Beloved Gomorrah

by Justine Saracen

  “Don’t worry, I’ll sand them off.”

  “Ach, Gott.” Marion winced. “Can we talk about something else?”

  “Sure. Why don’t you tell us about your sculpture? I hear it was one of the biggest. What is it called again?”

  “The ‘Great Balance.’ Sometimes called ‘Weighing the Heart in the Underworld.’ Egyptian final judgment but not so much of good or evil.” Marion shivered again as the first wet patch was laid on her back. “More like to see if you have, um…lightness in the heart.”

  “The assumption being that the heart was the seat of conscience?” Joanna asked.

  “Exactly. One dish of the balance has the dead person’s heart and the other dish has the feather of Maat.”

  Joanna bent over and tucked another sheet of creamy gauze under Marion’s ample breasts. “She ruled over harmony, justice, order, and morality, right?”

  “Ja. If the dead person’s heart is light and just, it balances the feather and he can enter the underworld. But if it is heavy with injustice, his dish crashes to the floor and the feather of Maat flies off the other dish.”

  “What happens to him?”

  “A monster eats him.”

  “Ah, always someone eating your soul,” Joanna grumbled, moving down Marion’s back and laying the dripping cloths on her hips and buttocks.

  “I’ve seen the sculpture,” Charlie said. It’s a real balance, with dishes hanging on chains from two arms that pivot on a central fulcrum. Looks great.”

  “What about you, Charlie? Your project is done now too, nicht?

  “Yep, it went down days ago, inside the long gallery. Gil’s finishing up his locomotive too. Actually almost everyone’s done or close to. Even Sanjit. You know, the Indian guy? He wanted to do the Hindu gods.”

  “Can’t see Rashid Gamal approving that.” Joanna pressed a series of metal rods around Marion’s whole form and covered them with the next layer of plaster-soaked cloths.

  “In fact, he did smuggle them in.” Charlie handed over the next cloth, leaving a trail of dripping plaster between them. “He just made an elephant that happens to be Ganesh, a lion that Indians will recognize is Vishnu, a monkey who is Hanuman, and some kind of mixed animal with horns. Sly devil, that Sanjit.” He stirred several more patches into his plaster batter.

  Joanna knelt now, wrapping plaster cloths around Marion’s legs. “Didn’t the Japanese woman also make a dragon?”

  “That’s Yoshi,” Charlie said. “‘Ryūjin,’ she called it. Dragon god.”

  Joanna chuckled. “Well, with all that, and Marion’s gods of the underworld, they’ve got themselves a wild pagan city, haven’t they?” She stood up and surveyed her handiwork. “I think we’re done plastering you, Marion. Can you hold that position for about forty minutes?”

  “I think so. But I’m thirsty. Got any beer?”

  “Are you sure you want to drink something?” Joanna asked. “What are you going to do fifteen minutes later, when it passes through you?”

  “Ach, ja. Good point.”

  Charlie patted her lightly on the cheek. “You can hold out, old girl. And when we break you out of that thing, we can go to the Sun Bar and you can drink all you want, on our tab.”

  “Ah, a good reward. You see, Joanna? That’s the way to comfort a German.”

  *

  George needed a drink. Several of them, in fact. But the last place he wanted to go was the Sun Bar, where he’d run into the other project sculptors and have to be polite. He was fed up with the whole thing. The exhibit was obviously bogus, rigged by the Egyptians to make themselves look cultured.

  He wandered toward an open-air beer kiosk near the dock and sat down at the bar. While he waited, he mentally inventoried the ethnic groups represented in the exhibit. There were the Egyptians who constructed the walls and buildings, so that was about five right there. Then there were Saïd, Faisal, Mansouri—all Middle Eastern. And a Japanese, a Congolese, and an Indian. Damn. That left only four who were white. He was in the minority. No wonder they were treating him like shit.

  The beer arrived, and while he nursed it, he stared down at the long dock and watched the foot traffic coming and going along the row of boats. Divers, boat owners, Egyptian workers, they all had something to do. Only he was stuck waiting on the whims of a bunch of ignorant Arabs who were trying to ape Western culture.

  He regretted ever entering the competition. What was he trying to prove, after all, coming to a primitive country to let himself be made a fool of? He had his own yacht, or at least his family did, on the Chesapeake Bay, bigger than most of the boats at the dock in front of him. He should have stayed with his own people and not screwed around with Third World art exhibits.

  While he brooded, a man came along the dock toward him, his clean white shirt and tailored pants marking him as one of the boat owners. The stranger approached the kiosk indifferently, then sat at the bar, a seat away from George.

  George glanced over at him desultorily, careful not to make eye contact. The stranger drank half his beer, twirled the glass for a moment in the ring of water on the bar counter, and seemed in a bad mood. George could certainly relate to that.

  The Asian couple sitting at a table behind him finished their drinks and went off, leaving him and other man as the only customers at the bar. After a few moments, ignoring each other became more awkward than acknowledging each other. When the boat owner finished his beer and held it up to order another one, he glanced sideways. George smiled quickly and remarked, “Not such great beer, is it?”

  “About what you’d expect in a Muslim country,” the man answered, then added, “You’re one of the guys on the art project, aren’t you? I heard you talking with someone on the dock.”

  “That’s right, I am. Who might you be?”

  “Bernard Allen. I’m here on holiday. The big boat toward the middle of the dock.” He poked a thumb over his shoulder in the general direction of the row of yachts.

  “Uh-hunh,” George said. “A Princess 85, isn’t it? We looked at something like that, but decided on a Princess 76. A little smaller, but faster. My father likes that.”

  “Oh, I’ve had ’er up to a pretty good speed, but whatever floats your boat, eh?” Bernard chuckled at his own witticism. “What brings you here? Oh, right, the project thing.” He sipped his second beer, making apparent that his interest was slight.

  “Yep, I’m one of the artists,” George said again. He liked the ring of it. “I’m held up a little at the moment, but things will settle out. I’m the only American though.”

  “Yeah, I noticed that too. I don’t hear much English. That’s why I spotted you.”

  “Well, there’s two people from London and an Irishman, but the rest are foreign.” It struck him as he said it that foreign was probably not the right word. But another American would understand what he meant.

  “The ones from London. One of them’s named Joanna, right?”

  “Yeah, how do you know her?”

  Bernard snorted. “I saved her ass. Pulled her out of the water after a shark attack. Not that she showed any gratitude.”

  George raised his eyebrows at the whiff of scandal. “Oh, you’re the one. That’s right. She was staying on one of the yachts with some actress-and-agent couple. Well, you could have saved yourself the trouble. She’s just as arrogant as the rest of them.”

  Bernard finished his beer and held up two fingers toward the barman. “I’m inclined to agree with you. We wined her and dined her for a week on our yacht, first-class treatment, at our expense. I go away for a few days, and what do I find when I come back? She’s making a pass at my wife. Of course, I asked her to leave.”

  George laughed out loud for the first time in weeks. “Really? She’s a lezzie? Well, that explains a lot. My condolences to your wife.”

  The beers arrived and Bernard slid one of them toward George, who held it up in salute. “Thanks. As for women, you can’t trust any of them these days.”

  �
��Right you are, my friend. This women’s lib business. The lesbians are behind it, of course, but the normal women fall for it. I don’t know where it’s going to end.”

  George hunched forward conspiratorially. “Listen, at this point I’ve had it to here with women in general.” He tapped his throat with the edge of his hand. “When they want something from you, they’re all tits and ass, and when they’ve got it, they’re suddenly liberated and flip you off. You’d think the Arabs of all people wouldn’t fall for that crap, but they do.”

  “Arabs. To hell with them all. So you were cheated on by an Egyptian?”

  “Na. Nothing like that. It was a professional screwing, not a personal one. I mean, I was supposed to set up my exhibit in the center of what they call the city, but someone got paid off and suddenly they gave my site to a woman. Some Palestinian. Smug little bitch got the prime spot. And I’ve seen her stuff. Pure propaganda.” He sucked air through his teeth and muttered, “Now they’re letting terrorists have art exhibits.”

  “That’s a real crime.” Bernard swirled the remaining beer in his glass, creating a little vortex. “Women. You can’t live with ’em, and you can’t live without ’em.”

  “Well, it can’t be so bad in your case. I mean you got a beautiful actress in the deal.”

  Bernard snorted again. “She was beautiful, twenty years ago. Tits like a Barbie doll. But all things pass, my friend. When they’re young, they make you do things you shouldn’t, and when they’re old, they kick you in the balls. No, my friend. They’re daughters of Eve, all of ’em. Nothing but deceit. They look appetizing, but there’s poison in each bite.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Here, let me buy you another beer.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Jibril removed his shoes and sat down before the fountain outside the mosque to perform his ablutions. He murmured the opening verse of the first sura, washed his right hand up to the wrist three times, then did the same with his left. Following the protocol, he rinsed his mouth and spat out the water three times and rubbed his teeth with his finger. He sniffed a bit of water from the palm of his hand into each of his nostrils and exhaled it. Three times again, he washed his face from hairline to chin and ear to ear. Then it was his arms, up to the elbow, three times on the right then on the left.

  To purify his head, he passed wet hands once over his hair, around his ears and the back of his neck.

  Last of all, he cleansed his feet according to the formula, starting with the right foot, from between his toes up to his ankles, three times, all the while mumbling, “There is no god but God, and Mohammed is the messenger of God.”

  Then he was ready to enter the holy place, right foot first, through the main entrance with the men. He walked midway into the mosque and sat down at the end of a line of worshippers who were in quiet prayer or reading softly from the Quran. Closing his eyes, he made his own prayers, a combination of ritual utterances and personal supplications to God to be kept pure. When the call to prayer came, the words were as familiar to him as his heartbeat. God is great. I bear witness that there is no god but Allah, that Mohammed is his messenger. Come to prayer, come to success, God is great, there is no god but Allah.

  The imam ascended the pulpit and began the sermon, this time on the subject of jihad. He began neutrally enough, talking about the obligation of each man to strive to perfect himself before God. But when he quoted the Quran, his message became more pointed.

  The Jews say, “Ezra is a son of God” and the Christians say, “The Messiah is a son of God.” They resemble the saying of the infidels of old! God’s curse be upon them! How are they misguided? They take their teachers, and their monks, and the son of Mary to be equal to God, though bidden to worship one God only. There is no God but He! They would put out God’s light with their mouths. God hath sent His Messenger with the religion of the truth, that He may make it victorious over every other religion, even those who assign partners to God.

  The verse had always confused Jibril, for he knew who the Christian Messiah was, but he had not heard of Ezra being one of the Jewish gods. Still, if it was written in the Quran, it had to be true. Perhaps the imam would explain.

  But the imam offered no interpretation and simply continued in a vein of thoughtful condemnation. He did not specify violence or hint in any way at aggressive action, but Jibril knew the ninth sura and had long ago memorized it.

  Make war upon those to whom the Scriptures have been given but believe not in God, or in the Last Day, and who forbid not that which God and His Apostle have forbidden, and who profess not the truth, until they pay tribute and be humbled.

  What did that mean? Were they supposed to drive out the Americans and the Europeans? That’s what some believers wanted, but he needed for the imam to draw the parallel before he would be convinced.

  The Brotherhood was always on his mind. Illegal though it was, it pervaded the political discourse, as well as the day-to-day talk of the men in the coffee shops. The message was a noble one: that the Quran and the Sunnah constituted a perfect way of life and revealed the social and political organization that God had set out for man. He agreed that governments should be based on this system, for only this system would achieve social justice, eradication of poverty and corruption, and freedom under Sharia law. Above all, he was in sympathy with the Brotherhood’s hatred of colonialism, even the cultural variety that had seeped into every corner of Egyptian life.

  He listened carefully, reflecting on the way in which his own life and livelihood flew in the face of the demands of his faith. He’d always been a good Muslim and tried to live every day in such a way as to please God. But he felt utterly unable to do so. Bad enough that he found bodily purity so difficult to maintain, but he’d also fallen into the trap of wanting more money than the life of a shopkeeper could provide.

  He’d relinquished the inheritance of his father’s pathetic little shop in the souk to his brother and taken jobs with the foreigners because they paid so much better. That was the beginning of his torment. His previous employers at the hotel had been decent men, but they were infidels and had led him off the path. His gravest mistake was allowing them to cajole him into going to the El Gouna cinema and seeing Queen of Thebes, and that had forever changed his view of women.

  He wanted to marry, desperately. At twenty-eight, he was long ready and weary of restraining his desires, and in a year or so he would have enough money. But now, every pious woman he looked at seemed drab and boring when he compared her to the image on the screen, the image of Kaia Kapulani, which had swept him off his feet. When he had learned that the actress and her husband not only had a yacht in the harbor, but were looking for an all-purpose crewman, he had applied, and to his surprise—and his father’s horror—he had been hired.

  And now he worked for rich Americans, waiting on them, carrying their bags, delivering their laundry. It paid well, and it brought him in contact with the actress, but all that did was confuse him, since it was obvious she represented all that his faith condemned.

  What was happening to him? To Egypt? The Red Sea beaches were now all but completely owned by Westerners and their tourist businesses and bars. Infidels with money and power, and women in bikinis. It was tearing him apart.

  The sermon ended and then came the second call to prayer. He stood up with the other men, shoulder to shoulder, lightly touching elbows, in a straight line facing the niche that pointed to Mecca. Together they began the ritual prayer. The cry of God is Great, the recitation of the first sura of the Quran, a bow, a second recitation, a prostration, a rising, a second prostration, a final rising. When the prayer was completed, he exchanged the required salutation with his two neighbors, offering a light embrace to affirm brotherhood.

  Calmed by the service and the sense of community with other good Muslim men, he donned his shoes and began the walk home. But he had gone scarcely a hundred meters when the two of them caught up with him.

  Mazhar clapped him gently on the back. “H
ey, Uncle. Why did you hurry away from the mosque? We could have walked back with you.”

  “I have to get to work. You know my job is important.”

  Najjid snorted. “I know that your boss is a beautiful whore who makes movies. Is that why you’re in such a hurry?”

  “You should control your mouth, Najjid. I am as good a Muslim as you, and I do not lust after women I should not.”

  “Then why do you work for those people? If you got an honorable job, you wouldn’t be around nearly naked women all the time. And you wouldn’t have that pig of a boss pushing you around.”

  “It’s none of your business why I work for them. Did you catch up with me simply to berate me for my employment?”

  Mazhar raised his hands. “I’m sorry, Uncle, honestly. We are family, after all, and you are as a father to me. I hate those rich Americans as much as you do, not just for what they do to you but for how they have dishonored Egypt. You know that’s the whole point of our group, to stand up to them. Why don’t you join?”

  Jibril kept on walking, but slowly now, and the two others kept pace with him. “What would joining entail, exactly?”

  “Not a lot. Just meeting with our group now and then. Discussing how to deal with the problems. Maybe helping us out when we hold a demonstration.”

  “Let me think about it,” Jibril answered, and turned away onto the path leading to the dock.

  *

  “Have you got a good grip?” Joanna looked down at Charlie’s hands. “Okay, now slowly, you pull from the back while I take it from the front. Marion, try to stay in place while we take it off you.”

  Tugging gently, centimeter by centimeter, they pulled apart the two sides of the cast along the lateral cut, the bottom layer of gauze splitting with a soft ripping sound. A moment later, they stood with the two negative halves of the figure while Marion stepped away from them, rubbing sensation back into her arms.