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

Finally, they saw a faint light and emerged from the other end of the
tunnel through another oven fireplace into the underground kitchen of a house
inside the Moulay Idris sanctuary. This place was doubly protected. First, it
benefited from the law of asylum that pertained to the mausoleum. Even a
criminal could take refuge in the sanctuary of the city's patron saint, and no hand
could reach in to punish him. Second, it was a place reserved for women. In the
central reception room, young men leaned over papers.
It must have been pamphlets because they gave them to a group of women
who quickly hid the bundles under their veils and tied them to their backs with a
length of cloth, as though they were carrying babies. Then the women disappeared
into the night, ready to face all dangers. They would spread out under cover of
darkness, as inoffensive mothers whose main concern was to return home, but in
reality, they were brave citizens intending to fight to the end, having offered the
nation husbands and sons. Their lives regained meaning only when they
contributed to finishing the task undertaken. They did not know the extent of the
job, but they knew they had to break the colonizer's mirror, for in this mirror they
saw their loved ones diminished and demeaned. The colonizer's voice takes on a
strange tone when it says "Moroccan, Arab, Muslim." They knew they had to
silence this voice and break this mirror to prevent the young people from being
ashamed of themselves.
The man who seemed to be in charge looked up inquiringly as they
entered. When he learned the purpose of their visit, he spoke to Moulay Ali, "We
are going to bury our dead immediately. They are martyrs. They do not need to be
bathed or shrouded. God will receive them in His paradise as they are. We cannot
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