My Torturess

by Bensalem Himmich

  It was some time in the morning while I was still drowsy that I caught a snippet of conversation between two men:

  First one: “We haven’t interrogated this one yet. We need his information, so make him better so he doesn’t die before we can question him.”

  Second: “I’ll do the necessary examination. He may be able to stand on his feet today provided it’s not tuberculosis. That’s what we found on three prisoners yesterday, but they’ve been removed.”

  The examination they conducted showed that, at least up to this point, I had not contracted that disease—thank God! The problem was that my sensitivity to the dampness in my cell had provoked my cough and constricted breathing. The doctor gave me some pills and a spray and had me transferred to a cell in another wing; it was smaller than the previous one but was on the first floor in a building that got some drier air and sunshine.

  3

  Before the Investigating Judge

  My health improves in my new cell, the number of which has followed me. Every time I feel the need for some fresh air, I stand on a chair and poke my nose through a window, which is open to the sky. Using all five senses I come to the conclusion that the place where I am imprisoned is either in the desert or else very close to it, far removed from any view of mountains or sea. However, the name and address of the location is known only to the people who run this detention center and their luminaries.

  As I took some of my pills along with the first meal that I got through the aperture in the door of my new cell, the thought occurred to me that, when it came to my recent promotion and maybe even my release, this cough of mine could give me a stratagem, as long as I perfected its impact and timing. While I was ruminating on this idea (and other even weirder ones) and spraying my mouth, a guard came into my cell, tied my hands behind my back, and led me across a paved square and along numerous corridors to a distinctive building with offices and modern conveniences. The guard knocked on a door on the first floor, and I followed him into a large hall. Behind a table a fat woman was sitting, surrounded by files and a computer. Hurrying over, she proceeded to conduct a security check, using an electronic device to scan my bodily extremities. Once the exam was over and I had been overwhelmed by a veritable flood of perfume, she accompanied me to the interior office, bowing in greeting as she did so to someone whom she called “his excellency the judge.” She pointed out that I had not offered my own greetings to his excellency, so I did so.

  So, after a period of several months in prison, here I was finally in the presence of the investigating judge whom, as I have explained earlier, is the one to investigate the files of the accused and determine their fate. After taking a look in my direction, he told me to await my turn in a dark corner. In the meantime he was completing his session with a young man, the only part of whom that I could see was his back. In the corner, I scrunched up on the seat as best I could and started looking at the judge and listening to what he was saying to the suspect.

  Viewed in all three dimensions the man I was looking at reminded me of the heaviest conceivable Japanese sumo wrestler. What caught my eye was his absolutely excessive obesity and his bald pate fringed with white. Then there were his enormous ears that stuck out like two hearing horns and his chin, which protruded from a bulging neck. I was struck by his sunken eyes nestling behind thick, shaded spectacles and his mouth (just like a chicken’s anus), which was topped by a blond, Hitler-like moustache. All praise to the mighty Creator! Whenever he stood up to look for something or to exert some bodily sway over his interviewee, he would look like a wild beast hovering over its prey. His gigantic bulging presence made him seem like a huge elephant; the only thing missing was the trunk.

  “So,” he told the prisoner in a nasal twang, as he rubbed his neck, “you’re no longer denying the accusations leveled against you; in fact, you’re confirming them. Sheltering takfiri* radicals who are now on the run; providing support for the families of the ones who are married; and failing to disclose their names and addresses. The only point of disagreement between us is that you’re refusing to ratify your charge-document by taking the canonical oath. Instead, you’re arrogating to yourself the right to take a different oath, one that sometimes involves swearing by the dawn and ten nights [Qur’an, Sura 89, v. 1], at others by the fig, the olive, and Mount Sinai [Qur’an, Sura 95, v. 1], and at still others by the afternoon [Qur’an, Sura 103, v. 1]. You justify this utter heresy on your part by claiming that you need to avoid any mention of God and His beautiful names in foul and disgusting places, dark and cruel, that being the way you choose to describe the places where we currently are. Is that right?”

  “That represents the decision that I have come to,” the young man replied in a firm, steady voice, “aided by God’s help.”

  That remark made the investigating judge froth at the mouth in fury. “So, you total phony,” he yelled, “who gave you the authority to make your own decisions?”

  “Here you are, Judge” the young man replied, “calling me an unbeliever, when I’m a graduate of the Zaytuna University in Tunis. I only make such a decision when there is no textual authority . . .”

  “Guards,” the judge interrupted, “take this wretch and hand him over to the woman who knows how to deal with unbelievers and cure them of their sickness. She’ll straighten you out and put your warped brain back on the right track.”

  I managed to catch a glimpse of the young man as he was led away by two guards. Walking with a steady gait and defiant expression, he raised two fingers in a victory gesture.

  “By the heavens and the night-star,” he said. “I have no fear of this female ghoul or her cronies. Umm Qash‘am* is where you’re all going, and, as they say, ‘evil is the resort.’”

  The judge now collapsed into his chair. Sweat was pouring off him, and he was panting hard. He pressed a button, and a young woman wearing a headdress appeared and handed him a pill and a glass of water. That helped calm his nerves, although it took a while. He asked her who Umm Qash‘am might be, and she stuttered that she did not know. He told her to go and look her up in the dictionary so that the woman in question could be brought to see him. Acknowledging the order, she rushed out looking flustered.

  At this point the atmosphere in the room felt like lead or even heavier. The judge fidgeted a bit, then cleared his throat. He told me to take the seat that the young man had occupied, and I did so, muttering a greeting to which he responded. Wiping the sweat off his forehead, he took off his spectacles and pored over my file. He was still cursing and swearing at the young man who had been taken out, calling him all sorts of names like “heretic” and “son of a bitch.” Once he had finished reading, he put his spectacles back on. Surprising me with a very ambiguous expression, he asked me if I knew the son of a bitch who had been sitting in the place which I now occupied. I replied that I did not.

  “That stubborn prisoner,” he said, gritting his teeth, “is a warrior living in the past, an era long over, the kind of bully who relishes pain and desires nothing more than death and martyrdom. But our very own torturess, our female ghoul, will get to work on him and chop off his illusory sense of victory limb by limb . . .”

  He stared in my direction, a scary smile on his face. “Hamuda,” he asked me, “don’t you agree with me that this brilliant expression, ‘relishing pain,’ with all its semantic and morphological contradictions, is absolutely marvelous?”

  I frowned, not wishing to respond to something that in view of the circumstances seemed utterly inappropriate.

  “Never mind!” he went on, clearing his throat. “Forget the question, and let’s go back to you. From your file, Hamuda from Oujda, I deduce that you’re a compliant kind of person, someone who likes company. There are a few small details, some obscure matters, that I’m sure we can clear up with God’s help, relying of course on your total cooperation and a much needed veracity that you’ll freely offer us. As we all know, lies and deceit are anathema; double-crossing and obfuscation are abomination
s. Confusing reality and fancy simply creates discord. By my very life, foul deeds such as these are the kinds of things that groups of vagrant poets and their camp-followers—fornicators, layabouts, and debauchees all—commit all the time. May God Almighty protect us against them, keep us far removed from their circles and squabbles, and guide us by His light to the clear, unvarnished truth!”

  The only thing that brought this outpouring of rhymed discourse and dissimulation to an end was a light tap on the door. The young woman offered her bashful apologies, and he told her to come in.

  “What do you want, young lady?” he asked gently, clearing his throat as he did so.

  “I’ve looked for her, Sir,” she replied, but I can’t find her anywhere.”

  “Who?”

  “Umm Qash‘am, Sir.”

  “That’s very disturbing,” he replied without changing his tone. “Take a look in the biographical dictionaries and in Ibn Manzur’s dictionary as well.* If you don’t bring her to me, I’m going to deduct a third of your salary.”

  At this point I asked permission to speak.

  “In Arabic, Judge,” I told him, “Umm Qash‘am is a phrase that was used by people in pre-Islamic times as a synonym for Hell. God alone knows best.”

  “Good for you, Hamuda” he replied, “and may God preserve you! As for you, young woman, kiss the head of this man who’s provided you with a little light and taught you something you didn’t know. Just one kiss will do.”

  Without moving from my seat I was given a warm kiss on the head by this unfortunate young woman. She asked permission to leave and stumbled her way red-faced toward the door.

  The judge stared at me in amazement. “I notice that, when the secretary is here, you keep your eyes lowered and don’t look straight at her!”

  “I behave that way,” I replied, “in obedience to the injunctions of our Prophet: ‘He who looks at the beauty of a woman and turns away the first time, God will create a devotion for him, the sweetness of which he will find in his own heart.’”

  “Good heavens, Hamuda!” the judge yelled in delight, “you’re genuinely learned and your memory is a priceless gift!”

  “Forgive me, Sir,” I replied, “but my attainments are only modest.”

  “True enough, modesty is a known trait of the genuinely learned. Come over here, Nahid, and stand in front of me. Take off your headdress and shake your hair to left and right. Isn’t that beautiful?! One female delight on top of another. Look at me, Hamuda. Am I supposed to be able to look away from this woman? I try; oh yes, I keep trying. I cover my eyes with my hands, but I keep seeing her as naked as Eve, and I want to have her even more. By the truth of God who created her and made her so lovely, it’s all over. It reminds me of the chap who once said: ‘Look away, even from female sheep.’ That’s what it reminds me of . . .”

  “I think it was Abu Yazid al-Bistami* who said that.”

  “He must have been really frustrated! Looking away from female animals is one thing, but human females? No way, a thousand times no! What Ibn Sa‘d* has to say in his Tabaqat, based on the Prophet’s own dicta, makes more sense: ‘In your lower world, he has led me to like perfume and women . . . ’ Nahid, put your headdress back on and get out of my sight. Leave now!”

  “Now, Hamuda,” the judge went on, nervously wiping his face and bald pate with a handkerchief, “let’s go back to what we were talking about . . .”

  He started ranting and raving, as though talking to himself. “So that son of a bitch has insulted every single member of our august center here, even me! His file is already thick enough, but now he’s gone too far. Mama Ghula will know how to make him suffer. Then the nasty heretic will soon realize what the endgame really is and who it is that deserves to feel the flames of hell licking around them in this world rather than the next, to be flayed by her whips and tied up in chains. You heard for yourself, Hamuda, the way he talked about Umm Qash‘am in referring to all kinds of perfectly decent and upright people. When he’s brought to trial and a verdict is required, you’ll certainly be able to provide your own testimony, once I’ve given you, of course, all the necessary details about the heretic’s case from its very beginnings and the way things have proceeded to their current state.”

  It occurred to me at this point that I should decline to testify in any case where the truth could never be known for sure, but I decided not to do so. It also occurred to me that I should congratulate him on the eloquence and clarity of his discourse, making sure that I made no mention of the occasional pedantry and affectation, but there again I decided against it.

  The judge took off his spectacles slowly and gestured to me to come closer.

  “Hamuda,” he confided to me with his nasal twang to which he added a patina of affection, “the thing that’s made me sympathize with you and not forward your file to a really nasty interviewer is that we share one particular trait in common. Do you know what it is?”

  I replied that I did not.

  “Both of us, Hamuda,” he went on, “are graduates of colleges from other Arab countries. You have a degree is Islamic law, and so do I; you also have one in literature, as do I. But then the fates have sent us down separate paths, so let’s thank God for giving us this opportunity to cooperate in disclosing the truth and dispelling all falsehood and deceit. All I need to do is to use my eyes to look at people’s faces; I can tell what is in their hearts and the messages conveyed by their eyes. It’s a gift I’ve had ever since my childhood. With the passage of time it has only grown and developed. God has used it to bestow on me examples to be gleaned from life’s hard experiences and the tough, yet revelatory lessons that they can offer. Even so I’ve never believed that this perspicacity of mine is a match for Zarqa’ al-Yamama*—all thanks to God for what he has bestowed on me.”

  He stopped suddenly and gave me a quizzical look, but I did not show any sign of wanting to respond or agree with him.

  “At my circumcision ceremony,” he went on, “my late father sacrificed a sheep and named me Hassan. He was inspired to do so by Hassan ibn Thabit, who, as you know, was the Prophet Muhammad’s own poet (Peace be upon him!), someone who accepted the Prophet’s eternal message and became a Muslim, thus saving himself from the proverbial valleys in which poets would lose themselves.* That is why, from my childhood days up till now, you’ll find me every morning reciting as many of the beautiful names of God as I can remember. My entire aspirations are focused exclusively on what is good. I married a woman who had the feminine form of my own name, Hasna’. I always treated her kindly. When we did not have any children, she wanted to get divorced, and I let her go with all due charity. I still adhere to the same principles and beliefs. I particularly abhor all thought of the use of violence; in my attitude toward everything, I always make judgment calls and advocate what is the most acceptable. My constantly repeated slogan is: yes to the good and beautiful; no, and no again, to violence. If you believe someone, you’ll get the truth. I have never beaten a prisoner, even though he may be a hardened reprobate. I’ve never tortured anyone, or even spat in anyone’s face, be they male or female. That’s the way I was born and brought up. Never in my life have I sacrificed an animal, even a lowly chicken, so how on earth could I do it to a human being? When it comes to things like hangings and executions, whether in Islamic domains or in the history of every kind of political and religious system, my entire body recoils and my soul shudders in horror. I’ll admit that, once in a while, my imagination—but it is only that—leads me to feel like flaying the hides of certain nasty individuals, too big for their own boots; I have the urge to tear them limb from limb and throw them to the famished hyenas and lions. But now, tell me about your own violence.”

  My jaw dropped in amazement when I heard his request.

  “Yes, I’m talking about your violence! Quite apart from the charge that you killed your mother’s husband—something we’ll be looking into shortly, there’s the matter of the assault on a man whom you subjected to a
severe beating, leaving him injured. You claimed that he had insulted your father by cursing him and spitting in his face. But your reaction clearly went way beyond the bounds of revenge and retaliation; not only that, but you also contravened God’s own words in the Qur’an: “If someone assaults you, reciprocate against him to the same degree” [Surat al-Baqara 2, The Cow, v. 194], and His command: “A soul for a soul, an eye for an eye, a nose for a nose, an ear for an ear, and a tooth for a tooth” [Surat al-Ma’ida 5, The Table, v. 45]. In your case then, you should have been applying the just dictates of Shari‘a law: a curse with a curse, one spitting with another—albeit with a bit more phlegm. But giving your adversary a nosebleed and kicking him in the face, which required that he go to the hospital, that’s wrong. No, and again no!”

  Here was this judge pronouncing God’s own words in a tone of voice even more repulsive than that of a donkey—good grief, God protect us all!

  “But Judge,” I said, trying to lessen the burden of guilt and put things in perspective, “all that happened a long time ago when I was an impetuous youth! In any case, it’s all been smoothed over.”

  “Youth and impetuosity, you tell me! Whatever the case may be, it’s a page in your life that clearly shows a violent streak in your nature, a distinctly unsavory page that can’t be erased with the passage of time, even though you may claim that it does. Traces of violence, just like fire under straw, are liable to burst into flame at any moment. And, if there’s one thing they make clear, it’s that you weren’t praying at that time. Is that right?”

  I maintained a stony silence.

  “Fanaticism and violence are both repulsive,” he went on. “As it says in our Holy Book: “Prayer forbids abomination and dishonor” [Surat al-‘Ankabut 29, The Spider, v. 45], and in our true religion . . . But no matter. While you are here and under guard, do you see yourself performing the five daily prayers?”