The Theocrat: A Modern Arabic Novel (Modern Arabic Literature)

by Bensalem Himmich

  “Good God,” he exclaimed, “are you a woman?”

  The woman proceeded to pull up her trousers and adjust her clothing. “Yes, I’m a woman,” she replied in a tone of outraged defiance. “During the day I sell cheeses and sweetmeats. I’m a woman, and I use my feminity to earn a living at night. What’s the matter with you, man-fucker?! Here’s my ass, so bring all your mighty power to bear on it if you can. Alternatively here’s my cunt. Fuck that, and you’ll end up with syphilis. Even with your disgusting body I can see you standing there in front of me quivering all over, when I’m just a grain of mustard seed, a mere feather tossed by the wind. So go back and tell your master al-Hakim all about me, how impudent and defiant I was. Either that, or I’ll tell him how impotent you are.”

  Mas‘ud stood up with a heavy heart and turned away to leave. The woman chased after him with a whole stream of taunts. The only way he found to stop her was to give her a sudden and vicious blow to the head which knocked her to the ground unconscious. With that Mas‘ud made his way back to his quarters in the palace, morose and distracted.

  The next day, al-Hakim returned from the Muqattam Hills to hear what had happened in the Ruwasin market, except the details about Mas‘ud’s treatment of the woman. Al-Hakim summoned the registrar and ordered him to give the peddlers back their goods and to threaten them with death if they returned to the markets rather than sticking to alleyways and city outskirts. He ordered Mas‘ud to be fetched.

  ‘“Abdallah,” he told his slave in joyful greeting, “I’ve now perused the inspectors’ reports regarding your good work in the markets, and I’m very pleased. Today I’m promoting you and expanding your purview to certain other cities and fortresses in my dominions. Your next assignment will be Alexandria. You’ll find lots of swindlers, racketeers, and forgers there. Take a week’s vacation to prepare yourself. Now go back to your bed, and may God give you strength!”

  By this time Mas‘ud had come to feel a strange sense of guilt and remorse as his sensory memory recalled the varieties of backside and anus he had penetrated and the different ways in which his victims had expressed their pain, their pleas, and their screams of agony. All this haunted him in his dreams, as it played itself in front of his closed eyes like a never-ending strip the particular cases of people with narrow anal passages and hemorroids. In recent weeks he had taken to pushing these images out of his mind by trying to stay awake, drinking excessive amounts of coffee, and taking amphetamines. As a direct result he was feeling totally exhausted. The only thing that prevented his condition from becoming very obvious was that every day he swallowed huge amounts of fortifying drugs that al-Hakim bi-Amr Illah’s assistants provided for him. Al-Hakim had decided to send him to Alexandria to carry out exactly the same task on other folk who were duping and swindling customers, and yet he could not even stand the thought; and at the same time he had no other choice apart from the very worst of eventualities and certain death.

  On that fateful day when Mas‘ud received al-Hakim’s command, a state of total exhaustion came over his entire body, accompanied by a general debility and chronic insomnia. He lay there dozing occasionally but otherwise awake, progressing from one dreadful nightmare to another that was even worse. Droves of merchants and professionals would appear, each one devising new ways of reviling and poking fun at him; what scared him most was the thought of butchers either castrating or sodomizing him. The only way Mas‘ud found of ridding himself of these appalling visions was to rush around and mouth insane threats that were magnified yet further by shouts and roars. These would resonate so much that even al-Hakim got to hear them. When he asked what they told him that the slave Mas‘ud could see things that they could not; he was fighting legions of demons and other invisible creatures. He seemed to be like one possessed by the very devil. Al-Hakim commanded that he should be fed more almonds and harisa. If he did not recover his normal demeanor, he was to be beaten with sticks in the hope of dispelling his misery and recalcitrance.

  But neither force feeding nor beating did anything to improve Mas‘ud’s condition, even a little. He actually began to lose weight. In a single week his body became even skinnier, and his bones started to jut out. People started talking about the way the slave was wasting away, while others were more scabrous in their descriptions of the way he was gradually disappearing from his grain to his sexual organ.

  Mas‘ud was completely worn down and mentally deranged, but even so he was forcibly dragged to the markets in order to carry out the duties expected of him. It soon became completely obvious to the guards, the people due for punishment, and the entire merchant population that Mas‘ud had totally lost his potency. Aphrodisiacs no longer worked, nor did words of encouragement. Such was his condition that inevitably he became an object of general ridicule and malice.

  Once Mas‘ud’s condition and the loss of his primary asset became obvious, he was confined to a cell close to the palace stables. There he was allowed to sleep in peace with nothing to wrack his nerves. Occasionally he would wake up, eat the scraps of food he was offered, and guffaw in bitter despair.

  Running away or of even thinking about it was out of the question! For this slave, it wasn’t the idea of other people’s stares and swords that stirred the fires of hell. For him, hell had sunk its claws deep inside his very self. In fact, he had never experienced wars, revolutions, or natural disasters; if he had, the impact of his demise might have been easier to bear. As it was, the people around him were indolent and kept up a monotonous routine that did not give him the opportunity to reflect or to raise painful questions and suspicions. No indeed, this particular brand of hell forced him to recall terrifying incidents. Every day these memories would cause him yet more grief, and his attempts to shut them out would only make things worse. He would choke, then beg to be released from this world, with all its backsides and anuses that continued to plague him with their bloody wounds. For his accursed body all he craved was total annihilation. So it came to the point when Mas‘ud used to extend his neck and beg people to use their swords and lances to cut of his head and put an end to his misery. He was so insistent in this request that he began to imagine that his head had actually been severed. That made him more apathetic, and he stopped eating. He kept threatening guards with the foul stench of his corpse if they did not agree to put him in a coffin and bury him properly.

  By order of al-Hakim bi-Amr Illah, informants were not allowed to talk about the way Mas‘ud met his end. As a result there were inevitably a large number of stories that circulated in popular nightspots and literary circles. One of them said that Mas‘ud managed to burst his way into one of al-Hakim’s council sessions with a coffin under his arm. “Lord,” he said, “I seek neither forgiveness nor security. If you cannot make people live, you can make them die. Here’s my coffin, so put me in it and bury it in the earth. We will meet again on the Day of Resurrection. God alone is the victor!” It is said that al-Hakim responded to the request and challenge that had been posed, and carried out his request. Another story has it that a group of high-class butchers were delegated to do to Mas‘ud what he had done to them and their colleagues, keeping it up until Mas‘ud died. Yet another says that the slave died after an unsuccessful attempt to castrate him, and another that the Nile waters had vomited him back. A medical examination confirmed that he had committed suicide with a hundred and one stabs to the chest.

  Chapter Two

  At al-Hakim’s councils

  1, A Session of Violet Oil

  hen it comes to the entire succession of incredible and contradictory actions that al-Hakim took, the root cause of his motivations was a kind of chemical imbalance in the brain. From his youth onward he was afflicted by a kind of melancholia and mental instability. Medical science is unanimous that people so afflicted suffer delusions and imagine all sorts of amazing things. All such patients are convinced that their fantasies are perfectly sound; there is no way of changing their ways or diverting them from their chosen course. Some o
f them believe themselves to be a prophet or even the Deity Himself—may lie be exalted! Among regular symptoms is a confused jumbling of words, something that is completely obvious to those who observe and converse with such people; any doubts on the matter instantly disappear. Sometimes, however, this confusion may not be so obvious. The patient will only entertain such evil notions out of sight of the general populace. Indeed, in public he may well seem perfectly intelligent, as highly regarded as the most illustrious members of society. It is only as a result of prolonged exposure that the unseen contradictions become evident.

  That was precisely the situation with al-Hakim. The people who kept his company over a prolonged period came to realize the contradiction. However, for people who stayed at a distance, it was only his actions that made things clear. Something that illustrates the extent to which he was afflicted by this illness is that from early childhood he had a twitch that was caused by a fluid imbalance in the brain; that in itself is a major factor in the incidence of melancholia. He was treated for the condition in various ways, one of which involved sitting him in a bath of violet oil and tying him down. His penchant for staying awake till the early hours, his love of riding, and his never-ending thirst, these are all symptoms of this condition. When Abu Ya’qub Ishaq ibn Ibrahim ibn Nastas served as his physician, he persuaded al-Hakim to relax his strictures against wine drinking and listening to songs—things he had forbidden and prevented people from enjoying. As a result his demeanor improved greatly, and his mental and physical condition stabilized. When Abu Ya’qub died and he again banned wine-drinking and listening to songs, his health reverted to its former state.

  Yahya ibn Sa‘id al-Antaki,

  Appendix to the History of Eutychius

  One evening in the summer of A.H, 399 al-Hakim was in his wine salon, following the instructions of his Christian physician, Ibn Nastas. He was sitting in violet oil and drinking wine, all in the hope of ridding his mind of its fluid imbalance and curing himself of his spasms and melancholia. No sooner did he feel a sense of relief and relaxation—naked though he-was except for a loincloth—than he yelled for his devotees. They came running, kissed the ground, and took their normal places. He gave orders for singers to be brought in, whereupon male and female youths arrived and regaled him with the sweetest and most delicate of melodies. Once he felt at ease and completely comfortable, he allowed the singers to leave and summoned a young male secretary. The young man arrived with paper and pens. Al-Hakim gave two orders; one for the guards to leave; the other for the secretary to take off his clothes, sit down alongside him. and get ready to write.

  This summer night was like all the others during that particular season. The sky was studded with stars; the moon rose and shone, and the silence was as deep and expansive as ever. Yet deep within, this night was of a kind rarely encountered, one in which passion ferments and birth-pangs intensify. This night and its attributes were to glow only by virtue of al-Hakim’s state, through the lexicon of his perception and the way insistent thoughts kept flooding over him. Such a night was only so remarkable and noteworthy because al-Hakim was determined to control his internal vertigo and hold forth about his symptoms and misgivings, all in the hope of being cured and saved and in quest of a text for recovery.

  As al-Hakim started dictating his thoughts to the scribe, he was still wavering between twin delights, the violet oil and the wine that kept impinging upon his visions.

  “The head,” he said, “the child and its tragedy; the head split apart and its history. Two charts for compiling the trial, one of scrutiny and embarking on the caravan of travail….

  “Regarding the most miserable of heads, speech may often be useless and ineffectual.

  “The most miserable of beads, the most outstanding, is the mournful one with a wailing-woman within; the feverish head that has broken oars and rudder, plows through the waves, and appears before God wearing hempcloth as it waits for trousers to dry in the sun, trousers that have cleft both waves and virgins and that one day were the focus of women both pregnant and bereft.…

  “The trial of the head is in vanishing behind its own bulk, to the measure of its own shivering and gloomy mien.

  “Its sign is the desert where there is neither ruler nor ruled, where it is to be seen alone plunging its torments into the sand and using negligence and delay to resist its own tumble.

  “The head must inevitably disappear behind its own shadow, like an egg that abandons its own color and vanishes. Egg and head share color, the whiteness of repetition and beginning, the whiteness of concealment and discretion.”

  For a moment al-Hakim said nothing, then he continued, “If I were a child, I would ask for a father who would teach me to shoot at women and mirrors, and how to ride and disappear; he would bequeath me both a desert within me as expansive as fate itself and a love for refreshment through silence, biers, absence.

  “Were I a child, I would ask for a father with the rest of pre-lslamic culture in his bosom, a father who would teach me, through sense, knowledge, and poetics, how to burn down walls, though they be of silk, how to worship the sea and urinate in it….

  “Were I a youngster, I would dream of a father who would say to me, ‘In these times love and knowledge have disintegrated, each one of them bearing its own ignorance or complaining about its she-camel, operating in its own unique fashion. And your lot is to wander in the desert wastes and turn your back on mankind, or else to devote yourself to a life of madness as you try to govern them.’”

  At this point al-Hakim regained his normal consciousness, but stayed totally silent, almost as though he were in a swoon. When he started talking again, it was in short bursts. The exhausted young secretary found it utterly impossible to record them all and only managed to write down some snippets, such as:

  “The desert, the desert!

  “Tremulous hope and bitter words!

  “I realize I’m making my way through a life where there is neither sweetness nor horizon.

  “I know orphan exposure, whether on its own or with others. I know that it proceeds either alone or in mixed company, as it heads toward its pit or its own deviation before fragmenting.

  “In the abode where there is neither movement nor strife, cogitation is good, planning effective. Then death arrives, fast-paced and on time, right on time….

  “In vain do we grow old; we only learn about life when it is all over and we are close to the end.

  “Death repeats itself, but without any originality! So what? I ask myself. The wombs of women bring forth humans, and the earth swallows them up. So what, I tell myself, if this process of bringing forth and swallowing up involves behavior that is prescient, pain that is reduced, and harm that inflicts less damage? But what matters is the blindness, the space that shudders, the felicitous opportunity in a crisis. Instead of national refreshment, open space, and a change of air, there was smoke, crowd, and constricted space.

  “Before the earth swallows me up, I told myself, here I am relishing the ultimate happiness, progressing toward the highest degree of certainty, moving ever forward till my head is held high and my talents are fully applied.

  “I waited for her body to arrive, confident that my bride would come to me:

  “a radiant gift of destiny to crystallize me,

  “breasts that sigh

  “chemistry of felicity and beauty.

  “But not long after she came to me as my bride the whole thing turned into a disaster; her body became a mistake, chaff for the wind.

  ‘“Patience, patience!’ I told myself. So I waited till the clouds scattered, the sky was clear once more, and life came. But instead, calamity fell on me from an unexpected direction. Dangerous notions arrived, and misfortunes too. Survival there was, but it was endowed with multiple opportunities for downfall. I was unable to control this slippery slope; without lamp or axe, I had to engage in a fierce struggle to keep my head from exploding and my very face from collapse.

  “I awoke one day
and told the women who used to share my bed, ‘By my life, it would be a wonderful idea to put you all in closed coffins and throw you into the Nile.’ With that, I left them and went out into the early dawn atmosphere, there to resume my interest in smelling the scent of roses and listening to the beat of birds’ wings.

  “The biggest issue of all: changing this world. The very love of change, that headlong rush to sever the ties that bind self, oppression, and want to each other; the very love of change, to abolish the contradiction between life and the things that overwhelm and destroy it. However, my dear devotees, why am I destined forever to drink wine and collect varieties of grass in order to foster this headlong spirit within me?

  “My ruses and medicaments will all come to naught; my drugs will lose their efficacy one-after the other. I shall spend the rest of my life making countless attempts to understand what has happened, to comprehend those things that were not foreseen, to assess this sense of depression with an analytical eye, this suppressed feeling deep down that dogs human beings whether alone or in company, like a clap of thunder sometimes, and at others like a prolonged, plaintive refrain.

  “Beyond what has already happened what else is there? What’s happened has indeed happened! What else is there besides depression? It comes in two types: a normal type that justifies itself and is deeply enmeshed in its own essence, the rusted tedium of passing days, the travail of preserving health and peace, and the assaults of others. Then there’s a second type, an exceptional kind that inhabits times of joy and clings to them like some hidden sense of fear that such times may soon disappear. Both types of depression are controlled by the sigh, something that can only be bested by the mastery of perpetual absence.