My Torturess

by Bensalem Himmich

  “I’ve the solution for you,” he said. “It’ll solve all your problems and provide you with a way out. It makes bitter things taste sweet, things that are tight open up; with it misery turns into a boon. Mama Ghula treats you like a lamb, or a cat even; the director like a cock, and the judge like a donkey. It’s not wine I’m suggesting; that’s forbidden. No, what I’m recommending is ecstasy, extracted from the purest hashish, and at a very reasonable price too. You can have it on credit or else you can perform a service for me. What do you say?”

  Shying away in disgust, I rejected his offer. I put my tray back in its place and started looking for my masked guard to take me back to my cell. Once I found him, he told me that this was not a charitable institution for feeding the poor and needy traveler. I would have to help wash the cafeteria’s pots and pans and clean the furniture and walls. I did just that, along with a whole group of other people, although I had no idea whether they were genuine internees or plants. Once that was all done, I again asked to go back to my cell. My guard accompanied me and for the first time asked me if there was anything I wanted to buy on the black market. He named them all: American cigarettes, French wine, a Japanese radio, Saudi toothpicks, Indian perfume, Moroccan hashish, local soap, and toothpaste and chewing gum from no particular location. Interrupting, I told him I wanted none of it.

  14

  Another Torture Session

  Back in my cell, I noticed that my bedcover had been decorated with a pair of Nike sneakers, a prayer rug, a miniature bowl, and a bound volume that I assumed was a copy of the Qur’an. There were also some newspapers and magazines (in Arabic and Western languages), with their dates erased and some articles cut out. I assumed that they all went back several years. I immediately sat down and started leafing through the newspapers, reading some of the headlines and articles inside. Some of them made me pause: “Terrorist explosions all over Baghdad leave dozens of people dead and wounded,” “Maghribi women are enslaved and sexually exploited in Gulf countries,” “In Tangier a man from the Gulf deliberately infects his Tunisian companion with AIDS,” “The AIDS virus threatens the entire continent of Africa,” “Networks to transport Maghribi ‘artistes’ to work in Gulf and Middle Eastern brothels,” “The rape of children in and out of schools is an ongoing nightmare in Arab societies,” “Dozens killed and injured in terrorist explosions in the capital city of Algiers,” “A family in Marrakesh sets dogs and snakes loose on their son’s fiancée to force her to have an abortion,” and “Spain keeps a watchful eye on Moroccan fundamentalists who have served in the army.” The magazines were all pornographic, so I threw them into a corner to protect myself with the sheltering veil of modesty and devotion.

  There was one article that I read all the way through, describing the incendiary threats issued by the authorities of the Zionist entity against the Arab resistance forces. It confirmed everything that not only I, but also all liberal and oppressed peoples of the world, already know: Israel’s tyrannical regime, duly bolstered by comprehensive and unconditional support from America, is also supported by European regimes and even by certain Arab governments as well. The Palestinian and Lebanese resistance movements are fighting not merely Israel, but also all those other tyrannical forces. It was in that context that I read this article with great enthusiasm; I even jotted down some quotes from it and only wished that I knew who had originally written it.

  I got up and washed my hands with the meager supply of water that was available so that I could handle the Qur’an, even though the process was hardly adequate. When I opened the cover and looked at the title, I was totally shocked: The Perfumed Garden for the Heart’s Delight by Shaykh Muhammad al-Nafzawi.* My entire body convulsed, and I shivered at the thought of this utterly malicious and disgusting act aimed at me.

  So, who had been responsible for sending me these “generous gifts,” I wondered.

  If it had not been for the lewd materials included with the rest, I would have assumed that they came from Na‘ima, who still retained her place in my heart and mind. But, since I knew her own beliefs, I came to the conclusion that it had to be the investigating judge. It was a down payment on a pact between the two of us, something required to fulfill a need he had in his own vicious and evil heart. But I vouched to myself, by the Creator of the heavens and earth and in the name of my plan to resist and hold fast, that this judge, wallowing in his foul slime, would never be able to catch me in his snares or get the things he wanted. Praying on his prayer mat, I decided, would be corrupt and invalid; using the bowl to perform the ritual ablutions would not cleanse, just the opposite; and, as for reading The Perfumed Garden in my current situation, that would be the worst of all. Except for the Nike sneakers that I needed so badly, I tossed everything else—even the newspapers—into the corner where I had already thrown the pornographic magazines.

  The next morning I helped clear and sweep the cafeteria along with a group of other prisoners. I was then escorted by a masked guard to a secret room in a cellar, one that I had not seen before. He tied my hands behind my back and sat me down on a seat facing a table and chair. After a few terror-laden moments, a huge, muscular man came in, clearly one of the detention center’s major gorillas. Along with the guard, he stationed himself behind my back. Mama Ghula now came in, followed—what a nice surprise!—by Na‘ima. The two women could hardly have seemed more different: one was like a compliant gazelle, while the other looked like a savage beast. There was Mama Ghula in all her proverbial ugliness and bestiality, while Na‘ima was also there, infinitely attractive and supremely gentle.

  Na‘ima’s boss instructed her to shine a light beam directly at my face. I now decided to show how crazy I had become, part of my plan that I’ve described earlier. I expressed my admiration for Na‘ima, but without mentioning her name or referring in any way to her message.

  “I’m delighted to see you here, lovely visitor,” I declared. “Weren’t you scared of the guards on the way?”

  Instead of getting any reply from her, I received a blow to the neck from the gorilla standing behind me. That shut me up.

  “No questions allowed,” came a threatening voice as though coming from a machine. “No sexual harassment either.”

  He moved over and stood beside Mama Ghula, who was busy eating sandwiches and drinking bottle after bottle of beer. Every so often she would open her mouth, stuffed full of food, and whisper something in the gorilla’s ear. He would then convey it to me as a terse question.

  “The boss is asking,” he would say in his mechanical tone of voice, “about the things you haven’t talked about so far.”

  “Every arrow in my quiver I’ve told you about,” I replied, my eyes watering because of the intense light focused on my face. “Prayers to God are all that’s left.”

  “You’ve emptied one quiver, you son of a bitch,” the gorilla replied menacingly, “but you’ve hidden another one. Empty it now, or else I’m going to empty your veins of blood. In your home city of Oujda, you were involved with books. Fine, but you also got involved in other things, too. A woman named Fatima al-Lozi, for example. You installed her in your bookstore. The boss wants to know about your relationship with her.”

  “Fatima was a widow with little money;” I replied immediately. “She was left alone and had had no children. Her life was utterly miserable. I gave her shelter and offered her as much help as I could in return for cleaning the bookstore and occasionally acting on my behalf . . .”

  “The boss is asking if you had sex with her,” the muscle-bound man demanded.

  “Good heavens, no!” I replied. “She and I were both nursed by the same woman. That’s totally forbidden.”

  That made Mama Ghula cackle.

  “Your nursing sister, you fornicator?” she yelled, using a genuine or phony foreign accent. “My ass! Where is she now?”

  “I don’t know,” I replied. “She disappeared two months before I did.”

  “No, no, you son of a bitch! Tell it right
. She joined the maquis* in the mountains, along with her other suckling brother, your cousin, al-Husayn al-Masmudi.”

  The gorilla now received some more whispered questions from his boss.

  “In previous interrogation sessions, you’ve never mentioned Fatima al-Lozi. Why not?”

  “Because there was nothing to be gained from talking about her.”

  “Oh yes, there is! The boss is asking about your own sexual orientation.”

  “My sexual orientation? I don’t understand . . .”

  “In sexual matters,” he interrupted, “do you favor women or men?”

  “Women, of course,” I replied, “because I’m a man. But not just any woman. If I could marry the lovely woman standing in front of me here in accordance with the practice of God and His Prophet, I wouldn’t hesitate for a moment. But, if we’re talking about this torturess, for example, death would be a preferable option. The gentler sex is totally innocent of her as a model.”

  With that, the female ghoul stood up and spat the entire contents of her mouth in my face, then sat down again and suppressed her fury with another bottle of beer.

  “Your relationship with Fatima al-Lozi is of great help to the inquiry,” the gorilla went on. “The fornication charge can be based on firm evidence and the dictates of the law. But that’s not all you’ve kept hidden. There’s also something far more serious: trading in gasoline smuggled across the Algerian-Moroccan border using different kinds of containers. At first, you were doing it on a motorbike, but later you used a car. It was butane gas which is highly flammable and could well have killed innocent people. Why have you kept that hidden?”

  I did my best to conceal my alarm and responded slowly and deliberately.

  “Had I been questioned about this information,” I said, “I would have told you the following: It’s true, I smuggled gasoline in small amounts from Algerian villages to Oujda and its environs. But I soon stopped, both because the dangers involved far outweighed the profits to be made and because there was an ever increasing number of ‘withouts,’ that being the term used to describe unemployed people who could only find work smuggling cans of gasoline. The only reason I used gas for my car was that it was fairly cheap and thus suited my meager budget. That’s all.”

  Mama Ghula now signaled to Na‘ima to turn the light up full. My eyes were so dazzled and disturbed that I kept seeing shadows and visions behind it. I looked away to give them a chance to recover and noticed that the guard was no longer behind me. She told me to look straight ahead.

  “It’s the boss’s opinion,” the gorilla’s voice intoned, “that what you’ve told us is a pile of rubbish. So, for one last time, she’s asking you the whereabouts of your cousin nicknamed Abu al-Basha’ir or even some of his men. If you cooperate, the charges of fornication, smuggling, and using a booby-trapped car will be dropped. You can add to all that the murder of your mother’s husband as well. What do you have to say?”

  I begged my Lord to give me the fortitude to withstand the violence and torture that were certainly to follow in view of my one and only response to her questions and threats. She gave another signal, and Na‘ima came over to me, looked straight at my brightly illuminated face and repeated the question in a gruff voice totally unlike the one I had heard before.

  “I’m delighted to see you here, lovely visitor,” I said once again. “Weren’t you scared of the guards on the way? By the true word of Him who created you in such a perfect form, I know nothing about my cousin’s whereabouts, where he is, or who his companions are.”

  Na‘ima gave me a slap on the face, and I enjoyed it. I turned my other cheek to her, asking her to do it again. She slapped that cheek too, not without a certain gentleness of touch. I really wanted her to keep on slapping me so I would forget this room and the people in it. I could imagine that the person slapping me fitted the old proverb that says: “One who loves a lot punishes a lot.” However, my wishes were soon curtailed when the muscle man grabbed hold of me, dragged me to a dark circle, laid me down on my back close to a water bowl, and proceeded to stuff my mouth full of bits of wool and toilet paper. He then waxed it with a binding paste.

  “Now, my stubborn fellow,” he whispered in my ear, “warm suffocation is going to make you spit out the truth!”

  Warm suffocation! What on earth was that?

  The female ghoul now came over and sat cross-legged on my face. I could feel her press one of her orifices over my nose which prevented me from breathing and forced me to smell her foul gases and disgusting body odors. She only relaxed her revolting grip a little in order to ask if I was ready to cooperate yet. Once she realized that I was still maintaining my stance, she simply resumed her position. Her portable phone rang.

  “Yes, Sir,” I heard her say, “the dog’s in our hands now. He’s bound to talk. Yes, Sir.”

  When she felt my breathing slow down and my legs stop moving, she got up and went back to her place to continue eating and drinking. I stayed on the floor, groaning and spluttering.

  Na‘ima now came over, either prompted by a signal from the ghoul or on her own initiative. She took the stuff out of my mouth and untied my legs. I started coughing as never before and vomited up the entire contents of my stomach. I apologized to my rescuer, who moistened a towel from the water bowl and leaned over to clean my face and neck. Thanks to the attention of this sympathetic woman and her pure breaths so close to me, I gradually calmed down.

  A few moments later the female ghoul came back, felt my neck vein and pulse, then signaled to the gorilla, who dragged me and sat me cross-legged in front of the water bowl.

  “Now it’s time for waterboarding!” he yelled. “The time has come. Either you confess, or else it’s curtains for you.”

  So now it was time for the infamous waterboarding. People say that, as the person being tortured is deprived of oxygen, he can look upon his own death time after time until he confesses and cooperates or else dies without doing either. That is precisely what the boss now did with me, and in the most barbaric fashion. If she felt hungry or thirsty, or if the phone rang, she would hand things over to Na‘ima, who started lessening the amount of time I was under water and pretend she was not good at it. The muscle man noticed the way she was behaving and told the female ghoul who was busy eating or answering the phone. As soon as she had finished what she was doing, she gave Na‘ima a resounding slap that completely knocked her out. She kept complaining about the incompetence of these young female assistants and their lack of experience and knowledge. She gave instructions that her now-unconscious assistant be taken to the health clinic and then reprimanded for her conduct. That done, she set about subjecting me to more water torture and only raised my head out of the water in order either to heap all kinds of foul abuse on my father and my religion or else to threaten me with death by drowning if I did not open my heart to her and reveal all my secrets. As I struggled underwater, I had Na‘ima‘s lovely face in my mind; as I strived to hold my breath, I kept asking for God’s aid and hers. Then I started to feel a certain weakness creep into the female ghoul’s curses and threats, also in the way she was holding my head under the water. I told myself that she was getting drunk. God willing, that would be my means of escape from this torment. My hunch proved to be correct, in that the guard came rushing in, looking very worried and helped his boss stand up and head for her bench. All the while she kept muttering snatches of incomprehensible nonsense. He returned to where I was and took me out of the room. He had to carry me to the health clinic on his shoulders, not only out of sheer sympathy but also because he did not want me to die in his custody. He could easily see how bad my condition was and that I could not walk on my own. In the waiting room he sat me on a seat fixed to the floor, tied my hand to it, then left to perform some function or other.

  I was left on my own, waiting for the door next to me to open. Once the silence became pervasive, I could hear groans behind the door, noises that I assumed came from a wounded person being treated.
However, those assumptions were shattered when my curiosity led me to take a peep through the keyhole. What I saw almost made me collapse on the floor. There was a doctor with her brassiere fully open leaning over Na‘ima, hugging her, touching her naked breasts, and giving her deep-throated kisses on her mouth, exactly the way a man does with a woman. Seeking refuge in God, I went back to my seat, not least because I heard some footsteps in the hall nearby.

  The guard appeared, removed my hand constraints, handed me over to the doctor, and asked permission to leave. Of Na‘ima there was no sign! For that reason I refrained from showing any surprise by asking questions.

  A middle-aged woman, foreign-looking, thin and flat-chested, with short hair and no makeup. She looked remarkably masculine. After giving me a smiling, self-assured welcome, she proceeded to conduct a variety of detailed tests with remarkable attention. With both a physical examination and through x-rays, she focused in particular on my chest and lungs and finished by taking for analysis a sample of my blood in a small capsule. She told me that Na‘ima had specifically asked her to take good care of me, and then handed me a spray and some pills with a form telling me how to administer them. She also gave me a set of empty plastic containers that she told me were a present from Na‘ima. I asked her how Na‘ima was, and she gestured to me that she was fine. With regard to our next appointment, she put her finger to her mouth and whispered: “If you start spitting blood . . .” She then escorted me to the door where the guard was waiting.

  15

  From the Crazy Block to the Shop for the People Practicing for Judgment Day

  Can it really be true that I was carried asleep, put down on my bed, and then slept without waking for two solid days? That at least is what a voice emerging from a neighboring cell is telling me.