Soon after the Dusk Prayer, El-Hussein brought out two mats and spread
them on the ground next to the rear wall of his grand-father’s cottage. The
Poet, Marqus, Ben Mahmood and the old man sat down there and waited quietly for
some men who, the old man said, would arrive very soon. The Poet was quite sure
that there would be some kind of trial. His mind tried to anticipate things and
his heart jumped at each grim thought. Suddenly, the expected men began to
arrive in ones and twos, some on foot, others on donkeys or mules. Most of them
were young, about the Poet’s age. At last they were all there, six old men and
eleven young men, wearing gowns and turbans of different colours. They all sat
in a circle with the elders grouped on one side. An oil-lamp stood in the
middle. Some of those men darted prying looks at the Poet and Marqus. The Poet
felt like a goldfinch caught in an aerie.
Our friend the old man –Sir
Larbi– cast a fleeting look at the faces around him and began a verbose speech:
“Gentlemen. For those of you
who do not know the story, I’ll tell you. These two men –Sir Salman and Sir
Marqus– were slaves in Tlemsen. Sir Marqus, a Christian, served a Muslim and
Sir Salman served Jew. This Jew, May God curse him, seems to have been much
afflicted at some bad news from somewhere and he, according to Sir Salman,
attempted to kill his own wife and his servant, Sir Salman. But Sir Marqus
intervened at the right moment and saved the woman and this man over here.” He
indicated the Poet. “The woman has turned out to be a Muslim woman– from Fez,
you know. When these men arrived over here with the woman she was still in a
coma. Now, thank God, she’s far better than we had expected.
“What I have said so far sounds
like a children’s fairy-tale, or will you say that isn’t news? Well, what I
will say right now will strike fear into your hearts. Marqus wants to take the
woman away! Hear that?”
The men present began to murmur
to themselves.
“Yes, gentlemen! Sir Marqus
says he wants to take the woman away! So what do you say to that?”
Marqus looked a bit startled,
but kept quiet. One of the elders spoke:
“But this Marqus, where does he
mean to go with the woman?”
“Ask him!” Larbi said
sarcastically.
Marqus braced himself, coughed
slightly and replied:
“I haven’t meant to do this
woman any wrong, gentlemen. Look at me, scan my face: do you see any signs of
villainy? I could have left her and Salman to their own destiny.”
“Wait!” said another elder,
holding up his hand. “Who asked you to save them?”
“Salman!” replied Marqus,
waving at his companion. “Ask him and he’ll tell you. He had scurried over to
me with a black face.”
The young men present burst
into laughter. Larbi rebuked them brusquely:
"This is no time to be
laughing like this. We are serious."
The Poet, now dripping with
sweat, made to speak. He wanted to save his companion. He wanted to tell these
men around him that he had promised Marqus that if all went well the woman
would be his. He wanted to speak. But he could not. He loved Yamna. In short,
he could not tell what to do, what to say or how to begin. Finally, he remained
silent.
"But tell me," said
Mussa, the elder who had spoken immediately after Larbi, "if you got the
woman, where would you go with her and what would you do with her?"
Marqus seemed at a loss. The
Poet waited for him to speak, to say something. But Marqus said nothing. So the
Poet swore and then spoke.
"He wants to marry
her," he gulped.
Far from calming people down,
the Poet's remark sounded like a battle-cry. An angry tumult went through the
crowd.
"See?" Larbi burst
out, lifting up his voice above the tumult. "Heard that? He says he wants
to marry her!" He broke into derisive laughter. The young men gibed at
Marqus. The Poet was aghast that he had not picked his words with enough care.
He had now trapped his friend. Another elder held up his hand and managed to
restore the silence. He spoke.
"Calm down, please,"
he said, turning to Marqus. "Let us hear it from his own mouth. Tell us,
Marqus, have you really thought of marrying that woman?"
Marqus nodded his head. The
tumult grew wilder. Grimly, the Poet intervened again to salvage what he could,
and said in the same thin, tremulous voice:
"Marqus is a very good
man, and he is willing to convert to Islam."
The tumult died away. The
Poet's heart beat fast. All the young faces turned to the elders and waited.
One of the elders hastened to put a question to Marqus.
"Is that true?" he
asked.
Marqus lowered his eyes and
kept quiet. Everybody else waited. The world seemed to hang upon Marqus' word.
"Speak!" said that
elder. "Answer 'yes' or 'no'- don't hedge!"
"No," replied Marqus,
raising his eyes.
The young faces gaped. The Poet
was stunned. Marqus looked all around him, without any signs of defiance, and
then lowered his eyes. The investigation seemed to be drawing to a close.
"Sir Marqus," said
Mussa piously. "You have left us no chance to help you. You have already
played false to a Muslim man who had purchased you with his own money. And now
you say you don't want to be Muslim and yet want to marry a Muslim woman. This
cannot happen."
"Oh how could it be?"
Larbi snapped. "When has it ever happened and where has it ever happened
that a Muslim woman was married to a non-Muslim? No, Sir Marqus, this cannot
happen!"
Marqus kept composed and quiet.
Larbi went on:
"We shall not punish you
for the crime you committed against your Muslim master. That's between
yourselves. But the woman– you'll have to erase her from your mind, at once!
The best thing we can do for you is let you go away safe and sound. I can't see
any leniency above this. Isn't it so, Sir Mussa?"
"Yes," nodded Mussa
approvingly. "That's right. We shall not arrogate evil motives to him.
We'll simply send him away– on the understanding that if he ever attempted to touch
the woman we shall bury him alive!"
The young spectators hailed
this last statement with proud cheers. The Poet was half-happy, half-tormented.
Marqus kept quiet. Ben Mahmood smiled. Larbi seemed on top of the world. And,
all of a sudden, a faint voice like one of a man in the throes of death
vibrated. Larbi and Mussa held up their hands and called for silence. All eyes
turned toward the man who had meant to speak. He was conspicuously far more
aged than any one present. "Listen, please!" Mussa cried. "Haj
Abderrahman would like to speak!" Everybody listened. The Poet's heart
throbbed. Haj Abderrahman said:
"I am old, you see. And I
don't want to have a hand in an unjust verdict. Why don't you bring the woman
over here and ask her?"
An awe-inspiring silence fell
upon the assembly. Larbi looked bewildered, and Ben Mahmood frowned. The Poet
looked as if he had seen a ghost. Marqus waited. Mussa coughed and said
thoughtfully:
"Sir Larbi, I think Haj
Abderrahman is right. Bring the woman over here!"
Larbi opened his lips as if to
say something. And after a while, he stood up and signed to Ben Mahmood to come
along with him. During the two men's short absence, the other men, young and
old, murmured rather quietly. Marqus once raised his eyes and fastened them on
the Poet's face. The Poet felt dizzy.
Yamna finally appeared and
stood behind the young men and faced the elders. She was wearing a black haïk
that covered all her body save the eyes and one hand. Larbi and Ben Mahmood had
gone back to their seats among the men and waited. The Poet too waited
breathlessly. It was Mussa who spoke then:
“Now, who is going to ask her–
you, Sir Larbi, or Haj Abderrahman?”
“Let Haj Abderrahman ask her,”
said Larbi in a rather unsteady voice. Signs of gloom were clear on his face.
“Then ask her!” said Mussa to
the aged man.
Haj Abderrahman raised his eyes
and asked in his faint voice:
“Tell me, woman: if you had to
choose from among all the men you’ve seen here so far whom would you accept as
a husband?”
Yamna heard all these words
clearly because there was deathly silence. She hesitated but then said in an
audible whisper:
“Excuse me, sir. It’s all one
to me. Do as you like!”
“No, daughter,” Abderrahman
urged. “Do choose one!”
There was a long pause before
Yamna gave her answer. And everybody looked up in surprise as she gasped out:
“Salman!”
The Poet stared at her,
scarcely able to believe his ears. But all eyes turned to him. There was a
quiet murmur for a moment, then perfect silence.
“Hey men,” gasped Haj
Abderrahman, “take me back to my shack.”
“Please, Haj Abderrahman,”
Mussa said shakily to the aged man as the young men began to rise up. “What
shall we do to this Christian?”
“Give him some money and a
horse or a mule and let him go away,” replied the aged man.
“And thus ended the meeting.
Yamna was taken back into Larbi’s cottage. Marqus was given one of Haroon’s two
horses and shown the safest way out of these lands. The hamlet men dispersed.
And the Poet was allowed to stay at Larbi’s cottage until further notice.
Within less than an hour of
Marqus’ departure, the Poet’s moderate ecstasy began to turn sour. He and Larbi
sat alone in the latter’s sleeping-room. Larbi seemed to have deliberately
delayed the serving of dinner that night. For a good while the two men
exchanged amenities and looks that spoke of conspicuous adulation. The first
thing they talked of was the imposing ‘personality’ of Haj Abderrahman.
Actually, the Poet still wondered at the awesome influence which that old man
had over his people. Then, they talked of Marqus. Here, the Poet felt as if all
his blood would go out of his heart in a second. He was bitterly ashamed that
his friend had been turned adrift. He had not even bid him adieu. And then,
Larbi talked of the woman– Yamna. Here, the Poet bore one thing in mind– that
he had to live in amity with this vulpine-looking, unscrupulous old man. So, at
first, the Poet tried to keep his thoughts to himself. And he said nothing
provocative until he was astounded to hear the old man talk of Yamna as his
‘beloved’. The Poet was about to say his thoughts aloud when the old man
silenced him, saying: “It’s time for dinner. Just eat well so you can sleep
well!”
