But all of a sudden they opened their eyes and, gradually coming back to themselves, they realized that it was the Big Feast, and that they were wearing new shoes with iron hooves, which made a clinking noise as they walked in the streets. The Imam had decreed that a bonus be distributed to them on this occasion and that at the end of the month their pay be adjusted to the rise in the cost of living. They marched in rows, one after the other, on their way to acclaim the Leader, and as each row passed the tread of their feet could be heard, yet the columns in which they marched continued to waver like a swarm of ants advancing without a queen. Their eyes kept shooting glances around them, looking for God as though they were unable to find Him. ‘Where art thou, O God of the heavens and the earth?’ And, at the spot where the hill starts to rise upwards between the river and the sea, they halted, looked around them as though they had never been to the place before, and a gasp of wonderment could be heard rising from their compact mass, for there she lay on the ground, her back to the earth, her face to the sky, her eyes wide open and densely black. They nodded their turbaned heads and said, ‘There is no God but Allah, praise be to Him. She has died God’s death, for it is God alone who makes it so that people die.’
But one of them said, ‘This is not God’s death. I know who killed her and the killer is not God.’
They were seized with fear, and from deep inside prayed that God have mercy on them for what the man had said, since no one dies except by the hand of God, and holding their breath they stared at the heavens as though God had a hand that could be seen up there above their heads. But seized once more with fear at this new heresy, for God, unlike man, hath neither tongue nor hand, they kneeled, bowing their heads low to the ground. Then, sitting up cross-legged, they moved their heads close together and whispered to one another in hushed tones before lifting their eyes up once more to the heavens in silent prayer: God have mercy on us. After which they all started shouting, ‘Glory to God, to our country and to the Imam!’ ‘The smallest doubt is a great sin,’ they said to one another. ‘No one dies except by the will of God.’ Then, crying out in one voice, ‘There is no God but Allah!’, they buried her deep in the ground.
But her heart continued to beat. Three days her heart continued to beat after she died, they said, and for seven days her spirit wandered around the spot where she lay. Then, on the eighth day, her spirit left her grave and started to move towards the elevated piece of land between the river and the sea. They swore by God Almighty that they had seen her with their very eyes, walking on her own two legs, moving at her usual quick pace with her head held upright and her dog Marzouk behind her. They said, however, that nobody had been able to look into her face, and that they had only seen her from behind, but they swore by Allah, their land, and the Imam three times that it was certainly her and nobody else, and that her spirit had risen from the grave to take revenge on them, so much so that they were unable to stop themselves from trembling all the time.
Fear dwelt inside them day and night and refused to give them a moment’s respite. Nothing was able to keep it away, not even the covers under which they slept, nor the long robes in which they dressed. Fear followed them everywhere, even to the toilet rooms or behind the closed doors of their homes, for they thought she could pass through anything, could see them wherever they went and yet remain invisible herself, so that if one of them slipped out of the bed of his wife to go to that of another woman she would see him, and if a man took off his clothes and remained naked she would see him, and if one of them put his hand in the pocket of another she would see him, and if a man put his hand on his male organ while he slept she would see him. They now feared her just as much as they feared God, and when they slept she appeared to them as God, for none of them had the feeling that he was innocent. Each one of them had picked up a stone and thrown it at her. Their lids were heavy with sleep and their hearts were heavy with guilt, and at night when they slept they huddled close up to each other, for they were afraid to sleep alone or to open a door and go out alone in the night.
The only two who escaped this fear were her mother and her dog Marzouk, for neither of them had ever caused her the slightest harm. So her mother continued to wait for her in the dark of the night, standing where she always stood, steadfast as a rock, with her hands clasped over her bosom and her face lifted up to the sky. At her feet lay Marzouk curled up like a child, his face pale and thin, and the corners of his eyes seemed to shine as though each of them hid a frozen tear. He held his ears erect, straining himself eagerly to hear her footsteps before she came in sight. His neck was stretched, his nose pointing up to catch her smell amongst the myriad odours of the universe. His eyes were trying to discern the shine of her eyes amongst the myriad stars in the endless heavens, and before she had the time to come in sight he ran up to her, lifting himself on his hind legs, reached up like a child for its mother’s bosom, then drying his eyes on the tail of her robe, listened to her panting breath as she ran through the night, gazing at the fine thread of blood as it trickled down her body, and at the deep, deep wound in her back.
Eternal Love
He said to her, ‘I will love you for ever.’
She said, ‘If you want me to believe you, do not say for ever.’
He said, ‘You must believe that my love for you will last for ever.’
She said, ‘I beg of you, do not say for ever if you wish me to believe that what you say is true.’
He said, ‘But I swear to love you with a love which will remain eternally true.’
She asked, ‘What do you swear by when you say that your love for me will last for ever?’
‘I swear by God, my land, and the Imam.’
She said, ‘Then I believe you and will put my life completely in your hands. My mind, my heart, and my body make me what I am, and in love they are all one for you to have.’
In the morning she saw his picture in the paper. It was a big picture and showed him wearing the Medal of Valour on Victory Day. Underneath was a short line announcing his marriage to the daughter of the Chief of Security.
She said, ‘Yesterday you said to me that you love me.’
He said, ‘That was yesterday, but today is not the same day as it was yesterday.’
She said, ‘Can you betray me and yet remain faithful to your country?’
He said, ‘I am not one man. I am two men in one. The man who was with you yesterday is not the man I really am. He was the other man. I am the man who loves you dearly. Love and marriage are two different things and should not be seen as one.’
She said, ‘Then you married without love.’
He said, ‘Her father was after me all the time, hunting me down like Satan, so I said to myself that to avoid the harm he can do to me the best thing is for me to take the apple of his eye from him. Then he will fall right into my hand and be forced to do what I wish. I needed to possess her, and where it is a question of possessing, to speak of love is no longer relevant.’
The following night he found her lying in the arms of another man. When he saw the face of this other man he started to tremble all over, for the man was no other than the Chief of Security in person.
He said, ‘Do you betray me with another man?’
She said, ‘I am not one woman. I am two women in one. The woman who was with you yesterday is not the woman I really am. She is the other woman. I am the woman who loves you, and who will love you for all time. Love and marriage are two different things and should not be looked upon as one.’
He asked, ‘Is he your husband?’
She said, ‘He kept threatening my father with imprisonment, so I said to myself that to avoid the harm he can do to us the best thing is for me to marry him as soon as I can. Thus he will fall right into my hands and be at my beck and call. I needed to possess him, and where it is a matter of possession, to speak of love becomes irrelevant.’
They embraced one another for a long, long while. No one could see them in the silent night. No one cou
ld hear them make a silent vow, as they swore by God, by their land and the Imam that their love would last for ever. And at the peak of their ecstasy he said to her that according to Shari’a a man could have four wives at the same time, but that he could only love one woman.
She asked him, ‘Are you a member of Hizb Allah or a member of Hizb al-Shaitan?’
He said, ‘I am a member of both parties.’
‘But can a man be a member of two parties at one time?’
He said, ‘There is nothing in Shari’a which prohibits a man from being a member of two parties. Since I believe that God exists, and since I believe that Satan exists, and since I fear both of them, in order to avoid the harm which can come to me from either of them, I decided to join both parties.’
In the quiet of the night he heard her say, ‘You live in eternal fear.’
The Great Writer
Rest your hand on my head and do not leave me alone, for you are the only person in the world who can sit by my bedside and watch me die, for with you I have no feeling of shame or guilt. If my four wives come to visit me, close the door of my room and do not let them in, for I do not wish to read the hidden satisfaction in their eyes as they see me dying. If a man comes along with a pail of water to wash my body, do not let him in, for when my father died I saw a man like him turn his body over on its face and push one of his fingers up the hole at the end of his back. Since then I decided never to allow anybody to wash my body before burial. I do not understand the sense in washing my body only to bury it in the dust after that. But you know, mother, people live their lives and then die without ever using their minds. After the Imam bestowed the title of Great Writer upon me I married a new wife, was provided with a new house, and bought the best furniture I could find so that if the Imam visited me one day I should not feel ashamed. Since the day he bestowed the title on me and then decorated me with the Medal of Art and Literature, I decided that it would be wrong for me not to be at his side all the time. He said, ‘You must vow always to be loyal to me.’ Then he stood me up in front of him with the Holy Book held in my hand and made me swear eternal loyalty.
He said, ‘I am the Imam and no one shall share power with me, and you will be my Great Writer. You shall have a whole page to yourself in the daily newspaper with your picture placed in a frame at the top. Your seat will be separated from mine by one seat only, that of the Chief of Security. But at night nothing at all will come between us as we drink toast after toast in honour of a friendship which has lasted since the days of our childhood.’
When I stood beside him in the first row, with the lights projected on him from all sides, and the arches celebrating victory raised on all the streets, and with the acclamations of the people echoing like thunder in my ears, I never realized that he could fall down from on high, or die as other men die. I still had a brain in my head, but it seemed to have stopped working, why I do not know. I had forgotten how my father had died, how others had died, how the newspapers were full of the names of those who died every day. The thought of death was in my mind, and yet somehow it never occurred to me that I myself would die. As I stood close beside him I heard the sound of bullets being fired, saw him drop down by my side and saw myself drop down by his side, and yet despite all that my mind remained unable to grasp what was happening. I would go on living as though for ever. No matter how much I tried to change my mind all my efforts were in vain, and even if at certain fleeting moments I managed to realize that my own life would come to an end, when it came to him I really could not see him dying.
How could he possibly die when his picture looked down on me all the time, was all around me up in the sky, or on the land hanging down from the top of arches or columns or walls or high buildings, or looking out from the pages of daily newspapers morning, noon, and night? How could he possibly die when his name was on every mouth, his voice in every call to prayer, his words quoted to define wrong and right, sin and virtue, honour and shame? How could I think of him dying when he continued to stand high up on the elevated platform while the festive rockets burst in the sky, when the words of his speech, slow, stammering in the midst of their flow, were punctuated at every stammer with a roar of acclamation from the crowd?
There I stood listening to him as he stammered his way through, hearing the applause which with every stammer seemed to grow, my mind unthinkingly going back to the days when he sat beside me in school, remembering how whenever the teacher asked him a question he would open his mouth as wide as he could and start stammering, the children in the classroom laughing at the top of their voices, or how he would walk across the courtyard with his hand behind his back, a group of boys following behind him trying to pull it away and uncover the hole in his trousers he was trying to hide. During examinations he sat beside me and bending down every now and then, whispered from under the seat, ‘Say, do you understand anything about all this shit?’
I do not know, mother, how it is that the times have moved in such a way that now he is the Imam while I remain a writer of little importance. But as you know, those who were last in class used to join the army or the police forces and soon became leaders or presidents, although they really had nothing to show except their smart uniforms and shining stars on their shoulders. I went to law school and my father addressed me as the Vizir, but I would say to you in a whisper that I hated law, and hated justice, and hated my father too. At that you caught your breath in a gasp of horror, just like the day when you found me standing naked in front of the mirror examining myself. It was the same mirror in which I had glimpsed my father naked in the arms of another woman. Sensing that I was hiding behind the curtain he jumped out of bed and pulled me out by my ear, then threw me on my bed shouting at the top of his voice that I was walking in my sleep. In the morning when we sat down to breakfast you gave me my usual glass of milk, but I refused to drink it, so my father beat me and told me to drink up my milk. When I continued to refuse he caught hold of me and, opening my mouth by force, poured the milk down my throat. No sooner did he sit down at the table again than I vomited the milk into his plate. You asked me what was wrong with me since I liked my glass of morning milk, to which he said, ‘The boy is ill, I caught him walking in his sleep.’ He insisted on putting me to bed and started to pour medicine down my throat which tasted as bitter as poison. I told you that my father was trying to kill me so that I should not be able to tell you what I had seen, and you asked me what I meant. But when I was about to speak I caught the look of death in his eyes and my tongue refused to speak.
I watched you every day as you continued to wash his clothes, rubbing away at the yellow stains, seeing them with your own eyes, smelling the other woman in them with your own nose, every day washing and cooking, and waiting for him until he came home late at night, and my heart kept getting heavier and heavier all the time. When I looked into your eyes I could see that you knew, knew that something was very wrong in this world of ours, but you kept silent. If you had said something just once, if you had refused to wash the dirt off his trousers stained with the stain of another woman, or if you had gone to another man, then perhaps what was wrong with the world would have been partly righted, or would have become more bearable, and then perhaps within me would have been born the desire for justice or a belief in God, for when I was a child God to me meant justice. I yearned to see you in the arms of a man other than my father. If you had slept in the arms of another man only once, then maybe the balance in my world would have been tipped in favour of justice. The teacher of religious catechism read out of the Holy Book and I listened to the words which meant that an eye should be taken for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, that treachery should be answered with treachery and loyalty met with loyalty. The treachery of my father remained grafted to our life and you did nothing to cut it off before it invaded everything. The sin that was being committed against us seemed to grow each time I saw you smile in my father’s face.
I kept searching for justice in vain until one day I came
upon the boy sitting next to me, his hand held behind his back to cover the hole in his trousers, his head bowed over his desk as though he had been caught in a shameful act. Whenever the teacher asked him a question he would look around in dismay and start to stammer so hard that the sweat poured down his face. When the boys made fun of him he would say at the top of his voice, ‘Where is the justice in this world? All the boys except me can speak without any difficulty. Why has God created only me with this defect?’ Then he would come close up to me and whisper in my ear, ‘There is no justice, therefore there is no God. God does not exist.’ And I would whisper back, ‘Yes, if God existed loyalty would not have been met with treachery, nor would treachery have been met with loyalty.’ I was only nine years old at that time, and we were both young children in school, yet what linked us together was a firm belief that God did not exist, for my readiness to believe in God depended on your being unfaithful to my father.
My father remained unfaithful to you right up to the end, and I could not understand why you could not answer back. Then I understood that you were too afraid to do anything, and that every night you wept in your pillow, that every night you dreamt that you were in bed with another man, but when the morning came you never dared to live what you had dreamt. You feared my father just as you had feared your father before him, but above all you were afraid of God. I kept saying to you, mother, an eye for an eye, a good act for a good act, a bad act for a bad act, but you never paid much attention to me and even when you did try to listen you failed to understand, and even when you finally understood you could not bring yourself to act. Day after day you fell deeper and deeper into a pit of despair, into total resignation. If you had only fought back against injustice once, if you had only stood up for your rights once, then I might have known the meaning of justice and been brought to believe that God existed. And since you were incapable of defending your own rights you became incapable of defending the rights of others, of defending my rights. You watched my father mete out punishment to me unfairly, and when the struggle between us became more and more cruel, you took sides with him. He was always right and I was always wrong and you always had good reasons not to defend me. If you had said he was wrong just once, if you had stood up for what is right only once, then I might have started to know what justice meant, started to feel that there might be a God worth believing in after all. Then I could have given loyalty in return for loyalty.
The Fall of the Imam Page 9
