‘If bullets speak, God alone will not be enough,’ she said, looking me straight in the eye, to which I quickly replied, ‘God have mercy on us for what you have said, woman. You are indeed an infidel and have not removed the cross from where it lies deep in your heart. Do you not trust in Allah’s ability to protect me from all danger?’
‘Since the night we consummated our nuptial vows I drove Christ out of my heart and put my trust in you, in Allah and His Prophet,’ she said. ‘I fear for you from your enemies who hide, and I know that to prevent things from happening is better than waiting until it is too late.’
‘But I am not going to an encounter with my enemies,’ said I. ‘I am going to meet my beloved people, my dear soldiers whose hearts are overflowing with love for me and with loyalty to our sacred vows. I can hear their voices join in the mighty chorus, “Long live the Imam, give him long life, O God, that he live for ever.” Do you not hear their acclamations rising to the skies, woman?’
The Bodyguard
The Bodyguard knew nothing about affairs of state, nor of matters related to the Imamate. His functions were well-defined. They consisted of putting on the rubber face which had been made to resemble the features of the Imam, in using props and other things to give him the tall and upright figure which people had so often seen standing high up on platforms surrounded by batteries of microphones, and in making sure that on all public occasions he remained close to the Imam. No one in the whole land could possibly distinguish between the two, tell which was the false Imam from the true, except the God of heaven and the Chief of Security. Nevertheless, the Bodyguard never allowed his senses to be lulled into a feeling that all was well. His ears kept turning themselves in all directions so that if at any moment he perceived what might resemble the sound of bullets being fired from a gun, he could immediately throw himself in front of the Imam and with his body intercept whatever bullet was destined for the One and Only Ruler. Thus he would die with that feeling of sublime happiness accorded only to he who has chosen to die a martyr for a great cause, who knows that the key to Paradise hanging around his neck will serve him well, and that all he will have to do is insert it in the door and enter, upon which he will find himself in the presence of the Prophet and the other martyrs who have arrived before him. He would also die happy in the knowledge that after death his wife, promoted to the status of Widow of the Great Martyr, would be provided with a special double pension and decorated with an Order of the Third Degree.
On the servant list our man was officially described as the Bodyguard. Only people with unique qualities could aspire to occupy this very special post, which entailed great risks and was very important since it required total devotion and loyalty to the Imam and complete faith in him. It was clear that such qualities could only be found in someone who had abandoned all use of his mind or who did not possess a capacity for reasoning at all. It had to be so since any attempt to think could lead to hesitation, and hesitation, even if only for a moment, could mean the end of the Imam. Once a bullet was fired, if the Bodyguard was slow in throwing himself forwards to intercept it with his body, the greatest of catastrophes would ensue. A complete lack of any capacity to think was therefore considered the first and foremost requisite in whoever applied for the post.
The Imam himself chose his Bodyguard. The applicants were made to stand in a line as he sat on his swinging canopy in the palace gardens. The choice was made after careful testing of the applicants’ brain cells, and the results were registered on a sheet of the whitest paper. Any mark or black dot on the paper could immediately arouse doubt as to the applicant’s suitability, since it would signify that one of the cells in his brain was still functioning.
‘Are you prepared to die for the Imam?’
‘Yes, with the greatest of happiness.’
All of them said yes. There was not a single no. But the Imam did not trust what people said. He believed only in the electronic apparatus which alone was capable of distinguishing between truth and lies. It was a difficult test, and only one person in a million could hope to succeed in passing it. After testing of the brain came testing of the body, and this was no less difficult. Many things had to be tested. The capacity of the ear to stretch and strain itself to the full so as to hear the sound of the bullet before it was fired from the gun. The capacity of the body to encounter death and to take on the form and consistency of the Imam’s body so that the two became indistinguishable. The agility required to drop suddenly and die, without drawing anybody’s attention to what was happening or giving anyone the slightest chance to realize that a bullet had been fired from a gun, especially as the sound was usually muffled by the use of one of those modern devices fitted to guns used in assassinating leaders. Besides, the acclamations of the crowd were so high that they made it impossible to hear the gun being fired even if it did make a sound. ‘God is with you,’ they cried.
The Imam lifted his face to the sky and fixed his attention on it, his mind straying for a moment from what was happening on earth. But in this split second of time the gun went off. The Bodyguard leapt to receive the bullet in his body with open arms. He fell to the ground at the Imam’s feet without drawing the attention of any of the people standing around. His body seemed to evaporate, to melt in no time, only to be replaced by another body with exactly the same contours and lines and with exactly the same rubber face which he was wont to wear over his own face so that he remained the living image of the Imam and made it impossible for anyone to distinguish between the true and false Imam, even if it were his own wife.
Every time the Bodyguard walked out of the door of his house he felt it would be for the last time, that he would not return. Yet he walked out of his own free will, his heart overflowing with happiness at the thought that he was going to his death carrying the key of Paradise around his neck. It hung from a fine silver chain and was cut like a fish tail with sharp indentations. Sometimes he used to wonder how he was going to open the door to Paradise with this key. Was Paradise like a house with a door leading into it? Would Radwan, the doorkeeper of Paradise, let him open the door with his key? Many questions went through his mind as he stood there with the acclamations of the crowd echoing in his ears. The cells of his brain kept chasing them away but they would return again. No one noticed how he stood there frowning slightly as though his brain was ticking away. The electric current had been cut off for some time and the electronic detector was not in functioning order.
The Chief of Security fastened his eyes on the back rows of the crowd, but the Imam kept a careful watch on the sky. Meanwhile the head of the Bodyguard maintained itself in exactly the same position as that of the Imam, gazing up into the heavens all the time. When the Imam waved his hand at the crowd, the Bodyguard managed to repeat the same movement without lagging behind. No one could possibly detect any difference between the two. The Imam had a characteristic way of walking over the land. He moved with a slight limp, the right foot coming down more heavily on the ground than the left one, for whereas the bones of his right leg were quite straight, the bones of his left leg were slightly bowed. But somehow the Bodyguard seemed able to advance with exactly the same gait. It was said that the curvature in the left leg of the Imam had been caused by a lack of calcium in his mother’s milk. The poor woman had never heard of the affliction called rickets and thought that the deformity in her son’s leg was caused by the evil eye, so she tied a blue bead round his neck with a string and dressed him in the clothes of a girl.
The Imam had the ability to be in two places at the same time, but no one except the Bodyguard knew his secret. The Imam would whisper something in his ear. Very often it was an order to replace him in some meeting or celebration, or in one of the sessions of the Advisory Council, or during the Friday prayer at the mosque, or in an official visit to some overseas country.
Thus on many occasions he preceded important personalities of State and Ministers, walking at a short distance in front of them, yet no one had the slig
htest suspicion that he was not the Imam. In fact the Bodyguard himself had ended up by believing that he was really the Imam. Even if at moments a fleeting doubt happened to cross his mind, it was soon dispelled by the acclamations of the crowd. He would step ahead at the exact place required, wearing the rubber face of the Imam, his face lifted to the sky with pride, as though he was absorbed in the issues of the time. On certain days he could be seen receiving ambassadors, or experts, or visitors from foreign countries, with a serene calm. At the inauguration of a new orphanage he cut the coloured ribbon with a pair of silver scissors presented to him on a platter. At meetings of the Advisory Council he remained just as silent as the Imam, listening to the reports made by the ministers. Every now and then he would nod his head in understanding, or his eyes would stray upwards as though he was lost in deep thought. No one noticed that he was not thinking of anything, that his mind had abandoned his body on the seat of the Imam and had fled to the ground floor. There he took off his rubber face, rubbed his nose flattened by the pressure of the other nose he always wore, and slipped out of the back door of the palace with the servants, hiding himself under his real face to avoid discovery. Once outside he jumped into a bus before it stopped, then jumped out of it before the ticket collector came up to where he stood, and walked leisurely down the narrow lanes, kicking at the pebbles with his pointed shoes until he reached the house where he was going.
His mother received him with a warm embrace, winding her arms tightly around him. He could recognize the smell of freshly baked bread and dung that clung closely to her clothes.
‘How could you forget your mother for so long, for twenty years or more?’
‘Have twenty years passed since I was here last time? Was I not here yesterday, mother?’
‘He who covers his body with the days is always naked. He who keeps his distance from the crown is always king,’ she said. He sat on her knee and she rocked him up and down, telling him about all the things which had happened since he was last here. ‘This winter all my chickens died of diarrhoea, and your aunt, may God have mercy on her, was taken ill with cholera and expired after a few days. Your uncle went on a pilgrimage to Mecca and never returned. Your female cousin was bitten by a mad dog and immediately after that your father visited me in a dream and said that he was waiting for me up there in Paradise. My son, have you forgotten what you promised me? Where is my ticket to Mecca?’
He buried his head in her bosom. ‘No, mother, it’s not that I have forgotten, but you know how it is with all these problems of being Imam and which seem to be without solution. Allah alone is all powerful and no one but He can do anything. You know, mother, this question of foreign debts and all. Then the struggle between the Great Powers which nobody can stop, and the preparations for a space war. Besides, I’ve had trouble with Hizb al-Shaitan, in fact with almost all its members. They are sons and daughters of fornication, may God punish them with hell-fire. And this pain I feel here in my chest just under your hand.’ Her fingers were hard and cracked with toil but they touched him gently over his wound. It was a deep wound which went right through from his back to his heart. She filled it up with ashes from the mud oven and with coarse grains of coffee, to help it heal quickly, and he went to sleep in her arms, her voice sounding like a distant sob as she sang her sad song.
Her deep strong voice reached him from afar as he stood on the platform wearing the face of the Imam just a moment before his fall. Its tones were wafted to his ears, like a voice in a faraway dream, or like a dream within a dream. Many were the times when in his sleep he had dreamt that he was dreaming. He would awaken in the middle of his dream, then fall asleep again only to dream once more that he was dreaming. In this dream he put on his rubber face and descended the stairs of the palace like someone walking in his sleep. Outside a car was waiting for him. He got into it and it drove him through the streets while he waved to his people. In the meetings of the Advisory Council the ministers would see him as he sat there listening attentively without hearing, shaking his head in understanding without understanding. He scratched his head from time to time as though thinking deeply, lost to what was going on around him.
But he was not thinking, for thinking was not required of those who occupied the post he occupied.
The sound of guns being fired echoed in the air with a deafening noise. Suddenly everything was enveloped in darkness. The blood froze in his veins, for ever since he was a child he had feared the darkness. The acclamations of the crowd and the sound of drums beat the salute to victory. At such moments no one sees the bullet when it is fired from the gun, and no one but he falls to the ground. He alone is the one who dies. His body drops down between his feet, and after a short while it is gone. Nobody sees it go, it just goes, and power is shifted from one to the other as fast as the rubber face is shifted from one face to the other. As for the people, they do not feel that anything has happened, that a change has occurred, for the Imam remains where he is, standing high up on the elevated platform, his head raised to the heavens. The rockets celebrating the Big Feast continue to be fired, and the acclamations continue to resound, filling the air with one great shout: ‘God is with you.’
The Two Faces
At a distance my childhood looks as though it was a happy childhood. Time consumes pain and there remains only the joy. Tears of sadness wash the eyes and make them see better than before. I still see my sister’s face, and her eyes shine into my eyes in the dark of night. She takes me in her arms and her bosom is soft and smooth like a mother’s. As for my brother, I carry him around with me wherever I go like the odour of my body. I can smell him in my sweat, in the perfume of my flowers. His body is my body, his flesh is my flesh, his sweat is my sweat. He and I are one, inseparable.
In the nursing school I see myself wearing a white dress, my hair rolled up inside a white cap. I move from one bed to the other like an angel, light as a feather, my feet hardly touching the ground. I am a spirit without body, without substance, a tall and slender shadow passing by. My voice is a whisper, my breathing deep, like a child. My breasts under the bodice of my white tunic are small and defiant and round. I have a small white bed in a big dormitory, and by my side is a wooden drawer with my name, Bint Allah, painted on it. Next to me is my sister Nemat Allah. Her face is thin, her features wan, but when she sees me a light shines in her eyes.
The nursing school was a huge old building with walls which had blackened over time. It was the only school of its kind; only orphans were allowed to apply. Adjoining the nursing school was the military hospital. It had shining, varnished windows and big terraces closed in with glass which overlooked the river. Across the river was another huge construction with a history as old as the history of slavery in our land. Its walls, too, had blackened with time, and year after year so many layers of dust had covered them that they had become the same colour as the earth and looked as though they had risen from its bowels. The windows were high and covered with long bars of iron, like a prison. The eyes of children could be seen as they looked out, shining like stars in a world of night. They were known as the children of God, but the term used in official documents to describe them was illegitimate children.
Behind the children’s home was an open space, where the ground was flat and pale yellow, but at its furthest confines it sloped upwards into a low flat hill covered by cactuses and thorn trees which people were in the habit of calling wild plants because they thought that such plants could only have grown against the will of God. In the shelter of the hill was still another enormous building, its age as old as that of Satan on earth. Its black walls rose so high up in the sky that they pierced through the clouds, defying heaven. Its windows were tall, and covered with long iron bars exactly like the windows of the children’s home. From behind these iron bars one could see the faces of women looking out, their hair gathered in the folds of a handkerchief knotted around their heads, or left to float loosely in the air. Their hair was always long and tangled, matted from lyi
ng in bed, and through it crept swarms of lice moving on thread-like legs; yet it shone under the sun with the bright colours of the rainbow. This place was commonly known as the House of Joy, but in the files of the Chief of Security it was referred to as the Prostitutes’ House.
From her window in the nursing school, I could not see the river or the low flat hill behind it. The huge military hospital filled the universe, blocking everything out completely except a small patch of sky which looked down at me from over the top of its walls, and a slender ray of light from the sun which reached me before it set at the end of each day.
I was not allowed to look out of the windows, for the terraces of the military hospital faced the windows of the dormitories where we slept. The army doctors leaned over the balustrades to take a look at the girls below. They smiled or nodded their heads or whistled. On their chests they displayed rows of coloured ribbons, and on their shoulders were shining pieces of metal shaped like stars. Their heads were always covered by a military cap.
At night after the final bell had rung, my sister would lean her head over the edge of the bed and tell me a story about love. Out came the photograph from under her bodice of a man in military uniform. We examined it together in the dim light. He wore his military cap squarely on the head, and on his chest shone a rounded metal disc. The jutting peak of his cap cast a grey shadow over the upper part of his face. It hid the look in his eyes and the shape of his nose. Under his nose was a square moustache carefully trimmed, which reminded me of Hitler. She would kiss the picture, push it quickly back into her bodice close to her heart, and then start to tell me her story all over again.
He had been hit by a bullet in his chest and she stood beside him as he lay in his bed. He called her ‘my tender angel’ and her fingers were gentle over his wound. She spent the nights at his side, and whenever he opened his eyes she was there, standing or sitting close to his bed. If she left him to get some sleep, a single ring of the bell would bring her back to his side. If the bell did not ring she crept back into his room on tiptoe and waited for his eyes to open. Whenever the blankets slipped slightly to one side she set them right. If he was thirsty she gave him something to drink, and if he wished, she read to him before he slept, verses from the Holy Book of God, or items from the newspapers about the war, for those were the only things which interested him. When he spoke to her it was always about the war. He had killed three men, but the fourth had managed to lodge a bullet in his chest and get away under cover of night. On Victory Day the Imam decorated him with a medal for his courage in battle. But for him all this was just a normal thing, for he had been trained to kill even as a child. He had a gun with which he killed the birds in spring as they stood on the branches looking down at him. He steadied the gun against his shoulder, took careful aim at the middle of the head before he pulled the trigger and the bird would drop with a single shot and die on the ground without a quiver.
The Fall of the Imam Page 5
