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

her, creatures of God. She is weak and feeble, but as hard on herself as she is on
others. A real daughter of the Filali family, I swear! Proud and stubborn!
"And you, you old toad, do you even know where you come from? From
what devilish world, from what universe of perverse and evil demons?"
"What a mean tongue she has! One would think, O my ancestors, that she
had been raised on hot pepper juice instead of her mother's milk!"
The two women would have continued this dispute for a long time–they
felt a childish joy in exchanging insults–if Moulay Ali had not intervened
laughingly. With affectionate authority, he made his cousin give in. The two old
people helped each other stand up. They had to try several times before they
managed, fragile and pitiful, overcome by age and fatigue. Moulay Ali kept
remembering the sight of an old man holding the hand of an adult retarded child
who trembled and smiled with a drooling mouth and protectively smoothed the
white hair of his aged father who was panting with the effort of walking. His path
had crossed theirs, he couldn't remember where, and he couldn't help comparing
his and his cousin's present physical debility with this street scene . . .
The slave followed them, making faces behind her mistress's back to
silently express her opinion of her owner's irascible personality.
She frequently had such battles with Dada in spite of the affection each
felt for the other, or perhaps because of it.
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