My Torturess

by Bensalem Himmich

  Once I had finished my broth and coffee, I started looking around, trying to work out who were the real internees and who were the plants. The shaving routine had not discriminated between the heads and beards of either group, but, like me, some of them had colds and catarrh and looked thin, while others looked perfectly healthy. The latter looked like violent skinheads, while the former now had all the bumps and bruises of their faces and skulls exposed. So where exactly did the bounds of truth come to an end and those of deceit and obfuscation begin? That particular question kept nagging at me, especially when one of the latter group leapt up on a table and attracted people’s attention. Once everyone was watching, he lowered his trousers.

  “So they shaved my beard and head,” he yelled as they cackled, “but shit on all of them. My masculinity is still intact; they haven’t been able to shave that off. Anyone who doubts that can take a look at my erect penis in my hands.”

  The guards came rushing over and tried to grab him as he leapt from one table to the next and then wove his way between the chairs, just like a well-trained clown. There was widespread chaos at this point, and voices were raised:

  “Power to the man with proof in his hands!” they yelled. “Power to him!”

  “Long live the stallion,” others cried. “Long may he live!”

  12

  With the Investigating Judge and His New Secretary

  Taking advantage of the security lapse in the mess hall, I slunk my way out through the kitchen door to the administrative wing and the investigating judge’s office. I told the guard that I had some crucially important information to convey to the judge; it was really urgent, I told him. When he seemed reluctant, I threatened him with the dire consequences of not responding to my request. He went inside to ask the secretary about it, and I slunk in right behind him and shouted out the information that I had provided to the guard. The secretary upbraided me for my behavior and ordered me to be taken out. But, while she was still on the phone, she suddenly calmed down. Telling the guard to leave, she instructed me to sit down.

  I took a seat opposite this woman, who seemed to be in charge but still to be showing some kind of understanding. I relished the fact that I had managed to inveigle my way into the administrative wing and grab the opportunity for a meeting with the investigating judge without an appointment. I gazed at this new secretary who was busy working, at the computer, on files, or other stuff. For sure she was not like either of her two predecessors, Nahid al-Busni and the earlier woman called Jumana. This woman was pretty and had her head uncovered, a pair of languid tawny eyes and silky black hair. Her clothes were contemporary but modest, and she was lightly made-up. Her facial expression was neither vicious nor flirtatious, and she seemed so serene and relaxed that the overall effect led me to nurse other feelings as well.

  I felt a strong urge to talk to her, even though the fact that she was on the telephone made that difficult. When she started typing, I seized the opportunity.

  “Which country are you from, Miss?” I asked her.

  She did not answer, but instead asked me what was the purpose of my visit.

  “The purpose of my visit?” I replied, acting dumb. “The purpose of my visit? Well, Miss, in your presence the purpose has gone right out of my mind. Maybe I’ll remember in a while . . .”

  “Are you intending to tell the judge about the events in the cafeteria?” she asked me. “If so, his excellency already has all the details.”

  I did not dare ask her whether the judge had a concealed camera somewhere with a private screen to keep him informed about everything going on in the mess hall, the game field, the exercise yard, the corridors, the cells, and every conceivable part of this complex. Perhaps he was well aware of the all the secret activities of my own life, everything that had happened when I was in the shock and terror cellar, not to mention my first and second cells. Perhaps he also knew about the terrible way I had been treated during that phony soccer game and the various types of torture that that female ghoul had inflicted on me—May God destroy her in this world before she even reaches the next!

  The fact that the judge was aware of what had happened in the cafeteria just as soon as the events had occurred was extremely valuable information. It was not clear whether this modest beauty had revealed the information by accident or deliberately. Here I was sitting next to her, wishing that this situation could go on and on so that I could savor her feminine beauty, if only from a distance, and listen to her melodious voice.

  “Have you remembered?” I heard her asking me.

  “Remembered?” I asked. “What? My senses? My mind?”

  “No, what you came here for.”

  I rubbed my shaved head as though pondering.

  “Not yet,” I told her, “but when I do . . . But let’s get to know each other a bit better and have a chat. Please, let me kiss your hand . . .”

  She pulled her hair back off her face and gave me an affectionate glance.

  “I know everything about you,” she said, “but, when it comes to me, you’ll only find out what the judge allows you to know.”

  I presumed that the reason she was being so coy was that the judge was watching the whole thing on a screen in his office. With that in mind, I stopped pushing the point. Just then, a noise from the buzzer on the desk indicated that I was supposed to go in to see the judge. The secretary came over to do a body search, and I helped her by removing my clothing as far as my underwear. I was delighted to catch a few whiffs of her perfume, which enveloped my head and face. That done, she hurriedly helped me put my clothes back on and took me over to a dark corner of the judge’s office. He was still busy on the phone, so she invited me to take a seat and take it easy for a few moments. She then greeted her boss and left.

  While the judge was involved with his various phones, my mind kept swinging to and fro between an effort to pick up as much as possible of what he was saying and the thought of that lovely, gentle, and sweet secretary I had just met. The very thought of her provided a ray of sunshine and hope in the long night of my stay in this awful center—all of which calmed my much troubled spirit.

  Here’s part of what the judge was saying on the phone:

  “Quite right, Your Excellency. What they’re telling us is true: prisoner number 67 behaved in a disgusting and debauched manner in the cafeteria. He exposed his bottom in public and then started waving it around. He must be punished and made an example. But it shouldn’t be by castration, something about which I’ve expressed my strong reservations to Your Excellency before. Above all, unforeseen consequences . . . Yes, that’s true, there have been eunuchs throughout the course of history, and it’s also the case that failures in such cases have been rare, and so you can’t judge things on that basis. So your opinion in this matter is the one that counts . . . Exactly so, Your Excellency. So farewell, and my warmest regards to you!”

  I have no idea whether this was a real conversation or the judge was faking it. At any rate, once it was over, the judge kept talking to himself.

  “My predecessor in this job, Judge Faysal al-Hawi, declared castration to be legal and justified its practice on the basis of precedents whose only possible rationalization involved the use of entirely arbitrary judgment and coercion. He claimed that the arguments were definitive, whereas in my book they’re speculative. The use of the tradition of castrating eunuchs in the harem and slaves goes back to an era that is long past. The fact that the Turkish soldiers brought in by the Abbasid caliphs decided to castrate the caliph of one day and night, Ibn al-Mu‘tazz, is a decision that will work against them rather than for them on the Day of Judgment. In short, I don’t go along with that judge’s mode of reasoning or its application . . .”

  He suddenly stopped his ruminations and addressed me directly.

  “What about you?” he asked, staring straight at me. “What do you think of castration as a punishment?”

  “Invalid both intellectually and legally,” I hurriedly replied. “A her
etical act that rides roughshod over the rights of men. Anyone who orders its implementation will go straight to hell—and ‘evil is the resort.’”

  “Bravo!” he responded. “So you agree with me and support my views. Na‘ima, come back in here . . .”

  The secretary came in with a washing bowl and started pouring water on to her boss’s hands. He kept rubbing them with soap over the bowl. When he had finished, he dried his hands with a towel. She handed him a bottle from which he sprayed his bald pate, and his neck, back and front. She then carried the bowl out of the room.

  The judge now noticed that I was there and told me to come over and sit by him.

  “Wow,” he yelled, “just look at Hamuda! Unbelievable! The new look Hamuda, I do declare! All praise be to Him who changes conditions and faces! What’s brought you here? But first of all, tell me how the soccer game went. People tell me your star was in the ascendant during the game!”

  “My dear Judge,” I responded, unable to conceal my sarcasm, “my team used a good deal of bodily skill to score a large number of goals through clever passing and powerful shots at goal, but we were eventually defeated through an overwhelming force. My sandals were ripped apart, and I was subjected to all kinds of physical violence. You now see me before you, my body completely crushed and my feet bare. Only God is the victor . . .”

  “I’m going to get you some Nike sneakers as a gift,” he responded sympathetically, “and some vitamin pills to build up your strength again. Na’ima, come back in. Do you want tea or coffee?”

  I indicated that I did not want either of them. She came quietly over with a nice smile.

  “This young lady, Na‘ima,” he told me, pointing at her, “knows the language well—a bounty from God in person!—and does not pronounce words oddly. Thus far, Hamuda, you’ve met two secretaries, one of them debauched and fierce, the other modest and malleable. In this young lady I have at last discovered the prize jewel in the necklace—that center wherein lies my own faith and my legal focus. Nothing excessive or negligent, nothing too strong or too weak, neither recklessness nor cowardice. She is no spendthrift, but no miser either. And, Hamuda, something that concerns you a lot, she neither chatters needlessly nor remains silent.”

  He now stopped this flow of verbiage and busied himself lighting his pipe. I glanced at the girl and noticed that her eyelids were closed and her lovely smooth cheeks were blushing bright red because she was so embarrassed. Even so, I was able to enjoy looking at her until the pipe-smoking judge decided to resume his salvo of verbiage, projecting sentences in all directions without anyone having the vaguest idea about either the thoughts that were supposed to tie them together or the logic involved.

  “Yes indeed,” he said, “I mustn’t forget. This girl and you are both fellow citizens of the Arab country of Morocco. If you asked her now to sing the national anthem, she could do it with a military salute and with unparalleled enthusiasm. She can remember by heart the names of hundreds of dancing and singing stars, both Arab and worldwide. But she’s a believing Muslim, so she never hangs any pictures of them around her neck, or any talismans either. We’re short of time, or else I’d allow her to tell you the life story of one of them . . .”

  He paused for a moment to refill his pipe.

  “Na‘ima has a burning and defiant nationalist sentiment,” he said as he continued smoking. “No sooner do I provoke her by saying something like ‘Egypt is the mother of the world’ than she immediately reacts by saying: ‘And Morocco is its father!’ I never argue with her. Today I’m an Egyptian on the surface, but an Arab nationalist in essence. A while ago, Egypt was indeed ‘the mother of the world,’ but today, well . . . oh dear! You’re telling me that a country seething with downtrodden, unemployed layabouts is the mother of the world?! A country that fosters groups such as al-Takfir wa-al-Hijra* and Brotherhood this and that, a state that is in such straits, the mother of the world?! When a country shows no comprehensive growth and cannot present a democratic ideal, how can we term it ‘mother of the world’? No, no, it’s better to say no more. I can no longer enter Egypt safe and sound. I should go back to our sister land, Morocco. Now there’s a country—all praise to the all-powerful Creator!—just a stone’s throw from Europe but with roots firmly in Africa—both steeped in tradition and contemporary in its values, a land that can bring opposites together and reconcile the irreconcilable. Just to give one example, this young woman has two separate degrees, she prays the five daily prayers—even though she may do them all at once or delay them; she fasts during Ramadan, although, in accordance with the demands of her job or her monthly course she may arrange things as required. She does not earn enough to give alms and has never performed the pilgrimage to Mecca because of a lack of means. But, in spite of it all, Na‘ima is not shy in seeking her share of this life on earth. Previously, she’s worked in publicity organizations, danced at weddings and receptions, and embellished her résumé by being crowned beauty queen in . . . Remind me again, which city, Na‘ima?”

  I suspect that, like me, Na‘ima was about to explode in anger. Even so, she managed to reply.

  “Sefrou, Your Excellency,” she told him. “If I remember correctly, it’s in the southeast, in the province of Fez.”

  “Ah yes, Sefrou, with an ‘e’ vowel, not an ‘i.’ That right, Miss, Sefrou. But, before you get back to work, allow this fellow countryman to give you a kiss to congratulate you on being chosen as beauty queen. Come on, you lucky man, take what I have allowed you to take: a filial kiss between the man and woman from the same Arab country. They are siblings, a laudable custom, and there’s no divine dictum that forbids it. Stand up and kiss her. You lucky man! But be very careful now, no straying beyond the cheek!”

  I stood up to do what I was told, and planted a gentle kiss on the trembling girl’s neck, desperately trying as far as possible to avoid committing the kind of sin that I was powerless to prevent.

  “So, is everything okay?” the judge asked as soon as the Moroccan girl had rushed out. During the course of carrying out my duties, I’ve come across men who cry and ejaculate very quickly. Are you one of them? Can I be sure? Or will you recite the Qur’anic verse to me: ‘O you who believe, ask not about things which, if they were made clear to you, would annoy you’ [Sura 5, The Table, v. 101]. Okay, so you’ve understood?”

  “From that particular perspective, Judge,” I told him in a vexed tone, “you can be reassured. I haven’t sneaked in here to hear your talk about castration and your attitude toward it, or about Egypt and whether it’s the mother of the world, or about this Moroccan lady and her truly laudable qualities. I’ve come to see you about one thing and one thing only, something where I’ve come to the end of my rope. It concerns the woman known as the female ghoul, or Mama Ghula. The first time that barbaric female subjected me to totally evil and demeaning treatment, but I managed to tolerate it. But the second time the torture was utterly bestial and obscene. Now, Judge, I’m raising a complaint with you and recording it in the light of the fact that I’ve lost my front teeth and my body is covered in welts and bruises . . .”

  The judge rubbed his bald pate and the back of his neck and took several puffs from his pipe, as though he were disturbed by my torture or found my account tedious. I gave him an inquiring look.

  “Do you have an open mind? If so, then it can harbor secrets. I’m going to confide in you my personal attitude toward this female ghoul. It’s just like my attitude toward castration: rejection and disapproval. She should be punished not merely for what she’s done to you but also because, when it comes to monstrous conduct and illicit behavior, she has no peer; when it comes to terror and violence, no one else comes even close. But how can I be blamed when Uncle Sam has written her a blank check? What am I supposed to do? The Yankees have given her a green light—in fact, it’s so green that there’s nothing fresher and greener. And, if you’ve never heard of the Yankees and Uncle Sam, then let me tell you that it’s the Americans . . .”


  The phone rang. The judge mouthed some short, clipped phrases into it, the majority of which expressed agreement and support.

  “Okay,” he resumed, wiping the sweat off his forehead with a handkerchief, “let pick up where we were, since we’re both of us fond of Na‘ima. You have three choices, and no more. You can either open your heart to Mama Ghula and tell her all the secret information she needs about your cousin, Abu al-Basha’ir; or else you can do the same thing with me here; or you can continue defying Mama Ghula and playing the fool in her presence as you have been doing—this time you can imagine that she’s a cow and circle around her repeating a whole series of threatening phrases like ‘I’m a raging bull, and I’m going to put my horns into the female ghoul . . . ’ The first of these three choices is a good one, and the second is even better. Both of them will get you safely to shore. However the third option can have no good consequences . . .”

  With that he gave me an inquisitive look.

  “My dear Judge,” I replied, plucking up my courage, “what I know about my cousin consists of the things I put into the report that I submitted to your exalted self. There’s nothing to add to it, and the only falsehood will come when torture makes me reveal things inspired by the devil himself.”

  “God, my God!” he interrupted, his eyes closed, “what lovely melodious speech. Let me relish it for just a moment! I won’t even bother about the flattery behind it or the fact that it is so far removed from the truth . . .”

  “Sir,” I interrupted in turn, “even if my words are the way you have chosen to judge them, I have to tell you that whatever melody you detect is purely coincidental, not as the result of some artificiality. Above all, I don’t intend to flatter. And my only intention is to tell the truth.”

  His beady eyes stared hard at me through his glasses.

  “Every prisoner I have ever met, past or present, keeps playing the same old tape. Even those with a criminal record continue to claim that they’re telling the plain, unvarnished truth; they’re completely innocent of the charges leveled against them. They all make themselves out to be just the way their mothers bore them: innocent virgins regarding their actions, intentions, and natures. But, when we’ve conducted a patient and thorough investigation with them—using the best methods possible and, when necessity decrees, the most cruel and vicious, they finish up acknowledging their faults. At which point they start asking for reduced penalties; indeed, in the majority of cases they request permission to join the security forces and secret police. We usually grant them such requests, but only, of course, after they have gone through all the necessary psychological and physical tests. If you yourself might be interested in joining that particular group, then you should do your utmost to satisfy the preliminary requirements and not come back to talk to me again until such time as you have done the right thing. That way you’ll be able to give both us and yourself some peace and quiet. As for now, retrace your steps and think things over very carefully. But before you do even that, I suggest that you rid yourself immediately of behavior that harms your interests and does you no good. Your nose and hands, for example, even if they have to be cut off. In fact, avoid using prophetic hadith out of their proper context, the most famous of which is: ‘Grant your brother victory, be he oppressor or oppressed,’ or ‘He who offers a Muslim cover, will be covered by God on the Day of Judgment,’ things like that. And don’t cite verses from the Qur’an either. They’re all merely pretexts you’re using to protect your cousin, who insists on taking his own heretical path, following narrow interpretations and adopting extremist and fanatical views that are contrary to the moderate tenets of our tolerant Islamic faith. By so doing, he completely ignores the injunction of God and His Prophet to avoid all excess in matters of faith. Instead, he chooses to imitate the actions of the Kharijites, Sabeans, Barghwatis, and other fanatical extremists from Islamic history. This is my best advice to you: Don’t pretend you don’t know and don’t spout heresy. Above all, don’t play the infidel after being silent for a spell, and don’t drink piss after so long being amiss . . .”