International Acclaim for Yousef Al-Mohaimeed and
WOLVES OF THE CRESCENT MOON
“Yousef Al-Mohaimeed has written a remarkable, rhythmic, genuine novel, throbbing with sensuality and moral courage, as if it didn’t take place in a society that denies the tick of the heart.”
—HANAN AL-SHAYKH, AUTHOR OFWOMEN OF SAND AND MYRRH
“A novel that draws you in from the very first lines and doesn’t let go.”
—AL-MUSTAQBAL (BEIRUT)
“Gripping…. Al-Mohaimeed writes with fire [and] with words that cut through the barbed wire in search of the dawn.”
—MARIANNE (PARIS)
“An exceptional work of imagination and writing.”
—AL-RIYADH (RIYADH)
“Beguiling…. Tightly engineered…. A startlingly pointed insider’s lament over the daily, anonymous brutalities of modern Saudi society…. It is literally the oldest story in the world. But in Al-Mohaimeed’s capable hands, it is imbued with new life…. The story’s brisk pace is well served by Anthony Calderbank’s clean, free-flowing translation.”
—THE DAILY STAR (BEIRUT)
“[Wolves of the Crescent Moon] could be read like a variation on Sartre’s hellish No Exit…. With a blistering style…but with no pamphleteering, Al-Mohaimeed describes the Arab inferno.”
—LE NOUVEL OBSERVATEUR (PARIS)
“A gripping story…. More powerful and deeper than one would imagine, given its brevity…. Compelling.”
—THE JORDAN TIMES
“[Wolves of the Crescent Moon] proves irresistible in terms of the pleasures of a discovery…. [Al-Mohaimeed] tears the masks from and lands a resounding slap in the faces of the pious and hypocritical, by shedding luminous daylight upon the evils of a masochistic and homophobic society, cloaked in the affectations of a feigned religiosity.”
—EVENE (PARIS)
“Deeply moving…. Unsettling and controversial.”
—DAILY NEWS EGYPT
PENGUIN BOOKS
WOLVES OF THE CRESCENT MOON
Yousef Al-Mohaimeed was born in Riyadh in 1964. He has published several novels and short story collections in Arabic; Wolves of the Crescent Moon is his first book to be published outside the Middle East. In 2004 Al-Mohaimeed was presented with an award by Diwan al Arab magazine and the Egyptian Journalists Union in recognition of his creative contribution to Arab culture. He lives in Riyadh.
Anthony Calderbank is the translator of Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz’s novel Rhadopis of Nubia, Sonallah Ibrahim’s Zaat, and Miral al-Tahawy’s The Tent and Blue Aubergine. He lives in Khobar, Saudi Arabia.
WOLVES OF THE CRESCENT MOON
A NOVEL
Yousef Al-Mohaimeed
Translated from the Arabic by
Anthony Calderbank
PENGUIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) Penguin Books (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi–110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices:
80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
First published in Egypt by the American University in Cairo Press 2007
Published in Penguin Books 2007
Copyright © Riyadh al-Rayyis, 2003
English translation copyright © Anthony Calderbank, 2007
All rights reserved
Originally published in Arabic in 2003 as Fikhakh al-ra’iha by Riyadh al-Rayyis, Beirut.
An earlier version of two chapters, “A Body Like Ripe Fruit” and “Stolen Manhood,” appeared in Banipal (London), no. 20, Summer 2004.
Publisher’s Note
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION DATA
Muhaymid, Yusuf. [Fikhakh al-ra’ihah. English]
Wolves of the crescent moon / Yousef Al-Mohaimeed; translated by Anthony Calderbank
p. cm.
ISBN: 978-1-1012-0215-9
1. Calderbank, Anthony. II. Title.
PJ7850.U4538F5513 2008
892.7'36—dc22 2007018030
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
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Contents
Prologue
The Secret of the Sad Singing
The Journey of Eternal Torment
Official Documents
A Long Fight
A Body Like Ripe Fruit
Stolen Manhood
A Fight with the Guards
Abused as a Child
Moon Passion
Prisoners of the Sand
The Journey of Thorny Dreams
Sin and Punishment
Resignation
The Heroism of the Wolf
Glossary
WOLVES OF THE CRESCENT MOON
Prologue
“WHERE TO?”
The young ticket clerk was busy sorting the banknotes into the till according to their denomination. When he heard no answer he raised his head and peered through the round opening in the glass at the man standing in front of him. White hairs twitched on the customer’s chin, his eyes bulged slightly, and a thick mustache covered his upper lip.
Turad hadn’t yet decided where he was going. He simply had entered the bus station and walked up to the ticket counter. He had come utterly to loathe this city and everyone in it. He had spent the last two nights sleeping in the basement of an old mosque. For two whole days he had been roaming the streets, wandering into gardens and souks, and rummaging through the shops, one after the other. It was as if to reassure himself he wouldn’t be missing anything in particular by leaving the city that he had lived in for years, and that he had sought refuge in as a destitute and defenseless young man. Nights he had learned to read and write, spelling out the words letter by letter. During the days he had worked like a dog in the scorching heat, first as a day laborer, then as a tea boy; as a security guard in a bank, and as a guard at the gate of a palace; and finally as a messenger in a ministry. “To hell with this city and the people in it. They have stripped me of every ounce of dignity and decency. Are they Arabs or what?” Turad asked himself, as the ticket clerk repeated his question:
“Where to, sir?”
Good grief! Tur
ad thought to himself. What did the boy say? He called me “sir.” Yes. He certainly meant me. He was looking straight at me when he said “sir.” You polite boy. Where did you come from? Don’t call me “sir” or you’ll make me change my mind about leaving this damn city. Perhaps if you saw the other boys, some of whom are even younger than you, tugging my thobe or kicking me on the backside; perhaps if you saw my left ear, which I always hide under the edge of my shmagh, you might change your mind and curse me in front of everybody. You might scream at me, “Fuck off, you old tramp!”
“Can you hear me, sir? Where do you wish to travel to?” The ticket clerk had lifted himself up off his seat and leaned his face toward the round hole in the glass.
“I don’t know.”
“Well, then, could you just take a seat over there in the waiting room until you’ve made up your mind? Look, there are other people behind you waiting their turn.” After casting a quick glance at the long line building up behind him, Turad withdrew morosely and walked slowly over to the last row of seats in the waiting room. There was nothing beyond it except a huge glass wall. He sat and contemplated the street outside as things began to wind down for the night and the city rubbed its eyes sleepily, the yellow disk of the sun shimmering on the distant horizon.
There, in that vast ministry building, my feet had combed every corridor as I carried in my right hand the shiny brass coffeepot and three very small, ornately patterned china coffee cups. I’d stand at the door of the office, lift the pot up in the air, and pour. I used to take great pleasure in the task, moving from guest to guest with that coffee aroma perking them up. When the director of financial affairs gestured to me with his hand “enough,” I would leave immediately. I hated his arrogance. I don’t know why he treated me like that. Nevertheless, I put up with it and managed to control my anger and irritation so I could hang on to the job. I had lost my previous job guarding that huge gate. I had been very honest in my work; not a thing got past me. Then I stopped the gentleman that the lady of the palace wanted let in. I’d stopped him because the master had warned me not to let in anyone I didn’t know when he wasn’t there. But then the damn master fired me without any explanation. Had the lady concocted some plot against me? Had she spoken falsely about me, or had she just looked for something to accuse me of? Was it because I spent too long looking at her women friends as they passed through the gate? If I did, I wasn’t leering. It was only because I wanted to make sure of who they were before I let them in. I had to be sure they were really women and not men, because I didn’t want any unsavory characters coming in. So it was without any reason or explanation that I found myself thrown into the street with nothing but my suitcase. Eventually I found the ministry and frittered away my life in its corridors, and in the tiny room for making tea and coffee.
After all roads tired of his wretched feet, and posh offices ejected him, and faces shunned him, after all the houses turned him away, he had decided to vie with the Indians and Bangladeshis washing cars. “There’s nothing dishonorable about it,” he told himself out loud, but the voice residing deep inside chastised him: “You, son of the free tribes, son of the wild lands and the wide canyons, how can you accept becoming a cleaner, a servant, or a slave?” “We are all His slaves,” he would say to console himself.
From the parking lot outside the ministry he got his foot in the door of its offices, thanks to the intervention of the director of financial affairs, whose arrogance and abuse rained down on him every day even in front of his guests and clients. One day, around noon, the man yelled at him, “You oaf!” Turad lost his temper and threw the coffee on the floor, glaring at him with that noble and ferocious face he had left in the desert amid the springs and the wadis. He had thrown it away in the shifting sand beneath the awshaz trees that reel in the wind like genies’ heads. Turad looked at him furiously. “I am not an oaf,” he told him. “I am the son of a tribe. It is fate that has placed me here in front of you, and if I am an oaf, it is because I am working here with you.” He said lots of things that had been bottled up inside for thirteen years. He left feeling greatly relieved, a huge burden lifted off his chest. In the end he returned again to the same ministry, thanks to the intervention of some of the staff, and he apologized to the director, who accepted on condition that he work as a messenger for the staff in the finance department.
Turad came to with a start as a voice over the loudspeaker announced the departure of bus number eight, and informed passengers that they should make their way immediately to the stand. He was watching the people milling around the door of the bus when he suddenly noticed, on the table in front of him, a glass of tea, its steam twisting into the air. The man who’d bought it hadn’t had time to drink it and had left it there when he ran over to the bus in order to get a window seat. Turad stretched out his trembling hand and lifted the tea to his lips. He savored it gratefully, then wrapped his shmagh tightly around his face, which was turned to the glass wall behind him. He drew in a deep breath and contemplated the tower blocks and minarets as the city succumbed to darkness. Dear Lord, should I really be leaving the city, its people, its intimate mud houses, and its warm cozy alleys just because of what happened? Was I right to resign from my position? He laughed sarcastically. Could you call that job a position? Can the role of an entertainer or a clown dressed in a crumpled thobe be called a “position”? Once one of the fools tugged my thobe from behind. Another time one of them stuck his leg out between the desks and I fell flat on my face. So many times they’d try to pull off my shmagh, which I wrapped around my head. It was the thing I used to protect myself from people’s curiosity. I’d grab on to it with both hands to stop them from ripping it off my face. They thought it was a chance to have some fun. One would prod me in the backside, and they would all burst into fits of raucous laughter. Sometimes, when I got really angry, I’d stay in the tea and coffee room. Baddah, the youngest, and the one who laughed loudest when they were having their fun, would come and put me right with a ten-riyal note, and I would go and serve them again, feeling broken, aggrieved, and totally alienated.
In the bus station waiting room a Bangladeshi cleaner in blue overalls asked him to lift his feet up. He lifted them up, feeling a momentary importance as the cleaner passed the cords of the mop under his feet to clean the tiles. He wanted to ask the man if he would quit his job if one of his superiors went too far insulting him, but he decided not to. He wondered if he had been a bit hasty not showing up for work for three consecutive days without offering any excuse or submitting his resignation, so he could receive his due rights. But what rights are they, Turad? Do you have any rights in this city? Who would look out for your rights? Weren’t you just a monkey for those bastards to amuse themselves with when they had nothing better to do?
It was a bad day when I took tea in for Badr in his distinctive black mug. I never refused a request he made. He was the one who had intervened to get me my job back after I had fallen out with the director. In fact, no one in the ministry could turn down a request from him, because his father was the owner of the biggest supplier of office materials in the city. He secured all the ministry’s needs in terms of office furniture and photocopying equipment in exchange for paying a considerable percentage of the purchase price to the director of financial affairs. How could the tarnished director refuse a request from Badr when Badr paid him many times more than his salary? Anyway, I went into their office, and no sooner had I put down the tea on rich boy Badr’s desk than one of the damn employees jumped out at me with a screech and knocked me to the floor. Their laughter hit me in the head like bullets. One of them rushed over and tried to tear off the shmagh I’d wrapped tightly around my face. I wasn’t ready to grab the shmagh because I was leaning on my hand to help myself stand up again, and all I felt was the shmagh come away in his blasted hand. Immediately I placed my hand over my ear, which made them think I was covering my ear because they were laughing so loudly. It never occurred to them that I didn’t have a left ear. I
stood up and rushed over to the guy who was waving my shmagh about in the air like an American cowboy, keeping my left hand over my left ear and trying to grab my shmagh with the right. I managed to catch the edge of the shmagh and pull it out of his grip, but he pulled it back suddenly, using both of his hands, and dragged me toward the edge of his desk. I put out both of my hands to avoid slamming my face into the desk but was unable to prevent my mouth from colliding with the wooden edge, and I tasted the blood as it stained my teeth. The secret of my left ear was out. One of them shouted, “Hey, guys, his ear’s cut off!”
They roared with laughter, so much so that one of them collapsed across the top of the desk, while another, tears rolling down his cheeks, shouted, “It must be van Gogh. Hahahaha.”
Their stupid laughter echoed around the room, and one of them asked, “Who’s van George, then?”
“Hahaha, van Gogh, you idiot. He’s the Dutchman who cut off his ear and gave it to his girlfriend.” They couldn’t control themselves. Even the green curtains that had been hanging there for years were shaking.
“Do you think Turad has a girlfriend?” one of them chimed in. “I bet he doesn’t even take his shmagh off in bed. Hahaha.”
Suddenly Turad saw a young woman struggling to pull a huge suitcase across the tiles of the waiting room. He jumped to his feet like a true Bedouin gentleman in order to lend her a hand. When his hand brushed against hers holding the handle of the suitcase, she glared at him coldly. “I wanted to help you,” he said.
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