by Ali al-Muqri
But those few minutes had been enough to reignite desires I’d thought long buried.
I tried to pray to God as often as I could. I prayed the ‘prayer of need,’ despite what I’d heard about it being an innovation. I needed a man. I needed to live, to taste life . . . Just to taste it.
I prayed to God, but He didn’t answer. I became more and more frustrated as the days went by – in fact with every hour and every second.
I tried to get my life in order. I asked myself: What do I want, and how am I going to get it?
But my inner turmoil made it impossible to get anything in order, never mind working out what I actually wanted. The way I saw it, there was just one thing I needed, one thing I really desired. This desire needed an outlet, more so than my need for order. I remembered Andeera and what she’d said about transcending emotions and desire, and how, without them, we can live in inner peace. But how could there be inner peace with the unquenchable flames of desire? Weren’t Andeera’s words just a tranquilliser or a temporary fix? All I could feel inside me were the fires of war that defeated any peace and consumed everything with their flames. A fire that, once lit, could not be extinguished.
Demands are not met
I graduated from university and started teaching Islamic education at a private school.
Most of my female colleagues were spinsters. There were no male teachers, no one I could have pursued or fulfilled my desires with.
Had I changed?
Yes, I’d changed. To be honest, I’d grown tired of dreaming about finding a man. I spent most of my time – days and nights, asleep and awake – dreaming of a man, a man to hold me tight, to make love to me until I cried out in pleasure. I began to tell myself that God is forgiving, and merciful, and that he will forgive me the one sin I was going to commit in my whole life. If I couldn’t be married according to God’s law and the example of His Prophet, then I had no choice but to commit a sin. Just once. Just this once.
The nearest man to our house was Suhail. I felt he was the only suitable man out of our neighbours who was likely to respond to my advances. After all, hadn’t he given me the Om Kalthoum song?
His house was just six metres from ours. He and his wife had lived alone there since his parents had gone back to live in their village and his only sister had got married.
He was a member of the National Orchestra and must have been in his forties. He had married twice. Then he had divorced his first wife after they’d had four children together. He visited their mother every month, and contributed as much as he could afford towards their school fees. The second had left their only child with her mother and travelled to Morocco where she was writing her PhD on the modern Yemeni novel.
I searched and found the number for his landline written on the kitchen wall. I couldn’t believe my luck when I also found his mobile phone number.
Mother used to call his wife whenever she needed something. She’d written down Suhail’s mobile number so she could contact her through him, before they’d had a landline installed.
I began to bombard him with messages from my mobile, the same one I’d had for over five years. I’d begin by showering him with praise, describing him as a great musician who should be recognised for his talents, and always adding, ‘This is not just empty praise.’
I didn’t tell him my name, and he never seemed interested in finding out, or even in taking any initiative to bring us together, like asking me to meet him or calling me to hear my voice – to make sure I was a female, a real woman, and not just an illusion. His replies were curt, usually just a single word, such as ‘Hello!’ or ‘Thanks,’ unless I asked him something that required a more substantial response.
Apart from his daily habit of chewing khat, and the boisterous late nights he spent in the company of his musician friends from time to time, everything about him suggested he was a perfectly respectable member of society. Even so, both Father and ‘Abd al-Raqeeb had decided he was a libertine.
Once I messaged him: ‘Don’t you long, you wonderful artist, for a woman to sit by your side. Don’t you desire a female? How have you been able to live without a woman since your wife left?’
He answered ‘I have a woman from another world, an invisible woman who visits me whenever I need her.’
I decided to go to him, to become a fantasy woman, or at least try to appear as one. I put on my make-up and sprayed myself with perfume. I did everything I could to charm the eye and beguile the nose. I thought of all the things that might arouse a man, and I went to him. When he opened the door I pulled the veil from my face and opened the curtain that hid my fancy clothes. ‘I am Laylat al-Qadr, the Night of Destiny,’ I said to him.
‘Welcome, Laylat al-Qadr, better than a thousand months. Better than a thousand women.’
I thought he meant to invite me in. Perhaps I believed I really was Laylat al-Qadr who we learned was better than a thousand months. Every year, she came down from the heavens on this night, on the twenty-seventh of Ramadan, and granted the wishes of whoever set eyes on her.
‘Can’t I come in?’ I said to him, still standing at the door.
‘You can’t. I’m by myself, there aren’t any women at home.’
‘You’ll regret it,’ I said to him as though I really were Laylat al-Qadr.
I returned wretched and alone to the house, the streets and markets bustling on a Ramadan night like no other.
Nothing is beyond the reach of a people
He hadn’t realised I was his neighbour, so then why hadn’t he welcomed me in as a fantasy woman, like the one who comes to him from another world, as he’d put it? Didn’t I tell him I was Laylat al-Qadr? I could no longer suppress or hide my desire. It intruded upon my every thought, my every word. I became painfully aware of this when I asked the bus driver to stop so I could get off. Instead of saying the usual, ‘Please, stop here’, I said ‘Please, fuck me,’ to the astonishment of the other passengers and the embarrassment of the driver who seemed to have understood what I’d wanted to say and stopped the bus for me to get off.
The B-side . . . The A-side
Ask my heart when it comes to its senses
Perhaps it will hold beauty to blame.
Ask a sensible man for sensible answers
But who could keep his wits in the face of such beauty?
If I were to ask my heart
Tears would answer in its place.
In my chest there is only flesh and blood
Feeble now that youth has gone.
My heart weeps and I say: It’s over
In my chest it trembles and I say: Come to!
I thought I knew this part of the song well, so it was only when I read the words of the original poem the song is based on, in a book, that I realised my mistake. I became obsessed with the poem. At first I looked for it in the collected works of the poet Ahmed Shawqi, but it wasn’t there. Finally, I managed to find it in some books on Om Kalthoum, and in a couple of old volumes that included excerpts of Shawqi’s poetry. It turned out I’d been mishearing one of the words, and there were two different versions. When I compared the published version of the poem with what I heard Om Kalthoum singing over Riyad al-Sunbati’s music I realised the word at the end of the first and tenth lines wasn’t what I’d thought it was. Up until then I’d heard the very familiar word taaba, meaning ‘repent’ but it was actually a classical Arabic word I didn’t know, thaaba, that I found out from the the dictionary means something like ‘come to’ or ‘recover one’s senses.’
But was Om Kalthoum really singing thaaba? Didn’t the lyrics reproduced in the Om Kalthoum biography I’d found have it as taaba, just as I’d heard it all along? Maybe now I’d read Shawqi’s original words I was just hearing it differently? Ah, when she sings these lines they get me every time:
My heart weeps and I say: It’s over
In my chest it trembles and I say: Come to!
When Om Kalthoum sings duloo – ‘chest’ – her voice trembles lik
e it’s overflowing with everything – every imaginable and unimaginable thing. That word . . . I’m spellbound by it, it blows me away . . . It makes me feel like I’m losing my mind.
In my chest it trembles and I say: Come to!
I checked and duloo wasn’t one of the ninety-nine beautiful names of God. But when Om Kalthoum sang it, it sounded as though it should be.
For me, duloo became every name, even my own, which I could no longer recall after I’d been abbreviated by my designation as a ‘hurma.’ Hurma – the word that replaced me. But wasn’t I a hurma before I became a hurma? How could this word replace me then, when I was a hurma from the very beginning?
When their feet are firmly in the stirrups
Perhaps I could have pursued another man, but even the thought of getting close to anyone – any man who wasn’t Suhail – made me feel that I’d become some sort of deviant, a whore who didn’t care who she had sex with. I was afraid of scandal. I was afraid people would label me as a whore. I considered adopting another name, of going with the first man who flirted with me in the street, but I remembered what I’d heard about the police raiding some homes on the pretext that they were ‘dens of iniquity.’ Sometimes they simply arrested any couple they found together, be it in a car, restaurant or garden. Even if it turned out they were actually married, they’d only release them after a thorough investigation.
I even visited the neighbourhood’s famous matchmaker who had found husbands for countless young girls. It was obvious her words were meant for me when she said: ‘Men, whether they’re young or old, it doesn’t matter – they all want you to find them young bribes, usually between fourteen and seventeen years old.’
My best bet was to get closer to Suhail. But this looked like it was going to be difficult, if not impossible. I said to myself that it would be easier for me to become a whore and expose myself to the world. But this was just me looking for excuses not to go through with my plan.
I would dig a tunnel from our house to his. I would take a pick and shovel and start digging. The tunnel wouldn’t need to be longer than, say, ten metres to get me into Suhail’s house, or to be more precise, his kitchen, which he hadn’t used since his wife left for Morocco. I’d keep the dirt in sacks and dig the tunnel three metres deep. Obviously, I’d need to make the tunnel wide enough for me to fit through it.
I came down with a nasty cough and couldn’t dig for a few days. But I soon got back to work.
I reckoned it would take four months to dig the tunnel, more or less. Towards the end, I’d tunnel upwards and pop up in the musician’s kitchen. When I got nearer to Suhail’s house I would only dig in the mornings, when he was at work, so that he wouldn’t hear the sound of the pick and shovel.
I’d have to wear something over my clothes to keep them clean and pretty for when I revealed myself to him.
And then what?
Would he be scared this time? Would there be a look of terror on his face when he saw me?
Would he scream ‘Who are you?’
I’ll say, ‘I am a jinn. I have come to lay with you this night.’
‘Who are you? Tell me the truth. I don’t believe in jinns.’
‘Whether or not you believe it, I am a jinn!’
At first he’ll laugh, but then he’ll quickly frown again and he’ll growl, ‘Get back to where you came from. No more of your nonsense. Go on!’
There’ll be nothing I can do in the face of his pig-headedness, except of course to go back through the tunnel.
His indifference when I emerged from my tunnel would be even more bizarre than my plan. But surely there had to be a reason for such indifference? Obviously, his love for his wife or his religious values just wouldn’t allow it. But probably, the truth was that neither love nor religion mattered all that much to him.
He taught us how to gain glory
So that we took command of the land by force.
Were love and religion really not important to him?
If not, then why had he sent me the Om Kalthoum song that brought us together?
As the days passed I became more and more convinced Suhail was my destiny. I could no longer think of any other man, since this would be an adventure with consequences I couldn’t even begin to imagine. I’m not Lula, who took her story to the grave.
I thought and thought about it until I decided to go to him again, to meet him face to face. I wore more make-up and perfume this time.
As soon as he opened the door I dived forward to embrace him.
He jumped back and stared at me. This time he recognised me.
‘You’re married.’
‘I’m not married anymore. I’m divorced.’
‘This isn’t right.’
‘It is right.’
I begged him, getting down on my knees and hugging his legs. I wanted to kiss his feet but he wouldn’t give in, even though his thing was clearly erect, pushing up against the fabric of his thobe.
Crying, I pleaded with him: ‘Just let me touch it. Pleeeeease . . . Let me just touch it. Don’t deprive me of that. I’m begging you.’
He gave in to my hands as I pulled off his thobe and baggy cotton trousers. But when I tried to move closer to him he stepped back, putting his right hand to his left cheek – swollen with the ball of khat he had in his mouth – as though he were thinking. I howled and writhed. I sobbed and then I put it between my fingers again. I wanted to pull him deep inside me; but he began to ejaculate as soon as his thing even touched my clitoris, and it was over before it even began. It was as though Suhail had managed to keep his outrage in check until his imploring thing got what it wanted, but then he had to ask it to leave immediately.
Even if hearts were made of iron
Still none could bear what mine has suffered.
No one can tell you about life’s hardships
Like someone who has lost their loved ones.
Before what happened happened, I found out I was pregnant. That’s what the doctor told me.
Suhail’s thing hadn’t got any further than my clitoris, and he had ejaculated right there. So where had the baby come from?
Had the dregs of the sheikh’s drips been all it took? But that was a good while ago. Was I doomed to have a baby from the limp cum of the sheikh or the musician? The doctor confirmed I was still a virgin. She laughed out loud when I told her I’d never slept with a man and that she was free to examine me.
I didn’t know what to do. I was completely bewildered despite the momentary joy I’d feel whenever I imagined that a solid body would finally emerge from between my legs. It would push with palpable force from inside me, after I’d waited long years to feel such a force penetrate me from the outside.
Demands are not be won through struggle.
The world can only be won through struggle.
I made up my mind to leave with my baby, and get far away from the house and the lingering smells of its memories, which no longer meant anything to me. But as soon as I set foot outside, what happened happened. The thing I never thought would happen happened.
I saw him striding towards me, as though marching to a new battle.
The man I thought was dead had returned. Abu Abdullah had returned, and refused to recognise the divorce.
‘Have you divorced me through an infidel court? This is not legitimate.’
In that moment, I wished I had a gun or a knife to put an end to him once and for all. I reminded him about Andeera, telling him, ‘Send for Andeera, she’s your wife.’ He said that she was free now, since God had only used her to aid the mujahideen.
He tried to get ‘Abd al-Raqeeb to convince me, but he was preoccupied with Valentina and business. This time around, he wasn’t there to give his consent and impose on me the will of his old associate in jihad.
Nothing is beyond the reach of a people
When their feet are firmly in the stirrups.
I leave the house . . . I don’t know where I’m going. I just want to get far away, aw
ay from myself, from where I was, from the memories, the familiar scents. I don’t care where I go . . . I eat from rubbish and sleep in rubbish. I’m in a rubbish dump . . . A hurma in a rubbish dump . . . A rubbish dump in a hurma . . . I walk the streets . . . Walk and walk. People turn to stare. I’m free. I’m free. I’m a hurma. I’m a free hurma . . . I’m free and a hurma. I’m my own hurma . . . The hurma of my freedom . . . It’s a hurma. It’s a hurma and I’m someone else . . . I tear off my veil. I tear off my abaya and headscarf and walk on . . . I toss away the gold on my arms and neck . . . I undo the buttons of my blouse and shrug it off my shoulders. I pull my bra down to my belly. I chuck it to a cute dog to sniff. I can feel the wind on my breasts . . . I step out of my trousers. I walk. I keep walking. I walk without myself. I leave myself behind. I was a hurma and I became a hurma. I became a hurma without it meaning anything. A hurma without meaning. I was someone else and I became me. I was me and I became someone else. I was someone else and I became someone else.
Glossary
Ahmed Shawqi: Egyptian poet and dramatist, 1868-1932, known as the Prince of Poets, who introduced the genre of poetic epics to the Arabic literary tradition.
Ababil: birds, with the world’s largest wings, said in the Quran to have come down from heaven to protect Mecca from the Habashi army by dropping red clay bricks on their elephants as they advanced on the city.
abaya: a voluminous black garment worn over other clothes by some Muslim women.
baltu: an ankle-length overcoat (from the French paletot).
duha, witr, and tajahud prayers: optional additional prayers made at specific times between the five obligatory daily prayers in Islam.
hadith: a saying of the Prophet Muhammad transmitted by established Islamic sources which, along with accounts of his daily practice (the Sunna), constitute the major source of guidance for Muslims apart from the Quran.