From that night on, that Lebanese joker became his one and only obsession. He’d stand outside the doors they shut behind him and bark, imagining him on the other side of those doors stripping them and redressing them in even more seductive outfits. He knew which bits to touch, what to cover and what to lay bare so as to drive the Eunuchs’ Goat’s senses wild. Love was challenging all his primal urges. He was suddenly, bitterly desperate to exterminate this infatuation that was polished with lotions and make-up. His hair grew longer every time he saw the Lebanese decorator’s pony-tail bouncing between his shoulders. The pretty boy went to the barber every Friday afternoon for an hour to have his hair combed, conditioned, and straightened, but when he went into a working-class neighborhood he’d stuff his ponytail into a cap bearing the insignia NY. A deeply despairing Eunuchs’ Goat planned his attack for Saturday. It took him a whole week to coordinate the movements of his enemy with those of the General Motors SUV belonging to the public morals enforcers. When the mirage appeared on al-Rusayfa Street at two o’clock in the afternoon, the boys from the Lane of Many Heads — led by the Eunuchs’ Goat — pounced on the Lebanese designer and the poor guy took off running. The stones they threw at him forced him to run in the direction of al-Rusayfa Street’s main intersection where, just as he got there, a Public Morals Authority SUV drove past, patrolling for high school students on their way home. The man had no time to grasp what was happening, or to understand why these demons were chasing him and pelting him with stones, because he instantly came face to face with the gray SUV, which appeared out of nowhere, as if from the folds of the earth. A policeman and three bearded sheikhs jumped out of the SUV, surrounded him, and ordered him to remove his baseball cap.
The Eunuchs’ Goat was pleased to see that the man’s ponytail caused a flash of anger in the eyes of his captors, who immediately forced him to his knees roughly right there on Street 50 in the midst of crowds of white-collar employees and schoolchildren on their way home at two o’clock in the afternoon. They shaved off his hair (and dignity) in broad daylight, making an example out of him. People say that the Pashtun barber the authorities brought with them on their raids was actually an expert sheep-shearer who used wool shears, but when the Lebanese designer stood up and walked off, he held his head as high as Yul Brynner.
Last month, the Eunuchs’ Goat lost the last of his patience and good sense, and it didn’t take much courage or forethought for him to carry out his next reckless move. He suddenly found himself with his arms wrapped, shivering, around the torso and legs of his beloved — passion and fear have driven you mad, Eunuchs’ Goat, look at you, your fingers are colder than a dead fish in a supermarket freezer! He calmly covered her with her wine-colored muslin and smuggled her out through the narrow alleyways of the Gaza Market till he reached the Mas’a, where he boarded a bus that was just pulling away from the stop. He couldn’t believe how easy it had been for him to steal the body. By the time he got it back to his bedroom above the kitchen, evening prayers were over. He lay down at her magical feet and let out a deep sigh. “This is the fragrance of feet that have never once touched the soil. Virginal feet. Nothing has ever spread these toes apart before.”
He was in seventh heaven, and for days the Eunuchs’ Goat had to fight the desire to dip into that wine-colored cloth, to strip away its many layers and reveal its amazing truth. For days he kept to his room, constantly parched, ignoring his foster father al-Ashi’s calls and foregoing lunches with his foster mother Umm al-Sa’d. When his resistance finally crumbled and he knelt down between her feet, all his limbs were numb. He shivered as he lifted up the hem of her dress, and he was shocked to find a hard wooden pedestal instead of her feet and cold metal columns where there should have been calves and thighs. His blood sugar dropped suddenly and his ears began to ring. With his teeth he tore the straps off her shoulders and ripped the wine-colored muslin to shreds, exposing the woman’s torso. It was perfect and sealed; nothing had split it open, neither scalpel nor desire. The feeling of encountering this woman before her body had even been formed was frightening. She was the mold of a woman, the body of woman before the Fall, before opening up, before extending her limbs.
The Eunuchs’ Goat was frantic but he carefully avoided the al-Ceyloni store and headed instead for its large competitor, the massive Bin Siddiq Outlets. While the security guard was watching, he bent down at the feet of the woman nearest the door. He wanted to make sure they were delicate and when he revealed her calves and saw how perfectly they were executed, his mouth went dry. Without any hesitation, he picked the woman up, wrapping her left arm around his shoulders and walked out. The security guard sitting at the other end of the shop simply finished his tea and said nothing. No one would try to pull something like that unless they were the rightful owner.
The Eunuchs’ Goat took off running, blindly, the fiery satin stinging his tongue. His entire body was propelled toward the Lane of Many Heads with his treasure in tow, deaf to the horns and screeching brakes around him, and it wasn’t until a flash of yellow crossed his path that he was awoken from his trance. A massive blow knocked him sideways and the muslin-covered beauty was mangled under the taxi’s wheel. The mocking laughter was like a slap in the face, but he ignored it and bent down, yanking and pulling, trying in vain to free the woman’s torso from beneath the tire. He lost it. He started beating the door of the taxi with both his hands. Khalil got out and grabbed the Eunuchs’ Goat by the collar. He shoved him against the bent metal of the car’s body and penned him in with his superior size. “Want me to show you the woman trapped inside that doll’s body of yours?” he said, mocking him for being a pretty Turk. The Eunuchs’ Goat kicked and punched him hysterically, but Khalil was enjoying the violence. He then suddenly shoved him to the side, got back in the cab, and reversed a few feet.
“When I was a king in heaven, I knew exactly what this country needed. I used to use my connections with the airlines to smuggle in dolls like you for seamstresses and tailoring workshops.” Khalil was getting off on insulting the object of his infatuation, this boy. “I’d bring in one or two dolls each time, disassembled and laid out in my suitcase, and I’d put them back together as soon as I made it past customs. The cheapest mannequins you can get abroad are priceless in this country. Maybe you should try Afghanistan, you’d probably be worth millions there.” The Eunuchs’ Goat took off his robe, which had been torn to shreds during the altercation, and knelt down to gather the pieces of his beauty up in it. Then he walked off, not once looking back, and Khalil, who was back behind the steering wheel, watched him sneeringly, appreciating the cute young man’s curves under his long white trousers. There was a smell of poison, mixed in with a hint of yellow satin, in the air.