Hardly had I finished before a watchman whom I had never set eyes on before grabbed the megaphone from me and told me to stop talking and withdraw. I decided to do as he asked, whereupon he frowned threateningly at me and retraced his steps. I assume that his colleagues must have done the same thing with the other inmates of the block, because for a while everything suddenly went silent, interrupted by occasional throat-clearings and coughs. After a while another voice could be heard, chanting the Sura of Yasin. After cleaning my hands from the bottle, I followed the text in my copy of the Qur’an. When the voice finished chanting, I continued reading some other chapters from the Qur’an, using them as sources of divine inspiration to rid the soul of its dross and carry it aloft to the realms of contemplation and reflection.
20
From the Hospital to My Involvement in a Communal Burial
When I woke up and looked around, I saw the gigantic black guard leaning over me. He had a sympathetic look on his face as he removed the Qur’an from my chest and placed it on the platter with the thurible and perfume bottle. He then gave me a series of signals from which I deduced that he wanted me to accompany him to the hospital for treatment. His expression gave no other indications besides what he had just communicated to me, but nevertheless I indicated how delighted I was. He helped me get up, but I was so weak and giddy that he had to carry me on his shoulders, with my two crutches under his armpit. As he carried me slowly along the block, my neighbors stood by the cell doors, enthusiastically shouting my name and wishing me well: “Long live the Saint of God, Hamuda! Long live the hero, Hamuda! May he live long!” Some of them even prayed that I would be able to endure the torture that awaited me in the female ghoul’s torture chamber, while others prayed to God and his faithful saints that they would help me endure my sufferings and bring me back alive to their quarters so they could benefit from my advice and I could explain to them what the word tazabbab meant in Arabic.
In the hospital operating room, my carrier put me down on a high bed on wheels, then left. He handed my crutches to an orderly and gave me a very affectionate glance. The orderly removed all my clothes and tossed them into a basket. He then washed every part of my body, dried it off, and sprinkled it with eau de cologne. He took my temperature and felt my pulse. With a penlight, he examined my eyes and my mouth and felt the most sensitive parts of my body. While he was finishing his work and recording the results on a chart, a foreign-looking doctor came in wearing a mask. After checking the record and putting on a pair of gloves, he started taking a close look at my leg and giving it a close examination. It seemed as though he were deciding on its fate: either amputation or drugs and antibiotics. Eventually he whispered something to the orderly, which I did not hear, and then left without saying a single word to me.
The orderly gave me an ambiguous look, which I interpreted as meaning bad news. He gave me an injection, which I assumed was intended to make me unconscious. He now set about cleaning the swollen parts of my leg, then rubbing special ointments on it and cotton swabs soaked in liquids with a powerful smell of alcohol. Contrary to my expectations, I remained fully awake, and it occurred to me that, since my leg was receiving this kind of treatment with concentrated drug therapy, it implied that—Thank God!—there was no danger of amputation, even a partial one. When my savior proceeded to wrap my legs in copious bandages, that impression was confirmed. After he had dressed me in an orange-colored garment and transferred me to a bed in a small room nearby, I felt even more confident. He told me that I would be staying in the room for a while under medical supervision until my leg was cured. I thanked him profusely and asked him for his name and that of the members of the medical staff. I hoped thereby to be able to get him to tell me who was the foreign female doctor, Na‘ima’s friend, who had been so kind to me. However, he told me in the accent of someone from the Eastern part of the Arab world that I was here to be cured, not to ask questions. He then ordered some pills for me that I was supposed to take with some fruit before going to sleep. With that, he left.
Among the pills that I was supposed to take there was likely to be one that was a soporific. They obviously wanted my leg to get better using medicines, while my mental state stabilized with some sound sleep. I woke up in the middle of the night needing to piss; I had no idea what day of the week it was. I could not find my crutches anywhere, so I had to crawl with my leg in bandages and look for the toilet. It was so dark in my locked room that I could not find it. I could not decide whether to yell for the night-nurse or evacuate my bladder against a wall. Reluctantly, I decided on the latter, and then went back to my former position, where I lay on my back, sleeping part of the time, and waiting for dawn to break for the rest of it.
When night was replaced by daylight, a portly, menopausal nurse with olive complexion came in. She cursed whoever it was had spread such a foul stench in the room. Taking a bottle out of her apron, she proceeded to take a sniff from its contents. Standing on a chair, she opened a window that I had not noticed before. Disappearing for a moment, she came back with breakfast on a wheeled table and put it in front of me. She asked me if I were the one who had covered the wall with piss, and, without even waiting to hear my reply, she poured a liquid down my throat and give me an injection, instructing me all the while to eat. Before she left, I asked her about the toilet, and she pointed to a corner in the back with a plastic curtain.
Truth to tell, breakfast consisted of a variety of food, rich in proteins and vitamins. As I ate it all with gusto, I kept wondering to myself what might be the reason for such plenty—this display of truly Hatim-like generosity.* Were they trying to compensate me for all the evils things they had perpetrated against me; or was it some cunning plan either to get me well again or bring it to a crowning conclusion through assassination? With me in my current condition, the best thing was obviously to leave things as they were and let the fates do what they willed. I had to hold on; that was my plan and my surety till either victory or death.
I finished everything on the plates and still wanted more. I looked at my leg all wrapped in white bandages; it was as if I wanted to know how things were going. Everything seemed to be pointing to improvement and the possibility of a cure. I then took a look at the window above me. The sunlight and blue sky were so intense that the bars seemed to be illuminated. I stayed this way for a while, looking at my leg at times, but then staring upwards, where occasionally I would spot flocks of migrating birds. When yesterday’s orderly appeared, I greeted him warmly, and he reciprocated. He proceeded to clean my leg with fragrant liquids and medicinal ointments, then changed the bandages. Once he had finished, he told me to practice walking, but I told him that that would be difficult. I asked him to get me my crutches so I could avoid falling down and harming myself. He brought me one of them.
“Now walk!” he said.
I managed to take some steps around the room relying on just one crutch. The orderly was impressed and put me back in bed. He told me to take some pills after lunch. Before leaving, he gave me a time when I would be taken back to my cell that evening.
The lunch that the same portly woman brought me was just as delicious as the breakfast I had eaten earlier. She reminded me to take the pills, and I did so. I did my very best to have a pleasant conversation with her, but she gestured to me to the effect that the walls had ears. After giving me another injection, she left, taking with her the tray and what was left on it. I now felt very drowsy, anticipating that my eyes and senses would soon give way to slumber, but I was mistaken because a masked guard now came into the room.
“Time for a stroll first!” he insisted.
I pointed out to him that I was in recovery; my condition made me exempt.
He started cursing and threatening me.
“Just say a prayer to the Prophet!” he said.
I begged him to postpone things till later, but he banged my bandaged leg and told me to hurry. I got out of bed so as to avoid an even worse blow and followed him, hobbling
along on my single crutch. We now passed through a variety of halls and blocks along with others of various categories. When we eventually went outside the building, he attached me to a group of prisoners. Guarded by a troop wearing medals and helmets, some of them apparently foreigners, we made our way in a terrifying procession. I asked the person closest to me what was going on.
“They’re taking us,” he told me falteringly, “to dig our own graves or those of our brothers . . .”
I started shaking, and my remaining teeth chattered. My cough came back, and I did my best to suppress it. If the prisoner to whom I spoke had not lent me his spray, my condition would have drawn the attention of all the guards close to me.
When we arrived at a flat, dusty spot, they handed us axes and spades and divided us up into twos and threes. We were told to dig graves two feet deep and no more. With no other choice but to obey, I set my crutch aside as best I could and started digging up the soil to the extent that my injury allowed. A guard spotted me and threatened to throw me into one of the graves and pile the earth on top if I did not work seriously enough. I redoubled my efforts, and now and then other diggers who sympathized with my plight helped me.
When the officer in charge had counted the number of graves dug and blown his whistle to stop work, his aides told us to sit where we were. They allowed us to rest for a while and drink some water. Time went by, as heavy as lead, and our heads roasted in the boiling-hot sun. Some people had sunstroke, and a young prisoner, who they told me was actually a doctor, was allowed to help them as much as he could, which meant spraying their heads and bodies with cold water.
All of a sudden, everyone sitting down started whispering about the thing they could see in the distance, which they called the death caravan. The man next to me said that some of them had died of some illness while others had been condemned to death. We all strained our necks to get a glimpse of the people coming toward us. Two of them were carrying a stretcher, with a shrouded corpse on it, followed by all the other prisoners with stretchers. Once they reached us, the soldiers pointed each stretcher-carrier toward a particular ditch, where they deposited the corpse. We were then ordered to put the pile of soil back where it had come from and level the ground. Most of us were very reluctant to undertake such a task, and many voices were raised, which I joined at the top of my lungs, pronouncing the four paeans to God. I declaimed the prayer for the dead, to which everyone responded “Amen.” We only proceeded with the burial when bullets started whizzing through the air and close to our legs. Hardly had we finished the task that had been forced upon us before, wonder of wonders, we spotted a prisoner attacking two soldiers with an axe. He left them both dead, then used the axe to split his own head and fell to the ground in his own blood. Soldiers rushed over, stood him on his feet to show that he was still alive, then threw him into an empty ditch and covered it with soil. After we had witnessed this appalling spectacle, the guards hurried us back to our quarters.
My guard caught up with me and told me the stroll was over. He urged me to walk in front of him, so I did so, leaning on my crutch which, thank God, had not been mislaid.
Back in my room in the hospital, I found the portly nurse waiting for me. She sat me on the bed and took off my prison clothes. After covering my genitals with a cloth, she proceeded to wash my body in rose-scented water. She then removed my leg bandages, cleaned the remaining scars with an alcohol rub, and put on a minimal bandage. She advised me to leave my leg exposed to the air, and then put the clean and scented mufti’s cloak on me. She gave me some delicious food to eat, before laying me out on my back and injecting my buttocks with something that soon had me slipping into a deep sleep.
21
In My Torturess’s Bed
A Night of Debauchery and Terror
“For several years now, my esteemed male spouse, I’ve always slept with one eye open. My fear has been that, if I fell fully asleep, innumerable hands would extend in my direction, to pluck my eyes out, chop off my breasts, and insert needles and skewers in every aperture of my body. They would then pour ammonia over me and empty a can of gasoline so they could set me on fire and reduce me to a pile of dust. You would be the person selected to toss it into the foulest toilet. Isn’t that the dream you have in mind, you who, as of today, are my resident male spouse?”
The first time she used that term, “male spouse,” to describe me, I thought the female ghoul was using a term whose meaning she did not know. But the second time, I retorted to my strangler: “No, I’m not your spouse!”
“Oh yes, you are,” she replied, “duly signed according to law. Here’s the marriage contract with two witnesses. Tonight was our wedding night. You had sex with me so I could bear you a son of your own kind. Pretty soon, Hamuda, I’ll be able to fulfill your dream and tell you that I’m pregnant . . .”
The very self-confidence of this woman hit me; it felt like poison and made me feel dizzy.
“You’re a disgusting slut!” I yelled as loudly as I could. “I would never be your husband, even if your gang sat me on an electric chair or tore me limb from limb . . .”
“Listen, Honey,” she went on, “don’t judge my age by my weight. I’m still under forty. I haven’t given up hope of getting pregnant and having a baby.”
O Lord, rid me of this foul female ghoul and the power she has over me! Now that You have enabled me to outwit both her and her scurrilous minions, Lord, she’s trying to destroy my mind!
O Lord, relieve me of this calamity, loosen my chains, and bolster me to confront this new trial, one I have never encountered before and have no way of resisting.
O Lord, my shield and helper, You are my only guardian and resort!
She asked me what I was rambling on about, but I said nothing. When it came to the question as to whether or not I believed that we were truly married, I indicated disgustedly that I totally and utterly rejected the possibility. She planted a rough kiss on my mouth that prompted in me a strong desire to vomit. She then put two fingers to her mouth and let out a powerful whistle. Four men now appeared, among whom I recognized a preacher although I could not remember exactly where I had seen him before.
“So, august legal authority,” she said, keeping her clutches on me, “is my marriage to this man legal according to the law or not?”
“Legal, definitely legal,” the man replied, duly accompanied by the other three.
“Did he have sex with me or not?” she went on.
“He certainly did,” they all replied in unison.
I managed to get my head free.
“My brother,” I yelled at this pseudo-authority, “what have they done to your mind? Drugged it, shaken it? Is it even conceivable for a man to have sex with a woman without knowing about it or even being aware of it?”
“Yes indeed,” he replied immediately, like some programmed machine. “It can happen in dreams. If a woman is lying next to a man, he can dream things and project his desire into a female’s vagina. She may get pregnant and bear a child. In God’s creation there are indeed many wonders and signs!”
I screamed out a prayer cursing all phony jurists and purveyors of falsehood. The ghoul now signaled to the four of them to leave. Once she was alone with me, she tied my other hand to the bed and my leg (once she had splayed them apart). She now climbed on top of me with her foul, heavy body.
“Now, my lover,” she said, “you’re going to know for sure and be fully aware of everything. She then proceeded to do things with me that I could never have conceived, even in my wildest nightmares. In fact, she assaulted and raped me, showing superior skill and a whorish professionalism in the process. I kept screaming in shame and begging for help, but she stopped me by kicking my bandaged leg, which had not fully healed yet. Once she had finished, she lay down beside me, panting heavily as though she had just emerged from a particularly brutal fight. Once she had recovered her breath, she started singing in a coarse tone. I could not make out what the words meant.
If I h
ad found a way to plunge my fingers into the eyes of this debauched songbird, I would certainly have done it without a moment’s hesitation or any concern about the possible consequences. The fact that I could not caused me pain, as did the fact that I had no choice but to listen to her singing such trivial nonsense. She then clutched a pillow that she called my baby, my child, and started singing the same stuff again.
She now told me that she had learned these songs from a female Moroccan Arab prisoner before she had died of a massive heart attack. She asked me if I would be bringing her child peaches and pomegranates. I said nothing and did my best to block my ears to these disgusting details about the love affairs she had had previous to what she was now terming our own beautiful story together, one that was so unique. She started talking about her intention to resign from the tiresome job she had so that she could follow me wherever I went, even if it was to a desert island. There we would build our little nest, love each other, raise our child, and cull such meats and animal milk as we wished from our little paradise. She then elaborated on the scenario with yet more detail, while I struggled to ignore what she was saying by considering my new plight and the dreadful consequences that might emerge from it.
A few moments later I reemerged from my ruminations with a jolt and found myself in my actual dire situation, confronting an explosion of abuse and complaint from the ghoul because I was refusing to consort with her and kept myself apart. This outburst was accompanied by nervous cigarette smoking. From time to time she forced me to smoke it too and to light others. When she had had enough, she threw the butt away and pulled a tray full of sandwiches from under the bed, along with two bottles of wine and some fruit. She sat up and put it down in front of us. She tried to get me to start eating, but I refused; when she offered some wine, I pressed my lips together to show clearly that the very idea was repellent. She now used her teeth to open the bottle.
My Torturess Page 17