He was perfectly content to be their mainstay in sickness, chief comforter in their sorrow, magistrate in any serious domestic difficulty and, once things were going smoothly again, to leave them strictly alone. The frequency of his visits since I had come to Kairouan was, therefore, immensely gratifying. They reproached him playfully when they told me: ‘B’Araby, Sherifa, stay with us for ever because if you depart, it is unlikely that we will ever see him again!’ Although he was thus indifferent to most of the women in his family there were a few exceptions. He disliked his sister Jannat and never willingly went near her, while he detested Saida, her eldest daughter. Eltifa, the matriarch of the family since the death of his mother Mench, he loved and revered; Kadeja, also, was a favourite, and there could be no doubt that Zinibe shared with these two first place in his affections. She was the only one of his nieces I had not met. Shortly after I came, Zinibe had fallen ill, and in the expectation that she would soon be better, our visit was postponed from week to week.
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