Amin Maalouf - Leo Africanus

‘Even if you have been baptized?’ my mother was astounded.

In reply, Gaudy Sarah told a story which had been going the rounds of the Jewish quarter of Granada over the last few days, which had finally decided her to choose exile.

‘It is said that a wise man of our community put three pigeons on a window of his house. One was killed and plucked, and he had attached a little label to it which read: “This convert was the last to leave.” The second pigeon, plucked but still alive, had a label saying “This convert left a little earlier,” while the third was still alive and still had feathers, and its label read: “This one was the first to leave.” ’

Sarah and her family went away without looking back; it was written that we were soon to join them on the path of exile.

898 A.H.

22 October 1492 — 11 October 1493

Never more, since that year, did I dare pronounce the word Mihrajan in the presence of my father, since its mention would plunge him into the saddest of memories. And my family would never celebrate that feast again.

It all happened on the ninth day of the holy month of Ramadan, or rather, I should say, on St John’s Day, the twenty-fourth of June, since Mihrajan was celebrated not in accordance with the Muslim year but following the Christian calendar. The day marks the summer solstice, which punctuates the cycle of the sun, and thus has no place in our lunar year. At Granada, and, by the way, at Fez, we followed both calendars at once. If one works the land, if one needs to know when to graft the apple trees, cut the sugar cane or round up hands for the harvest, only the solar months make sense; at the approach of Mihrajan, for instance, it was known that it was time to pick the late-flowering roses, which some women wear at their breast. On the other hand, when leaving on a journey, it is not the solar cycle which is consulted, but the lunar one; is the moon full or new, waxing or waning, because it is thus that the stages of a caravan are calculated.

This said, I should not be faithful to the truth if I did not add that the Christian calendar was not used only for agricultural purposes, but that it also provided numerous occasions for feasting, of which my compatriots never deprived themselves. It was not sufficient to celebrate the birth of the Prophet, al-Mawlud, with great poetry competitions in public places and the distribution of food to the needy; the birth of the Messiah was also celebrated, with special dishes prepared from wheat, beans, chick-peas and vegetables. And if the first day of the Islamic year, Ras al-Sana, was marked particularly by the presentation of formal congratulations and good wishes at the Alhambra, the first day of the Christian year was the occasion for celebrations which children would wait for impatiently; they would sport masks, and would go and knock at rich people’s houses, singing rounds, which would win them several handfuls of dried fruit, less as a reward than as a way of stopping the racket; again, Nawruz, the Persian New Year, was welcomed with pomp; the day before, countless marriages were performed, since, it was said, the season was propitious for fertility, and on the day itself, toys made out of baked clay or glazed pottery were sold on every corner, shaped like horses or giraffes, in spite of the Islamic interdiction. There were of course also the major Muslim festivals: ‘al-Adha, the most important of the ’ ids , for which many of the people of Granada would ruin themselves to sacrifice a sheep or to buy new clothes; the Breaking of the Fast at the end of Ramadan, when even the poorest could not feast with fewer than ten different dishes; al-Ashura, when the dead were remembered, but also the occasion on which expensive presents were exchanged. To all these festivals should be added Easter, al-Asir, the beginning of autumn, and above all the famous Mihrajan.

On the latter occasion it was customary to light great fires of straw; people used to say with a smile that as this was the shortest night of the year, there was no point in sleeping. In addition it was useless to seek any rest at all, as bands of youths roamed through the city until morning, singing at the tops of their voices. They also had the dreadful habit of drenching all the streets with water, which made them slippery for the next three days.

That year, these hooligans were joined by hundreds of Castilian soldiers, who had since early in the morning been frequenting the numerous taverns which had been opened since the fall of the city, before wandering out into the various suburbs. So my father had not the slightest desire to take part in the rejoicing. But my tears, and those of my sister, and the pleadings of Warda and my mother persuaded him to take us for a stroll, ‘without leaving al-Baisin’, he insisted. So he waited for sunset, since it was the month of the Fast, quickly swallowed down a well-deserved bowl of lentil soup — how unbearable Ramadan is when the days are so long — and then took us to the Flag Gate, where temporary stalls had been set up by vendors of sponge doughnuts, dried figs and apricot sorbets, made with snow brought on the backs of mules from the heights of Mount Cholair.

Fate had given us an appointment in the street of the Old Castle Wall. My father was walking in front, holding Mariam in one hand and me in the other, exchanging a word or two with each neighbour that he passed; my mother was a couple of steps behind, closely followed by Warda, when suddenly Warda cried ‘Juan!’ and stood stock still. On our right, a young moustachioed soldier stopped in turn, with a little drunken hiccup, trying with some difficulty to identify the veiled woman who had addressed him thus. My father immediately sensed the danger, and leaped towards his concubine, seized her urgently by the elbow, and said in a low voice:

‘Let’s go home, Warda! In the name of Jesus the Messiah, let’s go home!’

His tone was imploring, because the said Juan was accompanied by four other soldiers, all visibly drunk and armed, like him, with imposing halberds; all the other passers-by had drawn aside, in order to watch the drama without being involved in it. Warda explained with a cry:

‘It’s my brother!’

Then she advanced towards the young man, who was still dumbfounded:

‘Juan, I am Esmeralda, your sister!’

With these words she pulled her right hand from Muhammad’s clenched fist and deftly raised her veil. The soldier stepped forward, held her for several moments by the shoulders, and held her closely to him. My father turned pale and began to tremble. He realized that he was about to lose Warda, and even more serious, that he would be humiliated in front of the whole quarter, his virility impugned.

As for me, I did not understand anything of the drama unfolding before my childish eyes. I can only remember clearly the moment when the soldier grabbed hold of me. He had just said to Warda that she should accompany him and return to their village, which he called Alcantarilla. She suddenly began to hesitate. Although she had expressed her spontaneous delight at finding her brother again after five years in captivity, she was not sure that she wanted to leave my father’s house to go back to her own family, burdened with a daughter which a Moor had fathered upon her. She would certainly no longer find a husband. She had not been unhappy in the house of Muhammad the weigh-master, who had fed her, clothed her, and not left her on her own more than two nights on end. And then, after having lived in a city like Granada, even in times of desolation, the prospect of returning to bury herself in a little village near Murcia was not enticing. It could be imagined that such thoughts were running through her head when her brother shook her impatiently: