Divorce Islamic Style (9781609458942)

by Lakhous, Amara

  In the afternoon I go to work. I arrive at the restaurant punctually, Damiano is already off to a flying start with the whiskey. I think he’s an alcoholic, but he doesn’t realize it. Luckily he has a strong body and he holds his liquor. But till when? Who knows. Felice is making the dough for the pizza.

  “Issa, we have a big problem.”

  “Are you talking about the fatwa?”

  “What fatwa?”

  “The one against working in restaurants.”

  “Are you referring to Signor Haram?”

  Felice is informed about everything. He doesn’t hide his hostility toward the Egyptian butcher. He tells me a few things about him. It seems that the fatwa against working in restaurants isn’t the first and certainly won’t be the last. Signor Haram doesn’t have any troubles with his residency permit. Lucky him! He became a citizen because he’s married to an Italian. So he has plenty of time to spend on his bullshit. He seems to have a taste for terrorizing poor Muslim immigrants, especially Egyptians, with extremist judgments: forbidding them to watch TV, listen to music, shake hands with members of the opposite sex, live with non-Muslims, touch a dog, go to a doctor who is not of the same sex, have a bank account, take out a loan, etc.

  In other words, he sees prohibitions everywhere. He earned his nickname by coming up with a new prohibition every damn day. Instead of doing a good job as a butcher, he devotes himself to spreading oddball religious opinions. Someone like him, with his extraordinary expertise, should live not in Rome but in some Afghan village taken over by the Taliban.

  His greatest ambition is to become imam of the big mosque in Rome, even though he hasn’t studied at Al Azhar, which is the usual requirement. Who knows, sooner or later he’ll end up on Bruno Vespa’s talk show. And you won’t want to miss it!

  Felice tells me a tragicomic story involving Imam Rami alias Signor Haram and his adversary, Imam Zaki alias Signor Halal:

  Saturday is a bad day for pizza makers. You work like a dog. Felice quarrels with a waiter for a silly reason and in a moment of rage declares, “I swear by God I’ll divorce my wife if they don’t get rid of this bastard of a waiter.” After closing, Felice asks Damiano to fire the waiter, presenting his version of events. The boss tries to mediate, asking the guy to take a step back and apologize to Felice, who, in turn, tries to explain that it’s a matter of the oath and divorce: “If this waiter doesn’t leave, I can’t go to bed with my wife.” The waiter keeps asking the same question: “What do I have to do with your wife?” Felice doesn’t answer. In other words, apologies are not enough to save the marriage.

  In the end Damiano refuses his request. “I don’t want to throw somebody out in the street just to satisfy a Muslim religious whim.” Felice now finds himself in a very awkward situation. He decides to go to Signor Haram to get a religious opinion, and Signor Haram, naturally, has no doubts: the oath sanctions the divorce. In desperation, Felice also consults Signor Halal, who gives a completely different opinion: there is no divorce, because his wife has nothing to do with it. Felice takes the second position and the matter is closed.

  “But Issa, let’s forget Signor Haram and his fatwas. I wanted to speak to you about something else.”

  “What?”

  “Farid, the assistant pizza maker, leaves tomorrow for Egypt and he’ll be there for three months—it seems that his father is dying. He’s afraid he’ll lose his job when he returns. Will you substitute for him in the meantime?”

  “But I’ve never done it.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll teach you everything. You don’t want to be a dishwasher your whole life?”

  “No, no . . . All right, I’ll do it. Thank you. When do I start?”

  “Right away. I’ll talk to Damiano.”

  That same night I replace the Egyptian assistant pizza maker, while a Pakistani fellow takes my place as dishwasher. Felice explains the secrets of the work skillfully and patiently, dwelling on the fact that for many years he was the assistant to a Neapolitan pizza maker. In other words, he learned from a true professional.

  The dough is very important. The recipe has to remain secret, like the recipe for Coca-Cola. Every pizza maker has his personal dough. Later, but only later, he can indulge his imagination and make up new pizzas by mixing different ingredients. Felice considers himself an architect of pizza. He has a list of pizzas that he has created, like Nile pizza, Zamalek (his favorite team), Aida (the name of his daughter), and so on.

  During the brief pauses between one pizza and the next Felice talks to me in particular about Farid. He’s really angry at him. You can’t leave like that, without any warning and for that length of time. Plus he expects to find his job waiting when he gets back. It seems that the assistant pizza maker has invented yet another lie with the story of his father’s illness. The real reason for the trip to Egypt is to go and have a good time with his wife, left with her parents in Cairo.

  “You understand, Issa? Farid couldn’t stand abstinence.”

  “Abstinence?”

  “Yes, he was in need of sexual assistance. He went to fuck. Hahaha.”

  Felice tells me a lot of details about the lives of Muslim immigrants, especially the observant ones. Many of them live in profound anxiety. The married ones, for instance, can’t return home every year. And they can’t have extramarital relations, because Islam forbids it. Bachelors, for their part, are also forced to be celibate, in expectation of marrying. And in the meantime they have to confront all the problems associated with sexuality, like premature ejaculation or even impotence. Felice also remarks on the Italian girls and foreign tourists who go around half naked, exciting the these wretched Muslim immigrants.

  My first night as an assistant pizza maker went very well. Felice told me that I learned quickly. But I don’t go home with him, Damiano asks me to give the new dishwasher a hand cleaning up. Finally after another twenty minutes I’m heading home. All of a sudden a car shoots full speed out of Via Oderisi da Gubbio and stops a hairsbreadth away from me. Bastard! He almost hit me! Immediately I think of the Beast in the market on Viale Marconi and his promise of revenge. Should I run or challenge him? There he is, sticking his head out the window. But no, it’s not him.

  “Get in!”

  “Fuck! Are you trying to kill me?”

  “I told you to get in!”

  That shit Captain Judas! What happened? Why has he abandoned the usual precautions? We shouldn’t ever be seen here. Our next appointment was set for tomorrow morning in Via Nazionale. He’s going to blow my cover like this.

  “I see you’re scared.”

  “Fucking shit, you were about to hit me!”

  “Truthfully, were you afraid of the Beast?”

  “The Beast? I see that your colleague Antar has spread the story.”

  “I was told that at the market you spoke perfect Italian. Bravo, congratulations.”

  “I made a mistake.”

  “You risked messing up your cover.”

  “It won’t happen again.”

  “The girl with the veil, do you know her?”

  “No.”

  “Sure?”

  “I swear.”

  “Anyway you don’t have to worry about the Beast. We’ve taken him out of your way. It wasn’t hard to arrest him for dealing. At this very hour he is sleeping in the Regina Coeli prison.”

  “You wanted to tell me that?”

  “No, I came to give you some other remarkable news.”

  “Please.”

  “You remember the information about the explosives?”

  “Yes.”

  “We’ve received confirmation that the Goma-2 Eco is here in Viale Marconi.”

  “Really?”

  “You’d better get a move on, Tunisian.”

  “What should I do?”

  “You’re acting like a boy scout on a camping trip!”

  “I’m doing everything possible.”

  “So far you haven’t found out a goddamn thing!”


  “I can’t perform miracles—my name is Christian, not Christ.”

  “You’ll make me look like shit with my superiors, not to mention my American and Egyptian colleagues.”

  “I don’t give a fuck about your colleagues. I’m sick and tired of this business.”

  “You can’t walk out of it now, understand?”

  I can’t find words to describe the reaction of this fucking Captain Judas. Whenever he decides to break my balls he succeeds wonderfully. I listen unwillingly to his preaching. The usual warmed-over crap. Finally he lets me out, at the Marconi bridge. I go home feeling destroyed and with my morale in the pits. I don’t have the slightest desire to sleep—maybe I’m afraid I’ll have nightmares. Damn terrorists, where have you hidden the explosives? When and where will you unleash the inferno?

  Sofia

  I close the bedroom door so I can listen to the radio without disturbing my architect while I get through the housework, even if it’s not that easy to wake him. He’s a really heavy sleeper. You’d need a band with trumpets around his bed to wake him up. Luckily he doesn’t snore. It’s not a small consideration. Giulia told me that there are couples who split up just because of it. And so? So what. I would say that in Italy people divorce for rather trivial reasons, or am I wrong?

  I’m listening to a really interesting program on one of the RAI radio channels. It’s a discussion of domestic violence against women. It’s incredible: women are subjected to psychological, physical, and sexual violence not only on the street, coming home from work at night, or in underground parking garages but also, in fact especially, at home. Yes, at home. Who would have guessed? The guilty parties are called husbands, companions, fiancés, fathers, brothers, or sons. The guests on the program are mainly women who are involved in this issue.

  But what’s striking to me is the statistics presented by the host: “In Italy more than six and a half million women have suffered, at least once in their life, some form of physical or sexual violence. More than sixty percent of such women are mistreated by their partner or a person they know, and more than ninety-five percent do not report the violence they suffer, probably out of fear of the consequences.”

  To tell the truth, this radio discussion of domestic violence really stuns me. Why? I thought women were victims of violence in war zones, like Afghanistan or Iraq, or in countries where there’s racism, like some African Muslim countries, and where poverty and ignorance are widespread. But not in Italy! In other words, isn’t Italy still a European country, Western, part of the G-8, and so on, or am I wrong?

  Around ten I go with Aida to the park in Piazza Meucci to take advantage of the sunny morning. There is no sign of my two friends—they’re not coming today. Yesterday I talked on the phone to Dorina, and she told me that Grandfather Gio­vanni isn’t feeling well, so he’ll read La Padania, Libero, and Il Giornale sitting comfortably in his living room, at least for now. Giulia, meanwhile, has an appointment with the pediatrician, because her son has stomachaches that won’t go away.

  I watch my daughter playing with two little girls. She’s calm and serene. I’m sure that her childhood will be different from mine and my sisters’. I don’t know if she’ll be happy. Only God Almighty knows. Everything will depend on her maktùb. Yet I’m sure about one thing: she won’t suffer the absolutely worst kind of domestic violence, which is female circumcision. This is not a promise but an oath that I intend to keep at all costs. My little darling, your mamma will never let anyone hurt you!

  Ah, the wounds of memory don’t heal with time. Where should I begin my story about the circumcision of girls? Good question!

  Maybe before elementary school. In our neighborhood there was a toothless old hag who seemed like the incarnation of the wicked witch in the fairy tales. She was a specialist in the matter, and indescribably cruel. I’ve never hated anyone as much as her. Now she’s dead and I hope from the depths of my soul that she ended up in Hell forever. In Arabic they say, “La tajuz ala al-mayyit illa arrahma,” pity the dead. I’m not usually a resentful person. But that was too much!

  My sister Nadia, the oldest, was the first to be subjected to this torture. I don’t like to say things in a roundabout way. Samira taught me an Algerian proverb about hypocrisy: “Come out naked and God will dress you.” It would be impossible to describe her psychological and physical pain. The pain lasted a long time and perhaps will continue for her whole life.

  Then it was my sister Zeineb’s turn—she’s a year older than me. In her case, too, it’s reasonable to speak of torture, inflicted, what’s more, on a child of seven years old. It’s a true crime against humanity, worse than rape, because the instigators are the parents! And so? So what. I think the parents have a tremendous responsibility. Would female circumcision exist without the consent of the family? Zeineb almost died, because of a hemorrhage and then a serious infection. Luckily she was taken to the hospital right away, and the doctors performed a true miracle to save her. That evil toothless witch was not a doctor but a complete illiterate, so it didn’t even minimally cross her mind that she should disinfect the scissors, her tool for the job—or, rather, the weapon of the crime.

  Zeineb remains traumatized. There is no hope of healing or of forgetting. The circumcised woman is a kind of invisible handicapped person, unrecognized. She doesn’t even have the right to complain, or to mourn her fate. In fact, she’s supposed to thank everyone who had a part in her circumcision for preserving her purity and protecting her reputation! The truth is that men fear the sexual power of women and the idea is to eliminate it through castration. To hell with purity and reputation. I know that I am a Muslim with a veil and am not supposed to curse (that’s for men only, at least among us that’s the case). I allow myself to say just one, though not in Arabic, so as not to feel uneasy: “Fuck you!” God forgive me.

  The experience has conditioned Zeineb’s life. She got married five years ago, and had a child only after many difficulties. She always says to me: “I’m fifty percent woman.” She can’t have a normal sex life. Her husband is a good man, he says he loves her and won’t ever leave her. Is it true? Only God knows. Truthfully, I don’t believe in eternal love, it’s the stuff of soap operas—Egyptian, Brazilian, Mexican, Turkish.

  “Do you love me?”

  “Yes.”

  “How much do you love me?”

  “Very much.”

  “When do you love me?”

  “I love you in spring, I love you in summer, I love you in fall, and I love you in winter. I love you always.”

  “My love, light of my eyes, sun of my days. I’ll love you forever.”

  “I love you more than I love myself.”

  “Our love is as pure and abundant as our mothers’ milk.”

  “My love! Let’s live our love until death do us part.”

  Words, words, words, as that Italian song says. Reality is one thing, fiction another. Unfortunately my sister is not a character in a soap opera. So far her marriage is solid, but it could crumble at any moment. Life is never predictable. The truth is that she lives in terror of being abandoned, rejected, replaced by another woman: by a hundred-percent woman.

  Men are a rather complicated breed, which in my opinion hasn’t been sufficiently studied. People often speak of female moods. And what about male moods? Men whose attitude can change from one moment to the next. Today they say, “You’re the woman of my life.” Then they come back the next day and tell you, “I’m sorry, I’m going to live with another woman. Bye.” Is that normal behavior?

  For my sister Zeineb circumcision marked the beginning of a nightmare. And obviously an early end to childhood.

  When my turn came the situation had changed somewhat. Lucky for me. What happened? Was the circumcision of girls abolished in Egypt? Were those who actually performed the operation arrested and punished? Were the instigators—that is, our beloved parents—put on trial? No, nothing of the sort. Something simple happened, something quite banal. After the t
ragedy of my sister the family decided not to go to the horrible toothless witch. Looking for a replacement took some time.

  My aunt Amina (my father’s sister, not to mention my guardian angel) had an ingenious idea. She suggested taking me to a friend of hers, a nurse who performed female circumcision. I trusted my aunt blindly and I knew that she wouldn’t let anyone hurt me. And in fact the nurse friend didn’t exist.

  We went to Aunt Amina’s house to carry out the plan. First: no one touched my clitoris. Second: she stained my underpants with the blood of a hen that had just been killed. Third: I was to make an effort to cry. A river of tears. The success of the plan depended on my bravura performance. I gave it my best. Everything went smoothly. The next day, my mother discovered the trick, but she didn’t have the courage to expose it. She couldn’t, after the tragedy of my sister. My father and the rest of the family remained in the dark. For a few months my mother, my aunt, and I shared the secret. Then other people found out, all women obviously. Men prefer to stay out of it, this is women’s business and should remain among women, like menstruation.

  Was I very fortunate? Certainly. But it wasn’t just plain sailing. I went through childhood and adolescence afraid of being found out and having to suffer the same fate as my sisters. I had terrifying nightmares with the toothless old hag as the main character. Not to mention the sense of guilt of the privileged. Why was I saved and not my sisters?

  I still remember the celebration when my brother Imad was circumcised. It was a really grand occasion. I often wondered: why is circumcision for males a celebration while for females it’s like a funeral, or anyway done in secret? And also: they say that female circumcision is an Islamic tradition, but I can’t find any trace of it in the Koran. Its supporters cite a hadith of our Prophet in which He doesn’t clearly forbid the practice, but, as everyone knows, not all the quotations are authentic.