The old caïd was resting peacefully on his terrace, sipping a last glass of alcohol before going to bed. He liked his hermitage, where he could enjoy the quiet solitude he had missed so much during his years in prison.Because no one ever took this little dirt track by chance to come and find him in his little house on the edge of a customs road, just a few miles from the tarmac. And he liked it that way. He had suffered so much from overcrowding when he was in the pen that this little out-of-the-way place, far from everything, was a paradise for him. Oh, of course, there was no need to make a mountain out of a molehill, he wasn’t a dangerous assassin, just a small-time crook, he hadn’t been to Alcatraz or the penal colony, just Central, and that was more than enough for him.
Now he lived alone, surrounded by acacias and olive trees, he often went fishing, and when he came home empty-handed, he’d open a can of tuna and eat it with his rice salad. A cup of sweet coffee on top, and the evening was looking good.
Obviously, when he was a child, he had very different dreams. He imagined himself as a secret agent, an elegant James Bond sent on the most dangerous missions by ciphered messages, or as a sea captain going to the tropics to fetch precious cargoes of muslin and mahogany.
Or else, as pasha of the admiral ship of a great expedition, he would rescue a captive from the barbaresques and bring her back to port, despite the storms of the monsoon, smiling and voluptuous in her alcove draped in satin sheets. He had begun dreaming of India at a very young age, reading a report in one of his mother’s magazines about the monks whose saffron-yellow cotton robes had dazzled him.
A bit surprised, eh?
- Caïd:
- c’est le chef, le responsable administratif, le représentant de l’autorité publique.
- Pasha (or Basha) :
- un haut responsable, un dignitaire.
- To sip is “siroter” in French.
- Siroter, syrop (syrup) come from the name of a drink, sharab, that also gave us sorbet and julep.
- Alcohol,
- is the essence. It’s the same word that is at the root of the kohl of our beauties, a word taken directly from Arabic.
- Customs are “douane”
- “Douane” come from the word “diwan”, one of the meanings of which is “office”.
- Tarmac in English is “goudron” in French
- is taken directly from Qatran in Arabic.
- Bled is an “out of the way place”
- in other words the “bilad” (country) that came into French with the slang of the colonialists.
- Assassins
- They were members of the ancient Hasshashin sect, who, according to legend, took hash before going into battle to kill their enemies.
- Alcatraz name?
- a Spanish word, also directly derived from Arabic.
- Acacia
- is the thorny tree of the savannah and desert, Al Kazia in Arabic.
- Tuna, rice, coffee, sugar
- entered our shores with the great merchant caravans. Yellowfin tuna is a type of tuna that takes its name from the Arabic, and coffee is also the little kawa of the morning (or after lunch).
- A cup is also a tasse and a timbale (in French)
- Recipients used to drink coffee and syrup.
- Saffron
- is also a caravan spice, brought to Europe by the Arabs.
- Monssoon
- It’s quite simply the rainy season
- Muslin, cotton, and satin
- simple or precious fabrics, as well as other products from the caravans that went as far as China, to Zatay, to look for satin.
- Alcove
- it’s the same root as the Koubba that tops the marabouts, the dome, which has changed meaning, from the piece of furniture that covered the bed to the slightly secluded place, the hollow where the same bed is hidden.
- Cipher and decipher
- come from the Arabic sifr, which also gave us zero. And many other names in the sciences…
Marie-Aude, Pierre-Olivier and Herbert.
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