Insal’s fetus, lying motionless in a little dish on the dining table, was the most extreme revenge she could conceive of, and in years to come she’d boast to one and all that she had put his son on a plate, so that it would be the first thing he saw when he came through the door. She would declare that she had never regretted what she’d done, no matter how long ago it had all been. “Insal did wrong,” she would say, “and he had to be punished.”
The pair of them left the house, Leila thinking nothing. Many strings had been severed in an instant. The fetus was no longer her son. Insal was not her caring husband. This was not her home any more. Her mother hugged her, clasping her tighter with every step to help her walk, restoring her rights of ownership, and transmitting to her the great energy of her hatred. Insal doesn’t deserve to be living with you. Insal will wear himself out trailing after you, and he’ll never see hide nor hair of you again. Insal’s insane, and he lost his kid because he neglected you. And Leila wondered if this was unfair to Insal. But the hatred stopped her mouth.
The apartment was deserted.
Insal turned the key and pushed the door open. He let Zahra down off his arm and she walked forward a few paces, then caught the metallic smell filling the apartment, the strong reek of blood she’d identified just days before. Striding to the bedroom, Insal called Leila’s name, while Zahra clambered onto one of the chairs around the dining table and stood up to find herself facing the little dish. There was no one in the bedroom, and as Insal came back out he saw Zahra attempting to touch the fetus with her little fingers. Her forefinger came away with a fleck of the soft matter and she lifted it to her mouth to taste the musty liquid. Insal stopped dead. Tried to understand what this was. When Zahra said, “Is this dates?” he grabbed the dish and brought it up to his face. What was this tender red lump lying there in the dish? He wanted to know. And even before he’d fully grasped what had happened, he knew that what lay in wait for Zahra would be terrible indeed.
Insal moved through the apartment as though drugged, unaware of his surroundings but still carrying out his daily routine. He fed Zahra and changed her clothes with a beginner’s clumsiness. He watched her as she began to play with a little ball, but the fetus lying in the dish was distracting him. Every so often, he’d go over and stare at it. He couldn’t believe that this was his child.
When she answered his call, Leila’s mother was straight to the point: “Your son’s on the table. Eat him.”
He kept quiet, didn’t utter a sound, and she fell silent, waiting for just one word so that she could rail at him. When she heard nothing, she said, “Eat your son. You hear me? Eat your son!”
Insal lay beside Zahra until she fell asleep.
When he’d realized what was in the dish, Insal had been stupefied.
“No, it’s not dates,” he’d answered her, and she’d asked, “What is it then?”
The little corpse couldn’t stay like that forever. Ants might swarm and eat it. He wrapped the body in a little blanket that he’d bought especially for the newborn, placed the bundle in a plastic bag, and went out.
There was hardly anyone in the street, just the odd pedestrian here and there. People had grown tired of standing around questioning everyone who walked past. He went on, ordering his thoughts. Where would he go? What would he do with the body?
About a hundred meters away, there was a large park. Maybe he could reach through the railings and dig a little hole, then lay the bundle in it and cover it with soil? The body would lie amid the trees and flowers. But his arm would only reach a few centimeters into the soil. He’d be buried near the surface and that was a risk. A dog might dig down and eat him. No, the park was no good.
Halfway down the street, another park began, running down to the overpass. Perhaps he could bury the body in that park. There was no fence and he’d be able to get to a much more secure spot, dig deep, and bid the body a safe farewell. But dogs still posed a threat. That pack staggering down the street could still dig. The dogs were the only thing Insal was afraid of.
So where then? In the vast heap of garbage, like other people? Whenever he heard of someone dumping their child in the trash, he’d be astonished. It was claimed that the new towns—the great city’s far-flung satellite suburbs whose names were all variations on the one event (October 6th, The Crossing, The Tenth of Ramadan: names of victory)—were home to whores who were always falling pregnant and giving birth. Insal had heard of one girl who’d chucked her baby out of the window the minute she’d delivered him, dropping him expertly on the garbage pile beneath. She’d had a lot of practice: she threw her trash out of the window every day. He’d heard of the notorious whore from October 6th City who’d broken down in tears before throwing her newborn away. The baby had still been alive. Maybe her heart hadn’t let her dump him while he’d lived and breathed, so she’d set him on the sidewalk and sat on him until he was dead, then tossed him in the cart. A woman walking by had been suspicious. She had reached into the cart and come out holding the baby’s hand. People had gathered around and shouted, and the whore had said, “Even cats eat their young.”
Insal wasn’t going to sit on his fetus. He walked on through the darkness, the little dish with its tiny red contents a vision hovering before him, swelling until it was as wide as the street itself. On he walked, and however far he went the dish went with him, and then it swelled further until it covered the whole neighborhood. Insal could not go on. Walking was exhausting, and the body weighed heavy in his hand. He sat down on the sidewalk, and beside him sat the whore, a white bundle like his own beneath her rump.
“Next time, I’ll eat it,” she said.
The dog pack went by. They were walking down the empty center of the street. Not one of them was following a scent—they just stopped, staring at him and the bundle resting on his thigh. This was the first time they’d come across a tiny body accompanied by an adult male. They were alarmed; their howls might scare him, might anger him. Then the dog man arrived, pulling his cart, and came to a halt before Insal.
Insal saw the bodies heaped in the cart, some featureless, all with visible wounds, some covered with scraps of newspaper, and some without anything to hide them. The cart wasn’t yet full and it rested lightly in the dog man’s hands. Insal estimated the distance to the tree in the neighboring street. He looked at the whore next to him and saw her lips moving, but no sound came out. He turned back to face the dog man. He was sweating despite the cold, his hands huge on his scrawny frame, and his clipped hair was uncombed—it looked like he’d just gotten out of bed. The dog man drummed his fingers against the cart’s shaft, tapping the keys of a piano, awaiting Insal’s move. It occurred to Insal that the dog man passing by was no coincidence—that he’d come looking for a body that could find no grave.
He raised the hand that held his child in a salute, thanking the dog man, who waved goodbye. Insal’s gaze fastened on the cart as it lurched away.
The dogs barked: “Another dead one! Here’s another! He must be buried! Over there, by the big building! A young man’s body! Just died! He must be buried!”
AH 455
I WAS IN THE MARKETPLACE when I heard that Sakhr al-Khazarji had died.
We expected him to die a young man. All who saw him as a child expected it. The southerners in particular were in accord. They said that he was marked, a Son of Death. They said he would die a boy and would not see out his twentieth year; and when he turned twenty and that year went by, their disquiet grew. They said that his crossing the threshold of his twentieth year would bring him to a terrible end. His death would be a sign for our times, so they said, and thus it became an event that all awaited. Women wept for sorrow at what would befall him, and men grieved at the sight of him, and some went further and said that what awaited him was an injustice, yet not one of them truly knew what that thing was. But a strange knowing laid its shadow over us all. We knew that the day of his death would be a great day. The people would repeat this at all their gathering
s, and the young man would hear them and with every passing day become more resigned. He became as the angels—without sin.
All were asking, “Where is the body?” and the question moved among the people until each man was inquiring of his fellow, “Where is Sakhr?” to which that man would answer with the same question, “Where is Sakhr?” and in this manner we became a throng of fools, repeating the question over and over. Then the people began to weep and wail in the streets, and when I heard the lamentations of a woman carrying her infant girl, the daughter patting the weeping woman’s cheek to reassure her, I took fright, and I said that today was a terrible day, more terrible perhaps than any we had known before, and I bethought myself to pray that God might lift from us the trials of this day, yet I knew that God would answer no prayers.
And I knew that I was dead that day.
I left the neighborhood in a daze, not knowing which road I walked, my chest paining me even though I felt myself to be hollow, without innards. I was reeling from the pain, and in the streets I saw men reeling, too, and some lay on the ground, exhausted or dead, motionless or twitching, while others fell without warning where they stood, and I knew that they had died that very instant.
Then I heard the people saying that Sakhr al-Khazarji was laid out for burial at the foot of Muqattam and for some minutes I stood bewildered, for I had forgotten in which direction the cliff lay. I had forgotten which road I must walk to get there, and I was alarmed by the strength of the wind, by a whistling that was everywhere yet whose source I did not know, by a yellow dust that filled the air around me and which I breathed in. Then I spied people walking with great deliberation all in one direction, and I asked them where it was that they went, and they said that they made for Muqattam, and I walked with them.
I sought shelter in the houses’ shade. I walked pressed to the walls, taking refuge in their lee from the wind and the dust, and I blocked my ears with my fingers, affrighted at the ceaseless whistling, and though the sun had vanished behind a yellow veil the air was hot and stifling, and shade was scarce.
And I looked about me and saw the people were consumed by their fear of what befell us, as I was. The houses cast a short and insubstantial shade upon them, though the sun’s rays were quite disappeared, and I wondered to see these shadows thrown against the walls even though the sun was in its setting, and I knew that I should not see the terror to come.
Then the number of people grew, from dozens to hundreds, an ocean of people before me, and another ocean behind, and myself in their midst, the fear claiming my body limb by limb. And one of the people cried out, “Sakhr is dead, the Son of Death has died!” and one by one the people took up his cry, and the cry became a chant broken every minute by the sobbing of the men. All were shouting, “Sakhr al-Khazarji is dead, the Son of Death has died.”
For the first time, I saw women in the street, wracked with grief and weeping. They seemed young and slight, with heads bowed and their eyes filled with tears. Then they grew more numerous, all of them dressed in black, rivers of women flowing into the ocean of men like an arrow that pierces the neck and passes through it. They were much faster than us, much fleeter—or perhaps it was that they grieved more. I had not known that grief could make man fleet.
And one of our number would look toward the river of women, and he would weep and shield his eyes with his palm, as though concealing the world from his sight, as though afraid to gaze too long on the women’s sorrow lest the sorrow claim him and he weep. As though he did not weep himself. We were proud, but the weeping slew us.
As I walked along with the people, my chest grew heavy and the dust gathered in my hollow trunk. All of a sudden, my heartbeat quickened—I was surely affected by the dust and fear—and everywhere around me lay those struck dead from terror. I slowed my pace and turned to the side of the road, where I sat on the ground with my back against one of the houses.
Then I tried to rise, but my body would not move, and I looked about me in search of aid, but the people were concerned only with what was happening. They stampeded onward, noticing nothing and nobody. I felt a great thirst and my throat did dry so quickly it were as though all the water in my body had boiled away, and when the door of the house where I sat opened and women came out, I raised up my arm and with all my strength cried, “Water!” but my voice was weak and went unheard.
The people walked along, all headed for the Barqiya Gate near the foot of Muqattam, and I was with them, running when they ran and wailing when they wailed. Muqattam showed clear against the horizon as the crowd encountered the men of the guard at the far end of the street. The guard tried to turn them aside. They beat them with staves so that they would fall back, and some of them did fall back, afraid, then they pressed forward once more, pushed on by the mass at their backs, and I was held fast in their midst, wanting to go on to Muqattam, fearing the guard and defying them, with the mob around me.
Then the guard brandished swords and lances in the faces of the people to cow them, each officer waving his sword in the air and making it dance that the hesitant crowd might see the sun’s rays glimmer on its blade, but the people continued to gather until there was but a fabric’s thickness between each man and his fellow. And as the crush grew, those at the front were forced forward toward the guard, for all that they struggled and pushed back at those in the rear, and of a sudden we found the air filled with dust, and the wind—wailing as we wailed, answering our grief like with like—and with a fearful whistling.
And I knew that this day was my last.
And then our front ranks gave in to the press of those behind and advanced, unresisting, to receive the sword thrusts in their breasts and brows, and then to trample down every officer who stood in their path together with those of their number who had been struck and fallen, and thus was the ground paved with those who struck and who were struck, and for a short while the people broke out in a cry and tumult, and the guard disappeared beneath the feet, and their horses fled, bloodied and nearly fallen down from exhaustion, and I trod upon a dead man, and sought to avoid another, but then I bethought me of revenge and I trampled a third and a fourth, and so did stamp upon every corpse in my way. No man would prevent me going to Sakhr. No man would bar me from vengeance.
Now the Turks appeared, flogging the necks of their mounts in wild haste, slicing through our ranks, crushing breasts and heads with their horses’ hooves, maces in hand, their long lances spearing all who stood on their right hand, determined to check the people’s advance.
And I came forward step by step until I could see the horses passing between the people’s heads and trampling all who stood before them, and I saw the people standing transfixed, unmoving, in a swoon of shock and fear, and I saw others—as though they were awakening from this trance—advancing to face the horses and lances, and not fleeing to the roadside as they ought.
I had drawn very near to the Turks when a horseman passed to one side of me and speared me in the shoulder, and then a second came, who struck my head with a whip, and the blood covered my face, and as I felt it dripping warm from my brow to my cheeks, a horse’s hooves struck me in my chest.
The horse must have trampled over me several times. There I lay, feeling nothing but a faint pain.
A continuous screaming filled the air, and I knew not what it was. The sound of a thousand birds perishing? My breath left me and the air emptied from my chest.
In the distance, the Barqiya Gate appeared—and behind it, Muqattam. The crowd hurried toward it and I thought to myself that the jostling bodies would raze the gate or that it would collapse on our heads, so great was the crush.
Then the Barqiya Gate was fast by and the guard were setting our backs aflame with their whips, each horseman raising the hand that held his long whip, then lashing it down so that it passed over the bodies of us all, and the people cried out, “Cover your faces, cover your eyes!” and not one of us thought of coming forward or impeding the guard.
And I squeezed my eyes
shut and shielded them with my palm, and I felt my body moving, borne along by the crowd without my feet supporting me. I was a fist’s breadth off the ground. And I spread my fingers, and opened my right eye, and saw that everyone had done as I did and were shielding their eyes with their hands, and I saw that the whips of the guard had become ropes of light, no sooner striking one of our number than he lay dead, and then the whips burst into flame and with each whip stroke a little of this fire was left on the dead man’s body, and I saw people that were slain, bodies limp and heads lolling, and so great was the crush that I could not see their arms dangling by their sides. The corpses were packed upright and moving with the crowd, their heads all swaying together in time with every step.
Then I raised my hands aloft and I shouted to the people, “Beware the whips! They are death! They are fire!” and the people lifted their hands from their eyes and found the whips whirling above their heads and the corpses pressed in beside them, walking as they walked.
I saw my body lifted two arm-lengths in the air and I saw the people filling every space about me—and had the heavens rained, the earth would not have felt a drop. And we were but a few arms’ distance from the Barqiya Gate when the crowd suddenly slowed, and I felt my chest being squeezed, and I could not draw breath. And I was borne along against my will, and I knew that in moments I would be dead.
I was but an arm’s length from the Barqiya Gate when I found the crowd ascending, and me with them, and the people raising their arms aloft and crying out, then their heads swaying all to one side and their arms dropping down. One man brought his arm down upon my head, and the arm of another came down on the head of the man in front of him, and I did not realize that they had been taken until we were passing beneath the arch.
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