The Edge of the Desert

by Ianthe M. Dunbar

It is quite likely that whilst we are pitying the women of the harem for their secluded, miserable lives, they are also wasting compassion on us, as poor creatures whom their husbands value so little that they let them wander anywhere unveiled! But I think compassion is hardly the sentiment with which we inspire them. Horror and disgust are their more probable feelings. At every turn we run counter to their idea of what is seemly and in good taste; and this question alone, of the different conception of women’s standing in the East and in the West, makes mutual understanding difficult between the two races.

Though the Koran allows four wives, it is not often a man avails himself of the permission. It is too expensive, and he prefers to take his supply consecutively. He can get as much change as he likes, by the easy way of divorce. I went to an Arab wedding of the poorer classes at Kairouan, and found it deeply interesting. It was a cold clear night with a bright moon, the open space outside the walls of the city silvered in its light. It seemed strangely quiet and empty after the stir and bustle of the day; the little booths were shut, and a slinking white dog nosed amongst the shadows. From a distant café came the sound of a stringed instrument and the singing of a reedy voice. Otherwise silence. But when we had passed through the city gates, we heard a loud hum of voices. Muffled figures were hurrying along and soon we found ourselves in a crowd waiting for the marriage procession. Knots of musicians appeared and struck up their queer wavering tunes on pipes and drums and barbaric looking stringed instruments, whilst some hand held aloft a lamp which made a small radius of ruddy flame, lighting up the group below it and making the hooded figures look more mysterious than ever. From a side street came the shrill call of women shouting to keep evil spirits from the dwelling of the newly married pair, whilst nearer and nearer came the sound of the approaching procession.

In a few moments it moved past, the bridegroom in the middle of it, his head and shoulders shrouded in a thick covering. The noise woke a bundle of inanimate rags against the wall at our feet; it stirred, groaned and sat up. To the sound of shouting and drums and the intoning of a nasal chant, the bridegroom disappeared down the echoing street on his way to the mosque. Already the bride had been fetched to his home, the civil service having taken place the day before. We made a short cut there, between blank walls where the path seemed a trickle of light through impenetrable shadows.

And so we came to the house itself. Mysterious veiled figures stood motionless on the roof, like sentinels of Fate. In the gloom my hand was seized by a native woman’s, small and dry, and I was led into the house followed by my English companion. We were taken across one room, and brought to the doorway of another from whence came a hum of voices and laughter. Peering into this smaller room we saw it packed with gaily-dressed women squatting on the ground, whilst in the corner sat the bride like a waxen image. She was swathed in a robe of heavily tinselled stuff and over her head was thrown a drapery that quite hid her face. Not a soul spoke French, but we were hospitably beckoned in. It proved a matter of some difficulty to avoid stepping on the human mosaic which covered the floor but we managed it somehow and sat down in very cramped positions in places of honour close to the bride. She sat with her back against the bed, which in Arab fashion was in an alcove. So great was the throng, that our advent had pressed a small child under the bed itself, from whence first came a doleful snuffling, followed at last by a determined wail. It was as much a work of art to rescue the victim as to extract a winkle from its shell with a pin, but it was ultimately restored to the bosom of its family.

All this time the bride sat rigid and unbending as befits a modest Arab maiden. She made no sign of life, even when the woman next her raised the heavy veil for us to see her. She was a rather heavy-featured girl, her face artificially whitened, with a brilliant dab of rouge on either cheek, her forehead painted with an ornamental design in black and her eyebrows made to meet in a straight line. Her fingers had been dipped in some dark scented ointment, whilst the backs were decorated in an intricate pattern with henna and the palms dabbed here and there. Her hair was in two heavy plaits on either shoulder and she wore a coloured silk handkerchief bound over it and above that a tinselled head-dress with a long tail to it that hung down her back.

The heat in the small room was stifling. The women were all unveiled and many of them were heavily powdered and rouged, their fingers loaded with rings and wearing necklaces and earrings. Some were dressed in queer décolleté dresses reminding one of fashions of twenty years ago, with tight pointed bodices, much be-sequined and trimmed and with a kind of gilt epaulettes on the shoulders. Everyone chattered hard, small babies cried, outside the shouting and noise of drums went on, and the atmosphere grew thicker and thicker with the odour of packed humanity, scent and powder, and the sweet musty smell of garments that had been laid away in aromatic herbs. Most of the women were of a warm olive colouring, with beautiful long dark eyes, and one or two were as fair as English brunettes with a natural carnation in their cheeks.

Amongst them I made out the mother of the bride, dressed in shabby black. She had a fine worn face, with features that showed more mind than the rest of the crowd, and dark eyes tear-stained in their hollowed sockets. The cheekbones were high, the nose short and straight, and the sad mouth drooped at the corners. It was the face of a woman who could think and suffer, and stood out amongst the comely crowd in the same way that her black draperies ‘told’ against their gay clothes. She reminded me of the Virgin in the Pietà of Francia in the National Gallery. At times she wept softly with eyes that seemed already burnt out with sorrow, drying her tears with a fold of her veil. I longed to know Arabic, that I might speak to her. Amongst foreigners whose language one does not know and having no mutual tongue for comprehension, one is as deaf and dumb, all power of observation and understanding centred in sight. So, I suppose, must a deaf mute pass through the world, striving to participate in the brotherhood of humanity, watching for a gleam here, a glance there, to unlock the perpetual riddle.

At last the bridegroom was approaching.

The women began to leave for the larger room where we thankfully followed. But there we were not much better off, as in a moment a feminine crowd closed in upon us in a frenzy of friendly curiosity. It was like stepping into a cageful of monkeys. They seized our arms, ran their hands over us, exclaiming and gesticulating, fingered our blouses, our ornaments, and trying to pull off our hats. It was only the arrival of the bridegroom that averted their attention. He was brought by another way into the room, still veiled, and then the bride was brought to him and amidst much laughter and shouting his head covering was removed. After this they were conducted to the door of another bedroom, stepping over the sill of which each tried to step on the other’s foot, the one who succeeds being supposed to have the predominance in their future married life. The door was shut on them, “et voilà tout” as a small Arab boy remarked to me, glad to air his slender French.