Achmed Abdullah

“ And the dervish rose. He walked down from the couch. He did not look at her, did not even see her, did not notice that in passing, the hem of his burnoose brushed over the Gypsy's bowed head.
He went straight up to Ellen Rutherford. She rose as if drawn by a magnet. He took her hand.
"Come!" he said, and side by side they walked out of the mehchacha down Ibrahim Khan's Road.
Already the morning wind had come driving the night to the east. Already the farther skies flushed with the green of the tropics like a curved slab of thick, opaque jade. ”

“ It is difficult to tell afterwards with accuracy the many minute details which make up a comedy or a tragedy of life. But though it was all over in few moments, the picture of it projected itself on Ellen's mind with the fidelity of a single, unforgettable fact.
She saw an elderly Jew negligently flip away his cigarette and hit the Arab's burnoose, where it quickly burned a hole in the dry camel's wool. She saw Hajji Yar's hand, as he released her arm, shoot beneath his shirt with utter suddenness and come out with a glitter and crackle of steel. ”

“ The music stopped momentarily, and Ellen was amused as she listened to the love-making of these people, in a jumble of Arabic and French, naïve, direct and effective.
For the man would, after teasing his mustaches to the fine point of a single well waxed hair, tilt tarbush or turban rakishly to one side, and stalk up to the woman whose eyes had rolled at him invitingly—behind her veil or without it. ”

“ She turned again to the girl.
"Every night we entertain here the followers of some Shareef, some descendant of the Prophet—Peace on Him!—versed in the exquisite mysteries of dervish lodges. That much is known to all the world. But tonight come the young dervishes who follow the footsteps of Hajji Yar. And this is known to none except to the servants of the mehchacha—and to you, little Christian, because you paid for it." She smirked. "Ahee! Perhaps the iron of passion will at last enter the soul of one of them—tonight! Perhaps your eyes will be the ones to pierce the veil of chastity! ”

“ They had to cross the Mellah, the Ghetto of the Jews, to reach the Arab town that emerged from the blackish green African canvas in a dead-white monochrome, a point of dazzling light, a confused welter of flat, uneven roof-tops, and above it the spike of a minaret lifting the massed, arrogant energies of Islam toward the sky. ”

“ Again she felt the strong currents of cosmic life that flowed from his body into hers, felt the casual realities of her outer, personal life sink away as bad dreams melt into the peace of open spaces and the desert's golden calm ”

“ He was not even excited.
"Come," he said, disregarding the clamoring, weeping Jews, brushing them aside as he might a swarm of flies. "It was a mere gesture, beloved. Why"—as he saw the terror in her eyes, as he misread it—"there is no danger. What is one dead dog more or less in a house of dogs? Besides, I am a Shareef, a descendant of the Prophet—Peace on Him!—and the French know how to be blind at times." ”

“ I am seeking life."
"But—Ibrahim Khan's Road——?"
"I have been told—things."
"And yet——?"
"That's just exactly why!"
He shrugged his shoulders. "Can you cover a kettle-drum with the skin of a little, little mouse?" he asked. "Can you argue with a woman? Bismillah!"
And he walked away with a swish of his burnoose while she looked after him, rather nervous, her curiosity rising in waves, telling her that here a strange glimpse of an alien life had come to her out of the dark, the mere fragment of an alien soul, and it had passed back into the dark, leaving no trace, typically Arab. ”

“ Tunis thoroughly, that her notebooks were crammed with impressions and little adventures, he had made a slurring allusion to tourist twaddle.
"I suppose you're going to write a book when you get home?" he had asked, causing her to blush self-consciously.
"All about Arab life, eh? Why, you know nothing of life—life's vital aspects!" ”

“ Across from them sat the women, mostly unveiled, smoking or eating drugs as were the men, Moroccan Jewesses and Arab girls from the Sus tribes, but with a sprinkling of Europeans—young and middle-aged, some beautiful, some faded, but all tawdry, laden with offcolor diamonds, and all with the red-rimmed eyes, the yellow complexions of the hasheesh eater. ”

“ For once in the life of each man—sayeth the Koran—comes to him his chance for happiness or woe. Once and only once. And while all else is written from the beginning in the book of each man's life by the Angel of the Scrolls—sayeth the Koran—there is left one page whereon each is permitted to trace, himself, the record of his choice. ”

“ Again she salaamed before the dervishes who sat uninterested, impassive, silent but for a few words from the Shareef's mouth that gently billowed his face veil as he pronounced them passionless as Fate:
"Ouaa Robbi elli rmani lalkafar——"
"What's he saying?" asked Ellen.
The Englishwoman laughed. "He's complaining that God's destiny has thrown him amongst the profane. Why doesn't he clear out if he doesn't like it here?"
The Gypsy girl could hardly have been more than fourteen, but her graceful body, her finished movements were those of a woman, proud of her womanhood. ”

“ The interior of the house jumped at her with a brutal massing of colors and sounds and scents—perfume, rose and sandalwood, and the acrid aroma of Oriental drugs, seeghly balls of opium and honey, amber-flavored tobacco, Turkish sebsi paste and hasheesh and kif. From swinging lamps gleamed lights, clouded by lazy streams of many-colored incense smoke, wavering and glimmering, blazing with the deep yellows of topaz, trembling through a crimson incandescence into jasper and opal flames. ”

“ It closed about them very suddenly, stifling, with a thick cluster of streets where all the poor, unwashed and diseased of Israel seemed to live together. The women were mostly upbraiding their husbands and their curly-headed offspring in shrill voices while the men squatted on the pavement or behind rickety stalls, smoking and spitting and chattering, and, dominating all, like a primeval call, the throbbing pulse of trade, the sharp cries of barter and haggle, in a bastard mixture of languages. ”

“ Many more would follow, lifted out of the rut of the gray, sticky centuries, because of the hope of more money, better food and possibly a dream of freedom—and then the leaving of the little town where the soul's roots were, the steerage journey across an unknown sea—the terrible, shining American adventure of the poor emigrant... ”

“ I know it. I"—he had touched the ragged scar across his face—"I got this down there!"
"A fight? Did a man give you the wound?"
"No!" He had laughed. "A woman!" And then with utter suddenness he had fallen into snoring, alcoholic sleep, while she had stepped up to the balcony rail.
Tugurt was at her feet, cruel, leering, mysterious, fascinating; and all at once she had made up her mind, had stepped out of the hotel—into the smoky, darkening evening.
She walked along.
Beyond the screen of feathery carob trees that edged Tugurt's main market square she saw the desert wavering in a silvered line. ”

“ She stopped in front of the dervishes, salaamed deeply, while a hush fell over the crowd, a silence more telling than boisterous shouts of welcome.
"Khoukhdjia the Gypsy!" whispered the Englishwoman in answer to Ellen's question. "She hardly ever dances in public—nobody's ever as much as kissed her hand! ”

“ And, seeing the interrogation in Ellen's eyes: "Don't you know?"
"Just what I heard at the hotel—that they are dangerous politically——"
"Some, but not all. Others are religious nuts—mystic stuff, y'know. Others as gay as London johnnies—and they're the lads who're all the riot here. My word, they know how to spend the tin! Then there are some as straight-laced as Mrs. Grundy. Take the followers of Hajji Yar"—Ellen looked up at the name, remembering what the Kabyle woman had told her—"heard of them, haven't you?" ”

“ Immediately his frank laugh had disarmed her. "It's easy enough to find life's essence, its real meaning, here in Tunis amongst the Arabs. Because these Arabs—they are not like us—they do not think when they feel. They do not consider emotion a problem in abstract dynamics as we do. Life—yes—it's easy to find it here!"
"Is it?"
"Yes. If you have two qualities, my dear. Curiosity—and pluck."
"One and the same thing in a woman's philosophy!"
"You are bright!"
He had poured himself another drink of cognac, had pointed from the hotel balcony at the little Arab town squatted below. She had looked ”

“ She knew the voice of the bells. Boston—they said—Back Bay—Christianity—black walnut furniture and antimacassars and Emerson and wax fruit under glass—and, occasionally, a mild cocktail....
"Binng banng!" sang the bells. "Home! Come home!" ”