The Fall of the Imam (2 page)

Men clothed in white robes, their faces covered in thick black beards, rose up from where they lay on the ground and in great haste climbed up to the top of the minarets and domes, fixed microphones to them as fast as they could, and rapidly climbed down again, leaving the electric wires dangling in the open. A thousand voices united as one voice in the call to prayer, then, resounding in the air like thunder, hailed the Imam as the ‘One and Only Leader’. But right in the middle of all this commotion there was a sudden hush. The electric power had failed, and the chanting voices ceased their hallelujahs. In the deathly silence of those moments they killed her. No one witnessed the crime. No one saw her drop to the ground. Only the stars in space, and the trees and the low hill rising on a stretch of land between the river and the sea. Her dead body was turned to stone, became a statue of rock living on year after year with her dog by her side.

She was a girl on her own, all alone with her dog; her sisters were to follow later. The world was as it is today. Things were the same. The sky, the earth, the trees, the houses, the river, and the sea.

I asked, ‘Is this the Mediterranean Sea? And is this the River Nile?’

They said, ‘Here names can be different, and time passes.’ But the place was the same, and the sun was the same, and the ears of corn were the same, and the she-buffalo had black skin and four legs, and I could see her in the distance descending towards the river, swimming in the water with her back shining in the sun, her eyelids drooping with pleasure as she floated lazily. After a while she climbed out of the water on to the bank, moving with a relaxed ambling gait towards the edge of a field where she stood munching fodder slowly, swinging her tail, her ears listening intently to the wheeze of the water-wheel, her brooding eyes following the woman tied to it with a rope of hemp, as she went round and round blindfolded. A man walked behind her, switching his stick over her buttocks every time she halted to take her breath. A gasp of surprise escaped my lips. A woman turning a water-wheel while the buffalo rests? They said, ‘Here we follow the laws of supply and demand. A buffalo costs more on the market than a woman, so a man can have four wives, but he can only afford one buffalo.’

I stood there surrounded by open space. The fields were like a long green ribbon, and a line of buffaloes floated in the water, their backs shining in the sun. Behind the green ribbon was the desert, and behind the desert were dunes of yellow sand. But if you went as far as the hilly rise in the land, you might run into bands of roaming brigands. Here hyenas and even eagles ate carrion. Tigers devoured antelopes and deer but they refrained from human flesh. Men were the only living beings that fed on the flesh of their own kind. The meat of deer was rare, but human beings were everywhere and their flesh was easy to find. Crocodiles were treacherous, and the skin of snakes was smooth, but their poison was deadly. Here loyalty did not exist except among dogs. It was still night. The night was long, and dark, very dark. Insects hid in its depths. They had the bodies of mosquitoes, or locusts, or rats. There were also reptiles and other beings that crawled on four legs.

‘But where have the people gone?’ I asked. I could see no one. The body of the girl had disappeared, and her assassins had left. ‘Where have the human beings gone?’ I asked again.

‘But there are millions of them’, they said, ‘like gnats floating around. You cannot see them with your eyes. They live deep in the earth, in subterranean caves, in houses like burial pits. They think that light is fire and are afraid of it. They think that the rays of the sun carry nuclear radiation, that great evil will come to them from across the ocean, dispatched by the great powers in tins of children’s milk, that all this is the wrath of God descending upon them. But why should God be angry with them? They do not know. They do not know what crimes they have committed. They do not know God’s word, nor what it says. God’s word is written and they can neither read nor write. They do not know what words are. All they know is to murmur, or applaud, or acclaim, or vociferate, or cry out, or shriek at the top of their voices.’

I asked, ‘Is it not possible to talk to them a while?’

They said, ‘Yes, if you speak their language, wear men’s clothes, or hide your shameful parts behind a veil.’

‘Hide what shameful parts, since I am wearing all my clothes?’ I exclaimed in great surprise. Then they pointed their sharp fingers at my face. A sudden fear took hold of me and my tongue was tied. But I said, ‘Who told you that?’

And they answered, ‘God, God’s words have said a woman’s face is shameful and should not be seen by man or God.’

‘But God’s words are written, are they not? And you do not read, so how can you know what He has said?’ I said. They were silent for some time. They looked at one another. They raised their eyes to heaven. They pointed to the picture hanging from the top of the monument built in commemoration of the Great Victory.

I looked up and said, ‘Who is he?’

They gasped. ‘Don’t you know who he is? Wherever you look you’ll see him. His picture hangs in every place, in the streets, on the walls, in shops, on all the arches, on columns and monuments commemorating victory. His name is the Imam and he is everywhere.’

‘But’, said I, ‘he who is everywhere is nowhere.’

They looked at me silently for a while. Then, they pursed their lips and said, ‘We have sworn eternal loyalty to him. He is our master, the Imam. God has visited him many a time and so he knows His word better than anyone else.’

When I was a child, God used to visit me while I slept. He spoke to me in a gentle voice, like my mother’s. I was thinking of that when I heard bullets being fired from a gun in quick succession, and saw the picture of the Imam fall to the ground. I started to run. Death is easy when it is quick. The head severed from the body with a sword, or a bullet in the heart. But nothing is more terrible than to die slowly.

They tied me with ropes, and threw me in a pit, then hurled stones at me, one stone following another, day after day, one day following another until fifty days had passed, or a hundred, or a thousand. My body died, but my spirit would not give up. They were worn out by so much stone-throwing, and I could see their hands hanging limply at their sides, the blood dripping from their fingers drop by drop, but my arteries were not emptied yet. My spirit inhaled dust and sand, turned my body into rock, made the stones bounce off. And I could see the river and the sea. There she stood, waiting in the night, ever since she gave me life, her face to the river, and her back to the sea. Twenty years had passed, but there she stood, upright as always. Twenty years had passed, and her voice still called to me in a soft whisper, like the rustle of the wind in the trees, or a distant call rising from the deep: ‘Bint Allah, here. Come here.’

My dog’s name was Marzouk. He had been with me since my mother brought me into the world and he stayed with me right to the end. He did not read or write. He had not read God’s word, yet he was the only one who knew the truth, knew that the blood of the Imam had not soiled my hands. For how could a daughter kill her father? Nobody knew that the Imam was my father, and that were it not for him, my unknown father, I would never have been. Only my mother and my dog Marzouk knew he was my father. It was Marzouk who saw my mother kneeling on the ground, stifling her sobs, and it was Marzouk who saw my father slipping away in the dark. He took a good look at his face, and he never forgot it. That’s why every time he saw his picture hanging up, he immediately started barking loudly. People were never able to work out why he barked like that. They did not understand the language of dogs, whereas dogs understand the language of people. Just like human beings, dogs have a memory, which registers how things develop, how events unfold. They have a memory for history, and Marzouk continued to remember my father the Imam when he ran away from my mother. He chased after him, bit him from behind, tore off his trousers over the left buttock, and a big piece of calico caught on to his fang. Its colour was khaki, like the clothes worn by soldiers in the army, and it smelt of sweat, and cheap perfume, and other things.

The Imam was so scared of Marzouk that he ran away as fast as he could, and as he ran his footsteps echoed with a metallic noise, for the heels of his shoes were fitted with iron hooves. He went on running, his eyes raised to heaven since his faith in God was great. He kept muttering, ‘Grant me victory over my enemies, grant me that the desires of my heart come true.’ His bulging eyes were full of dark yearning, and his lips were thick with lust for possession. He wanted a throne on earth, and a throne in heaven, a summer palace overlooking the sea, and a winter palace down south. He also wanted a palace in heaven for his after-life, deep cool rivers flowing under it, and numerous concubines both female and male. His tongue was dry and he was thirsty, but he never ceased running, his mouth open, his breath panting. Ever since childhood he had suffered a feeling of deprivation, and he went through life carrying it with him. His desire to possess things was like a chronic disease, like a great hunger, and he had an unlimited faith in God’s power, in what He could do for him. He developed a patch of rough blue skin on his forehead from repeated prostration, and in his right hand he held a rosary of yellow beads for all to see, testimonies of his devotion to God. Over his right buttock hung a sword, encased in a long sheath, and over the left buttock he held his hand, hiding the hole in his trousers.

He disappeared into the night muttering words of gratitude to God, his mouth exhaling an odour of wine and of sweat from the bodies of unhappy women, and Marzouk continued to bark, but nobody seemed to hear him. The coloured rockets of the Big Feast were bursting in the sky, and from a thousand microphones poured out an endless stream of words, for the Imam was speaking to his people and the speech was being broadcast on the air, beginning with ‘In the name of God’, and ending with ‘Praise be to His Holy Prophet.’

They dispersed after the speech was over, disappearing into their houses. They felt carried away with a kind of exhilaration, with a feeling of victory over some unknown foe which mounted to their heads, but in their mouths was a bitterness, a vague taste of defeat. Meanwhile, the streets filled up with men carrying knives. They were all shouting the same word, repeating it time after time. ‘Butcher.’ Then all of a sudden they ceased their shouting and there was a vast silence, a mysterious gloom, but the silence did not last. It was broken by screams, the piercing screams of those being sacrificed rising up from every house, followed by clouds of dense smoke, heavy with the smell of burning flesh.

After eating they put on new clothes, and shoes with iron hooves fitted to the heels. Their footsteps could be heard clinking on the pavements and the streets, and their voices were raised in thanksgiving to God for His bountiful mercy. In their left hands they carried a rosary of prayer beads and in their right hands each of them carried a stone. For the time had come and they were ready to do what had to be done. The time had come for them to stone the Devil to death.

They tied her up with hemp cord and gathered in a circle around her, vying with one another to see who could throw more stones, who could strike her more often on the bull’s eye over her belly, where Satan had branded her with his mark. It had been made known that he who won would be decorated with the Order of Chivalry and Honour, and presented with a small palace adjoining the palace of the Imam as well as concubines to entertain him with their charms.

Under her body the earth was cool, but her nose was choked with dust. They pegged her to the ground, bared her bosom, and pulled her arms and legs apart. In her ears echoed the sound of drums, and children’s laughter, and over her head floated the coloured balloons. Her eyes kept searching among the children for the face of her child. At one moment she caught a glimpse of a small, wan face hemmed in by people all around, waved her hand, and whispered in a voice like the rustle of leaves in the wind: ‘Bint Allah, here ... come here.’

Ever since the moment I was born her voice echoed in my ears, calling out to me in the rustle of the wind and the movement of leaves. Her features were part of my memory, lines cut into its stone. I saw her standing there, a statue of rock, bathed in light, the contours of her body shrouded in a dark haze. Her fingers were clasped over her heart, her features were sharp, unyielding, yet composed. She was a woman who gave her life and received nothing in return. In her eyes was the pain of discovery. The shock was over, but the sadness lingered on, like a pure light in her face, or some new vision of the world. Her body was slender, almost innocent of flesh, a spirit or a dream, unneedful of movement, or of words to be, yet with a consistency of its own, palpable beneath an envelope of air. Her head was held upright, and she smiled the smile of a woman who had lost everything and kept her own soul, had unveiled the secrets of the world, and pierced through the mask of heaven. Her suffering showed in the furrows of her face, so deep that they had grooved themselves into the bone; but her eyes continued to shine with an inner glow.

The guardian shut the last door in the palace of the Imam, repeating the Verse of the Seat under his breath to ensure that all devils and djinns were shut out. Everyone slept: the Imam, his spies, the devils, the angels, the gods. Even the trees and the wind slept. She alone remained awake, her eyes wide open, her body upright, standing for a long time without the slightest movement, her arms holding something tightly pressed against her. She looked around cautiously, bent down until her head almost touched the ground, and started to smooth it out with her peasant’s hand, brushing aside the stones and pebbles. Then she covered the surface with earth to make it soft like a mother’s lap, quickly wrenched me away from her breast, with her hands, and laid me down on my bed.