Leo Africanus (27 page)

‘The leper?'

The chancellor whispered a word in his ear, and then said to me with a little tap on my shoulder:

‘I will deal with it. You will not be disappointed. Do not bother His Majesty with the matter.'

I kissed the monarch's hand and withdrew. Harun was waiting for me outside the railings.

‘Do you know that you have just committed an offence against the Law of God?'

He had seen immediately that I had been made to look ridiculous, and he was trying to console me in his fashion. I walked faster without saying a word. He continued:

‘I recently heard an eminent shaikh put forward the view that most if not all of the sovereigns of our time increase their revenue by taxes which are forbidden by the Law of God, and that they are all therefore thieves and ungodly men. It follows that anyone who eats at their table, or who accepts the smallest gift, or who establishes family relations with them is an accessory in their thefts and their ungodliness.'

My reply was accompanied by an outburst of anger:

‘That kind of notion has been responsible for starting all the wars which have torn the lands of Islam apart. Moreover, you can rest assured: the sultan did not invite me to his table, gave me no present, and has not offered me his daughter's hand. Hence I am neither a thief nor an ungodly man, and I am in no danger of finding myself in the fire of Gehenna. But my sister is still with the lepers!'

Harun's face clouded over.

‘Will you go and see her soon?'

‘I am waiting for a reply from the chancellor. I would rather see her after that, as I may perhaps have some good news for her.'

In the weeks that followed I went back to some of the courses at the
madrasa
Bu Inania. I was asked to talk about my travels to my fellow students, and in particular to describe to them some of the mosques which I had seen in the land of the Blacks, as well as the saints' tombs which I had visited. Since I had taken copious notes, I
was able to speak for two whole hours, and the professor was delighted. He invited me to his house and encouraged me to write down my observations, as Ibn Batuta and other famous travellers had done before me. I promise to do so one day, if God allows me.

The professor also asked me if I was seeking work, because his brother, who was director of the
maristan
of the city, wanted to employ a young student as secretary, at a salary of three dinars a month. I accepted eagerly, as I had always been interested in the work of hospitals and hospices. It was agreed that I would start work in the autumn.

I let two months pass before returning to the palace, since I did not wish to give the chancellor the impression I was rushing him. He seemed extremely friendly, told me that he had been awaiting me for weeks, offered me some syrup, spoke tearfully of my departed uncle and then told me in an almost triumphant tone that he had managed to arrange that my sister would be examined again by four officially designated women.

‘You will understand, young man, that our sultan, however powerful he is, cannot bring anyone back into the city who is suspected of being infected with this dreadful disease. If your sister is declared healthy and unmarked, a letter from the sovereign will have her removed from the quarter within a day.'

This solution seemed reasonable, and I decided to convey it to Mariam, in the most confident manner to give her new hope. Harun asked if he could accompany me. I said ‘yes' immediately, not without some surprise.

Mariam claimed to be happy to see me return in good health after such a long journey, but she seemed even further away than at our last meeting, and deathly pale. I looked hard at her.

‘And how do you feel?'

‘Much better than most of my neighbours.'

‘I had hoped that you would be free when I came back.'

‘I had too much to do here.'

The bitter sarcasm which had so exasperated me two years earlier was even more pronounced.

‘Do you remember my oath?'

‘If you keep to it, if you do not marry, I shall have neither children nor nephews.'

Harun was standing behind me, looking now at the stream, now at the guard. He had only given my sister a timid and furtive greeting, and was giving the impression of not paying attention to what we were saying. Suddenly he cleared his throat noisily and looked straight into Mariam's eyes:

‘If you react in this way, if you let yourself give way to discouragement, you will come out of here insane, and rescuing you will be pointless. Your brother has come to bring you good news, the result of his efforts at the palace.'

At his words she calmed herself immediately and listened to me without a trace of mockery or sarcasm.

‘When shall I be examined?'

‘Very soon. Be always ready.'

‘I am still healthy. They will not find the smallest mark.'

‘I have no doubt. All will be well!'

As we were leaving that accursed place, I looked at Harun beseechingly:

‘Do you think she will ever leave?'

Instead of replying, he walked on, gazing at the ground with a pensive air for several minutes. Suddenly, he stood still, pressed his hands to his face and then spread them out, his eyes still closed.

‘Hasan, I have made my decision. I want Mariam to be my wife, the mother of my children.'

913 A.H.
13 May 1507 – 1 May 1508

In the hospice of Fez there are six nurses, a maintenance man, twelve attendants, two cooks, five refuse collectors, a porter, a gardener, a director, an assistant and three secretaries, all decently paid, as well as a large number of sick people. But, as God is my witness, there is not a single doctor. When a sick person arrives, he is put into a room, with someone to look after him, but without receiving any treatment at all, until he either dies or is cured.

None of the sick there is from Fez itself, since the people of Fez prefer to take care of themselves at home. The only people from the city in the hospice are madmen, for whom several rooms are set aside. Their feet are always kept in chains, for fear that they might otherwise do some damage. Their ward is at the end of a corridor whose walls are strengthened with thick joists, and only the more experienced attendants dare to go near them. The one who gives them their meals is armed with a stout stick, and if he sees that one of them is excited, he gives him a good beating which either calms him down or knocks him out.

When I began working at the
maristan
I was warned very strongly about these unfortunates. I was supposed never to speak to them, or even to show that I acknowledged their presence. However, some of them made me feel very sorry for them, especially one old man, who was thin and half bald, who passed his time in prayer and chanting, and used to embrace his children tenderly when they came to see him.

One evening I had stayed late at my office to recopy the pages of a
register over which I had unintentionally spilt a cup of syrup. As I was leaving I cast my eyes in this man's direction. He was weeping, leaning on his elbows at the narrow window of his room. When he saw me he hid his eyes. I took a step towards him. He began to tell me, quite calmly, that he was a God-fearing businessman who had been confined to the hospital because a jealous rival had denounced him, and that his family were unable to free him because his enemy was powerful and well received at the palace.

His story could not fail to move me. I came closer to him, murmuring some words of comfort and promising to make enquiries of the director the very next morning. When I was quite close to him he suddenly leapt at me, grabbed hold of my clothes with one hand and smeared dirt on my face with the other, shrieking with demented laughter. The attendants who rushed to my aid reproached me vigorously for my folly.

Very fortunately the hammam near the
maristan
was still open for men at that hour. I spent an hour there scrubbing my face and my body, and then went to Harun's house. I was still extremely perturbed.

‘It has taken a madman to make me understand at last!'

My words were jerky and confused.

‘I understand why all our efforts end in failure, and why the chancellor has such a suave voice and such an affected smile when he receives me, and why he always makes promises he does not keep.'

My friend remained impassive. I took another breath.

‘There are thousands of people in this city interceding on behalf of a relative who they claim is innocent but who is often a savage murderer, or who they claim is sane but who is often just like the madman who deceived me, or who they claim is cured of leprosy when he is almost eaten away by the disease. How is it possible to distinguish between them?'

I was waiting for the Ferret to contradict me, as he usually did. But he did not. He remained silent, deep in thought, his brow furrowed, and his reply was also a question.

‘What you say is true. What should we do next?'

His reaction was strange. When Mariam was merely the sister of his friend he did not hesitate to take initiatives, regardless of my misgivings, appealing to Astaghfirullah, for instance, and deliberately causing a scandal. Now he seemed less sure of himself, although he was now the one of us most directly concerned about the fate of
the fair prisoner. Indeed, after having intimated to me that he intended to marry my sister, Harun had not wasted any time. He had sought out my father since his return from the countryside in order to pay him a visit, wearing his Friday clothes, and ask him formally for Mariam's hand in marriage. In other circumstances Muhammad the weigh-master would have considered that a porter with no other fortune than the good name of his guild would have been a very poor match. But Mariam was already in her nineteenth year, an age at which of all the women of Fez only a few slaves or prostitutes would not yet have celebrated their marriages. Harun was an unhoped-for saviour, and were it not for the loss of dignity it might entail, my father would have kissed the hands of this heroic fiancé. Several days later the marriage contract was drawn up by two lawyers; it stipulated that the bride's father was to hand over one hundred dinars to his future son-in-law. The very next day Warda went to bring the news to Mariam, who started to hope again and smile once more for the first time since her confinement.

But it was Harun who lost all his jollity, cheerfulness and sparkle, from one day to the next. His face always wore a worried look. That evening I finally understood the thoughts which were running through my friend's head. He insisted on having my opinion.

‘But even so we can't leave Mariam with the lepers for ever! Since all our efforts have been to no avail, what do you think we should do next?'

I had no idea, and this made me reply even more angrily:

‘Every time I think of her, the victim of blackguardly injustice for four years, I want to seize the Zarwali by the throat and strangle him, as well as his accomplice the shaikh of the lepers.'

I suited the action to my words. Harun seemed not the slightest impressed:

‘Your stone is too big!'

I did not understand. He repeated with a tone of impatience:

‘I tell you that your stone is too big, far too big. When I am in the street with the other porters I often see people shouting, insulting each other and attracting a crowd around themselves. Sometimes one of them picks up a stone. If it is the size of a plum or a pear, someone must hold his hand back, because he risks giving his adversary a bloody wound. But, on the other hand, if he takes hold of a stone the size of a water-melon you can go away in peace, because he has no intention of throwing it; he just wants to feel a
weight in his bare hands. Threatening to strangle the Zarwali and the shaikh of the lepers is a stone the size of a minaret, and if I was in the street I should go off shrugging my shoulders.'

Without seeming to notice that I was blushing with embarrassment, Harun continued, spacing out his words as if passing each one of them through a filter: