Two Brothers

Every few weeks, we make a trip to the flea market at Bab El Khemis to check out what’s new at our favorite stalls. Two of our preferred haunts are stalls manned by two brothers, Abdelselik and M’hamoud. One is on a very seedy side alley, where you literally pick your way around piles of old doors, mounds of twisted rebar, broken appliances and quasi-shelters that function much like a homeless tent village. M’hamoud runs this shop and he specializes in 60s and 70s lighting with some other oddball stuff thrown in – ice buckets, vases, picture frames, bad paintings, and the like.

Abdelselik’s stall is on one of the main routes that radiate from the market’s central T. I always know we’re close when we reach a fellow who sells old porcelain bathtubs, sinks and toilets. Here, we’ve found derelict club chairs with Deco-style bentwood arms, more mid-Century lighting, Saarinen tulip chairs, and a wolf skin rug.

Both brothers are in their early twenties and greet us by name and with broad smiles. Samuel has even graduated to a double-cheek kiss from both. Abdelselik has longish wavy hair held under a baseball cap, baggy jeans, and is usually lounging in the sun half-asleep when we come by his booth. M’hamoud, on the other hand, wears a djellabah, round wire-rim glasses and has a neatly trimmed beard. He’s slight and serious whereas Abdelselik is long-limbed and has the heavy eyelids and laid-back manner of someone who smokes a bit of kif from time to time. If he spoke English, I’m sure hiis speach would be peppered with the word “dude”.

Although Abdelselik grabs me by he hand in greeting, and upon last visit bestowed a quick kiss on either cheek, M’hamoud refuses even to shake my hand. It’s not that he isn’t friendly, on the contrary, he’s chatty and always remembers things we’ve liked, asks how recent purchases look in the house . . . it’s just that he’s a stricter Muslim than his brother and won’t touch a woman, let alone another man’s wife. Even when the woman’s husband is standing right there and he’s just kissed and hugged him in a warm embrace. The first time he shunned my handshake I was a bit put-off. M’hamoud was apologetic and touched his hand to his beard as he explained why he had to refuse my proffered hand. The beard, we’ve come to learn, is a sign of someone who takes Islam very seriously; Hamoud actually calls these men “barbes,” which means beard in French, with uncommon derision. He associates them with fundamentalist Islam, which is always a hot-button issue here.

Sometimes I like to think about the origins of one of M’hamoud’s modish plexi-and-mirror chandeliers. I imagine the piece hanging in a swanky Parisian apartment, looking down on a party epitomizing the sex, drugs and rock and roll era. I wonder if the irony of his wares registers with M’hamoud.