The Influence Peddlers Read online

  “Those are the donkeys’ owners,” said Raouf.

  “Why are they yelling at each other?”

  “The donkey of Ben Zakour was mounted, so they’re making fun of Ben Zakour, and Ben Zakour doesn’t like that, he’s yelling at the owner of the other donkey, who continues to make fun of him, so Ben Zakour says that his donkey must have been watching his owner, and the others better calm down, or the souk police will take care of them.” In the background the choir of female donkeys was echoing the cries of the males. A man said something that made everyone burst out laughing and calmed everyone down.

  “What did he say?”

  “I didn’t understand him,” Raouf answered, “He must be a Berber, I can’t understand very well.”

  “Raouf, you’re teasing me!”

  “It’s offensive.”

  “Raouf!”

  “He said: ‘Let the one who is mounting mount the male, females only cause trouble.’”

  While the owners were arguing some of the donkeys again tried to put a leg up on a neighbor’s hindquarters, then gave up when the attendants started shouting.

  Raouf and Kathryn went back to the souk, Kathryn noting a red cart that stood out from the others.

  “That’s the widow Tijani’s,” said Raouf, “She came to sell some animals.”

  “Or buy some.”

  “No, she doesn’t buy here, and she sells very high.” Kathryn was silent for a moment, then:

  “Why ‘the widow Tijani’? Couldn’t you say ‘my cousin Rania’?”

  “Do you know her?”

  “She’s a friend of Gabrielle’s.”

  “Did you see her at Gabrielle’s?”

  “No, Gabrielle goes to her house. I saw her once at the hammam. She’s as muscular as an American woman, and she has true Ziegfeld legs.”

  This time, Raouf seized the opportunity:

  “What is a Ziegfeld leg?”

  “It’s a long, slender leg, but not skinny, a dancer’s leg. Ziegfeld has a music hall where all the beautiful girls in New York dream of going to kick their legs. You’ve never . . . seen your cousin’s legs?”

  “The last time must have been when I was six . . .”

  They went into the souk. Kathryn was entranced.

  “It’s local color,” Raouf commented coldly.

  “It takes me outside of myself,” said Kathryn.

  “At least you’re not taking photos.”

  She was especially interested in the artisans, in the wandering professions, basket makers, tinsmiths, outside dentists, teeth pullers unlike any she had ever seen before:

  “There were some in Montana, they’ve been gone for a long time, seeing them here . . . My grandmother must have been treated like that.”

  They looked at an assortment of not very clean pliers lying on a piece of cloth, right on the ground, but when a man came up holding onto his jaw, Raouf refused to look anymore, and they left, advancing with difficulty against the flow of an increasingly dense crowd, their movement resembling a river which, arriving at its mouth, must fight against the incoming tide, and there was also the backwash, all the obstacles on the ground, crates, bundles, handicapped beggars on their haunches, and large gray stones that were used as markers. “And watch out for the nails that the kids haven’t picked up yet,” said Raouf, “Tetanus is no joke.”

  In the overall mayhem, an immobile figure drew their attention: an old, bent woman, barefoot, standing in front of a stall. They followed the direction of her gaze, and saw a piece of sun yellow fabric, and they saw nothing else but it, the old woman sticking out a hand, touching the fabric, putting it back, looking at it again without saying anything, showing a complete absence of interest. In the back of the stall the merchant didn’t react. He was looking down at a notebook, a large wart in the middle of his forehead.

  “That’s not a wart,” said Raouf, “It’s a callus from the thousands upon thousands of times he’s bowed down touching his forehead to the ground. This merchant is wearing the mark of his piety on his forehead.”

  An old woman who was saying nothing, a merchant who wasn’t looking at her; she left, Kathryn commenting:

  “He lost a client. An American vendor wouldn’t have let her leave.”

  “She seemed indifferent,” said Raouf, “He showed her some contempt, that’s the way it works here.”

  Later, Raouf and Kathryn passed in front of the fabric merchant’s stall again, the piece of sun yellow was still there, the old woman, too.

  “That’s how the souk works,” said Raouf, “First you look, you visit other stalls, then you come back to buy.”

  This time the old woman was arguing with the merchant, two harsh voices.

  “That yellow is magnificent,” said Kathryn, “If she doesn’t want it, I’ll take it, but I’ll wait for her to decide.” The old woman was holding a bundle in front of her, a knotted rag.

  “What do you think is in that rag?” Kathryn asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “It looks like she wants to give him something.”

  The old woman placed the bundle on the counter. She pushed it toward the merchant. The merchant pushed it back at her, seeming not to want it. They argued, their voices getting louder.

  “They’re eggs,” said Raouf, “She’s talking about her eggs, there must be a dozen, no more. She says they’re excellent, she wants to trade them for the piece of yellow fabric.”

  The merchant was shaking his head, slowly, closing his eyes. Among the words he said and repeated, Kathryn managed to understand two or three—she was very proud of her progress—the word God and then no, and also the word douro.

  “He doesn’t want her eggs,” said Raouf, “He wants money, coins, he says it’s the twentieth century now.” The merchant gestured broadly at the passersby whom he was taking as his witnesses. On certain faces there were signs of approval, people who were trying to show they agreed, but without hurting the old woman. She raised her knotted index finger to the sky, raised her voice. She was seeking an audience. Raouf translated as she spoke: For forty years the woman had always exchanged her eggs with this merchant, him or his father, and his father, may God watch over him, had never refused any exchange. His father was watching him from above, he should be careful not to bring shame on his father! The merchant’s responses became even sharper, saying that was enough—he rubbed his index finger against his thumb, douro, douro—he wouldn’t accept anything else: the old lady just had to go sell her eggs somewhere else and come back with the money; this was the twentieth century. But the old woman didn’t want to. She said this twentieth century was the Christians’, not that of the Master of the two worlds and of true believers; the merchant must accept the trade. It had always been thus, under the eyes of God, in the centuries of Islam and not the Christians. It should continue as it was with the merchant’s father—one didn’t have the right to change God’s order. Twelve eggs was a good trade for a piece of fabric: to refuse was impiety! In response the merchant’s voice also rose.

  “He didn’t like the accusation of impiety,” said Raouf, “The old woman went too far. It’s as if she senses that in any case she has lost. She’s telling the merchant things that he can’t accept, and that his French money is money from the devil.”

  The merchant had taken a bolt of gray fabric, measured three feet with his forearm, cutting and serving a client who paid in bills. He gave back the change, showing the coins to the old woman: that was honest money, not eggs! The old woman looked at the merchant’s hand with contempt, was silent. Yes, the merchant added, honest money and not rotten eggs, the old woman again calling him impious. People were watching them, the old woman pointing at the callus in the middle of the merchant’s forehead—he couldn’t have gotten that while praying—the merchant saying that he didn’t need to be preached at by a pagan who spent her life cutting up frogs and burning pieces of paper instead of praying. Raouf translated faster and faster, the merchant’s voice was louder and louder: a
woman who adored a piece of bone instead of reciting the words of the holy book, yes, recite, and not just venerate pieces of a skeleton that were perhaps those of a dog!

  He had shrieked the last word, and the old woman now appealed to the shame of the entire souk, a shame that should befall the merchant! That’s it, said the merchant, the entire souk, the souk that could see that she was only a pagan who knew no more about God than she did about how people bought things, a witch, everyone saw her, God saw her, she would be seized by her hair and thrown into hell. The old woman began to scream; she was crying. “She’s given up the fight,” said Raouf, “She’s crying that a kafir, an apostate, is insulting her, and the merchant is threatening to call the police, she’ll have nothing.”

  Raouf held a bill out to the merchant without saying a word and took the piece of yellow fabric. The witnesses were looking at him with hostility; he didn’t have the right to do that. They then looked at Kathryn, with even more hostility. That foreigner had the means to pay for miles of any fabric she wanted: why buy the piece the old woman wanted? They didn’t have the right, even if the merchant refused her eggs. The old lady had collapsed. She had stopped shouting. She looked at the people, sought some support, didn’t find any. The caïd’s son had bought for the Christian who was with him. And Raouf took the eggs from the old woman, put the fabric in her hands. Without saying a word, he took Kathryn by the elbow. They left. The old lady sent blessings their way. They were already far, Raouf saying:

  “I don’t know why I did that, I’m making her think she is living in a world that will help her, but that world is abandoning her even before she can leave it.”

  “What will you do with the eggs? You could have left them with her.”

  “That would have been an insult. I’ll give them to a beggar, it won’t be hard to find one here.”

  Raouf was silent for a moment, then: “It should have been another poor person who did what I did, but the poor don’t have the means . . . or I should have bought the eggs from her, she would have been able to enter the race without losing face, I acted too quickly, I shouldn’t have . . .”

  “Yes, you should have, and in any case, I really like you in the role of defender of old ladies.”

  “No, I’m serious. Marx is right, you shouldn’t try to ease the class struggle.”

  “I don’t like it when you talk about Marx, Marx will make you do stupid things.”

  “In Chemla’s opinion I’m not even a Marxist, I’m only a feudal Marxist.”

  “That’s going to make you a lot of enemies,” said Kathryn.

  Coming out of the souk they passed in front of the red cart again.

  “Is Rania really rich?” Kathryn asked.

  “Her father is very rich. She’s an interesting woman. If you want, I can bring you to her house one day.”

  “You can go to a widow’s house?”

  “She’s a cousin, she’s family.”

  “Could you marry her?”

  Raouf smiled. He almost responded, she’s too old. And he knew Kathryn had understood his smile when she knocked him on the shoulder, laughing.

  7

  THE COW OF SATAN

  In the streets of Nahbès, given the way Raouf was behaving with his American woman, people knew something was going to happen. It finally came to pass with Belkhodja. They were friends, and friends know how to hit you where it hurts.

  Belkhodja was a good merchant. He borrowed money in the city, when in the countryside even the scorpions were dying of thirst, and bought rugs from the Bedouins who no longer had any goats or sheep. He made quite a good profit. Better yet, he often left them with their rugs, and loaned them money so they could buy food from a merchant whom he recommended to them, but under the condition that each household make two beautiful pieces for him each winter, with wool strips and camel hide. He came often to oversee the work, verify the density of the fibers, the stability of the colors, made threats when the women allowed little girls to work in their place. When spring came, those rugs paid for the loan. In the souk of Nahbès they could have been sold for a lot more than what Belkhodja paid for them, but a promise is a promise, and once the merchandise was delivered, the Bedouins carefully continued to place Belkhodja under the protection of the All Powerful.

  Belkhodja was also a member of what people in Nahbès called the “little band,” young men in Western-style dress who met in a café, La Porte du Sud, to criticize everything: they loved to say that a fistful of bees was always better than a bag of flies. In the city, it was felt that Belkhodja had a good influence over them. At their age they thought like roosters, and Belkhodja showed them the value of experience. He liked that role and to be treated as a friend by those boys who were ten to fifteen years younger than he. He refused, however, to be considered a man of the past. He defended what he called tradition, but he liked technological progress. He had had a metal bathtub installed in his house after having used one in a hotel in the capital. He also dreamed of buying a car, and as soon as he had seen that he did his best business with a French clientele, he transferred his rug trade to the European city. He joined the little band at La Porte du Sud, not far from his shop. He preached to those present and spoke ill of those who hadn’t yet arrived.

  Scandalmongering was Belkhodja’s sweet weakness. It was never purely scandalmongering. Some claimed that Belkhodja had eaten a poisonous snake when he was a child, but he denied that: he said he was seeking above all to bring back the believers who had been perverted through pernicious innovations. He, himself, committed sins. Sometimes late in the evening he would drink a bit of alcohol, and the young men whispered that the prayer rug he sometimes carried under his arm was hiding a hashish pipe. He tried, however, never to go too far on the path of errors, which is only a downward slope, he said, for weak souls! And he added that the best way to pay for his sins in the eyes of the Merciful One was to bring back onto the right path other believers who were more lost than he.

  And so Belkhodja’s inveighing against Raouf—that young man full of promise but whom he considered perverted by French education—always came from good intentions, especially now that they were seeing the caïd’s son parading around in the company of that actress, a “star,” as they called her, a real danger to his friend. He had to, using all necessary means, bring that wandering soul back into the community. And Belkhodja quickly found a nickname for Kathryn Bishop: bagrat eccheitan, cow of Satan. That had spread around the city. When the stone leaves the hand, says the proverb, it belongs to the devil.

  Raouf was quickly told what his friend had said. Raouf had laughed out loud, confident of himself, and had added: “Satan has good taste,” and he acted even friendlier toward Belkhodja when he joined the group. Taking the fabric between his thumb and index finger, he felt the fine quality of the merchant’s new tunic, and complimented him, and wondered whether he, himself, might give up Western dress, at least while he was in Nahbès. He sweet-talked Belkhodja as if he didn’t know anything, and Karim, one of the members of the little band, who knew his Raouf, said to himself while observing the scene that he wouldn’t want to be in the merchant’s shoes in the coming months . . . cow of Satan . . . What a terrible thing to say . . . ta’asat l’insan min llisan, man’s misfortune comes from his tongue.

  The other members, especially those who had studied in the capital at the Victor Hugo lycée with Raouf, said they thought he was being very good not to throw Belkhodja into the ravine at the first opportunity: “You would only have to take that crook by the collar” . . . Raouf had laughed again, then he sang the praises of that crook, who knew how not to give in to the temptations that Satan and modernity put in his path, the proof being what Belkhodja had been trying to do since the beginning of the year, as a true believer: he wanted to bring together his actions and his words. Perhaps he would succeed, you had to respect the effort, said Raouf in a sad tone, in a world where many, to make a living, on the contrary increase the distance between their soul and realit
y.

  It had, in fact, been several months since Belkhodja had decided to get married, and he wanted his marriage to be a lesson for his young friends. In front of their smiling faces he had stressed that he would never be the dupe in a union. He wanted a woman who was completely innocent. He didn’t want to discover one day that he had in his bed one of those creatures that men talk about when they play cards. The smiles had disappeared, and he was silent a moment to allow his friends to imagine the shame that could befall a too-confident husband, then he had reassured them, because it wasn’t difficult to avoid such a woman: one had only to listen to public rumor, which can be very cruel, but at least it didn’t spare the guilty. Belkhodja liked to interrupt himself as he was preaching. He was holding his audience. He took the opportunity to rub his handlebar mustache. For once they didn’t make fun of it. That said, he resumed, no matter the precautions a good man might take with those creatures that serve the moon, isn’t there always a risk, which one cannot foresee? And throughout the final months of winter they heard his stories about catastrophic marriages, men in a hurry who became victimized husbands and disgraced victims. He wasn’t what you would call an intelligent and clever raconteur, but as soon as he started telling them about women, the young men no longer cared about intelligence. They were happy to feed their apprehensions.

  From anecdote to anecdote, spring had finally arrived, but they stayed inside the café, where a wood stove emitted irregular heat, a dozen of them around three tables that they had moved together. It was the afternoon. They struggled against drowsiness, regretting they hadn’t gone home to take a nap. They looked at the first flies that had been caught on the strips of sticky paper hanging from the ceiling. They looked at Belkhodja again. He had recently turned down a girl who was too young. That’s okay for old men, he had said. “What’s more,” someone added (maybe Raouf, but they didn’t really remember), “girls who are too young don’t know how to do housework.”