by Ali al-Muqri
Once, as Father was leaving the house, reciting ‘He provides for whosoever he wishes without account. There is no God but God,’ Raqeeb burst out laughing. ‘That’s totally whimsical. He makes rich whoever He wants, and makes poor whoever He wants. How can anyone worship a God who behaves like that?’ When she heard this Mother completely lost it. She screamed and screamed at him, calling him a blasphemer, and asking God to punish her son for his bad words. Raqeeb’s hysterical laughter drowned out the sound of Mother’s sobbing. No one could stop him – except Nura, the neighbours’ daughter, who came over to see Lula later that afternoon.
The three of us were sitting together – Lula, Nura and I – when Mother, holding back her tears, came in and said she would make tea for the guest. Lula turned to Nura, who was a close friend of hers, and said, in a mock-theatrical tone, ‘This is our duty, O dear guest. We must honour you.’ Lula and I began to laugh so loudly that Raqeeb burst into the room, eager to know what we’d found so funny. On catching sight of Nura he stopped still, frozen in embarrassment. ‘Sorry . . .’ he said, his eyes glued to Nura, ‘I didn’t realise you had someone with you.’ He seemed transfixed, unable to speak or move. He only left the room after Nura ducked down behind us, hunching over to conceal her body’s curves, which she’d freed from her abaya when she entered the house. The absurdity of the situation made us laugh even harder. Nura did an impression of Raqeeb, who she said had stormed into the room like a policeman catching a criminal red-handed. Lula thought he’d looked more like the husband who bursts in on his wife to find her in the arms of another man. But neither of their comparisons rang true to me. He hadn’t reacted predictably, like the policeman or the husband would. Instead he’d become embarrassed, stammered and left the room in a way that called more for sympathy and even astonishment than it did laughter.
‘I want to marry that girl. Please, ask her family for her hand,’ Raqeeb said to Mother as soon as Nura left. We hadn’t realised he’d been that smitten by her.
The Philosopher, as Father used to call my brother, had refused every one of Mother’s many attempts to marry him to the daughters of her relatives or friends. He would say he wanted an open-minded girl who didn’t wear an abaya or even a headscarf, and who was free – both of the reactionaries’ legacy and of the greedy ways of the capitalists. I wondered if he’d found these things in Nura, a girl he’d never seen before. I don’t think he’d set eyes on her without her abaya, headscarf and veil since she was ten or younger – even if their front door was directly opposite ours, just a few steps away.
Mother, taken aback by his sudden request, tried to dissuade him.
‘There are better and prettier girls out there.’
‘There aren’t any better or prettier than Nura.’
‘The daughters of God are many, my son.’
‘He has not, nor will He, ever create another like Nura.’
It was the first time I’d heard Raqeeb acknowledge the existence of God as our creator, even if indirectly. He had always insisted that we call him just Raqeeb, instead of by his full name ‘Abd al-Raqeeb, meaning Servant of the Watchful One. He insisted that he didn’t recognise himself as a servant of ‘the Watchful One’ – one of God’s ninety-nine names. How was it possible that the very person who had encouraged me to study the principles of Georges Politzer’s philosophy, to struggle through a condensed volume of Lenin’s writings on the school of empirical criticism, could so easily switch creeds?
Nothing is beyond the reach of a people
When their feet are firmly in the stirrups.
Once our mother had secured Nura’s hand for her only son, all that was left was to wait for the wedding day. Raqeeb was nine years older than me, and Lula six years. Despite having got his baccalaureate in English literature two years earlier, Raqeeb still hadn’t found a job. Lula, on the other hand, started working for an import and export company as soon as she finished secondary school. Begrudgingly, Father also agreed to her attending university, so she had to balance work and study. Lula would leave the house early in the morning and not return until late in the evening. The monthly contribution she gave Father from her salary was sufficiently generous for him to turn a blind eye and not scrutinise her comings and goings like he did mine.
Once a week Father would work the night shift. It was on one such night, while he was busy refuelling electricity generators, that Lula gave me my first dose of culture.
A Cultural Cassette Tape
‘It’s zeet-meet time!’ said Lula, locking the bedroom door. She produced a cassette from her handbag and inserted into a little tape player she’d borrowed from one of her workmates, and we got comfortable and started listening to it. It’s on this same cassette player – which remained hidden away among Lula’s personal things and never made it back to its owner – that I’m listening to all these old tapes again right now.
‘Oh . . . Oh . . . Ah . . . Ah . . . Please, stick it in . . . Fuck me, please. Fuck me . . . Put the head in.’
It was a surprise to hear such things being said – actually, the biggest surprise of my life so far. It was a day I’d never forget. I was confused, and almost asked Lula: ‘What’s the woman on the tape saying? What does she mean? Who’s she talking to?’ But soon enough my body began to work out the answers for itself, and showed me, from head to toe, that it knew exactly what was going on. In that moment, my body seemed more consumed by what it felt than I was myself. For a second, I felt as though I were outside my body, separate from it. Then I realised – perhaps I’d been lost in the moment – that I wasn’t outside it, but under its control. It dominated all my senses, my every thought, word and movement, revealing the hidden things in what I was hearing and encouraging me to listen more closely.
‘Please. Just the head . . . Please . . . Yes . . . Yes like that. Yes . . . Yes . . . Push it in, please. Please . . . Push it in, please . . . Please . . . Please . . . Please . . . Please . .
I was entranced by the sound, and by the strong Egyptian accent. I’ve no idea how many times I heard the word ‘please.’ Lula turned down the volume, but the words that came from the cassette player didn’t seem to grow any quieter. Instead, they sounded louder and louder. I felt as though the words were coming from my body, and not the anonymous voice on the cassette.
*
‘Yes . . . Yes . . . Like that . . .’
‘How is it?’ A man’s voice asks. ‘It’s nice.’ ‘What’s nice?’
‘Your thing . . . your thing is lovely. Sweeter than honey.’
‘My what?’
‘Your thing . . . your cock . . . your cock . . . Please, just let it slide in. Put it inside me.’
We moved our heads closer to the cassette player until our ears were pressed right up against the little speaker.
‘We agreed, just the head,’ he tells her.
‘For me . . . Please . . . For my pussy . . . Put half of it in . . . Yes . . . Yes . . . A little more. Put it in a little more . . . Halfway in . . . Please, half of it . . . It’s so nice . . . Yeah . . . Yeah . . . Like that . . . Yes . . . Sweet . . . Sweet . . .’
‘What’s sweet?’
‘Your cock . . . Your sweet cock . . . Yes . . . Yes . . . That’s nice . . . Yes . . . Yes . . . Yes . . . Yes . . . Yes . . . Fuck me hard. Put it in . . . Please, all of it . . . All of it . . . All,
all . . . Ah . . . Ahhhh.’
At this point Lula paused the tape. She said she’d heard something outside the door. I froze. My muscles tensed and my body cried out in protest. I begged her to let the tape finish.
‘That’s enough. It’s all the same thing.’
‘I just want to know what happens at the end. Please.’
‘What do you think happens at the end?!’
‘Does he put it all in? And what do they do after that?’
‘Oh dear! We’ve let her watch through the keyhole and now she wants to come in!’ She said, laughing.
*
I didn’t sleep that nigh
t, or the next. Perhaps I’ve never really had a good night’s sleep again since then.
The next night we listened to the cassette again. Lula had kept it hidden among her secret things. This time we were more cautious. Father was at home, and he was a very light sleeper who woke often during the night.
I noticed the cassette label, written by hand, said ‘Local Sex.’ Lula and I huddled together, listening to the same words, the same moans and groans. The pleasure I felt became so much more intense when I wrapped my thighs around Lula’s leg. I was burning up, trembling. She reached out her right hand and pulled my knickers down to my knees, stroking my thighs, and then gradually moving her hands in between them. She turned me over onto my back, put her index finger on my clitoris and rubbed it vigorously. At first I laughed because it tickled. She whispered for me to be quiet and then began to alternately rub around and my clitoris and right on it. The tape played on: ‘Put it all in . . . Yes . . . Please . . . Put it in . . . Put it in.’ I was on fire, writhing against her touch until I almost screamed out.
It took me a while to calm down. Didn’t Lula need my finger too? I reached for her crotch, but she pushed my hand away, saying ‘I’m like the woman on the cassette. I want him – zeet-meet. I want him to put the whole thing all the way in. I want him to fuck me, to pound me again and again until I’m satisfied. Until he kills me, and leaves me dead.’
I was shocked by what I heard. Wasn’t she still a virgin? Had she lost her virginity, which our mother had told us a hundred times to keep intact at all costs? She’d even made us scared of jumping up and down because it might cause us to lose our virginity – our honour and the family’s honour, as she used to put it.
A few months earlier, I’d felt the wetness of that dark liquid between my thighs for the first time, and rushed to Mother. ‘Don’t be scared, you’ve matured! You’ve become a woman, my girl.’
Had I become a woman without knowing who my man would be – the man I’d writhe beneath like the woman on the tape? Was she on top, or was he on top of her? Perhaps he was beneath her, while she reached for him, struggling with him as he gripped his thing, only giving it to her in small, delicious doses, bit by bit until it was all the way in.
Side B of the Om
Kalthoum tape (replay)
Raqeeb didn’t actually oppose Nura continuing her university studies, but he bombarded her with questions about her lecture times, professors and classmates. He quizzed her on their names and what they looked like, including the way they dressed and even their hairstyles. He’d also want to know who she’d talked to during the day.
Nura turned out to be cunning in a way I never would have expected. I was sitting next to her when she said to Raqeeb: ‘Imagine, there was this really good-looking guy, the sort who likes to take care of himself. I think he wanted to talk to me. He said “Good morning,” but I ignored him. I kept on walking but he followed me and said, “Please, can you let me see your notes for psychology? I missed the lecture.”‘
Raqeeb’s face was tense with anxiety as she spoke, until she came to the part of the story when she said, ‘But I carried on walking. I didn’t look back, or even say a word to him.’ As soon as he heard this Raqeeb’s face relaxed and he looked happy again.
Mother sold her gold to pay a quarter of Nura’s dowry, while Lula pulled together another quarter. We were all intrigued as to how Raqeeb was able to provide the remaining half, since he’d only started working the day after he first saw Nura and decided he wanted to marry her.
Raqeeb stopped reading into the early hours. He now had to get up early for his new teaching job at an English language school. It was as if he’d swapped reading for Nura. In the weeks leading up to the wedding, whenever I asked him what he was thinking about he’d tell me he was thinking about her and their future together. After the wedding, however, it was clearly his passion for her hot body that occupied his nights, if not every single minute of his life.
His message was . . .
I haven’t really paid much attention to the first verse of the song. I’ll listen to it again later, when I’m not so preoccupied.
The biggest change at home wasn’t Nura’s arrival, it was Raqeeb’s newfound commitment to the five daily prayers. This, of course, included the dawn prayer. The first time he came into our room to wake us up for the dawn prayer we thought he was joking: ‘Come, let’s punish the Devil and pray. God will make you happy and provide you with upright and respectable offspring.’
‘What – What did you say? Say it again.’ Lula managed to sound sarcastic even when still half asleep.
‘It’s best if you get up. Prayer is better than sleep!’ He answered her.
It was my turn: ‘What a convincing performance, our dear master, our Sheikh. Go back to your wife’s side and let us sleep.’ But he was serious, and wouldn’t leave us alone until we’d got up to pray. There was no use in arguing, especially since we could hear Father moving around, having also risen to pray.
‘A dangerous religious deviation,’ said Lula as she got back into bed after praying. She burst out laughing, pulling the blankets up over her head to try and muffle the sound. We whispered together about this sudden change in Raqeeb until neither of us were able to get back to sleep. Out of all of us, Raqeeb had been the one who never prayed unless he was forced to – and even then he did so without any real conviction. In those days I’d just go through the motions. I’d make my ablutions in the bathroom, and then disappear into the bedroom for a while, and Mother and Father would assume I was deep in prayer. Lula saw prayer as a sort of exercise which she’d practice from time to time. She might sometimes sleep in a little and be late in starting the dawn prayer, but she always managed to finish before the sun had fully risen.
Later that morning, Lula took Nura by the hand and pulled her into our room. ‘What’s with you? What have you done to Raqeeb? Instead of taming him you’ve led him astray!’
‘What do mean?’ asked Nura.
‘Our master, the great Sheikh Raqeeb, the authority on Marx, Lenin, and our grandmother Rosa Luxemburg, on the material world, and idealism – this same man now wants to drag us all out of bed at the crack of dawn as soon as the call to prayer sounds.’
‘I’ve done this? He’s asked me to start wearing the abaya, to be more “modest.” He said to me “What’s the use of studying psychology?” I’m afraid he’s going to tell me to quit.’
‘Tame him, show him the joys of life. Feed him! What are you doing?’
‘Your brother’s backward. Tribal. Who brought him up to be like that?’ said Nura, laughing.
He taught us how to gain glory
So that we took command of the land by force.
I was expecting my friend to ask me about the videocassette, but to my surprise she brought me another. At first, I assumed it was a gift. I suggested we could go with Nura to her parents’ house to watch the two films. Lula arranged it with Nura, although she wasn’t too happy to find I still had the first tape.
Two Cultural Videos
I’m going to play the films on Lula’s mobile phone. She used it to record the films as we watched them that day – she was very keen on making her own copies.
Two naked bodies. A man and woman. Licking and sucking. Groans and moans. Opening and entering. Zeet-meet. The bodies entwined, face to face in a sitting position. Then he lies on his back and she climbs on top of him like a horse-rider mounting her steed. She rides him and rides him, all the way.
The second film was more like a guide to sexual intercourse. With each new scenario, Lula would say the same thing to Nura – ‘Look and learn. Let him do the work and feed you the zeet-meet. Taste the pleasures of life.’
Nura would just laugh. It was obvious she’d seen films like it before, although she lacked Lula’s practical experience.
One of the scenes really caught my imagination: I wanted to do it just like that.
A woman is sleeping in her bed. A man comes into the room and undresses, the
n pulls the bedcovers off her. Her body is clearly visible through her flimsy nightie. He slips his hand under the nightie and strokes her neck and breasts. The insistent, circular movement of his hand arouses her. He does this for a few minutes before moving down to her waist, making the same circular motions. He moves further down, between her thighs, under her knickers, which he effortlessly removes. The woman looks like she’s still asleep, unaware of what’s happening to her body. He opens her legs and begins to kiss between her thighs. He pulls her greedily towards his mouth, his nose, his whole face. The camera zooms in on him gently kissing her pussy . . . A second, third and forth kiss. His lips touch her clitoris. He kisses it and teases it with the tip of his tongue. He moves his tongue faster, licking and sucking on her clitoris [Ooohhh I shouldn’t be watching this again]. His tongue flicks in all directions – up, down, round and round, licking her pussy all over. She’s clearly no longer able to hide her excitement, even though she pretends she’s still sleeping.
He straightens up on his knees and then presses himself into her and the zeet-meet begins.
Some time passes while he thrusts and pounds, without the camera showing us any details. When he’s finished the man carefully puts her panties back on and replaces the bedcovers before leaving.
The woman wakes up feeling aroused. She looks around her, as if wondering ‘Was I dreaming, or did that really happen?’