The Discovery of America by the Turks Read Online Free Page A

settlement and the Emporium would be head and shoulders, as far as stock and clientele were concerned, over Ibrahim Jafet’s Bargain Shop. Jamil Bichara, sitting on the sidewalk in front of his business, thanked Allah for having saved him when, taken by greed, haste, and the temptation of easy money, he had almost followed the advice of Shaitan: to abandon Itaguassu, marry Adma, and ruin himself.

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    The events took place when Ibrahim Jafet began to see that things were in bad shape. The prospects for the store’s balance sheet were dismal: With his son-in-law Alfeu behind the counter and at the cash register, the winds of bankruptcy began to blow. Dark were the forecasts for daily life at home: Adma, condemned to spinsterhood, had assumed command of the house and family with a harsh zeal as storm clouds threatened the dwindling moments of pleasure. The economic situation and his pleasant life were in imminent danger.
    The Bargain Shop, a small dry-goods store with plenty of customers, a good inventory, and credit in the marketplace, had been enough to serve for many years the family’s needs and the owner’s modest pleasures of fishing, checkers, and backgammon. The uncontested head of the tribe during her life, Sálua, Ibrahim’s wife, had taken charge and busied herself with the store: The notions counter saw prosperous times and brought in good savings. A handsome, sturdy woman with languid eyes that looked like those on a calendar print, she was the disciplinarian, stern, demanding and yet gentle, tender, and affable as well.
    An expert at marking prices and finding bargains, she did a little cheating as she manipulated the yardstick and the shears, laughing and gossiping with the customers, almost all women. Esteemed, respected, with a light hand in a caress and a heavy one in punishment, Sálua ran the shop, her daughters, and her husband with fine competence.
    The intellectual Raduan Murad, a persona most grataand a good friend of the family, Ibrahim’s companion at checkers and backgammon, proclaimed her the matriarch. Strict and moral, she was no less capable of love in dealing with her daughters or restraint when in bed with her idolized husband, to whom she consented in all things—consented or commanded? She would kill herself working so that he might have a morning of fishing, an afternoon of siesta and gambling, content to have him at night: every night, starting at nine o’clock, the time for putting out the lamp and lighting up her huge sultana eyes for their unflagging nuptials in the darkness of the bedroom.
    Matriarchs are like that: imposing and demanding with ordinary people, liberal and magnanimous with their favorites. Raduan Murad would explain that to his admirers gathered to listen to him at the poker table, at a bar, in a cabaret, in brothels—locales where he squandered wisdom and buffoonery. He would cite the example of Ibrahim Jafet: a unique and exclusive favorite, a regular lord!
    Sálua’s unexpected death changed the ways at home and in the store. Disoriented, Ibrahim added the nighttime frequenting of whores to his morning fishing and his afternoon checkerboard, in search of compensation and consolation. One today, another tomorrow, the girls only served to keep him far away from the bedroom in the living quarters above the store, which had become cold and gloomy ever since his beloved had left him. Even if he could have managed to blend together with one stroke of magic the eminent partners, the ablest specialists at their trade in a medley of techniques and styles and in one single dissolute bed, not even then would it have matched the renowned mastery, the universal wisdom of Sálua. A divine gift, most certainly, Murad stated, because there was no place where she could have learned it or anyone who could have taught her. Sálua’s bed, nevermore!

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    The girls took their mother’s place behind the counter, but they were less concerned with the merchandise or the customers