THE CHILDHOOD OF NAOMI
Throughout Tetuan and the country round about Israel was now an object of contempt.God had declared against him, God had brought him low, God Himself had filled him with confusion.Then why should man show him mercy?
But if he was despised he was still powerful.None dare openly insult him.And, between their fear and their scorn of him, the shifts of the rabble to give vent to their contempt were often ludicrous enough.Thus, they would call their dogs and their asses by his name, and the dogs would be the scabbiest in the streets, and the asses the laziest in the market.
He would be caught in the crush of the traffic at the town gate or at the gate of the Mellah, and while he stood aside to allow a line of pack-mules to pass he would hear a voice from behind him crying huskily, "Accursed old Israel! Get on home to your mother!" Then, turning quickly round, he would find that close at his heels a negro of most innocent countenance was cudgelling his donkey by that title.
He would go past the Saints' Houses in the public ways, and at the sound of his footsteps the bleached and eyeless lepers who sat under the white walls crying "Allah! Allah! Allah!" would suddenly change their cry to "Arrah! Arrah! Arrah!" "Go on! Go on! Go on!"He would walk across the Sok on Fridays, and hear shrieks and peals of laughter, and see grinning faces with gleaming white teeth turned in his direction, and he would know that the story-tellers were mimicking his voice and the jugglers imitating his gestures.
His prosperity counted for nothing against the open brand of God's displeasure.The veriest muck-worm in the market-place spat out at sight of him.Moor and Jew, Arab and Berber--they all despised him!
Nevertheless, the disaster which had befallen his house had not crushed him.It had brought out every fibre of his being, every muscle of his soul.He had quarrelled with God by reason of it, and his quarrel with God had made his quarrel with his fellow-man the fiercer.
There was just one man in the town who found no offence in either form of warfare.The more wicked the one and the more outrageous the other, the better for his person.
It was the Governor of Tetuan.His name was El Arby, but he was known as Ben Aboo, the son of his father.That father had been none other than the late Sultan.Therefore Ben Aboo was a brother of Abd er-Rahman, though by another mother, a negro slave.
To be a Sultan's brother in Morocco is not to be a Sultan's favourite, but a possible aspirant to his throne.Nevertheless Ben Aboo had been made a Kaid, a chief, in the Sultan's army, and eventually a commander-in-chief of his cavalry.In that capacity he had led a raid for arrears of tribute on the Beni Hasan, the Beni Idar, and the Wad Ras These rebellious tribes inhabit the country near to Tetuan, and hence Ben Aboo's attention had been first directed to that town.
When he had returned from his expedition he offered the Sultan fifteen thousand dollars for the place of its Basha or Governor, and promised him thirty thousand dollars a year as tribute.
The Sultan took his money, and accepted his promise.There was a Basha at Tetuan already, but that was a trifling difficulty.
The good man was summoned to the Sultan's presence, accused of appropriating the Shereefian tributes, stripped of all he had, and cast into prison.
That was how Ben Aboo had become Governor of Tetuan, and the story of how Israel had become his informal Administrator of Affairs is no less curious.At first Ben Aboo seemed likely to lose by his dubious transaction.His new function was partly military and partly civil.He was a valiant soldier--the black blood of his slave-mother had counted for so much; but he was a bad administrator--he could neither read nor write nor reckon figures.
In this dilemma his natural colleague would have been his Khaleefa, his deputy, Ali bin Jillool, but because this man had been the deputy of his predecessor also, he could not trust him.
He had two other immediate subordinates, his Commander of Artillery and his Commander of Infantry, but neither of them could spell the letters of his name.Then there was his Taleb the Adel, his scribe the notary, Hosain ben Hashem, styled Haj, because he had made the pilgrimage to Mecca, but he was also the Imam, or head of the Mosque, and the wily Ben Aboo foresaw the danger of some day coming into collision with the religious sentiment of his people.Finally, there was the Kadi, Mohammed ben Arby, but the judge was an official outside his jurisdiction, and he wanted a man who should be under his hand.That was the combination of circumstances whereby Israel came to Tetuan.
Israel's first years in his strange office had satisfied his master entirely.He had carried the Basha's seal and acted for him in all affairs of money.The revenues had risen to fifty thousand dollars, so that the Basha had twenty thousand to the good.Then Ben Aboo's ambition began to override itself.He started an oil-mill, and wanted Israel to select a hundred houses owned by rich men, that he might compel each house to take ten kollahs of oil--an extravagant quantity, at seven dollars for each kollah--an exorbitant price.
Israel had refused."It is not just," he had said.
Other expedients for enlarging his revenue Ben Aboo had suggested, but Israel had steadfastly resisted all of them.Sometimes the Governor had pretended that he had received an order from the Sultan to impose a gross and wicked tax, but Israel's answer had been the same.
"There is no evil in the world but injustice," he had said."Do justice, and you do all that God can ask or man expect."For such opposition to the will of the Basha any other person would have been cast into a damp dungeon at night, and chained in the hot sun by day.Israel was still necessary.So Ben Aboo merely longed for the dawn of that day whereon he should need him no more.
