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

covered with a fringed shawl. These fleshy girls offering their charms to view,
these girls whose free manner of walking, rouged lips, and foreign-style clothing
imitated the inaccessible, deified foreign women living in the new city.
The two young women walked in this quarter where the pestilential odor
of fish caught in their throats wherever they went, where the trash cans spilled
their intestines onto the sidewalks and even into the street, where bearded rabbis
and psalm singers made them tremble with fear at the thought of dying on the spot
and gave them the urge to feverishly recite their profession of faith to protect
them against any eventuality: "There is no God but God and Mohammed is His
prophet."
They practically ran, hanging on to one another, holding their veils firmly
over their quivering noses, convinced that evil spirits were pushing their
destination further into the distance. Finally, the slave pulled her mistress's sleeve,
and the two women ducked into an old two-story building. The façade was
painted blue and had small windows with iron grating, like all the neighboring
houses. They passed through a dark entryway and emerged into a small patio
similar to those of modest traditional Muslim homes. They saw a Jewish woman
of indeterminate age sewing in a corner of the patio. She was dressed like a
gypsy, wearing a long skirt and a colorful blouse. Her stringy, bleached hair fell
to her shoulders. Next to her a child cried in a wooden cradle even though the
woman was rocking it with the tips of her bare toes.
A girl wearing a large apron was washing dishes at a wall fountain. She
didn't even turn around when she heard the voices of strangers.
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