honey, flour, and fancy oils. She could make all the desserts and cookies she wanted, but she was not supposed to prepare a meat dish or a major meal. That would have meant the beginning of the end of the communal arrangement. Her flamboyantly prepared individual breakfasts were enough of a slap in the face to the rest of the family. Every once in a long while, Mother did get away with preparing a complete lunch or a dinner, but she had to not only be discreet about it but also give it some sort of exotic overtone. Her most common ploy was to camouflage the meal as a nighttime picnic on the terrace.