The next day, after having listened to my story, the man, who turned out to be a Nigerian Muslim named Mustafa, exclaimed, “What a wonderful woman your lover is, Naser. A woman who orchestrates a love affair with such godsent power can only be a love prophet. Now hold your head high. You are lucky and privileged to have enjoyed the company of such a strong woman. And don’t despair, Naser, life is short and you must be happy that a woman like Fiore has given you nearly six months of her life.”
54
IT IS EXACTLY five days since I was caught by the religious police and brought to this place. It is now five in the morning. I am obsessed with time, counting the seconds, the minutes, the hours, the days, because I am inventing my own calendar, starting with the day in July when my life with Fiore began.
I am sitting on the thin mattress on the ground, opposite Mustafa. He is lying down, facing the wall. He is asleep under the harsh glare of the fluorescent lighting.
I am sitting with my arms wrapped around my legs, rocking back and forth. I am constantly fighting my mind, not wanting to think about the punishment awaiting me. Mustafa told me that there is no point thinking about that day. “They will try you in your absence,” he said. “They won’t allow you a lawyer or even for you to defend yourself. They won’t tell you when you will be punished. When they decide it is time, they will come to your cell and take you to Punishment Square.”
Instead, I try to think about Fiore. Soon, a prison warden will arrive to take us to pray in the prison mosque. In the beginning I refused and was dragged out of my cell all the way to the big mosque in another wing of the prison. But Mustafa told me that I shouldn’t resist, that the beating is not worth it. “Remember that Allah is not theirs alone. Anyway, don’t miss the chance of going out from this cell to that mosque.”
The mosque is a beautiful, spacious place. It is bigger than the grand mosque in Al-Nuzla. The walls are painted in glistening white and the light is soft and calming. The musk floats around. Mustafa is right: once there, I feel like I am on a day out—I breathe the nice scent and can escape from my cell, where the walls seem to be closing in on me by the second.
Once I overheard a man cry in the middle of a prayer, “Why do you make a mosque as nice as this and our cells as filthy as a donkey’s barn? Why make all this effort to please a God that may or may not exist and neglect us, your brothers in humanity? Don’t we exist for you?”
No one heard of him again.
“It’s ironic,” Mustafa tells me. “They force us to pray, thinking they are doing their duty entrusted upon them by Allah, but they don’t know that He, the Almighty, in the end will answer the sufferers’ prayers.”
But I have no time to think about the guards.
When I line up behind the prison mosque’s imam and face Mecca, my heart leaps to Fiore, hoping that Allah will listen to the prayers of my heart along with the calls of His believers.
Mustafa has never told me how he ended up here. Whenever I ask him, he replies that he will tell me one day and that now is not the right time for me to hear other people’s stories. “Naser, you are still tender with Fiore’s love. I don’t want to be the one who disturbs her in your heart.”
When the fluorescent lighting is switched off for a few hours every night, I lean against the wall, and while listening to Mustafa’s deep breathing, I recite Fiore’s notes and letters, all of which I have memorised. When the memory of her eyes, lips, thighs, and her breasts get too much, I lie on my back and I imagine that her face occupies the ceiling of my cell and brightens my loneliness.
It is Friday, a week has now passed since I was brought here. It is eight in the morning.
A stocky, bearded guard enters my cell.
It must be time. I turn to the guard and ask him, “Are you taking me to Punishment Square?”
He grabs me by my hand and pulls me out of the cell. I want to turn to say goodbye to Mustafa, but he is sleeping.
The long corridor is empty. My hands are trembling as I am imagining being put inside a hole in the earth and stones bouncing off my face.
I am in a small room with no furniture. It is as small as my cell. Its white paint is fading. The only remarkable thing about it is that it has a big glass window in it. But I can’t see what’s behind it. Three police officers are standing in front of me. The stocky one in the middle is flanked by two larger men. It is he who first asks me a question. “Where does this apostate live, ya dog?” the officer asks in his sharp voice.
“Who?”
“Don’t waste our time. The religious police said you were calling a name. Fiore. We have checked the database of residents and no one exists by that name in the whole of Jeddah.”
I smile despite myself. Hearing her name reminds me how special she is. “Because,” I responded to the officer, “her name is very simple. Very elegant. Very unique.”
“I am going to ask you one more time,” he shouts, spraying his spit all over my face. “Where does she live? In Al-Nuzla? Mecca Street? What is her real name? Who is she married to?”
The two large officers move closer and are now by my side. They both have trimmed black moustaches and large ears.
More spit covers my face. The stocky police officer is yelling.
“I will not tell you anything about habibati. And I vow that I never will, whatever you do to me.”
Each of the two large officers lands a fist on each side of my ribs. I fold in two; soon I am on the floor. When I see their boots lift off the ground, I close my eyes.
My back, chest and stomach burn with pain. I can’t breathe properly because my nose is bleeding. I can’t open my mouth, because my lips are too swollen. I can only just about see with one eye, the other seems to be blinded. I am being dragged by the two large officers into the corridor. With my good eye, I can see blood dripping in front of me. My chest is pounding. Where are they taking me now?
They open the cell door and throw me inside. I manage to see Mustafa running towards me. “Oh ya Allah what have you done to him?”
“Shut up,” says a sharp voice, the voice that was cursing me as the two large officers kept beating me up. The voice of the stocky officer.
I feel Mustafa’s hands on my cheeks. “Please, officers,” he now begs. “Blood is streaming from this wound in his forehead. Please help him. Can’t you see that he has injured his head?”
“Don’t worry, your time will come soon, insha Allah.”
“What has this man done to you? He fell in love. How can that have caused you so much pain that you are making him suffer so much? Look, officer, this is serious. Please take him to the hospital.”
“Take him to a hospital to treat him and then smash his face all over again in a public square? Don’t make us laugh. It is good he is wounded, he is now half-way there.”
I hear a loud roar of laughter.
55
IT IS FRIDAY again. This is my third week in prison. I have almost recovered from the beatings I received again last Friday. I am expecting a visit from the stocky interrogation officer and his two large assistants.
“Mustafa, do you think today they will take me to Punishment Square?”
He doesn’t answer.
“Mustafa, I hope they will be merciful enough to behead me instead of stoning me.”
He bows his head.
The door opens. Two officers wearing black armbands stand there and ask me to stand up. I can see the same passive-ness in their eyes that I saw in Abu Faisal’s eyes. “This is it,” I mumble..
As I walk towards them, Mustafa holds my hand, rolls up my shirt sleeves. He embraces me tightly. I am lost. I don’t react. I don’t know what to say. I am shaking but I am not able to say a word. I just look at Mustafa. He squeezes my hand firmly and, with his eyes unflinching, he makes me swear never to regret what I have done because ‘Life is temporary, and there is no shame suffering the consequences of love.’
He turns his back and sobs.
The two police officers handcuff me.
I try begging one last time, “Jasim lied to you. I am not married. I was in love with a girl. She was not married. I swear to Allah this was the first love for both of us. I should be lashed, not stoned to death. Look, doesn’t the law talk about witnesses? Where are they?” I close my eyes and see myself being buried in a hole up to my waist, and men hitting my face and my head with stones until I die. I start screaming. I beg the officers, “Why don’t you take me to the judge? I have a lot to say to him. I swear on the Qur’an that I was in love with a single girl and that I am not married.” I am pushed out of the cell and into the corridor. I beg them one more time. “Please, if you want to kill me, then please ask them to behead me. Allah will reward you. Have mercy on me, please kill me quickly.”
Outside the prison, I see the model of the plane, sitting still, even though its front wheels are ready to take off into the sky, into no man’s land. I wish a miracle would happen and the plane fly away with me.
When I lower my head, I see the officer kneeling down to chain my feet. My tears drop on the ground in front of him. He looks up. I shut my eyes and tilt my head backwards. I exhale hard. I think about Fiore, how much I miss her, how much I want her to be with me, to give me my last hug in this world.
I am loaded into a truck with the two police officers. I am sat down on a metal seat, and I am blindfolded. But I know where I am going, so I lean my head back and wonder what Fiore is doing now, whether she is in her room writing a letter that I will never receive, dreaming about our life together, a fantasy that will soon die with me.
56
I AM STANDING barefoot on smooth warm tiles. Someone takes the blindfold off and I am in a familiar place. Punishment Square. Ahead of me is the shopping mall where Fiore and I first met. I look down and remember the story I heard in school about the Pakistani man from ‘I Am Innocent’ Street. I am innocent like him, I think to myself. Will my blood write those blessed words on the tiles?
The crowd is gathering, forming a circle around me. I look at their hands to see if they are holding stones ready to throw at my face.
I don’t see any.
Just as I am about to give a sigh of relief, I see Abu Faisal storm into the circle. My knees buckle and I plunge to the ground.
I have so much pain inside me. I want someone to hold me, comfort me, to tell me it is all right, that beheading is more merciful and this way it will be quicker. I look to the crowd for that someone. I have so much to say. I want to tell them how I am feeling right now.
But the crowd is oblivious to my sorrow. Some are holding hands and whispering to each other, I see some bending double as they laugh at each other’s jokes, and I see others looking at their watches as if to say, “Come on, get on with it, we need to go soon.”
I bow my head and fight my tears. I don’t want them to hear me or see me cry, because they will never understand. Love is a foreigner in this square.
I raise my head and take a glance at Abu Faisal. He is inches away from me, still looking at the crowd, pumping up his chest. He slowly turns his head towards me. Our eyes meet. I think of his son, my friend.
Abu Faisal must be waiting for the sword. I search for women in the crowd. I see four at the far end to my right. They are wearing the full veil. I look down at their shoes. She is not here.
Suddenly a loud voice beams through the tannoy. I look over my shoulder. It is the announcer. I brace myself.
“We are here, brothers, to witness justice being served against this apostate,” he says. “This man has committed the ultimate sin: fornication. And a man who commits such a shameful felony in the land of Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, must be a man void of a heart, and soul. This man kneeling before us on this wretched ground is nothing but a traitor who sold his religion for lust, a man who substituted praying to be in the arms of a cursed creature, a man who instead of reading the Qur’an, spent his precious time on this earth with a woman, who will insha Allah be his path to hell. And this man refuses to ask Allah’s forgiveness for his crime, kneel before the Almighty and beg His clemency. He lives his life like Satan, who acts as if he has done nothing wrong and lives his days empty of guilt. How can this man face Allah without regret? How can he breathe the air of the Almighty without a hint of remorse? He has deviated from the right path, but our judge has ruled that mercy is not worth a dog like him, and it is our hope that a punishment of a hundred and ninety-nine lashes will bring the fear of Allah into this apostate.”
I break down and weep with happiness. I am not going to die. I am not going to be beheaded. I stand up. I want to snatch the tannoy from the announcer’s hand and shout to Fiore, hoping she will hear me wherever she is. “Habibati,” I want to yell, “I am alive!”
Suddenly I feel the hands of someone ripping my shirt off. I look up. It is Abu Faisal. He is holding a cane. I hear the roar of the crowd cheering at the same time as I feel a swishing sound of the cane landing on my back. Some in the crowd begin to count. Others are shouting, “Hit the apostate harder, may Allah burn him in hell.” I feel warm blood on my back. The cane is stripping into my flesh. But nothing matters any more, because I am thinking about my love, my life. “Now what will happen? What other forms of punishment will they think up? Will they deport me? Will Fiore still love me, even at such a long distance? What will happen to her?”
I collapse.
57
I AM BACK in my cell in the same prison. I cannot stand so I am lying flat on my stomach on my mattress. They just threw me here and left me with nothing. It feels as if someone is pouring boiling liquid on the wounds across my back and bottom. I can only pray that the pain will gradually subside. For now my only remedy is to bite the greasy sheets on my bed.
It is a week since I was flogged in Punishment Square. The wounds are still healing, but I know they will leave great ridges of scars on my back. I can barely sleep, because whenever I try, I keep having nightmares about the Square and Abu Faisal.
I still don’t know what is to happen next, what they will do to me, and whether all this will come to an end. Even Allah seems not to know. My prayers are not answered. My fate is firmly in their hands.
I am on my own in this cell. Mustafa is not here. He was taken away last Friday while I was in Punishment Square. He never told me why he was in prison. I don’t know if he was deported back to Nigeria or taken to the Square as well. I grieve for his absence. I grieve for my love.
I have been refusing their two meals a day. I only eat and drink once a day to have the required strength to think about her, while waiting for whatever they will do to me next.
And all I do in this lonely cell is remember again and again the last time I told her I loved her.
A policeman enters my cell and asks me to stand up.
“Come here,” he says, standing over me. He adjusts his black gun-belt and joins his hands on top of his belly. I stand up.
He points to the exit. He steps backwards and pushes me out.
I shudder when I realise it is Friday. He leads me out as we zigzag our way around other police officers in the corridor. I follow him as if I were his tail.
We go into an office with three tables and a stack of papers and files and he orders me to sit down. He points at the wooden chair. He walks around the table and passes the phone to me. “Here, you have a phone call waiting,” he says. He stands up and leaves the room.
I hold the phone receiver and without understanding I stare at it silently for a while.
“Hello?”
It is Hilal on the line.
“Hilal? Ya Allah, Hilal, I am so happy to hear your voice. What—”
“Listen, Naser. Listen carefully, my friend, I only have a few minutes on the phone. Boy, my heart sank when I saw you running out of the café and I knew your plan had failed.”
“They took me to Punishment Square. They flogged me. I really thought they were going to execute me. What are they going to do to me now?”
“In the name of Allah the merciful, listen. It was my
kafeel who managed to reverse the execution ruling.”
I wipe my tears, thanking Hilal and his kafeel over and over again. “It’s OK, Naser.”
“How can I ever thank you?”
“By being strong. I am sorry about you and Fiore.” He pauses for a second, giving me some time to let his words sink in. “But you will have a lot of time to grieve. Now listen to me. OK? They will deport you to Sudan. You are going to Port Sudan. The religious police raided your flat but I made sure I got there first and took all the letters, the notes and your mother’s portrait to my house. Thank the Lord, you never used her real name.”
“Why are they doing this? Hilal, tell me why? I miss Fiore. How is she, Hilal?”
“Naser, be strong. You took a risk when you went to Jasim. I know you had no other option, but now that you are caught you will be sent away. This is no time to feel sorry for yourself. My wife is here. She met Fiore in Al-Nuzla Street; she knew to look out for her Pink Shoes. My wife told her what happened to you.”
“Are her shoes still lighting up Al-Nuzla Street?”
“Fiore told my wife she doesn’t need them any more.”
I bend over, my arms pressing deep into my belly to stop the pain.
I remember my diary. I ask Hilal about it.
“Yes, I found your diary too, I asked my wife to give it to Fiore together with the notes.”
I drop my head in despair, embarrassed by the secrets from my past described in the diary which Fiore now has. But Hilal is oblivious to my worries.
“Now, pay attention. My brother will wait for you in Port Sudan and take you to our house in the city. It will be your return address for Fiore from now on. Once I get your letters, my wife will take them to Fiore. Please remember that I lived in Jeddah for so many years without seeing my wife. Letters were all we had between us. And letters are sometimes all lovers need. The barrier that separates you from Fiore will crumble into the Red Sea with your words. Because no obstacle is big enough to keep the feelings of lovers apart. And whenever you want to talk to Fiore, walk to the beach of Port Sudan and the waves of the Red Sea will take your message to Fiore. Naser? Naser? Are you listening?”
2008 - The Consequences of Love. Page 25