Wolves of the Crescent Moon

by Yousef Al-Mohaimeed

  He learned a lot at her hands, and he yearned for more before he tasted the ultimate disappointment. He was busier than he’d ever been. He’d walk past her while she was making the beds, or seeing to the curtains and the valuable paintings and marble statues with an ostrich feather duster, or wiping them with a cloth, and he’d leave one hand free to caress and explore her huge backside, but she wasn’t interested anymore. She’d found out he was a eunuch one night when she got all hot and horny and was waiting for him to shove it inside her. “You’re only good for pissing!” she yelled angrily.

  He was thirteen, four years younger than she was, when that happened. From then on Tawfiq withdrew into himself, and maintained a stubborn silence throughout the subsequent years. He was overjoyed when Amma Madawi decided to take him on as her chauffeur. She had gotten married, and when she moved to another private palace, Tawfiq went with her. It was the first major chance he had had to put behind him the tragic wound that raged whenever he made eye contact with Zuhayra.

  When Zuhayra divulged Tawfiq’s secret to her companion Umm Kalthum, Umm Kalthum never left the two of them alone. Perhaps Zuhayra had urged her friend not to let Tawfiq be alone with her, so that she would not waste her time with him. She wanted to be completely free to pursue her new dream, to fulfill her lofty ambition of having her master’s child in order to guarantee herself a stable life and a secure future. Tawfiq also began to avoid meeting her in the rooms of the palace, or even in the corridors for that matter, and he looked away dejectedly whenever their eyes met.

  He had never dreamt he would become a personal driver and enjoy some favor with his mistress, but perhaps fate had had a role, too, playing the final card in the life of her previous chauffeur, Anwar Abdulnabi. They had changed his surname, Servant of the Prophet, to Anwar Abd Rabb al-Nabi, Servant of the Lord of the Prophet, for it is not common or indeed permissible to worship a prophet, for the only object of worship is Allah, may He be glorified. At least that’s what they taught Anwar many years before they fired him.

  Anwar was a young man in his thirties with a thick mustache. He was adept at arranging his astonishingly white al-Attar ghutra on his head, crowned with an extremely thick igal. He would start the engine of the Rolls-Royce, stand by the back door on the side opposite the driver’s seat, and wait for several minutes, which sometimes could extend to a whole hour or even more. As soon as he smelled the seductive scent of a woman’s perfume floating through the air, he would briskly open the back door without glancing in Amma Madawi’s direction, then close the door behind her after she had sat down, taking care to gather up the edge of her black, embroidered abbaya so that it didn’t hang over the beige leather seat.

  How Anwar Abd Rabb al-Nabi rushed around with the mistress’s two ladies-in-waiting, Buthayna and Safiya, when they were accompanying her to open and close doors for her, until in the end she decided that this would be Anwar’s task alone. He boasted about the recognition all over the palace.

  It would not be easy for Anwar to forget that ill-fated evening, which was to be the beginning of the end of his working life. He had prepared himself for an official function she was planning to attend, the opening of an exhibition of paintings by young women abstract painters. At seven o’clock, an hour before the appointment, he had parked the lime green Rolls by the main entrance. After a long wait, by which time it was almost nine o’clock, an hour past the starting time, he felt a sudden cramp in his stomach so severe that he could hardly stand up, and he made a run for the outside toilet. She came out of the palace at that exact moment and didn’t find him there to open the door for her and her lady-in-waiting Buthayna. What made matters worse was that she remained inside the car for almost five minutes before he reappeared. He got in all flustered, thought to offer an apology or some excuse for his negligence, or to explain to her the overwhelming circumstance that had forced him to the toilet, but he didn’t utter a word. It worried him that she didn’t say anything, either, or curse him, or direct her usual instructions to Buthayna as to what her duties would be during the opening ceremony.

  Two days after this incident, just a mere two days, he had taken the liberty, while waiting for her to emerge from a social function, to cross the street and buy a packet of Marlboro Lights. As he was waiting for the shop assistant to give him his six riyals change, he spotted her out of the corner of his eye getting into the car. He dove out of the shop, leaving his change with the assistant, ran across the busy road, almost getting himself run over by a speeding white Caprice Classic, got into the Rolls, and started the engine in a fearful muddle. Minutes after she’d entered the palace the order came to withdraw the keys from Mr. Anwar Abd Rabb al-Nabi and hand them over to Tawfiq, along with notice that the services of the former be terminated forthwith, and that he receive all monies owing to him.

  True, Tawfiq did know something about driving cars, but this was very different. Driving a magnificent vehicle like a Rolls-Royce was not the same as driving a Toyota pickup, and carting about a few bits and pieces in the back was not the same as having the honor of conveying the mistress to her social functions.

  Previously Tawfiq had stopped the pickup at the outside gate to ask Abu Loza, who was wearing his olive green cap with the two woolen earpieces on the side, “Do you need anything, Ya Badawi?” The Bedouin, Abu Loza, would slowly strut out of his guard box and lean against the half-open car window: “Where you going, man?” They’d have a little joke, exchange a curse and a sarcastic laugh, and then Abu Loza would ask him to fetch some sweet tahina and some white cheese, a half pound, and not to forget the Vicks eucalyptus, either.

  After Tawfiq the chauffeur went out on his first official mission in the lime green Rolls, Abu Loza was unable to enjoy their sarcastic banter anymore. All he could do was stand to attention and salute at the darkened rear windows, not knowing if there was anyone sitting in the back, or if anyone could see him from behind the darkened glass. Even if the people inside had noticed his habitual military stance, it was unlikely they would have been able to distinguish between him and his wooden guard house, between the box and the wooden salute.

  Sin and Punishment

  “I USED TO DREAM OF BEING A SOLDIER. Ever since I was a child in the orphanage, I’ve loved military uniforms. In the home they used to call me ‘the soldier.’ Gamalat, the Egyptian nanny, used to call me Colonel Nasser. She hated President Gamal Abd al-Nasser. She used to curse him with or without good reason. Salma, the social worker, and Jawahir, the psychologist, used to egg her on. Gamalat would pretend to know all about him and inform them that he had eaten the Egyptian people and destroyed the economy. Social worker Salma would say that he wasn’t only an enemy of the people, but that he was an enemy of Allah and Islam as well. Psychology specialist Jawahir would add that he was mentally ill, a megalomaniac, and suffered from psychological complexes.

  “By giving me the nickname Colonel Nasser, Gamalat was showing that she hated me. She was saying that President Abd al-Nasser was a foundling and aggressive like me, and that I was obsessed with military dress because I loved to boss people around and was a little tyrant, and that I hit the other kids in the home.”

  In the waiting room Turad’s eyes followed the lines of bad handwriting in the exercise book inside the green file. It was Mr. Nasir Abdulilah’s diary. He turned the page:

  One day a huge Egyptian woman came along with nanny Gamalat. I heard Gamalat yelling, “Ya leader, Ya Abd al-Nasser. Where do you think you’re going?” I was heading for the water cooler without asking her permission like the other kids did. They asked permission for everything, to have a drink of water, to throw some rubbish away, to go to sleep, to go to the toilet, and, and, and. Why don’t we behave like everyone else? Why do we ask permission to do everything, big or small? Why don’t we feel we’re like everybody else, that we’re at home, in our own homes, and behave spontaneously like they do? When I heard her screeching in the corridor, I turned around, and the huge woman who was with her saw me, and she
laughed as she looked at my missing eye and said for everyone to hear, “That’s not Abd al-Nasser. It’s Moshe Dayan. Why, just look at his eye!” They roared with laughter until tears ran down their cheeks. I filled the blue plastic cup with water and drank, and then went back to my family’s room, while they carried on having a good laugh.

  It’s not enough that when I was born I was thrown into a banana crate and left near the Abdullah Ibn al-Zubair mosque. It’s not enough that stray cats in the street had assaulted me, and I could only cry my heart out. It’s not enough that I don’t know who my father is, or who my mother is, or who my brothers and sisters are, or where they are right now, and why they haven’t come to take me. It’s not enough that I was insulted in school, or that I don’t have a surname with the definite article, which only goes to prove that I’m unacknowledged and indefinite. It’s not enough that I was deprived of my dream and ambition to become a soldier, for the system doesn’t allow me to do that. None of that is enough, ever! But then, to be called a dictator and a tyrant by those two thieves just because I wanted to be a soldier. They weren’t satisfied with that, though. They made me an Israeli, a Zionist, and a murderer, because I had no one to defend me or to protect my eye from harm while I was in the cradle. Aaaaah! If only I’d lost my eye in the war, I’d have destroyed you both with a shell. I’d have blown your heads off, you two thieves, before I lost it.

  Anyway, what can we do? Today I wanted to record the story of my leaving the home and my going back again. Some children, of course, leave the home after real families have adopted them. They call them foster families, and they live with them like their own children. Quite often they suffer from abuse, are forced to do hard work, and are exploited. We hear this from our brothers who return with their minds and their bodies scarred.

  One day a wealthy lady came to the home. She was met by the people in the nursery: the director of children’s homes, the general supervisor, the undersecretary, and many others. They said she was an extremely prominent person; she was accompanied by elegant attendants. She went on a tour of the family sections. She played with the children and hugged and kissed them. Photos were taken to commemorate the occasion. I was one of the little children she played with, and she asked me pleasant questions: “What’s your name, sweetheart? How old are you? Have you been to school?” All the usual questions.

  Two days later I was surprised to find them arranging my clothes and papers, and holding a simple farewell party for me with my brothers in the family. I left with a black driver in a strange and magnificent car. All through the journey I looked at the gold door handle. I put out my hand toward it, and a beautiful dark-skinned woman with a wonderful smell touched my arm. “Don’t do that, dear!” she said. I looked at her, and then at the driver, and I didn’t know if she was talking to me or the driver. Then she chatted to keep me occupied for the rest of the journey. “My name’s Buthayna. What’s your name?” And with great shame and embarrassment I said “Nasir,” but because I don’t pronounce the “s” very well, it comes out like a “th,” making it sound like the word for spread. “Nathir,” she mimicked back immediately. “Nathir what?” Then she laughed and hugged me to her breast, and it smelled like gardens and flowers in the morning.

  She moved me away from her breast a little and addressed the driver: “Amm Tawfiq, don’t forget to go by the supermarket. We need a few things urgently.” She took a piece of paper out of her dress and handed it to the black driver, whose name I had just learned was Amm Tawfiq.

  My room in the huge palace was the size of three family rooms in the nursery. Even the bathroom, my own private bathroom, was bigger than the family room that eight of us kids had lived in. Sometimes our mother was Gamalat the Egyptian and sometimes Lumbai the Filipina. As for our father, Baba Said, he would come and pick us up in his car or the ministry car and take us for a quick spin. On the way back we would always drop in at the Panda supermarket.

  The first evening, Amma met me in one of the large reception rooms. She sat me down and stroked my head and caressed me as she said:

  “Your name’s Nasir, isn’t it?” I nodded my head shyly.

  “Do you know who your mother is?”

  “Gamalat,” I told her. She shook her head.

  “Salma,” I said, meaning the social worker. She shook her head again. “Jawahir,” I suggested, who was the psychologist.

  “No,” she said. “I am your mother, my dear,” and she pulled me close and gave me a big hug.

  The first days in the palace were extremely difficult. How to sit at the table, how to put the napkin on my lap, how to hold the spoon and fork, how to eat. Where to start and where to finish, and how to stand up and leave the table. How to walk through the large rooms of the palace, how to speak to others, how to smile, and how to pronounce words in English—“Okay!” and “Good morning,” and “Hi!”—with the vowel drawn out as long as possible. How to say “Thanks a lot” while allowing a smile of gratitude to form on my lips. How to say “Ma’am” and kiss her hand every morning.

  I learned with great difficulty when and how to go to the toilet, and to stay there for ages. I learned to take my bath at a leisurely pace, with the assistance of Buthayna or Safiya. Even if I wanted to go out into the garden to play and have fun, I had to do it in an orderly fashion, not chaotically. Good Lord! How can I play without stirring up the dust, dirtying my clothes and shoes, or throwing my bicycle in any old corner of the palace? I longed for the old gardener not to keep such a close eye on me so I could break some shady branches off the trees, chase the squawking birds, and throw stones at the cats with the really soft fur.

  What a sad and sorry ending I came to in that miserable palace. And whose fault was it? It was that old gardener’s, carrying his shears and moving about among the lush gardens like a heavy nightmare. I was playing one Thursday morning, wearing a purple tracksuit with the Pink Panther’s face on the front. I was holding the hem of my tracksuit top between my teeth to make it into something like a basket and was running beneath the trees, collecting fallen leaves and dry flowers and putting them on the Pink Panther’s face. Suddenly I felt my bladder was going to burst. I looked left and right, pulled down the elastic waistband of my tracksuit bottoms, and relieved myself under the tree. I had hardly begun to feel the relief when I heard the old gardener yelling at me. He pounced on me, grabbed me by the ear, and took me out of the garden. Then, gripping me by the forearm, he led me inside to where Ma’am was thumbing through the day’s papers. Proud and triumphant, he informed her of my offense and awaited his reward. She motioned to him with her eyes to leave, then asked me, “Why? Don’t you have your own private bathroom?” I wanted to tell her: “Indeed I do, I have my own private, luxury bathroom, but I felt the liquid building up in my bladder. What was I to do?” But I didn’t say a word. I just stood there, hanging my head in shame, while she killed me with her silent stare, which was tantamount to a real flogging with a whip.

  I had to leave the paradise of the huge palace after that vile and disgraceful act, and come back down to earth to my friends and brothers in the orphanage. It was two or three days after the garden incident, maybe more, I don’t remember exactly, when the Ethiopian driver took me to the pickup truck. He’d piled all my stuff in the back without me noticing. We drove along many streets until we reached Hayy al-Ghamita, where the home was. They opened the door, but I refused to get out of the car. They tried several times. I was crying my eyes out as I clung to the door handle of the pickup and screamed: “By Allah, I repent. I won’t do it again. Take me baaaaaack!” I promised them I would never urinate in the palace garden again. But the caretaker, with the help of the black driver, was able to get me out of the car and drag me, thrashing, into the home.

  The caretaker was extremely upset as he dragged me inside the orphanage, like you would a piece of dead game or a victim to the altar. The Ethiopian driver’s face, on the other hand, was cruel and malicious as he peeled my hand off the door handle, as if he we
re getting rid of something evil and unclean, or a stubborn insect. He wasn’t kind or sensitive like Amm Tawfiq. I wish it had been Amm Tawfiq who’d taken me back to the home. He would have reassured me, even if it wasn’t true, that I’d just be visiting, and he’d come back in the evening, or the next day, to take me back to the palace.

  Resignation

  “AFTER I’D GOTTEN OVER THE TRAGEDY of those bitches, Zuhayra and Umm Kalthum, and their conniving and sarcasm, I moved to the new palace. Fortune had stood by me like a decent fellow, and I had become the personal chauffeur of the mistress. At last I began to experience some peace and security. Then, after the death of the old gardener, Marzuq, I lost my job as driver and took his place in the palace gardens.

  “I was told, ‘You’re no longer any use as a driver. You’re too old. The most suitable work for you is to be a gardener in the palace grounds.’ And just as I had received the keys of the Rolls-Royce from Anwar Abd Rabb al-Nabi, I handed them over to the Ethiopian driver, Ahmad, and took up my last job before the grave, for hadn’t old Marzuq pegged it. That’s what life was like here. Inside the palaces, every creature has a defined role in life. Once that role is finished, his life there finishes. How miserable and depressing was my role, Anwar’s, and Marzuq’s? Ahmad’s role, Abu Loza’s, and others’? But the worst of all our roles was that of little Nasir. He was brought into the palace to be the adopted son. Mistress couldn’t have children, and she had gone for many years without giving birth, but the maternal instinct was overwhelming, and she desperately wanted a child. She had to satisfy the desire in the quickest way possible, by driving the lime green Rolls to the orphanage. That’s when some serious bad luck stepped into your life, little Nasir. You weren’t lucky like some of the kids and the specialists thought you were. No way! You played a limited and temporary role. It ended as soon as Amma felt the first cravings of her pregnancy, and you, little Nasir, returned to your home, like I returned to the gardens, which looked just like the forests and jungles along the White Nile.