The Sexual Life of an Islamist in Paris

by Leila Marouane

"Recite your moutaawidhates, my son."

  "I have, my mother."

  "Your sister told me you were a bit tired, my son. But I'll be there the day before the Eid. The Moroccan woman will come with me, and will stay with us as long as it takes …"

  "It's pointless, my mother," I said. "There's a spell on you … You're over forty years old and you're still single … And your brother's fiancée's family is starting to get impatient."

  "I've made my decision, my mother. I'll get married when you want, however you want."

  "Do you have someone in mind, my son?"

  "The mayor's daughter …"

  "From Fouka by the Sea?"

  "Yes, my mother."

  "But she got married!"

  "Already?"

  "You wouldn't make up your mind, so her parents gave her to another family. I told you, in one of my messages."

  "Just like in my dream." After a long silence, my mother said, "I'll be there in two days …" And hung up.

  I got out of bed. I took a shower. I drank a coffee and switched on the computer. After I had printed a list of all the painters and decorators in Paris and the entire region, I began to make my calls.

  It's not complicated, I said to the guy who agreed to start work the very next day. Nothing but green. The same green that you find used in … Bring your entire range. I'll choose the right color.

  Then I called the Salvation Army, and gave them the details of my bequest: a leather sofa and armchairs, tables, a desk, a bookshelf, lamps. All luxury items, trendy, with the invoice to prove it. Not for sale. A bequest, I repeated. The woman seemed satisfied but, she said, they didn't have a truck available. Could it wait a few days? It's today or never, I decreed. She hung up on me.

  I called the town hall to inform them that I would be placing furniture, a lot of furniture, on the sidewalk that night. Then, finally, the concierge.

  "I'd like three strong guys to take my furniture and leave it onthe sidewalk. I'm changing the décor in my apartment. I've got guests coming. Pilgrims. And I'm getting married, to a woman carefully chosen by my mother. An Algerian who's less than twenty-two years old. We'll be living in the house on rue Jean-Pierre-Timbaud. Two stories and a little garden. Mademoiselle Papinot, from the Sèvres Agency, knows all about it. But I'll keep my apartment. Any trips to Greenland or Venus are out of the question. The sultan of Saint-Germain will end his days in this building, on rue Saint-Placide. Just like Huysmans. Got that? And don't you dare go anywhere near my mother. Understand?"

  Silence. "Understand, Madame Loubna Minbar?"

  "I understand, Monsieur …" And then, as if I had just been relieved of a great burden, I felt as light as froth and, whistling, I looked up the number for "Allô-Couscous." For forty people. Day after tomorrow. Okay? No problem. Add ten portions, while you're at it. For the beggars, I whispered. All right, said the woman. Fifty portions of royal couscous, that it? That's it … And for dessert? It's dinner for people of the faith. Ascetics. No dessert. Then, catching my breath, I phoned my young brother. A dinner with forty pilgrims, Mahmoud. For the Eid, I said, sincerely happy to hear his voice, and I suddenly realized how much I'd missed him. Recalling that he had never been to my place, I dictated the address. "Ourida already gave it to us," said my brother, apathetically. "He who renounces sin and returns to the Path shall know absolution. For God is mild and merciful," I declaimed, thus lending credibility to my redemption. "Inshallah, my brother?"

  "Inshallah," he said. For a moment I thought of inviting my brother-in-law, the convert, and my sister, the blessed one. But then I remembered her falseness, and for fear that she might ruin my plans I scrapped the idea. After that, I took a shower and brushed my teeth; my beard was growing before my very eyes, as was my hair: my curly locks needed a good cut at the barber's, and my eyes were shining with that particular gleam of anticipation of victory over she who claimed to transform people and their destinies, the world, and the direction of Mecca. Driss, with his compass in his hand, I sniggered. He who laughs last laughs best. I got dressed and left the house. I ran into the concierge, did not greet her, and went out into the street. A moment later I was in the carpet store on the boulevard Raspail, the one I had stood outside when I was moving into my place, when I had felt a bit lost in the alleyways of my neighborhood. I chose a dozen kilims, an equal number of Persian rugs, and thirty or more cushions that would go well with the carpets. The shopkeeper could not believe his eyes. "Can you deliver everything tomorrow?"

  "To be sure," he said. His hand, when he took my check, was trembling like a leaf.

  At the taxi rank outside the Hôtel Lutétia, American businessmen were talking loudly. I shoved past them and jumped into the taxi as it pulled up.

  "Barbès," I said.

  Once I was there I asked the driver to wait for me. I did my shopping in no time at all. Representations of the Kaâba and the mosque in Medina. Suras written in golden lettering. Copies of the Koran. Prayer beads. Prayer mats. And of course an immaculately white outfit, almost as well made as those of my own mother's fabrication. And I found myself thinking about her. I bought some scarves and jellabas. Endless quantitiesof them. In case the premonitions turned out to be …

  "Is this for an association?" asked the shopkeeper, helping me carry the bags to the taxi. "It is to save my mother," I replied. "Well done, my brother."

  "I'm not your brother," I said. "I am a free man," I added, waving to him through the window as the taxi pulled away.

  Two days later, he said, by the end of the afternoon, my walls were green, the green you see in the mosque, and the engravings were hung, the carpets were unrolled, the cushions were scattered. Once I had performed my ablutions and trimmed my beard, I put on my new outfit and opened the front door so that my guests could come in the way, in the old days, one entered the home of my august ancestor.

  Sitting cross-legged with my back to the wall, facing the entrance to the living room, with the Book open on my lap, I began to chant the Baqara, the longest of the suras, the one my brother loved to recite with me.

  Good, very good, hissed the voice in my right ear, just as my mother suddenly appeared on the threshold to the living room. Followed by a woman. Then my brother. And finally his fiancée. Unable to believe her eyes, my mother burst into tears. A flood of tears. And my brother, too. But silently. My future sister-in-law, troubled, looked down.

  I held them in my arms in turn, and ignored the woman who was with them; I wished them a joyful holiday of the Eid, my mother, a joyful holiday of the Eid, my brother, a joyful holiday of the Eid, my sister.

  "The pilgrims will be here soon. Forty, for the peace of our ancestors," I said, inviting them to sit down. Breathless, her eyes wild, my mother murmured something in my brother's ear. Then she began to weep again. "I'm going to ask for help. All alone we won't manage," said my brother. "There's no need, Mahmoud," I said. "We're going to be served by ‘Allô-Couscous.' While we wait for our guests, let us pray together, it is nearly time for the maghrib prayer. But I do not want this witch under my roof," I murmured into my mother's ear. "We are believers, my mother …"

  "Fine, my son …" While my mother was explaining to the woman that she had to be on her way, I pulled my brother to one side and began to question him about his life, and ask him if he liked my apartment. I told him I had bought a little house with a garden, and that I would gladly give it to him as a wedding present. "Thank you," said my brother, sniffing. "Why are you crying?" I said, annoyed. "From the emotion, my brother …"

  "Not everyone has the honor to host forty pilgrims under his roof," I said approvingly, just as the witch finally went out the door. My mother and my future sister-in-law came and unrolled their prayer mats and we said the prayer. After that we sat in a semicircle. While I was grinning from ear to ear, my mother, my brother, and my brother's fiancée, their mouths open wide, could not stop staring at my walls. "It's a lovely green, isn't it?" I said. "A very pretty color," said my mother, gasping. "It's nothing to
cry over," I said, somewhat severely. Then to my brother: "Let us read, my brother. Like in the olddays."

  "Like in the old days," echoed my brother, just as my first guests arrived. There were three or four of them, I can no longer recall exactly. What I do remember is that not one of them looked anything like a pilgrim. "As-Salamu Alaykum," I greeted them, without hiding my dismay, looking up and down at their firemen's uniforms, their clean-shaven faces, their boots, their embarrassed air. Placing his hand on my shoulder, my brother explained that they hadn't wanted to take the risk of going through Paris in their Afghan clothing, they would for sure have been collared as vulgar terrorists … "That's true," agreed my mother. "And anyway," added my brother, "the others, who couldn't find a way to hide, are waiting for us in the new house, next to the Jean-Pierre-Timbaud mosque. Let's have the dinner there, it will be more discreet."

  "Indeed," acquiesced my mother. "Not a problem," I said. "I'll call ‘Allô-Couscous' and give them the change of address, and we'll head over there."

  "We can do it when we get there," said my mother. "Fine, my mother," I said, pleased that my efforts were at last being rewarded, and that my plan had worked: that renegade's scheming had been thwarted. Your mother will never give up. She will always be faithful to her principles and her education. As will you. Grandson of the master. It was then that I saw the sheet of paper folded in four that my brother was holding in his hand. "What's this?" I asked, grabbing it from him. "It's your notes," said my brother. "Your concierge gave them to us," said my mother. "Don't go near that woman, my mother. She is dangerous," Isaid, unfolding the paper. It did not look like my handwriting, but the ideas were mine, without a doubt. I change the décor in my apartment. I invite guests. Pilgrims. And I marry a woman carefully chosen by mymother. An Algerian younger than twenty-two years old. We will live in the house on rue Jean-Pierre-Timbaud. Two stories, a little garden. Mademoiselle Papinot, from the Sèvres Agency, knows all about it. But I'll keep my apartment. Any trips to Greenland or Venus are out of the question. The sultan of SaintGermain will end his days in this building, on rue Saint-Placide. Just like Huysmans. "She stole this from me."

  "Yes my son," said my mother, weeping incessantly. "I don't see why you're crying," I said, losing my temper. Remembering the pilgrims who were just outside the door, I lowered my voice almost to a whisper and said, "I know you refuse to talk about this, my mother. A Muslim does not attempt to damage his own life. That is true. But Driss was a believer, my mother, just like you and me. And it is because of that woman that on Friday June 23, 2006, your nephew went mad and put an end to his days, my mother. I found out about it by reading and rereading that damned manuscript that I discovered in my apartment. But I told no one. And in any case, no one would have believed me, my mother," I sobbed. "Just as no one will believe that when it is all over, that stealer oflives will move on to something else."

  "It's not all over, my son," said my mother as we were going down the stairs, escorted by our august guests, greeted by my neighbors. So kind. So discreet. So well integrated. In an entire year we never heard a thing. No visitors. Never went out. Thank you, thank you, said my mother. In the beginning, everything was fine. He only went out to buy cigarettes. He had everything delivered from the supermarket and the delis. Lots of food, as if he were having friends over. I took care of the housecleaning. He had piles of books, all over the apartment. Then he took the keys back from me and started calling, full of reproaches, saying he couldn't find this or that, some piece of clothing, or a file. And he would ask me if a woman had come by to drop off some keys, and here he was someone who never had any guests. He lived like a hermit. I thought he must be going through a serious depression, that he'd get over it eventually, but after his sister's visit his condition only got worse. My name is Lisa Martinez, but he had decided that my name was Loubna Minbar … Thank you, thank you, said my mother, abruptly curtailing the concierge's susurrations.

  Once we were in the car, I whispered to my brother: "I met Loubna Minbar the day I signed the lease to my apartment. I arranged to meet her at the Café de Flore. She came with one of her books so that I could recognize her. I wanted to talk about Driss. Wanted her to tell me you know what. But we talked about everything but Driss. And then she vanished. Well, pretended to vanish. In fact, I never stopped seeing her. Sometimes she was a brunette, sometimes a redhead. Even a dyed blonde. Or a student. I am sure she thinks she fooled me with her disguises, just as she must have fooled Driss."

  "No doubt," said my brother. "And the concierge …"

  "Yes?"

  "That is her, too, I'm absolutely convinced of it."

  "Really?" said my brother. "That Portuguese accent she served up to us earlier on, it's just another trick. For she is none other than Loubna Minbar. A thousand faces. A thousand voices."

  "God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another," declaimed my brother, placing his hand on mine. "Is that in the Koran?" I said, startled. "It could be. But it's about Ophelia, in Hamlet," said my brother just as the car, big as a truck, set off into the Paris night. "You read Shakespeare?" I said, somewhat dazed. "From time to time …"

  "That's good, my brother … You should also read the Arab writers. Above all the poet-theologians. They know the art of combining mysticism with libertinage."

  "Good," said my brother. "But you must never open The Sultan. It's a collection of lies and insults with regard to those of us who have the faith, who have principles … You promise?"

  "I promise."

  "Excellent, my brother," I said, my mind suddenly caught up with thoughts of my little Versailles, my lovely divine nest that I would soon, very soon, after this simulacrum of a banquet, move back into. My nest, my marvel. Beautiful. White. Airy. Like a summer's breeze.

  A moment later, I entered a world of fire and ice. Where wolves howl and men are silent. A place where, he said to me, you have come to listen to me at last.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Leïla Marouane was born in Tunis in 1960 and has lived and worked in Paris since 1990. In addition to The Sexual Life of an Islamist in Paris, she is the author of four novels and one collection of short stories. In 2004, she was awarded the Literatur Prize at the Frankfurt Book Fair, and in 2006 she was the recipient of the prestigious Prix Jean-Claude Izzo for her novel La jeune fille et la mère.