“If God is not with people like us,” she yelled back, giving me the victory sign, “then who is He with? Tell me, who is He with?!”
From the entrance to my cell and all along the corridor I could hear her Fayruz-like voice singing to the accompaniment of other prisoners’ voices and applause:
Radiant fury is on its way.
And all of me is a believer.
Radiant fury is on its way,
And I shall forget about sorrows.
From every direction it comes,
It comes with fearsome steeds.
There followed a sudden silence. Stretching out on my side, I started singing Fayruz’s glorious and defiant song; at the words “radiant fury is on its way” I kept punching my pillow and crying. But my chronic cough forced me to stop. I managed to suppress it by squirting spray into my open mouth, something that was especially necessary since some of my neighbor prisoners were vying with each other in urging me to ask for a transfer to the TB wing. With a good deal of effort I managed to get it under control and stop coughing. All I could think about at this point was what kind of awful things might be happening to Fayruz; I also thought about my own situation and the fact that, by dint of sheer endurance, I had managed to exhaust all the vicious and criminal activities of my torturers. It felt as though, according to their rules, I had now become a hopeless case, someone with no potential benefit or utility. Wrapping myself in my flimsy loincloth, I consigned some of these thoughts to my collection of notes, as follows:
I’m no Job, Hercules, or even ‘Antara, the pre-Islamic poet-cavalier. In any case, if even people with their fortitude and endurance were to find themselves at the mercy of the ghouls and sadists in this rendition center where I’ve now spent any number of years, their sense of terror and oppression would be just as bad as my own. My body is broken and my soul feels shattered. Even so, I’m not defeated yet; in fact, I’m convinced that the only way they’ll defeat me is with a single terminal blow — and that is something the higher authorities are hesitating to do in my particular case, because they’re eager to destroy me and make me grovel and beg for mercy. As it is, staying alive in this virtual death situation doesn’t bother me anymore. My only value and significance, I have decided, lies in putting a spanner in their works and a thorn in the soles of their feet. Dear God, thwart all their efforts to enslave me and crush my honor, and protect my mind from all harm and loss of control, even though I may at times have to pretend to be crazy for some particular purpose I have in mind.
This experience of imprisonment has taught me something I did not know. It has revealed certain proclivities and stimuli within me of which I was not previously aware and indeed never even supposed that I possessed. In those earlier days of my clearly mistaken sense of freedom, you could apply to me the words of a writer whose name now escapes me, but this is approximately what he wrote: ‘Many, many are the rains and winds to which my body has been exposed in a quest for the sweet scent of sanctity and a modicum of happiness. But all their raging fury brought me was a severe cold and a bronchial cough!’
Hardly had I written down that last sentence before the four men who had dragged Fayruz away reentered my cell. I quickly shoved my notes under the bedcover and uncovered my face. The guard told me to stand up and accused me of fornication.
“We’ve just given that slut we dragged from under you a hundred lashes,” another man said, “and we’re going to do the same with you very soon.”
I told them that their accusation had no validity because there were no witnesses, to which the third responded that they were the witnesses, four of them. In legal terms, that was quite sufficient. He now ordered me to collect my possessions and get ready, whereupon I showed them my swollen feet with their wounds, all the while cursing them for their false testimony and calling down God’s vengeance on them. I gave them the choice: they could either carry me on their shoulders or else provide me with a crutch. However, I then recommended an intermediate solution that would work for everyone, if only for a while.
“And what’s that?” they asked.
“That you leave my cell and let me be.”
After a bit of argument they silently withdrew — wonder of wonders! — with heads lowered.
Accusations of fornication, threats of a hundred lashes, followed by the incredible way the guards had responded to my last suggestion, all those things were clearly part of the evil intrigues and games being played by Luqman, the investigating judge — May God never show me either his face or his shadow! He might well decide to send me another woman who would swing between promises and enticement at one point and curses and intimidation at another. But, through the strength and power of Almighty God, he would discover that I remained steadfast to the pledge and rock solid in my chaste behavior.
My thoughts now turned to Fayruz and the way in which the old scars on her back would have been inflamed by a hundred new lashes. I now recalled the wonderful words she had used: “Is the river supposed to behave differently, simply because its source bursts forth and the distant sea pulls its course toward it?” That’s a saying that demands contemplation and interpretation; it’s one that, if I ever manage to be rid of my suffering and escape from this diabolical center, I dearly hope to sit and explore in all its various dimensions and significances. And I am still thinking of cracking the code of the little containers that my fellow townsperson Na‘ima had given me and understanding their underlying message.
There was a knock on the door indicating that I should take my lunch. I replied that I was not going to stand up or eat until they brought me two crutches and bandaged my feet. The guard came in, put down the plate by me, and then left, saying: “All the messenger can do is to convey the message.”
I covered the plate with a cloth so the insects, rats, and mice would not smell it. I stayed there, flat on my back, staring at a tiny aperture in the skylight and gauging the passage of time by the way the light changed. I kept wondering what would transpire as a result of my request and my refusal to eat.
From the other cells adjacent to my own there emerged a variety of sounds: one person was reciting verses from the Qur’an; another was inviting his neighbors to listen to his tales as a peerless dormitory storyteller, and still another was suggesting that we all listen to his sex jokes with a particularly Marrakeshian quality to them. As the din grew louder and louder, a powerful, gruff voice with a tone like a bugle yelled: “Quiet!! Quiet! No more noise for the rest of the day. Time will tell, as the old saying goes. Democracy demands that people take turns to talk. Anyone who causes trouble will be shown no mercy or sympathy.”
These words were the cue for a total silence to reign over the entire cellblock. I kept waiting for the storm to break, but nothing of the kind happened. As the atmosphere of silence spread, accompanied by a lacerating cold that promised a freezing, rainless winter, I huddled under my blanket and surrendered all my fears and concerns to a restless slumber prompted by Morpheus or some other sleep promoter. .
17. Appointment with the Disciplinary Committee
When I woke up, my memory was still recalling snippets from a dream in which my cousin, al-Husayn, appeared and asked me to forgive him for the things that had now happened to me because of him. He told me that he had not given me any information about his resistance activities so that I could avoid any suspicion or complication that might have dire consequences. However, the blind, raging fury of the despots had managed to ruin his sincere wishes and intentions toward me. After calling down all kinds of eloquent and pointed curses on such people, he advised me to remain steadfast in the face of their atrocities so that the word of God should eventually emerge triumphant. He then disappeared from view, accompanied by a group of armed men who made for the forests of some daunting lofty mountain peaks.