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

Then he reached out and grabbed the bills, hiding them quickly under his shirt
before his young relative could see them.
Since that memorable visit, Lalla Kenza had never again set foot in the
doorway of a fortune teller, whatever she might hear about his powers, nor had
she visited any sorcerer however effective his ingredients might be.
Then Sharif had come, and the slave saw her mistress's thwarted love turn
into the cruel tyranny she exercised on her second husband, taking unhealthy
pleasure in it. She saw her devilish mistress humiliate the poor man, demean him,
enrage him, and mercilessly mock his virility. She saw her lift him to the highest
peak of hope and then drop him, like a dead skin. For all the frustrations she had
had to bear since the departure of her beloved, the young woman took revenge on
this extra husband. She poured all her accumulated bitterness on him .
Blindly and passionately in love with her, Sharif played his role,
shamelessly happy to gather the debris of true love crushed. And his submission
led his wife further astray. It was a form of real entertainment for the lonely
young woman to lead this easy prey down the hellish paths she knew so well. She
wished she had ten "Sharifs" to torment. She tortured herself in this poker game
of love, winning once, losing ten-fold. She was expert in the art of fanning desire
only to kill it. She lent herself to speculations in which her own being was at
stake. She risked being beaten, raped, kicked and trampled by the very person in
whom she had knowingly exacerbated the murderous instincts of insanity.
"No," Marjana told herself, "this is not the same woman. Before, she was
beautiful and pure, loving and loved, smooth and sweet as honey. She was feline
and pliable as a willow twig. She was magical, marvelous, and sublime. Her
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