Orientates

BEHIND MOROCCAN WALLS--Henriette Celarie; translated & adapted by Constance Lily Morris--Macmillan ($5). Mme Celarie, wife of a French officer in Morocco, whiled away long garrison days by finding out what she could about Moroccan women. From the two books which she wrote (Amours Morocaines, La Vie Mysterieuse des Harems) Translator Constance Lily Morris, herself a sojourner in Morocco, has culled this collection of true stories and sketches. Macmillan has printed it in a big folio; Artist Boris Artzybasheff has illustrated it in sumptuous black & white.

No aphrodisiac Arabian tales, these sketches are almost feminist documents. Author Celarie tells only what Moroccan women told her about their shut-in lives. Batoul's husband wanted to divorce her, nagged her to admit she had a lover till in desperation she fell into the trap. His concealed lawyer-witnesses made the divorce. Batoul was sent away; when her son was born he was taken from her; she never saw him.

But occasionally these Morocaines turn the heavy tables: their wiles are compressed but not crushed by four walls. A woman who had succeeded in cuckolding her husband returns too late one night, to find him awake, angry, suspicious, herself locked out. Pretending despair, she says she will drown herself in the well if he does not open the door; throws a big stone down the well and hides. The husband, hearing the splash, comes out to investigate; the wife slips in, bars the door. Now it is her turn to shout abuse and call on Allah and the neighbors.

Another story: Two men claimed the same wife; the French magistrate could not tell who was lying, appealed to the woman, who would say nothing. Finally he told them to go home, think about it, agree, come back in a week. They never reappeared; he found later the two men had sold the.woman to a bawd, divided the money. The magistrate decided that "here was a solution that no Westerner would ever have thought of."

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