My Torturess

by Bensalem Himmich

  The intercom bell rang, and the secretary took me into the judge’s office. He welcomed me with a smile and congratulated me on my freshened appearance. Asking Nahed to bring me something, he invited me to take a seat in front of him.

  “Coffee or tea?” she asked.

  “Bring him some semi-sweet coffee,” the judge told her as he fidgeted in the leather chair behind his huge desk.

  Once she had left, he gave me another smile and fiddled with his clipped moustache.

  “I used to know another woman from Fez,” he told me, “who used to pronounce the consonant ‘qaf’ as ‘hamza’; she also turned the ‘raa’ into ‘ghayn.’ Even worse was an Iraqi woman in my service—God forgive her—who used to turn ‘k’ and ‘j’ into all sorts of weird sounds. So, whenever she wanted to express her condolences to the relatives of someone who had died, she would say to each one individually: ‘May God increase your penis’ (intending to say ‘your reward,’ as I’m sure you’ve already realized). To God alone belongs all that He has created! But when it comes to typewriting, the secretary always sticks to the written form of the letters and not the way they are pronounced. I’ve hired this particular orphan woman because she is devout and respects the Creator. She has memorized his Holy Book and uses its teachings in her treatment of people who come for interviews. Her male and female colleagues call her Benazir, because her conduct and actually her appearance and head-wear as well remind people of Benazir Bhutto—may God preserve her as a wonderful model in this world of ours in anticipation of the next! In fact, this secretary is a great admirer of Benazir Bhutto, even though she is not interested or involved in politics.”

  The young woman now brought me a cup of coffee and some pieces of chocolate.

  “You’re not interested in politics, are you, pretty lady?” he teased the young secretary. “Go on, say ‘You’re so right,’” he said gesturing at me. “‘You’re so right’ is the only possible correct answer to this plague against our language. Only that way can you be sure of not committing some grave offence against the grammatical rules of the Arabic language. So tell us, ‘You’re so right.’”

  “You’re so right!” she replied dutifully.

  He then asked her to recite the shortest sura in the Qur’an. She really wanted to leave, but nevertheless recited it bashfully:

  Verily we have given you abundanf,

  So pray to your Lorf and sacrifife,

  Verily the one who loathes you is clippef.

  As she turned to leave, she was singing: “The man who tells me he loves me, I’ll serve him coffee with my own hands.”

  “You can leave now,” the judge yelled with a smile. “May God forgive you that reading that I requested, just as he forgives the proponents of the seven readings of the Qur’an. But when it comes to Jumana, the previous secretary, who seems to have relied on her femininity alone, the Lord God will never forgive her the way she treated people with such violence and corrupted their piety with her flagrant sensuality. Weak-willed people and prisoners straying from their faith and practice were all proclaiming her name and falling in love with her. Tell me, did anything untoward happen to you while I was away?”

  I stared at the floor and said nothing.

  “That cursed woman,” he screamed angrily, baring his teeth, “that tart! I told her to treat you properly, and she promised to do so. Did she hit you? And anything else . . . ? Damned woman! Her case reminds me of another woman, even worse in the pre-Islamic era. If a great poet of his generation and lineage had not fallen in love with her and immortalized her in his famous mu‘allaqa poem,* she would have been unknown and forgotten for all time. Do you know who I’m referring to?”

  I indicated that I did not. Clearing his throat, he sat up in his chair like someone about to convey some heavy news to me: “That pompous, flirtatious woman who strutted about like a peahen was the beloved of a poet who composed about her two lines of poetry that, by God Almighty, have no peers in the whole of secular Arabic literature. So remind me. It starts: ‘As I recall thee, the spears quench their thirst . . . ’ Finish the line for me, Hamuda!”

  I reluctantly responded: “ . . . on me, and the Indian swords drip with my blood.”

  “O my God, how wonderful!” and “I longed to kiss the swords because . . .” “Go ahead and finish it, Hamuda . . .”

  “they gleam like the teeth in your smiling mouth.”

  “Even though the poet ‘Antara* recited such glorious and eloquent lines, the cursed ‘Abla was totally unaffected. Her heart never even fluttered. In fact, she rejected the black poet whose heart and mind were of purest white! Don’t you agree with me that this woman, ‘Abla, was cursed—not only that, but a prostitute and nasty racist at that?”

  I chose to say nothing.

  “There’s a huge temporal gap between the defeated pre-Islamic poet and you, but there’s an element of similarity as well. While he chose to express his love and frustration over ‘Abla in the form of a magnificent poem that has lasted through the ages, your relationship with the former secretary, Jumana, is best described by the old proverb: ‘there’s many a trial that brings its own reward.’ At least you’ve proved that your masculinity is still intact. God be praised, and to Him be all gratitude!”

  He now lit his pipe and offered me either a cigarette or cigar. I refused both.

  “In my own humble opinion,” he said with uncharacteristic modesty, “there’s no text that forbids tobacco (unlike the proscription on wine). In both cases I strive to maintain a moderate position. In your case I suspect that you avoid alcohol and use analogy to deny yourself tobacco and opium. Am I right?”

  “Certainly,” I replied. “Health is what matters for everyone. It’s better to be cautious than to get sick and have to be treated.”

  “True enough, by God, true enough! And yet, these times of ours are full of tensions and annoyances. You need some form of tranquilizer to deal with them all.”

  He fidgeted in his chair, blowing smoke right in my face.

  “I used to let suspects come in this office,” he told me nervously, “with all their filth and stench. For the sake of truth and the need to discover it, not to mention pleasing God Almighty, I would put up with it all. But when I returned from responsibilities abroad, I issued instructions that from now on nobody would be allowed in until they had been properly cleaned and perfumed. You’re the very first one to be treated this way. The thing that’s made me take your side and stopped me forwarding you to a much nastier interviewer is that we share something in common. Do you know what it is?”

  “You told me about it earlier, Your Honor,” I replied in spite of myself. “We’re both graduates of colleges in Arabic-speaking countries. You have a degree in law and so do I; you also have one in literature, and so do I.”

  “That’s right,” he replied, “and yet fate and careers have sent us in different directions. So all praise be to God who has so arranged things that we meet and can thus expose the truth and eradicate falsehood.”

  He paused for a moment, giving me a hard, inquisitive stare.

  “But what truth and what falsehood, Sir?” I asked in dismay. “In what particular spot on earth am I currently located? What’s the purpose of this arbitrary imprisonment and excessive torture that is sapping my health? Do you want me to burst into tears and beg you to take your collective hands off this poor body of mine that is starting to lose weight and deteriorate?”

  The judge’s face turned purple with rage, and he started thumping the desk.

  “No questions are allowed,” he yelled at the top of his voice. “Come in, Nahid, and read this stubborn idiot Article Ten of the section on non-permitted conduct . . .”

  The young woman took down a tome from the shelf.

  “The tenfth article from the section on internal regulafions states . . .”

  At this point, the judge who was frothing at the mouth in anger, snatched the tome away from her and carried on reading.

  “‘Questi
ons are the particular province and competence of the investigator alone. He alone is legally permitted and competent to formulate and pose questions. The accused person is not permitted to engage in questioning unless he is asked and permitted by the investigator to do so. However the investigator is in no way obliged to record the question or to answer it. End of article.’”

  He continued smoking his pipe.

  “So, Hamuda from Oujda,” he went on, “do you have a joke for me, something to restore the sugar balance in my blood?”

  I was so overcome and perplexed that I could think of nothing to say. The secretary slapped me to make me pay attention.

  “The judge is asking you a question,” she said.

  “No violence, Nahid, no violence,” he told her in a gentle tone intended to calm things down. “God is my witness that, even when I’ve been cross-examining the very worst offenders, the kind of people who hate having to tell the truth, I’ve never tortured anyone, hit anyone, or spat on anyone. It’s just the way I was made. Violence spoils my mood; more than that in fact, it ruins my religious devotions. This rogue sitting in front of me here is trying to provoke me and refusing even to tell me a joke. Okay, so I’ll tell myself one, in the hope that it’ll calm me down. As the proverb says, ‘Nothing scratches you as badly as your own fingernails.’ You can listen too, Nahid, before you leave us. ‘Once upon a time there was among the Bani Khafajah a shaykh, who, when night fell, used to get a particular type of ache, the kind in which cocks with hens partake . . . But, what’s more significant that all that, is that this shaykh of ours had an ongoing feud with his colleagues because they accused him of confusing the months of Sha‘ban and Ramadan. He regarded this accusation as an obscenity and forcefully denied it. ‘If you all think it’s fair to accuse me of something,’ he told them, ‘then at least make it something that I really do; then I’ll admit it.’ When they asked him what that was, he replied that it was not confusing Sha‘ban and Ramadan, that was his main point. It was actually two other months, Shawal and Dhu al-Qa‘da! His colleagues spent a month and a half cackling over that one!”

  As Nahid left in consternation, the judge sat there guffawing and rubbing his stomach.

  “My good shaykh of old,” he continued with a chuckle, “may you have been well rewarded, and you tribe of Banu Khafaja, I trust that you received God’s blessings! You’ve improved my mood by giving me a good laugh—may God grant you to laugh on the Day of Gathering and afford you not one, but two paradises from His bounty! But now, Hamuda from Oujda, back to you, and let’s get serious again. You’ve put me in mind of someone who’s stopped talking for months as a kind of fast, and then decides to break the fast with an onion, or, worse yet, with shit. Your report’s badly written; in fact, it’s drivel. I’m an investigator, so why should I be bothered about land and drought, your love for your mother and hatred for her husband—that stuff, and all other kinds of irrelevant padding? Any more, and you’d be telling me about the day you were circumcised or the first time you fucked a woman or a cow. There’s a disjuncture about your discourse, one that’s far removed from that elegance and clarity that I requested of you. You neither accepted nor responded to my call. As a result you’ve lost a golden opportunity to get away from those pedestrian modes of expression that are now so current and to invoke more refined and tasteful concepts and phrases. There are countless possible examples I could cite: things like ‘tomb,’ ‘grave,’ ‘fate,’ ‘perdition,’ ‘gloom,’ ‘darkness,’ ‘commitment of grievous sin,’ ‘to be bad,’ ‘to be scared,’ ‘to go crazy,’ ‘to become level,’ . . . it’s all a veritable catastrophe, a horrendous crime for us to abandon the contents of our glorious Arabic lexicon, allowing it to be ignored and forgotten, to be ravaged by the savage jaws of ignorance and contempt.”

  He paused for a moment to catch his breath.

  “How is it possible,” he went on in a blunt tone,” that you got a degree in literature? Is it a fraud? Maybe you filched it or managed to purchase it in these corrupt times when standards have fallen so badly. You’ve been trying to show that you’re innocent of the crime of murdering your mother’s husband and to portray yourself as a peaceful and ethical person. But that’s just one charge against you, and there’s still another one that I’m aware of. In spite of all the suspicions hovering around you, I’m prepared to overlook it, but only on condition that you provide me with the fullest possible account of all the perverted activities of your cousin, al-Husayn al-Masmudi—all his secrets, his movements, and his dangerous secret contacts. Your life preserver rests in your own hands. I want to know everything about the person who uses the street name Abu al-Basha’ir. Forget all about the kindnesses he may have done you in the past. I know all about that already. That’s what’s led my agents to arrest you and place you under supervisory detention. Think things over carefully, then write me an eloquent and relevant report. That’ll save your skin, allow us to be rid of you, and let you have some peace.”

  At this point the telephone rang.

  “Eat the chocolate,” he told me as he grabbed the phone.

  “My respects, Colonel,” he said. “Yes, Sir, the members of the terrorist cell you’re mentioning have all confessed and provided us with extremely useful and detailed information. Yes, that’s right . . . there are seven of them. Six of them have signed a document requesting a pardon and announcing their repentance. The seventh had a heart attack in Mama Ghula’s cavern. Yes, she tells me that she tortured him after he’d tortured her by refusing to talk. That’s right, Colonel, one evil deed deserves another; and the one who starts is the worst offender. Yes, Sir, I’m on to it . . . I hear and obey . . .”

  He waved at me to leave, and I did so. As I passed by the secretary, Nahid, I decided to play the fool, so I gave her a knowing wink, my mouth full of chocolate. She shuddered, then rounded on me.

  “You’re a nafty man,” she said, “not only that you’re impolite and impiouf!”

  “Thankf so much!” I replied, imitating her pronunciation and blowing her a kiss.

  With that, I left in high spirits and encountered the guard waiting outside by the door. Two other guards had another prisoner with hands and feet tied who was waiting to appear before the investigating judge. He was undoubtedly one of those dangerous people I’d just heard about. I wondered if the time would come when I too would be one of those if I carried on refusing to cooperate by submitting to their will and serving as one of their agents.

  On the way back to my cell I indulged in a sincere desire to get to know the guard better and open a line of communication. So I asked him how he was and what his professional and family situation was like.

  “Fine,” was his only response.

  When I tried to expand on the conversation, he begged me not to expose him and his salary to any risks. So I said no more.

  As he locked my cell door, he told me that tomorrow there was supposed to be a soccer match between two teams of prisoners. He suggested that I get ready and go to sleep early.

  I checked my bed and all the corners of the cell to see if there was anyone else, whether alive or dead, in the cell with me. It emerged that this time I was on my own. I noticed that there was still some food left in my bowl. At this point I remembered the treasure trove that I’d stuffed into my pockets that morning, so I hid the bottles of perfume and soap under my pillow, and cleaned my teeth with the brush and toothpaste. I did some exercises to warm me up, all in preparation for falling asleep. However, I was so worked up that my churning brain would not let me sleep until very late; sometimes I would be thinking about Nahid al-Busni—at others, about the nasty and complex personality of the investigating judge. I kept coming up with things that motivated and terrified me in turn, the kind of talk that was intended to crush my ethical self and sense of purpose, whether the method involved hypocrisy or deceit—and all of it accompanied by a generous dose of decadent pseudo-erudition.

  9

  A Prisoners’ Soccer Game

&n
bsp; Our appointment for the soccer game happened next day in the searing midday heat. It took place on a sandy field behind the detention center’s main buildings. According to the announcement made over a speaker hanging in one of the windows, there were to be two teams of prisoners. I noted that the team I was on, which was called the Black Beasts, was entirely barefoot or, like me, wearing rubber sandals. Most of them looked emaciated and weak. By contrast, the other team, called the Red Barbarians, was wearing professional soccer boots; they all looked like very fit rugby players. When I asked one of my teammates standing near me what this utter disparity meant, he looked around and then told me that I would soon understand. For the time being it was better to say nothing.

  After we had done some warm-up exercises, a female referee dressed entirely in black summoned us with a whistle blast. It was clear from her appearance that this was indeed Mama Ghula of evil repute. She addressed us all in her beloved French, using the military tone of voice of one who brooks no argument regarding her orders.

  “Soccer here,” the translator told us, “is not the game you’re used to seeing. Here, as in everything else, we do things differently and invent our own rules. The game will have only one time period; there’ll be no second half, overtime, or rest period. One period, and that’s it. The goals will be counted, but the victors will be those with the necessary staying power to keep resisting, without giving up or withdrawing. Now put your trust in God that victory will go to the stronger side.”

  After this weird introduction, she tossed the coin to start the match, and my team won. She then went and checked on the two goal nets and spoke to some of the guards who were standing on the sidelines with their guard dogs. The Red Barbarians team now proceeded to launch a verbal attack on us, using every conceivable kind of abuse and vile language, all accompanied by threatening gestures. Some of my teammates responded with abuse of a lesser kind, and there were exchanges of spitting and punches as well. This totally unsporting conduct only came to an end when the female referee came back and blew her whistle to start the game.