After I had spent an incalculable amount of time in my cell, I had the opportunity to leave it for a few hours. The purpose was not to let me get some fresh air or exercise, but rather to undergo a medical exam because I had come down with a fierce cough, accompanied by a shortage of breath resulting from my previous sojourn in the shock and terror cellar. Following complaints from my nightly neighbors or perhaps due to other considerations, I was rushed to the clinic. The nurse there gave me some tranquilizers till the doctor arrived at mid-morning. My cough lessened, and I began to feel sleepy, so much so that I had the kind of sleep the like of which I had not enjoyed since being brought against my will to this detention center, the purpose, name, and place of which remained unknown to me.
It was some time in the morning while I was still drowsy that I caught a snippet of conversation between two men:
First one: “We haven’t interrogated this one yet. We need his information, so make him better so he doesn’t die before we can question him.”
Second: “I’ll do the necessary examination. He may be able to stand on his feet today provided it’s not tuberculosis. That’s what we found on three prisoners yesterday, but they’ve been removed.”
The examination they conducted showed that, at least up to this point, I had not contracted that disease — thank God! The problem was that my sensitivity to the dampness in my cell had provoked my cough and constricted breathing. The doctor gave me some pills and a spray and had me transferred to a cell in another wing; it was smaller than the previous one but was on the first floor in a building that got some drier air and sunshine.
3. Before the Investigating Judge
My health improves in my new cell, the number of which has followed me. Every time I feel the need for some fresh air, I stand on a chair and poke my nose through a window, which is open to the sky. Using all five senses I come to the conclusion that the place where I am imprisoned is either in the desert or else very close to it, far removed from any view of mountains or sea. However, the name and address of the location is known only to the people who run this detention center and their luminaries.
As I took some of my pills along with the first meal that I got through the aperture in the door of my new cell, the thought occurred to me that, when it came to my recent promotion and maybe even my release, this cough of mine could give me a stratagem, as long as I perfected its impact and timing. While I was ruminating on this idea (and other even weirder ones) and spraying my mouth, a guard came into my cell, tied my hands behind my back, and led me across a paved square and along numerous corridors to a distinctive building with offices and modern conveniences. The guard knocked on a door on the first floor, and I followed him into a large hall. Behind a table a fat woman was sitting, surrounded by files and a computer. Hurrying over, she proceeded to conduct a security check, using an electronic device to scan my bodily extremities. Once the exam was over and I had been overwhelmed by a veritable flood of perfume, she accompanied me to the interior office, bowing in greeting as she did so to someone whom she called “his excellency the judge.” She pointed out that I had not offered my own greetings to his excellency, so I did so.
So, after a period of several months in prison, here I was finally in the presence of the investigating judge whom, as I have explained earlier, is the one to investigate the files of the accused and determine their fate. After taking a look in my direction, he told me to await my turn in a dark corner. In the meantime he was completing his session with a young man, the only part of whom that I could see was his back. In the corner, I scrunched up on the seat as best I could and started looking at the judge and listening to what he was saying to the suspect.
Viewed in all three dimensions the man I was looking at reminded me of the heaviest conceivable Japanese sumo wrestler. What caught my eye was his absolutely excessive obesity and his bald pate fringed with white. Then there were his enormous ears that stuck out like two hearing horns and his chin, which protruded from a bulging neck. I was struck by his sunken eyes nestling behind thick, shaded spectacles and his mouth (just like a chicken’s anus), which was topped by a blond, Hitler-like moustache. All praise to the mighty Creator! Whenever he stood up to look for something or to exert some bodily sway over his interviewee, he would look like a wild beast hovering over its prey. His gigantic bulging presence made him seem like a huge elephant; the only thing missing was the trunk.
“So,” he told the prisoner in a nasal twang, as he rubbed his neck, “you’re no longer denying the accusations leveled against you; in fact, you’re confirming them. Sheltering takfiri* radicals who are now on the run; providing support for the families of the ones who are married; and failing to disclose their names and addresses. The only point of disagreement between us is that you’re refusing to ratify your charge-document by taking the canonical oath. Instead, you’re arrogating to yourself the right to take a different oath, one that sometimes involves swearing by the dawn and ten nights [Qur’an, Sura 89, v. 1], at others by the fig, the olive, and Mount Sinai [Qur’an, Sura 95, v. 1], and at still others by the afternoon [Qur’an, Sura 103, v. 1]. You justify this utter heresy on your part by claiming that you need to avoid any mention of God and His beautiful names in foul and disgusting places, dark and cruel, that being the way you choose to describe the places where we currently are. Is that right?”
“That represents the decision that I have come to,” the young man replied in a firm, steady voice, “aided by God’s help.”
That remark made the investigating judge froth at the mouth in fury. “So, you total phony,” he yelled, “who gave you the authority to make your own decisions?”
“Here you are, Judge” the young man replied, “calling me an unbeliever, when I’m a graduate of the Zaytuna University in Tunis. I only make such a decision when there is no textual authority. .”
“Guards,” the judge interrupted, “take this wretch and hand him over to the woman who knows how to deal with unbelievers and cure them of their sickness. She’ll straighten you out and put your warped brain back on the right track.”
I managed to catch a glimpse of the young man as he was led away by two guards. Walking with a steady gait and defiant expression, he raised two fingers in a victory gesture.
“By the heavens and the night-star,” he said. “I have no fear of this female ghoul or her cronies. Umm Qash‘am* is where you’re all going, and, as they say, ‘evil is the resort.’”
The judge now collapsed into his chair. Sweat was pouring off him, and he was panting hard. He pressed a button, and a young woman wearing a headdress appeared and handed him a pill and a glass of water. That helped calm his nerves, although it took a while. He asked her who Umm Qash‘am might be, and she stuttered that she did not know. He told her to go and look her up in the dictionary so that the woman in question could be brought to see him. Acknowledging the order, she rushed out looking flustered.