Achmed Abdullah

“ Cling-clong—she walked along.
As on the preceding days, she threw him a rapid glance. As on the preceding days, she stopped to haggle with the vulpine, parchment-skinned Maltese Jew at the end of the bazaar, over a necklace of moonstones and star-sapphires.
"Kodesh, Yahudi—how much, Jew?" she asked in her low, throaty voice.
"As I told you yesterday and the day before and the day before that, oh mouquera!" came the reply in a bastard mixture of Arabic, French, and Spanish. "Seven thousand francs! And then I am losing—may my wife not sleep with other men!"
"She does—every night!" ”

“ DECADENCE CLING-CLONG, cling-clong—the tinkle of her massive, sand-molded silver anklets accentuated the soft thud of her feet that showed tiny and bare and stained crimson with henna juice as, with every step, the heels rose above the floppy yellow leather slippers. She passed through the latticed bazaar that filtered the sun on silks and rugs, on copper vessels and clay pots and thin, gold inlaid attar bottles, in ever shifting patterns, rose and heliotrope and elfin green. ”

“ Then she went on her way, out of the bazaar, toward the mosque, that untwined its sinuous arabesques of yellow and olive faience beneath the pigeon-blue glare of the sky.
"She is very poor. Shall I go after her? Shall I tell her you want to meet her, yah Sidi?" asked Yussef, the dragoman, whom Maturin had picked up at Tunis and who had accompanied him here to Tugurt, the gateway of the Sahara.
He spoke in execrable, guttural French, and Maturin replied in equally execrable Anglo-Saxon French: "No, no. I've told you so twice daily for the last week." ”

“ Ah—" bowing—"she is already in the Sidi's room. Good night, Sidi! You will find on your dressing table a bottle of oil of amber. Two drops on the woman's breasts to rouse waning passion! I am a most excellent servant!" and, with catlike agility, he swung himself over the railing, out into the street.
For a moment Maturin was speechless with astonishment. Finally his voice returned to him. He leaned over the balcony.
"Yussef!" he called. "Come back. What the devil——"
There was no answer. The dragoman had disappeared.
Downstairs, in the hotel, everything was quiet. The street was deserted. ”

“ He would go back to the hotel and chat with the stout French colonel who presided there over the table d'hôte and the handful of Europeans, officers, a few civilian employees, a sprinkling of tourists. Quinine, that would do the trick, and a glass of iced champagne with his lunch. Resolutely he went on his way, Yussef following at his heels like a rangy, brown and white dog.
Then, quite suddenly, without stopping to analyze the why and wherefore, he changed his mind. He went straight up to the Maltese. He examined the necklace. ”

“ Momentarily he felt conscious of an incontrollable movement; a movement both of revelation and mystery it seemed to him—something that spread its soft tide into every corner of his being, something that established dominion over the secret places of his soul, causing the mighty strings of life within him to quiver with a great pain of longing. ”

“ I sold the necklace for six thousand francs. That will last us a year."
"Us?"
"Yes."
"You mean—you and—" with a quick, illogical pang of jealousy, "a man—somebody you love——?"
"No, Sidi," she said very gently. "Somebody who loves me! Somebody who has loved me these twenty years or more. For—Sidi—I am not a young woman. And—see!—here is the thanks for the necklace!"
And, with a sudden gesture, she dropped her veil and showed her face, a perfect oval, marble-white, with a short, straight nose, and hair that curled in a russet cascade with tiny, golden points. ”

“ And when just then the door opened and there was the cling-clong of silver anklets, when a veiled figure came into the loggia, Si Mehmet turned quickly.
"Go away!" he said in Arabic. "Go away, O heart of a thousand roses! Dost thou not see, O piece of my soul, that a man is here, a foreigner?" ”

“ Seven thousand—and not another centime!"
"Very well, Sidi."
"Come to the Grand Hotel for the money."
"Shall I bring the necklace, or will you take it now?"
"Neither. Give it to the woman when you see her."
"She comes every day," smiled the Maltese.
"I know. Any idea who she is?"
"Who can tell? These veiled women all look alike, Sidi."
"All right. You give her that necklace." He thought quickly. "No tricks, eh? You won't cheat?"
"Would I dare," laughed the trader, "with all my competitors looking on and listening?"
"I don't suppose you would." Maturin turned to go. ”

“ Then—well—he spent. Everything she wanted, by the dozen—extravagantly. And we Europeans are stingy in comparison with an Arab—who loves——"
He rose and buckled on his sword.
"By the way," he added, "you, being an Anglo-Saxon and an artist, therefore inquisitive on both counts, might like to take a look at the old gentleman's palace. He still has it—and they say it's interesting."
"Would he receive me?"
"He'd be flattered. He likes visitors. It reminds him of his former glory."
And so that afternoon, without his dragoman, Maturin went to look for the palace of Si Mehmet ben Abderrahman. ”

“ But that dates back a number of years before we French took a hold of Tunis. They used to have a regular slave market for the girls—over on the souk el trouk——"
"The—what?" Maturin remembered that the woman had used the same words.
"It's the old bazaar where they now sell burnooses and silks. And these Alegias were the pick of the market. Because they were Circassians, of excellent family, and because they were virgins. Why—" the Frenchman smiled. "I think that girl of yours was just an Arab adventuress who tried to make herself important in your eyes—and expensive. ”