Throwing Sparks
Page 30
Ibrahim told the boys to get going. Fadel and Aghyad jumped to it, but Tariq dawdled again.
‘Tell me about Aghyad’s father. Does he need treatment abroad? ’ I asked Ibrahim. ‘I can arrange for his travel.’
‘No, no, his disease isn’t serious like that,’ Ibrahim chuckled, patting my knee. ‘He’s perfectly healthy. It’s just that there were some really bad complications and his case had to go to the governing council. Things will turn out fine, God willing.’
I did not understand how his treatment could be linked to the governing council and I said so. ‘What’s his sickness got to do with the diwan? If he needs treatment abroad, I am more than willing to help.’
‘Don’t worry about it. I’ll tell you the whole story later.’ He pulled Mariam off his lap and added, ‘We’ll finish the conversation when we come back from the mosque.’
‘We still have a few minutes – tell me the story.’
He shook his head. ‘I’m the imam. I can’t be late.’
We stepped out together. He held on to my hand joyfully, sensing maybe that what I wanted was to bolt and disappear into the long, narrow alleyways.
‘Don’t worry, Tariq. Prayer will ease your mind.’
He must have known that I was impure; he just did not want to embarrass me when I told him I had already performed my ablutions. He gripped my hand firmly as if he were afraid I might slip from his grasp and vanish again.
We entered the alley leading up to the entrance of the mosque and caught up with Aghyad, who took hold of Ibrahim’s other hand.
‘We’ll go and visit your father today. And we’ll take Uncle Tariq with us, all right?’
Ibrahim’s strides lengthened and he was literally pulling me along now. We reached the gate and many of the old neighbourhood folk flocked towards us, showering me with greetings and expressing their pleasure at seeing me after such a long absence.
‘By God it’s been a long time, Tariq,’ exclaimed one of my neighbours from the past. We embraced as he added, ‘Where have you been all these years? Is this your son?’ He bent down to kiss Aghyad.
‘No, this is Aghyad, the son of Waleed Khanbashi,’ Ibrahim replied on my behalf.
For a second, I thought I had misheard.
It was as if I had been struck by lightning and was rent asunder, splintering and scattering like shrapnel, swallowed up by the earth, hurtling into the chasm, down, down and further down until finally, I hit rock bottom, screaming silently.
It was the same Waleed Khanbashi who had driven us to the receding beaches and charged us half a riyal to use a tatty old towel; the same Waleed who had married Issa’s maternal aunt and suckling sister, Salwa, only to cheat on her by marrying …
My frown turned to horror as I looked at the boy, my nephew.
When a building collapses, the roof tiles and the brickwork do not ask who betrayed whom. As soon as the soul rises and departs the body, the dead begin to decompose, and the flesh sets to rotting. The earth opened up and I fell head first, seized with terror.
There was no longer a place for me on this earth.
Ibrahim pulled me along, hurrying into the mosque, and placed me in the first row of worshippers behind him in the mihrab – the niche in the wall of a mosque that indicates the direction of the Kaaba. All I wanted to do was run but could no more have done so than scoop up my spilt guts off the floor.
The congregation rose in unison to begin the opening prayer. In the throes of collapse, I looked around desperately for some way out. Ibrahim was already intoning the very first couplet of the prayer cycle – the takbeer – signalling to the faithful to adjust themselves and straighten out the prayer lines.
He looked straight at me and smiled. A block of bodies jostled me into position as I continued looking for an escape route. Aghyad, who had ignored the first takbeer, was following my turmoil. He flashed me a smile and there, before my very eyes, rose the vision of the bewitchingly beautiful Maram, her nakedness concealed.
Aghyad and I looked into one another’s faces as the faithful began their chanting of devotions. Ibrahim intoned the opening chapter of the Qur’an and the mosque echoed with the booming ‘Amen’ in response. A momentary silence followed as he searched for the Qur’anic verse with which to comfort me and then his voice rose in the air as sweet and melodious as a tinkling waterfall:
‘Oh my servants who have transgressed against themselves, do not despair of God’s mercy. God forgives all sins: He is all-forgiving, compassionate to each.’
This was the exact moment I had hit rock bottom.
As the rubble settled, I looked at all the dust billowing up from within me filling the prayer hall. Smashed into a million shards, my spirit gave up the ghost. I disappeared behind a veil of tears, and with the breach not yet healed, I sobbed as Ibrahim’s voice finally vanquished the demons playing havoc with my soul.
The tranquil atmosphere of the prayer hall was broken by my wailing sobs and even some of the worshippers were rattled.
A solitary tear trickled down Aghyad’s cheek as the boy looked on, bewildered.
Ibrahim commanded the rukuu’, the bowing posture during prayer, but I could not even bend from the waist; when he voiced the takbeer signalling the ritual prostration, the sea of worshippers went down as one while I remained erect in the open expanse of the prayer hall.
Aghyad’s eyes were glued to me and in them I beheld Maram, like a melting pillar of salt. Tranquillity enveloped the prostrated worshippers.
I was running. My shackles and chains dragging, I wanted to catch up with the procession of people fleeing their destiny, gathered in a wide open arena to meet our fate. Some were proceeding on their way, others lingered: Tahani, Mustafa Qannas, Issa, Mawdie, Joseph Essam, Aunt Khayriyyah, Maram. Behind me was a long line of people – pointlessly hurrying on.
My decision to kill the Master had fully ripened. I had been carrying around images of his dead body in my mind for a long time, summoning up visions of murder while lying in bed, killing him a different way before falling asleep every night.
But how vast the ocean that separates imagination from reality. I closed my eyes.
A Note on the Author
Born in Saudi Arabia in 1962, Abdo Khal studied political science and began his career as a preacher before becoming a primary school teacher. He turned to writing as a way of attacking the corruption of the wealthy in the Arab world. Throwing Sparks won the International Prize for Arabic Fiction and is his first novel to be published in English.
English edition first published in 2014 by
Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing
Qatar Foundation
Villa 3, Education City
PO Box 5825
Doha, Qatar
www.bqfp.com.qa
This electronic edition published in 2014 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Copyright © Abdo Khal, 2009
Translation © Maïa Tabet and Michael K. Scott, 2014
First published in Arabic in 2009
as Tarmi bi Sharar, Al-Jamal Publications, Baghdad/Beirut
Qur’anic verses from The Qur’an:
A New Translation, Tarif Khalidi, Viking Penguin, 2008
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
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eISBN 9789992194287
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