Maps of the Soul

Chapter 8

You didn’t forget your friend al-Sharif the tea maker, and you would have to visit him, this time with a loaf of Italian bread, the kind called panini, in your hand. There was also no harm if your ambitions extended so far as to look forward to the day when your riches would allow you to eat at Bura’y Restaurant, which was widely renowned for its grills.

The Haj sat you down beside him so you could observe every minute detail of his craft. The first task he entrusted you was to take a pair of scissors and cut out leather strips according to the marks he had drawn with a pencil. Because he didn’t know how to read or write, he had depended on his previous assistant to write down the names of his clients who bought on credit, especially the store owners who sold his shoes and couldn’t afford to pay for the shoes before selling them.

The Haj turned his ledger book over to you to begin hadn’trecording the names of new customers. While closely watching him, you were delighted to discover that he wasn’t just wasn’ta shoemaker, he was an artist. He possessed a talent and imaginative ingenuity that enabled him to place the colours and ornamental designs with precision and skill, affixing the fabric flower in just the right way to make the shoe even more beautiful and elegant. You even tried to imitate him when you were alone in the shop, but you couldn’t embroider a single thread, and you realized this wasn’t something one couldn’t learn through simple imitation, but that it would take a lot of hard work and talent.

You quickly fell into the rhythm of life in the commercial centre of the old city of Tripoli. You became one of the people of the market, one set of hands among many producing traditional crafts and goods. You no longer had to fear returning to the desert and to the life of a sheepherder, and you no longer worried about sharing Abdel Mowlah’s fate as a beggar.

However, the initial excitement of finding work and shelter soon disappeared as you felt your life become hostage to the confines of the shop, which was only four metres squared and where you spent every waking hour. You went through the daily routine of your personal chores in this tiny square. Despite that, you were pleased with yourself, because although you left the shop only to shower and pray in the mosque, or when the Haj sent you on a small errand to the neighbouring store, this tiny, narrow space always gave you a feeling of calm, safety and stability. Indeed you felt proud to belong to a profession far superior to those lowly trades that you had wished for whilst collecting firewood in the forests, or whilst you wandered around the Tuesday Market, or amongst the city’s cemeteries, associating with firewood collectors, grave-diggers, and porters.

Another reason for your pride was that Haj al-Mahdy’s shop was the most refined and distinguished in Tripoli, as it specialized in making the shoes that grooms bought for their weddings, and that brides from the upper class boasted of wearing. Thus, the cream of the city’s elite was eager to do business with him.

In a matter of days, you saw proof of that and through your work with Haj al-Mahdy, you acquainted yourself with the the upper-class ladies of Tripoli. A lady of the higher class, often of a superior type of beauty, would come to the shop wearing a sparkling white cloak tautly across her body, so tightly that it brought out the curves of her body in a provocative manner, and her heels tapping on the pavement in a sing-song rhythm as if she were playing a melody. The tantalizing scent of her perfume preceded her, and she would always have a black servant in a jilbab in tow, with a handkerchief covering her hair, and a palm-branch basket in hand, in which the lady could place her purchases.

No sooner would such a lady cross the threshold than she would remove her veil from her face to scrutinize the shoes. Out came the crystal-clear, unblemished skin and two wide brown eyes with long beautiful lashes streaked with kohl. Her eyebrows were drawn meticulously like two crescent moons glowing with a dark light, and her lips were painted in luscious red, giving her sensuous mouth the appearance of a rose kissed by the moisture of morning dew.

Usually gold earrings hung from her ears, her hands were dyed in henna and festooned with delicate gold rings, and on her smooth arms she wore tinkling bracelets of gold and ivory. She spoke with the sweet Tripolitanian accent, which was accompanied by coquettish, seductive gestures and movements that aroused a man’s desire and sent tremors through his body and heart. But these ladies aroused more than lust. They were dazzling beacons that signalled the potential refinements and beauty of the very situation of being human.

One day in contrast, Haj al-Mahdy sent you to a tannery in the Arab district known as Bab Akkara. It was a poorer district where the odour of the tanneries, which smelled like dead dogs, reached you from several miles away, and where people lived in shacks and huts made from sheet metal, and in tattered tents with their cattle. There were swarms of flies and their feet slipped in the muddy streets. The children were like skeletons in rags, urinating and defecating without shame in front of their huts. You returned from that errand feeling nauseous and disgusted with humanity.

On another occasion, the Haj sent you to a*****e on Mazzini Street, owned by an Italian who sold coloured thread and employed a Libyan assistant named Numan. When in the Italian centre of the city, you could see the huge difference between the Arab quarter and the Italian quarter. Here, you were in a park from which emanated fragrant perfumes and beauty, full of lights and colours. The pavement seemed so smooth and shiny you could see your reflection in it. Even the walls and the trees of the district exuded happiness, like the faces of its residents, and except for a few Arab workers, all of the people were Italians. They wore clean, stylish clothes and sat around tables arranged across the pavement. They walked the streets individually or in groups, men with their arms around their women, or holding their hands and walking along the flowerbeds that adorned the thoroughfares.

When the cannon atop the Red Castle fired its traditional shot to salute the flag, you obediently stood to attention and raised your hand to salute the Italian flag. If you hadn’t done so, it would be considered a slander to the symbol of Italian rule and you would be punished by law. Afraid the Italians might harass you, you started to come to these areas only when dressed in clean elegant clothes like the Italians wore, and like them you went bareheaded. During your first days in Tripoli, you were often approached by policemen asking you to leave the street because your Libyan attire was not to their liking. You would hide in the first blind alley you came to and re-emerge when the policeman left.

As you worked and were able to dress more smartly, and to know the ways of the Italian Quarter, solitary chores and pleasure strolls became one of your favourite consolations.