I was delighted that a resident of Wadi al-Hikma had graduated to something that was definitely better, even if that meant working on the peak of a mountain or in a barren desert. But at the same time I felt naked, because we now lacked any protection or moral cover should we happen to face a dilemma, like the first time, when a senile old man had raised a cry against us and we were almost throttled by the residents. Nothing like that happened to us this time, fortunately, no circle constricted and widened around us, and no lackluster old man loitered there. Sales from the dirty rags continued unabated, and the pathetic purchasing picked up and slowed down. An old pickup truck of no discernable color was parked there with mounds of watermelons and overly ripe tomatoes in the back. Before we set out on our quest for Nishan, whom no one reported seeing in the district since we had plucked him from it by force that previous time, a rather chic youth, wearing a straw hat and gray necktie that hung down his chest, inside out, asked me if I remembered the young man Murtaja. He had heard from people that I had come to the district once and must have seen him.
My first thought was that the name sounded odd and unfamiliar. But I remembered him all of a sudden. Yes, Murtaja of Wikipedia, the young man who roamed around in torn shorts, staring at the ground while reciting odd stories from the version of the Wikipedia that lived in his head, starting with Nasnusa, who ate the flesh of cats and conquered the Roman army in the battle of Wadi al-Hikma. Yes, that’s who he was.
“What’s become of him? Don’t tell me he emigrated with the imam?” Not wanting to respond to his question, I asked him this. My question seemed innocent enough, because it would be unusual for a person whose intellect had left him to leave the country. Murtaja lacked an intellect that would provide him with an opportunity to offer anything to anyone.
“No . . .” the young man replied. “He was writing stories in English – real, unprecedented stories. I stole one with the English title ‘Crack’. In Arabic that would be sad. Without his knowledge, I sent it to a major African literary competition, and it won first prize.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really. Why not? Do you know how much money the prize was? It was 3,000 dollars.”
“Really?” I repeated this word unconsciously while at the same time feeling miserable that I hadn’t noticed a gifted writer, who was reciting imaginative stories. Perhaps his insanity had diverted me from paying attention to him or perhaps my zeal for and preoccupation with pursuing Nishan had turned off the psychic camera I have long used to snap familiar and unfamiliar shots.
“Really? Where is Murtaja now?”
“I don’t know. His family received the prize and left the district secretly, without anyone knowing where they went.”
“Pity! I would have liked to meet him.”
I said that to humor this youth’s excitement, because I knew that neither a prize nor any other delight could improve the life of a person who continued to wander between the ebb and flow of life’s tides, as the psychiatrist had remarked when discussing Nishan. It occurred to me at the same time to search for Murtaja’s name and the prize he had won. I knew that residents of distant, blighted districts like this – even when they were educated – offered exaggerated descriptions at times and might refer to a scrawny ewe as if it were a raging bull or a narrow alley as if it were the Champs Élysées in Paris or London’s Edgware Road. I once heard about a painter who lived in a district like Wadi al-Hikma and who was said to have painted the entire world. I didn’t think that was true and went to see his pictures only to find that they were merely ridiculous sketches that didn’t rise to the level of being paintings. An aged mechanic who was working on my car in a workshop and who lived in the district of al-Qama’ir, which was also a distant one, claimed that he had prepared the vehicle in which a former president fled on the day of the revolution against him. Of course, that was a fiction or merely a hope, because the flight to which he referred and the accomplices’ identity were a matter of public record.
All at once the young man challenged me with a sentence that I hadn’t been awaiting or expecting as his eyes gleamed hostilely. “By the way, Sir, I am the person who read your novel Hunger’s Hopes, which enraged me, and I brought it to Nishan for him to see the crime you had committed against him. I am Shu‘ayb Zuhri, a graduate of the college of Public Relations, and have been unemployed for more than four years.”
So this was the fellow who had awakened the disaster from its slumbers and cloaked my life with an existence that had never been mine previously. This was the guy who had unleashed a libertine lunatic on me, transforming me overnight into a hunted beast that gradually developed into a pursuer of its prey, after Nishan and I traded places.
Who was pursuing whom in a text as intensely realistic as this?
I actually wasn’t a hunter, even though the hunter had fled from me, thus granting me the distinction of becoming a hunter. I was the prey. Pursued by a feeling of torpor because I hadn’t yet hit upon a realistic ending suitable for the fictitious text I wrote (or that Nishan wrote – who knew?).
I had recounted my telepathy tale to my brother, Muzaffar, when he returned from his post in the west of the country. The next morning, with extraordinary resolve he announced his suspicions, which alarmed me. He thought the situation was a drama concocted by a poor neighborhood that wished to grow rich at the expense of an author they assumed to be wealthy. According to this scenario, Nishan Hamza was merely a freebooter who claimed to be insane and changed his name and personal information to match the novel’s details – not the other way around. His ID could have been counterfeited by an obscure clerk working in the office that issued identity cards or even by an errand boy who fetched tea and coffee there. The faces could easily have been switched; even nationality, which we hold sacred, can be acquired by a fisherman in the Seychelles Islands without much effort.
He asked me, “Do you remember Aunt Jalila, who hosted a television program called ‘Benefactor’ that went off the air ten years ago?”
“Yes, I remember.”
“Do you remember her final show?”
“Yes. I remember when she announced she had discovered that the funds that donors contributed to her program had not been disbursed to any of the needy. She had found out that merchants and high-ranking government officials and even some undersecretaries in government ministries had divvied the money up among themselves, using fake IDs.”
“Fine . . . so rid yourself of your fantasy. Restrict your creative imagination to the hours when you are writing. Hunger’s Hopes is your novel and no one else’s.”
I wasn’t convinced by what he said, especially since Muzaffar had always been quick to suspect people, ever since we were children. I remember that some of his suspicions bore no relationship to reality whatsoever. I was, however, able to convince him that we had to follow the tale to its conclusion, now that we were halfway through it. We would go to Wadi al-Hikma and other similar neighborhoods that might harbor a person like Nishan.
Zuhri was still standing before me, and a number of local residents had begun to encircle us. They may have been motivated merely by curiosity, but even so, I felt tense. I wanted to tell him that I had written my novel from my mind and had never suspected it was a telepathic text or a text that mimicked real life. What had happened would remain an uncanny mystery. If I ever worked out an explanation, I would come in person to tell him.
Zuhri suddenly grew less hostile. He adjusted his straw hat, poked his right hand in the pocket of his shorts, pulled out a folded paper like a page from a student’s notebook, and said, “I write stories too. Here’s one of my efforts that I like. It’s a flash story called ‘A Don Quixote with Absolutely No Connection to Cervantes’. I would like to hear what you think of it, please.”
“A Don Quixote with Absolutely No Connection to Cervantes” – what an imaginative title! It was beautiful! What a strange district this was where people took an interest in culture and education despite their poverty. I w
ould listen to Zuhri’s story. It might be as fine as its title, and perhaps if I praised it profusely I could win him over.
Light green: his shirt.
Gloomy black: his trousers.
What slumbers in his pocket: the spider of poverty.
What gleams atop his head: his bald pate.
What dies in his chest: his heart.
Lacking a profusion of windmills to fight,
He chooses to fight his woman.
Umm . . . a depressing story that truly did not resemble Cervantes; actually there was nothing in it that had anything to do with him. He should have left the title without any story.
Abd al-Qawi the Shadow says that in situations like these he affects the language of dotage and devises a lingo that is all obfuscation to discourage a would-be infiltrator from attempting to follow the path of creativity. But I wouldn’t do that, if only out of respect for a boy who had read my damn novel and who would never understand why it was the way it was. I would say his was an excellent story that fully demonstrated his talent. Thus I would soften the stern look on his face and the hostility in his eyes. I would award him a statement that might leave him feeling partial to me.
“Excellent, Shu‘ayb Zuhri . . . an extremely beautiful story! You are indeed talented, and I hope to hear more from you on another occasion. Tell me: Do you know where we can find Nishan?”
I think he felt cheered, and he was definitely breathing in a more relaxed way, but he didn’t thank me or answer my question about Nishan. Instead, he asked me for my cell phone number, which I felt obliged to give him despite my intense vigilance regarding my phone and home. He recorded my number on his old Ericsson phone, which looked the worse for wear and almost defunct. He strode away rapidly, without demonstrating any desire to help in any manner. Before disappearing completely from sight, though, he pivoted abruptly and returned to us. His face had stiffened. Once he was near me, he said, “Man, you know what upset me most about Hunger’s Hopes? It was the cover – absolutely the worst cover I have ever seen. Why did they put a picture of a slaughtered chicken on it? The novel’s not about a chicken – whether butchered or running free.”
Then he turned and departed once more, without awaiting my response.
I had actually had the same reaction. This boy – despite his vulgarity and use of gutter language in addressing me – seemed knowledgeable about book controversies and was the type of reader who begins perusing a book with its cover, exploring in depth the book’s presentation and analyzing it acutely. I remember that when this cover design was shown to me before publication, I asked what the point of the cover art was and how it related to the novel. The publishing house’s designer, who was almost seventy and whose name was Adam – people called him Father Adam, after the Prophet Adam – retorted rudely, “Writing a novel is one thing, and designing a cover for it is something else.” In short, I shouldn’t object to a cover I didn’t like, because I lacked the qualifications. The butchered chicken was an appropriate symbol for hunger. If I would just use as much imagination as I did in writing, I would discover the eyes of orphans, widows, and migrants gazing insatiably at this chicken from a distance. I didn’t argue with him and left him to his whispered misgivings and artistic hullabaloo. He was the most conceited graphic artist I have ever encountered.
We found Nishan’s shack easily this time, even though all the district’s structures which I had described sight unseen in the novel, resembled each other. I had created a mental map of the landmarks leading to it, and just in front of me was the corroded metal skeleton of what apparently had once been a truck, which might have been the one Nishan’s cousin Zakariya drove before he married an Ethiopian and migrated with her.
The shack was just as I had first seen it: filthy and foul-smelling. Books and ragdolls were scattered across the floor. A kerosene cooker lay haphazardly beside a lantern with a shattered glass shade. Aluminum pots and pans were strewn hither and yon. I noticed a bundle of old papers crammed inside one of the books. I pulled them out and dusted them off, sneezing. The penmanship was poor but legible. Presumably it was Nishan’s own handwriting, because he had learned to write at an advanced age. Contrary to my expectations, it wasn’t law school homework or any other type of homework. It was a botched attempt at drafting what the opening title proclaimed to be: “A Theory of the Ugliest Sin.”
I had never heard of a theory like this and never would have thought that anyone would have created one. A strange curiosity drove me to start reading what I assumed was the genuine raving of an insane man, who had become lost inside my novel’s text and was currently lost physically – regardless of whether these two forms of getting lost converged or not.
You talk a lot about this sin. To remain silent about it is uglier than the sin itself.
To love a girl who does not love you is a sin. For you not to love her is even uglier than the original sin.
To be hasty is a sin. For you not to be hasty is even uglier than the original sin.
I stopped reading and returned the papers to their place in the middle of the book. Then Muzaffar and I set off on a taxing tour of the district by foot. We investigated anything that could serve as a hideout – even the houses Hajj al-Bayt had once said were dens of iniquity where hellfire resided. Eventually we reached the abandoned railroad track where we had found Nishan the last time and grabbed him.
Boys were playing ball there and making a racket, and cheery girls were strolling through the ruins, but we found nothing more. A smokestack spewed black smoke in the distance; a secluded factory or refinery must be hiding there. When we had decided to leave the district and were passing by the carpets used for sales and purchases, we found Zuhri there with his folded piece of paper. He seemed to be reading “A Don Quixote with Absolutely No Connection to Cervantes” out loud to a pair of surly girls, one of whom had her arm slung over the other girl’s shoulder.
When eventually, after similar fruitless tours of other districts, we reached my house, my first thought was to turn on my computer to search for Murtaja on Wikipedia and his African prize of 3,000 dollars.
I typed Murtaja’s name into the search window on Google, in English in a number of different ways, and then added the word “crack” to this search request, but found no trace of any successful creative activity or prize – major or minor – associated with any Murtaja listed. I found Murtaja Tarbush, an atomic scientist, who was of Middle Eastern heritage, had worked in America for many years, and had died five months earlier of a heart attack. There was Murtaja Mahsud, a Pakistani for whom an international arrest warrant had been issued on charges of terrorism and belonging to al-Qa‘ida. He was not to be confused with Murtaja Abd al-Haqq who was a fortune-teller and psychic advisor, Murtaja Isa Kaluk, a notary public in love with the singer Shakira, whom he referred to as an icon of beauty and love, and other Murtajas who were mere names devoid of salient information, swimming in the vast expanses of Google.
I surmised that Zuhri had been exaggerating. Perhaps some short story actually had won something, but not a major competition by any means. I turned off the computer and went to sleep, leaving Muzaffar to chat with a woman on his laptop. Even so, the portrait of Linda shone in living color, as it always did when I pictured her in my mind. Linda the Shadow. I would soon, very soon, sketch her into my life.
– 13 –
The shadow rose from his relaxed, half-reclining position, removed his slim reading glasses, making his eyes seem slightly smaller than before, and held out a hand that was firm despite the blue veins that spread across its surface.
He didn’t seem to notice Muzaffar, or perhaps he had but hadn’t shown that he had, because Muzaffar was certainly within his field of vision.
He remarked, “You look extremely elegant, Writer – as if you had come to propose to a girl.”
I was slightly perturbed by his sentence and heard Muzaffar say, “As a matter of fact, Mr Abd al-Qawi, he has come for that reason.”
The Shadow
then noticed my companion, greeted Muzaffar with a bewildered nod of his head, and said to me, “I finished reading Hunger’s Hopes, luckily for you, and, as you can see, am now reading Invisible Cities, this amiable novel by the astonishing Italo Calvino. In my opinion, Hunger’s Hopes is an excellent novel that could support a sequel, which would begin with the tears of Ranim, who – as you wrote – emigrated and will, I hope, return from her hegira to become Yaqutah once more. She is weeping for her true love and recalling her days with him. This time you will write the novel yourself without telepathy, because your hero has died of cancer. By the way, what has become of him?”
I expected his arrogance. That wasn’t a problem, but a sequel for that damn novel was the last thing I needed. Ranim returns from exile and becomes Yaqutah again. Yes, she remained Yaqutah to the final page of the manuscript, but was this really happening? Was it possible that there would be one and the same ending for the real-life story and the fictitious one?
“Yes,” I said. “Definitely. Your opinion makes me very happy, and I will try to draft a sequel as soon as my inspirations coalesce. Nishan Hamza fled more than three weeks ago from the psychiatric hospital I checked him into, and unfortunately we haven’t found him yet. Even the police have done their best and failed.”
“I’m sad to hear that,” the Shadow replied. “Father Matthew completed the play An Elderly Demon in the Republican Palace down to the last line, but apparently you’re not so lucky.”
His voice changed suddenly, becoming monstrous and strident. “Why have you actually come to call, Gentlemen?”
I decided not to hesitate to embark on this adventure calmly, despite the less than welcoming sound of his voice and the facial expression which right then was that of a dyspeptic old man.
Telepathy Page 10
