Summer beset the city of Fez; the narrow, damp alleys felt its full impact. The city was besieged by heat and folded in on itself. In summer the people of Fez shunned their dark, heavy jallabas, their kaftans weighted down with silk threads, their fibre or wool burnouses, and their head-covers wrapped in hefty turbans. Instead, they wore lightweight jallabas and burnouses in bright colours. But there was no escape from the intense heat. Most of them knew only the city in which they had been born or had spent most of their lives. Their only hope was to die inside its walls. Most of them were acquainted only with the parts of the city inside its walls; indeed, they knew only the quarter where their family had resided for decades. It was as if they had taken root in that very quarter along with its dilapidated walls, its lofty entryways, and its low roofs from which flimsy spiderwebs hung down, musty and dark.
This is why most inhabitants of the ancient city could not break out of the vicious siege that summer imposed on them. There was no way to get out of the city in the steaming-hot summer; even people who owned lands in the countryside hunkered down and avoided the heat in the shade of the crumbling old city.
Children felt the summer restrictions more than adults, forced as they were to spend the long, hot days crammed inside the walls of the Qur’an school, all squeezed in like lambs in a tiny pen – although, unlike lambs, they could not even express their frustration and resistance by bleating. The Qur’an school was a prison in which both prisoners and guards had to suffer. The Qur’an teacher could not allow a refreshing breeze of freedom and relaxation to blow its way into the school, nor could he let them all go at noon when it was hottest. He was to serve as the ever-faithful custodian of the children in the narrow school space crowded with pupils, where the intense heat got on their nerves, made them all perspire, and turned their young minds both lazy and apathetic. They would nod off and nap. Their tiny heads would fall over the heavy writing-slates, but a vicious blow from the teacher’s cane, on the head, face, or back, would wake them up with a start. In such a dangerous situation they would all be permanently on edge, torn between the urgent need to sleep and terror at the thought of the long, punishing cane which could reach any of them wherever they were sitting and however hard they might try to hide behind another pupil’s back.
Of course, the merciless heat that affected them all did not exempt the jurist either. However hard he tried to resist, it wore him down too; he would do his best to avoid falling asleep by shouting at the children, ‘Read your slates!’ or ‘You, recite…!’
He continued shouting out these instructions even though the children had no idea what they were chanting; was it genuine recitation, or merely a facsimile of it? When he felt himself dropping off to sleep, the jurist would resort to a mechanical gesture to ward it off by lashing out at one of the children with his cane. This would create a noise throughout the schoolroom which he believed would immediately wake them all up with a jolt. But no sooner was he back in his own corner than a listless feeling would slink from mind to body, and all that could be seen would be young bodies making mechanical movements like a clock pendulum swinging unconsciously. That same feeling affected the jurist as well. He would doze off with his eyes wide open, but as soon as he realised it was happening he would pounce on the pupils to rid himself of the drowsy feeling.
Abd al-Rahman had to endure the trials of summer, the Qur’an school, and its master during those scorching hot days, but eventually night brought with it some relief from the searing heat. He would then meet up with his friends from the Makhfiyya Quarter in its long, branching alleyways, where cooler breezes freshened the air and let the people who gathered there feel that they were alive and breathing normally. The oppressive atmosphere in the Qur’an school was a primary topic of their conversation, but Abd al-Qadir al-Rahmuni would guffaw as he told his companions how much he was enjoying the opportunity to relax, sleep, and enjoy himself during the long school vacation that lasted for three months.
‘Three whole months?!’ the children yelled back at him in an amazement akin to sheer envy.
‘The secular academy’s closed, and all my schoolmates are on vacation because heat like this doesn’t help you study.’
‘You lucky dog! Our master doesn’t even know the word “relax”. We’re reciting stuff from dawn till sunset!’
‘Ha-ha-ha!’ Abd al-Qadir’s mocking laughter made the children angry; they all felt even more jealous.
Abd al-Rahman now recalled what it was that Abd al-Qadir had whispered in his ear the first time he talked about the secular academy: ‘Ask your father to enrol you.’
‘Should I?’ he wondered. ‘Who could approach my father with such a request? My mother? Abd al-Ghani? If my father hears talk about this school that dismisses its students for three whole months, he’ll encourage the Qur’an teacher to punish me… Even so, I have to try. I must take the risk. Qur’an school? I can’t stand that merciless prison any more! The secular academy… no beatings, no canes, no summer classes. That’s paradise, not a school.’
The very thought of this school occupied Abd al-Rahman’s mind, senses, and emotions. Whenever he spoke to his brothers and his mother he constantly mentioned it. However, he avoided talking to Abd al-Ghani about it, in case he blew up and opposed the idea before there was even a chance to approach his father with the request.
As the summer months began to fade, Abd al-Qadir started talking to his friends in the Makhfiyya Quarter about the upcoming semester and how he was about to purchase books, notepads, pencils, and a schoolbag. Abd al-Rahman’s resolve began to reassert itself, and he finally decided to let his father know that he wanted to join the secular academy.
His mother was the best conduit for approaching his father. He was not used to asking his father for anything, nor was Hajj Muhammad accustomed to allowing his sons to make requests of him. And it was the mother who could be persuasive in a way that the sons could not. When it came to the secular academy, it was very doubtful that even his mother could manage it, but, whatever the case, she could certainly avoid the furious reaction if Hajj Muhammad thought the request sufficiently outrageous to demand reprimand or punishment.
Khaduj listened patiently to the lengthy and tempting explanation that Abd al-Rahman offered as he tried to persuade his mother of his desire to transfer to the secular academy, but she could not summon enough courage to promise him that his father would accept the idea. When Abd al-Rahman pressed her, she insisted that she could not undertake such a tricky task, but when he kept up his pressure, she agreed to try – if a favourable opportunity presented itself when Hajj Muhammad would be willing to listen and respond.
As the days rolled by, October was almost upon them, and Abd al-Qadir was talking a lot about his school. Abd al-Rahman now tried even harder with his mother, complaining that he could no longer stand attending the Qur’an school and having to stare at the teacher’s face there. He could no longer memorise his tablet or recite a sura by heart.
One dark September morning when heat and clouds combined, Abd al-Rahman was surprised to hear a fierce command from Hajj Muhammad: ‘Abd al-Rahman, wait! Don’t leave for school yet. Wait for me.’
Hajj Muhammad’s tone of voice sounded anything but happy. Even when he was actually feeling content, his voice could still sound serious and even harsh. Without actually looking at the expression on his face there was no way of telling whether he was content or annoyed. So, on this occasion Abd al-Rahman could not tell from the voice at a distance what mood his father was in.
Abd al-Rahman waited to leave the house with his father. He did not dare ask his father what he thought; instead, he kept sneaking glances to see if it was possible to discern Hajj Muhammad’s mood and determine why he was accompanying him to the Qur’an school.
He soon gathered that Hajj Muhammad was not happy at all; from his total silence he deduced that his father had something in mind and was formulating a plan. But he could not work out exactly what that involved. All he could do was to trail behind his father, with no idea what the goal and purpose might be. When they reached the Qur’an school, Hajj Muhammad let Abd al-Rahman go first and enter the schoolroom ahead of him. As he went through the doorway, he took another look at his father’s expression and saw that it was even more rigid and angry than before. Now he realised.
He went over to the jurist’s bench and kissed the proffered hand in all due humility. He did not notice that, meanwhile, with a simple gesture, an exchange had taken place between his father and the jurist. He only realised what had occurred when the jurist grabbed him by the scruff of the neck. He turned to the door only to see his father turning his back on him and leaving the schoolroom.
His feet were now lifted to receive fifty lashes of the cane – that being the content of Hajj Muhammad’s gesture to the jurist. A savage punishment, no doubt, but it did not extinguish Abd al-Rahman’s determination to fight, and fight again, until he became a pupil at the secular academy for children of the elite.