by Yasin Adnan
“Infidels,” Ibrahim said.
Thoughts raced through Ali’s brain. He remembered his mother warning him about the consequences of leading a life of debauchery. He pictured his older brother warning him about what some boys do with each other, recalled the faqih declaring the secret practice of homosexuality to be haram and the gravest of sins. He suddenly smelled a strange fragrance that was neither perfume nor alcohol. A queer aroma that he remembered trailing behind Hajj pilgrims when they returned from Mecca. Or like the smell of the mosque—that pleasant smell of old books, cheap incense, and shoes.
Ali drew the knife that he always kept in his pocket. The knife that he used to threaten old people with before he had repented before God. He flung himself at Hmad the Chelh, chanting: “For ye practice your lusts on men in preference to women: ye are indeed a people transgressing beyond bounds!”
The faqih had explained this verse to them only a few days before, describing all the punishments for homosexuality, and explaining that God rejoiced on His throne when sexual deviants were stoned.
Ali threw himself on Hmad the Chelh, aiming several sharp stabs at his stomach. Hmad staggered before he fell to the white floor covered in his own blood. Gerard threw himself on top of Hmad, screaming hysterically and kissing Hmad. A great tumult arose. It seemed as if everyone in that heavenly villa awoke from their drunkenness.
Ibrahim roared at his friend in shock: “What have you done, you brute?”
Ali didn’t hear anyone. He didn’t see anything. He was only dreaming of heaven . . . of the huge quantities of red wine . . . the wonderful food . . . and the women . . . And he called out, hysterically: “They are the people transgressing beyond bounds . . . infidels! . . . They are the people transgressing beyond bounds . . . infidels!”
Translated from Arabic by Jennifer Pineo-Dunn
The Secret in Fingertips
by Fatiha Morchid
Douar el-Askar
They call me Scheherazade, a nickname Philip gave me to stress the fact that with my fingertips I tell tales as magical as The Thousand and One Nights. I adopted the name because it seemed to suit me even more than my own name, which I preferred to completely forget, convinced that deep inside every woman lies a Scheherazade. If the tales of Scheherazade were a shield for her against death, the language of my fingertips was, for me, a shield against poverty.
The language of fingertips, like any other language, can be be learned and mastered with some perseverance, and a gifted person can even practice it creatively. I discovered my talent by chance, as often happens with discoveries. Some would consider me a whore, for it is easy to cast judgment, but I do not consider myself so. You can define me as follows: an ambitious, somewhat smart girl, who life blessed with a gorgeous physical body, but who had been denied the material means needed for well-being. There are those who would see this as a definition of whoredom, or at least a hint at it. But in Marrakech, beautiful rich women are called princesses, while beautiful poor ones are called whores.
I said I was smart, but my intelligence was not the kind that would benefit one in their education, though I reached the baccalaureate level without great effort. What I mean is daily-life smartness, which some would call heart smartness. I don’t like the latter label because I’ve got a silly heart, or otherwise it wouldn’t have fallen for our neighbor Saeed—the drug dealer. I forgot to tell you that I am from Douar el-Askar, a neighborhood that hosts soldiers’ families and hordes of laborers who work in the local food industry factories—particularly with apricots and olives. It’s one of those suburban neighborhoods that sprang up like mushrooms outside the Old Medina of Marrakech. The city that was once red before turning as black as my own days.
I am sorry if I sound scatterbrained—jumping from the rooster to the donkey, as Philip would say. Let’s go back to daily-life smartness. I realized at some point that success in school was no longer equivalent to success in life. That had once been the case, but our generation began to learn only as much as was helpful to engage early in the battleground of life. No one wanted to end up like Mahjoub el-Wafi, who studied medicine for twelve years only to open a clinic in Tameslouht. Poor thing! He would get his payment in chickens and eggs from the people of the neighboring douars . . . that’s why I decided to be more practical than Dr. el-Wafi. So I asked myself the following question: what career guarantees a bright future?
After a prolonged consideration of things, I opted for a career in massage: relaxing massage . . . weight-reduction massage . . . Thai massage, Chinese . . . or even satanic massage. What’s important is that it was an independent occupation that could be exercised in luxury hotels, beauty salons, and even private homes. It didn’t require specific tools—just trained fingertips and some basic oils. Most importantly, it was in demand among the well-to-do. Being with the poor makes one poor, as Saeed says.
Aunt Mannana, the fortune-teller in Jemaa el-Fnaa, helped me make the choice while staring into my palm lines: Your good fortune will come from beyond the seas. He will be older, wealthy, and renowned . . . but the secret is the fingertips.
I didn’t understand then what the fingertips of unskilled people can do except steal—until I learned how to massage.
After that memorable meeting with the fortune-teller, I began to secretly examine each foreign face I met. I wondered if that face was good fortune coming from afar.
You might see my consulting fortune-tellers as a contradiction with my practical approach to life, but you will understand the matter once you realize that every great thing starts with a dream. For me, fortune-tellers were sellers of dreams to those who dare not have any. Besides, they can fill a person with tremendous self-confidence, thanks to an amulet that provides one with a charm known only to Moroccans, which is called qaboul (acceptance). It’s an alchemy that makes one lovable, attractive, and irresistibly charming.
* * *
I entered the world of massage with spectacular confidence, psychologically prepared for this new venture. It would suffice for me to add the ashes of some amulet to the basic oils with which I massaged the bodies of my clients, to feel my own miraculous abilities, to access their feelings, entrails, hearts, and pockets.
This is how I got to know Mr. Philip, or, rather, his body—only a massage allows you to know the body of a person before knowing their name. He had the traits of the foreigner the fortune-teller had prophesied. He was a Frenchman in his seventies who settled in Marrakech because of a dream he had shared with his deceased wife. They had both discovered the red radiating face of Marrakech: the hospitality of its people and their sense of humor, the delicious food, the magic sunsets over its palm-tree alleys, its markets alive with colors and smells, and the Jemaa el-Fnaa Square with its exoticism, its clowns, storytellers, dancers, snakes, apes, and clamor, bestowing a new life on its visitors. The Frenchman bought a house in Derb Dabachi in the Old Medina, a neighborhood that was a busy passageway to Jemaa el-Fnaa. Derb Dabachi was also famous for hosting in the famous Ghazalah Cinema, before they destroyed it, as well as the notorious gay shop called al-Gaman.
With renovations, the old house was transformed into a wonderful riad where Philip wanted to live the stories of The Thousand and One Nights for the rest of his life. He called it the Riad of Dreams. He forgot that dreams could turn into nightmares.
At the time, I was a young trainee at a massage center in a five-star hotel. I got that job thanks to Saeed—the drug dealer. In Marrakech, you can manage your life if you’re smart enough to adapt to all situations and take advantage of each one of them. But no one was smarter than Saeed when it came to taking advantage of people and things. He was the kind of person to whom the popular saying applies: He lays hands on whatever he sees, and has a share in whatever he hasn’t seen yet. He worked sometimes as a tour guide and sometimes as a driver. He traded in everything from clothes to illicit goods, and had numerous clients—the kind of clients attracted to Marrakech’s hashish rather than its palm trees. He would give me
presents that seemed more expensive than what he could afford.
I don’t know what exactly attracted me to Saeed. He wasn’t handsome, but he had the charisma of someone who lived on the edge. Yet I felt safe with him, and this seemed another contradiction of mine. The cops could’ve arrested him any time they liked and thrown him in jail, even if he had friends among the police who benefitted from his deals in return for their silence.
Some policemen provided protection by ignoring your activities until someone stronger than you emerged on stage, and then you became a scapegoat. I had a passion for Saeed, but at the same time I didn’t want to spend my whole life with him. My ambitions were larger than him, and men like him only loved my body and its charms.
I had a strong feeling that I was a princess who was born in the wrong place and in love with the wrong man. I resembled none of my family. All of them were ugly, including my mom who was a housemaid of pure breeding, one of those who labored in homes for meager wages, or worked every day at olive and apricot factories in Douar el-Askar for their daily bread. My father spent his life working in a tannery far away from our neighborhood. He died of lung cancer caused by inhalation of dyeing chemicals when I was ten years old.
I have two sisters, dark-skinned like my mom, short with snub noses and curly hair. I alone was fair-skinned with hair like silk and a slender shape. I honestly doubted whether we all came from the same father. My mom said, justifying the differences, that during her pregnancy she used to work for a beautiful French lady. She said pregnancy cravings had their own secrets and mysteries. Who knows what happened? Perhaps I am the daughter of some foreigner for whom my mom worked. If that’s true, I can’t help but thank her. At least she saved me from the ugliness that would have disqualified me from the world of massage.
I also have an older brother who took refuge from the family’s poverty in faith. After he had failed his studies and given up all ambition, he grew a casual beard and spent most of his time in the mosque. As alcohol is forbidden in our religion, he replaced it with maajoon. In the beginning, he tried to exert his authority over me and my sisters as the man of the house, but the power of the pocket money I provided him with and the effect of maajoon made him docile, so he contented himself by asking God to lead us back to the righteous path.
* * *
If Mr. Philip were the foreign man destined to bring my happiness as Aunt Mannana had foretold, then the tree had to first be shaken for the fruit to fall.
“Do you prefer a regular massage or a special one?” I had asked him, feigning innocence.
“I want a relaxing massage,” he replied. “But if the special massage is better than the regular one, why not try it?”
He seemed like the kind of person not used to the intimate caresses often demanded by foreigners his age. I thought that sometimes one learned nothing from the passage of years. I filled my palms with the oils prepared according to Aunt Mannana’s recipes and passed my soft fingertips on his stiff skin after I galvanized them with smooth, sensual energy. I tried to make the exciting part of the massage inevitable. The soft music, the smell of Oriental incense, and the room’s coziness all together completed the play of my fingertips.
Clients who developed an erection went from bashfulness to confusion, and then to laughter. There was nothing like laughter to establish communication. Here, I would intervene gently to puff up their virile ego, showing admiration for their male organ no matter how tiny it was, explaining that it was just a natural reaction in real men. Of course, I didn’t give a damn about boosting their sexual prowess. I, as a matter of fact, cared only for the extra tip that I got from them. I developed the ability to manipulate any kind of human being, aside from Saeed, who kept manipulating me.
I don’t know why I became so weak in front of him. Was it my love for him or my fear of him? Moments of tenderness in his company were accompanied by his fits of violence. He would sometimes beat me and then perch at my feet, crying and pleading: Forgive me, my sweetie, I’m not cruel, but this hellish life is full of cruelty. We would then embrace, cry together, and make love passionately, dreaming of a better tomorrow.
He taught me exciting massage techniques, which I practiced on his body. He taught me the art of using my fingertips, how to tempt and then deny, how to make the client pass gradually and slowly from relaxation to sudden pleasure. In fact, I was very perplexed when he told me all this, and I didn’t understand how he could be so jealous yet at the same time tell me to indulge my clients. He said that it was not lovemaking and that my fingertips had nothing to do with my body. How could he say that when he knew that things sometimes did not stop at my fingertips? What if the client were to ask for oral sex?
Finally, I convinced myself that my body had nothing to do with my mouth either, and I immersed myself completely in massage. This was basically prostitution disguised as massage. However, after I started working at the Riad of Dreams, I discovered that prostitution was an essence with a variety of expressions. Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at me, as Christ said.
After the first massage session, Mr. Philip offered to employ me at the Riad of Dreams. I discovered later that our meeting was not a coincidence, and that Saeed had planned it all. Saeed told Mr. Philip that the Riad of Dreams lacked a beautiful lady with the skill of massage. Then Saeed sent him to me at the hotel for a trial session; afterward, he told him that I was his neighbor and close friend.
It saddened me that he did not present me to Mr. Philip as his girlfriend, but he justified his deed by saying that Marrakech had ears that were wide open and mouths that were gaping—everyone knew what was in everyone else’s bowels—and that Mr. Philip’s knowledge of our true relationship was none of his business. He added that he was to blame for considering my own good and my future. I thanked him with an embrace and closed the subject, as was the case after every quarrel. And so I began my adventure at the Riad of Dreams, and at first I was happy with my new job.
* * *
Unfortunately, exactly two months after I got this new job, my mother fell sick and stopped working. So I had to provide for everyone and bear the cost of medication and other household expenses, which compelled me to sometimes ask for help from Saeed, who began to get nervous about my endless demands.
One romantic night, while Mr. Philip was away in Paris to attend the funeral of one of his friends, we were making love in one of the luxury rooms at the Riad of Dreams. Saeed, to my surprise, said: “I have an idea for us to break out of this misery. You just need to make Mr. Philip fall in love with you and marry you . . . Then, Scheherazade can become the lady of the riad. Imagine changing its name to Riad Scheherazade. This can happen if you truly help me realize our dreams.”
I was shocked by the suggestion. “How dare you ask me to marry him! What’s in it for you? Wouldn’t you be jealous? And what about our marriage?”
“I doubt his sexual potency,” he laughed. “Of course we’ll marry after we get rid of him and you inherit everything.”
“What do mean by get rid of him?” I asked, terrified.
Saeed stroked my hair lovingly. “Honey! Don’t you see that he’s already one inch away from death? But that’s my job. All you have to do is to make him fall in love with you and propose to you. After that, you’ll see good things happening, my dear Scheherazade, my Lady of the Riad.”
At that very moment, the face of Aunt Mannana the fortune-teller took hold in my mind. She had stared at the lines of my palm and said: Your good fortune will come from beyond the seas. He will be older, wealthy, and renowned . . . but the secret is in the fingertips. I wondered, What if this really is the destiny written in the lines of my palm? Who can escape destiny?
I admit that I actually dreamed of becoming the Lady of the Riad, especially since my life obligations were tearing me apart: moving daily from the choking misery of my family’s home to the luxury of the riad and its clients who were obsessed with their bodies; tumbling between traditions,
beliefs, and my veiled sisters who were submissive to the authority of my brother and his scary asceticism, and the world of massage and its licentiousness.
Back at home, together with my sisters and my mom, we would pray behind my brother, who enjoyed his role as imam. None of them, however, knew about my inner suffering.
I believe in God, but my brother’s ambivalence was not a good thing, as he saw no problem in his reluctance to work or continuing to take pocket money from me. He also began to incessantly ask me to help the brothers who had also stopped working and devoted their daily lives to worshipping, even though working was an act of worship in our religion.
Plus, my mother pestered me with her usual question: When will Saeed propose to you? Your brother is upset with people’s gossip . . .
I’m not the type of person who cares about gossip. I’d realized at an early age that I would either care about myself or about people’s gossip, and it didn’t take me long to make my choice. I started to enjoy the idea of being the Lady of the Riad. I would take quiet time to gaze at myself in the mirror. I would see myself as a princess strutting around in my own palace. Why not? Do luxury and beauty not go together? However, I wanted no harm done to Mr. Philip. He’d always been nice to me and preferred me to his other masseuses, saying that I was more beautiful and intelligent than any of them, and that I had the admiration of all the clients. But who knows? Maybe he hadn’t even thought about the idea of marriage at all.
* * *
Saeed and I schemed together so that things would later take the course we had planned. It wasn’t difficult to seduce Mr. Philip, who Saeed prepared slowly, the way Marrakech people prepare tanjia. After a few weeks, Mr. Philip came to our house to propose to me, carrying a bouquet of red flowers and red with embarrassment. He was led by Saeed, who was walking proudly and looking relieved.