In the Shadow of Islam by Isabelle Eberhardt

Author:Isabelle Eberhardt
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-7206-1669-9
Publisher: Peter Owen Publishers

Messaoud

For the last few days a black boy named Messaoud has been serving me. He’s about 14 years old, tall for his age and too sharp for his own good. He dresses in white shirts pulled in at the waist by a belt of grey wool. His brown face is friendly and expressive, with mischievous, large dark eyes that seem to have no iris. On his shaved head, a little tuft of crisped hair, sign of slavery and also of pre-adolescence, is a comic fixture above his right ear. This bizarre ornament lends a humorous touch to his otherwise mocking features. In the pierced lobe of his ear Messaoud wears a piece of rolled blue paper, in lieu of an earring.

He’s nosy and nimble as a cat, a scrounger and liar, and loquacious like all the blacks here. In Messaoud I have a schemer for a slave. When I send him to buy some tobacco from the Jew he runs there fast enough, but on his return he cheats me over the complicated Moroccan change. He can tell I’m at a loss with the confusing coinage used here in the west, and he profits by my ignorance. When I scold him for his conduct, he begins by denying it, swearing pathetically, then ends up bursting into laughter, as if my scolding struck him as very funny.

For a cup of mint tea, he’d do anything. Once that’s achieved he becomes deaf to all orders, showing incorrigible sloth and intricate animal cunning. He dares to openly mock the other slaves, his elders, almost everyone – mindless of reprisals.

Ba Mahmadou regards Messaoud with horror: ‘He’s a black pest, a sinful child, a calamity!’ And the porter rolls his big soft eyes, trying to intimidate Messaoud with his gaze, but the boy just laughs and escapes.

When he wants something he can act humble and affectionate, even simperingly good. This exaggerated obligingness becomes tiresome very quickly, but ceases as soon as he gets what he wants. A voracious glutton, he licks the plates and gnaws all day on stolen sugar.

Messaoud loves no one, not even Blal, his elderly father, a humble farmer in Sidi Brahim’s fields. When the old man happens to come near the courtyard, Messaoud chases him brutally, with all the scorn of a well-situated domestic for the peasant. To all my reproaches on this point – which interests me, since I have a theory that in many children natural love for their parents is lacking – the little good-for-nothing retorts, grimacing: ‘He is dirty! He smells like shit! He is lousy!’

With the marabouts, Messaoud is only respectful enough to avoid blows. They scold him; he sticks out his tongue as soon as their backs are turned.

Little animal full of graces and vices; familiar daimon held by all in lowest esteem; this black boy has taught me so much about white children.

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