Infidels

by Abdellah Taïa

  It was like an interlude in a dream. A book of legends, a single legend.

  Fate decreed I would play a role in the life of this woman on her way to another world.

  A woman at the end of a cycle of her life on earth.

  I chose nothing. I was driven. Guided.

  I found another kind of love. Part of a new spirituality, Islam.

  I even prayed. Five times a day. Like a good Muslim. A pious devotee.

  It was good exercise.

  I liked it. I enjoyed the daily cleanliness of the precepts of Islam. Slima taught me how to do my ablutions properly before each prayer. She helped me memorize the verses from the Koran to say during prayer. Showed me how to bend, stand up, kneel. What to begin with. What to end with.

  She had all that in her. Muslim prayer. Very early in the morning. At noon, just before lunch. In the middle of the afternoon. At sunset. When the night was completely black.

  I saw her do it. Out of love, I imitated her. Accompanied her. I went to the mosque with her once a week.

  After just a month, the gymnastics of Muslim prayer held no more secrets for me and, miracle of miracles, did me as much good as they did her. A world of good. Like going to the pool every day when I was a teenager. It was the same kind of state. The same feeling. The same effect, physical and mental. A glow of happiness. Of euphoria. The mind calm and light. A white cloud in the blue sky after rain.

  Soon, an addiction.

  Especially for her. More and more, for her.

  I always divided my time between Jeddah and Cairo.

  Every time, on my return, Slima took me deep into spirituality, into love through God.

  Of course, none of this was totally free of contradiction or strange behavior on the part of Slima. Her gestures were sometimes bizarre. She often uttered high-pitched cries. But I couldn’t help but see that she was genuinely inspired, inhabited by forces greater than her.

  “We’ll learn to love God, Mouad, to find Him again inside us. To do that, all I have are words in Arabic, the teachings of Islam. We’ll use them. But we won’t let ourselves become locked inside them. We’ll find an answer in them. Or not. Of peace. Or not. But one thing is certain, we’ll raise ourselves through our minds and bodies. Reach the sky. Swim in the sky. We’re just like other Muslims but not quite like them. Only you and I know it. We will reinvent the religion, use it to question our relationship with the world and other people, with God, again and again. I don’t want to force you. I don’t want you to judge me. My life, this first life, is ending. The end is very near. I’ve found a path. I hear the voice. I’m answering the call. I can’t do otherwise. I am a body. And not only a body. I’ve suffered too much. I’m not ashamed of my past. I don’t deny my past. I stay on the same path, nothing more. Like my mother Saâdia, who adopted me in the mausoleum of the saint of Rhamna. In my own way but like her, too.

  You said your name, Mouad, and I knew the time had come. That I had no time left.

  Through you, Mouad, the Mystery is revealed to me.

  I have only the words of Islam to help me reach the next stage, grasp its meaning, progress, listen. Love. Love.

  I love you, Mouad. Do you believe me?

  I love you, Mouad. You are my savior, my last road.

  I love you and, through you, I love Him.

  I believe. Finally, I believe.

  I don’t want to close my eyes anymore. I have the truth between my hands, in my heart. I can no longer turn my head away, pretend.

  My body is His.

  My soul is His.

  He’s there. Where you came from. Jeddah. Mecca. The desert.

  I’m not Muslim.

  I’m not only Muslim.

  And I don’t know what you are. Or why you’re following me. Or rather, if. This must be love. Truly love.

  Love.

  Do you hear me, Mouad? Do you understand? I don’t deny anything. I deny nothing. I’m going to Him. I’m close to Him. Darkness doesn’t scare me anymore. Earth isn’t my only home now, my only garden. Other places are being revealed. Other earths. Other nights.

  The Door opens, a little at a time. A puff of air comes in. The hour of meeting is near.

  I have to go into that desert. Walk in His footsteps. I know exactly where I’ll find them.

  I have a vision.

  I see. I see.

  I won’t leave alone.

  I’ll leave a mark on this earth. A memory. Legacy. Son. Jallal.

  Hold my hand, Mouad. I’m trembling.

  He is real, he is real. Beyond the Red Sea I must go.

  I see myself naked.

  I’m not wearing anything.

  The veils and masks I was forced to wear all my life are of no use anymore.

  I’m not crazy. I know you know that. You come from far away, from another world, another culture, other customs. But you’re like me, a human being. A human being.

  You are my brother. I’m your sister. I live again. I am reborn. I’m leaving. I’m changing. For your eyes, your desire, your enthusiasm, your sex, your skin, your smell, your mystery. Your silence. God who is in you.

  God who is in you.”

  I was only a servant in this story. The story of Slima. A passenger. A sidekick.

  I learned, too. So much. About myself. Learned to find myself again. Hang in the air. Let go.

  I helped her, Slima. Of course. I had to.

  We went to Mecca, as she wished.

  It was at the end of the two years we’d spent in Cairo.

  We walked for two months in the desert of Mecca.

  We started with the lesser pilgrimage, Al-Umrah.

  We found an instructor there who showed us the way. How to circle the Kaibab. What to say. Where to rest, to sleep. Where to meet God and His prophet.

  These very complicated rites of the first two days are impossible without a guide. On the third day, he said:

  “You don’t need me anymore. God will guide you. Go in purity. He is there. There. And there. Walk. Fly. Sleep. Breathe. Look. Lie down. Close your eyes. He is there. Everywhere. You’ll see. You see Him already. You are right before His door.”

  In this man Slima had found a brother who spoke the same language.

  I didn’t understand everything. I was overwhelmed the entire time. Witnessing it all brought tears to my eyes. There before me, in Mecca, was all of humanity immersed in its most essential actions, searching for God, finding Him, speaking to Him, living and dying in Him day and night.

  That astonishing spectacle, that immense fervor, connected me with a being deeply rooted inside me, whom I’d never even met.

  I didn’t understand what was happening to me.

  I clung to Slima. She gave me her hand. She reminded me of what I had to say, the prayers and phrases to recite.

  We entered into God together.

  At that moment, yes, I was Muslim. Mouad. A Muslim surrounded by other Muslims. Muslim, and in another time.

  Slima repeatedly fainted. To meet God in the blazing heat of Mecca, you have to be in good health, quickly acquire the knack of endurance. Know how to make your way through a very pious and sometimes very aggressive crowd. And most of all, avoid asceticism. That wasn’t Slima’s case. Long before Mecca, she’d decided to eat less. Food no longer interested her. Close to God, she consumed nothing but fruit juice. And constantly, the very cold water of the sacred well of Zamzam. It was cleansing her from the inside, she said, washing her heart, softening and soothing her. Changing her. Preparing her ever more.

  Losing weight allows the soul to rise more quickly to God. It’s a question of physics, of chemistry.

  Slima was not wrong.

  I followed her lead even in diet. I stopped eating. Like her, I shed weight day after day.

  But I kept up my strength enough to ta
ke her in my arms when she fainted, eyes open.

  In them I saw where she was going, rising. To the future. Hunger, God, and ecstasy.

  My love for Slima greatly changed on that trip.

  My love took on a new dimension.

  I started to revere her. I understood why fate had put me on her path. My hand in hers. My heart open to spirituality, to something Arabic invented fourteen centuries ago so human beings could talk to the sky, and beyond the sky and horizon, behind the Darkness. Talk with the first light, its echo still visible. Look at the Kaaba, that huge dark room, and at once seize the opportunity to watch the universe swell and approach. To stop being afraid. To accept the desert. Kneel like Muslims and kiss the ground, respect it and never forget that this earth is inside us. It is us. We walk over ourselves. We eat ourselves. We enter ourselves. And sometimes, it’s a miracle, we open ourselves to Mystery.

  We see. We accept death. We go to it.

  We learn History, starting from the first burst of light. It files with perfect clarity before us. Before Slima. Before me.

  Slima barely spoke anymore.

  She walked ahead but never let go of my hand. We slept together in a tiny room, she curled in the hollow of my body, I curled in the hollow of hers. Brother and sister. Muslims. More than that. Much more. And the opposite.

  We dreamed in the same way. Beyond matter.

  I spoke Arabic. I was no longer Belgian. I was no longer Western. Nor Arabic. Or a man of the twentieth century.

  It was possible.

  It’s possible.

  You can touch God. He might come to sleep between us.

  He came to rest with us in the little room every night.

  And I continued speaking Arabic. It became my first language.

  Instead of Slima, I spoke with new words, buried in me from the start without my knowledge.

  I was living another life. Slima made it possible.

  That was her gift. Her promise. Her message.

  After Mecca, we went to Medina. At the grave of the Prophet Mohammed, Slima wept for a day and a night, more overcome with emotion than I had ever seen her.

  That is where I took leave of her. I could follow her to Mecca, intuitively, and take on her gestures and rise with her, but in Medina I could no longer be under the same sky.

  I knew nothing of the prophet Mohamed, his life, his message. Slima had never really talked to me about the politician and warrior he had also been. We were immersed in the religion invented by this man without knowing who he really was. Of course there were his hadiths, but they were codified, rigid, too sacred.

  In Medina, this abstract man became real—he had a grave.

  Mohammed had truly existed. There, at Slima’s side, I more or less had historical proof.

  Slima, sincere believer and captive, tore herself weeping from her beloved messenger’s grave and recited one of his hadiths. The last hadith. The one he spoke just before his death, the one his companions memorized.

  The one about what the prophet Mohammed retained of his life, of life. Prayer. Fragrances. Women.

  These elements were on the same level. One’s meeting with God could go through these three stages that in essence were equal. I learned this hadith by heart too. For later, for the days of despair and sterile solitude.

  In spite of myself, I remained separate, removed. And jealous. I couldn’t go further. I could not love Mohammed as powerfully as Slima.

  I dropped her hand.

  Ecstatic, she remained at Mohammed’s tomb.

  That is where she fainted for the last time.

  Dry-eyed, I buried her in the same city as her prophet.

  That was her ultimate dream: to receive the grace of Mohamed. His earth. Touch the first holiness. Enter into it. Dissolve there. Explode there.

  And alone I left for the desert, following the traces of my love for Slima. To finally realize what I had just experienced. Put words to this sublime love. Understand what had escaped me before. Walk a long time in the desert and its ruins. Meditate. Weep. At least try.

  It took me several weeks to come back to earth.

  In Cairo. Sleeping endlessly. Gradually relearning how to bear the emptiness of my life. Filling the days and nights in another way. Without her. Without her image, her eyes, her smell, her sex. Finally, I remembered that Slima had left me a legacy. A son. A promise. Jallal. A teenager. Lost and unknown, left on his own for too long in the terrible and intoxicating chaos of Cairo. He lived in the same apartment as me. But I didn’t see him.

  One morning, a year after Slima’s death, I entered Jallal’s room and I held out my hand. He replied with a little smile. Slima’s at the casino in the Hotel Semiramis. Exactly the same.

  III. Infidels

  1

  2

  Allah The All-Compassionate The All-Merciful The Absolute Ruler The Pure One The Source of Peace The Inspirer of Faith The Guardian The Victorious The Compeller The Greatest The Creator The Maker of Order The Shaper of Beauty The Forgiving The Subduer The Giver of All The Sustainer The Opener The Knower of All The Constrictor The Reliever The Abaser The Exalter The Bestower of Honors The Humiliator The Hearer of All The Seer of All The Judge The Just The Subtle One The All-Aware The Forbearing The Magnificent The Forgiver and Hider of Faults The Rewarder of Thankfulness The Highest The Greatest The Preserver The Nourisher The Accounter The Mighty The Generous The Watchful One The Responder to Prayer The All-Comprehending The Perfectly Wise The Loving One The Majestic One The Resurrector The Witness The Truth The Trustee The Possessor of All Strength The Forceful One The Governor The Praised One The Appraiser The Originator The Restorer The Giver of Life The Taker of Life The Ever Living One The Self-Existing One The Finder The Glorious The One, the All Inclusive, The Indivisible The Satisfier of All Needs The All Powerful The Creator of All Power The Expediter The Delayer The First The Last The Manifest One The Hidden One The Protecting Friend The Supreme One The Doer of Good The Guide to Repentance The Avenger The Forgiver The Clement The Owner of All The Lord of Majesty and Bounty The Equitable One The Gatherer The Rich One The Enricher The Preventer of Harm The Creator of The Harmful The Creator of Good The Light The Guide The Originator The Everlasting One The Inheritor of All The Righteous Teacher The Patient One

  3

  By heart. I made Mahmoud learn them by heart. All of them. The ninety-nine names of Allah. With the correct pronunciation. The correct rhythm. In classical Arabic.

  He lay all day and night in his bed at Brugmann Hospital in Brussels. And he never took his eyes off me, clung to me like a baby who recognizes no one in the world but his mother.

  “Jallal, my friend, my brother, say them again, the ninety-nine names. Again and again.”

  In truth, he knew them well, those sacred names. But in French.

  Before, his name was Mathis.

  Now he had an Arab name, Mahmoud, but didn’t speak the language. That’s what he told me.

  We were patient.

  I was very patient with him.

  Our relationship lasted two months in all.

  To experience everything with him, both Mathis and Mahmoud. As if it were the first day of my life. The last day of my life. To the point of total osmosis.

  I taught him to write Arabic. I finally helped him enter that mysterious language—complicated, impossible, according to him. The language of his new religion.

  For an entire night we studied the alif, the letter of all beginnings. Alif as an isolated letter at the beginning of a word, in the middle of a word, at the end of a word. How it’s written, how it transforms. A letter, always the same and always different.

  In the past, long before meeting me, alif had been a problem and had driven him to abandon the language in which one thing has multiple faces, multiple skins.

  Why? Why the constant shifts? That perpetually elusive quality? Se
veral languages within the same language?

  I had no answers to these questions that I’d never asked myself. I didn’t give much thought to Arabic. The language was in me long before there was a me.

  I gave it to him as it was inside me.

  I gave him what I knew and what I didn’t.

  He lay on his hospital bed. He always fixed me with a gaze both harsh and tender.

  I didn’t know how to respond to his gaze. But very quickly, I gave him my hand. Right from the third letter, taa.

  I must be clear. I let him take my hand.

  Taa caused him great fear. A panic attack. Suddenly he was no longer himself. The form of this letter, which he saw as a little basin with two hallucinating eyes, sent him back to a traumatic past I knew nothing about.

  He took my left hand and squeezed it very hard.

  I asked him if he wanted us to give up on taa. Closing his eyes, he said yes.

  And we moved to the next letter.

  Mahmoud was weak. So weak. He was leaving. Somewhere in his sick body, the pain was unbearable.

  With my hand in his hand, he eventually passed out. Fell asleep. For a quarter of an hour.

  My eyes did not leave his strange, white face. I put it all over inside me, inside my body and my soul.

  Later taa became our letter. The letter symbolizing our connection, the dizzying things that were happening between us. The sacred things. We moved beyond the panic attack. We entered slowly into taa and left our mark there. Traces of ourselves.

  He was the one who found the first word with taa. He was sleeping. He opened his eyes and he said the word. Tawbah.

  How did he know that word? Where did it come to him from?

  I didn’t ask him these two questions. I didn’t have time. He asked me:

  “What does tawbah mean in Arabic?”

  Strangely, I didn’t know.

  He repeated the question by adding a little detail at the end—my name.

  “What does tawbah mean in Arabic, Jallal, my friend?”

  To hear “Jallal” spoken in his soft voice helped me. He inspired me. I knew then what to say.