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

"Finally, they remembered a little side door that had been forgotten in the
general panic. Thank God, it wasn't guarded. The crowd rushed to it, everyone
pushing and elbowing to get out first, shouting and calling to try to find a friend
lost in the upheaval, running the risk of alerting the hunters. Two strong young
men reestablished order. They stood on either side of the narrow exit and let the
men out two by two at timed intervals.
"The sight of men shot dead at the doorway of one of the most sacred
places in our city made us lose our self-control, and fighting broke out without
our having planned it. Children threw stones at the assassins of our martyrs. Men
brandished knives. The soldiers reacted immediately. They fired randomly at the
protesters. Our brothers fell under the avalanche of bullets. It became a terrible
mob where patriotic slogans mixed with the 'Savior' prayer, the whine of bullets,
and the screams of soldiers who had been knifed, in spite of their guns."
The man fell silent a moment, choked by emotion, remembering what he
had seen and experienced.
Lalla Kenza seemed dazed. She was remembering hunting trips with her
father. She saw again the hounds, the men turned into wild beasts, and the prey
cornered and sacrificed to blood lust, dripping with the scarlet liquid. When her
father invited her to deliver the coup de grâce, her father's guests, taking her for a
boy because she was dressed like one, encouraged her with manly expressions.
She remembered the fierce pleasure she had felt when she saw the proud stag or
the gentle doe fall on its side, killed by the bullet she had shot with a steady hand.
Her slave stood by her side, as black and frozen as a flake of this starless
night. What other black and frozen night was she remembering? What embraces
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