Try to imagine me like I was in that room. As you were being lashed by the waves, I was being buffeted, too, as I tried to excise a single body that could be yours and yours alone while they jostled and brawled with one another on my bare shoulders.
Aren’t you blown away by how spontaneously I performed in front of that unsympathetic audience?
Cyber Life
M U’AZ WENT INTO THE MOSQUE AND PRAYED. THEN HE LINGERED THERE UNTIL all the other worshippers had gone and only he and his father were left. His father watched him with pride as Mu’az prayed for forgiveness, tracing the chains of sin that were weighing him down. He asked for forgiveness a hundred times — a thousand times — for every photo he’d taken, every face he’d abused. He summoned all the angels that had abandoned him for his private abominations, and he apologized for the keys he’d burdened Yusuf with and the trouble he’d gotten him in. He begged for mercy and renounced everything except for the book he’d stolen from Mushabbab’s library. It was a sin that couldn’t be erased. He couldn’t bring himself to put it back or even part with it. He insisted on taking it with him everywhere, even into his dreams, constantly flipping through it in the studio or in the Lababidi house on Mount Hindi, which the angels had long since abandoned owing to the mass of photos stored there. Mu’az discovered that his dreams were the only place where he could enjoy privacy, the only place he could be alone with his intimate belongings, whether or not they were sinful. Like the desires he had, which were brought to life in the snapshots he took of girls’ bangs and legs, or this book, which was packed full of the work of the earliest photographers. They took him along with them, from the early 1860s all the way to the end of the 1950s, and he stood beside them as they snapped rare shots of Mecca and the Hijaz. He met the traveler Muhammad Sadiq Mirza and his sons in the photos of the supplication of pilgrims on Mount Arafat; Snouck Hurgronje, disguised as Abd al-Ghaffar, showed him what the pilgrimage looked like in 1889. He spent time alone with Ibrahim Rifaat, who’d taken some of the rarest photos of Mecca and Medina; Clemow and Hallajian at the turn of the twentieth century; Lawrence in 1916. In John Philby’s photos from the first quarter of the twentieth century, he saw the pilgrims alighting from their ships in the port of Jeddah, and then he moved with de Gaury, Rendel, and Thesiger into the 1930s and ’40s. In his dreams, they all became one: his genes climbed up the scaffolding of their genes, ascending through their genius, in-mixing. He woke to find that he was like Dolly the sheep: just a clone. No more, no less.
“Mu’az,” called his father, interrupting his pleas for forgiveness. “God bless you, my son. The Turkish seamstress — God reward her — sent us a sheep for the poor. We shall slaughter it and divide the meat among the people we know.” Mu’az folded up his prayer rug, his father’s voice following after him: “Mu’az, don’t forget to keep the head and the tripe for us … And the skin as well.” Mu’az nodded reluctantly.
“I’ll be late for work now.” Mu’az left the mosque, his father’s blessings following him out the door, and he left his own voice to hang in the air: “I hate slaughtering.”
Whenever Imam Dawoud sensed any weakness in Mu’az, he gave him an assignment like this to strengthen his constitution. “I’m going to become a vegetarian,” Mu’az thought to himself. “I hate meat.”
Mu’az had only ever seen meat that was covered in fat and veins and pericardium, and looked like the froth of death itself, from the charity they’d been raised on and celebrated with on feast days. “Are you too good for the meat that built your bones now, Mu’az?” Mu’az didn’t want to anger God by refusing His blessings. “In the Quran, heaven is said to be full of fruits,” he thought to himself. “Whenever meat is mentioned, it’s usually birds or fish. Okay, fine, it does mention livestock, but …” He pushed aside the thought.
He untied the Turkish woman’s sheep from their front door. This was what was going to do away with his weakness and sin. The sheep the Turkish woman had donated for slaughter was large and embodied all the mystery and desire rising up out of her basement; it even embodied his own desires and sins too. He couldn’t bring himself to look into its tearful eyes; he couldn’t stand the sight of its tongue — still licking — or its teeth — still chewing. He didn’t know who it was who remarked, “They should’ve stopped giving it water last night so its veins would be ready to open.”
An idea occurred to Mu’az. He led the sheep to the spot between the two houses where the body had fallen. The ground there was dry. There was no trace of what had been. Facing the direction of prayer, he pushed the sheep onto its side and knelt down on its chest. He picked up the large knife and was instantly transported to that last attempt at toughening up his constitution. One Friday after night prayers, he and his father were sitting with al-Ibsi, the executioner. Al-Ibsi was a regular at the mosque and the other worshippers all regarded him with respect. He introduced himself to Mu’az with consummate modesty.
“I carry out executions in the western region — Mecca, Jeddah, and Ta’if,” he said. Then he introduced the delicate young man he’d brought with him. “This is my son, Mishari, my pride and joy. With God’s help, he’s going to inherit my trade. I’ve trained him well, now he just needs to be approved and examined.” Mu’az nerves were jangling. His father and al-Ibsi went off to speak in private, leaving Mu’az and Mishari to get to know each other.
“You chop people’s heads off? You’re an executioner?” Mu’az asked incredulously.
“My father’s heart is filled with nothing but care and concern when he’s removing people’s heads. That’s what he’s been teaching me during my apprenticeship. I can’t even count how many beheadings I’ve seen. I look right at the point where the sword should fall so the head comes off with one strike. The challenge is testing your fortitude — seeing whether you can keep your cool.”
“Are you married?”
“Yes, God has blessed me. I’m a newlywed.”
“And what does your bride think?”
“She married me when I was still a soldier, but when I told her about my ambitions, she didn’t object. She just asked me to think it over for a while. When I told her I was certain, she supported me.”
“Isn’t she scared of you?”
“No. She knows I’m carrying out God’s law. At home, I’m like my father: gentle. We were never scared of him, not before he’d carried out a punishment and not after. He does his ritual ablutions first and goes to a beheading in a state of purity as if he’s going to the mosque. In clean robes, with a headscarf and igal. Last time, he took off seven heads in seven seconds. Each head popped right off and he didn’t once need to strike a second blow.”
“Doesn’t he have nightmares?”
“No, because he’s a very pious man.”
“What heads do you train on?”
“The training is abstract, but the actual procedure is carried out in the square. Tomorrow’s going to be my first actual beheading assignment. You can come watch if you want.” If it weren’t for his father, Mu’az would’ve run screaming from the invitation.
“You’re going to use a real sword tomorrow?”
“God willing, the government will provide me with one. They’re very expensive. They’re usually around twenty thousand riyals. My brothers and I always sanitize my father’s after he gets back from a beheading.”