The Televangelist

by Ibrahim Essa

  He decided to go to the office and open the safe. No, he wouldn’t do that until he had spoken to Sheikh Mukhtar’s mother, but how could he speak to her? Wouldn’t her telephone be under surveillance if something bad had happened to Mukhtar? In fact, surely it was always monitored—if not her phone, then his.

  This fact suddenly stared him in the face. How naive he had been all this time in dismissing it whenever it occurred to him—his own phone was being monitored, without a shadow of a doubt.

  My God! Do they know about the relationship between me and Nashwa? Are they recording my conversations with Nashwa?

  But what was there between him and Nashwa? What had he said in his phone calls? Nothing. So why did he feel there was something between him and Nashwa?

  Before the night was out he would have to swallow one of those pills he had given to Hassan.

  The next morning he didn’t need to get in touch with Mukhtar el-Husseini’s mother because he received a text message from a number his phone didn’t recognize. It was just one line: “Sheikh Mukhtar el-Husseini arrested, charged with leading an Iranian organization promoting Shi’ism in Egypt.” Hatem had already completed his morning rituals, which included waking up late and asking after Hassan. Omayma had told him that Hassan had woken up very early and, according to the cook, had stood by the fridge for an hour eating everything he could find straight out of it. He then went up to his room and when Omayma called him a while later he didn’t answer. She was worried and asked the cook to go upstairs to see if he wanted anything, and the cook told her he was asleep. Hatem was anxious when he heard that Hassan still hadn’t woken up, so he went up to Hassan’s room and found him fast asleep and covered in sweat. He wiped some of the sweat off Hassan’s forehead after checking that he was breathing regularly and audibly, and that he hadn’t died. He shook his shoulder, called his name, first in a whisper and then louder, but Hassan just mumbled in response. Hatem rummaged around for the strip of pills and found it on the pillow. There were three pills missing. He decided it was best to leave Hassan asleep. There would be more to worry about when he woke up.

  Hatem couldn’t bear sitting at home in the anguished state he was in. Omayma clung to him and begged him to stay at home, but he resisted. She had received the same message and when she tried to tell him, she realized that he already knew and she pitied him the way he looked because he was as pale as a ghost and she was worried he might have another nervous breakdown.

  “Please, Hatem, there’s no good reason to go out. Sit here and relax and let your nerves calm down,” she said.

  “I’m going to see my father,” he said, speaking like an angry child.

  “There’s no need for him to see you in such a state, and besides, you have to tell me what this news means. Has Sheikh Mukhtar really gone mad and done such a thing?” asked Omayma.

  His cheeks were soaked in tears and he couldn’t stop crying.

  “They’re bastards, Omayma!” he said.

  She was startled. “Who are they?” she asked.

  “May God punish them. They’ve destroyed the man.”

  “I don’t understand. Do you know anything about what’s going on, Hatem?”

  “What I know is that I’ve grown old and very tired and I haven’t a friend in the world,” said Hatem. “How many years have we been married? More than twenty. Have you ever seen me have a friend? Never. Why am I so alone? Why isn’t there anyone I can speak to and consult, someone who can give me advice and who I can trust and listen to? All these years, Omayma. The people I’ve known best have been people who cozied up to me for work or because it suits their purposes for a month or two, or maybe longer. I remember I was close to Muhsin for about a year and a half, and Sabri for a little under a year, and Sharif who lived in our neighborhood in the old days, you remember him. I meet him about once a year and we’re like lifelong friends, though we can’t have spent more than five hours talking in the past thirty-five years. I’m very much alone, Omayma.”

  With difficulty she had made him sit down and given him a glass of water. He held it in his hand but didn’t take a sip. She was very sympathetic but, more than that, she felt responsible and inquisitive.

  “I’m sorry, Hatem,” she said. “But what does all this have to do with Mukhtar el-Husseini and this terrible thing he’s done?”

  Hatem jumped up.

  “No,” he said, “he hasn’t done anything terrible. It’s just that they’re bastards.”

  “Okay, I get the idea that there are some bastards out there, but what does your loneliness and not having friends in your life have to do with Mukhtar el-Husseini?”

  He looked at her indignantly, as if he had given up on her. “Did I say there was any connection?” he said.

  “But it was you made the link when you said . . .”

  Hatem walked out. She tried but failed to grab him and hold him back.

  On his way to his father’s house he read the message on the screen of his phone again, then again, and then a fourth time. He turned on his iPad and opened up a website. “The office of the public prosecutor,” it said, “has received complaints from lawyers accusing Sheikh Mukhtar el-Husseini of insulting the Companions of the Prophet and Sayeda Aisha, may God be pleased with her, in lectures in various places in Egypt. Investigations revealed that the places were husseiniyas that Sheikh Husseini set up to attract young people to convert to Shi’ism, travel to Iran, stay in the city of Qom, and study Shi’ite jurisprudence under the ayatollahs in Iran.”

  Hatem realized that he hadn’t given much thought to the things that Sheikh Mukhtar had left with him for safekeeping—either to look for them, because he was unsure where he had put them, or to read what was in them and see what they contained. The news made him even less inclined to deal with the contents of Sheikh Mukhtar’s secret cache. What would it be, he wondered. Was it a handwritten letter about his harassment by State Security? But that wasn’t very serious and Mukhtar had already told him the basic story anyway. Or did it go further? Was there something there that Mukhtar would normally reveal only under exceptional circumstances? Or maybe it was conversations, in writing or recorded, with people who were threatening him. Okay, but what did Mukhtar el-Husseini want him to do, he wondered. To publicize it when something bad happened to him? Did Mukhtar think he was brave enough to do that? And who would listen if he did try to publicize it? Maybe the things Mukhtar had given him included details of what he wanted Hatem to do for him, which would at least save Hatem from the temptation to be cowardly.

  He reached the street where their old house stood. In his anger and frustration, he saw the place with new eyes. In the past it had been a poor area, no doubt about it. But it had been clean. It had been simple, but neat and tidy, or at least that’s how he remembered it as he turned into his street, crossed the road, and looked at the houses and the shopfronts. He saw vendors on the pavement, people hanging around and wandering aimlessly about, metal posts with chains between them to reserve parking spaces, dusty, crumbling walls with torn election posters and advertisements, a clash of crude and garish colors, chaos, and a jangle of people shouting over one another, songs coming out of the televisions set up at the entrances to shops, and the sound of the Quran broadcast at high volume from other televisions in adjacent shops. The shopkeepers struggled to compete with each other, but sat together over waterpipes amid the clutter of tea trays from the coffee shops nearby. It was all chaotic and dispiriting. Hatem asked Sirhan to take the car to his own house and stay with his children until Hatem summoned him by phone. He didn’t want anyone to see the car in the street and know that he was at his father’s house. If people found out, uninvited guests would flood the place. He told Sirhan not to tell anyone where he was. He made his way through the crowd of passers-by, hiding his face with the loose end of his turban and with big dark glasses. He hurried in without even saying hello to anyone. His father was surprised when he saw him, then he greeted him and took him into his arms. After a brief hug
, his father pushed him away and said, “What’s up? Is there something wrong?”

  He could tell from Hatem’s appearance and behavior that something was amiss.

  Hatem denied every possibility his father mentioned. His father found it hard to imagine what the problem might be, and his suggestions didn’t go beyond a slight illness or an argument with Omayma. Hatem didn’t understand why, if he was ill, he would have come to see his father. Why wouldn’t he have gone to the hospital or stayed in his own home, which was well equipped for resting? And if he had argued with Omayma, why would he have come to his father’s? His father would only ask him questions and shower him with advice, or his father’s wife would have fun gossiping about him. Hatem insisted he just missed him so he had come to visit and he begged him not to tell anyone so that he could have a little relief from the crush of people and petitioners asking for things.

  “See, didn’t I say you were hiding something?” his father said.

  Hatem smiled. He knew how stubborn the man was getting, now that he was close to ninety.

  “And suppose I did have something to hide from the world. Would I hide it from you, Father?”

  “Of course, a good son like you, or a reclusive one like you, hides his weaknesses or his fears from his father and from his wife.”

  Hatem laughed. “Is that a recognition of reality, or a piece of advice I should follow?” he asked.

  “Your mother, may she rest in peace,” said his father, patting him on the shoulder, “used to say, ‘That boy Hatem keeps his cards close to his chest and you can’t get a secret out of him unless he wants you to know it.’”

  “May she rest in peace.” As he said the words, Hatem half-expected her to come out of the kitchen with a plate of basbousa and hot tea and a fresh story about her niece or her brother-in-law.

  “She worried you didn’t have enough friends. She used to say, ‘Hatem my son is a good boy. He’s funny, he never stops talking, he speaks well, he’s religious, and he has a cheerful face, but nonetheless he doesn’t have any friends.’ Then I’d say, ‘Really woman, don’t be unfair. Half the people in the street are friends of his.’ Then she’d say, ‘They’re all friends like anyone else, but he doesn’t have a real friend. Hatem is friends with himself.’”

  Hatem’s father stretched out on the bed in the inner room, which no one had tried to tidy up for ages. He asked his father about the latest calls from his sisters and their children and was told that the sisters were angry with him because he never called them. Then Hatem announced, “I’m going to take a nap.”

  Perhaps Hatem wanted to be alone with his thoughts, or maybe he didn’t want to rake over old memories. His father left the room muttering something Hatem didn’t understand about something he was going to fetch. Hatem thought it was a cup of tea, for example, so he didn’t pay attention. He was about to put his cell on silent when the screen lit up with a message from a number he didn’t recognize. He read the message. “They’ve arrested your friend, the infidel Shi’ite sheikh,” it said. He was surprised by the harshness of the message. Then he had a call from the same number but he didn’t answer. He let it ring and when it stopped he found a new message from the news service of a well-known newspaper: “Sheikh Mukhtar el-Hussein detained for ten days for questioning in the case of the Shi’ite organization,” it said.

  Had they had time to arrest the man and obtain a detention order? Another message from a news service arrived: “Insults to Companions of the Prophet and attacks on Sayeda Aisha in voice recordings of Mukhtar el-Husseini, the sheikh who adopted Shi’ism, among the evidence in the case of the Shi’ite organization.”

  Hatem’s father came back as Hatem was shutting down his cell phone and putting the iPad next to the bed with his keys, his cell, and his wallet. His father offered him a stack of evening newspapers.

  “I usually buy them for the sports,” he said, “but today I thought you’d definitely want to know about Sheikh Mukhtar. They’ve written two whole pages about him. Is it really possible, Hatem, that he would say such crazy nonsense?”

  He looked at the picture of Sheikh Mukhtar on the front page.

  “Although Mukhtar el-Husseini, the sheikh who adopted Shi’ism, has been arrested and is currently being questioned by State Security prosecutors on charges of contempt for religion and receiving funding from abroad, the accusations against him are still coming in while he is in detention. A group of lawyers has submitted a complaint to the public prosecutor accusing Mukhtar el-Husseini of deliberate contempt for religion, propagated through recordings that include disparagement of the first three caliphs, Abu Bakr, Omar, and Othman, and the rest of the ten who were promised entry to Heaven, and Sayeda Aisha and Sayeda Hafsa. With their complaint the lawyers included copies of CDs of lectures in which Mukhtar el-Husseini made these remarks. Arrested on charges of working against Egypt’s interests by passing on instructions from Iran to Shi’ite cells with the intent of damaging Egypt’s security and economy and doing harm to the Egyptian people, it was only to be expected that he would also exploit religion. One only has to hear these lectures to discover a number of facts, primarily that the tapes prove his links with Iran. Most of the lectures were recorded in husseiniyas in the Iranian city of Qom, considered holy by the Iranians, where they arranged for him a program called The Najaf Pageant, which has taken place for years in the month of Ramadan. Behind him banners can be seen that identify the place where he was lecturing. More importantly, and this was not mentioned in the complaint by the lawyers, there are lessons in which this convert to Shi’ism insulted the Egyptian state and people as well as Egyptian history, an offense no less grave than slandering the Companions and wives of the Prophet. Contrary to reports on some websites that Husseini visited Iran only twice, he in fact visited the country often. After declaring allegiance to the Imam Ali and adopting Shi’ism in the mid-1990s, he started to exploit his Sufi order in Egypt to spread this doctrine. Sources said that when some of the man’s disciples discovered the truth about him, they made statements and gave startling confessions, with details of the mission Mukhtar el-Husseini was carrying out for Iranian intelligence.

  Now Hatem was even more confused and anxious.

  “Was Mukhtar a spy for Iran as well, or just a sheikh who went mad and turned Shi’ite?” his father asked. “And tell me, Hatem, is it true that the Shi’a have a Quran that’s different from our Quran that they call Fatima’s Quran?”

  Hatem pushed the newspapers toward his father. Exhausted and trying to get a grip on himself, he replied, “Father, If a wicked man brings you news, check it carefully.”

  “What do you mean, ‘wicked man’? That’s the public prosecutor’s office and the newspapers and there was an announcement on one station just now about a program tonight about Mukhtar el-Husseini and his Shi’ite organization, and Sheikh Reda el-Masri was speaking about him this morning on the Medina channel, and he said terrible things about him. Why don’t you have a program on the Medina channel? Everyone at our mosque and the whole street watches it. You know, my wife once bought one of the blankets they were advertising on their programs and she was really delighted that they delivered it right to the house, and after that she bought three abayas for the price of one.”

  Hatem’s father then stood up and walked out, after taking the newspapers and putting them under his arm.

  “Sleep a while, Hatem,” he said. “You seem very upset about your friend Mukhtar.”

  “Who told you he was my friend?” Hatem snapped back irritably.

  His father left without answering.

  Hatem couldn’t get to sleep. He had visions of Mukhtar el-Husseini, policemen, Hassan, Mikhail, the president’s son and his wife, and Hassan’s father, all appearing in weird forms that made it hard for him to breathe. Nader Nour turned up with his vulgar stage smile, then Khaled Abu Hadid and Kaaki and Khalil el-Nahhal, and the faces of sheikhs who taught him in his childhood and gave him warnings and punished him and praised him, then a
scene of Omar lying down and going naked into the scanner. The visions filled his sleep with horror and his chest wheezed. He shivered and his whole body began to sweat. He didn’t know if he had really fallen asleep, as his father had advised, or if he was still awake and really seeing these ghostly figures. Had much time passed, or was it just a few seconds and time had stood still for him? He got up and had a drink, then turned the main light on, then turned it off again. Nashwa appeared in front of him and he shivered in surprise. In the half-light, part of her face was in shadow and he was frightened. He stammered but couldn’t speak. He fumbled but couldn’t move, and then she pressed the light switch and made the room light again, and there she was in front of him, looking at him affectionately and flirtatiously.

  Then he realized she was real, not a ghostly figment of his imagination.

  “What brought you here?” he shouted at her. “How did you know where I was? Who let you in? And where’s my father?”

  Before he had finished his father came in with a tray of tea and some homemade, rock-hard biscuits, in honor, he thought, of his guest. His father seemed delighted and puzzled at the same time.