Zeina (23 page)
During one of these jumps, Ahmed al-Damhiri glimpsed the transparent rose-colored pants as the doll opened its legs. His eyes penetrated the transparent fabric but couldn’t see beyond the belly. Moving his eyes down to the pubic area, he found no slit and no aperture of any kind. He was shocked to see the blocked body of the doll. It was very different from the bodies of Bodour and the girls of the family.
As soon as Bodour left her room, Ahmed al-Damhiri pounced on her doll. With his short, effeminate white fingers, he dragged it under the bed. There he took off the lace dress and tore the rose-colored pants to pieces as he pulled them down to look for the slit between the thighs. But his fingers didn’t find any aperture and found only a blocked road that was impossible to penetrate.
He grew angry imagining that the doll was stubbornly challenging him with her blocked thighs. He flung it to the ground in a rage and removed its arms, legs, and the spring mechanism on its side. He wrapped the torn pieces in a newspaper and buried it in the back garden, without Bodour or any of the children seeing him.
Bodour sat in the first row of the large hall, together with the intellectual elite, the great writers and critics. Next to her sat her life-long friend Safi, Mageeda and her husband, magazine columnists, screen and media stars, and the leaders of political parties, groups and societies. After the great defeat and the opening of trade links with America, the creation and establishment of religious groups became legal. The easing of restrictions was intended as a blow against the enemies of capitalism and free markets, and was also meant to show support for the values of freedom of trade, freedom of faith, and democracy. Mosques and churches proliferated, with the aim of spreading the word of God in cities and villages, and in alleys and narrow lanes. At the foot of the Moqattam Mountain, the cemeteries were transformed into homes for the poor immigrants deserting the countryside. The living and the dead competed for dominance over the cemeteries. But the dead were defeated, for they didn’t have a political party to defend their rights or a religious group to speak in their name. And nor did they have any members to represent them at the People’s Assembly or at the Consultative Council.
Ashamed of their impotence, the dead shrank in their graves. Concrete walls and minarets were built above them and loudspeakers were attached to them. Before and after dawn, as well as throughout the day and night, blasting noises resounded out of those loudspeakers.
The loudspeakers blared out, “God is great, God is great, prayers are better than sleeping. Make haste toward success. Make haste toward prayers. There is no deity but God, and Mohamed is His messenger. Oh worshippers of God, have faith in God’s mercy. Be patient when you suffer the miseries of life. Do not seek life’s pleasures and lusts, for life is ephemeral. The hereafter is more lasting and permanent. Paradise awaits you and God’s generous face.”
At the end of the show, there was thunderous applause from all and sundry: from front and back rows, from believers and unbelievers, from people in love with music, poetry, singing and dancing, and others who were disdainful of the arts. The emir’s group belonged to that latter category, for they believed that the sound of music banished God from the hearts of believers. The emir had issued a fatwa prohibiting these sinful arts which were inspired by the Devil. Their hands clapped nonetheless. They followed the emir with their eyes as he sat in his seat. If he clapped, they would do the same, and if he fidgeted from right to left in his seat, they followed his example. If he sighed audibly, they sighed as well, and if he growled under his breath, they produced the same sound. If his hand reached for his pocket, their hands reached for theirs. Even Mahmoud, the chauffeur, observed him closely from the corner of his left eye, his ears wide open trying to spot any slowing or acceleration of his breath, and any irregularity of his heartbeats or of the movement of his blood through his veins.
The chauffeur was the closest aide to the emir and the one who knew most about his secrets and his private life, for he was at his beck and call day and night. On Friday he took him to the mosque for congregational prayers, and on Saturday to the headquarters of the group to attend the Executive Council. On Sunday he drove him to the club to play golf with members of the two blessed families, or on a trip with the family to the Pyramids, Fayyoum or the northern coast to the west of Alexandria. There, away from the polluted beaches of the cities, he had an elegant villa in one of the fancy resorts such as Marina, Marabella, Badr, al-Huda or al-Madina al-Munawwara lying on the route between Alexandria and Marsa Matrouh. There the emir took off his clothes and swam in the sky-blue waters under the golden sun. His wife hidden behind a black cloak covering her whole body eyed him enviously. Her husband, the emir, splayed his arms and legs in the refreshing waters of the sea, diving, tumbling and later sunbathing, while his wife sat swimming in her sweat, saliva and tears, all pouring from her nose, mouth and eyes. Within a stone’s throw of the wall, a beach was set aside for servants, cooks, drivers, and gardeners, as well as for the summer camp for young believers. Mahmoud, the driver, walked on the sand wearing bright bathing trunks colored red, green, blue, yellow, and purple. It was the Islamic bathing outfit which covered men’s thighs down to their knees. But the esteemed masculine member often stood out from underneath the colorful rubber trunks. However, it was no shame for a man to have a rebellious member that had no piety or fear of God. It was no disgrace for a man to swim in the sea. It was forbidden for women to show their faces, let alone their thighs, legs or arms. The emir issued a ruling that women’s voices were a source of shame. Every part of their bodies, in fact, was a shame, including the head, the seat of thought and intellect.
Mahmoud the chauffeur stroked the few hairs on his chest under the rays of the sun. Then he threw himself into the sea, splaying his arms and legs to the air and sky like his master. He dived and tumbled and danced and sunbathed, thanking God that He created him male and not female like the emir’s wife and the other women soaking in their sweat under the umbrellas on the beach. God created him poor and not rich like his master, the emir. But God created him a man and not a woman, and for this, praise was due. As he saw the emir’s wife wrapped inside her black cloak, fumes almost coming out of her eyes and ears, he talked to God saying, “Thank you, Lord, for your blessings. It’s no shame to be poor, for you have distributed wealth and blessings among people, and have created the rich and the poor, the good and the evil. But women are the worst of all creatures.”
He heard his father and grandfather say that women were the Devil’s allies. Cleanliness was godly while dirtiness was womanly, they often asserted. The driver knew more about the emir’s life than the emir’s own wife. The emir doubled his bonuses to make sure that he kept his secrets. The driver knew the addresses of brothels and prostitutes, and the homes of his slave girls and concubines. He kept their addresses and telephone numbers in a small notepad. He wrote their names in a childlike scrawl similar to the handwriting of primary school children, for the driver never attended school. The emir taught him the fundamentals of reading and writing, and trained him to drive and to read the Latin figures on the car gauges. He taught him to recite the Qur’an, carry arms, aim and fire accurately in a training camp, note down women’s phone numbers in his notepad, and carry out basic counting operations to be able to calculate expenses, gas charges, bonuses, and secret gifts. The driver was closer to the emir than his wife, because unlike the wife who could easily be replaced, the driver had no substitute. He was the emir’s confidant and his personal guard who accompanied him everywhere, day and night. If it hadn’t been so embarrassing, he might have accompanied him to the toilet too. But he stood totally alert in front of the closed bathroom door until the emir had finished. The emir urinated like all other mortals and the chauffeur heard the sound of the urine as it dropped into the luxurious ceramic toilet bowl imported from Europe, the land of infidels and unbelievers. The chauffeur often drove the thoughts that Satan whispered in his ears out of his mind. But when he heard the sound of the emir urinating, he couldn’t help noticing that it was peculiarly similar to his own. Princes and common folk were equal when it came to urinating, for God in His infinite wisdom didn’t discriminate between a poor man and a prince.
At the end of the show, the emir slipped a folded piece of paper into his driver’s hand. The driver knew his cue inside out. He immediately understood the gesture, got up from his seat, and walked toward the stage. He made his way to Zeina Bint Zeinat, who was surrounded by her fans, both men and women, old and young. They shook hands with her and asked her to sign a copy of her new poetry collection or one of her songs or musical pieces. Around her were the street children that she admitted into the theater without tickets. Each one of them carried a card with his name and photograph. There was no space on the card for the unknown father. Children, in fact, could write their mothers’ names, which were accorded full respect in Mariam’s band. The religion field was also absent from the card, for the band didn’t discriminate between one religion and the next. Policemen chased children on the streets, confiscating their cards by force and disposing of them in the sewers. They put children in armored vehicles and transported them to prison or detention. There they were kicked and slapped and punched, and their young ears were assailed by nasty insults, from bastards to sons of bitches. The children lay down on the floor along with hardened criminals, drug dealers, pimps and addicts. Male adults raped young boys in the silence of the night. Childish screams were drowned by men snoring, blocked noses and open mouths. All eyes were closed except God’s open eye, which stayed as large as a teacup, seeing and witnessing what was happening to these children, but not interfering in a scene that was of no great concern. When the children were released from detention, they didn’t look out for God’s banquet in heaven but gazed on the ground under their feet and scavenged the rubbish bins along with stray cats and dogs. Zeina Bint Zeinat held them in her arms and registered their names in Mariam’s band. They tapped the earth with their little bare feet, the music flowing warm in their veins like blood, or like a mother’s milk. Their souls and bodies danced to the tune, and they sang and reeled and jumped up in the air, their heads hitting the dome of the sky, then coming down again, up and down again, dancing and singing and turning ceaselessly like the earth turning around the sun.
Mahmoud the chauffeur extended his long arm toward Zeina and handed her the folded piece of paper, then disappeared between the rows of seats. Zeina Bint Zeinat put the paper inside her pocket without opening it. She was busy talking to people, laughing and throwing her head back. Her laugh was as melodious as music, and it was loud and hearty. She did everything passionately, ardently, with every atom of her being and every particle of her soul, body and mind. Her voice had never been heard in the whole universe before. Hers was the laugh of a woman who was in full possession of herself and wasn’t the plaything of anybody or anything else, a woman who was free of fate and destiny, a woman who stood outside earth and sky, outside time and space. Her laugh sounded strange and unfamiliar, like the dream of happiness or the impossible hope of love. It was like the mystery of life throbbing with sinfulness and virtue.
Ahmed al-Damhiri’s body quivered in his seat when he heard her laugh. It rescued him from the sorrows buried deep in his heart since childhood. It saved him from the pain that had dwelled in his soul since primary school, when children hit him on the nape of his neck and wrote his name in chalk on toilet walls. “Ahmed al-Damhiri has a whistle.”
Her laughter flowed into his ears as warmly as his mother’s milk. It lifted him high in the sky and allowed him to catch a piece of the sun and forget his pains and sorrows. He almost laughed aloud with her. He had almost forgotten how to laugh, until he heard her laughter. Her joy was contagious and he heard himself laugh as though for the first time in his life, except that his voice remained silent.
In one of his moments of black despair, he wrote to her another message. How many messages did he write? How many times did his driver, Mahmoud, approach her, extending his long arm to her with the folded paper? It might have been twenty, thirty, fifty, a hundred or a thousand times!
Zeina Bint Zeinat didn’t open those messages. If she did, she only glanced over it quickly then threw it in the bin. She was familiar with this type of man. They thought they could possess her, that she was a whore, a slave girl or a concubine. They believed that no sooner did they beckon to her than she would rush to them, for they were men who possessed everything in this life and in the next. But she only had her voice, her songs and her music. All she wanted was to play music, and to sing and dance, until she died on stage.
Zeina Bint Zeinat was not strikingly beautiful. It was not beauty that attracted people’s eyes to her, but something else, something mysterious, something that radiated around her like waves of light, or rather waves of existence. She had a presence that was unique, and a charisma that filled space and time, obliterating everything else.
Ahmed al-Damhiri saw her presence in the eyes of others. Her image was reflected in them in such a way that they saw nobody else. In her presence, the whole place became vibrant and almost turned into a living organism. Waves of life moved in the air in what seemed like electric or magnetic waves. The magnetism of her eyes and voice was transmitted to everything around her. The stage was no longer a stage, but a piece of life itself, as she tapped rhythmically on it with her feet.
