Earth Weeps, Saturn Laughs

by Abdulaziz Al Farsi

  “Yes. Just ask the cells in this body of mine. Any spot you touch will melt in your hands. Put your hand out.”

  She came closer, but I retreated, laughing. “Not now!”

  “When, then?” she asked coquettishly.

  “After the second billion years,” I replied.

  She came still closer to me and tried to grab my hand, saying, “I haven’t got that kind of patience. Come over here!”

  I’d decided at that moment to be contrary. In a flash I wriggled over to the other side of the bed.

  Then suddenly, all my senses came to a halt. My heart stopped beating. I stopped breathing. I was transfixed. I thought I’d seen a man looking at me—a tall man dressed in a flowing white dishdasha with a turban on his head. I couldn’t make out his features. In fact, he had no face. I jumped up, panic-stricken, and lunged for the light switch. I fumbled with it frantically until light flooded the room. I saw the dishdasha and the turban, but I didn’t see any man. What I’d been seeing was the clotheshorse next to the bed. The dishdasha was draped over the clotheshorse and the turban was perched on top of the dishdasha. I looked over at Abir in horror. My whole body was shaking madly. She came toward me. Crazed, I looked her in the eye and asked, “Whose clothes are these?”

  “My husband’s!” she replied.

  The whole world came crashing down before my eyes. Abir was married! When had this happened? A billion years earlier? Before I’d met her? My tears came pouring out, and I flowed out with them. I turned into a huge teardrop that went plunging into a deep abyss, toward the unknown. It couldn’t be! Maybe she wasn’t his wife any more.

  I asked, “You mean your ex-husband?”

  “No, my husband. I’m still married to him.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I thought you knew. Haven’t we known each other for a billion years? It happened some time in the last billion years. Or, to be more exact, in the last year, two months before I met you.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding. It can’t be, Abir. I love you, and I know you well. You’re not married!”

  “But I am married. I’m my husband’s second wife. He divorced the first one after having five children by her. He went to my father and enticed him with money. My husband is seventeen years older than I am. He’s thirty-seven. I don’t love him. He brought me here just to humiliate his first wife, and so that I could be a nanny to his children.”

  I buried my face in my hands. I sat there in silence, watching the world crumble inside me.

  “But how?” I said. “I didn’t see any ring on your finger. How did you manage this sort of balancing act, and how is it that I never found out you were married all these months?”

  I heard her reply, “Because he works as a policeman in the capital. He does two days’ duty, and has two days off. So I would visit you on the days when he was on duty. He left for work a half hour before you got here. You don’t believe me? Come, and I’ll show you his children. I locked them in the other room.”

  She got up and opened the door. Then she went to the other room and opened it. I looked inside and saw them sleeping, cuddled up next to each other to keep warm. They were immaculately innocent. At that moment I wished a lightning bolt would strike me dead. I saw the years melting away, and Abir melting into them the way cotton candy melts in one’s mouth. Only the taste was bitter, bitter as colocynth. She went back to her bedroom, and I followed her.

  “So,” I asked, “are you hoping to be freed from your husband and marry me?”

  “I hadn’t thought about that yet.”

  “So what have you been thinking?”

  “About endless passion, about being close to you.”

  She approached me once more. But when she did, a volcano of rage erupted between us. Its lava flowed down, destroying millions of illusions.

  She added, “I think about touching you, about how my cells long for you. Haven’t you known that since the moment we met?”

  I no longer saw any reason to stay. I fell upon her with blows. All I was thinking about was the fact that even a billion years of passion hadn’t been long enough for me to discover that my beloved was someone else’s wife, and that she had betrayed him.

  “Stop, please!” she cried. “What are you doing?”

  Shedding hot tears, I retorted, “I’m satisfying your cells’ longing for a touch from my hand.”

  That was the first and last time I ever touched Abir! She fell to the floor. I shuffled heavily out of the room and headed outside. The first signs of morning had broken into the cosmos. I got into my car and drove away.

  I lived for two weeks in a state of defeat. I went walking through the city, sticking close to the walls. I missed work. Everything in the city tasted like Abir. The streets, the stores, the trees, the cars, even the exhaust fumes. Abir had me surrounded in that city. It was only then that I started missing the village again, and I wished I could go back. So I put in a request for a transfer to any place besides the city. The ministry rejected my request. I told them that if I wasn’t transferred, I would quit. And in fact, I started staying home from work. Offering to help resolve the issue, my immediate supervisor suggested that I take three months’ unpaid leave until my request could be studied properly and a suitable alternative could be found. I agreed.

  I left all my personal effects in the city and went back to the village: alone, in love, and maybe on the run. Then one day the Saturnine poet paid me a visit and let me hear the poem. Trying to persuade me to forget, he said, “The only place you can escape from the hell of the homeland is in the embrace of a female, and the only place you can escape from the embrace of a female is in the hell of the homeland.”

  So, I had escaped. But from the time I came back to the village I kept on waiting, every dawn, to be able to breathe again, and to see the birth of a new day without Abir.

  The hopeful signs of dawn began to appear and the cock crowed. As it crowed, I saw the figures of two men who looked as though they were in a race. The first figure was tall and thin. With his arms folded over his chest, he passed quickly between the old and new houses in the direction of the mosque. The second figure was short and fat. He crossed the ravine from the other side, likewise moving toward the mosque. They were clearly racing. Their strides grew longer and faster the closer they got. Then they went into the mosque at the same moment.

  The Call to Prayer Duo

  I couldn’t make out the two faces clearly, but I recognized both of the figures. A minute later the call to prayer sounded. I heard a lovely, refined voice imbued by the years with a delightful roughness that went straight to the heart. This was the voice of Ubayd al-Dik (‘Ubayd the Rooster’), the village’s longest-serving muezzin and the owner of the tall, thin body. His voice connected me to the days of my early childhood when I began hearing the call to prayer for the first time. Whenever I heard it I would put my toys down and listen. In my child’s imagination, I would picture him with white wings and a luminous face. The day I was allowed to go to the mosque for the first time, I looked for Ubayd al-Dik. I wasn’t terribly let down to find that he had no wings, since he did have a luminous face, and a white beard speckled with a gentle blackness. His eyes were like a couple of translucent tears that gave one cause for reflection. Ubayd al-Dik had been sounding the call to prayer for a quarter of a century solely in the service of God. Never had anyone in the village heard him ask for any material reward. I would listen to his call to prayer day after day, noticing the delightful raspiness with which the years had imbued his voice. The divinely inspired summons reminded me of the Absolute, of the never-ending search for permanence and repose.

  After the fine voice had finished chanting, “Hayya ‘ala al-salah!” (“Come to prayer!”) for the first time, the rest of the call was completed by a voice that was more like a screech; a voice that sounded as though it had been carved out of rage. This was the voice of Jam‘an, the owner of the short, stout body. The village had grown accustomed to having
the dawn call to prayer sounded by two muezzins in this one-of-a kind duet. The first muezzin would begin by uttering the first “Hayya ‘ala al-salah!” Then the second muezzin would utter the phrase for the second time. I was taken aback by this new call to prayer when I heard it for the first time since my flight from the city. I had gotten up when it was still dark and opened my balcony door to wait for the morning to begin. I was exhilarated at first when I heard Ubayd al-Dik’s voice. It took me back to the abandoned village inside of me. It brought tears to my eyes because of the time I’d spent away from it. Then suddenly, the voice changed. The voice I now heard sent the tears fleeing back to where they had come from! It was a voice that made me think of divine chastisement. I indulged in the hope that Ubayd al-Dik had just come down with a sudden cold. It was after this that I learned of the unprecedented events in our village—events no other village in history had ever witnessed.

  I was incredulous at first. How could Ubayd al-Dik have waived his claim to the call to prayer? I asked my mother about it, and she said, “Ask your grandfather.” I asked my grandfather, and he retreated into silence. I knew then that nobody in the village would tell me the truth and break down the facts for me the way Walad Sulaymi would. So after the last evening prayer I headed for Mihyan ibn Khalaf ’s meetinghouse. I chose a seat next to Walad Sulaymi. The cups of coffee were passed from hand to hand, and the conversation moved from one topic to the next. When Walad Sulaymi excused himself, I got up and followed him out. He turned around suddenly. I smiled. He said, “So, you finally came back. You didn’t say a word during the meeting. Did you forget how to talk when you went to the city?”

  I came up close enough to him to be able to make out his features. He hadn’t changed. He had the same round face and soft black beard. He stood straight and tall. I could hardly believe he was more than fifty years old.

  I said, “I attended the meeting in order to see you.”’

  “And what do you want?”

  “The dawn call to prayer!”

  “Do you want to share it with Ubayd and Jam‘an and make it a threesome?”

  I smiled. “No,” I said. “I want the story. How did this happen?”

  “Couldn’t you find some other man to ask?” came his curt reply.

  Evading his question, I said, “I want the story from you alone.”

  He chuckled. “So you want to hear my criticisms of the village? All right, then. Come with me.”

  He took me by the hand and led me in the direction of the ravine. When we got to its edge, he chose a place for us to sit, and we reclined on the rocky ledge.

  The ravine, in whose depths the boulders, the Christ’s-thorn trees, and the darkness did battle, always extended a subtle invitation. Heaven had granted it some water, which flowed gently, sparkling with a silvery hue borrowed from the full moon.

  I turned to him. “When did this happen?”

  “Around six months ago.”

  “It’s been six months and the village is still in one piece?”

  He pulled down the edge of his turban and wrapped it around his face. He looked up at the full moon, its silver hue reflecting off the left side of his face. As the full moon listened in, Walad Sulaymi said, “God is preparing the way, step by step, for a great chastisement. Your return doesn’t surprise me. This village is a curse that haunts everyone who was born in it, and when God allows it to be destroyed, its torment will afflict everyone who lived there for forty days or more. Thirty years ago I heard my grandfather say to my father (God have mercy on them both), ‘If God allows a country to be chastised, He causes everyone who has left it to come back.’ So here you are again, and with your return, that completes the number of those who left the village and have come back. Mark my words: the chastisement will descend soon.

  “For years Jam‘an was the polar opposite of Ubayd al-Dik. Whereas Ubayd was the village’s first muezzin, Jam‘an was its first singer, or, rather, its first would-be singer, since his voice sounds like an earthquake. I suppose you already know that. Here in this ravine, Jam‘an and his cronies spent their lives in drunken revelry. They would steal a billy goat or a ewe from some nearby farm and roast it down in the ravine at night. They would sit around talking until Ubayd sounded the dawn call to prayer. Then the gathering would disperse and they would all go to sleep. You must have heard about their gang when you were a boy. It was a big group, around twelve men. It’s said that Ubayd used to visit Jam‘an often in those days. He would give him advice and threaten him with God’s chastisement unless he repented. But all that did was make him more stubborn. He even started composing songs about Ubayd ‘the rooster.’ You’ll recall the song called “Dikuh”—“His Rooster”! Then one day he went too far. He taught the boys of the village Ubayd’s new name: Ubayd al-Dajaja (‘Ubayd the Hen’).

  “I suppose that’s what brought the wrath down on the ravine gang. A month later a flash flood came through the ravine at night. It washed seven of them away and buried them about three and a half miles downstream. Five of them survived the disaster. Of those five, three repented. That left Jam‘an and his soul mate Ba‘lat, who persisted in their evil ways until about a year and a half ago, when Ba‘lat disappeared without trace. After that, Jam‘an was on his own, defenseless. He would go down into the ravine every night and sing. At dawn he would spit into the bottom of the ravine, saying, ‘What did you gain from separating them, Big Belly?’ Then he would head for home.

  “So how did Jam‘an change? And was the change in him a result of events and loneliness, or a response to something we know nothing about? The answer to this question is known only to the One who gathered so many contradictions into this little village. Ten months ago he came to the mosque after the dawn prayer. He kissed Ubayd al-Dik’s head and apologized to him, declaring in front of everyone that he had sincerely repented of his old ways. The next night he apologized to everyone at Mihyan ibn Khalaf ’s meetinghouse for every wrong he had committed against any of them. They commended him, and they all got up to embrace him, one by one. It’s said that he began living an upright life, and was remorseful for everything he’d done in the past. He attended all the communal prayers, and started urging others to do good and not evil. Hamid Dahana remarked, ‘Jam‘an was a sinner for the last forty years, and he’ll be a penitent for the next forty. Don’t be surprised at the way he’s changed.’ These developments were accompanied by improved relations between Jam‘an and Ubayd.

  “Then, eight months ago, Jam‘an came to al-Dik and said to him, ‘I hear that our Noble Apostle—may peace and blessing be upon him—once said something to the effect that, of all people, muezzins will have the longest necks on the Day of Resurrection. Isn’t that true, Ubayd?’ Ubayd cleared his throat. ‘Er, yes, it is,’ he replied. Bursting into hot tears, Jam‘an laid his head on his friend’s shoulder. Then he looked at him and said, ‘This is what I hope for. I hope God will compensate me for my shortness and my stubby neck in this world by giving me a long neck and a tall body on the Day of Resurrection.’ ‘I’ll ask God to do that for you,’ Ubayd assured him. ‘So,’ Jam‘an said, ‘does that mean you’ve agreed to my request?’ ‘What request?’ ‘The request to sound the call to prayer in the village.’

  “Ubayd didn’t say a word. He didn’t want to dishearten a friend who had so recently abandoned his evil ways, so he agreed to let Jam‘an sound that day’s noon call to prayer. And what a noon it was! Jam‘an sounded the call to prayer, and when he got to the phrase, ‘Hayya ‘ala al-falaH!’ (‘Come to salvation!’), he said, ‘Hayya ‘ala al-falah! (‘Come to the open country!’). Some were amused, and some were dismayed. People who attended Mihyan’s nightly gatherings joked about the incident for an entire week. Walad Shamshum said mockingly, ‘He meant to say, “Hayya ‘ala al-falaH!”, but when he got to the word al-falaH, he got nostalgic about the good old days out in the open country, and his tongue slipped!’

  “A few days later, Jam‘an came and said, ‘Once isn’t enough to give me a
long neck on the Day of Resurrection. What do you say I sound the noon call to prayer every day?’ Ubayd, apprehensive, said nothing. Then, in an attempt to dissuade Jam‘an, he said, ‘You’ve misunderstood this saying of the Prophet. It doesn’t mean that muezzins’ necks will be really long, but, rather—’

  “Jam‘an interrupted him. ‘Let’s suppose my understanding of the saying is wrong, as you’re claiming now, even though you didn’t say this the first time I mentioned it. But I want to do good, to atone for years past.’ ‘But you make mistakes in the call to prayer,’ Ubayd objected. ‘I know now what mistake I made, and I’ve corrected it. Listen: Hayya ‘ala al-falah! Hayya ‘ala al-falah’!’

  “Unsure how to respond, Ubayd said nothing. Then he grudgingly agreed to it. Jam‘an sounded the noon call to prayer correctly that day, after which he started sounding the noon call to prayer every day. Two weeks later he started missing the mid-afternoon prayer. Hoping to exploit this point to his advantage and deprive Jam‘an of the privilege of sounding the noon call to prayer, Ubayd raised the issue in the men’s nightly gathering.

  “‘I see you’ve been missing the mid-afternoon prayer, Jam‘an,’ he said. ‘I get sleepy,’ Jam‘an replied. ‘Don’t you know that in the Prophet’s day, the two prayers the hypocrites were most likely to miss were the dawn prayer and the mid-afternoon prayer?’ ‘Yes, I know that.’ ‘Well, then, how can you allow yourself to be classed with hypocrites? We won’t allow this for you, and we won’t allow it for a muezzin.’ Jam‘an bowed his head and burst into loud sobs. He stopped sobbing long enough to say, ‘In the presence of this gathering, Ubayd, I’m asking for your help. If you give me permission to sound the mid-afternoon call to prayer, this will encourage me not to miss the prayer in the mosque. It will help me to be regular and disciplined. In fact, after sounding the noon call to prayer, I might just station myself in the mosque till the time for the mid-afternoon prayer. May God reward you richly! Don’t let Satan get the better of me!’