“So I shut my mouth. I don’t know why I did that. Why did I wait until they had consulted together, and Zahir had decided to kill the child himself? Whenever that scene comes back to me I ask myself: Why didn’t I stop them? Why did I make myself an accomplice? Your father hadn’t been a drinker before this happened. But afterward he turned into a madman. He started drinking, smoking, and spending most of his time away from home. Your grandfather took it upon himself to bury the child in the ravine. After that huge flood, the one that brought us Khadim, your father kept raving about how Khadim was the same child that Zahir had buried in the ravine, that God had raised him up black as evidence of the blackness of that crime, to remind everyone one who had taken part in it that God would bring the child back to life some day and punish them. He kept raving about this idea for a long time. Then he forgot all about it! As for me, I dreamed for months about that baby, and he would ask me why I’d remained silent at the moment when he was murdered.
“You know, I think there’s a curse now on everyone who had a part in murdering that little baby. Farida’s father lost his mind two years later. He wandered aimlessly through the streets until finally they ended up tying him to one of the columns in front of the house. Three years after that he was afflicted with throat cancer. He lost his voice. Then he began bleeding from the mouth and died. Your father became an addict. Every day that passed was worse than the day before. Then he died in that horrific way. Every day I imagine I’m going to die in a way that shows God’s chastisement. I also have a feeling your grandfather is going to die in a way that involves some sort of divine retribution.
“Do you think the story ends there? Everything your grandfather did only stirred up your father’s passion even more. He went mad over Farida all over again, and his relationship with her continued. Four years after you were born, Farida got pregnant again. Your grandfather intervened by offering money to Ahmad (Abu Ayda)—a drunken carouser who was only sober for a couple of hours a day—to marry Farida (Umm Ayda), and seven months later Ayda was born. They said . . . What’s wrong, Khalid? Calm down, calm down. You’ve got to know the truth if you’re going to wake up. Ayda is your sister. Believe me. People said she’d been born prematurely, but the fact is, she was fully developed. Abu Ayda knows this. You don’t believe me? Let me see your right shoulder. At the top of your right shoulder blade there’s a large mole. I think you saw one like it in the same spot on your father’s shoulder. Ask Ayda about the mole on her right shoulder blade. You both inherited it from your father. Abu Ayda also knows that Ayda isn’t his daughter. He knows she’s Bakhit’s daughter. However, he agreed to marry Farida for money after living for so long as a vagrant in the ravine with nothing to eat. But he couldn’t keep his wife from meeting your father either. She used to sneak out of the house at night and meet him in the ravine. The relationship between them went on until Ayda was two or three years old. I feel as though I’ve gotten a huge weight off my chest. As though I’m free again after being in prison. Khalid, your grandfather is trying to protect you from the madness of what you might do with your sister. Do you understand now? And I think he’s brought Alam al-Din to the village for precisely this purpose. He thinks Ayda is like her mother, and that this handsome young man will catch her eye and make her forget all about you. Your grandfather noticed more than once the way she’d been looking at you from her balcony, and he told me he was afraid she was pursuing you. I think this is the only reason he brought Alam al-Din. For this reason, and no other. So, that’s the whole story, which your grandfather would never tell you even if he were on his deathbed. I know how angry and sad this will make you. But in my opinion, this is far better than what your grandfather wants to do, which is to oppose what you’re doing without telling you the reason.”
What vertigo is this that comes with the truth? Everything is spinning. The salt from the tears that fill my mouth has made its way into my belly. Everything in me is shaking like a leaf. The whole world is spinning. What horrible vertigo, horrible vertigo, horrible vertigo, horrible vertigo . . .
WALAD SULAYMI
Council of Silence
Mihyan, Khadim, Alam al-Din, and I are at this meetinghouse. The coffeepots are full, but there’s no one here but us. Zahir said he was feeling indisposed. As for Khalid, nobody sees him any more in the mosque, or anywhere else for that matter. Everyone’s gone over to the new meetinghouse, or the “Council of Harm,” as Zahir calls it. None of them comes around any more to help Mihyan build the mud house, which, if things were all right, would have been finished three days ago. Every morning, Mihyan, Alam al-Din, and Khadim carry on with the building all by themselves, and the work goes really slowly. I feel as though Mihyan has gotten old all of a sudden because of all the things that have happened lately. He’s started spending most of his time in silence. Even when he’s building, you see him playing aimlessly in the mud. Only rarely does he take anything that’s in his hand and place it on the wall. He’s silent now, Khadim is glum, and Alam al-Din stares with bewildered eyes into the darkness. We’ve been like this for an hour or more. No . . . we’ve been like this for days. Every day we meet here in the same mute atmosphere. Then we go our separate ways. If any of us tries to bring up a subject, Mihyan makes no response. It’s as though we were at a wake.
Over the past few days, Imam Rashid has given Alam al-Din the chance to start leading people in the noon and mid-afternoon prayers. But it hasn’t been without its problems. The first time he led the noon prayer, Jam‘an got up afterward, went over to the side of the mosque, and prayed it all over again.
“Why did you do that?” they asked him.
He replied, “God won’t accept a prayer that’s been offered in broken language.”
“What broken language?” Zahir wanted to know. “Did the man recite anything? After all, this was the noon prayer, and the imam never recites any of the Qur’an aloud at that prayer.”
“Well,” Jam‘an said, “I heard him say ‘Sami‘ Allahu li man hamidah’ instead of ‘Sami‘ Allahu li man Hamidah.’”
“Damn you!” Zahir bellowed, “We’ve never heard him say that! So how could you have heard it?”
When Alam al-Din led the prayer on other occasions, Jam‘an did the same thing. After today’s mid-afternoon prayer, he got up with Walad Shamshum, Hamdan Tajrib, and Sa‘id Dhab‘a. They redid the communal prayer with Jam‘an as their imam. Then a big argument broke out between us. I said to them, “Never in my life have I heard of this sort of thing being permitted.”
Walad Shamshum replied, “But surely you’ve heard a tradition of the Prophet that forbids a man to lead a congregation in prayer when they don’t want him to be their imam.”
“Where’s the congregation?” I said. “There are only four of you.”
Sa‘id Dhab‘a replied, “Even if only one man rejects the imam, that’s enough to disqualify him.”
I said, “And we also refuse to have Jam‘an lead us in prayer. The imam’s assistant is Alam al-Din, not Jam‘an. Jam‘an is a muezzin. If you’re not happy with the assistant’s prayer, we’ll get another assistant to lead us, not the muezzin. What do you think, Imam Rashid?”
The entire time we were arguing, Imam Rashid kept quiet and didn’t intervene. When I repeated the question and demanded that he answer, he said, “There is no reason why a muezzin can’t be an imam.”
That’s just great, Imam Rashid! I thought. You see them wanting to take your place, and you approve what they’re doing!
“How can you issue a fatwa on this,” I asked, “then not say a word about someone who repeats the communal prayer after the imam has finished praying?”
Even after all that arguing, we had gotten nowhere. Zahir wasn’t present. As for Mihyan, he didn’t say a word about the argument.
“What are you going to do now, Alam al-Din?” I asked, hoping to draw him out of his silence.
He looked in my direction inquiringly as though he hadn’t heard my question the first time.
&
nbsp; “What are you going to do now about the prayer, Alam al-Din?”
“Nothing. I’m not going to lead people in prayer if they don’t want me as their imam.”
“Did you believe what these people said?”
“If we wait till tomorrow, ten people will get up and repeat the prayer, and a few days from now everybody will be repeating the prayer after I’ve finished. So why should I lead them?”
“But you’re the imam’s assistant. These men are just hateful. If Imam Rashid felt you weren’t qualified to be imam, he wouldn’t have given you responsibility for leading us in prayer.”
“Either way, Imam Rashid’s hands are tied. Zahir is forcing him to make me his assistant. Others, though, see this as an opportunity to make Jam‘an the assistant. There’s nothing he can do. If he says, ‘I don’t want an assistant,’ they’ll demand that he get rid of me, and if he says, ‘I want an assistant,’ they’ll force him to appoint Jam‘an.”
“Are you telling me, Alam al-Din, that Imam Rashid is afraid you’ll be dismissed? I don’t think so. There’s something going on here that none of us understands. I want you to refuse to give in to them and their demands. Your salary is being paid by Imam Faraj. He’s the one who recommended you to us, and he won’t agree to let Jam‘an be appointed in your place.”
Then there was silence. I began thinking about what the future held for us. They had succeeded in rejecting Mihyan’s leadership over them. He no longer had any say in their affairs, and Zahir himself hadn’t been able to stop them. But who would be their next leader? I was surprised to see that they hadn’t called upon anyone to be their new leader. The five of them were talking as a group: Suhayl was talking, and so were Sa‘id Dhab‘a, Walad Shamshum, Hamdan Tajrib, and Abu Ayda.
I don’t think Abu Ayda entertains such aspirations. As for Sa‘id Dhab‘a, he might want to be leader, just the way Suhayl does. But what about Walad Shamshum and Jam‘an? My heavens! Things in this village don’t make sense any more.
Mihyan and Khadim were still in the same state as before. As for me, I decided to leave. I said to them, “I’ll be going now, if it’s all right with you. Good night.”
But what good could we expect, either that night or the following morning? Everything in the village was getting worse and worse. And I wondered to myself what the morrow had in store for us.
SUHAYL AL-JAMRA AL-KHABITHA
The Night When Daytime Paid Us a Visit
I’d come back from the council meeting, happy with what we’d accomplished. People were nearly in agreement on the idea of making Mihyan step down as the village leader. All that remained now was for us to start planting my name in people’s heads as his replacement. I thought back on certain intimations that Hamdan Tajrib had made. It seems he’s gotten quite into the game, and I think people are going to let him try his hand at leadership. One day, in an attempt to sound me out, he pretended to be joking and said in my presence, “Why don’t I try being your leader instead of Mihyan?” But I shut him up with a gesture of my hand.
Fatigue had taken quite a toll on me physically during the several days prior to this, and within minutes of getting into bed I had dozed off. I thought I was in the middle of a dream in which a huge fire had broken out in the village. It had begun devouring everything, and people were shouting, “Wake up, people of the village! Wake up, people of the village! The fire will consume you!” The shouting was so loud that I opened my eyes, and what should I find but that I was still hearing the same shouting. And I could see clearly, as if daylight were coming in through my window. Alarmed, I got up and quickly put on my clothes. I opened the door of my house. No one who saw what I saw would have believed that it was after midnight. Towering tongues of flames were rising skyward, and everything around us was clearly visible as though it were midday. The fire was coming from the direction of Hamdan Tajrib’s house. Taking off in a rush, I saw the men pouring buckets of water onto the flames, which were devouring our meetinghouse. Many of the village men were trying in various ways to prevent the fire from making its way any farther through the meetinghouse, and a stifling odor was growing more and more powerful. The fire showed no signs of abating despite all the buckets of water that were being poured onto it. I rushed out with them, trying to put it out. I saw Abu Ayda, Walad Shamshum, Hamdan Tajrib, and Sa‘id Dhab‘a trying with me to stop the fire. There were loud shouts: “Get moving, men! Save the meetinghouse!”
We were sweating profusely, and the fire was nearly roasting our faces. I saw Alam al-Din throwing water, and Zahir, too. Khalid was handing buckets to the men so that they could throw their contents onto the fire. Then Mihyan shouted to the men from a distance, “Come over here! Stop the fire before it reaches Hamdan’s house!”’
As Mihyan had anticipated, the fire began spreading to Hamdan Tajrib’s house. Everyone began rushing with the water in the direction of Hamdan’s home, leaving the fire that was tearing through the meetinghouse.
Hands moved rapidly. As he hurled water at the part of Hamdan Tajrib’s house that was in flames, Mihyan shouted at the top of his lungs, “Hurry up, men, hurry up! Stop the fire and save the people in the house!”
Little by little we contained the fire, isolating it from the one that was devouring the meetinghouse, until at last we managed to put out the fire that had nearly destroyed Hamdan’s house. By that time, nothing remained of the meetinghouse but ashes, and the great fire died down as though it had had enough.
Our faces were coated with ashes. The men were speechless. No one said a thing. Had we all been dreaming?
“Is your family all right, Hamdan?” Mihyan asked.
Hamdan ran inside his house. A few minutes later he came back, praising God. Mihyan said, “Is everybody all right? Is anybody hurt?”
There had been no injuries.
Zahir asked Hamdan Tajrib, “Did you leave the fire burning in your meetinghouse’s stove, Hamdan?” However, there hadn’t been a stove in the meetinghouse to begin with. The coffee was prepared in Hamdan’s home, then brought out to the meetinghouse.
I said, “The meetinghouse was burned down intentionally, Zahir. There isn’t any stove in it. Somebody set the meetinghouse on fire.”
People’s voices went up, confirming what I had said.
“And who would burn your meetinghouse down when it’s right in the middle of the village, where it would place everyone’s lives in danger?” Zahir wanted to know.
“Anybody who’s been harmed by it,” I said angrily.
“That’s right,” said Walad Shamshum. “It might have been burned down by any of the people who are against us and want us to abandon this meetinghouse.”
“Who do you mean, damn you?” shouted Walad Sulaymi.
“You know very well who rejects our council,” I said. “Everybody knows.”
“Never before have we heard of anybody from the village burning down another man’s house just because he disagreed with him,” Walad Sulaymi retorted. “By what right do you accuse people?”
“So, then,” interjected Sa‘id Dhab‘a, “who would have something to gain from burning down our meetinghouse? Tell me. The new council’s enemies would burn it down if necessary.”
“Damn you all,” said Mihyan. “Is there anybody in the whole village who didn’t help you put the fire out? How could we set the meetinghouse on fire, then risk our lives to help you put it out?”
I said, “Do you think the person who set the meetinghouse on fire would be stupid enough to do it, then run away? He must be among us right now.”
“Anyway,” Mihyan said, “I’ve left the matter to God. God alone knows the truth. But I don’t expect any thanks from you all.”
Then he headed for his house, followed by Walad Sulaymi.
“In any case,” I said, raising my voice, “we’ll build another meetinghouse no matter what anybody says! This bitterness and hatred aren’t going to stop us. We’ll set a night guard over our meetinghouse. Men, tomorrow morning we’ll start building
again. First we’ll repair what’s been burned of Hamdan Tajrib’s house and clean up the ground. Then we’ll build our meetinghouse. And God will take revenge on all the wicked folk.”
Earth Weeps, Saturn Laughs Page 20