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

The authorities vainly tried to break the strike that the people of the city
observed with unanimous solidarity. The forces of order carried out severe
reprisals and mass arrests. Prisons were filled with political prisoners. Dozens of
men were taken to unknown destinations. Sons were torn from their mother's
arms. Husbands were taken from their beds at gunpoint. Young people were
beaten and molested while their helpless parents looked on. Houses were
ransacked, and goods looted. The soldiers violated the privacy of citizens and
trampled their most basic civil rights. The city became an animal market where
the shouts of dealers mingled with the cries of mistreated livestock.
No one was spared, neither rich nor poor, neither young nor old.
Dada went around to the neighboring houses to convey her mistress's
sympathies to distraught families. The Berradas, their next door neighbors, had
seen their two sons taken away. The mother, Lalla R'kia, was slapping her thighs
with her palms, her clothes in disarray, her scarf awry on her disheveled hair, kohl
mixed with tears running down her cheeks. She had followed the kidnappers,
pleading with them to take care of her dear children, especially the youngest
whose health was fragile. "Oh, sirs, I was older than forty when I had him, and
day after day and from one year to the next I fought to keep death from stealing
him away from me. I nursed him back to health by giving him dishes prepared
especially for him, with meat broth--nothing better than that for anemia,
gentlemen--and dates stuffed with anise--that will bring your blood pressure up in
a wink--and raisins crushed in onion juice. I held him close to me to keep him
warm. I spent whole nights keeping alive the small flame that threatened to go out
at any moment. I rocked him in my arms and bathed him in my love as the sun
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