The Colonial Conquest: The Confines of the Shadow Volume I

by Alessandro Spina

  Mikhail was proud of his nephew’s talents, mistaking his hackneyed stories for sophisticated erudition. Indeed, anything that came rolling off his nephew’s silver tongue seemed new and extraordinary, even if Mikhail had heard it all before. Nevertheless, he completely failed to spot the links between Émile’s soliloquies and his interests. The owner of the business was extremely demanding, but then wasted whole hours telling vague tales, as though he were a street preacher or a wandering storyteller. Mikhail was green with jealousy.

  ‘Perhaps we could devote a little time to business?’ he asked, without even realising that the words had slipped out of his mouth.

  Émile broke into a liberating laugh, mocked his uncle’s cupidity in front of the customers, and said he was compelled to heed his uncle’s commands, briefly asking the crowd about how the market was doing and showing them the merchandise he’d brought. He then extended credit to various merchants, although hesitantly, and people began to flock in. Sitting at his desk, Émile would note down sum after sum, while Mikhail and Abdelkarim looked after the merchants – consigning Alexander the Great, paganism, the Great Wall of China, some quotes from a well-known classic, the marvellous, unstoppable progress of science, and other topics back to the museum of history they had briefly been pulled out of by that talented man, to the sheer delight of the assembled crowd.

  An old man who’d greeted the Maronite particularly warmly – and whose visit he couldn’t understand, as he hadn’t shown any interest in the merchandise but had nonetheless praised it far too extravagantly – was the last to stay behind. He then greeted the Maronite again, employing various ceremonial formulas, invoking the blessings of Heaven to rain down on his head. Finally, he revealed he was Abdelkarim’s maternal uncle, a fact seemingly confirmed by Abdelkarim’s sudden escape from the shop. The Maronite replied courteously, despite the effort it cost him. The man had a request in mind, and it would almost certainly involve money.

  Instead, when Abdelkarim’s uncle finally revealed the purpose behind his visit, he said he’d wanted to take advantage of the fact Abdelkarim had travelled there with his master to give the young man, who was now sixteen years old, a wife. The marriage contract would be signed that very day and the young bride led to her lawful husband that Thursday.

  The Maronite appeared astonished and mumbled a confused speech. While on other occasions stories from the museum of history had proved useful in extricating himself from undue hassle, both this and any other stalling tactic now seemed impractical. His theatre of operations had been dramatically reduced. Realising the man hadn’t come to ask for his opinion, Émile immediately cut his speech short and said all was going well. The man renewed his invitation that Émile take part in the marriage ceremony, when the contract would be signed. The Maronite begged the uncle to forgive him: he had just arrived, and was forced to attend to his business.

  Then, unexpectedly, just as his guest had stood up, Émile announced he would gladly attend the party given by the groom’s friends on the wedding night: ‘I want to acquaint myself with your traditions,’ he said.

  V

  Entering the crumbling room where the friends had gathered to celebrate the groom, the Maronite’s expert eye was struck by the carpet the party was taking place on. Although it was worn and dirty, one could still spot the shadow of an intricate design: articulate shapes in dialogue with one another.

  The young men were embarrassed by the Maronite’s presence. Émile talked with the people next to him without trying to imitate anyone. He knew that once a foreign guest found himself in the midst of an archaic culture, he all too easily succumbed to a puerile desire to jettison his long years of education and ape the manners and customs that once belonged to his ancestors, but which had been forgotten since time immemorial – while more vulgar guests would instead try to show off how different they were. Émile soon realised that all eyes were fixed upon him, and he perceived how foreign he was to the scene, but he neither tried to emphasise that nor conceal it. A melancholy shadow swept through his soul: privilege always entails exclusion, he thought. Taking part in an old, compelling world is always accompanied by a loss.

  Abdelkarim was wearing the new clothes Émile had given him as a present. His breeches were cut of blue cloth, and were tight at the ankles, but wide from the hips down, like a skirt. The white shirt was untucked and the purple waistcoat was decorated with intricate embroidery.

  The Maronite understood he weighed on the groom like a dark cloud.

  Abdelkarim was exhibiting a sort of duplicity: on the one hand, he was Émile’s servant, and was even wearing the clothes his master had given him, yet on the other he belonged to a society alien to Émile. For the first time, Abdelkarim had been pulled away from the business and his master and reappeared in a context wholly his own. That parrot he’d kept locked in a cage had now flown away, leaving Émile stranded in a wood.

  Stranded? He asked himself in bemused irony. Let’s not exaggerate!

  Why talk about punishment? Perhaps because Abdelkarim’s community was like an earthly paradise? Émile wouldn’t have put up with the company of those peasants for more than a night anyway. What did his presence there mean? The distance created by his being there, and by his awareness of his foreignness, was obvious enough. Did the significance of the ceremony lie in that tension? A spectre entered the scene. It was Semereth Effendi, accompanied by the retinue of victims who had fallen in his wake, and the unbridgeable distances he’d tried to cross. The youthfulness and self-assurance Émile nursed in his spirit like a gift, and which made him so different from Hajji Semereth, vanished in an instant. He was traversing a dark hour in his destiny. Just as when the Hajji had found his frightened wife in the bridal chamber and filled the room with his futile presence, Émile was now vainly trying to extend a hand and catch that colourful parrot as it fluttered above his head.

  They’re taking Abdelkarim away from me! But that wasn’t even true. Abdelkarim would remain in his service. The young Maronite was impatient. He would gladly have moved the hands on the clock and made the days roll by so as to find himself back in Benghazi in his shop, restored to being the master of a caged parrot. Nevertheless, once he was back there, he would no longer notice Abdelkarim’s presence anyway.

  The only musical instrument the guests had was a tambourine. A young man was engrossed in playing it, snuggled up in the corner next to Abdelkarim.

  There were moments in the Maronite’s life when everything he’d ever accomplished or owned flashed before his eyes. There were also other moments when the knowledge of what he no longer was, or what he wouldn’t be able to accomplish, or would never – or not any more – be able to be, what he was losing, or had owned and then lost, began to take on a painful clarity. His conciliatory attitude, which gave him a tranquil outlook on life, also concealed a hope that the contradictions inside him could linger undisturbed instead of being allowed to stifle him, meaning he could thus live out his life without ever needing to reconcile them. Émile’s reservedness wasn’t based on fear or denial, nor was it even a choice – quite the contrary, it was forged by his efforts to keep part of his life in a shadowy zone, an area where numerous, and contradicting, possibilities could co-exist.

  Could Uncle Mikhail be right? he asked himself in ironic solemnity. Am I too ambitious? There was nothing Émile had ever been shown which he would allow himself to be excluded from. Is that true? In the midst of that gathering, Émile seemed to have decided to gain some clarity on the matter. Only Armand’s presence had been able to limit his ambitions, as he identified with everything Armand disdained. But this was exactly the sort of reductive thinking Émile loathed – just as much as Mikhail’s narrow-mindedness. Émile felt rancour towards Armand, as though the latter were asking him to make some sort of sacrifice. What should I give him?

  At that exact moment, the night’s festivities reached a turning point. One after the other, the young men stood up and began dancing like bears. Although their movements
were perfectly natural, they also looked clumsy. ‘Mister,’ the young man playing the tambourine asked, ‘what do people dance to in your country?’

  That gesture took Émile by surprise: it felt like a trap. But instead of being apprehensive, Émile was grateful. Suddenly, he’d reached a fork in the road. Did the boy’s gesture make up for the long wait? We only ever meet the demons we summon, he told himself calmly. He took hold of the tambourine and began beating the rhythm of a dabke, a popular dance from the mountains of Lebanon. The tambourine player drew closer, made him repeat the movements a number of times, then tried to imitate them. He failed, tried again, then found the right rhythm and kept repeating it. Satisfied, he stood up and retreated to his corner: ‘And now dance!’ he commanded.

  The young Maronite stood up. He was neither bothered nor worried. Desire, he thought, is the most powerful of demons. His life was flowing in a different direction. The guests were observing him. Would that wealthy merchant really start dancing? Abdelkarim had shrunk to the size of an insect. The more the Maronite grew in that environment, the smaller his servant became. They were like communicating vessels linked by an immutable whole. An invisible substance percolated from one to the other. The groom felt his master’s presence as an unbreakable bond.

  The Maronite was standing on the threadbare and intricately decorated carpet. He had it removed from the floor, like someone who asks for the blackboard to be wiped clean. Would he overcome his foreignness with a dance? Would he, a merchant, imitate the peasants’ dance? The floor was cleared. Foreignness and integration: two rail tracks that led to nowhere. The young Maronite struck the floor with his heel. His feet had begun to move, unimpeded by his thoughts. As a matter of fact, his thoughts actually guided his feet, which sped off like fiery horses dragging their coach and coachman behind them. The guests cheered up: the hostile weight of the Maronite’s presence had been exorcised.

  The young Maronite covered an enormous distance as he danced. Struggling to stay self-aware, he asked himself, Where am I? But the levees had broken and he was being swept away by a violent force. Broken? he asked himself irritatedly. His spirit was in a state of extreme volatility. If he was being led by desire, then what was the nature of this desire? Or was he instead in the thrall of a sudden and aggressive desperation? Whom, or what, was he fighting against? Or was this just escapism? Desire and desperation, fighting and escaping – those were the demons that plagued him. But giving in had made him feel euphoric. Dancing is not about running from one place to another, he thought in a self-mocking way, it’s a means of expression, a fantastic voyage.

  Abdelkarim felt as though he were carrying the master on his back. That exasperated and nervous way he beat the floor with his foot was like a whip. They were galloping in the dark. Abdelkarim experienced a sort of terror, as though the devil were riding him. But he wasn’t the only one who was afraid: the fear had been created by their secret complicity.

  The merchant was swift-footed. He was tall, strong and wealthy – but lost in the midst of all the effort it took to express himself in his movements, or using the writing traced by his steps to follow mysterious clues. Abdelkarim tried to understand what his master was saying. Why was he thumping and shuffling so noisily when his feet were barely touching the floor? The silent knowingness of his feet as they hung suspended a few centimetres off the ground was clearly trying to formulate a message. Dancing wasn’t limited to a test of one’s strength and agility, but was a language unto itself. Abdelkarim wasn’t oblivious to its tone – it spoke of violence, and the way the master constantly changed his moves betrayed benevolence and impatience. Indeed, Abdelkarim could detect his master’s character from his movements. Relationships are desire and memory. The improvised dance repeated all they’d lived through together, like the opposite of a journey, a tension between what once had been and what was to come.

  Abdelkarim had taken refuge in silence and inertia; occasionally the Maronite would stop dancing and look at him, as though wanting to pull him out of that state, or Abdelkarim would lose patience with himself and leap out of it, beating his feet on the floor like a whip, imbuing the strokes with the violence of his reply – unspeakable questions and pledges. Abdelkarim feared his master’s wrath, and tried to predict what Émile might want to do next. He concentrated, redirecting his gaze from his feet so as to meet his master’s gaze. Was he disappointed? The Maronite began beating the floor with his heels more violently, first one, then the other. Then he leapt into the air and struck the floor with both heels. His dancing was feverish.

  Abdelkarim’s uncle had signed the marriage contract alongside the bride’s father. Having reached the end of that restless, ceremonial dance, the young Maronite also extended a contract towards him. Frightened out of his wits, Abdelkarim jumped to his feet.

  At that moment the Maronite suddenly stopped, like when the gears of a machine come to a grinding halt. ‘This is the dabke, a dance from my country,’ he said, laughing. Abdelkarim took a step back. The young Maronite thanked his hosts, waved goodbye to the assembled guests, and left.

  CHAPTER 2

  The Fort

  I

  CAPTAIN MARTELLO: You know exactly why you were summoned here. Yesterday, the rebels attacked the market and yours was the only shop that wasn’t looted. Did they simply forget? The market is shaped like a square: your shop is at the northernmost end of the western side. It’s also the most important shop there, and is housed under what I must say are rather pompous archways. Keeping in mind your presence here, and that you arrived barely a week ago with ten heavily loaded camels in tow, your shop had the wealthiest booty on offer. Instead, the rebels weren’t even curious enough to kick down its door to see what was inside. Perhaps you didn’t even wake up while all this was going on. The rebels didn’t harass you, and our authorities have given you the necessary permits to pass through our checkpoints. You even participated in your servant’s wedding; despite the fact people here guard their homes and customs jealously, you were invited. Fortune seems to smile too brightly on you, especially in contradictory ways. It’s as though each of the parties involved saw different people in you. Now you’ll have to answer my questions, to which the authorities demand answers. Should you refuse, or prove too evasive, then I’ll be forced to arrest you and have you sent back to Benghazi under armed guard.

  ÉMILE: If the shops in the market had been hit by lightning during a storm instead of being attacked with bullets, I would be just as unable to answer your questions: there isn’t always an answer for everything that happens.

  MARTELLO: An ingenious reply, but I’m not sure I should relay it to the High Command because it might make a bad impression, since it could seem that you’re making fun of the authorities’ suspicions. Although it’s difficult to know the plans fate has in store for us, it’s not that difficult to understand the rebels’ politics, which clearly seem to favour you. Why?

  ÉMILE: The rebels might well consider their own countrymen who trade in areas controlled by you as traitors. But I’m a foreigner, and as such, I cannot possibly betray them – you can only betray a world you belong to, not one where you’re merely a guest.

  MARTELLO: They didn’t want to punish the merchants. They wanted to make a show of strength: it was an act of propaganda. The rebels buy their supplies from the same merchants as the people who are loyal to us do – and they need them just as much as they do. There are even some Italian officers who are intolerant of the heroic tenacity of commerce, surviving amidst so many calamities. They find such obstinate vitality both irksome and disquieting. Some authoritarian maniacs even consider it unholy. Thus, the rebels wanted to remind everyone the resistance is going to continue. They even wanted to influence the course of the interminable peace negotiations, which have been broken off and started up again a thousand times by now. But the purpose of our interview is not to discuss the reasons that might have driven the rebels to attack. I had you summoned here because my report to my superiors will ha
ve to explain why your warehouse was spared in the attack, and address the inevitable suspicions it caused.

  ÉMILE: Perhaps I’m just as surprised and curious as you or your superiors. I don’t know what the rebels’ plans are. What’s different about me is that I am understandably pleased that my shop was spared from looting. The market was quite a sorry sight today. Other merchants, who also happen to be my customers, won’t be able to get back on their feet. Thus, I was also indirectly affected by the attack.

  MARTELLO: Why indirectly?

  ÉMILE: My uncle has a reputation as a good, honest man and is respected by everyone. Perhaps the rebels wanted to emphasise this, and reward his good conduct.

  MARTELLO: Your uncle has nothing to do with this business. Nobody gives a fig for him. He’s not that important and hardly very clever, but as you say, probably good and honest. Perhaps the rebels don’t even know who he is. I stopped by the shop several times during my daily rounds of the market: he’s never there! Instead, I think that the rebels, using the apt expression you employed, wanted to reward the owner of the shop. Well, Mr Chébas, why did they want to reward you? Please enlighten me as to the nature of your relationship with Semereth Effendi.