Leo Africanus

~ ~ ~

When I arrived in Cairo, my son, it had already been for centuries the renowned capital of an empire, and the seat of a caliphate. When I left it, it was no more than a provincial capital. No doubt it will never regain its former glory.

God has ordained that I should be witness to this decline, as well as to the calamities that preceded it. I was still floating on the Nile, dreaming of adventures and joyful conquests, when misfortune presented itself. But I had not yet learned to respect it, nor to decipher its messages.

Stretched out lazily on the wide jarm, my head slightly raised on a wooden bolster, lulled by the chatter of the boatmen which mingled harmoniously with the lapping of the water, I was looking up at the sun, already reddening, which would disappear in three hours’ time over the African bank.

‘We shall be in Old Cairo at dawn tomorrow,’ a negro crewman shouted to me.

I replied with a smile as wide as his own. Henceforth, no obstacle would separate me from Cairo. I had only to let myself be borne along by the inexorable flow of time and the Nile.

I was on the point of dozing off to sleep when the voice of the boatmen rose, and their conversation became more animated. As I stood up I saw a jarm which was going up the river and was just arriving at our level. It took me some time to see what was peculiar about this craft, which I had not seen approaching. A number of beautiful women, richly apparelled, were crammed aboard it, with their children, a vacant air about them, in the middle of hundreds of sheep whose odour was now reaching me. Some had strings of jewels on their foreheads, and high narrow fluted caps on their heads.

Sometimes a drama springs from a single strange sight. The boatmen came up to me in procession, with long faces and their palms turned towards heaven. There was a long silence. Then, out of the lips of the oldest crawled a single word:

‘Plague!’

The Year of the Noble Eye

919 A.H.

9 March 1513 — 25 February 1514

The epidemic had broken out at the beginning of that year, on the morrow of a violent storm and torrential rains, manifest portents to the Cairenes of the anger of God and the imminence of chastisement. The children had been affected first, and the notables had hastened to evacuate their families, some to Tur, at the south of Sinai, where the air is healthy, and some to Upper Egypt if they had residences there. Soon countless boatloads passed us, carrying pitiful clusters of fugitives.

It would have been unwise to go further without knowing the extent of the disease. We drew alongside the eastern bank of the river in a deserted place, resolving to stay there as long as was necessary, sustaining ourselves from the goods we were carrying, changing our mooring each night to put possible looters off the scent. We went out five or six times a day in search of news, rowing close up to those travelling up the Nile to question them. The epidemic was devastating the capital. Every day, fifty, sixty, a hundred deaths were recorded in the register of births and deaths, and it was known from experience that ten times more would have gone unrecorded. Each craft quoted a new figure, always an exact one, often accompanied by explanations which permitted no discussion. Thus, on the Monday after the Christian Easter, there were three earth tremors; on the following day two hundred and seventy-four deaths were recorded. The following Friday there was a hailstorm, unheard of at that time of year; on that very day there were three hundred and sixty-five deaths. On the advice of his doctor, the Sultan of Egypt, an old Circassian Mameluke named Qansuh, decided to wear two ruby rings on his fingers to protect himself from the plague. He also decreed a ban on wine and hashish and dealing with prostitutes. In all the quarters of the city new basins were fitted to wash the dead.

Of course the victims were no longer only children and servants. Soldiers and officers began to succumb by the hundred. And the sultan hastened to proclaim that he himself would inherit their equipment. He ordered that the widows of all the soldiers who had died should be arrested until they had handed over to the arsenal a sword encrusted with silver, a coat of mail, a helmet and a quiver, as well as two horses or the equivalent of their value. Furthermore, calculating that the population of Cairo had been considerably reduced by the epidemic, and would continue to drop, Qansuh decided to confiscate a substantial quantity of corn from the new harvest, which he sent immediately to Damascus and Aleppo, where he could sell it at a price three times higher. From one day to the next the price of bread and corn increased inordinately.

When, shortly after the announcement of these measures, the sultan left his citadel and crossed the city to inspect the costly reconstruction of the college which would bear his name, which he had designed himself and whose cupola had just cracked for the third time, the people of the capital shouted at him in derision. Cries reached his ears: ‘May God destroy those who starve the Muslims!’ On his return the sovereign avoided the popular quarter of Bab Zuwaila, preferring to reach the citadel through streets which were not swarming with people.

This news was conveyed to us by a rich and educated young merchant, fleeing the capital with his family on his private boat, who drew up alongside us for a few hours before continuing his journey. He took an immediate liking to me, asked about my country and my recent travels, and his questions were weightier with knowledge than my replies. When I brought back the conversation to Egypt, he said to me privately in a serene voice:

‘Thank goodness rulers sometimes go too far, otherwise they would never fall!’

Before adding, his eyes sparkling:

‘The folly of princes is the wisdom of Destiny.’

I believed I had understood.

‘Will there soon be a revolt, then?’

‘We would not use such a word. It is true that in times of epidemic the people of the streets show great courage, since the power of the sultan appears very weak in comparison to that of the Most High, who mows down whole regiments of soldiers. But not even the smallest weapon can be found in people’s houses, hardly even a knife to cut the cheese. When the time for an upheaval comes, it is always one Circassian Mameluke replacing another.’

Before continuing his journey, the merchant made me an unexpected proposition which I accepted with gratitude, although at the time I had no idea how generous it was.

‘I am going to live for some months in Assyut, the town where I was born, and I do not want my house in Cairo to stay unoccupied for such a long time. I should be honoured if you would live there while I am away.’

While I was making a combined gesture of gesture of gratitude and refusal, he took me by the wrist:

‘I am not doing you a favour, noble traveller, since, if my house remains without a master, it will be a prey for looters, especially in these difficult times. If you accept you will be obliging me, and you will solve a problem that has been bothering me.’

In these circumstances I could not but accept. He continued, in the confident tone of a man who has nurtured a decision for a long time:

‘I will write out a deed certifying that you can have free use of the property until my return.’

He went to get paper, pen and ink from his boat and then came back and squatted by my side. As he was writing he asked me my name, my surnames and occupation, which seemed to satisfy him. As well as the document he gave me a bunch of keys, and told me the purpose of each of them. Then he explained very precisely how to find the house and how I should recognize it.

‘It is a white building, surrounded by palm trees and sycamores. It is on a slight rise, at the extreme north of the old city, directly on the Nile. I have left a gardener there who will be at your disposal.’

This made me even more impatient to reach my destination. I asked my interlocutor when the end of the plague might be expected.

‘The previous epidemics have all come to an end before the beginning of Mesori.’

I asked him to repeat the last word, because I thought I had misheard it. He smiled benevolently.

‘In the Coptic year Mesori is the month when the Nile floods reach their peak.’

I murmured:

‘Egypt has much merit to be Muslim when the Nile and the plague still follow the calendar of the Pharaohs.’

From the way he lowered his eyes and from his confused smile I understood that he himself was not a Muslim. He busied himself immediately:

‘It’s getting late. I think we must hoist up the sails.’

Addressing one of his children, who was running incessantly around a palm tree, he called out:

‘Sesostris, get back into the boat, we’re leaving!’

He shook my hand for the last time, adding in an embarrassed voice:

‘There is a cross and an icon in the house. If they offend you, you can take them down and put them in a coffer until my return.’

I promised him that on the contrary nothing would be moved and thanked him for his extreme thoughtfulness.

While I was talking to the Copt, the boatmen were standing in the background, gesticulating animatedly. When my benefactor had gone away, they came to tell me, in solemn tones, that they had decided to leave the next day for the capital. Although they were all Muslims, they knew that the plague would not go away before Mesori. But other reasons impelled them:

‘The man said that the price of food has risen suddenly. Now is the time to go to the old port, sell the cargo and return to our homes.’

I did not think of protesting. I myself was like a lover weary of sleeping night after night a few strides away from the object of his desires.

Cairo at last!

In no other city does one forget so quickly that one is a foreigner. The traveller has scarcely arrived before he is caught up in a whirlwind of rumours, trivialities, gossips. A hundred strangers accost him, whisper in his ear, call him to witness, jostle his shoulder the better to provoke him to the curses or the laughter which they await. From then on he is let into the secret. He has got hold of one end of a fantastic story, he has to know the sequel even if it means staying until the next caravan, until the next feast day, until the next flood. But, already, another story has begun.

That year, when I disembarked, worn out and haggard a mile from my new home, the whole town, although scarred by the plague, was poking fun without restraint at the ‘noble eye’, meaning that of the monarch. The first syrup seller, guessing my ignorance and delighting in it, took it upon himself to tell me about it forthwith, pushing away his thirsty clients with a disdainful air. The account which merchants and notables gave me later on was no different from that of this man.

‘It all began,’ he told me, ‘with a stormy interview between Sultan Qansuh and the caliph.’

The caliph was a blameless old man who lived peacefully in his harem. The sultan had treated him harshly and insisted that he should abdicate, on the pretext that his sight was failing, that he was already almost blind in his left eye and that his signature on the decrees was just a scrawl. Apparently Qansuh wanted to frighten the Commander of the Faithful in order to extort a few tens of thousands of dinars from him in exchange for keeping him in office. But the old man did not go along with this game. He took a piece of glazed paper and without trembling wrote out a deed of abdication in favour of his son.

The whole matter would have gone no further, merely another act of injustice that would have been soon forgotten, had the sultan himself one morning not felt pain in his left eye. This had happened two months before my arrival, when the plague was at its most deadly. But the sovereign was losing interest in the plague. His eyelid kept closing. Soon it would close so firmly that he had to hold it open with his finger to be able to see at all. His doctor diagnosed ptosis and recommended an incision.

My informant offered me a goblet of rose syrup and suggested that I should sit down on a wooden box, which I did. There was no longer a crowd around us.

‘When the monarch refused categorically, his doctor brought before him a senior officer, the commander of a thousand, who had the same disease, and operated on him forthwith. The man returned a week later with his eye completely restored.’

It was useless. The sultan, said my narrator, preferred to have recourse to a female Turkish healer, who promised to cure him without surgery, only applying an ointment based on powdered steel. After three days of treatment the disease spread to the right eye. The old sultan no longer went out, no longer dealt with any business, did not even manage to carry his noria on his head, the heavy long horned headdress which had been adopted by the last Mameluke rulers of Egypt. To such an extent that his own officers, convinced that he was going to lose his sight, began to look around for a successor.

The very evening before my arrival in Cairo, rumours of a plot were spreading through the city. They had naturally reached the ears of the sultan, who decreed a curfew from dusk to dawn.

‘Which is why,’ finished the syrup vendor, pointing out the position of the sun on the horizon, ‘if your house is far off, you really ought to run, because in seven degrees anyone caught in the streets will be flogged in public until the blood runs.’

Seven degrees was less than half an hour. I looked around me; there was no one there except soldiers, on every street corner, peering nervously at the setting sun. Not daring either to run or to ask the way for fear of being suspected, I merely walked along the river bank, quickening my pace and hoping that the house would be easily recognizable.

Two soldiers were coming towards me, with enquiring steps and looks, when I saw a path on my right. I turned into it without hesitation, with the strange impression of having done so every day of my life.

I was at home. The gardener was sitting on the ground in front of the door, his face immobile. I greeted him with a wave and made a great show of taking out my keys. Without a word, he drew aside to let me in, not appearing at all surprised to see a stranger going into his master’s house. My self-assurance reassured him. However, feeling obliged to explain the reason for my presence, I took out of my pocket the deed signed by the Copt. The man did not look at it. He could not read, but trusted me, resumed his place and did not move.

The next day, when I went out, he was still there, so that I did not know whether he had spent the night there or whether he had resumed his post at dawn. I walked about in my street, which seemed extremely busy. But all the passers-by looked at me. Although I was used to this annoyance which afflicts all travellers, I felt the sensation particularly strongly, and put it down to my Maghribi clothing. But it was not that. A greengrocer stepped out of his shop to come over and give me advice:

‘People are astonished to see a man of your rank walking about humbly on foot in the dust.’

Without waiting for my reply, he hailed a donkey-driver, who offered me a sumptuous beast, equipped with a fine blanket, and left me a young boy as an orderly.

So mounted, I made a tour of the old city, stopping especially at the famous mosque of Amr and at the textile market, before pushing on towards New Cairo, from which I returned with my head full of murmurings. Henceforth this excursion would take place every day, taking a longer or shorter time according to my mood and what there was for me to do, but always fruitful. I used to meet various notables, officers, palace officials and do business. Already in the first month I arranged to have a load of Indian crepe and spices for the benefit of a Jewish merchant in Tlemcen conveyed in a camel caravan chartered by some Maghribi traders. At my request, he sent back a casket of amber from Massa.

Between two deals, people confided in me. In this way I learned a week after my arrival that the sultan was now in a better mood. Persuaded that his illness was a chastisement from the Most High, he had summoned the four Grand Qadis of Egypt, representing the four rites of the Faith, to reproach them for having let him commit so many crimes without reprimanding him. He had, it was said, burst into tears before the judges, who were dumbfounded by the sight; the sultan was indeed a stately man, very tall and very stout, with an imposing rounded beard. Swearing that he bitterly regretted his treatment of the old caliph, he had promised that he would immediately make amends for the wrong he had done. And he had dictated forthwith a message for the deposed pontiff which he had had conveyed at once by the commander of the citadel. The note was worded thus: ‘I bring you the greetings of the sultan, who commends himself to your prayers. He acknowledges his responsibility for his behaviour towards you and his wish not to incur your reproach. He was unable to resist an evil impulse.’

That very day the provost of the merchants came down from the citadel, preceded by torch-bearers who went around the city announcing: ‘According to a decree of His Royal Majesty the Sultan, all monthly and weekly taxes and all indirect taxes without exception are abolished, including the rights upon the flour mills of Cairo.’

The sultan had decided, whatever the cost, to attract the Compassion of the Most High towards his eye. He ordered that all the unemployed of the capital, both men and women, should be assembled in the hippodrome, and gave each of them two half-fadda pieces as alms, which cost four hundred dinars altogether. He also distributed three thousand dinars to the poor, particularly those who lived in the mosque of al-Azhar and in the funerary monuments of Karafa.

After having done all this Qansuh summoned the qadis once more and asked them to have fervent prayers for the healing of his noble eye said in all the mosques. Only three of the judges could answer his call; the fourth, the Maliki qadi, had to bury that day two of his young children who had fallen victim to the plague.

The reason why the sultan set such store by these prayers was that he had eventually accepted that he should be operated on, and this took place, at his request, on a Friday just after the midday prayer. He kept to his room until the following Friday. Then he went to the stands of Ashrafiyya, had the prisoners kept in the four remand prisons, in the keep of the citadel and in the Arkana, the prison of the royal palace, brought forth, and signed a large number of releases, particularly of favourites who had fallen in disgrace. The most famous beneficiary of the noble clemency was Kamal al-Din, the master barber, whose name quickly went the rounds of Cairo, provoking several ironical comments.

A handsome youth, Kamal al-Din had long been the sultan’s favourite. In the afternoons, he used to massage the soles of his feet to make him sleep. Until the day when the sultan had been afflicted by an inflammation of the scrotum which had necessitated bleeding, and this barber had spread the news across the city with graphic details, incurring the ire of his master.

Now, he was pardoned, and not only pardoned but the sultan even excused himself for having ill-treated him, and asked him, since this was his particular vice, that he should go about and tell the whole city that the august eye had been cured. In fact the eyelids were still covered with a bandage, but the sovereign felt sufficiently strong to have his audience once more. The more so since a series of events of exceptional gravity had come to pass. He had just received, one after the other, an envoy from the Sharif of Mecca and a Hindu ambassador who had arrived in the capital a few days earlier to discuss the same problem: the Portuguese had just occupied the island of Kamaran, they were in control of the entrance to the Red Sea and had landed troops on the coast of Yemen. The sharif was afraid that they would attack the convoys of Egyptian pilgrims who usually passed through the ports of Yanbu‘ and Jidda, which were now directly threatened. As for the Hindu emissary, he had come in great pomp, accompanied by two huge elephants caparisoned in red velvet; he was particularly concerned about the sudden interruption of trade between the Indies and the Mameluke Empire brought about by the Portuguese invasion.

The sultan pronounced himself most concerned, observing that the stars must have been particularly unfavourable for the Muslims that year, since the plague, the threat to the Holy Places and his own illness had all occurred at the same time. He ordered the inspector of granaries, the Amir Kuchkhadam, to accompany the Hindu ambassador in procession back as far as Jidda, and then to stay there in order to organize an intelligence service to report on the intentions of the Portuguese. He also promised to arm a fleet and command it himself if God granted him health.

It was not before the month of Sha‘ban that Qansuh was seen wearing his heavy noria again. It was then understood that he was definitively cured, and the city received the order to rejoice. A procession was organized, at the head of which walked the four royal doctors, dressed in red velvet pelisses trimmed with sable, the gift of a grateful sovereign. The great officers of state all had yellow silk scarves, and cloths of the same colour were hanging from the windows of the streets where the procession passed as a sign of rejoicing. The grand qadis had decorated their doors with brocaded muslin dotted with specks of amber, and the kettledrums resounded in the citadel. As the curfew had been lifted, music and singing could be heard at sunset in every corner of the city. Then, when the night became really dark, fireworks sprang forth on the water’s edge, accompanied by frenzied cheering.

On that occasion, in the general rejoicing, I suddenly had an overwhelming urge to dress in the Egyptian fashion. So I left my Fassi clothes, which I put away carefully against the day when I would leave, and then put on a narrow gown with green stripes, stitched at the chest and then flared to the ground. On my feet I wore old-fashioned sandals. On my head I wrapped a broad turban in Indian crepe. And it was thus accoutred that I called for a donkey, on which I enthroned myself in the middle of my street, surrounded by a thousand neighbours, to follow the celebrations.

I felt that this city was mine and it gave me a great sense of well-being. Within a few months I had become a real Cairene notable. I had my donkey-man, my greengrocer, my perfumer, my goldsmith, my paper-maker, prosperous business dealings, relations with the palace and a house on the Nile.

I believed that I had reached the oasis of the clear springs.

The Year of the Circassian

920 A.H.

26 February 1514 — 14 February 1515

I would have slumbered for ever in the delights and the torments of Cairo if a woman had not chosen, in that year, to make me share her secret, the most dangerous that there was, since it could have deprived me of life and of the beyond at the same time.

The day that I met her began in the most horrible manner. My donkey-boy had strayed from our usual route a little before entering the new city. Thinking that he wanted to avoid some obstacle, I let him do so. But he led me into the middle of a crowd, and then, putting the reins into my hand, muttered an excuse and ran off, without my even being able to question him. He had never behaved like this before, and I resolved to speak to his master.

It was not long before I understood the reason for all the excitement. A detachment of soldiers was proceeding through Saliba Street, preceded by drummers and a torch-bearer. In the middle, a man was dragging himself along, his torso bare, his hands outstretched, attached to a rope pulled along by a horseman. A proclamation was read ordaining that the man, a servant accused of stealing turbans in the night, was condemned to be cleft in two. This form of execution was, I knew, generally reserved for murderers, but there had been a spate of thefts over the preceding days and the merchants were demanding an exemplary punishment.

The unfortunate man did not cry out, but just moaned dully, nodding his head, when, all of a sudden, two soldiers threw themselves upon him, causing him to lose his balance. Before he was even stretched out on the ground, one of them seized him by the armpits while the other simultaneously grabbed hold of his feet. The executioner approached, carrying a heavy sword in both hands, and with a single blow cut the man in two across the waist. I turned my eyes away, feeling such a violent contraction in my stomach that my paralysed body almost fell to the ground in a heap. A helping hand rose towards me to support me, with an old man’s voice:

‘One should not gaze upon death from the back of one’s mount.’

Rather than jump to the ground, which I did not feel capable of doing, I clung on to my donkey, turned back and went away, causing protest from those whom my manoeuvre prevented from seeing the next part of the spectacle: the upper part of the victim’s body was just being put on a pile of quicklime, raised upright facing the crowd where it remained delirious for several minutes before expiring.

In an effort to forget, I decided to attend to my affairs, to go and inform myself about the departures and arrivals of the caravans, to listen to various gossip. But as I proceeded my head became heavier and heavier. It was as if I had been overcome by a fit of dizziness; I drifted this way and that, from one street to another, from one suq to another, half conscious, inhaling saffron and fried cheese, hearing as if from afar the din of the hawkers who were accosting me. Without his attendant, who was still watching the gruesome spectacle, my donkey began to roam about according to his moods and his habits. This lasted until a merchant, noticing that I was not well, took the reins and handed me a cup of sugared water, perfumed with jasmin which immediately relieved my stomach. I was in Khan al-Khalili, and my benefactor was one of the richest Persian traders there, a certain Akbar, may God extend His benefits to him! He made me sit down, swearing that he would not let me go until I had fully recovered.

I had been there for at least an hour, my mind emerging slowly from the fog, when the Circassian made her entrance. I do not know what struck me about her first. Was it her face, so beautiful yet so uncovered, with only a black silk scarf holding back her blonde hair? Was it her waist, so slim in this city where only copiously nourished women were appreciated? Or perhaps the ambiguous manner, deferential but not over-zealous, with which Akbar said: ‘Highness!’

Her retinue did not distinguish her from the simplest bourgeoise woman: a single servant, a peasant woman with stiff gestures, and an air of being constantly amused, who was carrying a flat object wrapped clumsily in an old worn-out sheet.

My gaze was evidently too persistent, because the Circassian turned her face away with a conspicuous movement. Seeing this, Akbar confided in me in a deliberately ceremonious voice:

‘Her Royal Highness Princess Nur, widow of the Amir ‘Ala al-Din, nephew of the Grand Turk.’

I forced myself to look elsewhere, but my curiosity was only stronger. Everyone in Cairo was aware of the drama of this ‘Ala al-Din. He had taken part in the fratricidal war which had set the heirs of Sultan Bayazid against one another. It even seemed at one point that he had triumphed, when he had seized the city of Bursa and had threatened to take Constantinople. But his uncle Salim had eventually gained the upper hand. A relentless man, the new Ottoman sultan had had his brothers strangled and their families decimated. However, ‘Ala al-Din managed to flee and take refuge in Cairo, where he was received with honour. A palace and servants were put at his disposal, and it was said that he was now preparing to encourage a rising against his uncle with the support of the Mameluke empire, the Sophy of Persia, and the powerful Turkish tribes in the very heart of Anatolia.

Would the coalition have got the better of the redoubtable Salim? It will never be known: four months after his arrival ‘Ala al-Din was carried away by the plague. He was still not twenty-five years old, and had just married a beautiful Circassian with whom he had fallen in love, the daughter of an officer assigned to his guard. The Sultan of Egypt, apparently saddened by the prince’s death, presided himself over the prayer for the dead man. The funeral ceremonies were imposing, the more noteworthy because they took place according to the Ottoman custom, which was hardly known in Cairo: ‘Ala al-Din’s horses walked in front, their tails cut and their saddles turned round; on the bier above the body were his turban and his bows, which had been broken.

Nevertheless, the master of Cairo took back the palace of ‘Ala al-Din two months later, a decision for which he was rebuked by the population. The widow of the Ottoman was granted a modest house and such a derisory pension that she was obliged to auction the few objects of value that her husband had left her.

All these matters had been reported to me at the time, but they had not assumed any particular significance for me. While I was going over them in my mind, Nur’s voice came to me, heart-rending but dignified:

‘The prince draws up plans in his palace, without knowing that at the same moment, in a cottage, an artisan’s fingers are already weaving his shroud.’

She had spoken these words in Arabic, but with that Circassian accent which no Cairene could fail to recognize, since it was that of the sultan and the Mameluke officers. Before I could reply, the merchant came back, with his offer of a price:

‘Seventy-five dinars.’

She turned pale:

‘This piece has no equal in the world!’

It was a wall tapestry worked in needlework of rare precision, surrounded by a frame in carved wood. It showed a pack of wolves running towards the summit of a snowy mountain.

Akbar called me to witness:

‘What Her Highness says is the absolute truth, but my shop is full of valuable objects which I am forced to sell cheaply. Buyers are rare.’

Out of politeness I inclined my head slightly. Feeling that he had gained my trust, he went further:

‘This year is the worst since I began working thirty years ago. People do not dare to show the merest hint of their dinars, for fear that they will be accused of hiding their riches and that someone will come and extort it from them. Last week, a singer was arrested merely on the strength of a denunciation. The sultan himself submitted her to questioning while the guards crushed her feet. They got a hundred and fifty pieces of gold out of her.’

He continued:

‘Please note that I understand perfectly well why our sovereign, may God protect him, is forced to act in this manner. He no longer receives the revenues from the ports. Jidda has not had a boat for a year because of the Portuguese corsairs. The situation is not much better at Damietta. As for Alexandria, it has been deserted by the Italian merchants who can no longer find any business to transact there. And to think that this city had, in the past, six hundred thousand inhabitants, twelve thousand grocers open until night and forty thousand Jews paying the canonical jizya! Today, it’s a fact that Alexandria gives the treasury less than it costs it. We see the results of this every day: the army has not had meat for seven months; the regiments are in ferment, and the sultan looks for gold wherever he thinks he can find it.’

The entrance of a client interrupted him. Seeing that the new arrival was not carrying anything in his hands, Akbar must have thought that he was a customer and asked us to excuse him for a moment. The princess prepared to leave, but I held her back:

‘How much did you hope to get for it?’

‘Three hundred dinars, no less.’

I asked her to let me see the tapestry. I had already made up my mind, but I could not take it without looking at it, for fear that the purchase might appear to be an act of charity. But I also did not want to examine it too closely, for fear of being thought to be bargaining. I gave it a hasty glance before saying, in a neutral tone:

‘Three hundred, that seems a fair price to me. I’ll buy it.’

She was not mistaken:

‘A woman does not accept a present from a man to whom she cannot show her gratitude.’

The words were firm, but the tone was less so. I replied, with false indignation:

‘It is not a gift. I am buying this because I want it!’

‘And why should you want it?’

‘It’s a souvenir.’

‘But it’s the first time you’ve seen it!’

‘Sometimes one glance is enough for an object to be irreplaceable.’

She blushed. Our looks met. Our lips parted. We were already friends. The servant woman, more cheerful than ever, walked between us, trying to overhear our whisperings. We had arranged to meet: Friday, at midday, Azbakiyya Square, in front of the donkey showman.

Since my arrival in Egypt, I had never missed the solemn Friday prayer. But, that day, I did so without much remorse; after all, it was the Creator who had made this woman so beautiful, and it was He who had put her in my path.

Azbakiyya Square was filling up slowly as the mosques emptied, because it was the custom of all the Cairenes to gather there after the ceremony to play dice, listen to the patter of the story-tellers, and sometimes lose themselves in the neighbouring alleys where certain taverns were offering a short cut to Eden.

I did not yet catch sight of my Circassian, but the donkey showman was there, already surrounded by a swelling cluster of idlers. I joined them, glancing frequently at the faces which surrounded me and at the sun in the hope that it had moved a few degrees.

The clown was dancing with his beast, without anyone knowing which was following the steps of the other. Then he began to talk to his donkey. He told him that the sultan had decided to undertake a great construction work, and that he was going to requisition all the donkeys in Cairo to transport lime and stones. At that very moment the animal fell to the ground, turned round on to his back, his legs in the air, puffed out its stomach and shut its eyes. The man began to lament in front of the audience, saying that his donkey was dead, and he took a collection to buy himself another one. Having collected several dozen coins, he said:

‘Don’t believe that my donkey has given up the ghost. He is a glutton who, aware of my poverty, acts a part so that I can earn some money and buy him something to eat.’

Taking a big stick he gave the beast a good beating.

‘Come on, get up now!’

But the donkey did not move. The clown continued:

‘People of Cairo, the sultan has just issued an edict: the whole population is to go out tomorrow to be present at his triumphal entry into the city. The donkeys have been requisitioned to carry the women of high society.’

Thereupon the donkey leaped to its feet, began to preen himself, showing great happiness. His master burst out laughing as did the crowd.

‘So,’ he said, ‘you like pretty women! But there are several here! Which one would you like to carry?’

The beast went round the audience, seemed to hesitate and then made for a rather tall lady spectator who was standing a few paces away from me. She was wearing veils so thick that her face was invisible. But I recognized her bearing immediately. She herself, frightened by the laughter and the looks, came up to me and clutched my arm. I hastened to say to the donkey in a jocular voice: ‘No, you won’t be carrying my wife!’, before going off with her in a dignified fashion.

‘I didn’t expect to see you veiled. Had it not been for the donkey, I wouldn’t have recognized you.’

‘It is precisely in order not to be recognized that I am veiled. We are together in the street, in the middle of an inquisitive gossiping crowd, and no one is aware that I am not your wife.’

And she nodded teasingly:

‘I take off the veil if I want to please all men; I wear it if I only want to please a single one.’

‘Henceforth, I should hate it if your face were to be uncovered.’

‘Will you never want to look at it?’

It is true that we could not be alone in a house, neither hers nor mine, and that we had to be satisfied with walking in the city side by side. The day of our first meeting Nur insisted that we visit the forbidden garden.

‘It has been given this name,’ she explained to me, ‘because it is surrounded by high walls and the sultan has prohibited access to it in order to protect a wonder of nature; the only tree in the world to produce real balsam.’

A piece of silver in the hand of the guard enabled us to go inside. Leaning over the balsam tree, Nur drew aside her veil and stayed still for a long time, fascinated, as if in a dream. She repeated, as if to herself:

‘In the whole world there is only this one root. It is so slender, so fragile, but so precious!’

As far as I could see, the tree seemed quite ordinary. Its leaves were like those of a vine, perhaps a little smaller. It was planted right in the middle of a spring.

‘It is said that if it was watered with different water it would dry up immediately.’

She seemed moved by this visit, although I did not understand why. But the next day we were together again, and she seemed happy and considerate. Henceforth our walks were daily, or almost so, because in the middle of the week, Mondays and Tuesdays, she was never free. When, at the end of a month, I pointed this out to her, her reaction was sharp:

‘You might never have seen me, or only once a month. Now I am with you two, three, five days a week, you complain about my absences.’

‘I don’t count the days that I see you. It is the others than seem interminable to me.’

It was a Sunday, and we were close to the mosque of Ibn Tulun, in front of the women’s hammam where Nur was preparing to enter. She seemed to hesitate:

‘Would you be ready to come with me, without asking the slightest question?’

‘As far as China, if I must!’

‘Then meet me tomorrow morning, with two camels and full waterskins, in front of the Great Mosque of Giza.’

Intent on keeping my promise, I did not ask her about our destination, so much so that at the end of two hours on the road we had only exchanged a few words. However I did not think that it would be against the spirit of our agreement to say:

‘The pyramids can’t be far from here.’

‘Exactly.’

Encouraged by this information I continued:

‘Is that where we’re going?’

‘Exactly.’

‘Do you come here each week to see those round buildings?’

She was overcome by a frank and devastating laugh at which I could only feel offended. To show my disapproval, I got down to the ground and hobbled my camel. She hastened to come back towards me.

‘I’m sorry that I laughed. It was because you said that they were round.’

‘I didn’t invent it. Ibn Batuta, the great traveller, says exactly that they have a “circular shape”.’

‘That was because he never saw them. Or perhaps from very far off, or at night, may God forgive him! But do not blame him. When a traveller tells of his exploits, he becomes a prisoner of the admiring chuckles of those who listen to him. He no longer dares to say “I don’t know”, or “I haven’t seen” for fear of losing face. There are lies of which the ears are more guilty than the mouth.’

We had recommenced our progress. She went on:

‘And what else did he say about the pyramids, this Ibn Batuta?’

‘That they were built by a sage who was well acquainted with the movements of the stars, and who had foreseen the Flood; that was why he built the pyramids, on which he depicted all the arts and sciences, to preserve them from destruction and oblivion.’

Fearing further sarcasms, I hastened to add:

‘In any case Ibn Batuta stated that these were only suppositions, and that no one really knows what these strange structures were built for.’

‘For me, the pyramids have been built only to be beautiful and imposing, to be the first of the wonders of the world. They must certainly have had some function, but that was only a pretext provided by the prince of the time.’

We were just reaching the summit of a hill, and the pyramids stood out clearly on the horizon. She held back her camel and stretched out her hand to the east, in a gesture which was so touched with emotion that it became solemn.

‘Long after our houses, our palaces and ourselves have disappeared, these pyramids will still be there. Does that not mean, in the eyes of the Eternal One, that they are the most useful?’

I put my hand on hers.

‘For the time being, we are alive. And together. And alone with each other.’

Casting a look around her, she suddenly adopted a mischievous tone:

‘It’s true that we are alone!’

She pushed her mount up against mine, and, lifting her veil, kissed me on the lips. God, I could have stayed thus until the Day of Judgement!

It was not I who left her lips; nor was it she who separated herself from me. It was the fault of our camels who went away from each other too soon, threatening to overbalance us.

‘It’s getting late. What if we were to have a rest?’

‘On the pyramids?’

‘No, a little further on. A few miles from here there is a little village where the nurse who brought me up lives. She waits for me every Monday evening.’

A little to the side of the village there was a fellah cottage, covered in mud, at the end of a little raised path which Nur took, begging me not to follow her. She disappeared into the house. I waited for her, leaning against a palm tree. It was almost dark when she returned, accompanied by a stout easygoing old peasant woman.

‘Khadra, this is my new husband.’

I jumped. My staring eyes encountered a frown on Nur’s face, while the nurse was beseeching Heaven:

‘Widowed at eighteen! I hope that my princess will have better luck this time.’

‘I hope so too!’ I cried spontaneously.

Nur smiled and Khadra mumbled an invocation, before leading us towards an earthen building near her own, and even more cramped.

‘It isn’t a palace here, but you will be dry and no one will disturb you. If you need me, call me through the window.’

There was only one rectangular room, lit by a flickering candle. A faint smell of incense floated around us. Through the unshuttered window came a long lowing of buffaloes. My Circassian put the door on the latch and leaned against it.

Her tousled hair fell first, then her dress. Around her bare neck lay a ruby necklace, the central stone hanging proudly between her breasts. Around her bare waist, a slender belt in plaited golden thread. My eyes had never looked upon a woman so richly undressed. She came up and whispered in my ear:

‘Other women would have sold off their intimate jewellery first. But I keep them. Houses and furniture can be sold, but not the body, not its ornaments.’

I held her to me:

‘Since this morning I have resigned myself to one surprise after another. The pyramids, your kiss, this village, the announcement of our marriage, and now this room, this night, your jewels, your body, your lips…’

I kissed her passionately. Which dispensed her from confessing that as far as surprises went I had only heard the ‘Bismillah’ and the rest of the prayer was to follow.

But that did not come to pass before the end of the night, which was deliciously endless. We were lying down beside one another, so close that my lips trembled at her whisperings. Her legs formed a pyramid; her knees were the summit, each pressed close to the other. I touched them, they separated, as if they had just been quarrelling.

My Circassian! My hands sometimes still sculpt the shape of her body. And my lips have forgotten nothing.

When I awoke, Nur was standing up, leaning against the door as she had been at the beginning of the night. But her arms were heavy and her eyes had a false smile.

‘Here is my son Bayazid whom I conceal as though he were a child of shame!’

She came forward and placed him, like an offering, on my hands which were open in resignation.

The Year of the Rebels

921 A.H.

15 February 1515 — 4 February 1516

This son was not of my blood, but he had appeared to bless or to punish the deeds of my flesh. He was thus mine, and I would have needed the courage of Abraham to have sacrificed him in the name of the Faith. Is it not in the blade of a knife brandished by the Friend of God above a pyre that the revealed religions meet? I did not dare to commit this sacred crime, which I praise each year in the feast of al-Adha. However, that year, duty called me to do so straight away, because a Muslim empire was in the process of being born before my eyes, and this child was threatening it.

‘One day, Bayazid, son of ‘Ala al-Din, will make the throne of the Ottomans tremble. Only he, the last survivor of the princes of his line, will be able to raise the tribes of Anatolia. Only he will be able to reunite the Circassian Mamelukes and the Safavids of Persia around him and cut down the Grand Turk. Only he. Unless the agents of Sultan Salim strangle him.’

Nur was leaning above her son’s cradle, without knowing what torture her words were inflicting upon me. This empire whose destruction she was thus predicting was the one which my prayers had been invoking even before I knew how to pray, since it was the instrument which I had always expected would bring about the deliverance of Granada.

Now this empire was there, in the process of moulding itself before my eyes. It had already conquered Constantinople, Serbia and Anatolia, it was preparing to invade Syria, Iraq, Arabia Deserta, Arabia Felix, Arabia Petraea as well as Egypt. Tomorrow it would be master of Barbary, Andalusia, perhaps Sicily. All the Muslims would be reunited again, as in the time of the Umayyads, within a single caliphate, flourishing and formidable, which would impose its law on the nations of the unbelievers. Was I going to put myself at the service of this empire, dream of my dreams, hope of my hopes? Was I going to contribute to its emergence? Not at all. I was condemned to fight it or to flee. Facing Salim the Conqueror, who had just sacrificed, without the hand of God restraining him, his father, his brothers with their descendants, and who would soon sacrifice three of his own sons, facing this sword of the divine wrath, there was a child whom I was determined to protect, to nourish at my breast, until he became man, amir, destroyer of empire, and would kill according to the law of his race. Of all this I had chosen nothing; life had chosen for me, as well as my temperament.

Henceforth I had to leave Egypt, where Bayazid and his mother were in danger. Nur had kept her pregnancy secret, except from Khadra, who had helped her deliver the baby and had kept him since the first day. What if the nurse, already old, should die, and the child should be taken to Cairo, where his identity would be quickly discovered? He would then be at the mercy of Salim’s agents, of whom there were many in Egypt; he might even be handed over by Sultan Qansuh himself who, while distrusting the Ottomans to the utmost, was too afraid of them to refuse them the head of a child.

My solution was easily found: to marry Nur and leave for Fez with the child, where I could produce him as my own, in order to return to Egypt when he was older and when his age would no longer betray his origin.

As Nur was a widow, the marriage was a simple one. Some friends and neighbours gathered in my house for a meal, among them an Andalusian lawyer. At the moment that the contract was being drawn up, he noticed the icon and the cross on the wall. He asked me to take them down.

‘I cannot,’ I said. ‘I promised the owner of the house not to touch them until his return.’

The lawyer seemed embarrassed, and the guests as well. Until Nur intervened:

‘If it is not possible to take these objects down, nothing prevents them being covered.’

Without waiting for a reply she drew a damask screen up to the wall. Satisfied, the notary officiated.

We did not stay more than two nights in the house, which I left with regret. Chance had offered it to me, and left it with me for nearly two years; the Copt had never reappeared or given me any news of himself. I had only heard that an epidemic of plague had struck Assyut and its neighbourhood, decimating a large part of the population, and I imagined that my benefactor had probably fallen victim to it. May it please God that I may be wrong, but I see no other explanation for his absence, nor especially for his silence. Nevertheless, before leaving I handed the keys into the keeping of my goldsmith, Da’ud the Aleppine. As the brother of Ya‘qub, master of the Mint, a good friend of the sultan, he was better placed than anyone else to prevent some Mameluke from taking over the empty house.

Our voyage began in the month of Safar, on the eve of the Christian Easter. The first stop was Khadra’s cottage, near Giza, where we spent a night, before returning with Bayazid, then aged sixteen months, towards Bulaq, the great river port of Cairo. Thanks to a judicious bakshish, we were able to embark immediately on a jarm which was transporting a cargo of refined sugar from the sultan’s personal factory to Alexandria. There were numerous craft at Bulaq, and some were very comfortable, but I was anxious to arrive at the port of Alexandria under the sovereign’s flag, having been warned by friends of the difficulties encountered at the customs. Some travellers were searched down to their underclothes, on arrival and departure, by over-zealous officials who used to tax dinars as well as goods.

Avoiding this annoyance, I was better able to appreciate the grandeur of this ancient city, founded by Alexander the Great, a sovereign of whom the Qur’an speaks in laudatory terms, and whose tomb is a place of pilgrimage for the pious. It is true that the town is no more than the shadow of what it once was. The inhabitants still recall the time when hundreds of ships lay permanently to anchor in the harbour, from Flanders, England, Biscay, Portugal, Puglia, Sicily, and especially from Venice, Genoa, Ragusa and Turkish Greece. That year, only memories still crowded into the harbour.

In the middle of the town, facing the port, is a hill which did not exist, it is said, at the time of the Ancients, and has been formed only from the accumulation of ruins. Rummaging through it, vases and other objects of value can often be found. On the top a small tower has been built, where there lives a watchman all day and all night, whose job is to keep a watch for passing ships. Each time he signals one to the customs men he receives a bonus. In return, if he sleeps or leaves his post and a ship arrives without him having signalled it, he pays a fine equal to twice his bonus.

Outside the city, some imposing ruins can be seen, in the middle of which rises a very high and massive column which the ancient books say was built by a sage named Ptolemy. He had placed a great steel mirror at the top of it, which, it was said, used to burn all enemy boats which tried to approach the coast.

There were surely many other things to visit, but we were all eager to depart, promising ourselves to come back one day to Alexandria when our minds would be at peace. Then we embarked in an Egyptian vessel making for Tlemcen, where we rested a whole week before taking to the road.

I had put on my Maghribi clothes once more, and going through the walls of Fez I had covered my face with a taylassan. I did not want my arrival to be known until I had met my family, that is to say my father, my mother, Warda, Sarwat, my six-year-old daughter, as well as Harun and Mariam, whom I had no hope of seeing but of whom I expected to hear news.

However, I could not prevent myself from beginning by stopping in front of the site of my palace. It was exactly as it was when I had left it, except that the grass had grown, covering the unfinished walls. I turned my gaze away quickly as well as the drier gaze of my mule, which I directed towards Khali’s house, several paces away. I knocked. From inside a woman answered whose voice I did not recognize. I called my mother by her first name.

‘She doesn’t live here any more,’ said the voice.

Mine was too choked with emotion to ask further questions. I left for my father’s house.

Salma was standing in front of the door and duly clasped me to her bosom, as well as Nur and Bayazid, whom she covered with kisses, not without marvelling that I should have given my son such an uncommon name and such clear skin. She said nothing. Only her eyes spoke, and it was in them that I saw that my father had died. She confirmed it with a tear. But it was not there that she wanted to begin:

‘We do not have much time. You must listen to what I have to say to you before you go away again.’

‘But I have no intention of going away!’

‘Listen to me and you will understand.’

And thus she spoke for more than an hour, perhaps two, without hesitating or interrupting herself, as if she had already turned over in her mind a thousand times what she would say to me on the day when I returned.

‘I do not want to curse Harun, but his actions have cursed us all. No one at Fez has blamed him for the death of the Zarwali. Alas! he did not stop there.’

Shortly after my banishment, she explained, the sovereign had despatched two hundred soldiers to seize the Ferret, but the mountain people had taken up cudgels on his behalf. Sixteen soldiers were killed in an ambush. When the news became known, a proclamation was stuck up and read in the streets of Fez, announcing that there was a price on Harun’s head. Our houses were put under police guard; the police were there day and night, closely questioning each visitor, so much so that even very close friends hesitated to associate with the outlaw’s relatives. Ever since, a new proclamation had been read out each week, accusing Harun and his band of having attacked a convoy, robbed a caravan, or massacred travellers.

‘That’s not true!’ I exclaimed. ‘I know Harun. He might have killed in vengeance or self-defence, but not to steal!’

‘The truth is only important for God; what concerns us is what the people believe. Your father was thinking of emigrating again, to Tunis or some other city, when his heart stopped suddenly, in Ramadan last year.’

Salma breathed for a long time before continuing:

‘He had invited several people to come and break the fast in his company, but no one dared to enter the house. Life had become a heavy burden for him to bear. The next day, during the siesta, I was awoken by the sound of something falling. He was stretched out on the ground, in the courtyard where he had been pacing up and down since morning. His head had struck the edge of the pool. He had stopped breathing.’

A terrible heat filled my breast. I hid my face. My mother continued without looking at me:

‘In the face of adversity, women bend and men break. Your father was prisoner of his self-esteem. I had been taught to submit.’

‘And Warda?’

‘She left us after the death of Muhammad. Without her husband, without her daughter, she no longer had anyone in this country. I believe that she has returned to her village in Castile, to end her life among her own people.’

Then she added in a low voice:

‘We should never have left Granada!’

‘Perhaps we are going to go back there.’

She did not deign to reply. Her hand brushed at the wind before her eyes, as if chasing a persistent fly.

‘Ask me instead about your daughter.’

Her face lit up. And mine too.

‘I was waiting for you to speak of her. I did not dare to ask you. I left her when she was so young!’

‘She is chubby and cheeky. At the moment she is with Sarah, who takes her sometimes to play with her grandchildren.’

They both arrived an hour later. Contrary to my expectations, it was Gaudy Sarah who flung herself around my neck, while my daughter stood at a respectful distance. We had to be introduced. My mother was too moved, so Sarah took care of it:

‘Sarwat, this is your father.’

The little girl took a step towards me and then stopped.

‘You were in Timb—’

‘No, not in Timbuktu, but in Egypt, and I’ve brought you back a little brother.’

I took her on my knees, covering her with kisses, breathing in deeply the smell of her smooth black hair, dreamily caressing her neck. I had the impression of repeating in the most minute detail a scene which I had seen a hundred times: my father seated on his cushion, with my sister.

‘Is there any news of Mariam?’

It was Sarah who replied:

‘It’s said that she’s been seen with a sword in her hand, at her husband’s side. But there are so many stories about them…’

‘And do you think that Harun is a bandit?’

‘There are rebels in every community. One curses them in public and prays for them when one is alone. Even among the Jews. There are Jews in this country who do not pay the tribute, who ride horses and bear arms. We call them the Karayim. You probably know that.’

I agreed:

‘There are hundreds of them, organized like an army, who live in the mountains of Damansara and Hintata near Marrakesh.’

But I wanted to go back to my first concern.

‘Do you really think that there are people in Fez who pray secretly for Harun and Mariam?’

This time it was Salma who exploded:

‘If Harun was only a simple bandit, he would not be pursued so relentlessly in proclamation after proclamation. When he attacked the Zarwali, he almost became a hero. But they wanted to make him out to be a thief. In the eyes of the common people, gold soils more easily than blood.’

Then, speaking more slowly, as if another person was speaking from within her:

‘It is useless to try to clear your brother-in-law. If you try to defend him you will be treated as his accomplice once again.’

My mother was afraid that my desire to defend Harun and Mariam would impel me to commit new follies. She was probably right, but I had to try. The very way in which my banishment had been decided led me to think that the Sultan of Fez would listen to me now.

The sultan was then on campaign against the Portuguese, beside Bula wan. For months I went up and down the country following the royal army, sometimes bearing arms and taking part in some skirmishes. I was ready to do anything to wring out a pardon. Between two battles I spoke to the monarch, his brothers and a number of his advisers. But why go into details when the results were so disappointing? An intimate of the sultan finally agreed with me that many crimes had been attributed unjustly to Harun, adding, in a tone of disarming sincerity:

‘Even if we could pardon your brother-in-law for what he has done, how could we pardon him for the things we accuse him of having done?’

One day I suddenly decided to abandon my efforts. I had indeed not managed to get what I wanted, but through chance conversations I had gleaned a piece of information that I wanted to confirm. I returned to Fez, took Salma, Nur, Sarwat and Bayazid, and set off, without disclosing my purposes to them, having decided no longer to look back. At Fez I possessed nothing more than a half-completed building, a ruin inhabited by regrets and empty of memories.

Our journey lasted for weeks without me revealing our destination, which was not a place but a man: ‘Aruj the corsair, called Barbarossa. I had actually heard that Harun was with him. So I made straight for Tlemcen, then followed the coast road towards the east, avoiding the cities held by the Castilians, such as Oran or Mars al-Kabir, stopping in places where I could meet Granadans, at Algiers for example, and particularly at Cherchell, where the population consisted almost entirely of refugees from Andalus.

Barbarossa had taken as his base the little port town of Jijil, which he had wrested from the Genoese the previous year. However, before reaching there, I heard that he was besieging the Castilian garrison at Bougie. As this town lay on my way, I decided to go there, leaving my family several miles away in the charge of the imam of a small village mosque, promising myself to come back and collect them after having inspected the battlefield.

It was at Bougie that I met Barbarossa, as I have written in my Description of Africa. He did indeed have a very red beard, of its own natural colour but also reddened with henna, because the man was past fifty but looked older and seemed only to be kept standing upright by the lust for conquest. He limped badly, and his left arm was made of silver. He had lost his arm at Bougie itself, in the course of a previous siege which had ended in disaster. This time the battle seemed better joined. He had already occupied the old citadel of the town and was undertaking the investment of another fortress near the beach where the Castilians were continuing to resist.

The day of my arrival there was some respite in the battle. Guards were standing in front of the commander’s tent, one of whom came originally from Malaga. It was he who ran to call Harun, with a deference which made me realize that the Ferret was a lieutenant of Barbarossa. In fact he arrived accompanied by two Turks, whom he dismissed with a confident gesture before throwing himself upon me. We stayed joined together for a long moment, exchanging vigorous slaps which conveyed all our friendship, our surprise and the sadness of estrangement. Harun first made me enter the tent and presented me to ‘Aruj as a poet and diplomat of renown, for which I only understood the reason later. The corsair spoke like a king, in short and measured sentences whose apparent meaning was trite but whose hidden meaning was difficult to define. Thus he recalled the victories of Salim the Ottoman and the increasing arrogance of the Castilians, remarking sadly that it was in the East that the sun of Islam was rising while it was setting in the West.

When we had taken our leave, Harun brought me to his own tent, less imposing and less embellished, but which could nevertheless accommodate about ten people and was very well supplied with fruit and drinks. It was not necessary for me to ask any questions for the Ferret to begin to answer them.

‘I have killed only murderers, I have robbed only thieves. I have not ceased to fear God for a moment. I have ceased only to fear the rich and the powerful. Here I am fighting the unbelievers to whom our princes are paying court, I defend the towns which they abandon. My companions in arms are the exiles, outlaws and lawbreakers from all lands. But does not ambergris issue forth from the entrails of the sperm whale?’

He had poured out these words one after the other, as if he was reciting the Fatiha. Then, in a very different voice:

‘Your sister has been wonderful. A lioness of the Atlas. She is in my house in Jijil, sixty miles from here, with our three sons, the youngest of whom is called Hasan.’

I did not try to conceal my emotion.

‘I have never doubted you for a moment.’

Since we were children, I had always given in very quickly in all arguments with the Ferret. But this time I had to explain to him how his actions had affected our family. His face darkened.

‘At Fez I was a torture to them. Here, I shall be their protector.’

A week later, we were all at Jijil. The remnants of my family were reunited, ten fugitives under a corsair’s roof. However, I remember it as a moment of rare happiness, which I would willingly have prolonged.

The Year of the Grand Turk

922 A.H.

5 February 1516 — 23 January 1517

I, who ran across the world to save Bayazid from the vindictiveness of the Ottomans, found myself, that year, with wife and child in the very heart of Constantinople and in the most extraordinary position possible: bending over the outstretched hand of Salim the Grim, who was favouring me with a protective nod of his head and the suspicion of a smile. It is said that the prey is often attracted by the fangs which are preparing to destroy it. Perhaps that was the explanation of my insane rashness. But, at the time, I did not see it thus. I was content to follow the course of events to the best of my judgement, endeavouring to start my life anew on the little piece of ground from which I did not yet feel banished. But I should explain how this happened.

Barbarossa prospered before my very eyes, and Harun in his shadow. The attack against Bougie eventually failed, but in the first days of the year the corsair had succeeded in taking power at Algiers, having killed the former master of the city by his own hand, while this unfortunate was being massaged in his hammam.

Of course Algiers was not as big a city as Oran or Bougie, and would not have covered a single quarter of Tlemcen, but it had nevertheless the appearance of a city, with its four thousand hearths, its ordered suqs, ranged by trades, its avenues flanked with fine houses, its bath houses, its hostelries and above all its splendid walls, constructed from huge stones, which extended towards the beach in a vast esplanade. Barbarossa had made it his capital, he had assumed a royal title, and he meant to have himself recognized by all the princes of Islam.

For my part, after the reunion at Jijil, I had taken to the road once more. Tired of wandering and frustrated by my experience in Cairo, which had been interrupted too abruptly, I hoped to cast my anchor at Tunis, for several years at least. I began to dress immediately in the fashion of the country, wearing a turban covered with a veil, feeding on bazin and sometimes even on bassis, even going so far as to inhale an infamous concoction called al-hashish, a mixture of drugs and sugar, which produced drunkenness, gaiety and appetite. It was also a noted aphrodisiac, greatly appreciated by Abu ‘Abdullah, the ruler of Tunis.

Thanks to Harun, who had close connections in the city, including the mizwar, the commander in chief of the army, I had easily been able to find a house in the suburb of Bab al-Bahr, and I began to make contact with several textile manufacturers with the idea of establishing a small trading business.

But I did not have time. Less than a month after my arrival, Harun came one evening and knocked on my door, accompanied by three other lieutenants of Barbarossa, one of whom was a Turk whom I had greeted at Bougie in the tent of the corsair. The Ferret was as serious as a judge.

‘We have a message for you from His Victorious Lordship al-Qa’im bi-‘Amr Allah.’

This was the title which Barbarossa had earned for strangling the Amir of Algiers. He asked me to go to Constantinople to take a message to the sultan, announcing the creation of the kingdom of Algiers, showing him obedience and allegiance and beseeching him for his assistance against the Castilians who were still occupying a marine fort at the entrance to the port of Algiers.

‘I am most honoured to receive so much confidence. But there are already four of you. What need do you have of me?’

‘Sultan Salim will not accept an ambassador who is not a poet and does not address him in verses of praise and thanksgiving.’

‘I can write a poem which you can read yourself.’

‘No. We are all warriors, while you have already carried out the missions of an ambassador. You have a better appearance, and that is important; our master must appear like a king, not like a corsair.’

I was silent, seeking some pretext to evade such a dangerous task, but Harun badgered me relentlessly. His voice seem to come straight from my own conscience.

‘You do not have the right to hesitate. A great Muslim empire is in the process of coming to life in the East, and we in the West should stretch out our hand to it. Until now, we have been subjected to the law of the unbelievers. They have taken Granada and Malaga, then Tangier, Melilla, Oran, Tripoli and Bougie, tomorrow they will seize Tlemcen, Algiers, Tunis. To confront them we need the Grand Turk. We are asking you to assist us in this task and you cannot refuse. No business that you may have here can be more important. And your family is secure. Moreover, your expenses will be paid in full and you will be generously recompensed.’

He did not forget to add, with a pirate’s smile on the corner of his lips:

‘Of course, neither I nor my companions would dare to tell Barbarossa that you have refused.’

I had as much room for manoeuvre as a fledgling being pursued by a falcon. Being unable to reveal the real reason for my hesitation without betraying Nur’s secret, I could not put up an argument.

‘When must we embark?’

‘This very night. The fleet is awaiting us at La Goulette. We have made a detour to fetch you.’

As if expressing the last wish of a condemned man I asked to speak to Nur.

Her reaction was wonderful, not that of the wife of a bourgeois which she had become by our marriage, but that of a soldier’s daughter which she had always been. And of the mother of the sultan which she hoped to become. She was standing in our bedroom, her face and hair uncovered, her head high, her expression direct.

‘You must go there?’

It was halfway between a question and a statement.

‘Yes,’ I said simply.

‘Do you think it may be a trap?’

‘Not at all. I would put my head on the block for it!’

‘That’s exactly what must be avoided. But if you have such great faith in Harun, let us all go there.’

I was not sure that I had understood. She explained to me in a determined voice:

‘Bayazid’s eyes must be able to gaze upon his city and his palace. Perhaps he will have no other opportunity while he is young. The sea voyage has its dangers, certainly, but my son should get used to them. It is up to God to preserve him or let him perish.’

She was so sure of herself that I did not dare to discuss her reasons, preferring to prevaricate:

‘Harun will never accept that I should bring my wife and child.’

‘If you comply with his request he cannot refuse you yours. Talk to him, you know how to find the words.’

At dawn we had already passed Gammarth. With the assistance of my sea-sickness I had the impression of drifting in the middle of a nightmare.

A strange city, Constantinople. So weighed down with history, but at the same time so new, both in its stones and in its people. In less than seventy years of Turkish occupation its face had completely changed. Of course Santa Sophia is still there, the cathedral turned mosque, where the sultan goes in procession each Friday. But most of the buildings have been put up by the new conquerors, and others spring up each day, palaces, mosques and madrasas, or even simple wooden huts into which thousands of Turks are coming to cram themselves, newly arrived from the steppes where they used live as nomads.

In spite of this exodus, the conquerors remain in their capital a minority among others, not in any way more affluent, except for the ruling family. In the most splendid villas, in the best-stocked shops in the bazaar are seen mostly Armenians, Greeks, Italians and Jews, some of the latter having come from Andalus after the fall of Granada. There are not less than forty thousand of them and they are united in their praise for the equity of the Grand Turk. In the suqs, the turbans of the Turks and the skull caps of the Christians and Jews mingle without hatred or resentment. With only a few exceptions, the streets of the city are narrow and muddy, so that people of rank can only move about if they are carried on men’s backs. Thousands of people follow this dreadful employment, for the most part new arrivals who have not yet found any better occupation.

The day that we disembarked we were all too tired to go out of the harbour area. The voyage had taken place at a bad time of year, since we had to reach Constantinople before the sultan left the city on his spring campaign. So we spent the first night in a hostelry run by a Greek from Candia, a distant cousin of Barbarossa. The next morning we presented ourselves at the seraglio, the sultan’s residence. Nur remained outside the portcullis, talking in low tones into Bayazid’s ear, quite indifferent to his age, his occasional groans and his untimely laughter. I suspect her of having studiously narrated to him on that day the entire bloody and glorious history of his dynasty until his birth two years earlier.

As for me, I was a few steps away on the other side of the Sublime Porte, dressed in a long silk gown studded with gold, my eyes reading and re-reading the poem which I was to recite before the sultan, which I had had to compose at sea, between two fits of dizziness. Around me were thousands of soldiers and civil servants, but also citizens of all ranks, all silent out of respect for the person of the sultan. I waited for over two hours, sure that I would be asked to come back later.

This was to underestimate the importance of Barbarossa and the interest which the Ottoman was taking in him. A page soon came to fetch me, with Harun and his companions, to make us go through the Middle Gate towards the courtyard of the diwan, a broad park with flowers in bloom, where I could see ostriches running. In front of me, a few steps away, I saw a row of sipahis, motionless on their harnessed horses. When, all of a sudden, my eyes misted over, my ears began to buzz, and my throat tightened so sharply that I felt myself unable to utter the slightest word. Was it fear? Was it the fatigue of the journey? Or simply the closeness of the sultan? Passing by the row, I could see only sparkling lights. I tried to maintain a normal pace, imitating the page who was going before me, but I felt I was about to trip over, to collapse; I feared above all that I might find myself struck dumb at the feet of Salim the Grim.

He was there, seated in front of me, a pyramid of silk on cushions of brocade, a vision expected but nevertheless sudden, with a cold look which dispersed the fog from my eyes without calming my fear. I was no more than an automaton, but an automaton which was functioning with precise movements which seemed to be dictated by the impassive sultan. Then my poem burst forth from my memory, without eloquence but without faltering, accompanied during the last verses by a few hesitant movements which cost me effort and sweat. The sultan nodded his head, sometimes exchanging a brief word with his courtiers. He had no beard but a bushy moustache which he fingered endlessly; his complexion seemed ashen, his eyes too large for his face and slanting slightly. On his turban, which he wore small and tightly wound, was a ruby encrusted in a golden flower. At his right ear hung a pearl in the shape of a pear.

My poem finished, I leaned over the noble hand, which I kissed. Salim was wearing a silver ring on his finger, rather roughly made, the gift, I was told, of his astrologer. As I stood up again a page dressed me in a long gown of camel’s hair and then asked me to follow him. The interview was over. The discussion could now take place, in another room, with the counsellors. I hardly took part. My role was to represent, not to negotiate, especially as the conversations, which began in Arabic, continued in Turkish, a language which I knew imperfectly before my stay in Rome.

However, I was able to obtain a piece of information of very great importance, thanks to a mistake on the part of one of the counsellors. ‘Nothing is worse for a man than he should make a slip of the tongue’ the Caliph ‘Ali used to say, may God honour his face! But the tongue of this dignitary was slipping incessantly. So that when the citadel of Algiers, occupied by the unbelievers, was being discussed, this man kept talking about the ‘citadel of Cairo’, even going so far as to talk about the Circassians instead of the Castilians, until another counsellor, although very much younger, gave him such a furious look that the other turned pale, feeling his head shaking on his shoulders. It was indeed this look and this turning pale more than the slips of the tongue which made me realize that something of extreme gravity had been revealed. In fact, Sultan Salim wanted it believed that his war preparations that year were directed towards the Sophy of Persia; he had even invited the master of Cairo to join together with him in the struggle against the heretics. But in fact it was against the Mameluke Empire that the Ottoman had decided to march.

As soon as the meeting ended, I hastened to discuss its purport with Nur, which was far worse than a slip of the tongue on my part. As I should have foreseen, my Circassian became inflamed with passion, not in her outward aspect but in her heart. She definitely wanted to warn the brothers of her race of the danger which was threatening them.

‘Sultan Qansuh is a sick, vacillating old man, who will go on listening complacently to Salim’s promises of friendship right up to the moment when the Ottoman sabre cuts his throat and those of all the Circassians as well. He was probably a valiant soldier in his youth, but at the moment the only thing that concerns him is his eyelids and to extort gold from his subjects. He must be warned of the intentions of Constantinople; only we can do it, since we are the only ones aware of them.’

‘Do you know what you are suggesting to me? To do the job of a spy, to come out of Salim’s antechamber to go and tell Qansuh what has been said there. Do you know that the words that have passed between us, you and me, here in this room, would be sufficient to have our heads cut off?’

‘Don’t try to frighten me! I am alone with you and I am speaking in a low voice.’

‘I left Egypt for your sake and now you are asking me to go back there!’

‘We had to leave to save Bayazid; today we must return to save my brothers, as well as the future of my son. All the Circassians will be massacred, Sultan Salim is going to catch them unawares, take possession of their lands, and build an empire so powerful and so extensive that my son will never be able to covet it. If anything can be attempted, I must do it, at whatever danger to my life. We can go to Galata and take the first boat for Alexandria. After all, the two empires are not yet at war, they are even supposed to be allies.’

‘And if I say no to you?’

‘Say to me “No, you are not to try to save the people of your race from massacre”, “No, you are not to fight so that your son will one day be the master of Constantinople”, and I shall obey. But I will have lost the taste for living and loving.’

I said nothing. She went further:

‘What substance are you made of that you accept the loss of one town after another, one homeland after another, one woman after another, without ever fighting, without ever regretting, without ever looking back?’

‘Between the Andalus which I left and the Paradise which is promised to me life is only a crossing. I go nowhere, I desire nothing, I cling to nothing, I have faith in my passion for living, in my instinct to search for happiness, as well as in Providence. Isn’t it that which united us? Without hesitating, I left a town, a house, a way of life, to follow your path, to indulge your relentless obsession.’

‘And why have you stopped following me now?’

‘I am weary of obsessions. Of course I shall not abandon you here, surrounded by enemies. I shall bring you back to your own people so that you may be able to warn them, but there our ways will part.’

I was not sure that I had struck a good bargain, nor that I would have the courage to stick to it. At least I believed that for myself I had set the limits of the venture I had let myself be dragged into. As for Nur, she seemed the picture of radiance. My reservations were of small concern, as long as they did not stand across her way. From my very detailed words she heard only the ‘Yes’ which I had not even uttered. And already, without waiting, while I was weaving the lie in my head which I would serve up to Harun in order to give him the slip, she began to speak of boats, quays and luggage.

When, on my return to the land of the Nile, the customs official at the port of Alexandria asked me, between two searches, whether it was true that the Ottomans were preparing to invade Syria and Egypt, I replied with an oath against all the women in the world, blonde Circassians in particular, which my questioner approved with gusto, as if that was the obvious explanation of the misfortunes to come.

Throughout the journey to Cairo, Nur had to put up with reproach and sarcasm. But after our third day in the capital I had to admit that she had not been entirely wrong to undertake her dangerous initiative. The rumours which were going around were so contradictory that the most utter confusion reigned in men’s minds, not just among the common people but also at the Citadel. The sultan had decided to leave for Syria, to engage with the Ottoman troops, and then, having had reassuring news, he had cancelled his expedition. Those regiments who had received the order to set off were now told to return to their barracks. The caliph and the four grand qadis were asked, twice, to prepare to accompany the sovereign to Aleppo; twice, their processions had taken the road to the Citadel in expectation of a grand departure; twice they had been told that they should go back to their homes.

To add to the turmoil, an Ottoman plenipotentiary had arrived with great pomp to renew promises of peace and friendship, proposing, once again, an alliance against the heretics and the unbelievers. This waiting and uncertainty blunted the combative edge of the army, which is probably what the Grand Turk intended. So it was important that testimony from Constantinople should open the eyes of those in authority. It was even more important that it should be conveyed in a manner which would inspire confidence without revealing the source of the information.

Nur had the idea of writing a letter and leaving it secretly at the house of the secretary of state, Tumanbay, the second most influential person after the sultan and the most popular of the rulers of Egypt. She believed that a message from a Circassian woman would be forwarded immediately to the great Mameluke.

That very night, someone knocked at my door. Tumanbay had come alone, an extraordinary thing in this town where the merest commander of ten men would never think of moving without a numerous and noisy escort. He was a man of about forty, tall, elegant, with a clear complexion, a long moustache in the Circassian style, and a short and carefully trimmed beard. At my first words of welcome his face darkened. My accent had worried him, as the Maghribi community in Cairo was well known for its sympathy towards the Ottomans. I hastened to call Nur to my side. She appeared with her face uncovered. Tumanbay recognized her. A sister of his race and the widow of an opponent of Salim, she could not but inspire the fullest confidence.

So the secretary of state sat down without ceremony to listen to my story. I repeated to him what I had heard, without adding a flourish or omitting a detail. When I had finished, he began by reassuring me:

‘It is not a matter of having a testimony that I can produce. The important thing is the inner conviction of those in authority. My mind is made up, and after what I have just heard I will struggle even more vigorously so that the sultan will share my opinion.’

He seemed to be thinking intently. A wry expression hovered over his lips. Then he said, as if continuing a private conversation:

‘But with a sultan, nothing is ever simple. If I press him too much, he will say to himself that I am trying to get him away from Cairo, and he will no longer want to leave.’

His confidence made me bolder:

‘Why shouldn’t you leave with the army yourself? Aren’t you thirty years younger than he is?’

‘If I won a victory, he would fear my return at the head of the army.’

Letting his eyes wander round him, the secretary of state noticed the icon and the Coptic cross on the wall. He smiled and scratched his head in a conspicuous fashion. He had good reasons to be puzzled: a Maghribi, dressed in the Egyptian style, married to a Circassian woman, the widow of an Ottoman amir, and who decorated his house like a Christian! I was about to explain to him how the house had come to me, but he interrupted:

‘The sight of these objects does not offend me. It is true that I am a Muslim by the grace of God, but I was born a Christian and baptized, like the sultan, like all the Mamelukes.’

With these words he jumped to his feet and took his leave, repeating his thanks.

Seated in a dark corner of the room, Nur had not taken part in the conversation. But she seemed satisfied with it.

‘For this meeting alone I do not regret having come so far.’

Events seemed to prove her right quickly enough. We learned that the sultan had finally decided to leave. His battalion was seen leaving the hippodrome, crossing Rumaila Square before going up the Hill of the Oxen and Saliba Street, where I had gone that day in expectation of a spectacle. As the sultan moved forward, greeted with cheers, a few paces away from me, I noticed that the openwork golden bird, the emblem of the Mamelukes, on the top of his parasol, had been replaced by a golden crescent; it was murmured around me that the change had been ordered as the result of a letter from the Ottoman casting doubt on Qansuh’s religious ardour.

At the head of the interminable procession of the sultan were fifteen lines of camels, harnessed with bobbles in gold brocade, fifteen others harnessed with bobbles in many-coloured velvet. The cavalry came next, with two hundred chargers at its head, covered with steel caparisons encrusted with gold. Further away one could see palanquins on mules decked out with yellow silk coverings, to carry the royal family.

The previous evening, Tumanbay had been appointed lieutenant-general of Egypt, with full powers; but it was rumoured that the sultan had taken all the gold in the treasury with him, several million dinars, as well as precious objects from the royal warehouses.

I had asked Nur to come with me to be present at the event which she had worked for. She begged me to go alone, saying that she felt unwell. I thought that she did not wish to show herself too much in public; I soon discovered that she was pregnant. I did not dare to rejoice too much, because although, at the approach of my thirtieth year, I ardently desired a son of my blood, I realized that Nur’s condition would henceforth prevent me from leaving her, and even from fleeing from Cairo with her, which prudence was commanding me to do.

Three months passed, during which we received regular news of the sovereign’s progress: Gaza, Tiberias, then Damascus, where an incident was reported. The master of the mint, a Jew named Sadaqa, had thrown some newly-minted silver pieces at the sultan’s feet at the time of his triumphal entry into the city, as was the custom. Qansuh’s guards had rushed forward to pick up the coins, in such a way that the sultan, severely jostled, had almost fallen off his horse.

It was known that after Damascus the sultan went to Hama and then Aleppo. Then there was silence. For three weeks. A silence which at the beginning was not interrupted by the slightest rumour. It was only on Saturday, the sixteenth of Sha‘ban, 14 September 1517, that a messenger arrived at the Citadel, out of breath and covered with dust; a battle had taken place at Marj Dabiq, not far from Aleppo. The sultan had taken part in it, wearing his little hat, dressed in his white cloak, with his axe on his shoulder, with the caliph, the qadis and the forty bearers of the Qur’an around him. In the beginning, the army of Egypt had had the upper hand, taking seven flags from the enemy and some large artillery pieces mounted on carriages. But the sultan had been betrayed, particularly by Khairbak, the governor of Aleppo, who was in league with the Ottomans. While he was commanding the left flank, he had turned back, which immediately spread discouragement throughout the whole army. Realizing what was happening, Qansuh suffered a stroke. Falling from his horse, he died at once. In the confusion, his body had not even been recovered.

The inhabitants of Cairo were appalled, the more so as other rumours soon followed one another about the advance of the Ottomans, who followed the route of the Egyptian army in reverse. Thus Aleppo had fallen into their hands, then Hama. At Khan al-Khalili, several shops belonging to Turks from Asia Minor or to Maghribis were looted, but order was energetically restored by Tumanbay who announced the abolition of all taxes and reduced the prices of all essential goods in order to alleviate the effect of this news.

Although the secretary of state had the situation in hand, he waited a month before having himself proclaimed sultan. That very day, Damascus had just fallen in its turn into Salim’s hands; Gaza would soon follow it. Lacking sufficient soldiers, Tumanbay ordered the setting up of popular militias for the defence of the capital. He emptied the prisons and announced that the crimes of all those who enlisted would be pardoned, including homicides. In the last days of the year, when the Ottoman army was approaching Cairo, the Mameluke sultan drew up his troops in Raydaniyya camp, to the east of the city. He also brought several elephants and some newly-cast cannons, and had a long deep trench dug, in the hope of sustaining a long siege.

However, this was not the Ottoman’s intention. After having given his army two days to rest after the long crossing of Sinai, Salim ordered a general assault, with such a profusion of cannons and such an overwhelming numerical advantage that the Egyptian army scattered in a few hours.

It was thus that on the very last day of the year the Grand Turk made his solemn entry into Cairo, preceded by criers who promised the inhabitants that their lives would be spared, calling on them to resume their normal lives the next day. It was a Friday, and the caliph, who had been captured in Syria and brought back in the suite of the conqueror, had a sermon pronounced in all the mosques in the capital in the name of ‘the sultan son of the sultan, sovereign of the two continents and the two seas, destroyer of the two armies, master of the two Iraqs, servant of the holy sanctuaries, the victorious King Salim Shah.’

Nur’s eyes were bloodshot. She was so distressed by the triumph of the Grand Turk that I feared for the life of the child she was carrying. As she was a few days from her time, I had to make her swear to stay still on her bed. As for me, I found consolation in promising myself to leave this country as soon as she recovered. In my street, all the notables had hidden their precious possessions and their flags in their family vaults out of fear of looting.

Nevertheless, that day my orderly and his donkey presented themselves outside my door as usual to take me into the city. The boy told me with some hilarity that on the way he had stumbled over the severed head of a Mameluke officer. As I did not laugh at all, he permitted himself to voice the opinion that I was taking things too seriously. Which earned him a blow from the back of my hand.

‘So,’ I growled in a fatherly way, ‘your city has just been occupied, your country has been invaded, its rulers have either been massacred or have fled, others replace them, coming from the ends of the earth, and you reproach me for taking things too seriously?’

His only reply was a shrug of his shoulders and this phrase of centuries-old resignation:

‘Whoever takes my mother becomes my step-father.’

Then he started laughing again.

One man, however, was not at all resigned. It was Tumanbay. He was girding himself to write the most heroic pages in the history of Cairo.

The Year of Tumanbay

923 A.H.

24 January 1517 — 12 January 1518

Master of Cairo, the Grand Turk strutted about as if he was intent on brushing over each holy place, each quarter, each door, each frightened look with his indelible shadow. In front of him, the heralds never wearied of proclaiming that no one should fear for their life or property, while at the same time massacres and looting were taking place, often a few paces from the sultan’s retinue.

The Circassians were the first victims. Mamelukes or descendants of Mamelukes, they were hunted down relentlessly. When a high dignitary of the old regime was captured, he was perched upon a donkey, facing backwards, his hair in a blue turban and decked out with little bells which were hung around his neck. Thus accoutred, he was paraded around the streets before being decapitated. His head was then displayed upon a pole, and his body thrown to the dogs. In each camp of the Ottoman army hundreds of these poles were planted in the earth, each alongside the other, macabre forests through which Salim liked to wander.

Of course the Circassians, deceived for a moment by the Ottoman promises, did not take long to get rid of their customary headdresses, skull caps or light turbans, and put on large turbans in order to merge with the rest of the population. In consequence the Ottoman soldiers began to arrest all passers-by indiscriminately, accusing them of being Circassians in disguise and forcing them to pay a ransom to be allowed to go. When the streets were empty the soldiers forced open the doors of houses, and under the pretext of flushing out escaping Mamelukes, gave themselves over to pillage and rape.

The fourth day of that year, Sultan Salim was in the suburb of Bulaq, where his army had set up the largest of its camps. He had attended the executions of several officers and had then ordered that the hundreds of decapitated corpses which were cluttering up the camp should immediately be thrown into the Nile. Then he had gone to the hammam to purify himself before going to the evening prayer at a mosque near the landing stage. By nightfall he had returned to the camp and called several of his aides around him.

The meeting had just begun when an extraordinary tumult broke out; hundreds of camels, laden with burning tow, rushed towards the Ottoman positions setting fire to the tents. It was already dark, and in the ensuing chaos thousands of armed men invaded the camp. Tumanbay was at their head. There were certainly regular troops among his soldiers, but it was mostly the common people, sailors, water carriers, former criminals who had joined the popular militia. Some were armed with daggers, others had only slings, or even clubs. However, with the assistance of nightfall and surprise, they sowed death among the ranks of the Ottomans. In the most intense moment of the battle, Salim himself was surrounded on all sides, and only the determination of his bodyguard enabled him to force his way out. The camp was in the hands of Tumanbay, who, without losing a moment, ordered his partisans to throw themselves into the pursuit of the occupation troops in all the quarters of Cairo, and to take no prisoner.

Street by street the capital was reconquered. The Circassians set about chasing the Ottoman soldiers, with the active assistance of the population. The victims, now turned executioners, were merciless. I saw with my own eyes, not far from my house, the execution of seven Turks who had fled into a mosque. Chased by twenty Cairenes, they had taken refuge at the top of the minaret, and had begun to fire shots on the crowd. But they were caught, their throats cut and their bloody bodies thrown from the top of the building.

The battle had begun on Tuesday evening. On Thursday Tumanbay went to set himself up in the Shaikhu Mosque in Saliba Street, which he turned into his headquarters. He seemed so much in control of the city that the next day the Friday sermon was once more pronounced in his name from the tops of the pulpits.

But his position was no less precarious. Once they had got over the surprise of the initial attack, the Ottomans had rallied. They had retaken Bulaq, infiltrated into old Cairo as far as the area around my street, and, in their turn gradually recaptured the lost ground step by step. Tumanbay mostly controlled the popular quarters of the centre, to which he had prevented access by hastily-dug trenches or barricades.

Of all the days which Allah has created, it was on that Friday and no other that Nur chose to feel the pains of confinement. I had to creep out and edge my way across my garden to call the neighbourhood midwife, who only agreed to come at the end of an hour’s entreaty, and then for gold: two dinars if it was a girl, four dinars if it was a boy.

When she saw the fragile pink cleft between the baby’s swollen thighs, she called out to me in a vexed tone:

‘Two dinars!’

To which I replied:

‘If everything ends well, you’ll get four all the same!’

Overjoyed at such generosity, she promised to return several days later to perform the excision, which she would do for nothing. I asked her not to do so, explaining that this practice did not exist in my country, at which she seemed surprised and upset.

To me my daughter seemed as beautiful as her mother, and as pale-skinned. I called her Hayat, Life, for whom my dearest wish, as for all my family, was simply to be able to escape alive from the murderous orgy of Cairo, where two empires confronted one another, the one intoxicated by its triumph, the other determined not to die.

In the streets the battle was still raging. The Ottomans, who had regained control of most of the suburbs, tried to push towards the centre, but they only advanced slowly and sustained heavy losses. However, the outcome of the battle was no longer in doubt. Soldiers and militiamen gradually deserted Tumanbay’s camp, while at the head of a handful of faithful followers, some black fusiliers and the Circassians of his personal bodyguard, the Mameluke sultan struggled on through another day. On the Saturday night he decided to leave the city, although without having lost any of his determination. He said that he would soon return with more troops to flush out the invaders.

How can I describe what the Ottomans did when they were able to enter the quarters of Cairo once more? This time it was no longer a question of eliminating the Circassian troops who had opposed them as it had been after their first victory. They now had to punish the entire population of Cairo. The soldiers of the Grand Turk poured into the streets with orders to kill anything that breathed. No one could leave the accursed city, since all the roads were cut; no one could find themselves a refuge, since the cemeteries and the mosques were themselves turned into battlefields. People were forced to crouch in their own homes, hoping that the hurricane would pass. On that day, between dawn and the last quarter of the night, it is said that more than eight thousand were slain. The streets were all covered with corpses, men, women, children, horses and donkeys, mingled together in an endless bloody procession.

The next day, Salim had two flags hauled up outside his camp, one white, the other red, signifying to his men that vengeance had henceforth been taken and that the carnage should stop. It was high time, because if the reprisals had continued for several days with the same intensity, the Grand Turk’s only conquest in this country would have been an enormous charnel-house.

Throughout these bloody days, Nur had not stopped praying for victory for Tumanbay. My own sentiments were scarcely different. Having welcomed the Mameluke sultan under my roof one evening, I admired his bravery even more. Above all, there was Bayazid. Sooner or later, a suspicion, a denunciation, an indiscretion, would hand him over to the Ottomans, with all his family. For the security of the outlawed child, and for our own, Tumanbay had to be victorious. When I realized, in the course of the Sunday, that he had definitely lost the fight, I flared up against him, from suppressed disappointment, fear and rage, declaring that he should never have thrown himself into such a hazardous enterprise, dragging the population in his wake and bringing down the wrath of Salim upon them.

Although she was still very weak, Nur sat up with a start, as if she had been awoken by a bad dream. Only her eyes could be seen in her pallid face, staring at nothing.

‘Remember the pyramids! How many men have died to build them, men who could have passed many more years working, eating and mating! Then they would have died of the plague, leaving no trace behind them. By the will of Pharaoh they have built a monument whose silhouette will perpetuate the memory of their labour for ever, their suffering, their noblest aspirations. Tumanbay has done no different. Are not four days of courage, four days of dignity, of defiance, worth more than four centuries of submission, of resignation and meanness? Tumanbay has offered to Cairo and to its people the finest gift that exists: a sacred flame that will illuminate and kindle the spirit in the long night that is beginning.’

Nur’s words left me only half-convinced, but I did not try to contradict her. I simply put my arms around her gently to put her back to bed. She was speaking the language of her people; I had no other ambition than to survive, with my family, no other ambition than to go away, in order one day to relate on a piece of glazed paper the fall of Cairo, of her empire, of her last hero.

I could not leave the city for several weeks, until Nur was in a position to travel. In the meantime, life in Cairo became increasingly difficult. Provisions became rare. Cheese, butter and fruit could not be found, and the price of cereals rose. It was said that Tumanbay had decided to starve out the Ottoman garrison by preventing the provisioning of the city from the provinces which he still controlled; in addition, he had made agreements with the nomad Arab tribes, who had never submitted to any authority in Egypt, that they should come and lay waste the surroundings of the capital. It was said at the same time that Tumanbay had brought the materials of war, arrows, bows and powder from Alexandria, that he had assembled fresh troops and was preparing to launch a new offensive. In fact clashes multiplied, particularly around Giza, making impassable the road to the pyramids which we needed to take to fetch Bayazid.

Should we, in spite of everything, try to flee, at the risk of being intercepted by an Ottoman patrol, by Mameluke deserters or some band of looters? I hesitated to do so until I learned that Sultan Salim had decided to deport several thousand inhabitants to Constantinople. At first it was the caliph, the Mameluke dignitaries and their families, but the list continued to lengthen: masons, carpenters, monumental masons, pavers, blacksmiths, and all kinds of skilled workers. I soon learned that the Ottoman civil servants were drawing up lists of the names of all Maghribis and Jews in the city with a view to deporting them.

My decision was taken. Promising myself to leave within three days, I was making a last trip to the city to settle various matters when a rumour reached me: Tumanbay had been captured, betrayed by the chief of a bedouin tribe.

Around midday cries rang out, mingling with the calls to prayer. A word was uttered near me, Bab Zuwaila. It was towards that gate that thousands of citizens were hurrying, men and women, old and young. I did likewise. There was a crowd there, continually increasing in size, and the more impressive because it was almost silent. Suddenly it parted to allow an Ottoman column to pass through, of a hundred or so cavalrymen and twice as many infantrymen. With backs to the crowd, they formed three concentric circles, with a man on horseback in the middle. It was not easy to recognize Tumanbay from this silhouette. His head bare and his beard shaggy, he was dressed only in scraps of red cloth ill concealed by a white cloak. On his feet he had only a bulky wrapping of blue material.

At the command of an Ottoman officer, the deposed emperor dismounted. Someone untied his hands, but twelve soldiers surrounded him immediately, sabres at the ready. However, he was clearly not considering flight. He waved with his free hands to the crowd, which cheered him bravely. All eyes, including his own, then turned towards the famous gate where a hangman was in the process of fixing a rope.

Tumanbay appeared surprised, but the smile did not leave his lips. Only his gaze lost its sharpness. His only cry to the crowd was:

‘Recite the Fatiha three times for me!’

Thousands of murmurs could be heard, a rumbling which became more vibrant each moment.

‘Praise be to God, Lord of the Universe, the Compassionate, the Merciful, Master of the Day of Judgement…’

The last Amin was a long drawn out cry, furious, rebellious. Then nothing more, silence. The Ottomans themselves seemed taken aback, and it was Tumanbay who shook them:

‘Hangman, do your job!’

The rope was tied round the condemned man’s neck. Someone pulled at the other end. The sultan rose a foot, then fell back to the ground. The rope had broken. The rope was tied once more, pulled again by the hangman and his assistants, and broke once more. The tension became unbearable. Only Tumanbay maintained his amused manner, as if he felt himself elsewhere already, in a world where courage receives quite a different reward. The hangman tied the rope for the third time. It did not break. A clamour broke out, sobbing, moaning and prayers. The last Emperor of Egypt had expired, the bravest man ever to have governed the valley of the Nile, hung at the Zuwaila gate like a vulgar horse thief.

All night, the vision of the condemned man remained fixed before my eyes. But in the morning, emboldened by bitterness and insomnia and insensitive to danger, I took the road to the pyramids.

Without being aware of it, I had chosen the best moment to escape; the Ottomans, put at ease by the execution of their enemy, had relaxed their vigilance, while the associates of Tumanbay, stunned by their defeat, had taken flight. Of course, we had to stop five or six times to answer various suspicious questions. But we were neither molested nor robbed, and night found us lying peacefully once more at Khadra’s house, in the cottage of our first loves.

There, several months of simple and unexpected happiness passed by. Too small and too poor to attract covetous eyes, the nurse’s village existed cut off from wars and disturbances. But this quiet existence could only serve for me as a shady oasis between two long stages. Noises from afar were calling me, and it was written that I should not remain deaf to their temptations.

The Year of the Abduction

924 A.H.

13 January 1518 — 2 January 1519

I emerged with no certainties from my long rural retreat, studded with contemplations and silent walks. All cities were perishable; all empires devouring, Providence unfathomable. The only things which comforted me were the Nile flood, the movement of the stars, and the seasonal births of the buffaloes.

When the hour to leave arrived, it was towards Mecca that I turned my face. A pilgrimage was a necessity for my life. As Nur was apprehensive about the journey with two children, one aged one year and the other four, I asked Khadra to come with us, which gave her great joy, swearing that she awaited no other reward than the privilege of expiring in the Holy Places. A sailing ship took us from the African shore of the river, half a day from Giza, towards the south. It belonged to a rich manufacturer of sesame oil, who was taking his merchandise to Upper Egypt, stopping a day or two in every town of any importance. Thus we visited Bani Su waif, al-Minya, then Manfalut, where an old man joined us. That same night, taking advantage of the silence and the fact that the children were asleep, I was beginning to write, by the light of a candle, when this new passenger called out to me:

‘Hey, you! Go and wake one of the sailors! I can see a big piece of wood in the water which will be very useful for cooking tomorrow!’

I did not like his janissary tone, nor his hoarse voice, nor his suggestion in the middle of the night. However, out of consideration for his age I replied to him without any disrespect:

‘It’s midnight, it would be better not wake anyone. But I can probably help you myself.’

I put my pen down reluctantly, and went a few steps towards him. But he called out touchily:

‘I don’t need anyone. I’ll manage fine on my own!’

He was leaning overboard, holding a rope in his hand with which he was trying to catch the floating plank, when suddenly a long tail shot up from the water, coiled around him and threw him into the Nile. I began to shout, rousing passengers and crewmen savagely from their sleep. The sail was struck in order to stop the craft, which was moored for a whole hour on the bank, while the brave sailors threw themselves into the water. But to no avail. Everyone agreed that the unfortunate man had been eaten by a crocodile.

Throughout the rest of the voyage I heard the most extraordinary tales about these enormous lizards which terrorize Upper Egypt. It seems that at the time of the pharaohs, then of the Romans, and even at the beginning of the Muslim conquest, the crocodiles did relatively little damage. But in the third century of the hijra a most strange event occurred. In a cave near Manfalut a life-size statue cast in lead representing one of these animals was found, covered with pharaonic inscriptions. Thinking that it was some sort of ungodly idol, the governor of Egypt at the time, a certain Ibn Tulun, ordered that it should be destroyed. From one day to the next the crocodiles unleashed their fury, attacking men with hatred and sowing terror and death. It was then understood that the statue had been put up under certain astrological conjunctions in order to tame these animals. Most fortunately, the curse was confined to Upper Egypt; below Cairo, the crocodiles never eat human flesh, probably because the statue which inhibits them has never been found again.

After Manfalut we passed by Assyut, but did not stop there, because of a further epidemic of plague that had been reported there. Our next port of call was al-Munshiya, where I visited the Berber ruler who governed it. Next was al-Khiam, a little town whose population was entirely Christian, with the exception of the chief of police. Two days later we were at Qina, a large market town surrounded by a wall of mud brick from which the heads of three hundred crocodiles were hanging triumphantly. It was there that we took the land route to go to the port of al-Qusayr, on the Red Sea, equipped with full goatskins for the journey, because there is not a single watering place between the Nile and the Red Sea. We did not take more than a week to reach Yanbu‘, the port of Arabia Deserta, where we berthed at the appearance of the crescent moon of Rabi‘ al-Thani, when the annual pilgrimage season was almost reaching its end. Six days later, we were in Jidda.

In this harbour, which prosperity has passed by, there are few things worth visiting. Most of the houses are wooden huts, apart from two old mosques and a few hostelries. A modest dome should also be mentioned, where it is claimed that Our Lady Eve, mother of mankind, had spent some nights. That year, the town was administered for the time being by an Ottoman admiral, who had got rid of the former governor, who had remained faithful to the Mamelukes, by throwing him out of a ship in an area infested with sharks. The population, who were mostly poor, were expecting the new government to deal ruthlessly with the unbelievers who were interfering with trade in the Red Sea.

We stayed only two days at Jidda, time to make contact with a caravan leaving for Mecca. Halfway between the two cities I took off my clothes to put on the ihram of the penitents, two long seamless strips of white material, one worn round the waist, the other round the shoulders. My lips repeated tirelessly the cry of the pilgrims: ‘Labbaika, Allahuma! Labbaika, Allahuma!, Here am I, Lord!’ My eyes searched for Mecca on the horizon, but it was not until the end of another day’s journey that I saw the holy city, and then only when I arrived before its walls. The town where the Prophet was born, peace and blessing be upon him! is situated at the bottom of a valley surrounded by mountains which protect it from prying eyes.

I entered the city through Bab al-‘Umrah, the busiest of its three gates. The streets seemed very narrow, and the houses clinging to one another, but better constructed and richer than those of Jidda. The suqs were full of fresh fruit, in spite of the aridity of the environment.

With every step I took I felt myself transported into a world of dreams; this city, built on this sterile soil, seemed never to have had any destiny other than contemplation; at the centre, the Noble Mosque, the House of Abraham; and at the heart of the mosque, the Ka‘ba, an imposing building which I longed to walk round until I became exhausted, each of whose corners bears a name: the Corner of Iraq, the Corner of Syria, the Corner of Yemen, the Black Corner, the most venerated, facing eastwards. It is there that the Black Stone is embedded. I had been told that in touching it I was touching the right hand of the Creator. Usually, so many people were pressing themselves against it that it was impossible to contemplate it for any length of time. But as the great waves of pilgrims had passed I could approach the Stone at leisure, covering it with tears and kisses.

When it was time for me to let Nur, who was following me at a distance, take my place, I went off to drink the blessed water of Zamzam under a vault near the Ka‘ba. Then, noticing that the door of the Ka‘ba had just been opened for some distinguished visitor, I hastened to go inside, long enough for a prayer. It was paved in white marble streaked with red and blue, with black silk hangings covering the whole length of the walls.

The next day I went back to the same places, and repeated the same rituals with fervour, and then sat down for hours, leaning against the wall of the mosque, oblivious to what was going on around me. I was not trying to think about anything in particular. My spirit was simply open to the spirit of God as a flower to the morning dew, and I felt such well-being that all words, all gestures, all looks became futile. I rose to go with regret at the close of each day and returned with joy each morning.

Often, in the course of my meditation, verses of the Qur’an came back into my memory, particularly those of the sura of the Cow, which evoke the Ka‘ba at length: ‘We have established the Holy House to be a retreat and a place of security for mankind, and we have said: “Take the station of Abraham for a place of prayer.” ’ My lips were murmuring the words of the Most High, as at the time of the Great Recitation, without stammering or distortion. ‘Say: We believe in God and in that which has been sent down to us from Heaven, to Abraham and Ismail, to Isaac, to Jacob, to the twelve tribes, to the Books which have been given to Moses and to Jesus, to the Books delivered to the prophets from their Lord; we make no distinction between them, and we are Muslims, resigned to the will of God.’

We left Mecca after a month, which passed by more quickly than a night of love. My eyes were still full of silence, and Nur kept the noise of the children from me. We were travelling towards the north, to visit the tomb of the Messenger of God at Medina, before reaching Tabuk, Aqaba and then Gaza, where a merchant from the Sous offered to take us on board his ship, a caravel moored in a creek to the west of the town. I had met this man during the last part of the journey, and we often rode side by side. He was called ‘Abbad. He was my age and my height, shared my liking for business and travel, but where I had anxiety he had only frankness. It is true that he had read few books, so he maintained intact a certain ignorance which I had lost too early.

We were already at sea when Nur asked me for the first time:

‘Where are we going?’

The answer should have been obvious, as much for her as for me. Did I not have a house in Tunis, where my mother and my eldest daughter were waiting for me? Nevertheless, I remained silent, wearing an enigmatic smile. My Circassian insisted:

‘What have you said to your friend?’

‘His boat will go right across the Mediterranean before going on down the Atlantic coast after Tangier. We will get off where we please.’

Instead of showing her anxiety, Nur put on a singsong voice:

‘Neither in Egypt, nor in Syria, nor in Candia…’

I continued, amused by the game:

‘Nor in the Kingdom of Fez, nor in Sus…’

‘Nor at Bursa, nor at Constantinople…’

‘Nor at Algiers…’

‘Nor in Circassia…’

‘Nor in Andalus…’

Both of us let out long peals of affected laughter, watching closely out of the corner of our eyes to see which one would be the first to give in to the shameful nostalgia of the exiled. I had to wait ten days before seeing the tears, black with dust and lead ore, which betrayed Nur’s deepest fears.

We had put in at Alexandria in order to provision ourselves, and just as we were getting ready to depart an officer of the Ottoman garrison came on board for a last inspection, something which was nothing out of the ordinary in itself. The man probably only nurtured the suspicions which his position required, but he had a way of examining faces which gave each one the sense that he had done wrong, of being on the run, and of having been recognized.

All of a sudden Nur’s son struggled free of Khadra, who was holding him, and ran straight towards the soldier.

‘Bayazid!’ called the nurse.

Hearing this name, the Ottoman leaned towards the child, brought him up to his own height at arm’s length and began to turn him round, insistently examining his hair, his hands and his neck.

‘What’s your name?’ he asked.

‘Bazid.’

‘Son of whom?’

Wretched woman, I told you so, I shouted within myself. On two occasions I had come across Nur in the process of instructing her son that he was Bayazid, son of ‘Ala al-Din the Ottoman, and I had reproved her severely, explaining that at his age he could betray himself. Without saying that I was wrong she had replied that the child must know his identity and prepare to shoulder his destiny; she feared she might one day disappear without having revealed his secret to him. But at that moment she was trembling and sweating, and I as well.

‘Son of ‘Ala al-Din,’ replied Bayazid.

At the same time he pointed an uncertain finger towards the place where I was sitting. As he did so I got up and went towards the officer with a wide smile and outstretched hand:

‘I am ‘Ala al-Din Hasan ibn al-Wazzan, merchant of Fez and native of Granada, may God restore it to us by the sword of the Ottomans!’

Completely intimidated, Bayazid threw himself upon me and buried his face in my shoulder. The officer let go of him, saying to me:

‘Fine child! He has the same name as my oldest! I haven’t seen him for seven months.’

His moustache rustled. His face was no longer terrifying. He turned round and stepped on to the gangway, signalling to ‘Abbad that he could leave.

After we were half a mile from the quay, Nur went back into our cabin to cry all the tears which she had repressed until then.

It was at Jerba, a month later, that Nur experienced her second fright. But this time I did not see her weep.

We had stopped for the night, and I was glad to leave the pitching planks for a while and walk with ‘Abbad on dry land. And I was also curious to see something of this island whose gentle way of life people had often extolled to me. It had long belonged to the King of Tunis, but at the end of the last century the inhabitants decided to proclaim their independence and to destroy the bridge which linked them to the mainland. They were able to provide for their own needs by exporting oil, wool and raisins, but soon a civil war broke out between the various clans, and mass murders bathed the country in blood. Little by little all authority was lost.

This in no way discouraged ‘Abbad from putting in there as often as possible.

‘Chaos and joy in life are a good match for one another!’ he remarked.

He knew a very pleasant sailors’ tavern.

‘They serve the biggest fish on the coast, and the best wine.’

I had no intention of stuffing myself, even less of getting drunk on my way back from a pilgrimage. But after the long weeks at sea a little celebration was called for.

We were hardly inside the door and were still looking around for a table corner to sit at, when the end of a sentence made me jump. I listened. A sailor was relating that he had seen the severed head of ‘Aruj Barbarossa displayed in a public place in Oran. He had been killed by the Castilians who paraded their macabre trophy from port to port.

When we found ourselves a place, I began to tell ‘Abbad my recollections of the corsair, my visit to his camp, and the embassy which I had performed in his name at Constantinople. Suddenly my companion made a sign that I should lower my voice.

‘Behind you,’ he whispered, ‘there are two Sicilian sailors, one young, the other old, who are listening to you with rather too much interest.’

I turned round furtively. The appearance of our neighbours was scarcely reassuring. We changed the subject, and were relieved to see them leave.

An hour later, we left in our turn, gay and satisfied, happy to walk along the beach on the wet sand, under a radiant moon.

We had just passed some fishermen’s huts when some suspicious shadows lengthened in front of us. In an instant we found ourselves surrounded by about ten men, armed with swords and daggers, among whom I easily recognized our neighbours at table. One of them spat out some orders in bad Arabic, but I understood that we should neither speak nor move if we did not want to be stabbed. A moment later we were flung to the ground.

The last image that I can remember is that of the fist which crashed down on ‘Abbad’s neck before my eyes. Then I sank into a long tormented night, stifling, shipwrecked.

Could I have guessed that the most extraordinary of my travels would begin thus?