Happily, I said, “I knew you were really strong, so I wasn’t worried about you.”
“You’re a good nurse. If only you hadn’t entered the Faculty of Arts. Nursing is quite a nice profession.”
“Studying literature is nice, too, Abu Ayda. All hell would break loose in the village if I studied nursing. They’d say, ‘The girl’s got no shame, since she mixes with men.’ Would you like that?”
He shook his head. I know this village’s weak spots where women are concerned. You could more easily sink a knife into a man’s heart than tell him that his wife or his sister shows her face to strange men. They still think the lecture halls in our university are segregated. It would be disastrous for me if one of the other girls from the village came to the university, since I would be exposed.
I came closer to my father and asked him, “Do you love me?” He let out a loud guffaw that filled the whole house. Then a voice of rebuke, my mother’s voice, came from a distant room. “It’s the middle of the night, for crying out loud! Have you caught the bug from Khalid Bakhit?”
I felt angry. The message was addressed to me personally. This is how I felt. However, that didn’t prevent my father from feeling upset, too. You could see it in his face. Trying to remedy the situation, I whispered to him, “I’ll tell you a secret. After Mama got tired of putting cold packs on you to bring your fever down, she left things to me and went to bed. Then you and I were alone. Imagine . . . your delirious ranting must have been waiting for the time when the two of us could be alone, since you told me a lot of things, and you mentioned some strange names. Luckily for you, Mama didn’t hear them. If she had, she would have thrown the cold packs out the window.”
I followed what I’d said with a long, loud cackle to get a rise out of my mother, who was sitting in the living room.
Discomfited, my father said to me, “Whose names did I mention when I was delirious? Please tell me!”
“How much will you pay? You know university tuition is high! Not to mention the parties the girls put on, with or without reason. I need some money.”
“I’ll pay whatever you want. Just tell me, please.”
“All right, then. You called out, ‘Asma, Asma.’ You repeated her name ten times. Then you said, ‘My love.’”
My father gazed with chagrin into my eyes, then bowed his head and gazed at my feet. He stared at them for a long time. I said in a whisper, “Where passion leads, let your heart roam.” I was playing on certain hunches in an attempt to distract him from my mother’s obnoxious comments. I continued, “From the incoherent things you said when you were delirious, I managed to patch together the whole truth. Don’t worry, I won’t tell anybody. But everything has its consequences.”
He looked up, and when our eyes met, we laughed. He couldn’t tell any more whether I was serious or joking. But he really had mentioned Asma . . . and Bakhit Zahir.
The doorbell rang three times, and we were terrified. Who could possibly be at the door at that late hour of the night? We weren’t accustomed to such things. My mother came into the room and said to my father, “Hurry up and see who’s at the door. Apparently something important that you don’t know about happened at the meeting. Maybe they’ve decided to kill Bakhit’s son! If you’d gone to the meetinghouse and mixed with the men, wouldn’t that have been better for you? What did you gain by sitting with the women?”
My father gave her a long look, his eyes filled with fury. Then, moving sluggishly, he went downstairs to open the door.
SUHAYL AL-JAMRA AL-KHABITHA
Some Coups Are an Existential Necessity
“Good evening, Abu Ayda. We’ve come to visit you!”
We didn’t give him time to answer. Instead, the four of us stepped forward all at once and walked in. We went ahead of him to the parlor and sat down. Sa‘id Dhab‘a sat next to me, and Walad Shamshum sat beside Hamdan Tajrib. Abu Ayda followed us into the room, saying, “Damn you! What religion is this that teaches people to visit the sick after midnight?”
We all laughed, since we knew he realized that some secret lay behind our visit.
Sa‘id Dhab‘a said, “We see you can move around. So why didn’t you attend the council meeting tonight? Half your life passed you by. We’ll tell you all about it once you’ve brought us the juice!”
Abu Ayda knit his brow dourly.
Walad Shamshum chimed in, “Tell Umm Ayda that we’ve already eaten dinner, and thank her for her hospitality. Juice will be more than enough. Hurry up, now, we’re waiting for you!”
After Abu Ayda had gone to the kitchen, Walad Shamshum said, “It looks as though the fever has made him forget our traditions. Did you notice that he didn’t say, ‘What’s the news? What’s been happening? Have you got anything to report?’”
Before any of us had had a chance to reply, Abu Ayda was back with five cans of soda of assorted flavors. He set them on the table, saying, “There you are. Now fight over them. I enjoy seeing you fight all the time over the most trivial things, in spite of all the goodwill you pretend to have for each other.”
And he was right. We spent ten whole minutes in a side conversation that revolved around each of us choosing his favorite drink. We finally hit on the solution of closing our eyes, then reaching out and grabbing whichever one our hand happened to land on. If we were lucky we got the one we wanted.
After we’d drunk the soda, Abu Ayda said, “Well, what’s brought you here tonight?”
I said, “We’ve come to tell you about something that concerns the whole village, and we preferred to come at a time like this, since we need to cover our tracks. All right. Sa‘id will tell you about it first.”
Abu Ayda said, “All right, then, Sa‘id, tell me about this serious concern of yours.”
Sa‘id Dhab‘a went over and sat next to Abu Ayda, then began whispering: “You must have heard about what’s happening in this village. There’s chaos everywhere, and everything’s gotten really complicated. We aren’t the way we used to be. We’ve lost the sense of security we used to have. Everything’s become a farce, and we don’t know where things are headed. So who do you think is the cause of the problem?”
Abu Ayda sighed and said, “All right. I think I understand you. You mean Khalid Bakhit, right?”
Now it was Walad Shamshum’s turn. He came up closer and said, “You’re almost with us on this. Khalid Bakhit is nothing but a plague God has visited on the village. But you’ll remember that this isn’t the first plague that’s been visited upon us. We’ve been through a lot, and we’ve faced lots of problems from spongers and reckless folks. You may recall Jam‘an and the ravine gang. Didn’t they pose as great a danger as Khalid Bakhit? We suffered because of them, but we were in better shape than we are now. Isn’t that right, Abu Ayda?”
Walad Shamshum withdrew, and Abu Ayda bowed his head in thought. “Yes,” he said, “I think we were in better shape back then.”
I sidled over to him and said, “The problem, my friend, isn’t just Khalid Bakhit. The problem is bigger than that.”
He looked up and said, “All right. Do you mean that the problem has to do with his grandfather, who intervenes in his defense?”
I smiled at him. “You’re starting to get the point. That entire family is a sinkhole of corruption in this village, and we’ve been suffering on their account for years. Whenever we think one of them is finished and that the problems he’s been causing are over, another comes along and takes his place. But now things are a lot more difficult, since there’s Zahir and his grandson along with him. And if Khalid’s father were alive, we’d have even more of a disaster on our hands.”
I gestured to Sa‘id Dhab‘a to finish what he’d been saying. He smiled and came forward. “But don’t you think there’s some sort of secret behind this family’s insubordination and disrespect, Abu Ayda? The family has been around for a long time, but their problems didn’t used to affect us the way they do now. They’re more stubborn and contemptuous than before. Think abo
ut this carefully: How could an old man like Zahir and an impulsive young man like Khalid exert so much influence over the most important village in the region? They must have a lot of support to wield this kind of power over us. Things ought to be clearer in your mind now.”
Puzzled, Abu Ayda said, “Do you mean Shaykh Faraj has something to do with it?”
Hamdan Tajrib interjected, “Shaykh Faraj is just a cleric from outside the village. The only things he has a say in are matters of worship. Zahir Bakhit and his grandson get their support from someone else, who’s both more powerful and more important in this village.”
Abu Ayda looked at me. I smiled and nodded in agreement. “Yes, they get their support from Mihyan ibn Khalaf.”
“That’s ridiculous!” he said with a gasp. “You know Mihyan very well. He’s been our leader for a long time, and he has nothing to gain from seeing the village go downhill this way. You’re blowing things out of proportion!”
Sa‘id Dhab‘a said with a start, “Don’t you accuse us of such a thing, damn you! It looks as though that fever has really done something to you. Are you blind? Can’t you see with your own eyes how lenient Mihyan is with them? Mihyan has never been timid or weak-willed like this before. He’s deliberately being lenient with them because he’s in cahoots with them. You’ve got to believe me!”
Walad Shamshum added, “Since you weren’t at tonight’s council meeting, you missed seeing Mihyan at his weakest. All he did was open the meeting. Then he left everything to them. Every one of us talked, but Mihyan let Zahir ignore us all, then start talking about some man who’s going to come help Imam Rashid. Isn’t that an insult to us? Didn’t Mihyan notice that he had insulted us all by letting Zahir take over that way? By what right does he ignore an entire council that’s come together to discuss an issue, then lead them into a discussion of another issue altogether, and a trivial one at that? Couldn’t Mihyan have intervened to put a stop to this farce? Don’t you think this is a kind of conspiracy?”
“Yes,” I said, “it’s a conspiracy, pure and simple.”
Abu Ayda smiled and said, “So why didn’t you say so at the council meeting? Why did you keep quiet?”
Sa‘id Dhab‘a said, “We were just abiding by council protocol. After all, Mihyan is the boss. Would it be fitting for us to object when the boss is around?”
He replied, “But Mihyan wouldn’t have prevented you if you’d asked his permission to speak, then objected to what Zahir had said. How can we say he’s conspiring with Zahir when we haven’t done anything to verify whether it’s true or not? Besides, what does Mihyan have to gain from doing such a thing?”
I turned to face Abu Ayda. “We’re not claiming he has anything to gain from colluding with Zahir.”
“What are you claiming, then? What do you mean?”
“What we mean is that there’s a game Zahir and his grandson are playing. They’re taking advantage of Mihyan’s silence and his loose grip on the village. Mihyan might be aware of what’s happening, but he’s not doing anything about it, and is keeping quiet instead. And that’s a kind of collusion. He may have gotten too old to handle the responsibilities of leadership, and Zahir might be taking advantage of this fact. If that’s the case, there’s also a kind of collusion going on, since Mihyan hasn’t abided by the leadership principle that says: Anyone who finds that he isn’t up to the task should acknowledge it and hand over his duties to someone fitter. No matter how you look at it, Mihyan is playing into somebody’s hands, and the result is that Zahir Bakhit is now leading the village. Do you understand?”
Abu Ayda said disapprovingly, “But Mihyan isn’t as old as you’re making him out to be!”
I said, “His heart grew old after the disasters that befell him. When the heart gets old, the body is bound to get old, too.”
We stopped talking for a moment. Then Abu Ayda said, “Fine. So what do you want now? What can we do?”
The others looked at me, and I said, “It’s simple. The leadership needs to go to a man who’s more up to the task, and who won’t let the village go under because Zahir Bakhit and his grandson are at the helm.”
At that moment Abu Ayda started with fright. Then he stood up and stared at all of us in disbelief.
Walad Shamshum said, “What are you afraid of? We haven’t said anything that would bring down the wrath of God, man. Everything we’ve said is clear: We aren’t going to let this village go under on account of these two men’s madness. It’s our village, too. All of us helped to build it. Our ancestors built it. We planted our dreams in it. We grew up loving nothing else. It’s the whole world to us. So by what right could we allow madmen to destroy it? We haven’t proposed anything impossible. We simply want it to be led by a sensible man.”
Abu Ayda said, “And who, in your opinion, is this sensible man?”
We looked at each other. Sa‘id Dhab‘a said, “That doesn’t matter now. What matters is the principle. You have to believe in what we’re trying to do, since what we’re trying to do isn’t evil. Rather, what we’re doing is good. We haven’t decided ahead of time who his replacement will be, since it’s important for all of us to take part in choosing him. All of us have to be convinced that he’s a man with a good head on his shoulders.”
“But I think it is important to decide who will replace him!” Abu Ayda retorted. “I know you well, and I’m sure you’ve got somebody specific in mind to be our leader.”
I said to him, “We haven’t specified anybody in particular. There are lots of names in the pot: Walad Sulaymi, for example, or Sa‘id, me, you, Hamdan, Walad Shamshum. We’re all here. What matters is for the men of the village to reach a consensus on who it should be.”
Abu Ayda began pacing around the room, his forehead dripping with perspiration and his face taut with anxiety. I knew he was summoning the image of Zahir Bakhit, and the thought filled him with rage. Someone like him would never be able to forget all the harm he had suffered at that family’s hands.
“The journey of change is going to start with you, Abu Ayda. You’re the most important person as far as we’re concerned, since we expect good things from you.”
Suddenly he stopped in his tracks and said, “Fine. Have you told Walad Sulaymi about this?”
“Of course we’ll be telling him,” replied Walad Shamshum. “Hamid Dahana is hosting a Fatiha for his late father tomorrow. We’ll be seeing Walad Sulaymi there and we’ll tell him about it. In any case, what do you think of it?”
“But how will this work?” Abu Ayda wanted to know. “Are you just going to go up to Mihyan and say, ‘We’re staging a coup, and we’re going to depose you’?”
“Of course not,” I said. “We’ll pull the rug out from under him little by little. The first step is to build another meetinghouse for the village. After we’ve consulted with Walad Sulaymi tomorrow, we’ll decide where the new meetinghouse will be, and how we plan to proceed. We hope you’ll be able to come to Hamid Dahana’s house tomorrow after the sundown prayer. It will be a good chance for all of us to meet and start planning out all our moves. We hope we haven’t laid something heavy on you.”
In a tone that verged on sarcasm, he replied, “You wonder if you’ve laid something heavy on me? The things you’re advocating are heavier than all the mountains that surround this village!”
“I know,” I said. “Don’t think we reached this conclusion easily. Every great accomplishment takes time. And more importantly, it takes courage. Don’t you agree?”
“I agree,” he replied grudgingly. “But why are you telling me about this before you tell Walad Sulaymi?”
Several minutes went by without anyone saying a word. All we could hear was the sound of dogs barking in the distance.
“Well, I guess it really has gotten late. We’d better be going,” said Walad Shamshum at last.
We exchanged glances, then we all got up and headed for the door. Before we left, we heard Abu Ayda call out, “Before you go, tell me: What’s the news? What�
��s been happening? Have you got anything to report?”
The Fatiha of the Gorged Bellies
After the sundown prayer had ended, Hamid Dahana got up and reminded the congregation, “Brothers, you’re invited to my house after the prayer. We’re having a Fatiha for my late father.”
It had been fifteen years since his father’s death, but every six months Hamid Dahana would host a huge Fatiha gathering to which he invited the entire village. The event always included a feast for which at least two calves would be slaughtered. He would always say to us, “Thank God my father had me! You know the saying of the Prophet that talks about how everything a person does in his lifetime is lost after death except for the charity he’s given, useful knowledge he’s left behind, and a righteous son who prays for him? Well, I’m that righteous son. And not only do I pray for him; I have all of you pray for him, too.”
We nodded in agreement.
The imam finished the communal supplication, and voices went up in prayer for blessings on the Prophet, upon him be peace. The worshipers shook hands and headed outside, then stood in front of the mosque waiting for the man who, in keeping with his daily custom, stayed in the mosque after the sundown prayer to engage in dhikr and utter prayers we were ignorant of but had never dared ask about. After a long wait and a fair amount of grumbling, Jam‘an asked, “Isn’t Imam Rashid here yet? He’s late.”
Zahir Bakhit said, “He’s asking God to forgive us all, as usual. What do you say we go ahead to Hamid’s house and let him catch up with us? He knows the way. You don’t need him in order to eat. All you need him for is the prayer afterward.”
Walad Sulaymi smiled and said, “Even if the imam doesn’t come, you’re here, Jam‘an! You can make the supplications in his place. You’re a muezzin now, so why don’t you consider becoming an imam?”
Earth Weeps, Saturn Laughs Page 5