| The Frog That Flew
“I am off to America.” This
is what Munir, the son of our local barber, and our self-appointed Mahdi and Long-Awaited
Messiah, told me this morning when I saw him loading his suite cases into a waiting taxi.
Off to America, is he? Now what would
our Blessed Mahdi and Long-Awaited Messiah do in America I wonder? And how did he manage
to obtain a visa to get there at a time when the applications of sane and highly educated
people were being rejected en masse? The man had spent years in an asylum for the insane
for crying out loud, and so did some of his followers. For yes, our rogue of a messiah,
who had dropped out of school before even finishing the elementary level, had had
followers during the heydays of his Mission five years ago. I wonder, I really
wonder…
Every neighborhood and every street nowadays
seem to harbor some would-be mahdi and a messiah, all biding their time waiting for the
right moment to pounce upon the desperate multitude promising salvation, promising
justice, promising the righting of what is wrong and the abolishing of what is evil, the
slaying of the pig, the pouring of all wine into the sewers, the breaking of the cross,
and the switching-off of the star David. They all wanted to prepare the world for the
coming of the one-eyed Dajjal, identified by some as symbolizing modern technology, and
Gog and Magog, variously identified as referring to the Chinese, the Japanese, the
Americans or some future invaders from outer space, for they were not necessarily
uneducated or unimaginative those modern-day messiahs.
So, what sort of a messiah would I prove
to be I wonder? If it were up to me, I’d really prefer to be the one-eyed Dajjal.
By today’s standards, this would be the only honorable thing to hope for, for a man
of a certain avowed messianic potential.
Or, if I had to, why not one of those Sufi
Badeels, the succession of men who were supposed to guard the universal balance. Sure, why
not become the Badeel of my time? After all, if charlatans can do it, why can’t
honest men do it too?
Day Thirty-Seven
“Who is she?” Asked Ange as she
lay next to me in bed. It was noontime, I had always visited her around this time. For the
mornings belonged to my studies, the noons to her, the afternoons to the family, evenings
to myself, and the nights…, well the nights always belonged to Muzna.
“Who is she?” She asked.
“Who do you mean?” I replied.
“The other woman in your life.”
“Well, you don’t really know
her.” It wouldn’t hurt to be honest, I decided. In fact, that is my policy most
of the time.
“Does she know about me?”
“Yes.”
“And she accepts it? Without any
problems?”
“She accepts it. Without any
problems.”
“A typical Arab woman then, eh?”
“And do you really think that a typical
Arab woman would accept this state of affairs? Surely you jest. A typical Arab woman would
raise hell about a situation like this. Don’t be too fooled by the presence of bigamy
and polygamy in our societies, please. Things are always more complicated than they look
here. We are in truth a society of secrets. Nothing here is what it seems to be. This is
one typically Orientalist concept that is typically true. No. She…she is quite
atypical really, and that is why she accepts this situation. In fact she encourages it,
with you and others.”
“Why would she?”
“Because she thinks it’s
necessary.”
“Well, she’s right. I, for one,
think she’s right.”
Is she? Is she now?
“She’s in love with you, you
know.”
“Who?”
“Ange, who else? She’s in love
with you.”
“Why would she? She hardly knows me.
Besides, she is a very balanced girl and she had been hurt before, and by an Arab man of
all people. So she would be much more careful about who to love, wouldn’t she? She
wouldn’t fall me for me that easily, and she wouldn’t fall for me at all,
knowing that there’s another in my life.”
“Still, she loves you. And you know it
too, you just don’t want to face it.”
“Do you really think so, Muzna?”
“Yes, I really think so.”
“Would she want commitment, too, you
think?”
“Sure, eventually.”
“Then, she’ll be hurt, and I will
have hurt her.”
And that will hurt me. It will hurt me deeply.
“She’ll get over it in time, and
she’ll understand that you cannot belong to one woman, or man.”
“Not even you.”
“I am not sure. I am afraid to think
about it.”
And I am afraid I am drowning in a deeper
sea, o, Muzna. A much deeper sea than I thought possible.
Day Thirty-Eight
Father returned home today in a state of
great anger, he had finally visited my uncle and they had gotten to fight; the years, it
seems, and their newly-found faith, could not make them forget their hate for each other.
“Would you believe it?” He asked
us. “Your uncle accuses me of having taken over his trade and his clients during his
imprisonment. He accuses me of robbing his wife and daughter. Can you imagine that? Can
you imagine it? After all I have done for them he accuses me of that, and they…they
sit and they listen to this gibberish silently. Without me, they would have ended up in
the streets you know. The ingrates. The ingrates. The bastard.”
“Don’t you think he might be angry
with you for other reasons?” Now that was clearly a rhetorical question. Mother has
just announced in her inimitable way that she had always known about father’s affair
with his brother’s wife.
I wonder, does she also know about his
harassment of Najwa? Is my own mother somehow omniscient?
Day Thirty-Nine
“You think you’re chosen,
don’t you?” said Ange.
“Do I?” I replied.
“You behave like you do.”
“Many people behave like that.
They’re mostly assholes you know, fakers, if you like a more objective term.”
“But not you.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“Because I feel, I know, you’re
agonizing over the whole thing inside. It’s killing you, isn’t it?”
“Well, something is killing me,
that’s for sure. Something deep inside of me. Something entrenched. Something nascent
out of me that suckles on the very living tissues of me, on the very fabric of my being.
Sounds poetic, doesn’t it? perhaps there is some poetry in it, perhaps even, poetic
justice.
After all, I have often ridiculed all the
messiahs of history, yet, here I am now hungering to be one of them. Isn’t it
ridiculous? Isn’t it all ridiculous? I, who have always despised humanness, and
despised myself for being human, am now harboring a flood of the most hateful things that
comes with being human: longing and fear.
They are welling up inside of me, they are
threatening to burst at any given moment, and I am afraid of them Ange. I am afraid. I am
afraid. I am afraid…”
“Shhh.
It’s OK. It’s all right. I believe in you. I believe in you.”
Day Forty
Su’ad came to visit us today, it was
noontime, and I happened to be at home, because Ange had an engagement in the German
Embassy, it was good that I was there, it’s always good to hear ominous news first
hand, especially when they concern your family.
It seems that Su’ad had had a surprise
visitor yesterday. It was my father who had showed up after all these years of separation
to ask for her hand in marriage. He said he wanted
to make up for his erstwhile mistakes, and that he wanted to stand by her and protect her,
after all she did need a man by her side. He said he won’t hide anything from mother
when the time will come, and that he will convince her, one or another, to accept this
bigamous situation.
“When I heard his offer, I did not
simply refuse, no, I chased him out of my house like a rabid dog, and I felt elated to
have done that frankly. But then I started to think about you. I am sorry for you Samiha.
This religion thing that came over him all of a sudden is going to make things difficult
for you. He is a womanizer by nature and cannot change, so now he’ll be looking for
bigamy, perhaps even polygamy, to satisfy his lust, he need a legitimate cover under which
he can still practice his womanizing. I am really sorry Samiha, but the next few day will
prove very difficult for you.”
“They will prove difficult for all of
us, Su’ad.” Mother replied.
After Su’ad’s departure, mother
warned Muzna and me not to say anything of this matter to father, she said that, for now,
we all should behave as if we had no idea what was happening. This matter, she said,
concerned her more than any of us, and she would deal with it in her own way, and at her
own pace. Faced with her insistence, Muzna and I had no choice but to promise her our silence.
Day Forty-One
Today, I got transformed into a chimpanzee,
and I began to fuck all the other chimpanzees that happened by me, then I started to fuck
humans too, including my father, my mother, my sister and my brothers, and I kept on
fucking and fucking until I got fucked myself with a bullet that went straight to my head.
Damn hunters. Damn hunters. Damn all shedders of blood.
Day Forty-Two
Today, we got news from the Syrian army that
my brother Hisham had gotten killed during a routine training exercise; he was hit by a
stray bullet it seems. There was nothing anyone could do.
Day Forty-Three
Mother has transformed Hisham’s room
into a museum, and have kept it closed to everybody else but her. Father used his newly-found religiousness to his
advantage and spent most of his time praying. Majid spent most of his time with mother, or
at the neighbor’s. Muzna made a point of spending most of her time with me and Tahir.
Ange grieved for my grieving. And Su’ad never left mother’s side, regardless of
my father’s presence, and made a point, on the side, of trying to bring some cheer to
Muzna and me.
Ange professed her love for me.
My uncle has gotten himself imprisoned
again, for reasons heretofore unknown, all to the utter misery of his wife and the utter
jubilation of his daughter.
Meanwhile, I got transformed into an ant,
and took part in a foiled plot against the life of the queen of the hive.
Also, I spent much of my time wandering
through the maze of the ancient Damascene streets following an insistent voice that seemed
to echo both within and around me.
Finally, and at one point in time, as I lay
next to Muzna in bed, I began to bleed. Yes, I began to bleed, bleed. So very
profusely I began to bleed. Thick, viscous, black blood began to pour, all of a sudden,
out of the very pores of my chest, it drenched everything, the covers of my bed, the floor
of my room, the carpet, everything. Muzna could not stop the bleeding, and Muzna could not
alert anyone to the matter. We both knew she couldn’t. Muzna had to clean everything
herself, she had spent all the night hours doing it, and we had a hard time hiding the
traces of the incident, but we finally did. Luckily, the bleeding had lasted for less than
an hour. It frightened the hell out of Muznah, but comforted me. Yes. It comforted me.
Day Forty-Four
Some normality has finally begun to return
to my life. My old schedule has been successfully revived for quite a few days now. And I
felt the instability within me decreasing.
Still, Muzna and I were getting too reckless
in our love-making these days. Her public behavior towards me is really pushing the limits
of brotherly love and concern, and she is
constantly insisting on making love in the most inappropriate times and place. A couple
days ago, she walked on me as I was taking a shower, and insisted upon making love to me
right then and there, knowing fully well that our father was praying next to us in his
room, and that mother and the kids could return at any moment from their morning visits.
I pointed out to Muzna the foolishness of
her behavior, but she said that she didn’t care if we were found out, that in fact
she was thinking that it might be appropriate for us to reveal the matter ourselves. I
disagreed of course. I disagreed. And I disagreed. But Muzna was getting out of control.
Last night, Tahir walked in on us, as we lay
together in bed; we were both totally naked. Still, Muzna was not in the least disturbed,
she simply picked up my shirt from the ground and worn it, then she picked Tahir up and
kissed him and brought him to sleep with us in bed.
“Is Tuffy going to be my new Daddy
now?” Asked Tahir. Muzna, and without the slightest hint of hesitation said:
“yes.”
Day Forty-Five
“I know all about what is going on
between you two.” Mother
said.
It was late in the evening and the big snow
flakes were slowly falling outside, pages from the Mother of the Book in the highest
heaven were being shred into pieces and scattered all over the world. Father was
performing his prayers in the local mosque, Majid and Tahir were at the neighbor’s,
and only mother, Muzna and I were home - this is what mother had somehow arranged for us.
“I know all about what is going on
between you two. I had known about your feelings for each other, probably even before you
two did. And I knew how they had complicated your life, especially Muzna’s with that
idiotic marriage of hers, but at least she gained Tahir in the process.
She shouldn’t have done this you know.
She shouldn’t have run away. She shouldn’t have betrayed you. You had to deal
with this situation together, you owed it to each other to do so. For though the solution
was obvious, and the right thing to do was obvious, still you had to reach that conclusion
together, through your own experience together.
When Muzna returned, I dared to hope that
you would be able to work things out finally. But I was wrong. Instead, you got yourselves
involved more deeply. You lost all sense of proportion. You cannot be trusted anymore to
work things out on your own, so I have to interfere, for your sake, and for Tahir’s
sake.
Have you somehow forgotten, that there is
not a single place in this world where your affair can be accepted, or even benignly
ignored? Have you forgotten that no matter how hard you try, and how much you love each
other, you can never give Tahir the normal upbringing that he deserves? What’s the
matter with you two? Have you lost all of your senses? Have you?
I don’t want anymore of this fucking
around. I am not deaf you know. I want to be able to sleep tonight. Do you
understand?”
Aye aye sir. Aye aye, voice of reason.
Breaking up will be difficult indeed, especially when it comes against a basic instinct,
still it will be done. It must be done. I have to float again, you see. I have to float.
Day Forty-Six
Today I went to Najwa’s place in
response to a telephone call from her, her mother had returned to her work in
Su’ad’s shop, and she said that she had something important to discuss with me.
If I had any doubts about what Najwa wanted
to discuss with me, they were dispelled as soon as I laid eyes on Najwa’s see-through
robe, a robe that soon lay neglected on the floor.
I took my time with the foreplay, as was
indeed expected of me in the circumstance, and as was indeed necessary of me, seeing that
I, too, do enjoy it. Then I went about divirginizing Najwa with the zeal expected from a
true lover, and believer. Afterwards,
“I don’t want your heart anymore,
I have just wanted you to be my first, that’s all. You can go now, I don’t want
to see anymore.”
Still, when I left Najwa’s house, I
left it with the certain knowledge that I would be seen much of her in the not too far
future.
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lust for salvation, Brother, as though it were a woman, and I - a man.
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