| The Frog That Flew
Tonight, my sister Muzna came to our house
along with her two year old son Tahir; they were both in a miserable state. Their clothes
were disheveled and their eyes were reddish and swollen, they must have been crying for
hours. Tahir looked very sleepy as well, so Muzna took him immediately to Majid’s
room and lay him down next to his young uncle. It was almost midnight, and Muzna had not
spoken a single word since she had come in. But she didn’t need to say anything
really. The whole affair was very, very clear, and we all had gotten used to it by now.
Muzna must have had a fight with her idiot
of a husband, as usual, and he must have beaten her up to make his point, as usual. It was
all so very, very clear, and so very, very usual.
My sister. Muzna. The white cloud. Hers is a
bedouin name you know. Mother had chosen it for her. Mother loved bedouin TV series, not
to mention the simple values traditionally associated with the bedouin
lifestyle such as generosity, pride and independence. Indeed, for a while my sister was
worthy of her bedouin name. That’s why I had loved her. That’s what I had loved
about her.
Then, Muzna had gotten herself married a
mere five months after graduating from high school and after an engagement period that had
lasted for only two months. The whole affair had come as a complete surprise to me and to
mother, and I had never really managed to reconcile myself to it. Still, there was nothing
I can do about it really, Muzna had wanted that marriage, she had fought for it even, she
had embraced it. A month later, she let herself be talked into wearing a veil. A veil. Can
you imagine that? Muzna in a veil.
Had I not seen her with my very own eyes
walking topless on the beaches of the French Riviera, without parental consent or
knowledge of course but under my benign supervision, had I not seen her doing that a mere
fifteen months prior to her marriage without a care in the world, I might have found the
whole thing acceptable somehow, comprehensible. Might have. But things being what
they were, the whole affair grew more and more enigmatic to me. There was nothing in her
life, in our life, that could explain or justify what she was doing.
But, as far as my brother and father were
concerned, there was nothing to explain or justify. The whole affair was a very normal
part of life, and Muzna had finally grown up. Her “scandalous beauty”, as Hisham
had described it at one point, could finally be properly appreciated, and protected.
My father and brother had been ready to
marry Muzna off, ever since she had turned
fifteen. But Muzna, not to mention me and mother, would not accept, would not swallow
such an idea, regardless of who was the man or family proposing. To my knowledge, Muzna
had wanted to finish her high school and college education first, before even
contemplating such an idea.
So what in the name of heaven made her
change her mind? What is it that made her marry a traditional man fifteen years her senior
and accept, indeed embrace, such a traditional way of life? Was it jealousy, that is
because many of her friends had already gotten married? Was it greed, her husband being a
rich man, and in fact one of my father’s business partners? Or was it desperation,
desperation caused by an as-of-yet unknown variable? I don’t know. I don’t know.
I don’t care. I have hated Muzna ever since she got married, and hated her even more
ever since she took on the veil. She has betrayed me you know. She has betrayed me.
Day Twelve
A few months ago, Muzna had come back home
in a similar condition to hers yesterday. Hisham had been home then on a few days leave
from his barrack, and when he had taken a look at the blue marks covering her arms and
legs, and heard about the almost daily beating she had had to endure, right in front of
her son sometimes, and sometimes right in front of her husbands friends, when he had seen what he had seen and heard what he had heard,
he decided that he had had enough, and had left the house and gone looking for the
“effeminate fuck”. When he had finally found him, in one of the street cafes
near their house, he had started beating on him over and over again in front of everybody,
without anyone daring to interfere, until he had broken quite a few of his ribs, not to
mention his nose.
Everybody had thought, then, that this
incident would most certainly lead to the end of the marriage. But, and to everyone’s
deep surprise, even Hisham’s, even father’s, Muzna had gone to visit her
“unfortunate” husband in the hospital, then she had accepted to return to the
marital house provided her husband should drop all charges against Hisham.
Oh, whatever had happened to you
Muzna? What is it that made you change so much?
This evening, however, Muzna informed us
that she had finally made up her mind never to return to her husband, that she was
planning to seek a divorce. She had no doubts about that, she assured us, no doubts at
all. She said this, then she looked at me and smiled, and I managed to detect a familiar
glow in her eyes. A very familiar glow. I wonder. I wonder...
Day Thirteen
Abu Adnan, our atheist friend and my teacher
par excellence, died today of a heart-attack which surprised him during his mid-day
siesta. I felt sorry to my bone-marrow for his death, and forever I shall remember his
advises and his guidance. I haven’t seen him ever since I bought the Hallaj books from
his store.
Abu Adnan left behind a wife in her
mid-fifties and seven daughters. Yes, seven daughters, and how lucky they were to be
daughters of such a father in such a society. Four of them were already in college, and
three were definitely on their way. Strangely enough though, I wasn’t acquainted with
any of them, and I have only seen his wife once when she had come one day, long ago, to
the bookstore, and I happened to be there at the time.
Now that is a very strange fact indeed. I
don’t know how to explain it. I mean, Abu Adnan was a very close friend of the family
but, for one reason or another, the boundaries of this friendship were never extended to
include his family. He lived far from where he worked, and perhaps that was a reason. But
I somehow doubt it. There was an intentional element in all this, I am sure. I am sure of
it. But I cannot explain it. Not yet. Not yet.
Day Fourteen
There is a certain limited number of
European students in the University of Damascus, most of them specializing in the field of
history, specifically, in the field of Arabic and Islamic histories, which is why they
come to Syria to begin with. They want to get a certain feeling for the spirit of the
culture, the people and the language. Many of them, visit Turkey and Iran as well, not to
mention the neighboring Arab countries of Lebanon
and Jordan. And eventually, Israel, the Cancerous State.
Today, I got a chance to meet with one of
these students, a German girl who seemed to me at the time to have hitched herself to one
of the few companions I had in the University, a smug asshole by the name of Kamal[1]. An unfit
name for a misfit, not to mention a
miscreant. That is, if you ask me.
The meeting took place in the usual hang-out
place, Syria is probably, no definitely, one
of the poorest countries in the world when it comes to hang-out places regardless of the
social class one happens to belong to. Anyway, I got there late, for in these particular
situations I always find it better to arrive late, thus I can avoid listening to the usual
bullshit that gets said; so, I came late, and the
usual group was already there along with Ange, our German Friend, to whom I was hurriedly
introduced, because the group was too busy discussing certain interesting and
controversial issues such as Islamic Terrorism, Islamic statehood, women’s rights in
Islam et cetera.
The brief and hurried introduction
notwithstanding, I had heard speak of Ange before, probably from Kamal himself, so I knew
a few facts about her. She came from a rich German family from Bremen, with certain
ancient, but unforgotten, aristocratic roots, and she managed to speak four languages in
addition to her mother tong: Arabic, Persian, French and English.
So she was intelligent, that much I had
known about her, but now I noticed that she was beautiful as well. She had a long
sparkling blond hair, deep blue eyes, and a tall and slender body that would invoke the
image of a gazelle running about in the minds of our classical Arab poets. Her simple
attire and mannerism, and her ability to steer the conversation, ever so smoothly, in a
certain desired direction, added even more to her charm in
my eyes. She listened more than she talked, and spent most of the time
jotting down mental notes in her mental journal, just like I would do most of the time.
Oh,
indeed. Oh, indeed.
The conversation itself, however, topics
notwithstanding, was definitely neither scientific nor informed. The usual traditional
worn-out polemic lines were followed, everybody cleared Islam from all the charges leveled
against it, and blamed the usual foes of Islam for all that is wrong with our societies
today: the corrupt rulers, the racist western imperialists, the bloody Zionists, and the
ignorant multitude which know nothing of their real religion, a religion which was
definitely very much in tune with the spirit of the age, giving women their proper rights,
men their proper rights, everybody his and her proper rights, not to mention
responsibilities, and it was democratic and liberal, and peaceful and progressive, and
possessing all the beautiful qualities one can ever imagine, because after all it was our
religion, God’s chosen religion, and how can God choose a religion for himself that
was not perfect? How? How? They earnestly wanted to know.
Islam, God’s very religion, is it
really that innocent of all the charges leveled against it? Is any religion ever innocent?
I rather doubt it. Muhammad himself has blood on his hand, Moses was a tribalistic man,
and Jesus’ ideas of peace and love and turning the other cheek were not the
principles upon which the Church was founded, and had absolutely nothing to do with its
worldly success.
When, I wonder, when will we be able to face
the reality that our most sacred cows are completely unworthy of sacredness? When will we
be able to deal with the reality of our lives today and our history? When will we be able
to believe in life itself as our most sacred thing, and not our own assumptions and ideas?
I don’t know. I don’t know.
But how am I supposed to belong to a world where
such a reality is always marginalized, or made absent?
When my thoughts reached that stage, I was
pulled back into this world by an idiotic interruption. Damn those people. That’s why
I love solitude.
“Hey, Mustafa, on what planet are you
brother? Come, give us your input here. Bestow upon us your usual words of wisdom.”
This was Kamal, the asshole himself, talking by the way.
But, why? Why would he ask me about these
things when everybody knows my opinions by now? Everybody that is but Ange. I was supposed
to talk for Ange’s sake then, after all she was the true mover and shaker of events
in this session. We haven’t had such conversation in a long time, none of us really,
well none of them, had anything new to add, but now she was here, and we were talking. So
be it, Ange, so be it. you are a curious, aren’t you? They must have informed you
that I had different ideas, mustn’t they? So be it, Ange, so be it, I will even make
you much more curious about me than you have ever wanted. Ever.
“Muhammad is a two-bits murderer, all
religions are falsehoods, and God is irrelevant.”
“Well, well, well, everything is so
simple to you, isn’t it?” asked Kamal.
"You
live for the world, you get the world, you live for the hereafter, you get
impaled. Now, you all should know about having something stuck up the ass,
shouldn’t you?”
“Now you, you just stay away from my
ass, asshole, and everything will be fine, OK?”
“Ah, I see, speaking badly of your ass
seem to offend you much more than speaking badly of your God, Prophet and religion. Well,
now, we all know something about your priorities, don’t we?”
This, naturally, made everybody laugh,
including Ange, well, actually she just smiled. But that counts, for me.
After this comic interlude, the group began
to discuss some idiotic plans for some new idiotic outing somewhere, so I resumed my
silence until the end of the session. Of course, I did not fail to notice that throughout
the remainder of the session, Ange kept glancing at me every now and then, her looks being
full of curiosity, amusement, and perhaps even ridicule, and when, finally, our eyes met
at one point, she turned away from me, and ignored me through the end of the session. Now,
that was the initial reaction I usually instigate in the souls of young, beautiful,
intelligent and proud women. So nothing was new under this day’s Sun.
But under this night’s Moon, many new
facts began to emerge from the tendril fibers of my brain and began to dance upon the
covers of my bed as I lay sweating under them.
Oh, Muhammad, Muhammad, do I have to
become like you to succeed in this life, to infuse my vision into the living fabric of
history, to make a difference, a substantial difference in life? Do I? Do I? Do I have to
compromise my ideals to succeed? Do I have to get my hands dirty? Do I? Do I? Do I?
Day Fifteen
I sat alone in my room today thinking about
the death of Abu Adnan and what it means or should mean to me. I still have a lot of
difficulty accepting his death, so much difficulty, in fact, I refused to attended his
funeral, or console his family. Now, that might have been both idiotic and selfish of me,
but it was done, it had to be done. Abu Adnan had never invited me to his home when he was
alive, so I would not go to it now that he is dead. This was done out of respect, of
course, not vengefulness.
For why would I even contemplate any act of
vengeance against Abu Adnan, the man who has always encouraged me to read, and helped me
transform my room into a library, the man who had, at one point in my life, noticed my
love for exotic trinkets, and had drawn my father’s attention to that, making him
bring me many such things from all different parts of the world, and thus helped transform
my room into a museum? Abu Adnan, Abu Adnan, for all practical purposes, was my spiritual
father. An important part of me died when he died. And I mourn his death much more that I
will ever mourn my father’s when the time comes. I know. I know.
My room, then, is both a library and a
museum. But, while my room is such, Hisham’s room
was a stable, a hell, and Muzna’s room a veritable Garden of Eden. After Muzna’s
marriage, her garden and Hisham’s hell got to trade places, and so now, there was
only a small wooden door separating me from Eden, and a veritable infinity separating me
from Hell. These days, Muzna had moved back into her Eden, and I have allowed the
separating door to stay open. Yes. I have allowed the separating door to stay open, for my feelings towards Muzna were gradually returning to normal nowadays, well after all, she too was returning to normal, there was no more veil, and no more looking down as she spoke to men, and no more faked shyness. That glow of defiance and confidence was beginning to find its way into her gaze again. That old independent streak of hers was reasserting herself. That is good. Something inside Muzna was becoming unburied again. And the same thing was happening with me.
[1] Kamal ia an Arabic name which means
“perfection.”
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lust for salvation, Brother, as though it were a woman, and I - a man.
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