Translating Nouzha Fassi Fihri's La Baroudeuse: A Case Study in ...

" . . . and chickens with almonds--everyone loves that--and honey almond
pastries. I think that will be enough. I don't want to make this meal seem like a
feast. He must feel at home in my house. There's no question of his staying with
any of his sisters. I won't allow it. He must be persuaded to stay here the whole
time he is in Fez . . . "
She moved her bad leg. Not one muscle of her face reflected the biting
pain she felt. She had resigned herself to the pain and was no longer offended by
it. Her husband's hand fell on her knee, increasing the pain.
She lifted his hand abruptly and put it back on his stomach. He was sound
asleep. "He would do well to let himself be forgotten. At least for the time being, I
wish I could wipe from my mind the forty years I have spent with him, erase
every memory, remove the tattoo from my flesh. Anyway, he doesn't mean
anything to me. He never did. He occupied a very small place in my life, in spite
of the closeness of our daily existence."
When her father began to look for a husband, after her divorce, he said, "I
need someone self-effacing, submissive, good, and dumb who could put up with
her moods and obey her hand and foot. Poor fellow, I wish him luck. She won't
make life easy for him."
In Sharif, he found the ideal husband, better than he had hoped. Her father
knew her well. She was made of the same stuff as he was. Too bad she hadn't
been a boy. She sat up a little in bed. The sun was rising behind the shutters.
Soon the call to prayer would announce dawn to the sleeping population.
Each person would perform ablutions and pray in the cool, shadowy early
morning before preparing for a new day in the universal gestures of waking.
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