by Ibrahim Essa
“You’re welcome, young lady. Please help yourself,” he said.
As she took the tray from him, Hatem yelled at him.
“How could you let her into the bedroom?” he asked.
His father laughed, in complicity with Nashwa.
“My dear sheikh, this is Nashwa,” he said. “How could I stop her?”
Hatem was surprised but gave in and looked at Nashwa.
“Do you know her?” he asked his father.
“She’s a good girl. She’s religious and she has a will of her own. She visited me a few days ago and said she was a television producer and was making a program about you and collecting information about your childhood and your family.”
Nashwa finally spoke. “And I sat with your father and we chatted and drank coffee, and after that we cooked lunch, me and your stepmother, and I made some zucchini with bechamel sauce, and rice with vermicelli. Then we had another cup of tea and we bought some dessert from Mungi at the end of the street.”
“So where’s my stepmother?” Hatem asked his father as he was leaving the room.
“She’s visiting a relative in the kidney unit in Mansoura and she should be back tonight.”
He turned to Nashwa irritably.
“So what brought you here?” he asked.
“I was worried,” she whispered.
He tensed and hesitated. He didn’t get off the bed. “Worried what might happen to who?” he asked.
He noticed the powder on her cheeks, the kohl around her eyes, and her lipstick.
“Worried about you,” she whispered, flirtatiously this time. “And the story of Sheikh Mukhtar,” she added.
“What’s Mukhtar got to do with me?” he asked, so frightened now that he could hardly put a sentence together and get the words out of his mouth in the right order.
She had been standing in front of him, watching him with interest, but now she sat on the edge of the bed.
“First, you like him. Second, you’re shocked at what’s happened to him. Third, you’re worried about your reputation in case your name comes up as one of his fans. Fourth, you don’t believe a single word that’s being said about him, and by the way I heard there are six or seven programs on the satellite channels this evening all devoted to his case, and they say they have recordings of him that they’ll play.”
Hatem was frightened for reasons that he couldn’t explain.
“How do you know all this?” he asked. “And by the way, no one knows I’m here in my father’s house, so how did you know to come here?”
“I’m very interested in you,” she said with a smile, trying hard to appear sympathetic. “I told you I was an admirer of yours, so why wouldn’t I know what’s upsetting you? But if Sheikh Mukhtar really has turned Shi’ite and said these things about the Companions and wives of the prophet, and insulted them in this horrible way, why should you feel sorry or sad for him? But if you’re worried about being associated with him, then why don’t you go on television tonight and give him hell? That way you can dissociate yourself from him and stop anyone suspecting you.”
He looked at her in silence, surprised, and even warmed to her suggestion for a moment. His face relaxed and she looked back at him mischievously. When she stood up and went to the door, he could see her from behind. Her clothes were close-fitting compared with the loose clothes she had worn before. He could make out the shape of her body, and his body thrilled with desire for her. She pulled the key out of the keyhole on the outside, then closed the door again and put the key back in the keyhole on the inside. She double-locked it, turned, and leaned back against the door.
“By the way, I spoke to Sirhan and found out from him that you were here,” she said.
She took a step forward from the door, raised her hand, set her fingers to work undoing the knot on her hijab, then let down her hair in all its brown softness. She looked perfect and he would do anything for her. But he didn’t know what to do so he just lay there waiting for her to act.
She went to the chair opposite where he was lying. She sat down, crossed her legs and started to take off her shoes, looking at him seductively, as if she were testing his capacity to resist. She took off a long sock and bared her thigh. She threw the sock toward him and it fell on the floor before reaching him. Then she took off her other sock, raising her smooth and slender leg and baring her other thigh and her knee, then her calf and her foot. He was transfixed, on fire with lust for her. Then her fingers unbuttoned her blouse down to her cleavage and the swell of her breasts. She jumped onto the bed on top of him, embraced him, and kissed him in a frenzy of passion. Within seconds Hatem was spent, overwhelmed by the thrill.
HATEM SAT ALONE IN A large cold room with almost no furniture. There was a small sofa that could seat only two people, if they were thin, and then a small wooden desk in the far corner of the room under a closed window covered by a curtain of some pale color. The walls had no paintings or photographs, and their dusty white color completed the iciness of the place. The ceiling was so low that it almost touched his head when he went in. A man of coarse features with a scowl had accompanied him to the door of the room, then opened it and let him in, then shut the door, apparently without recognizing that he was a sheikh or well known. He showed no signs of reverence or respect. He didn’t ask him what he would like to drink or tell him when Brigadier Ahmed el-Faisal would arrive. Hatem’s head was full of thoughts about the possible outcomes. He knew he was in a trap. His stomach had been groaning like a millstone since he received the phone call from the brigadier while on his way home. He had been busy thinking about other things when his phone rang and Brigadier Faisal’s name appeared on the screen. It was a bad sign.
“Why don’t you drop in for half an hour, Mawlana, and let’s have a coffee together?” the brigadier said.
Hatem found it hard to get the words out of his throat.
“It would be an honor, brigadier,” he said.
“You’re close by, aren’t you?” Faisal said quickly.
“To tell you the truth, I’m close to home.”
“We’re next to your house, Mawlana. Don’t you go past the State Security building every day on your way to the highway?”
Hatem tried to relax.
“To tell you the truth, I recite the first chapter of the Quran every time I go past the place,” he said with a laugh.
“Why? We’re not dead yet, I hope,” replied the brigadier with a tense laugh.
Hatem shuddered at his bad joke.
“I recite it for the policemen who’ve been killed in the line of duty, brigadier,” he said.
Ahmed el-Faisal gave a loud guffaw.
“Okay, come and see us now so we can say a funeral prayer for them together,” he added.
“Will it take long?”
The brigadier raised his voice, giving the impression he was running out of patience. “What’s wrong, Sheikh Hatem? Sounds like you’re up to something. We’ll be expecting you,” he said.
“I’m on my way, brigadier.”
“I’ll leave word at the gate.”
He hung up and Hatem stared into the car window. Sirhan brought him around with a question: “Shall we carry on or turn back?”
He didn’t wait for an answer, or else he took Hatem’s silence for an answer, and turned the car around.
Alone in the cold room Hatem thought back to the strange events of the afternoon with Nashwa at his father’s house. She had completely disarmed him, overwhelmed him with her beauty and her sexuality. She made him feel alive again and reached parts of him that had gone numb with time. He could hardly believe that he was the man whose body had pressed against Nashwa’s as she kissed his face and brought him to climax. Then Nashwa lay on her back beside him, with signs of regret and guilt on her face. She gathered her hair behind her back, and stared at her toes, subdued and silent. Then she ran to pick up her clothes and went back to being the committed puritan, as if their encounter had had no effect on her and he hadn’
t made her feel anything comparable to what she had stirred in him.
He was disappointed with himself but didn’t think badly of her for it. He was dizzy with remorseful questions and, although he felt guilty, he didn’t know where the feeling came from. With the mental agility of a trained sheikh, he very soon decided that what he had done didn’t count as a cardinal sin. He said there was no need for him to be harsh on himself because he hadn’t technically committed fornication. That would require that he ejaculate inside her. It didn’t trouble him that what he had done was haram. It’s true that he couldn’t think of a legal ruse that would legitimize what he had done but he knew that, if he thought hard enough, he would find one. But he didn’t need to because it had all happened in secret and only God knew about it, and Hatem el-Shenawi’s arguments wouldn’t wash with God. This act was one of many acts, and in the end they would all be added up and if the balance was good, then fine, and if the balance was evil, then that would be bad. But he was interested in how Nashwa saw him and, strangely, not so much with the way he saw her. Her innocence didn’t bother him, although he had a feeling deep down that she had planned this. It made him feel worthless to think about what her opinion of him would be now, when he had yielded to her seduction, when he was supposedly the virtuous sheikh. Was she disappointed in him? Had she expected him to act like Joseph, resisting the advances of Potiphar’s wife? He couldn’t explain why she had locked the door when Hatem’s father seemed trusting or out of the picture, or maybe his father’s indifference was part of a test God had set for Hatem.
The encounter didn’t last long. What annoyed him most as a man was that he had reached orgasm too soon, even if he had a good reason. The months of abstinence had been more than a man could stand, and the unexpected physical contact and the sudden surge of desire was an excuse that satisfied his male pride, but it would tarnish his image in the eyes of a female, however much she might have desired him. The fact that she wanted him might have left her more disappointed, even if he had felt that she did reach orgasm with him. She slipped away to the chair facing the bed, moved her bag aside, and sat down. She had put her hijab back on and had buttoned up her blouse over her cleavage. Without a word she put her socks back on with strange precision. She put on her shoes and headed for the door. She turned the key in the lock and then bizarrely put the key back in the keyhole on the outside as if she wanted to eliminate every trace of the encounter.
“Goodbye,” she said in a hushed whisper.
Hatem thought the word ‘goodbye’ wasn’t exactly in keeping with what had happened a few minutes earlier, but maybe she meant to convey that nothing had happened. And had anything really happened? A young woman had seduced a sheikh that she liked, compromising her religious convictions—extremist, puritanical convictions that were highly restrictive spiritually and intellectually. In the sheikh she had found someone to hold her tight, someone who would meet her physical desires instantly without disapproval or lectures on morality.
He was more surprised at himself. She had ceased to surprise him some time ago. How could it be that, after this shocking incident, which might spell ruin for him, he was worried he might have disappointed her by failing to live up to his religious commitments, or maybe by not being virile enough? Although the encounter had taken place in secret, he was fearful of a scandal and anxious that news of it might reach Omayma’s ears.He was terrified that Nashwa might say something that destroyed his reputation.
In the midst of all this, Hatem received the call from Brigadier Ahmed el-Faisal. The call took him back to the case of Sheikh Mukhtar el-Husseini, the center of attention in a massive song and dance on television stations determined to defame the man and destroy his career, his name, and his family in an evil, vulgar way. His stolen pleasure with Nashwa had distracted Hatem from thinking about Sheikh Mukhtar, despite the excerpts he had seen on television programs and the pictures of Sheikh Mukhtar published on the websites, which had launched a barrage of venom against him, and despite what he had picked up from telephone calls and text messages. One of the calls was from Khaled Abu Hadid, imploring Hatem to dissociate himself from Sheikh Mukhtar and denying that he had even invited him to any of his banquets. There was also a mysterious message from Nader Nour saying, “We have to do something.” Hatem didn’t know what—something to save the man, or something to attack the man and wash our hands of him?
Nashwa had made him forget the serious consequences he should expect if they found out that Sheikh Mukhtar had visited him and left those things in his care, or if they heard that Mukhtar had confided his grievances in Hatem, and apparently in him alone, apart from God, or if they found out about the phone calls with Mukhtar’s mother, who was distraught at her son’s disappearance. The phone call from the State Security man put him back at the epicenter of the earthquake. He reached the gate and was let through after they checked his identity. Sirhan was told to drop Hatem off at the entrance to the building, then drive out and park outside. The procedure showed the mean side of the place, which Hatem had visited before as an honored guest, received by several officers who seemed to be protocol people. This time, very late in the evening, he was escorted upstairs by some lowly creature who took his cell phones from him and handed him over to a thuggish-looking man. He then found himself in the bare room, unaware that he would be staring at the ceiling till the morning of the next day.
After a humiliating one-hour wait, Hatem had tried to do something. He went to the door and tried to open it but found it was locked.
He called quietly, “Hey brother, hey sir . . .”
No one answered and he heard no reaction of any kind, so he did the only thing he could do: He went back and sat on the sofa, mulling the damage to his pride. As time passed he realized they were sending him a message: You’re nothing, ignored, thrown in a room where no one asks after you. Should he take the message on board and submit passively to any demand they made or any order they gave, or should he hold his ground and refuse to surrender to their injustice and bad manners, or should he ignore it and forget all about it?
It was a test of his strength and he faced the test alone. When all the razzmatazz comes to an end and you lose their respect and your prestige and your value in their eyes, then you lose your own sense of importance and your self-esteem. You derive your value from them and not from yourself, from outside yourself and not from inside. Apparently we are not respected because of the way we are, but because certain parties, be it family, the audience, or the state, see us that way. This was a good opportunity for him to find out what he really thought of himself—thrown here, neglected, his dignity crushed in a room that was designed to humiliate. The room could do its work without words or confrontations or interrogations to extract his full confession. It would show whether he was a man who could stand his ground against cruelty and intimidation, or whether he was worthless, too meek to resist.
He stood up once again and banged on the door, but all that came back was the echo of his impatient banging. He walked around the room in a futile attempt to vent his frustration. He took off his gown and put it on the sofa and stretched out his legs in an attempt to relax that rapidly failed. He got up and went to the little desk in the corner of the room and started to look through the drawers but they were completely empty and he was angry. He moved the desk a few feet and found that it was light and of such poor quality that it almost fell over with one firm push. He felt cold so he looked up at the single small window, set as high as possible in the wall facing the door. He couldn’t work out if it was open or closed. Was the cold coming through the window or was it seeping through the walls, he wondered.
The day they detained him with the young Christian converts in the security headquarters it was a ruse that he went along with. But this time the trap was well and truly set for him. It was obviously meant to humiliate him and the only reason to hold him all these hours was the Mukhtar el-Husseini case. He was convinced it was about Mukhtar. What else could it be?
/> Deep down inside he whispered to himself that maybe Mukhtar had come across something secret about Hatem that Hatem wasn’t even aware of. The fact that Mukhtar had singled out Hatem to air his grievances to, had left those things with him, and had asked him to take care of his mother could only mean that Hatem was strong and worthy of Mukhtar’s trust. Or maybe it meant that Hatem was naive and blindfolded, if not blind, Hatem thought. “And whatever happened to Mukhtar’s wife? Did he manage to get her out of the country? Had she disappeared, was she in hiding or in detention, or had she withdrawn from the scene?” he wondered out loud.
He sat cross-legged on the sofa and nodded his head back and forth muttering traditional prayers that he had often recited off the top of his head. Now they were helping him calm down, reminding him of the supreme power, Almighty God, as he asked for His help. He didn’t think himself worthy of His grace, but if God is entitled to give His grace to anyone he pleases, then He won’t deny it even to those who don’t deserve it. Hatem wasn’t asking for justice because he didn’t think that justice would be in his interest: he was asking for mercy. He began to speak louder as he recited, saying aloud hadiths about the special powers of certain chapters of the Quran, although he knew they were falsely attributed to the Prophet. In the time of the Prophet the chapters themselves were not yet complete, so any given chapter could not have special powers that had been tested and endorsed by the Prophet. These were hadiths designed to encourage people to read the Quran and to resort to God in times of distress or crisis. The intention was good but the words they put in the Prophet’s mouth were false. But he didn’t stop repeating these hadiths because he had noticed over the years that they gave people peace of mind, so it wasn’t a priority for him to tell the truth about such things if a little untruth did no harm.
He began reciting the Quran in the room, starting with the first verses of the Cow chapter, then jumping forward impatiently to the Cave chapter, which he muttered in a whisper. When he reached the verse that goes: “We shall now narrate to you their story, in truth. They were young men who believed in their Lord, and we gave them additional guidance,” he began to recite it aloud in the traditional style of formal Quran recitals, bringing back old memories of when he used to recite in funeral tents in front of hundreds of people, who trembled at his voice. Then he addressed those around him and those detaining him in a resonant voice from deep in his chest through the verse: “And we strengthened their hearts when they stood up and said, ‘Our Lord, Lord of the Heavens and the Earth, we will not call on any god but Him, for if we did, we would have transgressed.’” Then, as if it were an act of defiance and his response to all the questions he hadn’t yet been asked, he recited the next verse: “These our people have adopted gods other than Him, though they don’t show any clear evidence for them. Who is more wicked than those who speak falsehood about God?” He recited it according to the best-known of the seven possible readings of the verse, the reading that Hafs learned from Assem, who learned it from Warsh, who learned it from Nafie. He got to the verse “And confine yourself to those who call upon their Lord, morning and evening, seeking His face. Let not your eyes wander beyond them, seeking the luxuries of the present life. And do not obey him whose heart We have caused to forget Us and who has followed his whims. He has gone too far.” He imitated the performance of Sheikh Mohamed Rifaat, then repeated it in the style of Mustafa Ismail, then in the style of Minshawi, then repeated the last sentence of the verse: “And do not obey him whose heart We have caused to forget Us and who has followed his whims. He has gone too far.” He echoed, in all their various styles, Mahmoud el-Husari, Abul-Enein Shuaysha, Taha el-Feshni, and Abdel-Samad, and then he recited: “The Book shall be laid out, and you will see sinners afraid of what is in it. They shall say, ‘Alas for us! What is it with this Book? It doesn’t miss anything, big or small. It records it all.’ They shall find their deeds listed and your Lord will wrong no one.” When he got to this verse he felt he was detached from where he was and hovering in the air far from the room. He had broken free from his detention cell and was dreaming of the streets around the Citadel, the alleys of Gamaliya, the Sufi processions, the declarations of divine love for the family of the Prophet, the sound of the sunset call to prayer at home in Ramadan, the pilgrims running between al-Safa and al-Marwa as if chasing Hagar, who was carrying Ismail and looking for a drop of water to quench their thirst. “Your Lord will wrong no one.” He recited in the voices of all the sheikhs he had heard and all the styles he had learned and hadn’t learned. “Your Lord will wrong no one.” He repeated it until he felt that it filled every inch of the room and until he suddenly noticed movement outside the door. He froze to listen, got down off the sofa, and moved toward the door. He put his ear to the door, then knocked, in the hope it might provoke a reaction from whoever was moving behind the door, but he heard nothing.