Love With A Few Hairs by Mohammed Mrabet

Author:Mohammed Mrabet
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-06-10T16:00:00+00:00

36

when mina was out of the hospital and back at the house in Benider, she stayed in bed the first day. Mohammed sat in the chair facing her. Now and then he would tell her again how glad he was to see her at home. At last I’ll be able to sleep, he said.

Where have you been sleeping these two nights? she asked him.

I couldn’t sleep here alone, he said. I had a noise in my head. I had to go and sleep in the hotel.

She laughed. What were you afraid of?

I don’t know. The night I came back I had goose-flesh.

And now? How do you feel?

Now? I’m happy. The baby’s beautiful. And when he gets his name he’ll be even more beautiful. And we’ll have the party here.

Why don’t we have it at my mother’s house? said Mina.

He did not answer at first. I don’t know what to say, he told her.

What do you mean?

I want it here. I want my friends to come. The baby was born on Saturday. Next Saturday we’ll have a party.

On Thursday he went to the souq at Souani and bought two large rams. And he bought oil and white flour and almonds and raisins and onions to go with their flesh. When lie got back to the house he found Mina’s mother and her older sisters and several women neighbors already starting to make the pas tries. They were going to try a special kind called Qadi’s Turbans.

On Saturday Mohammed went to see a fqih in the quarter and asked him to go with him back to the house. There he led him up onto the roof where Mina stood with the baby in her arms, along with the other women who were holding the rams.

The fqih seized one of the rams by its horns, and Mohammed took hold of its body. Bismillah! Allah o akbar ala Driss! the fqih cried. He ran the knife once across its neck, and the animal fell. Mohammed had set a glass nearby. Quickly he put it beside the sheep’s neck and filled it with the blood that was coming out. While the ram was still living he drank it. The women screamed: Youyouyouyou! as he wiped the blood from his lips. Soon they sacrificed the other ram, so there would be enough meat for all the guests. The Sudanese slave-woman that Mohammed had hired to wait on the party pounded on the door, and they went down and let her in. On the roof the women were stripping the hides from the carcasses and cutting flesh into pieces. Then they soaked the flesh in pots of cold water and put it to cook.

Mohammed went all around the town inviting his American and English friends to the feast. He had arranged the bedroom as the place where the Naza-renes would sit together, and one end of the sala was blanketed off from the rest. The Moslem women would be behind the blanket. In the Nazarene room he had a bottle of whisky, a bottle of gin, a bottle of vodka, a pail of ice, and soda and tonic water.

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