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

Everything went as she had wished. The house was constantly full.
Decorated china platters full to the brim with honey and fresh butter were served
to all who came. Sandalwood incense perfumed the whole neighborhood, burning
day and night in the tall incense burners inherited from their great grandfather. In
the kitchen, there was constant activity to feed the poor who crowded around the
side door of the house. Family and friends kept sending large platters of chicken
and cinnamon couscous to help the grieving family who had a house full of guests
for several days.
The psalm singers recited the Yassine and Taha chapters of the Koran in
which man is reminded of his mortal destiny. The women played their role as
mourners, as required, singing the praises of the absent one, naming and repeating
his dominant traits of generosity and nobility of spirit, calling down on him divine
grace.
Lalla Kenza went from one to another, tearless, holding her head high. "I
will cry when everyone is gone," she told herself, "in solitude and peace. I will
cry as no woman has ever cried for her husband. Other women cry for a married
life in which they lived sweet and bitter times with their husbands, but I will cry
for an empty life of repulsive tastelessness, because he was not part of it."
Sometimes her hallucinations overcame her. She imagined herself
preparing a great feast in his honor on the occasion of a return from Mecca
perhaps . . . Her mind drifted. Her gaze turned toward the doorway where she saw
him come in, surrounded by the halo of his new status of Hajj, the dust of the holy
lands still clinging to his white robe. She was going to run to him and breathe the
heady perfume of the chosen land mixed with his breath and scent in a pious kiss.
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