Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood

by Fatima Mernissi

  Concentration was an important exercise also needed for practical purposes, said Aunt Habiba. "How can you talk or walk, not to mention embroider or cook, if your mind is not focused? Do you want to he like Stela Bennis?" I definitely did not want to he like Stela Bennis, one of our neighbors' daughters, who could never remember names. She kept asking everyone "Who are you?" and could not store the answer in her little brain. As soon as you changed places, or she turned her head, you were faced with the inevitable question again: "What is your name?" She was named Stela, which meant "little bucket," because all the information she received poured right out again like water. But although being drilled to concentrate was an important part of my education, I only became serious about it when Chama told me that through concentration I could send images to the persons around me. That magical idea reminded me how I had sometimes heard Chama plotting with Aunt Habiba and Mother to induce everyone in the courtyard to grow wings.

  Aunt Habiba said that anyone could develop wings. It was only a matter of concentration. The wings need not be visible like the birds', invisible ones were just as good, and the earlier you started focusing on the flight, the better. But when I begged her to be more explicit, she became impatient and warned me that some wonderful things could not be taught. "You just keep alert, so as to capture the sizzling silk of the winged dream," she said. But she also indicated that there were two prerequisites to growing wings: "the first is to feel encircled and the second is to believe that you can break the circle." After a brief, embarrassed silence, Aunt Habiba added another piece of information, all the while nervously fidgeting with her headdress, which was a sign that she was about to throw some unpleasant truth in my face. "A third condition, as far as you are concerned, my dear, is that you stop bombarding people with questions. Observing is as good a way to learn, too. Listening with stitched lips, wakeful eyes, and quivering ears can bring more magic into your life than all the hanging around you do on that terrace, spying on Venus or peeping at the new moon!"

  That conversation triggered in me both anxiety and pride at the same time. Anxiety, because apparently my clandestine initiation into magic, incantations, and charm books was no longer a secret. Pride, because whatever my secrets were, they belonged more to the domain of adults than they did to the domain of children. Magic was a more serious secret than was stealing fruits before dessert, or running away without paying all that was due to Mimoun, the chick-pea vendor. I also was proud because I understood that magic, like ice cream, came in many flavors. The weaving of fine threads between myself and the stars was one kind; focusing on strong invisible dreams and spreading out wings from within, was another, more elusive, one. No one seemed to be willing to help me visualize this second method though, and if it was described in Chama's books, I had never had enough time to read that far.

  On that memorable afternoon, I had the strange sensation that someone was manipulating the growth of wings or tossing visions of flights into that seemingly quiet courtyard. But who was the magician? I stitched my lips shut, opened my ears, and looked around. The women, engrossed in their embroidery, were divided into two teams. Each one was concentrating in silence, intent on her own design. But when there was that kind of total silence in the courtyard, it meant that a wordless war was going on. And anyone who looked carefully at the embroidery projects would know what that war was all about: the eternal split between taqlidi, or the traditional, and `asri, or the modern. Chama and Mother, representing the modern camp, were embroidering an unfamiliar object which looked like a big bird's wing, spread in full flight. It was not their first bird of flight, but evidently, its shock value was as great as ever because the other camp, headed by Grandmother Lalla Mani and Lalla Radia, had condemned the work, as they had all the others, saying that it was totally unbecoming to its creators. They themselves were stitching a traditional design. Aunt Habiba was on their side, sharing their mrema (loom), but only because she could not afford to openly declare herself a revolutionary. She stitched in silence, minding her own modest business.

  The modern camp, on the other hand, was not at all modest. In fact, Chama and Mother looked rather ostentatious, as they were wearing the latest copies of one of Asmahan's notorious hats, a black velvet cap with tiny pearls covering its brim. The cap had a triangular flap falling over the forehead, with the word "Vienna" embroidered on it, and from time to time, Chama or Mother would hum the words of the infamous song, "Layali al-unsi fi Vienna" (Nights of Pleasure in Vienna), which had inspired the cap. Lalla Mani would frown whenever they hummed because she considered the song, about decadent fun in a Western capital, to be an affront to Islam and its ethical principles. Once Samir tried to find out what was so special about Vienna, and Zin told him that it was a city where people danced to something called the waltz, all through the night. A man and a woman would hold each other very tight, and dance away, revolving around each other until they fainted with love and pleasure, just like in a possession dance. The only difference was that the women did not dance alone, they danced with men. And all this hugging and dancing took place in beautifully decorated nightclubs or even in the streets, during festivals, with city lights shimmering in the dark, as if to celebrate the lovers' embrace. Snorted Lalla Mani, "When decent Muslim housewives start dreaming about dancing in obscene European cities, it is the end."

  Lalla Radia, Chama's mother, had been opposed to her daughter wearing the Vienna hat at first, and had accused Mother of being a bad influence on her. Relations between Lalla Radia and Mother had gotten so tense, they hardly had spoken to each other for a while. But then Chama had gone into such a stupor, and had been seized by such a severe case of hem (depression), that not only had Lalla Radia changed her position on the matter, but she also had gone so far as to place the Vienna hat on her daughter's head herself. Nonetheless, it still had taken some time before Chama shook off her fixed, unblinking stare.

  On this particularly magical afternoon, Lalla Mani went on and on about the need to conform to taqlid, tradition. Anything which violated our ancestors' legacy, she said, could not be considered aesthetically valuable, and this applied to everything from food and hairstyles to laws and architecture. Innovation went hand in hand with ugliness and obscenity. "You can be sure that your ancestors have already discovered the best ways of doing things," she said, looking directly at Mother. "Do you think you are more clever than the entire chain of generations that went before you and fought for the best?" To do anything new was bid`a, a criminal violation of our sacred tradition.

  Mother stopped embroidering for a moment to answer Lalla Mani. "Every day, I sacrifice myself and give in to tradition so that life can roll peacefully along in this blessed house," she said. "But there are some very personal things, like embroidery, which allow me to breathe, and I am not going to give those up, too. I have never enjoyed traditional embroidery, and I don't see why people can't stitch whatever they like. I don't harm anyone by creating a strange bird, instead of embroidering the same old desperately repetitive Fez design."

  The wings that Chama and Mother were stitching were those of a blue peacock, and they were embroidering them onto a red silk qamis made to fit Chama. As soon as the qamis was finished, they would embroider a second one, made to fit Mother. Women who shared the same ideas often dressed alike to show their solidarity.

  Chama's peacock was inspired by Scheherazade's "The Tale of the Birds and Beasts." Chama loved the story, because it combined two things she adored, birds and uninhabited islands. The story began when the birds, led by the peacock, fled away from a dangerous island to a safe one:

  It has reached me 0 auspicious king," said Scheherazade to her husband on the hundredth and forty-sixth night, "that in times of yore and in ages long gone before, a peacock abode with his wife on the sea-shore. Now the place was infested with lions and all manner wild beasts, withal it abounded in trees and streams. So cock and hen were wont to roost by night upon one of the trees, being in fear of the beasts, and went forth by d
ay questing for food. And they ceased not thus, to do till their fear increased on them and they searched for some place wherein to dwell other than their old dwellingplace; and in the course of their search behold, they happened on an island abounding in streams and trees. So they alighted there and ate of its fruits and drank of its waters.I

  What thrilled Chama about this story was the fact that when the couple did not like the first island, they went looking for a better one. The idea of flying around to find something which would make you happy when you were discontented with what you had, entranced Chama, and she made Aunt Habiba repeat the beginning of the story over and over again, never seeming to have enough of it, until the rest of the audience started resenting her interruptions. "You are literate, you can read the book," they said, "so go and read it a hundred times if you want to, and let Aunt Habiba continue. Stop interrupting!" Everyone was so anxious to know what happened to the birds, for they identified strongly with those fragile yet adventurous creatures undertaking dangerous trips to strange islands. But Chama pleaded that reading it was not the same as listening to Aunt Habiba string the words so beautifully together.

  "I want you to understand the meaning of the story, ladies," Chama would say, looking defiantly at Lalla Mani. "This story is not about birds. It is about us. To be alive is to move around, to search for better places, to scavenge the planet looking for more hospitable islands. I am going to marry a man with whom I can look for islands!" Aunt Habiba would then beg her not to use poor Scheherazade's tale as her own propaganda, and disunite the group again. "Please, let us return to the birds, for God's sake," she would say, and then continue with her story. But in fact, although Aunt Habiba referred to the women as a group, deep down there was no cohesion at all. The split between the women was unbridgeable, with the conflict over the embroidery design emblematic of much deeper, antagonistic world views.

  Taqlidi (traditional) embroidery was an ostentatious and timeconsuming endeavour, while `asri (modern) designs were pure fun, meant for personal enjoyment. Taglidi embroidery was tedious; you had to make very tight stitches with thin thread for hours, .just to cover a few inches of material. Often used for traditional bridal items, such as cushions and bed-spreads, taglidi embroidery took months to finish, sometimes years. The stitches had to look identical on both sides, and the connections between the threads had to be woven in so the knots never showed on the back. Lalla Radia, who had many daughters of marriageable age, needed a lot of taqlidi embroidery for their trousseaus. In contrast, the birds that Chama and Mother designed did not take much time to embroider at all. Their stitches were looser, they used doubled thread, and the careless, prominent knots that showed on the backside of their cloths were to be expected. Still, the effect was just as lovely as taqlidi embroidery, or maybe even more so, thanks to the excitement of the unexpected designs and strange color combinations. Unlike taqlidi embroidery, which was present in household fur nishings, modern designs were not meant to be displayed; they were limited to less conspicuous personal items, such as the qamis, the sarwal, the head scarfs, and other articles of clothing.

  Rebellion in the form of modern embroidery looked terribly satisfying, I had to admit, because you could cover meters of material in just two or three days. And you could go even faster if you tripled the thread, or loosened the stitches. "And how can you learn discipline, if your stitches are so slack and unrestrained?" Lalla Mani challenged when I said this to her. I found her remark to be quite disturbing. Everyone kept saying that a person who did not acquire discipline would be a nothing. I certainly did not want to be a nothing. So from then on, after that remark, I spent most of my time jumping from one mrema to the other, tasting a little freedom and relaxation in the modern camp, and following it up with some strict control in the traditional one.

  Aunt Habiba did not really enjoy the repetitive and ornate taqlidi needlework, and Mother and Chama knew it. But they also knew that she could not express her feelings, both because she was powerless and because she did not dare disrupt the equilibrium between the two camps. Equilibrium was essential in the courtyard, everyone knew that. From time to time though, Mother and Chama would exchange quick glances and smiles with Aunt Habiba to encourage her and let her know that they sympathized with her. "Please Aunt Habiba, let's come back to the birds!" they would plea. Telling a story, when the audience asked for one, automatically freed Aunt Habiba from her needlework duties, and I noticed that before she resumed her narration, she would fix her gaze on the small patch of blue sky framed above us, as if thanking God for all the talents he had bestowed on her. Or perhaps she needed help to revive the fragile flame within.

  The new island that the peacocks found was a paradise filled with luxurious plants and gushing springs. It was also bless edly out of the reach of man, that dangerous creature who destroyed nature:

  The son of Adam circumventeth the fishes and draweth them forth of the seas; and he shooteth the birds with a pellet of clay, and trappeth the elephant with his craft. None is safe from his mischief and neither bird nor beast escapeth 111M.2

  The island was safe because it was located far away in the middle of the sea, out of reach of the humans' boats and their trade routes. The peacocks' life unfolded happily and peacefully, until one day when they encountered a troubled duck, who was subject to bizarre nightmares:

  Up came to them a duck in a state of extreme terror, and stayed not faring forwards till she reached the tree whereon were perched the two peafowl, when she seemed re-assured in mind. The peacock doubted not but that she had some rare story so he asked her of her case and the cause of her concern, whereto she answered: "... I have dwelt all my life in this island safely and peacefully, nor have I seen any disquieting thing, till one night, as I was asleep, I sighted in my dream the semblance of a son of Adam, who talked with me and I with him. Then I heard a voice say to me: "0 thou duck, beware of the son of Adam and be not imposed on by his words nor by that he may suggest to thee; for he aboundeth in wiles and guiles; so beware with all wariness of his perfidy ... So I awoke, fearful and trembling, and from that hour to this my heart hath not known gladness, for dread of the son of Adam ...3

  Chama always got terribly agitated when Aunt Habiba reached that part of the tale because she was extremely sensitive to the way birds were treated on the terraces and in the streets of Fez. A common sport for the young men on the terraces was to chase and hunt sparrows, using specially-made slingshots or bows and arrows borrowed for the occasion, and the young man who killed the most birds was admired and acclaimed. But Chama often screamed and cried and sobbed when her brothers Zin and Jawad amused themselves by killing sparrows. The noisy birds would invade the sky by the hundreds just before sunset, shrieking as if afraid of the night to come. The hunters would entice them to come closer by throwing olives all over the terrace floor, and then take aim and fire. Chama would stand there looking at her brothers, and ask them what kind of pleasure they could possibly get from shooting such tiny creatures. "Even birds cannot lead a happy life in this city," she would say, and then mumble to herself that something must be terribly wrong with a place where even harmless sparrows, just like women, were treated as dangerous predators.

  To depict the peacocks' story, Chama had initially wanted to use a much deeper blue thread to embroider on the bright red silk. But in the harem, women did not go out shopping. They were not allowed to simply step out to the Qissaria, that part of the Medina where heaps of wonderful silks and velvets of all colors were piled up in the tiny shops. Instead, they had to explain what they wanted to Sidi Allal, and he would get them what they wanted.

  Chama had to wait months to get the exact red silk she was looking for, and then the matching blue a few weeks later, and even then the colors were not quite right. She and Sidi Allal did not mean the same thing by "red" and "blue." People, I discovered, often did not mean the same thing by the same word, even when talking about seemingly banal things like colors. No wonder then that words such as "harem" s
tirred up so much wild discord and bitter dissension. It gave me much comfort to know that grownups were as confused as I was about important things.

  Sidi Allal was a third cousin to Lalla Mani, and that gave him much power. He was a fine, tall man, with a thin mustache and a fantastic gift for listening, which made many of the women jealous of his wife, Lalla Zahra. He also had extremely good taste, and wore elegantly embroidered, pale beige Turkish vests made of heavy wools over his jodhpur-like sarwal and fine gray leather slippers. Also, since most of the merchants in the Qissaria were his friends, they selected for him the most precious turbans, brought back by pilgrims from Mecca. Sidi Allal never attended to his duties without offering his clients a drop of perfume to pacify them, and explaining to him what one wanted to buy was a very sensuous experience. Women took time between phrases to find the exact word needed to describe the satiny feel of a fabric, the subtle tone of a color, or the delicate combination of scents, if it was a perfume they were looking for.