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

adventurous life–his wisdom, wit, trickery, philosophy of love, and disdain for
humanity–had taken root.
He motioned for them to sit in the two chairs at the foot of the bed and
began a long interrogation, asking questions which Lalla Kenza answered
somewhat hesitantly. In truth, she wished she was far away from this place she
found disgusting and fascinating at the same time. She had never believed in
clairvoyance. Both her rational mind and her religious beliefs made her reject it.
But where reason had failed, she tried folly. The man rang a bell, an unexpected
luxury in this poverty, and the girl they had seen earlier washing dishes appeared
carrying an incense burner that was giving off an odor of death, burned spirits and
incinerated rats. Lalla Kenza could stand no more, and would have fled to escape
the old demon and his heretic practices, but Marjana gave her an encouraging
look. She told herself to be patient. The dying man recited magic spells of which
she understood not a single word–they were in Hebrew–gesturing dramatically all
the while, his eyes tightly shut. What would the young woman have read in his
beautiful eyes if they had been open?
Lies, trickery, or the immense fatigue of this farce he continued to play to
the moment of death, in which he played the role of the charlatan doctor, the
counterfeiter of hope?
He was still for a moment, and looked like a real cadaver. He shook
spasmodically, as though the forces he was dealing with wanted to make him
suffer before conceding to his wishes. He finally smiled, fell back onto his
pillows, exhausted, and said, "It is done. I spoke to the greatest, the saints of the
saints." He did not move or speak until Marjana put the fee on the edge of the bed.
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