All of a sudden this disgusting routine came to an end. Maybe she had had enough or felt tired. I watched as she smoked and drank with her usual frenzy, while the effects of all the wine I had drunk — something I had never even gone near before — gradually became apparent in me.
“Now the night is ours, my man,” I heard her say as she swallowed some more wine, “and ours alone. Tell me some jokes. . I kiss your mouth and hand. . Really good jokes, no holds barred. They’re the only kind that make me laugh and feel like sleeping. If you do that for me, I’ll divorce you tomorrow morning, then I’ll be rid of you and you of me.”
“God,” I said, “the Blessed and Almighty, may tarry but He never overlooks anything. . His punishment for wrongdoers, male and female, is severe. He will decree a painful punishment for you, far more severe than what you have meted out to me and others as well. .”
“To the contrary, Hamuda, you’re the one who’s punishing me with your steadfast refusal to cooperate and your rejection of me. You deprive me of your knowledge and secrets; all you show me is your stubborn negativity. It’s you that God is going to punish. Now keep your eyes wide open, and I’m going to tell you something to develop your taste for jokes. There was a prisoner who died in my custody when he had a massive brain hemorrhage. He used to come to this bed of mine and tell me wonderful jokes in exchange for my dealing with him less severely. My aged midget servant used to attend those sessions as well, and he can remember all the jokes.
She now whistled three times, and a person smaller than anyone I had ever seen in my life immediately appeared. His silver beard reached down to his knees, and he was wearing a suitably sized clown’s cap on his head.
“I heard my mistress call,” he said, “and immediately interrupted the prayers I had to do in order to make up for the ones I had missed all week because I’ve been so busy with other things. .”
She now told the midget to start telling stories, and he did so with all due deference to her.
“Your favorite joke-teller — may God have mercy on him — used to start a session by saying: ‘Once upon a time it so happened. . ’ and you would tell him, Madam, to cut the cackle and tell the joke straight away with no beating about the bush. . There was one joke that always made you laugh whenever I told it to you. The teller described it as being real because it actually happened to him in person. ‘My wife, God curse her,’ he said, ‘is very partial to all penises except mine. . and at the mention of the word ‘penis,’ he told another story about an Egyptian from the south who took his wife to the gynecologist. When the doctor was alone with her and told her to take her undergarment off, she ran out to her husband in the waiting room screaming and complaining. He scolded her and told her to do as the doctor asked. When she went back inside and the doctor asked her again to remove her undergarment, she replied flirtatiously: ‘Take yours off first.’ On the way home, the husband told his wife that the doctor clearly had a big brain, as big as this. . To which his wife responded: ‘Yes, and his penis is that big too!’ ‘Did you do it with him?’ he asked her. ‘You told me to,’ she said. ‘As of tomorrow, you’re divorced,’ he replied.”
The debauched woman tapped my eyes to stop me falling asleep.
“The same jokester,” the midget went on, “and may God fight him! — tells another story about a woman who found out only a month after her marriage that her husband was getting drunk in bars and having sex with prostitutes. Even worse news arrived soon afterwards, that he was buggering boys. She was furious, but offered a peaceful solution to the problem: she would let him enjoy himself by exercising his legitimate rights and functions inside the house. By way of experiment, the husband agreed. When the agreed-upon night came, she consorted with him as required and allowed him to have intercourse with her in the usual way. However, when he started to do the other thing with her, she started screaming out in pain. He rounded on her. ‘Listen, woman,’ he said, ‘now you’re supposed to be a man!’”
The ghoul cackled and punched me to make me laugh too.
“More!” she told the midget.
“Let it be the farewell joke then, Madam,” he said. “Once upon a time. . There was a young man who worked all day in a factory. Every day when he went home, he found his mother looking sad and depressed. When he asked her what was wrong, she said nothing. When he lost patience with the situation, he asked his only friend for advice. The latter gave him some counsel, the gist of which was that, when his mother was in this particular mood, he should sit with her and imitate her till he managed to discover what was causing it and work things out. So that’s what happened. No sooner did the young man sit opposite his mother looking utterly miserable than she turned to him.
‘My dear boy,’ she asked him, ‘why are you behaving like me. Haven’t you found anyone to fuck you?’”
The ghoul cackled again and shook me to do the same. She then asked the midget to do what he normally did at the conclusion of each session — namely, to delight her with some details about himself.
“God be praised and thanked!” he said. “I have been compensated for my short stature by having both a capacious memory and a huge penis, one to make even an elephant jealous — it being an animal proverbial for its memory and long penis.”
The ghoul, who was still cackling raucously, now regaled the midget with words of praise and approval. At the same time, she reproached me for not telling her any lewd jokes, they being the salt of life in her view, and not joining her in appreciating the ones the midget had told. She threatened to punish me for that when morning came. With that she started eating and drinking again, then started spouting some drivel that I ignored. After that, she lay down, belched, farted, and started puffing a lot.
One of the weirdest things I now witnessed, with a due amazement — was that the midget did not retrace his steps, but instead climbed on to the bed and started hugging the ghoul. I signaled to him to withdraw.
“I can’t do that,” he whispered in reply, “until my mistress allows me to do so. Otherwise my head and beard will be consigned to the devil.”
I gestured to him in other ways, but his response was to the effect that his mistress could see and hear everything, even if she were asleep; I needed to say nothing and go to sleep. With that, he fell into her arms, and they both let out a series of pants and groans. .
O Lord, what crimes and misdemeanors can I have committed against You or Your servants that I find myself being tortured and kept awake by two such utterly disgusting creatures? Now their foul deeds are followed by thunderous snoring, the female ghoul herself and her compliant, debauched midget. O Lord, are You testing me with enforced drunkenness, migraine headaches, and a veritable cascade of hallucinations and dark visions?
I remained in this state, asking my Lord about myself and projecting my pains and agonies to Him, till the first light of dawn appeared. The whole place rang with the sound of the ghoul’s voice, objecting to the smell of urine in her bed and cursing the mother and father of the perpetrator. The midget leaped out of the bed, his mouth showing through his quaking beard as he swore a solemn oath that he was not the culprit. She ordered him to send for the black guard and shoved me away after untying my bonds. She then removed the sheet, blanket, and counterpane from the bed and tore up the phony marriage contract, threatening me with a humiliating punishment at the hands of the giant black guard.
When the guard arrived, she ordered him in a gruff tone to throw me back in my hole and do with me as he wished. She described me as a drunkard and said that I was now divorced. She specifically noted that her status as an unmarried mother had made the prospect of marriage to male excrement like me seem attractive.