Earth Weeps, Saturn Laughs

by Abdulaziz Al Farsi

  “Your intention wasn’t sincere, Zahir,” replied Ghuwayfari. “You were trying to get around the punishment, so you chose the most beautiful of their girls in order to conceal the fact that your child had been born to a slave woman. This is why the atonement involves a punishment for your son Bakhit.”

  The days passed, and Zahir’s wife died when Bakhit was three years old. Zahir did his best to forget that whole story, and at first he thought Bakhit’s flat nose was his only punishment. But as time went on, he realized that the punishment for his sin also included many of his son’s behaviors and his rebellion against everything. His wild behavior only ended when he died after a bout of drinking. Willingly or unwillingly, people forgot the fact that Zahir had fathered a child with a slave woman because they were so afraid of him. Khalid’s return and his peculiar behavior must remind Zahir of the sin that he feels Time is still punishing him for in its own way. Still, Zahir carries on without complaint. To my knowledge, he’s never told anyone honestly how he really feels. Never has anyone heard him complain of the sorrow and pain he endures on account of what’s happened to him. All Zahir does is carry on, indifferent to what happens to him. He carries on by his own strength, as though he refused to admit any defeat.

  The sun was shining now, flooding the ravine. A new day awaited us. How quickly the days pass. They’ve started rushing by. Ten years ago we felt as though time was long and drawn-out, that it moved slowly. But now the days pass as though they were just a few minutes. In any case, whether the days pass quickly or slowly, we’re destined to reach the end. So, I wondered to myself, what do you suppose will happen in this peculiar village today?

  KHALID BAKHIT

  The Messages Are for Me Alone

  Just before I was startled by the call to prayer, I thought we were on a stairway that had been chiseled into the clouds. It was fabulous, the taste of the spirit’s tranquillity when it throws itself into the arms of another being that shares the same torments. At that moment I forgot the village, and time. The only thing on my mind at that instant was: How can I enjoy every moment and do it justice? I don’t deny the terror that came over me when I heard the tapping on the microphone. When Ubayd al-Dik began the dawn call to prayer, I thought my heart would stop. At that moment, everything in life was all mixed up together. The desire for tranquillity was tangled up with the angst of existence. The desire for love came face to face with dreams of revolution and change. That old call to what, in my pious high school days, I’d termed “pristine human nature” mingled with the position I found myself in now as I broke village tradition by sneaking into another man’s house just before dawn.

  Al-Dik’s voice was stirring up all of life’s contradictions inside me. It brought back scores of intertwined memories. As I looked into Ayda’s eyes, my breathing quickened, and scenes selected with the greatest of care—though who had selected them, I don’t know exactly—presented me with my fickle, unstable life. Al-Dik’s voice was getting louder, and my childhood image of him as a winged creature carried me into the depths of memory. I saw myself in my adolescent days, longing for a female and dreaming of just one kiss. Then I saw myself at the moment I’d decided to become religious, shorten my robe, and not do a thing to my beard even if it reached the floor. I was revisited by childhood as I envisioned the sorcerers my mother used to frighten me with simply because I’d whistled after sundown. I relived the scene where I fell off the edge of the cistern on my grandfather’s farm, and when I got a concussion in my head because I was walking along without looking where I was going. I saw Abir with her adorable smile. I saw my father after he had vomited up his blood and died. A memory of the first demonstration I’d led at the university passed before me, and of the beating I was given by the anti-riot police. I recalled scenes of clerics being arrested when the government turned against them overnight, then hid them in prisons we didn’t know the way to. I found myself recalling my father’s scathing sarcasm at the time, and my grandfather’s threats that I would follow them to prison and forfeit my future and my dream of graduating from the university unless I shaved off my beard and lengthened my robe. I found myself remembering the first funeral procession I had ever witnessed. I was in fifth grade at the time, and didn’t comprehend what it meant to see four men taking turns carrying a bier that held a body covered in white cloth. When they told me the coffin contained a woman who had died, and when I smelled the odor of the camphor, I broke into a sweat. I trembled as though I were hearing about death for the first time in my life. All I could see of the corpse was the white shroud wrapped around the feet, which protruded slightly beyond the coffin’s wooden sides. After leaving the mosque following that mid-afternoon prayer, I stopped praying in the mosque for a whole year! I also saw the details of my mother’s face when she got angry and when she laughed.

  Everything was stirred up by al-Dik’s voice. As if Heaven wanted me to immerse myself more deeply in recalling and visualizing scenes from the past, al-Dik sounded the whole call to prayer without being interrupted by the sound of Jam‘an’s thunderous voice. I felt certain that this was a message from Heaven. I went floating through the skies of my memory. Clouds carried me along, then poured me out as rain, sometimes onto mountains of joy, other times onto mountains of pain. I felt the sting of a slap my grandfather had given me on the cheek when I was a little boy, and which I still consider to have been unfair. I was disquieted by something a student in my school had said, in which he compared me to my father. I saw the voluptuous images I had sketched of random breasts. Once again Abir pleaded with me to stop as I rained her with blows.

  I had considered myself to be quite forgetful. However, what should I find but that my memory had been craftily silent. I was now discovering that it hadn’t forgotten a thing, but had deliberately kept quiet so it could take me by surprise at a time like this, adding further to its contradictions. By the time al-Dik had finished, I found myself rushing instinctively out of Abu Ayda’s house, panting, without looking into Ayda’s face. I found myself wandering around between the walls of the houses as though I were afraid of still more messages from Heaven, or of scenes still more painful that my soul had stored up for me. I got home and threw myself on the bed.

  I starting going back through all the scenes of the rendezvous with Ayda. I recalled the details of the dream that had challenged me to change my mind, and the candle, and going to their house, and the moment I entered the place she had so meticulously arranged. I remember the details of the place with such precision, it’s as though I were still looking at them with the intention of describing them later to a dear friend. Only rarely have I been able to remember the details of a place I’ve gone to after leaving it. The mind must have its own way of selecting the places whose details it records. I closed my eyes and recollected those details in amazement.

  I kept my eyes closed until I heard Ubayd al-Dik’s voice announcing the prayer’s commencement. As he announced the beginning of the prayer, his voice took me back to the feeling I’d had when I heard his voice in Abu Ayda’s house. As he announced the prayer’s commencement, his voice came alone again, without interference from Jam‘an, which I also wasn’t accustomed to. I was even more convinced now that this was a second message to me. Otherwise, why would Ubayd al-Dik’s voice insist on traversing the horizons and coming to me? I remembered the allergy that could only be treated effectively by coming to the village. I was immersed in the dirt I used to love to play in with the other children in the village.

  I remembered all the notions my childlike mind used to come up with in my attempts to conceive of God when my mother would tell me about Him. “Up there . . . there, above the sky. You don’t see Him, but He sees you. Great. Merciful. He can do anything to you if you make Him angry.” I would close my eyes and try to imagine the greatest possible thing, the thing that could possess these attributes, but I couldn’t do it.

  I was surprised by a third message as well: The same mellifluous voice was now leading the people in
prayer. What was happening in the village had to do with me alone. Never before had I heard al-Dik lead the people in prayer. In fact, maybe I’d never thought about what would happen when a man with such a beautiful voice served as imam for the people of the village. When I heard the words Allahu akbar! (“God is greater!”) I felt as though I had never heard or recited the Fatiha before. It was as though it wasn’t the sura that my subconscious had been steeped in, and that I’d recited in every rak‘a I’d ever performed. When al-Dik recited, tears came to my eyes. In every verse I felt God’s greatness and beauty in my heart. After the silence that followed the Fatiha, al-Dik began reciting the Surat Qaf, and I was terror-stricken. This was a fourth message. There was no doubt about it. Otherwise, why would al-Dik be reciting the very sura that had always shaken me to the core, filling me with humble reverence and fear? The way it begins with a single letter, and the way God swears by the Qur’an, denouncing what the unbelievers do. The evidence that pours forth, inviting one to reflect for an insight and a reminder to every penitent servant. During the days that followed my abandonment of what I’d considered to be religiosity, hearing this sura would stir up all sorts of questions inside me. Had I really been religious? Had all those changes been nothing but an impulse that hadn’t withstood the first real test? Al-Dik stopped at the verse that reads, Not a word does he utter but there is a sentinel by him, ready to note it.

  In the second rak‘a, al-Dik finished Surat Qaf, with its scenes of death, the Resurrection, and Judgment Day. As he recited, the tenor of his voice changed as though he were holding back tears. I saw my soul in the throes of death, suffering its agony while clinging to life and stretching out its fingers in a plea for help. Suddenly, I saw myself on Resurrection Day, stripped of everything but my bewilderment and dismay. As I went running in search of a way of escape, I collided with the people, not one of whom I recognized. And I screamed . . .

  The Warning

  I was roused by a violent pounding on my door. I opened it, and my grandfather stormed in angrily, then started pacing around the room.

  “Close the door!” he commanded. “Then come sit here.”

  I obeyed. I could hear the wind beating against the window, though the curtain was drawn. I was half-dreaming, half-awake when he asked, “Why didn’t you attend the dawn prayer?”

  “As you can see, I fell asleep, and couldn’t get up,” I said.

  He came up to me. “And why would you have fallen asleep? You must have stayed up quite late.”

  I nodded. He got up and opened the curtain. He looked pensively outside. Then he said in a loud voice, “You’re lying!”

  I stood up. “I told you I’d stayed up late. What kind of lie is that?”

  “Don’t play dumb!” he shouted. “I’m not saying you lied about staying up late. I’m saying you lied about falling asleep at the time for the prayer. You were awake, Khalid. And you must have heard Ubayd al-Dik sound the call to prayer and the iqama, then lead the prayer in the mosque.”

  I looked at him, then sat down again. He sat down, too, and stared at me.

  “All right,” I replied, “let’s say I was awake, but that I was too tired to get up. So I missed the prayer. Is that a reason to get so angry?”

  “Why do you like to play word games with me and deceive the people of the village?”

  “I don’t deceive anybody with words.”

  “Oh yes you do. You know very well that I’m not this angry just because you missed the prayer. I’m angry because of what you were doing before dawn!”

  What he said scared the daylights out of me. I began going over the details. The lights in his room had been off and I’d gone out the back door, so it would have been impossible for him to see me even if he had been awake. Besides, I had taken a road that other people don’t take, I hadn’t lit the candle until I was near Ayda’s door, and I’d been certain that the coast was clear. Did he know?

  “What was I doing before dawn? I was reading a book, and I couldn’t go to sleep without finishing it.”

  “And do books need to be read in Abu Ayda’s house, Khalid? Their lamps must be better than the ones in your room!”

  He had me over a barrel! So he did know what I had done before dawn. But wait a minute, I thought: I don’t think my grandfather could see me doing such a thing without trying to stop me. He would be so furious, he would stop me in my tracks, even if it meant creating a scandal for us in the early morning hours.

  “Are you really Khalid?” he resumed.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Never in my life have I seen you do such a thing. And I never thought you would. So when you decide to do it, you do it here? In this village? And in Abu Ayda’s house, of all places?”

  “You’ve got the wrong idea, Grandfather.”

  He jumped up, shouting, “What ‘wrong idea’? You sneak into another man’s house before dawn, then you say, ‘Don’t misunderstand me’? Who will believe you now?” Sparks were flying from his eyes. He couldn’t have been more enraged.

  I said, “All right. Sit down, Grandfather, and let me explain. The situation isn’t as bad as you think.”

  “Oh yes it is. It’s worse than you think. You don’t realize the seriousness of what you’re doing. You’re lighting a fire, spreading destruction, and demolishing everything we’ve built. Isn’t that bad?”

  “What fire? Believe me, I didn’t mean any harm, Grandfather. And what I did didn’t demolish anything!”

  “Little do you know!”

  He headed for the door. Before leaving, he turned and said, “This is the first time, and the last. I warn you: You must never do this again. And you’ve got to stop having anything to do with that girl. Don’t start a war between us!”

  My grandfather slammed the door with a frightening bang. The wind was striking the window more violently now as I reflected on what had happened and my grandfather’s knowledge of it. And I wondered: How did he find out?

  MIHYAN IBN KHALAF

  How Zealously the Wind Guards the Mud

  Why did Zahir Bakhit insist on nominating Ubayd al-Dik to lead the congregation in prayer? It was Zahir himself who brought Alam al-Din to this village, so he must have confidence in him. This being the case, how could he withdraw this confidence and nominate someone else as imam? It was confusing. The only task before me now was to think carefully about how the village’s affairs were going. Everything was moving so fast, it was as if we had fallen from a mountaintop into a ravine. We were approaching the bottom, and the more time passed, the faster we went. When we hit the bottom of the ravine, everything in this village would go to pieces.

  If the wind hadn’t been so zealous to guard the mud, I wouldn’t have been having these thoughts, and they wouldn’t have been taking up all my time. If the wind had helped me, I would have been with my beloved mud right then. The wind was blowing everything out, bringing sand into the narrow alleys. It had been blowing harder since morning. In fact, it was blowing so hard it was impossible to go out to the work site and continue building Alam al-Din’s house. I paced around the house several times, listening to the sound of the relentless wind. I looked around at the rooms, recalling my memories and waiting for the wind to finish its game, which reminded me of child’s play.

  I went back to my room and lay down on the bed in semidarkness, listening to the sound of the storm and wondering how many days it would take a storm like this to abate. Every day of the storm spoiled my enjoyment of the mud. I thought: Why are people afraid of you, wind? Does it make sense that during the moments when you blow so fiercely and howl this way, you would be filled with evil? Doesn’t it make you sad for people to hurl all these accusations at you? I wish I could open the door right now and go work alone with the mud. What would you do, wind? Would you blow me away? Never mind. Would you fill my mouth, my eyes, and my ears with sand? Never mind. I’d just hold on to the mud, and not feel the full force of your wrath.

  Tired of the darkness, I got up and left my
room. I paced around the house several times. Finally I knocked on the door to Khadim’s room and went in. I found him sitting with Alam al-Din. The two of them stood up, and after taking my seat I asked them to sit down again. I said, “This crazy wind has left us without work.” They smiled, but made no comment. “Well,” I went on, “tell me . . . what have you been talking about?”

  Khadim replied, “Alam al-Din was telling me Imam Rashid’s news.”

  I looked over at Alam al-Din. “Is he all right, Alam al-Din?”

  He nodded.“Yes, sir, he’s fine. I left his house a little while ago. They brought him back from the city after he got better. The doctors said he’d been suffering from food poisoning, so they pumped his stomach. He told me that the last thing he had eaten was some dessert he’d gotten from Sa‘id Dhab‘a’s house next door.”

  “Poor man,” I said. “But he always eats food from Sa‘id’s house, and this has never happened before.”

  “But it happened last night, sir. I don’t know if he’ll ever eat anything from Sa‘id Dhab‘a’s house again! He was in bad shape before he was taken to the hospital.”

  “But he’ll have to, Alam al-Din. That’s the only household that cooks for him and serves him meals.”

  “How long ago did his wife die, sir? I’ve always wanted to ask him about his children, but I’m afraid of making him sad.”

  Surprised, I said, “Whose children and wife do you mean?”

  “Imam Rashid’s, sir.”

  I looked over at Khadim. “You’ve spent all this time together, and you still haven’t told him anything about Imam Rashid?” I said.

  “There’s a lot of news in the village, sir, and we haven’t had time to talk about Imam Rashid.” I said to Alam al-Din, “Imam Rashid has never married. Don’t ask me why. That isn’t important in my opinion. What matters is that he’s never thought of marrying. Some years back Imam Rashid had a farm where he spent his daytime hours between the various prayers. He would pray the dawn prayer, then go there and claim that he was going to work. He would come back at noon, lead us in the prayer, then return to his farm. After that he would lead us in the mid-afternoon prayer, then go back to his farm, which was so far away we never thought of going there ourselves. This didn’t prevent a number of young men from going there after receiving an invitation from Imam Rashid, who told their families, ‘I want your sons to help me irrigate the land.’ We discovered in the end that what we had thought to be a lush, shady farm filled with produce as a result of his labor and the irrigation done by the young men was nothing but a barren plot of land where not a single plant grew! Since we made this discovery five years ago, Imam Rashid has stopped going to his farm. This is the ‘miracle’ of the farm. As for the second ‘miracle,’ as Walad Sulaymi likes to refer to Imam Rashid’s news, it’s the miracle of the rooster. During his early days as our imam, he used to get help in his prayers from a rooster. Don’t be surprised. He had a rooster at his house that he treated as though it were a clock so reliable that he could count on it to tell him when the dawn prayer ought to be. Imam Rashid wouldn’t leave his house for the dawn prayer until he had heard his rooster’s ‘call to prayer.’ The strange thing was that this rooster of his was crazy. So sometimes he would sound the call to prayer at the right time, sometimes an hour early, and other times half an hour late. With my own ears I once heard him sound the call to prayer as the sun was coming up. Whatever that rooster did, Imam Rashid thought it was right. One time Walad Sulaymi said, ‘Imam, never since God made this village has an imam depended on a rooster to calculate prayer times. So how can you depend on a drunk rooster to tell you what time the dawn prayer should be?’ ‘I seek refuge in God from the wrath of God!’ shouted Imam Rashid in reply. ‘How could you refer to a rooster that God made without a mind as “drunk”!’ Walad Sulaymi answered, ‘If you know it doesn’t have a mind, then how can you let it decide for creatures that do have minds what time they should pray?’ ‘It doesn’t decide by itself. It’s inspired by God,’ said Imam Rashid. (Your forgiveness, O Lord! Don’t let the earth open up and swallow us!) ‘Imam Rashid,’ Walad Sulaymi asked, ‘how could God inspire your rooster to sound the call to prayer at the right time on one day, and at the wrong time on another? I don’t think this is anything but your rooster’s delusions. Now tell me: What do you give it to drink?’ ‘What do you think I give it to drink? Water, of course!’ ‘I don’t think so. I suspect your rooster came across a flask of wine buried in the ravine. He sips from it all night long, then comes to sound the call to prayer for us. But a call to prayer sounded by someone who’s drunk isn’t valid, Imam Rashid.’ ‘Fear God, man!’ Imam Rashid retorted.