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

washed wheat and oats in great quantities of water. They picked the grain clean,
made bread and washed clothes. On wash days, they bared their arms and legs,
separated the colored and white clothes into piles, dipped boiling water from
monumental cauldrons on large charcoal braziers and bent several at a time over
wooden tubs to scrub, kneed, rinse and wring out clothes that had often been worn
for weeks.
It was a time of chatter, songs, shouts, quarrels, violent disputes and
spectacular reconciliations. Barefoot, with scarves in disarray, these women who
were mostly from the countryside rediscovered among themselves a spontaneity
that was condemned by the too repressive rules governing life in the city.
Today, in this house that had once been teeming with people, the old
slaves of the patriarch were slowly wasting away in an odor of urine and
excrement that had become familiar to them. Sometimes their moans and curses
could be heard. Sometimes, in long incoherent speeches, they voiced their
madness composed of intact memories and present decrepitude. Moulay Ali's sad
gaze encompassed the whole vista of these buildings presently touched by decay.
Then he turned his back on it as one turns away from a family vault where loved
ones are buried.
The two men walked slowly toward the area of the medina where most of
the old places were to be found, beautiful and laced with cracks. Moulay Ali
walked ahead led by his memories and the unmistakable smells of leather, wood,
spices and bird droppings. He was stopped a hundred times on the way by an
embrace or a handshake. The news of his return had traveled through the city.
People scrutinized his face to learn the reason for his departure and for this late
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