Day Twenty-Four
Today we received a very unexpected yet
quite welcome phone call that brought us much happiness. It was a phone call from uncle
Walid. Uncle Walid, the man who had been in prison ever since 1979 on the ludicrous charges
of belonging to the infamous organization the Muslim Brotherhood, and from whom we had had
no news for all this time. He called us himself today to inform us of his release last
night along with few other political prisoners of various persuasions.
When uncle Walid was imprisoned, he had been
the greatest playboy around, even worse than my father, after all he had been his teacher.
But when we went to visit him this evening, we found a very different man assuming his
guise and his name.
“What happened to me was nothing other
than a punishment from God Almighty for my deviant and perverse behavior. It was a private
call for me to follow the Muhammadan Guidance and the Straight Path of Islam as it should
be followed. It was the call of Heaven opening its doors to me. There was no way I could
ignore this call. No way. Do you all understand me?
I have
educated myself in all the principles of faith, during my long imprisonment, and should
any of you require guidance in any matter of faith, he should come to me. Let me impart
upon him of the wisdom that was given to me. It is my solemn duty to do so now, it is my
jihad, it is my calling.”
“So Tuffy, are you going to let him
impart upon you of his bullshit.?” These were the words of my cousin Najwa, who,
by the way, is almost a facsimile of Muzna, inside and out, almost. She had brought me
into her room as her father, my uncle, was busy talking and imparting of his wisdom to
mother, Muzna and the other guests present.
Now, I had been guided to Najwa’s room
many times before, during her father’s long imprisonment and when her mother was at work as the manager of
Su’ad’s clothing store. Our relationship, though sexual to a good extant, that
is we had gotten down to the level of complete nudity, and during our last encounter, some
six months ago, we even exchanged the favors of oral sex, was still brotherly in
nature as far as I was concerned, in the real sense of brotherliness that is, not
in the sense of my relationship with Muzna.. Though Najwa, for honesty’s sake, is
somewhat more voluptuous than Muzna, more sexually attractive, and was getting more and
more uninhibited and adventurous throughout our encounters.
In fact, I had been anticipating going all
the way with her during our next encounter. Perhaps that is why I kept on avoiding her for
all this time, I wasn’t convinced that she was the kind of girl who would be able to
bear the consequences of such a decision in our society, for the consequences of such a
decision are very serious indeed for Arab women, and I did not want to hurt Najwa. I never
want to hurt Najwa. Anyway, the whole issue was now moot with Muzna back into my life and
all.
“I am in danger, Tuffy. I am in real
danger and you, you have to help me.” Najwa was about to burst in tears as she
uttered these words. She was really upset. I have never seen her that upset before.
“What are you talking about, Najwa?
What sort of danger could you possibly be in?”
Is it a
guy? I almost
added. Are you pregnant?
“It’s my father, Tuffy. No, not my
father. I have no father. I have never had a father. It is this strange man out there who
claims to be my father, the father I haven’t seen since I was three years old, and of
whom I remember nothing, nothing at all. It’s that stranger out there, that maniac,
that fanatic, that coward…” The words and curses were coming out Najwa’s
mouth in a continuous sequence as the beads of a tightly-strung rosary, she was getting
quite hysterical really, and she needed some comforting. But I… I didn’t know
what I could do to comfort her, not without understanding what her hysteria was all about.
“Calm down, Najwa. Calm down. Calm
down.” I said as I wrapped my arms around her, but that didn’t do the trick.
“Don’t tell me to come down. You
don’t know what the story is. You don’t know what this fool outside wants me to
do. He wants me to take on the veil Tuffy. Me. He wants to dabble in my life just as if he
had always been there for me, and helped raise me and care for me. Now, I know he may not
have deserved to go to prison, but that doesn’t give him the right to behave like
this. He has no right to start treating us with his holier than thou attitude. No fucking
right.
Imagine. He wants my mother to do the same,
and he wants her to quit working for Su’ad too. He even called Su’ad a bitch,
can you imagine that? The woman I look up to more than my own mother, that woman who has
more saintliness in her than anyone I have ever known or read about, and he calls her a
bitch. Imagine. He is not yet out for twenty four hours, and he managed to insult me, my
mother, and my idol, and transform my life into a veritable hell.
Oh, Tuffy, Tuffy, help me. Only you can help
me.”
“Well, I’ll be glad to, but what
can I do?”
“You can marry me, that’s what you
can do. You can go out there and ask for my hand in marriage.”
“What?” What? Even as I
write these words, this idiotic exclamatory note seems to be the only suitable device for
me to express the depth of my astonishment upon hearing Najwa’s demand.
“You heard me. You have to go out there
and ask for my hand in marriage. I mean, we’re lovers after all, aren’t we?
Aren’t we?” I Thanked the heavens for that tone of uncertainty that laced
Najwa’s last words, otherwise, I would have had a serious problem on my hand. I
really would have. But, things being as they were, I could deal with them. Or so I thought
at the time.
“First of all, you know we’re
not lovers. We get intimate together because we trust each other. Now that was the
conclusion we reached together, wasn’t it? Second, even if I should ask for your hand
in marriage, your father wouldn’t agree, yes, he wouldn’t agree for the same
reason he wants you to take on the veil. He is religious now, and I am an atheist. That is
that, this id definitely enough to make the whole issue of marriage completely out of the
question.
So you, you just have to calm down, just
calm down. You said it yourself, your father has been out less than twenty four hours, he
needs time to adjust you know. He needs to adjust. You have to help him adjust. Talk to
him, give him some time, and things will work out by themselves, I am sure they will. I am
sure I tell you. I am sure.”
But no, no, the truth of the matter is, I am
not sure they will. Still, I don’t know what else could I have said under those
circumstances. You see, I felt guilty. I feel guilty still. I am not the one who took the
first step in my affair with Najwa.
Hell, I didn’t even take the second
step, or the third. It was she, she all the way, she overlooked my erstwhile hesitation,
and kept on guiding me step by step, until I found her one fateful day, wallowing naked in
my arms. It was she who had made the first sexual suggestion, she who had stolen the first
kiss, she who had taken the first piece of clothing off, she who had taken her bra off and
thrust her nipples into my mouth, and she who had gotten completely naked in front of my
watchful eyes.
And that was the case with every woman and
girl I had ever had, with the exception of Muzna, of course, and soon perhaps Ange as
well.
Women and girls, they did the pursuing in my case, and they withstood my early
rejections and kept on pursuing, and they were the ones to set the final limits once the
affair was firmly under way . I let them do that, because I did not want to hurt anyone,
and because I really didn’t know the
purpose behind all this, their persistence that is, the unnatural hunger in the their eyes
when they looked at me, they wanted sex and something much more than sex from me. Much
more. Much more.
But what could it be? What could it be that
they all want from me? And do I actually have it, or do they just hope that I do or think
that I do? And if I do indeed have it, could I possibly give it away? Could I afford to
part with it? And wouldn’t they be hurt in the process? Wouldn’t they?
Wouldn’t they? Questions,
questions and more questions, and all without an answer.
And as far as Najwa and her father are
concerned, there was really nothing that I could do. My father, however, might be able to
help her when he returns.
When I stepped outside of Najwa’s room,
we had spent less than five minutes inside, and thankfully her father hadn’t noticed
my absence, or perhaps he thought I had been in the bathroom, yes, I think that was it
really. As far as Muzna was concerned, however, she knew where I had been all right, and
that had clearly made her angry, not simply with me, but with Najwa. Above all with Najwa.
Yes, with Najwa. For Muznah had always hated
Najwa, I mean really hated her, despite, or perhaps, because of, the similarities in their
person and character. Najwa though, is the younger of the two. She is my age.
Anyway, Muzna said nothing about the matter
during our active intercourse tonight. And her cries of satisfaction, loud as they were,
did not wake anyone in the house, not to mention the neighbor’s. And that was good.
Day Twenty-Five
“Has homosexuality been widespread in
Islamic history?”
Throughout the last few days, I have had
many occasions to converse with Muzna, and, on the basis of our conversations, I have
noticed that Muzna’s knowledge of history and literature had increased dramatically
since her teen years. It seems that reading has become a favorite pass-time for her during
her marriage, it has kept the memory of our affair somehow alive in her mind, after all,
she was adopting my own favorite past-time, and she knew it.
Still, that particular question of hers took
me somewhat by surprise. It came completely out of the blue for me. Nevertheless, I had no
reason not to answer it, and so…
“Well, homosexuality in the sense of a
sexual relationship between two adult males, or females, is not as widely represented in
the Islamic literary and historical sources as you might think. The relationship we often
read about is in fact pedophilia, that is, a relationship between adult males, free adult
males, on the one hand and slave boys, usually referred to as Ghulman on the other.
Similar relationships must have existed among women as well, but we don’t read of
that as often, because of the cloistering of women in our societies.
Of course, it is the Qur’an that has
allowed for the establishment of conjugal relationships with whatever “the right hand
possesses,” meaning slaves, without specifying the sex, at least that is what many
people, including scholars, have claimed. Historically, this meant
pedophilia, and it was
widespread too.
Many sex manuals got written throughout
Islamic history, many of which have finally resurfaced and been published. I have managed
to acquire four of them so far, each of them had a special chapter on
pedophilia
relationship, it was never condemned, and was rather taken for granted.”
“And it has never disappeared, has it?
I mean, even today, with slavery abolished and all, there are still many
pedophiles
around, aren’t there? I mean, our local butcher, Abu ‘Ido, he is a
pedophile,
isn’t he? Everybody says so.”
“True, everybody says so, and he does
have the nasty habit of telling young boys to go wash their asses every so often, while
giving them that look that scares the hell out of them. Now, it might all be a joke,
still, it does go to show how widespread pedophilia was up until recent times, if not
now. For people do often joke about the pedophiliac habits of the people of the city
Idlib, for instance, and the people of Idlib in turn, accuse the inhabitants of Aleppo, I
think, of the same, and so on.
And just recently, in fact, I have heard a
joke about a shaykh, a priest and a young boy. You want to hear it?”
“Sure, go ahead, disgust me.”
“Well, they say that a shaykh used to
bother a young boy whenever he saw him, he used to follow him around clapping his hands
and telling him: ‘go wash your ass boy. Boy, go wash your ass.’ And the boy used
to run away completely frightened. One day, the shaykh kept on pursuing the young boy
until the latter had nowhere to go and hide but inside a neighboring church. When the
priest saw the frightened young boy in his chapel, he approached the boy and inquired as
to what was wrong with him, what it is that had made him so obviously distressed and
afraid. The boy told the priest his story, and the priest smiled and said: ‘there,
there, young man, don’t be upset. With me, you don’t have to wash your
ass.’”
“Fuck.”
“You know what is really scary about
this whole thing though? I actually laughed when I had first heard the joke. After all, I
wasn’t born and raised on the Moon, you know. I am in many ways a product, perhaps, a
byproduct of this society.”
Silence.
“Do you know why I asked you about
homosexuality?”
“No. But I am sure you’re going to
tell me.”
“Because the question just came to me.
It just came to me. I am thinking about everything nowadays. I am posing to myself all
sorts of questions. I am doubting everything I used to believe in. I am searching,
searching for the Truth. I am a seeker, a seeker, Tuffy, just like you. Isn’t it
so?”
“Perhaps.”
“Why do people worship the past, Tuffy?
Why do we worship it in this country? Why do we think it was all so good and nice?”
“Because the present is ugly, and the
future promises to be even more ugly, and we need some beauty, or at least some myth of
beauty in our lives to keep us going.”
“But you don’t do that, do you
Tuffy? You don’t deceive yourself just to keep yourself going? So how do you keep
going, Tuffy? How do you do it?
“By suspending belief. By not living in
the same world in which everyone else lives. I might share the same space with you Muzna,
I might share the same bed, but I live in a different world than yours, I have always
had.”
“I know. I know. I have always known
that, and I have always envied you for it. You know, Tuffy, you’re selfish. You have
never shared your world with anyone, ever,
not even with me.”
“But I still don’t know if
it’s shareable, Muzna, and if it is, I definitely don’t know how to go about
sharing it. Have you ever considered that? Have you?”
“Yes, I have, and that’s why I
don’t hate you. In fact, that’s why I love you, because I know you want to
share, I know you want to speak, I know you want to expose the facts, but you just
don’t know how.
You have to become less inhibited, Tuffy.
No, you have to lose all of your inhibitions, and in time, you will learn what you will
have to do. You will, Tuffy. You will. Your voice should reach everywhere. It should not
be confined to your own mind, it should not be confined to academic circles. It should
reach everyone and everywhere; and though many will definitely misunderstand what you have
to say, what you have to offer, and though many will not appreciate it, or you for that
matter, and though many might indeed turn against you, and hate you, and might even try to
hurt you, there were will always be a few, a very capable and loyal few who will love you,
who will understand you, who will appreciate your gift.
So rise, Tuffy, rise and speak out, rise and
share of yourself, don’t be afraid of sharing, Tuffy, don’t be afraid of
anything, or anyone. You have to destroy, as you build, you have to divide as you work to
unite, you have to weaken as you bestow and inspire strength. You are prophet, Tuffy, a
prophet, do you understand what I am telling you? Your are a messiah. It is time for you
to accept your destiny now, Tuffy, it is time for you to arise. Arise Tuffy, arise.”
[1] An ancient festival celebrating the beginning of
Spring.
|
 |
|
|
|
|
lust for salvation, Brother, as though it were a woman, and I - a man.
|
