| The next morning Beleed popped up unexpectedly in Taher’s room and said he would take him to another party later in the day.
Taher looked to that party with some kind of hankering, as if he believed that his salvation could only come through an encounter with someone at one of such parties. He flattered himself he had everything that would attract anybody’s attention.
Those hopes crumbled at noon, when Beleed burst in on him, and said, “Get up! We’ll go hunting.”
They went on foot under a threatening sky. They were caught in a shower. They got soaked to the skin. And yet they plodded on, with Taher carrying a leather haversack over his shoulder.
They arrived at a valley. The land was becoming verdant again. Birds tweeted overhead. “Wait!” Beleed said suddenly. “Look yonder! It’s a rabbit!” The rabbit was hopping around a shrub. Beleed lurked behind a bush. He filled his quiver and then picked an arrow, which he quickly feathered and levelled at the rabbit. Then he shot. A moment later he was up, hugging himself over his prey.
Taher held his breath as Beleed pulled out a knife and slit the rabbit’s throat. The rabbit weltered in its blood for a moment, then lay still. “Now, we can rest,” said Beleed, sitting on a rock, facing the rabbit. “Let the rain give it a wash! Raise your eyes! Look, it’s not raining right now, but the sky is threatening, isn’t it? Now hand me that jug in the haversack. Quickly!”
Taher, who remained standing up just a yard off Beleed looked warily as the latter unsealed the jug.
“How did you find this outing?” said Beleed suddenly.
“I feel very good about it, nâamass,” said Taher, bending over so that Beleed could hear him clearly.
“Right. Would you like something to drink?”
“That’s very kind of you, n’âamass! But I have a stomach ache.”
“Alright! That’s your problem,” said Beleed, sniffing the jug. “This is my wine, anyway.” And then he giggled as he went on, “It’s not like Mweina’s wine. Hers was old and smelly. It was made of unripe grapes. Mine is new and fragrant. It’s only last year’s vintage. It was made in Doukkala! This kind of wine travels well, I can assure you.” Then he fell silent and started drinking. Taher remained standing up, although he was fagged out. After a while, Beleed began to speak again. Taher’s ears pricked up. He listened intently, as if he were trying to penetrate the mind of the man sitting just a yard off him. Taher himself squatted down when heard Beleed say, “None but you is in my heart. You have to know this. Don’t mention my wife, please! My wife has been a blight on my life. You alone can make me happy.” “What’s he drivelling about?” Taher muttered to himself. “Why is he speaking to himself in this way?” Has he had one or two drinks more than he can carry?” “What the hell would happen if she didn’t fall into my grip?” Beleed said dismally. “She’s not the only pebble on the beach!” “It’s clear he’s wagering on something,” Taher thought. “It seems as if some woman or other is bringing him to the verge of insanity. Listen: he’s hailing down curses on himself! This is mad, really! What’s this? Is he going to pass out on me? Oh my God! He came over faint! What should I do, oh my God?”
Taher did nothing at all. He only waited for Beleed to sober up. And Beleed did sober up hours later. He willed himself to stand up, but sank down on his knees, and yowled with pain. Mercifully, nobody seemed to have heard him. Taher was going to help him back to his feet when he finally stood up, and, to Taher’s horror, said, “Now, we’ll go wenching. Let’s go!”
And what a gruelling journey it was! At every step there was something to dread: if it was not the weather, then it was the mere thought of being seen trekking along like two tramps going nowhere special.
But who could be out in this weather but a wretched beggar or a roaming dog? So no one saw them on their way, first to the Qaïd’s home, where Beleed handed over the rabbit to his flabbergasted wife and changed his clothes, and then to the house on which Beleed seemed to have pinned his hopes. They arrived there just before it started to drizzle. The dogs barked to announce their arrival. In the twinkling of an eye a woman appeared at the front door. Beleed waved to her. But instead of coming towards him she went back into the house. And then a houseful of women swarmed out of the house and bunched together in front of Taher, some of them repeating unflaggingly, “It’s the Tailor! It’s the Tailor!” And then Beleed was swamped with pleas. “Let him sit with us just this once!” they said. But Beleed stubbornly refused, so the women thronged round Taher and hustled him into the house. They took him further into a large room, where a young woman was sitting alone. Once Taher had clapped eyes on that woman he forgot all about the other women, he forgot all about Beleed, he forgot all about the world. That woman was a moon without scores. She was a rose without thorns. She was a body set with jewels. Her face was a diamond flashing fire. No artist could depict her beauty neither in words nor in picture. Even a mirror, one would say, could hardly reflect her image in all its beauty. But that woman too just watched in mute admiration as the women seated Taher just opposite her. Taher had first learned eye language when he used to sit with Zina. That language served him now again. But there were other women there, and all of them watched him. They all sat down in a half circle in front of him, making it hard for him to look beyond them at the beautiful woman, who had not moved from her place.
“What’s your name?” said one voice.
“My name is Taher.”
“Where are you from?”
“I am from Shiadma.”
“How old are you?”
“I am twenty-two.”
“Where did you learn dress-making?”
“In Mogador?”
“Are you married?”
“Not yet.”
“Are you in love?”
“Yes.” The women shrieked with laughter.
“Who with?”
“You!”
“Me?”
“Yes!”
The other women gave a screech of laughter. Taher was bathed in sweat.
“Will you make me a dress, then?” said the woman who had been questioning him.
“What kind of dress do you want?”
“Well, I want a robe with short sleeves and open at the neck. Can you do it?”
“I too want an open-necked frock which leaves my arms free.”
At that moment, a brown woman, one of those sitting at Taher’s feet, glanced round and met the beautiful woman’s eye. Taher squinted at the beautiful woman and caught her winking at the brunette. His heart then pounded. He suddenly got the feeling that something awful was being prepared right under his nose. He felt as if he were a bait, although he had no idea who the angler was. Was it Beleed? Or was it the beautiful woman? But the women left him no time to mull over all that. The women were speaking to him. They were describing the kind of dresses they wanted him to make them. And he listened attentively. And then he decided to take three clients, including the brunette at whom the beautiful woman had winked. And he rose to go. The women wrapped up pieces of cloth in a small bundle and gave it to him. They also gave him a reed basket brimming with dates and dry figs, and then they saw him out.
Beleed saw the gift and yet did not utter a word. “I’m sorry to be late,” said Taher, facing Beleed. “They gave me pieces of cloth and asked me to make them dresses.” “Right,” said Beleed. “Let’s go back!”
So Beleed took Taher back to the douar and locked the front door behind him. Taher went straight to bed. But he could not sleep. Not only because he went to bed shivering with cold, but also because he went to bed infatuated. Had he not seen a face like a diamond flashing fire? Taher was not yet sure whether that woman was the one Beleed had been gabbling about in the valley. But what if that was so? And why should it not be so? Was he not a man and she a woman? Could it not be because of her that he was so unhappy? How could he not be so unhappy when such a woman was not his own? He had married another woman. Comparing that beautiful woman with Beleed’s wife was like comparing honey with colocynth.
That might be Beleed’s own problem, anyway. But it could soon be Taher’s as well. What if both fell in love with the same woman? All the signs were that the beautiful woman was going to get Taher into trouble with the Qaïd’s son, enamoured Beleed.
It was mid-afternoon the next day when Beleed stood at Taher’s room door. There was nothing horrible about his look or voice, but Taher’s heart jumped.
“Whose dress is this you’re working on?” said Beleed, squatting down in front of Taher.
“It’s your mother’s takchita, n’âamass.”
“On, no!” said Beleed grumpily., snatching the dress from Taher and throwing it aside. “Put this off till later on. Where’s the purple cloth?”
“Here it is, n’âamass! Wait a moment! Here you are!”
“Great! That’s what you should have started on today, Taher! Listen: forget all about other dresses. Do this first. I’ll pick it up in two days’ time, right?”
“That is impossible, n’âamass!” Taher said stuffily. “I’ll try to make it in four weeks.”
“Alright. But start on it now! Do you want anything?”
“Yes, n’âamass! I want a book or two to read in the evening. I feel lonesome.”
“A book? You read books? Well, I’ll see. May God help you!”
“Another thing, n’âamass!”
“What?”
“I think Mweina will tell you about the other materials I’ll need to make this dress. The cloth in itself is not enough.”
“Right.”
Beleed made Taher a present of two books, but Taher could not read them. His head was full already. Now he was sure that Beleed loved the beautiful woman. It was the brunette who had ordered the purple robe –just after the beautiful woman had winked at her. So the purple robe was for the beautiful woman.
Taher had already started on that robe. He could not afford not to. Beleed had given him orders. So he had no choice but to obey those orders.
But what about God? What would God say? Was this work allowable? Why not? What if Beleed wanted to make that woman his wife, his second wife? That would be all too normal. But what if he wanted to make her his mistress?
Taher feared he might abet Beleed in such a crime. But what could he do? “I could have killed him when he was drunk in the valley,” Taher thought. “I could have left him there with a stone or even his own dagger embedded in his skull and then run away. But I don’t want to be a murderer. Human life is dear to God, as the saying goes. I once heard El-Habib say, ‘A good end does not justify a bad means.’ Beleed is virtually an enemy of mine, but I can’t put him to death out of revenge. Let God tackle him! O God You know who I am, where I am; You know how much I suffer; O God deliver me of this!...”
The following morning Mweina came and enquired after the takchitas of Beleed’s mother and wife. Mweina was wearing scent and make-up. Taher’s instincts stirred. He struggled to hold out against temptation. Mweina’s bewitching smiles and honeyed words did not help him.
“Is this Shama’s dress?” said Mweina suddenly, pointing at the purple dress.
“Who is Shama?” said Taher curiously, glancing at Mweina’s gleaming lips.
“I don’t know. I’m sorry. What about the takchitas? You said you haven’t done them yet, have you? So what shall I say to Beleed’s mother and wife?”
“Say they aren’t ready yet.”
“Alright. See you!”
“Before you go, please! Who is Shama?”
“Shama? Well, she’s the daughter of a rich landed proprietor. Why?”
“I love that name. That’s why!”
“You love the name or the woman?”
Taher smiled. Mweina looked fondly at him, but only for a fleeting moment. The boy was watching both with sharp eyes and listening with sharp ears.
* * *
So it was Shama then. Taher worked on her robe with great devotion as if it were her dowry.
And that night he was in the mood for reading. So he opened one of the two books and endeavoured to peruse a page. The book was called, “Asseera Annabawiya” (The life History of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)). As he ran his eye over a page of the book, Taher remembered Ezzahia, to whom he had sung religious songs, songs that glorified the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh).
But once he put out the light and went to bed Mweina was on his mind again. Ezzahia was far, too far away. Shama was not made for him. So only Mweina could raise his hopes. True, Mweina was expecting a man to return from Haj to marry her, maybe her former husband –as Saleh had said. But she could still come to him and sit with him in his room and speak to him and smile at him and wear scent and make-up for him. Who but her could do that?
Some time the next morning Taher wondered why he was working so scrupulously, so meticulously, so fastidiously, on a robe that would not fetch much. What would he gain by this work? By all the odds Beleed would never be grateful to him for anything. “But why should I do this for him?” Taher thought, looking as if he were challenging somebody. “I’m not acting on his behalf. I am doing this to make my presence known to everybody around. So if I succeeded in becoming friends with my enemy’s enemy, it would only do me good. Yet, why should you do all this? Why didn’t you run away the other day when he was drunk? No. That wasn’t so sure. Why don’t I rather make Shama a jolly good dress that she would boast wherever she was? Shama might be grateful to me for that. The least she could do for me is help me escape unhurt, without having to run away or kill anybody. If Beleed loves her and cannot meet up with her, then he’s certainly in her bad books. Why don’t I try to be in her good books by making her a dress she has never dreamt of?
From "Chapter Four" in "THE TAILOR"
Mohamed Ali Lagouader
Morocco
http://amgoon.alkablog.com/ | |
