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

many pans and couscous pots do you need? God bless our pious acts! May this
meal you are offering to the poor be beneficial to you, in this world and in the
next."
To throw the spies off, the two men pretended to be doing business with
Ahmed the One-Eyed, but they were watching the activity in the square.
Two soldiers of the native regiment dressed in thick, black- and gray-
striped wool tunics scrutinized the street, their eyes shadowed by gray turbans on
shorn heads. They stood guard at each side of the Qarawiyin Library. Rifles were
their only weapons, strapped across the chest of their short, belted tunics that
showed their muscular calves and feet shod in strapped sandals. They were
ferocious looking Berbers, all the more cruel because they had been warned
against the people of Fez who, they had been assured, wanted to rise up against
their king. These soldiers struck their fellow citizens with the butt of their rifles,
going beyond the orders they had received, zealous auxiliaries of the devil,
dispensers of death.
They were part of the spearhead force that had served the interests of
France so well since the beginning of the Protectorate. First, to save their own
skins, they played the role of indigenous police and were the worst enemies of the
people. They informed the occupier of the ways and customs of the people,
offering them up for speculation, helping the occupier overcome a nation that had
been unconquerable until then. Then, in the early forties, they constituted a troop
of interim soldiers who were sent to Europe to provide a protective shield for the
regular army. As soldiers in the French army, they participated in the French,
Italian and German campaigns. On every front, in the front lines, one saw "the
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