The Televangelist

by Ibrahim Essa

  When Hatem arrived that night Sorour had already started singing, accompanied by the powerful aroma of Moroccan hashish procured especially as a gift for Sorour, so that the circle would be filled with a sound from heaven. Hatem made his way through the melee of onlookers and bodyguards. People who had already taken their seats called him by name. He fumbled to remove his shoes and several people came forward to help him take them off and carry them away. People smiled at him admiringly with languid eyes. The banquet, served by Khaled Abu Hadid’s guards and constituency workers, was laid out in a spacious, circular hall spread with carpets of the kind used in funeral tents. On the walls he noticed calligraphies with verses from the Quran, all of them about patience and gratitude, and on the floor there were low seats arranged in a horseshoe pattern, where Abu Hadid’s guests were seated at tables a few inches off the ground, laden with many kinds of food, especially those rich in fat. People were chomping on large pieces of turkey, and there were roast ducks placed here and there across the tables, along with plates of grilled meat, kebabs, and kofta. The kofta lay in every corner, wherever you looked and wherever your hand happened to land. There were trays of rice with nuts, bowls of mulukhia with chunks of lamb floating in them, plates of taro with veal, and stuffed cabbage, eggplant, vine leaves, and zucchini arranged on top of each other, with a rich gravy oozing out of them. The guests greeted Hatem and Khaled Abu Hadid appeared, staggering like an overweight elephant as he invited him insistently to sit next to Sheikh Fathi, barking orders at his bodyguards, who treated his order as a divine decree. Sheikh Hatem wasn’t as interested in Sheikh Fathi as Sheikh Fathi was in him; in every one of his television appearances Sheikh Fathi criticized Hatem and attacked his opinions. Hatem sat down anyway, welcomed as he yielded to the arms that squeezed him in next to Sheikh Fathi. He saw Mukhtar el-Husseini, the head of a Sufi order, looking at him with a smile, and his heart rejoiced.

  Where have the sheikhs gone, Hatem wondered when he saw the men barefoot around the tables. None of them were wearing caftans or turbans or the kakoula, the splendid gown worn by Azhar graduates. Time seemed to have ridden roughshod over the warm, comfortable attire in favor of this urge to modernize, stripping the clerics of their old appearance and giving them a Westernized modernity—long, bushy beards and Western, twenty-first-century suits on bodies with heads from the twelfth century. Out of them all, only Mukhtar el-Husseini was wearing his white uniform and green turban. He had a kind, childlike, innocent face and a dignified smile, and he was shy and thoughtful, too timid to interrupt or eavesdrop. He wasn’t as gluttonous as the others; in fact he would mutter a little bismillah before reaching out for a piece of food, then chew it carefully before taking another, closing his eyes and relaxing. The ruling party’s members of parliament from the province that included Abu Hadid’s constituency were all in attendance, squeezed in between the sheikhs, reaping the rewards of fame in the form of duck legs and pieces of kofta. In front of him, standing, sitting, jumping up, or scoffing food, there were many police officers and generals in civilian dress, some of whom he recognized because they looked the part and others he had actually met on various occasions. There were also current and former ministers and governors who came to network with other powerful people or because they were tempted by the extravagant hospitality of Abu Hadid, who bought and sold influence with such civility that the offense seemed quite innocent, indeed quite normal. The hot food and the large helpings gave Hatem a lump in the throat, only partially relieved by the sight of Mukhtar el-Husseini, who seemed to be supporting him and encouraging him to bear the unbearable. In fact Hatem felt that the only sympathetic person at the banquet was Mukhtar el-Husseini, who signaled to him that he would like to talk to him in private later.

  “Of course, Sheikh Mukhtar,” Hatem told him. “That would bring me a thousand blessings.”

  “God bless you and preserve you,” Sheikh Mukhtar replied bashfully.

  Hatem then realized that Sheikh Fathi at his side had lost his appetite as soon as he sat next to him. He could hear the hatred in the way Fathi was breathing as he slowly chewed the meat. In response to this hatred, Hatem decided to mobilize his secret reserves and lure Fathi’s snakes from their lairs.

  *

  After all, that’s what he had trained to do as a teenager with the Rifais, the Sufi order that specialized in handling deadly serpents. The old Rifai that was hiding inside him came to the fore. He remembered how it all began—when Sheikh Zein, the head of the order, ran into him at a funeral reception. Hatem gave the funeral oration and the sheikh then summoned him. Hatem stood in front of him, small and insignificant, looking up at a man who seemed to be standing when he was only sitting, and who seemed to be as high as the sky when he stood up. The man had an aura, a radiance, a charisma that was terrifying, especially to someone like Hatem, who felt as if he had received an unchallengeable summons from a sovereign lord.

  “What’s your name, son?” the sheikh asked.

  “Hatem el-Shenawi.”

  “Fifteen, sixteen years?” he asked with a smile.

  “Fourteeen and four months,” Hatem answered firmly.

  Sheikh Zein laughed.

  “And have you had time to learn the meaning of life, so that you can explain to us the meaning of death, my boy?” he asked.

  The question took Hatem by surprise. He acted dumb and replied:

  “I based my oration on God’s book and the commentaries on it and the practice of the Prophet, may God grant peace and honor on him and his family and all his Companions and those who came after them and do good deeds till the Day of Judgment.”

  The sheikh made a sign as if some secret had just been revealed to him.

  “My boy, parroting is one thing and knowing is something else. Learning is one thing and divine inspiration is something else.”

  It was rather mysterious.

  But then he added, “You’re in the fourth year at an Azhar institute, aren’t you?”

  “That’s right!” Hatem said, amazed at the man’s accuracy.

  “Tell your father that for the month of Ramadan, which starts in two nights, you’ll be traveling with Sheikh Zein of the Rifais, celebrating Ramadan by fasting in the expectation of reward in the afterlife. And come quickly,” the sheikh added.

  Hatem tried to hold him back as he walked off.

  “But my father won’t agree, and besides I don’t want to go,” he said.

  “You’re coming, my boy,” he said without even taking the trouble to look back.

  He did in fact spend a month on the desert fringes of Cairo and some days with the sheikh in his mansion. He remembered the Rifai spell:

  “I entreat you, you that dwell in this place—snake, scorpion, or serpent—come flying to me by order of the Merciful One. If you disobey you will die at the wishes of the Living One that never dies.”

  Hatem remembered the boy standing in front of Sheikh Zein in that house in the center of the terrified village that had been attacked by snakes some days earlier. The people were so frightened that they had abandoned the village and summoned the Rifais. Sheikh Zein decided to bring along three young men from the order, including Hatem, who watched in silence. When Hatem panicked the sheikh grabbed his collarbone between the thumb and the index finger of his rough hand until he calmed down despite the pain.

  “This isn’t magic,” the sheikh had said. “These are not spells, or even baraka. This is a science, a skill. Don’t rely on things you’ve been taught; learn from what makes sense. Don’t believe what you see; see what you believe. Even though you’re not going to be one of us, I’m telling you this, Hatem, because I feel like you’re my lost son and a sheikh who will acquire learning but will find it hard to bear the consequences of your learning. Treat this as a summer trip, or an expense-paid month of Ramadan events allowing you to make some money along with the Quran readers. But the most precious thing you’ll earn is the science of subjecting the miraculous to the inquiring mind, a training that m
ight be useful to you, because this is how the Rifais lure snakes from their lairs calmly and submissively and how they persuade beasts to surrender. As soon as they show their heads, make them feel safe. There’s no more effective weapon than making your enemies feel safe when they surrender.

  “O God, with a talisman in the name of God the Merciful the Compassionate, remove the black bile that lurks in the hearts of our enemies and Your enemies. May the might of Your hand cut off the heads of the unjust with the swords of Nimshaq. Protect us with Your powerful amulets against their feeble gaze.

  “Now talismans are for ordinary people, Hatem, but reason is for the elite. The Rifai is courageous, bold in his knowledge of all kinds of snakes. He has studied them and understands their strong points and weak points and their poison and its antidote. It’s training, experience, clear thinking, and courage.”

  A little later Sheikh Zein decided to try him out with some new boys. They went to lure out some snakes and Hatem led them. It was the first and last time that Hatem failed at this task. When the first snake came out, one of the other Rifais had to step in to save Hatem, and then Hatem panicked and grabbed a big stick that was lying around the house and with the violence of a frightened man hit another snake that had eluded him. Then he threw away the stick and jumped in panic, and one of his companions lifted him up over his shoulder and quickly took him out of the house so that they could finish off the assignment. They told Sheikh Zein that Hatem had failed miserably and he hung his head in shame and trembled with fear. Sheikh Zein had laughed and told him that people who preach about death shouldn’t wet their pants for fear of dying.

  Hatem left when the sheikh dismissed him. He asked Hatem to pass by whenever he could, as if politely saying he was free to leave. Hatem avoided mentioning the Rifais for years, and maybe that was why the sheikh’s ghost haunted him day and night.

  Hatem was watching the guzzling that was going on in front of him, thinking back to those nights he had spent as a young Quran reader going to funerals with the other readers. The accusation that sheikhs had voracious appetites and could be bought with food still bothered him. In spite of his renown he still felt a dispiriting embarrassment whenever he met someone who boasted that he had known him long ago. Hatem would try to ignore him but sometimes the admirer would stick to him, proud that he had seen him and met him twenty or twenty-five years ago.

  “Remember, Mawlana, when you were with Sheikh Abdel-Moneim el-Salmawi in Hadayek Helwan? You remember the house that was behind the old train station? There was a funeral tent there when my mother died, and you were speaking and you were so young and people were saying, ‘Look how young that Azhar boy is, but his funeral oration is so good that people break down in tears and ask him to repeat it.’”

  Hatem listened to this hasty outpouring without embarrassment, from a man who clearly relished the memory even if it was of the death of his mother. Hatem’s presence in the funeral tent was enough to make his mother’s death an occasion that brought back joy rather than sadness. But Hatem knew these orations by heart. Like everything else he had memorized, he could repeat them word for word in his sleep or even if he was lying drugged on an operating table. There was an area in his brain that controlled this rare gift for memorizing things rapidly, accurately, and permanently. Maybe he had a disease that he didn’t understand and this gift was one of its effects.

  He had been going to those events with Sheikh el-Salamawi, who discovered that Hatem could win the admiration of the mourners and would serve as an advertisement for Salamawi himself, ensuring the sheikh would be hired for other events. But whenever anyone mentioned one of those funerals Hatem felt embarrassed for Salamawi and other Quran readers because people made fun of them for their massive appetites. He was the only one who realized this, but he kept quiet. He had found it hard to eat at the homes of other people or in front of other people ever since someone called him ‘the fat Quran reader who only thinks of his stomach’ and he overheard the people of the house and those organizing the funeral giving instructions that the sheikhs get their dinner, with words such as: “Boy, give the sheikhs plenty of fat,” “Now here’s a hunk of fat worthy of your mouth, Mawlana,” or “We want to see some meat in front of our sheikhs.” Salamawi, as everyone knew, was blind, so Hatem stuck close to him in his comings and goings, and people saw them as father and son, especially as they both had the same fair complexion. Although when it came to their faces, Salamawi’s unnecessarily large black glasses made it impossible to make a comparison.

  All this talk about greedy sheikhs was an affront to Hatem’s adolescent sensibilities, coming as he did from a middle-class home, the kind too embarrassed to talk openly about greed and that saw appetite as a private matter. He grew more and more reluctant to eat in front of strangers, and the relatives of the dead person took this as an insult. The only thing that would dispel this notion was for Salamawi and the other sheikhs to gorge themselves on all the meat and fat. From going around with them and becoming friends with them he realized there was some justification for the jokes that had long been made about the sheikhs’ obsession with food.

  People didn’t understand the extent to which the responsibility of reciting the Quran created a suspense that ate away at the nerves. Some people thought it was an easy profession, and that the readers just switched off and recited automatically, but most readers were driven to perform really well in order to win admiration and applause, to maintain their livelihoods and make sure they received regular invitations to recite. On top of that, the field was highly competitive, which created tension. Most importantly, these sheikhs operated in a zone of conflict between the religious and the worldly, between the divine and the human. They recited the Quran, but at the same time they had human weaknesses, they were trying to make a living and they were tempted to seek popular rather than divine approval. One moment they were reciting the word of God, and a moment later they would have to talk about the things of the lower world, where people haggled and things were complicated. Hatem had of course come across men who smoked hashish between recitals to make their voices resonate. This conflict led to a schizophrenic attitude, which led to food, because a large appetite was the body’s response when a sheikh came down from the chair where he recited God’s word to where he sat on earth. He also had to take on fuel to replace the nervous energy consumed in the quest to perform well and in trying to find a balance between the voice that carried God’s words and the instincts that carried worldly desires. If most of the Quran readers accused of being gluttonous sheikhs were blind, then it was a pleasure that made up for other pleasures. Hatem hadn’t forgotten that these sheikhs would travel long distances for these funerals, and travel is tiring and makes you hungry. After the travel and the work and the nervous tension, food was a relief and a reward for their efforts, so they would eat. Because many of them were blind they didn’t bother about the niceties of how they ate, so they were messy and people misunderstood the nature of their interest in eating at funerals.

  They were seated in the air-conditioned hall, with gold-colored sofas and chairs with carved wooden backs and cotton cushions with covers of the same color. Khaled Abu Hadid called it the Golden Hall. It was the kind of room that would be the pride of someone who has bad taste and is proud of it. The place radiated vulgar luxury on the part of a man who claimed that these gatherings were solely for the sake of God. With this in mind, Hatem pulled Khaled by his fat hand and installed him in a corner of the hall. People were coming in noisily and sitting down, some of them belching after the rich feast.

  “Do you really think, Khaled Pasha, that God will believe you arranged all this to please Him?” Hatem joked. “If you want to please God you have to invite all these frauds to dinner?”

  Khaled Abu Hadid laughed, buried his chin in his chest, punched Hatem in the side, then linked Hatem’s arm under his own and dragged him off toward Sheikh Fathi, who was holding court in another part of the hall, on the alert against any sudden arriva
l that would undermine his ability to maintain his hatred for Hatem el-Shenawi. But Sheikh Fathi didn’t intend to make this wish clear because it would undo the hard work he had put into projecting an air of solemnity.

  “Help, Sheikh Fathi,” said Khaled Abu Hadid, “Sheikh Hatem is casting doubt on my love for religious scholars.”

  “Sheikh Fathi thinks I’m basically a scholar of dreams and so I don’t count,” interjected Hatem, referring to his early work interpreting dreams.

  “Do you really think that, Mawlana?” asked Khaled, probing to find out what was behind Fathi’s quarrel with Hatem.

  Now everyone was gathered in the hall on the sofas and chairs. They had taken off their shoes and were resting their feet on the thick carpets, taking cups of coffee or tea of various kinds, including mint or anise, from the trays brought around by Abu Hadid’s waiters. They were too busy to notice Khaled Abu Hadid stirring up trouble between Fathi and Hatem. But Hatem did catch sight of Mukhtar el-Husseini following the situation with a smile and a trace of sympathy for Hatem as he negotiated the hazards and pitfalls of the reception. Khaled apparently wanted to see sparks fly between the sheikhs in front of the other guests. There were some members of parliament from the ruling party, who formed a circle in which they had brief conversations and exchanged snippets of information, then some of the police generals in charge of security in the province, linked to Abu Hadid by interests, influence, and money paid in the expectation of future favors. Whenever he made eye contact with the generals or approached them, he called on the sheikhs to listen.