Manuel was not much concerned about the theoretical problem. What did fill him with indignation, however, was to see that Jesús and La Sinforosa took no pity upon their sister, sending her on errands and making her sweep the place when the poor rachitic creature couldn’t stir because of her huge abdomen, which threatened to become monstrous. As a result of these altercations there were days on which Manuel exchanged scarcely two words with Jesús, preferring to chat with Jacob and ask him questions about his native land.
Jacob, despite the fact that he was always lamenting the evil days he had suffered in his country, was fond of speaking about it.
He came from Fez and was wildly enthusiastic over that city.
He depicted it as a paradise flourishing with gardens, palm-trees, lemon and orange trees, and beribboned with crystalline streamlets. In Fez, in the Jewish quarter Jacob had passed his childhood, until he entered the service of a wealthy merchant who did business in Rabat, Mogador and Saffi.
With his lively imagination and his exaggerated speech, which was so picturesque and thronged with imagery, Jacob communicated an impression of reality whenever he spoke of his country.
He pictured the procession of the caravans composed of camels, asses and dromedaries. These last he described with their long necks and their small heads, swaying like those of serpents, with their dull eyes directed toward the sky. As one listened to him at the height of his evocations one imagined that one was crossing those white sands in the blinding sun. He described, too, the markets that were set up at the intersection of several roads and characterized the folk who came to them: the Moors of the nearby Kabyles, with their guns; the serpent charmers; the sorcerers; the tellers of tales from the Thousand And One Nights, the medicine men who draw worms from human ears.
And as the caravans departed, each proceeding on its different way, the men mounted on their horses and mules, Jacob would imitate the cawing of the crows that swooped down in flocks upon the market place and covered it with a black cloak.
He pictured the effect of beholding thirty or forty Berbers on horseback, with their flowing locks, armed with long muskets. As they passed a Jew they would spit upon the ground. He told of the uncertain life there; on the roads, earless, armless folk, victims of justice, begging alms in the name of Muley Edris; during the winter, the dangerous crossing of the rivers, the nights at the gates of the villages, while the cus-cus was being prepared, playing the guembrí and singing sad, drowsy airs.
One Sabbath Jacob invited Manuel to eat with him at his house.
The Jew lived in the Pozas section, in a ramshackle house on a lane near the Paseo de Areneros.