Season of Martyrdom

by Jamal Naji

  I was no longer capable of holding on to the Muntaha I had known since birth. She had gone down a path of no return and now my body was in the custody of a man, so let him do with it whatever he pleased.

  He was sweet and intimate. He honey-coated for me the thorns of my surrender to him. His soothing words perked up my spirit, which had descended from the heights all the way down onto the bed. But I felt a battle breaking out inside me again, between my agitated desires and what I knew about virtue and being wary of men. A silent argument against the concept of virtue took root in my mind and began to grow. It gelled into a silent question I found myself confronting at that moment, which was: Who says the decision to surrender to a man is up to the woman?

  That night Fawaz took my virginity with headlong determination. I was surprised no blood dripped from my vagina. Maybe he thought I wasn’t a virgin.

  He climbed onto me as if he were riding a bicycle, something he repeated numerous times over the course of the next six nights. He even left a meeting scheduled at ten o’clock in the morning to come to my room with a feverish desire, and I was no less desirous, to the point that I left deep scratches in his back with my fingernails.

  He bought me an expensive dress and a gold necklace with a Virgo pendant, my astrological sign. And he also put 1,000 dollars in my bag without my knowledge. When I saw it I got really mad. I waited for him to return from a meeting and when he entered my room I threw the wad of bills onto the floor and screamed, “I am not a whore you have to pay to sleep with!”

  I started to cry. I didn’t know why my crying transformed into a bout of sobbing that went on and on despite his attempts to calm me down. They were more like attempts to pacify me than to satisfy me. He told me the money was merely compensation for the dedication he observed the day he passed by the company building and found me working there all alone long after the other employees had left. He explained that this was his way of rewarding dedicated workers.

  As he spoke, he moved close to me, wiped my tears with the palms of his hands, and patted my disheveled hair back into place. I found myself quieting down after my crying fit, and so he went about his quiet invasion of my body once again.

  This time I noticed that the back of his shoulders were very hairy.

  I knew that what he told me was unconvincing, but there was no turning him away after all that had transpired before that night. I surrendered to him and let him do to me what he pleased, but I insisted on returning his money to him.

  Everything else about that week was fun and enjoyable except for one thing, which was that Fawaz could not hold himself back during the final moments of intercourse. And it was in those moments that he took utter control of my body and my soul, becoming like a wild beast that nothing could restrain.

  And that is what led to the chain of events that followed and that I did not foresee.

  Sari Abu Amineh

  “What you’ve supplied me with is not enough. I need more detailed information. I need results that I can use,” I told the cousin I’d put in charge of investigating Muntaha al-Rayyeh.

  He went away for five days and then brought me a new report with several attachments, and it was this report that gave me what I needed:

  Muntaha Rasim Salah al-Rayyeh – the only one who could possibly be the woman in question. She is close to sixty years old and resides in Swayleh, north of Amman. She moved out of her parents’ home to a nearby house when she got married. Then she moved to another house in close proximity to that one, which she rented, a distance of three side streets away from the main circle exit heading northeast.

  According to the marriage records, on December 26, 1982, Muntaha was married to a man by the name of Nael Shakir Yassin Dughaybil.

  Research into birth records in the months following the marriage revealed that on July 29, 1983, Muntaha and her husband Nael Dughaybil were blessed with the birth of a son, who they named Walid.

  Research into the registry of students passing the national Baccalaureate exam confirmed that in 2002, their son Walid graduated from Firas al-Ajlouni High School with a grade point average of 98.2. He then attended the Jordanian University, majoring in Shari’a Law, with an academic excellence scholarship funded by the Royal Court, but only completed three semesters before dropping out of school for reasons unknown to the university administration. He left the country after that, via the Mudawwara border crossing, on June 12, 2003, heading for Saudi Arabia to perform the Umrah pilgrimage. However, there is no record in the border registries or airport logs indicating his reentry into the country since that time.

  Attachments:

  —ID photos of Muntaha and her husband Nael and their son Walid, according to the data contained in the registers of the Department of Passport Control.

  —Photocopy of Muntaha and Nael’s marriage license, dated 1982.

  What interested me most of all out of the information in the documents my cousin supplied me with was Walid’s photo, which I had enlarged so I could examine it carefully. The photo revealed an uncanny resemblance between Walid and the Basha, be it in the protruding sides of the head, the broadness of the forehead, the brown eye color, the thick eyebrows, the curvature of the nose, the color of the skin, or the square shape of the face.

  The situation was perfectly clear now. My target was Walid, and the woman we had been looking for was Muntaha Rasim Salah al-Rayyeh. May God forgive me, and her, and her son, and the Basha.

  Muntaha al-Rayyeh

  In those days, my mother was suffering from a nightmare called the spinsterhood of her daughter who had reached the age of thirty without getting married. She would rest her chin on her hand and gaze silently at me; I knew she was thinking about me.

  As far as I was concerned, it really was not such a big deal. I had refused marriage proposals that started coming my way the moment I turned twenty. That was due to the fact that the men who came to propose weren’t what I had hoped for. One was uneducated, another was repulsive with a face that, I’ll just say, didn’t bring one comfort, and he had fidgety eyes, too. A third didn’t have the money to marry me and was planning to take out a loan, a fourth was shorter than me and fat, and number five was forty-five years old at the time.

  Nevertheless, I felt that marriage would not pass me by, even if it was to be a little late in coming. I was at peace with that feeling.

  However, once I hit age thirty, my mother appointed a friend of hers who lived in Ayn al-Basha, near Swayleh, to be in charge of finding someone to marry me.

  That woman’s name was Umm Ayyash. I had seen her before. She was a fat woman who was constantly perspiring and had a tattoo under her lower lip.

  When I returned from Paris, my parents were waiting for me at the airport.

  Once we finished with all the questioning, answering, describing and relaying of the fabricated recap of the conference, none of whose panels or meetings I attended, my mother blurted out, with the excitement of someone sharing some rare and amazing news, “My friend Umm Ayyash came to visit me while you were away, with a groom!”

  “Give me a chance to rest first!” I answered.

  I needed to know what the future held for my relationship with Fawaz, who said to me as we bid farewell at the entry gate in the airport, “We’ll stay in touch.”

  It was true that I felt – after he made love to me for the last time at the hotel – the presence of a cosmic distance between us, even in those moments when we were joined as one. But I interpreted what he said about staying in touch as an introduction to a relationship that might develop over time.

  The day after I got back from Paris, my mother kept eyeing me, and sometimes she would come very close acting like she wanted to hug me, but sniffed me instead, as if she was searching for something inside my body. I was very careful in her presence to act calm and submissive. Then out of the blue she let out a sigh and said, “Your cheeks are red as apples.
All from Paris?”

  “A single day in Paris is better than a whole year in Swayleh,” I answered.

  I knew my mother well. She was neither satisfied nor convinced, and she was the type of person who chose her words very carefully, provided she wasn’t upset. Sometimes I felt she spoke words of wisdom.

  My father didn’t care. He just continued treating me with his usual sweetness. At any rate, he was the type of person who gave the benefit of the doubt ten times before drawing a negative conclusion. My mother, on the other hand, doubted ten times before drawing a positive conclusion.

  An entire week passed and Fawaz didn’t call. I tried to call him but was told he wasn’t there. On my final attempt, someone answered who seemed to be very busy.

  “My name is Muntaha. I work at the Malco Company, and I would like to speak to Mr Fawaz, please,” I said.

  “Yes, I know who you are,” he answered. “You called two days ago. I told him and he said for you to contact your manager concerning any and all matters.”

  I was shocked. After a few moments of silence, I said, “Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure,” he said.

  I wasn’t expecting Fawaz to marry me or anything, but I did expect us to stay in touch as he had said in Paris, and for us to meet. But for him to end the relationship in this abusive manner?

  I scolded myself for what had happened in Paris. How could I have allowed him to do all those things to me?

  I was not naïve. But his masculinity had swept me away to a place full of sins. The matter was not in my hands; it was God’s fate and divine decree. Yes, God’s fate and divine decree.

  I could accept using the word “whore” to describe myself during that trip, but I could never accept “naïve.”

  A thousand times a whore, but naïve, never.

  I asked the Porcupine about Fawaz once, shyly, and he answered somewhat sarcastically, looking me directly in the eye, “Why are nightingales not allowed to live in lofty trees . . .”i

  He didn’t finish the line of poetry; instead he stiffened up and said with a scowl, “Mr Fawaz doesn’t keep up his relationships. People who become acquainted with him think he has become their friend, but the truth is he forgets about them the moment they finish serving his purpose.”

  Then he turned his head towards the window and said, “Pay attention to your work and forget about what happened in Paris.”

  So I had finished serving my purpose, and now the Porcupine mistrusted me, hated me, despised me.

  I felt nauseated. My head was spinning. I went back home and buried myself in my bed. My mother followed after me and wanted to know what was wrong. “Let me rest,” I said. “I’ve had a very tiring day.”

  I locked my bedroom door. My pulse was racing. I was perspiring all over. I wished I would die, truly die. I stayed in bed for days without being sick. I wanted nothing but to bury myself under the covers and be alone.

  And that is how my relationship with Fawaz al-Shardah came to an end. I continued feeling the pain of that abuse forever after; I could never forget it.

  Umm Ayyash came to our house with a forty-year-old man named Nael − olive complexion, medium height, short brown hair, honey-brown eyes. When he walked, he trotted along and bobbed his head left and right. He had worked as a teacher in the Emirates for eighteen years before settling down in Amman where he opened a clothing store on the main street in Swayleh, near the mosque. He was making a comfortable living, according to Umm Ayyash, but he wanted me to devote myself to the home, not because he was religious at that point, but because he was against women working, according to what she said.

  I remembered the Porcupine’s insults, and his protruding ears and thin lips. I remembered Fawaz and the way he tossed me aside once he’d taken what he wanted from me. And so I accepted the marriage proposal.

  Nael drew up the marriage contract in a matter of days. I felt a sense of relief when I resigned from my post; at least I was free of all the glares from the Porcupine and my co-workers who had found out about my trip to Paris.

  A few days before the wedding reception, I began losing my appetite. I started feeling sleepy much more than before and also felt an aversion to certain things.

  My mother told me all of that would go away as soon as the wedding was over. She very emphatically explained this was common among girls who were afraid of getting married and topped off her speech by saying, “They’re called ‘spoiled little girls.’”

  After a few weeks, I found myself in the marital bedroom with Nael. He was in such a hurry to penetrate me he almost foiled my scheme to pour a little bit of blood on the white bed sheet.

  I discovered four things about Nael that I hadn’t noticed at first. First, he was stingy; second, he was truthful and never lied; third, he was voracious in bed, never resting or letting me rest, as if he’d been bottling it up for a thousand years; and fourth, he adored talking dirty during intercourse.

  At first I resisted that voraciousness of his, which was painful and exhausted me no end, but eventually it transformed into just a normal part of our lovemaking ritual.

  I also saw in him the perfect example of a cuckolded husband who knew nothing of his wife’s past. But then I chided myself for thinking such a mean thing.

  I cannot say that I loved him, but I didn’t hate him. I accepted him as my husband.

  I expected his marrying me would put an end to my horror story with Fawaz and would erase all traces of him from my body and my mind, but as it turned out, about a month after getting married, I discovered that the story was about to start all over again, but this time in a different way.

  Samah Shahadeh

  Uroub told me, “The important thing is, the cat came back to life.”

  She also said, “You will discover a secret that has been kept hidden from you for many years, and it will have a major effect on your life in the future.”

  These were not riddles or cryptic messages. Wasn’t it possible Fawaz was married to some other woman without my knowledge?

  There really wasn’t anything to indicate that was the case, though. Marriage was not a trivial matter. It had certain demands and distinguishing features; it was impossible to hide.

  Then was he on the verge of marrying another woman now? So he could have children, maybe?

  But he always said he didn’t care about having children. He said they eventually just grow up to be scoundrels.

  I didn’t find out about this side of Fawaz until after we knew for sure that I could not have children. Ever since then he made me feel he hated children. He called them despicable and evil sometimes and talked about them with such animosity I could hardly take it.

  One evening he said to me, “You watch a lot of Hollywood movies. Haven’t you noticed that in some horror movies they use children’s voices in the background to make the scenes extra scary?”

  That Fawaz had a second wife was more likely to be the case, even if I had my doubts. Uroub did say that the secret had been hidden from me for a long time.

  It was something that had happened in the past, not something that was going to happen in the future. Big difference.

  Sari’s wife came over to review Fawaz’s vegetarian diet plan. “I need you to do something for me,” I said to her.

  “As long as you don’t ask me to find out what secret Sari is hiding. He’s like a black box, receives but doesn’t transmit. Even when his cell phone rings, he steps into another room, locks the door, and keeps his voice down so I can’t hear. I need one of those devices they put in walls or doors so I can spy on him.”

  “Good idea. Why don’t you do that?” I said.

  Rasha was quiet for a minute and then said, “Do you think I’m capable of such a thing, Mrs Samah?”

  Rasha respected herself and loved her husband, and she always made sure to treat me with a level of respect that e
ndeared her to me – unlike so many of Fawaz’s friends’ wives or the wives of managers and executives of his companies and offices.

  It was a relationship free of the kind of bootlicking and deception I couldn’t stand.

  Naturally, Rasha never brought her two children with her when she came to visit, even though they weren’t little anymore. Sari understood Fawaz’s aversion to children and adolescents.

  For me, my feelings towards children were directly related to how clean, quiet, and mild-tempered they were.

  I didn’t know if Fawaz’s position towards children would have been different if I’d borne him a son or a daughter.

  Muntaha al-Rayyeh

  I know I am better versed on the topics of misery and despair than of happiness, and the reason for that is known to me at least.

  In the days following my marriage I started feeling increasingly nauseated and there were other changes in my body that I didn’t understand. I started vomiting and going to the bathroom a lot. I lost my appetite and started having cravings for things that had never crossed my mind before − ice cubes, chalk, cumin – and I would often lick the walls with my tongue. Every time I looked in the mirror my face looked paler.

  I thought my worst fears had come true because of what Fawaz did to me, so I kept it to myself and didn’t let Nael see any of the symptoms. Then I went to the doctor without Nael’s knowledge. When the doctor got the test results back, he exclaimed like a herald of glad tidings, “Congratulations! Your fetus is in its ninth week!”

  I remembered Fawaz, and I knew the baby was his. I couldn’t decide what to do and didn’t know who to turn to for help other than my mother.

  I went to see her and told her everything. She slapped her cheeks with the palms of her hands three times. Then she let out a shriek and spat in my face. “Abort it, you bitch!”

  I wiped my face with a napkin and said, appealing to her devoutness, “But isn’t that haram?”