The scrawny blacksmith scissoring off my inner labia and clitoris.
Of course you as an infidel extremist don’t believe in such things do you Mrs. Hirsi Ali?
3,50.
Make your Bibi proud, she whispered.
I challenge you with this letter to prove that you are right.
That’s it. That’s all.
It went on and on.
Mrs. Hirsi Ali you wish Death if you are really convinced you are correct because only if you wish Death are you being truthful.
Still, I sold a painting once, and three were exhibited in the Paris Salon des Artistes Indépendants.
Another blue and white tram grating through the inter—
Those who never wish to die are afraid of what their hands have brought forth.
Three.
Theo, humming, glances down at his watch.
Islam has withstood many enemies and persecutions yet your crusades have only served to fan our flames of belief.
It was March. It was 1888. I remember.
And then came the sewing shut.
Islam is like dead plants that form into a diamond through years of high temperatures and pressure a hard stone that will defeat any attempt to break it to pieces.
I think I remember.
A long dull needle prodding clumsily against my outer lips, then piercing through.
Give us death to give us happiness.
It is April. It is 1888. The not unfamiliar painter, inspecting his morning’s work, notices his brushstrokes have come to enjoy no system whatsoever.
Prodding and piercing through again.
You Mrs. Hirsi Ali are an intellectual terrorist.
Pink peach trees, whiteyellow pear, purple plum: he has shocked his canvas with slashes of verve.
The scrawny man bent over me. He snipped off the thread with his teeth.
You are a free-speech fundamentalist.
Listen—
To this day, I can’t forget his breath.
The heavens and the stars will receive the news.
I want to say someone is speaking to me.
It smelled like chicken shit.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI YOU WILL SMASH YOURSELF TO BITS AGAINST ISLAM!
Monsieur Vincent leaving behind patches of quick thick paint wherever they fell among patches of uncovered fabric.
And next he was done.
There will be no mercy shown to the purveyors of injustice.
Aesthetic savageries, he referred to them as.
How the room frisked with celebration.
Be forewarned that the death you are trying to prevent will surely find you.
I am tempted to say, he jotted Bernard, the result is so disquieting that it will be a godsend to those arriving at painting with fixed preconceptions about technique.
My brother had gone before me, Ayaan explained. My sister would go after.
I surely know that you O America will be destroyed.
Indiscretion perhaps being one function of art.
Coffee in a bright red cup.
And I surely know that you O Europe will be destroyed.
One of the most beautiful things to do is paint darkness.
The blacksmith must have slipped several times during the procedure because, just before I passed out, I became aware of deep scores across my thighs.
And I surely know that you O Holland will be destroyed.
Look: Monsieur Vincent is lying crooked, curled into himself, knees to the chin, listening to someone else’s voice trying to infiltrate his moanage.
Hours later I awoke to discover my legs slicked with blood.
And I surely know that you O unbelieving fundamentalists will be destroyed.
Popularity is always a bad accident.
My legs had been tied together, my grandmother elucidating affectionately as she stroked my hair, to prevent me from moving them: to expedite the formation of my scar, you see.
And I surely know that you O Hirsi Ali will be destroyed.
Mouth cloudage.
As I mended, the flash of pain when I urinated was sharp as the mutilation itself, again and again.
You signed it—
Yes: the voice is saying—
So I wear this thick, bumpy scar between my legs, Ayaan telling Theo as if perhaps commenting on a bland bowl of rice before her on the table.
— The Sword of Unified Belief
Listen—
When Theo, thirteen, set off firecrackers in the middle of his math class one afternoon, his parents were asked to locate a different school for their son.
The Sword of Unified Belief and then Ahmed was slouching back to sleep and you were peddling along Overtoom into headlines.
What seems to be the problem? Monsieur Ravoux is asking. Are you ill?
I don’t want to be a cretin of habit when I grow up, being Theo’s answer when his mother and father demanded to know why their son had done such a thing.
The kids’ jubilant faces.
It is September. It is 1888. To paint outside in the dark, Monsieur Vincent has rigged a hat rimmed with candles. His burning crown, he calls it.
Theo scrutinizing his hand lingering on her shoulder.
You hate the people you are trying to save exploit Islam to further your own ends and expect us to take it sitting down Mrs. Hirsi Ali.
Homo sapiens being the only species to have created God.
I VOTED for you!
Only we won’t take it sitting down we know what this feels like we have known for fourteen centuries.
To have created God and to have killed him.
Theo closed his eyes and his ex was standing there.
The crusaders the Mongol invaders.
Monsieur Vincent setting up his easel on a street corner in Arles while the locals make wide sweeps around him, eyes elsewhere, as if civilly avoiding a fresh pile of horse droppings in the middle of the road.