I pulled the belt tight around my belly, neither ate nor drank, threw piastre after piastre into the hands of God, then closed my eyes, and fell asleep with the deep sleep of children. In the dark I opened my eyes and heard the voice of God calling to me in my mother’s voice, warm and soft as her bosom. I ran towards it, and from a distance I saw her standing in the dark, waiting for me with her hands stretched out. I had one step to go before I threw myself into her arms, but I ceased running for just a moment to take my breath and they stabbed me in the back, why I did not know, and I turned round to face them before I could forget my words or the letters of the alphabet, and I said, ‘Why do you strike when I am giving all I have to God?’
They said, ‘We were speculating in gold, and the Bank of Faith went bankrupt because you are a daughter of sin and a bad omen and you brought us bad luck and God will never make us victorious and multiply our profits until you are wiped off the face of this earth.’
The Grievance
I asked, ‘To whom can I complain? To whom can I have recourse in my grievance?’
And they said, ‘The Imam, he is our ruler.’
‘Can I complain about him to him?’ I asked.
‘We all complain about him to him,’ they said.
‘Complaining to anyone but God is a humiliation,’ I said.
I folded the grievance I had written and hid it in my bosom so that no one should see it, but the spies of the Imam spotted me, for his spies were everywhere. They asked, ‘What are you hiding in your bosom?’
‘Nothing,’ I said.
They opened up my bosom and found the grievance folded up inside, written in my handwriting. They held on to it tightly with their hands and said, ‘Now we have the material evidence of your great crime. How can you dare put down on paper and in your own handwriting your grievances against God?’
I said, ‘It’s a grievance against the Imam.’
‘Do you not know that the Imam is the representative of God on earth, and whoever opposes the Imam, opposes God?’
‘I do not know that,’ said I.
‘How is it you don’t know? Don’t you read the newspapers? Aren’t you living in this world?’
‘I do not read your newspapers and I do not live in your world,’ I said.
‘That is another heresy, a new crime. Whosoever brings us something which we did not have before causes evil and is plotting to create chaos, and plotting is much more dangerous a crime than killing.’
The judge passed a sentence of death on her and said she had committed three crimes: conspiracy, breach of honour, and heresy. Before they executed the sentence and prayed the prayer of the absent over her soul, they asked her in very gentle tones, ‘What do you want before you say farewell to this world?’
She said, ‘I want a public trial and a proper legal defence counsel.’
They said, ‘We have a legal opposition but we have never heard of a legal defence counsel.’ They disappeared and came back dragging the Leader of the Official Opposition along with them. He stood in front of her wearing a white turban wrapped around his head, a symbol of his devotion to the cause of justice. On his breast he had pinned a red star, the official badge of Hizb al-Shaitan.
‘I am at your disposal,’ he said in a mellow voice.
She looked him in the eyes and said, ‘I am innocent of everything, of crime, of a father, of a mother –’
But he interrupted her quickly. ‘Of a father?’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘of a father.’
He paused a moment, then nodding his head slowly, said, ‘This is indeed a calamity and it can only have been sent to you by God for a purpose, for the verse says, “We have sent you the calamity of evil, for good can be a cause of temptation.” Do you not know this verse?’
‘No,’ she said, ‘I do not know it.’
It is a very well-known verse, the thirty-fifth verse of the Sura of the Prophets. Have you really not heard it before?’ he said in a voice expressing profound astonishment.
‘I do not know it,’ she insisted.
‘Your not knowing this verse is indeed a great sin,’ he said. ‘You should learn it by heart before the time comes for you to die. It is only thus that you will go to heaven instead of hell.’
He put his hand into the pocket of his expensive trousers made of the very best material and extracted a piece of paper and a fountain pen covered with a gold cap. He held the pen between the tips of his fine, shapely fingers, like those of legal wives, and wrote on it in clear black letters: ‘We have sent you the calamity of evil, for good can be a source of temptation’. Then he put the gold cap back on the pen, screwed it round three times, and returned it to the pocket of his expensive trousers, his fingers reappearing after he had done this, as smooth and white as usual. Then, speaking again in his mellow voice, he said, ‘Repeat this verse three times a day before meals and three times a day after meals and then, if God wills, you shall find yourself in Paradise.’
She held the piece of paper between her fingers like a child clutching on to a straw in the stormy seas of life, and continued to recite the verse day and night until she had learnt it by heart. Through a crack in the door she could see them digging a pit for her in the ground, then they tied her with ropes of hemp, and all the time she continued to recite, ‘We have sent you the calamity of evil, for good can be a source of temptation.’ But the ears of the Imam heard her as she recited, for he had ears everywhere, and he was very angry at what he heard.
‘Do you make mistakes even when you recite the words of God?’ he said.
‘What mistakes? Is it not a verse of the Qur’an?’ I asked.
‘All mistakes can be forgiven except those related to the words of God,’ he said, ‘for they are more grievous than any other mistake.’
‘But what mistake did I make in the verse?’
‘Do you not know the correct words?’ he asked. ‘The correct words are, “We have sent you the calamity of evil, for good can be a temptation,” and you are saying instead, “We have sent you the calamity of good, for evil can be a temptation,” and thus you have made a grievous mistake against God, because the calamities which He sends can only be evil and not good.’
‘But I did not know what the verse is,’ I said.
‘Then from where did you get the words of the wrong verse?’ he asked.
‘From the Leader of the Official Opposition,’ I said.
‘You are lying. The Leader of the Official Opposition could never make a mistake in the words of God.’
The Imam pressed the bell with the tip of his finger, and the Leader of the Official Opposition appeared at once with his head wrapped in the white turban and the red star pinned over his breast. ‘Yes, my Lord,’ he said. And the Imam asked him about the verse. But the Leader of the Opposition denied that he had had anything to do with me. ‘I only meet virtuous women,’ he said. And without exception they all believed him, whether they were members of Hizb Allah or Hizb al-Shaitan. So she pulled out the paper that he had written from her bosom and showed it to them, but they said that it was not his handwriting and that now she had committed another crime, which was falsifying the verses of the Qur’an and forging official documents.
‘I swear that he wrote this paper in front of me with his fountain pen, which had a golden cap,’ I said.
‘What?’ they asked. ‘What is that you said? A fountain pen with a golden cap?’
‘I saw it with my own eyes,’ I said.
‘Are you accusing the Leader of the Official Opposition of embezzlement?’
‘I’m not accusing him of anything, but –’
‘Do you not know that he was appointed by decree of the Imam, and that if you cast a shadow on his reputation you are casting a shadow on the reputation of the Imam?’ they said.
‘I do not know that, but I would like to say –’
‘But what can you have to say after what you have already said with that tongue of yours, which is the source of all rumours and s
hould be cut off from its roots in accordance with Shari’a?’
At this point my ears had ceased to hear their voices. I stood steadfast in my place without moving, my eyes shining like stars in a black sky and my head raised upright to God. By my side squatted my dog Marzouk, his head lifted up like mine, his ears erect as he strained himself to hear their voices, his eyes vigilant, watching their faces so that later on he would be able to recognize them, and when he met the Imam he would bark out as loudly as he could, get a hold on his trousers with his teeth, and never let go. They pulled at him with all their might, but he continued to hold on tight and refused to let go. They shot him several times from behind and he fell by my side. Between his fangs they found a piece of the Imam’s expensive trousers, and by its touch you could tell that it was of the very best wool.
The Superpowers
I raised my head to the sky and lifted my hand to the roaring crowd, and that is when I heard the sound of shots being fired. I saw my face fall off my bare head and roll under the seat of the throne. I buried it in the ground, hiding it from the eyes of those around, and quickly replaced it with the other face which had the features of the Imam. Then I climbed back quickly to the elevated platform before anyone had the time to see me as I fell, then rose again. But the world around me now was no longer the same world as it was before. On my chest I could no longer see the medals and decorations I used to have, nor did I see the Star of Justice attached by a pin to my robe, nor was the royal ring on the middle finger of my hand. Not a single one of my supporters remained behind, and the members of Hizb Allah and Hizb al-Shaitan were nowhere to be found. Even my legal wife had disappeared, leaving no trace behind.
I was all alone, with no one around, and as far as the eye could see the land was a desert of sand. Far away, near the horizon, I could see a river, and behind the river was a green hill. I said to myself, I must have moved to another world, and what I see in the distance is Paradise. My mouth has always been dry, and ever since I was a child I have always suffered from a great thirst. I am one hundred per cent sure that I will get into Paradise, just as sure as I am of the existence of God.
In my pocket I carried a letter of recommendation from the Prophet and several bonds of repentance from the Bank of Faith. I pulled all these papers out of my pocket when I stood in front of the door-keeper Radwan, God’s peace be on him. He was illiterate and could not read the words written on the papers. I told him I was the Imam and quickly delivered one of my famous speeches, but not knowing the Arabic language he did not understand anything, and left me standing at the door for a long time with my bare head exposed to the burning sun. I asked him how it was that he did not seem to care much for my speeches, whereas people all over the world were very interested in what I said, and he nodded his head in a way which showed that he had misunderstood.
At that moment I noticed a woman approach from a distance. I thought that she was my mother, but when she came up closer I realized that she was not my mother, but my first wife. I begged her to intervene with Radwan on my behalf, but she said, ‘The only one who can do anything for you is your new wife.’
So I said to her, ‘Please help me to find her.’
Then I saw the town crier advancing to where we stood, and I heard him crying out, ‘People of the afterworld, lower your eyes to the ground, the wife of the Imam is passing by.’
And I saw a fair-skinned woman with the features of a foreigner who looked about the age of my daughter. She resembled my legal wife, so I greeted her and said, ‘In the world, I wrote many speeches beginning, “In the name of God” and ending with “Praise be to the Prophet,” and so I deserve to enter Paradise.’
But pointing to the cross hanging over her breast she asked me, ‘Was there no mention of Jesus Christ or of the Virgin Mary in the Qur’an?’
So I said to her, ‘I beg of you to intervene on my behalf with them.’
She gestured to me to follow her, and I held on to the tail of her mare. I noticed that the mare, in order to avoid the crowded streets and traffic lights on the earth, flew up into the air, and that she had a steel wing on either side of her body and a cone-shaped head, like the front part of a rocket. I said to my wife, ‘What is this?’
She answered, ‘Allah has sent you a new plane as a gift to replace the old mare.’
So I sat on my seat in the first row, with the Chief of Security next to me. Through a crack in the door I glimpsed the face of the pilot. It was round and fleshy, and his complexion was very white with black spots on it like freckles, and when he spoke he had a foreign accent. When he came to greet us I welcomed him warmly, as I always do with the representatives of the Great Powers. He offered me caviar on a silver plate and a bottle of the best wine, and when it was time for take-off I heard his voice somewhere near the ceiling of the plane reciting verses of the Qur’an and praying to God that He protect the plane from falling to the ground. By God’s grace the plane took off safely, and now I could hear the sound of dance music accompanied by what sounded like the snapping of a woman’s fingers to the beat of the tune. I looked up and recognized her face immediately. Gawaher? In those days I was still young and innocent and full of audacity, and Gawaher lived in the House of Joy where I used to visit her quite often.
As I was thinking of all this, the plane shivered suddenly and we clipped the belts around our waists, and once again the voice near the ceiling started reciting verses from the Qur’an and praying to God to protect the plane from falling as it landed. I felt the wheels of the plane skidding gently over an expanse of green, soft and smooth like the finest grass, and I said to myself: We have arrived in Paradise.
But my legal wife said, ‘No, not yet, for you cannot enter Paradise unless Christ pleads for you and until you have paid off the debts you owed in the world.’
The man with the black freckles asked, ‘Haven’t you paid your debts yet?’
‘Give me another year,’ I said, ‘then I can ask God to postpone my death another year until I have paid my debts.’ And I gave him a glass of wine so that we could drink to friendship, but he refused to take it, saying in his foreign accent that alcohol is forbidden, and that he had been asked to throw all drink out of the windows of the plane. So I said to him, ‘But Khawaga, why prohibit what God has sanctioned? Look at God’s Paradise and you will see rivers flowing with wine and beautiful nymphs as fair as honey.’
He looked over the fence but could not see anything. ‘Where is the Paradise you are talking about, Lord Imam?’ he asked.
‘Wait,’ I said, ‘patience is a good thing and no one should try to hurry God. By His will we shall enter Paradise together.’
‘You go alone and I’ll wait for you in the plane,’ he said. ‘Take-off time will be exactly six o’clock GMT, and remember, I’ll be waiting for you just in case, God forbid, anything should happen to you.’
My legal wife took my arm and we went off to meet Christ. She whispered in his ear in a language I did not understand. He nodded his head and said that he agreed to mediate on my behalf, then enjoined us to follow the straight and narrow path of God, but when I put my foot on it I could not advance even an inch. My legal wife looked at me and said, ‘This is where I shall have to leave you to the good hands of Allah and His Prophet.’ And she went off, leaving me trembling all over, but I noticed a black woman running over the straight and narrow path as fast as she could, and she caught hold of me by the hand before I fell off. I recognized her face immediately, for she had been my slave before God opened the doors of good fortune to me. I had run away from her in the night just before she gave birth to my daughter.
‘You are the first and only love of my life,’ I said. And I walked along beside her, leaning to the left whenever she tried to hold me up on the right, and bending towards the right whenever she tried to hold me up on the left, until we were both exhausted by the effort. So I said to her, ‘Gawaher, if you want to help, then the best thing to do is to act according to the common saying, “Mistress,
if you are at your wits’ end what to do, carry me Za‘afouna.”’
‘Now what does “Za‘afouna” mean?’ she asked.
‘It means hang your hands over the shoulders of the other and grasp hold of both his hands, then lift his body up with his back facing your belly. Have you not heard what the Gahglouls of this world have said: “My situation has advanced so much backwards that I now walk backwards.”’
‘“Za‘afouna”? I have heard neither of Za‘afouna nor of Gahglouls,’ she said, ‘but whatever they may be I shall still carry you to the Prophet Muhammad.’
And when we got to the Prophet Muhammad, peace be on Him, He said, ‘I bestow this black woman on thee. Take her with thee, so that she might wait on thee in Paradise.’
But no sooner had we arrived at the door of Paradise than Radwan looked at me severely and said, ‘Have you got a pass?’
And I said, ‘No.’
The Fall of the Imam Page 16
