States of Passion

by Nihad Sirees

  The old man said that the one I called a samaritan took her to see one of the most famous singers in the city at that time—Khojah Bahira—handing her over in exchange for nine gold liras, and Badia would never see him again.

  “That son of a bitch sold her?” I asked, trembling with rage.

  “Yes, he sold her. But don’t take the word ‘sold’ to mean that he actually sold her. He could tell from her beautiful face and what she had told him about knowing how to dance that if he presented her to Khojah Bahira she would compensate him for it. That was something normal. Bahira was a singer well known throughout the city. She loved to be surrounded by beautiful young ladies. Besides, she needed a dancer to accompany her at her concerts. That’s why he got his compensation.

  “When Khojah Bahira laid eyes on Badia she nearly collapsed under her own weight.” (This literary turn of phrase was the old man’s, and he used it several times while telling the story.) “Badia was beautiful, extremely beautiful. She was a rare specimen who had fallen into Khojah Bahira’s hands because Khojah would undoubtedly be able to appreciate her value. We know that women who make their living in this line of work tend not to be so pretty. Some are even thought of as repulsive: overweight, swarthy, flabby and old. Except for the Jews, that is, who were famous for their beauty. Music groups in the theatres used to compete with one another over them, as with this one Jewish woman in particular who would elicit audible gasps from people in the audience, not only because of her stirring voice but also because of her beautiful face, supple body, and her creamy-white skin.

  “Khojah Bahira took Badia in, cared for her, and then helped to coach her movement, teaching her essential skills of dance such as the ability to hold her legs and her torso still while rapidly shaking her hips and swinging her hands. This was a kind of movement Badia had never been very good at; she moved constantly instead, in a way that gave her a more masculine appearance, which is not what women like Bahira wanted to see. Dominant femininity was necessary for a dancer. Bahira continued to give her lessons, teaching Badia all of her moves and her skills until she had perfected Oriental dance and Bahira was satisfied.

  “Bahira, the veteran singer who was well known all over town, was funny looking. Her face, her body, and the way she moved were mannish. She also looked like a man. She wore men’s clothing, strutted around in public like that, sometimes even wearing a red fez on her head. She loved it when people mistook her for a man. She had always dreamt of being up on a wooden stage wearing trousers and a man’s shirt, with a watch in her waistcoat pocket that would allow her to show off her chain for all to see. At weddings, inside the atmosphere of the harem, her appearance caused huge excitement among the female audience. She wasn’t bothered by the comments and harsh words some women spread about her; in fact she liked to hear what they said and would respond in kind, or even up the ante. She was a manly woman with a foul mouth.

  “Bahira wasn’t her real name. Nobody knew what it was, even if some people let their imaginations run wild, claiming she was actually called Husayn or Abed… or Abu Steve or some other man’s name because of how much she looked like one. Bahira was originally from Aleppo, from the Qastal al-Mosht neighbourhood, her parents’ only child, and in order to protect her from other children, they told everyone she was a boy, cutting her hair short and dressing her like all the other boys until she began to go out with girls even though she was one herself. Nobody ever seemed to notice. This story is one hundred per cent true. In those days, she went by the name Subhi. It was even said that she had assembled a gang of young men under her command without any of them knowing she was a girl. The gang would maraud houses and farms, robbing and plundering. One day the gang tried to rob a prostitute’s house. That woman started to cry, pleading with them because she didn’t have anything for them to steal in the first place. Instead, she offered them the opportunity to have sex with her for free. The idea appealed to them. Subhi, that is, Bahira, nearly lost his status as leader of the gang. He was afraid she might reveal his secret sex in front of all of them. He tried to talk them out of it but the gang nearly came to blows over it because they were all desperate to try that thing they had heard so much about but had never done. Now the opportunity was being presented to them by chance, and for free, so why was Subhi trying to prevent them, that filthy animal? In the end he agreed and the guys went in one after the other to see the prostitute. They came out giggling. The whole thing was a lot of fun. Finally it was Subhi’s turn, leader of the pack. Because of his fear of having his sexual identity exposed, he decided to go in last. He found the woman lying spread eagled, exhausted and in surrender. Bahira was overwhelmed with a powerful desire to caress the whore’s body. She moved in closer and started gently stroking her body. The prostitute found what the head of the gang was doing a bit strange. Instead of doing what he was supposed to, this gangster was caressing her gently, kissing her, and exploring her body and its curves until she started to feel pleasure. Bahira also felt that way, discovering her own attraction to girls.

  “From that moment forward, Bahira became much closer to the members of her gang. The truth that she had been so afraid her pals might discover was relegated to secondary importance. She could have sex with female whores just like the other guys, and she experienced tremendous pleasure in doing so. She even suggested to the guys in the gang several times that they should go to the woman’s house. Because she was poor she recommended that they pay her. And so the gang became regular customers of that woman. Each and every time Bahira rediscovered her lust for women’s bodies, and her distaste for men. One day the whore whispered in one of the gang member’s ears that their boss wasn’t a real man because he made do with just touching her, even though they were sexual caresses. When he relayed what the woman had told him to the other guys in the gang, they started to monitor Subhi, discovering after a while that he didn’t piss standing up the way they did, or that he hardly ever pissed at all. Subhi would say that he didn’t have to go whenever the guys lined up and whipped out their cocks to piss. He would back away from them when they were doing that. As far as the guys in the gang were concerned, this was a real disaster, an earth-shaking scandal. What kind of a gang was led by a hermaphrodite, someone who was neither female nor male? The shame of it… They hoped things weren’t as they seemed, that the whore was mistaken. Besides, how could they take the word of some prostitute seriously and doubt the leader of their gang? They had to find out for themselves. But how? Could they just ask Subhi directly? That was impossible. Questions like that weren’t asked. They were insulting. What if the whole thing was a misunderstanding and that lowlife was just trying to break them up so she could be rid of them?

  “They were crossing the Queiq River over the al-Qarri Bridge. They had stolen a chicken from a nearby farm, slaughtered it, and then started a fire so they could roast it. They swam in the river and dared each other to dive under the water wheel that had swallowed a number of boys and men in the past. When they lay down on the ground to dry off they saw Subhi, who usually didn’t join them in the water, lying there as well. He was fast asleep. At that moment they made their decision to pin him down by his hands and feet while one of them tore off his pants and shirt. They had to get an answer to the question right then and there, while they had the chance. If Subhi was a boy like them they would all have a good laugh and make the whole thing look like a joke. So that Subhi wouldn’t be offended by what they were doing all the boys stripped naked. They took off their clothes, including the last scrap of clothing that covered their genitals. Then they drew closer to him while he was sleeping, and with a signal from the one who’d had the idea in the first place, they grabbed hold of Subhi and started to tear his clothes off. He woke up and tried to defend himself but they had already got a good hold on him. They were all laughing. They ripped off his pants and then the rest of his clothes. When his genitals appeared they all stopped laughing. They discovered what they had feared most: Subhi was a girl.

  “In
the midst of such shock they hardly noticed the shame. How had it never occurred to them that their leader might be a girl? Bahira ran off in tears, back home to the city all by herself. They were tongue-tied. Bahira had been able to deceive them that whole time because she looked like a young man in so many ways—her face, her legs, her hands. She had muscles and would roughhouse the way boys do. She resembled them in almost every respect, except for the one thing that distinguished them below the waist. Bahira had managed to fool them by never peeing in front of them. What about her breasts, though? They were fifteen years old. Bahira had a chest like the other girls her age. Did she wrap her chest? After she was kicked out of the gang, they chose another boy to be their boss, and the first decision he made was to rape Bahira. But she was onto what was happening and steered well clear of them. She made a weighty decision of her own, resolving never to get married, if for no other reason than the fact that the bodies of men and boys repulsed her.

  “She began to detest the society of men, which was one reason why she became a wedding singer. When she was eighteen years old her mother discovered that she had a beautiful voice. She may have reached puberty, but what kind of maturity could that be if she fantasised about being with women? She had a slender body without any flab. Her chest had blossomed so much that it was impossible to squeeze it flat with wraps. She no longer felt repressed because she had no desire to be with men at all. She preferred to be with the gentler sex instead; to be with women, that is. Her own gender prepared her well for that kind of relationship. In this country it’s impossible for anyone who isn’t a woman to penetrate women’s society, even if the woman is like Bahira and looks like a man. When her mother first discovered that she had such a melodious voice, she started encouraging her to sing in the presence of friends and neighbours without it ever occurring to her that Bahira might wind up becoming a wedding singer someday. Bahira’s fame spread throughout the city, into every household. She sang at weddings, women’s gatherings and baby showers, especially when a baby boy was born. She used to show up at those parties with her band, which everyone knew would consist entirely of women as well. She became accustomed to being on stage dressed in men’s clothes, sometimes wearing a fez on her head or painting on a curlicued moustache, a white rose always stuck in her coat pocket. She became well known for her male stage persona, which is what made the women of the city into such dedicated fans, they even worshipped her. The mere mention of her name evoked a kind of Bahira fever.

  “The fact that she liked women added to her reputation. Her love for girls, really. Stories of her passion and her female lovers ricocheted around the salons and the bathhouse gatherings. She wasn’t ashamed. On the contrary, she was proud, boasting of her latest adventure as well as her frantic struggle to hold on to her lovers, to keep them away from jealous women and rivals who were also known to like women. Those women also vied to win the heart of a beautiful woman who had only recently come into their circle. Khojah Bahira moved in on one of the musicians, a blonde zither player, winning her away from her ex-lover, Khojah Samah, and enticing her to join her band instead. The doorbell rang and Badia walked in with the man who had brought her round to earn nine gold liras during a time of war and poverty, when people were dying of starvation.

  With a cunning smile curling up on his face, the kindly old man asked me, “So, now do you understand why Khojah Bahira was so happy about Badia that she would pay the man in gold for bringing her over?”

  “Yes, I do, my good sir. I imagine she must have been phenomenally beautiful, an attractive young lady hand delivered to an older woman who liked women. But tell me, please, didn’t that make the other female musicians in Khojah Bahira’s band jealous, especially the one you mentioned, the blonde zither player Bahira had stolen from her ex-lover, Khojah Samah?”

  “The blonde was absolutely dying of jealousy. You’ve never seen a woman like that, or maybe you have. I have no right to question the encounters and experiences you’ve had in life, but just imagine a woman that two established women had been competing over. Suddenly she becomes uninteresting to her current lover, who starts to pour all of her energy into teaching Badia about the fundamentals of dance, as both an art and a science, taking a keen interest in her beauty and her elegance.”

  “So what happened to the blonde?”

  “She left Khojah Bahira, went back to Khojah Samah.”

  I laughed to hear the old man say that. The story was just getting better and better. Apparently I had a thing for stories about female lovers. In order to seem as though I knew something about such matters, I explained to the old man, “I think they call them banat al-ishreh.”

  “That’s right, banat al-ishreh.”

  “I don’t know the origin of that expression. Do you, my good man?”

  “I think banat al-ishreh refers to women who are with other women the same way men are with women. That’s how they got the name anyway. Throughout the city’s history there are tales of women who live together like any other family. As if they were man and wife. There’s always one who takes on the role of the man while the other takes on the woman’s role.”

  “Is the former necessarily more important than the latter?”

  “In general, yes, which is why the more important one, that is to say, the man of the house, is called ablaya, which means older sister in Turkish. The other one belongs to the ablaya, which is why she’s called her ‘little girl’.”

  “Then what happened to Badia? I’ve started to grow fond of her. She’s the mother of our hero Widad, the one who arrived in Aleppo by train with a pre-addressed envelope in her hand and who was unwittingly captured in a photo with the French High Commissioner.”

  “Hold on. First I need to tell you something about Khojah Samah. But it’s getting late. I see that the butler has already gone to bed. What do you say we both go upstairs so we can get some rest and then pick up the story in the morning?”

  I agreed. It had been a particularly exhausting day for me. If I wanted to pay close attention to his stories and fix them in my memory, I would need all of my strength. I stood up and guided the old man to his room. He was very frail, trembling as he climbed the stairs. Just getting to his room required extraordinary effort. I opened the door for him and switched on the light before helping him into bed. I didn’t leave his side until I was sure he was comfortable and tucked in under the thick blankets. He thanked me and wished me good night. I made to leave but a quick glance around the room stopped me in my tracks. The walls were covered with framed photographs. There wasn’t enough room for another picture even if he had wanted to add another to his collection. Photographs were also strewn all over the small writing desk, on the nightstands on either side of the bed, and on the vanity. There were pictures of men and women, children and old people, all from the same class, and they all had some kind of relationship to him. The old man was watching me. I could sense that he didn’t want me to paw through his pictures and his past. My intuition wasn’t correct that time, though, as he would tell me later how much he appreciated my curiosity. I said goodnight, switched off the light, and left the room.

  I was exhausted. And despite my fascination with the old man—his house and his bedroom, his photographs and his servant—I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. I made certain that the door was securely closed. I’m very careful about things like that, which I chalk up to an old fear that lives in my heart.

  When I woke up the next day my head was heavy. I opened my eyes but stayed in bed. I wanted to hold on to that uncanny feeling of waking up in an unrecognisable place, or at least in an unfamiliar bedroom.

  It was nearly eleven o’clock but the grey light of day and the sound of the pouring rain made it seem much earlier. Meanwhile the room seemed much cosier than it had the night before when I first arrived. It was a simple but elegant bedroom. The walls had no photographs like those in the old man’s room. There was a single landscape painting hanging on the wall. All the furniture was made out
of carved oak, which they must have brought from Aleppo. Since I come from there, I’m well aware that my city is known for that kind of craftsmanship. I didn’t hear a sound, not even the typical sounds of the countryside. It was a kind of tranquillity a citydweller like me would never dream of. I enjoyed lying there in the quiet. Then it dawned on me that I might have heard something moving around inside the room while I was sleeping, but because of how worn out I was from the cold and the damp that had seeped into my bones, I slept through it without having the strength to get up, turn on the light, and seek out the source of the noise. This is when I got a little bit scared. I got up and examined the door to make sure it was locked. Then I checked the window that looks out on the backyard garden and found the lock secure. Most likely it had only been a dream. The idea calmed me down. I went into the bathroom, washed and shaved, with all the new supplies the butler had provided just for me, and started to get dressed. Just then I heard a light tapping on the door, followed by the voice of the butler inviting me to come downstairs for breakfast.

  When I got downstairs, I found the old man sitting at the table waiting for me. I wished him good morning and sat down in a place that had been set for me. Despite the numerous treasures and wooden boxes and paintings and decorative ivory tusks and pieces of fancy china and other things the old man had acquired during his travels all over the world, the dining room was more sparsely decorated than I remembered it being the night before. Those trinkets made the dining room and the living room look classy, and demonstrated that the old man had good taste. As we ate breakfast in silence, the servant would come around to pour us some milk or offer us a fresh plate of fried eggs.