She had put her hand on his leg and spoke in such a seductive and thrilling voice that, drunk as he was, he stuck his face to her cheek and kissed her. She took this as an expression of consent and cried out joyfully, “Thank you! The Lord preserve you!”
She rose and got the papers quickly from her bag and handed him the pen.
“Sign here, please.”
She had got real loan application papers ready and stuck Malak’s contract in the middle. Zaki started signing, while she held his hand to help him, but suddenly he stopped and mumbled in a slurred voice, his face looking sick, “The bathroom…”
She didn’t say anything for a moment as though she hadn’t understood. He waved his hand and said with an effort, “I want the bathroom!”
Busayna put the papers aside and helped him stand up with difficulty and supported him on her arm until he got into the bathroom. She had closed the door, turned round to go back and was halfway across the hall when she heard a loud crash behind her.
That night Groppi’s tea garden on Adly Street was full to overflowing with customers, most of them the kind of young lovers who feel comfortable in the dim lighting of the garden lamps that hides their faces so that they can exchange sweet nothings undisturbed and without attracting curiosity.
A man in his fifties entered, well built and sturdy and wearing a dark baggy suit and white shirt without a tie, his clothes seeming too large and not well matched to his body, as though they didn’t belong to him. The man sat down at the table next to the door, ordered a cup of Turkish coffee without sugar, and sat in silence, observing the place and looking anxiously from time to time at his watch. After about half an hour a thin, dark-skinned young man arrived wearing a track suit and directed himself toward the large man. The two embraced warmly, then sat talking in low voices.
“Praise God you’re all right, Taha. When did you get out?”
“Two weeks ago.”
“You’re being watched for sure. Did you do as Hassan told you when you were on your way here?”
Taha nodded his head and Sheikh Shakir continued, “Brother Hassan is completely secure. Use him to contact me and he’ll tell you where and when to meet. Usually we choose places that don’t arouse suspicion. Like here, for example. It’s crowded and dark, which makes it suitable. We meet in parks too and restaurants and sometimes in bars. But…don’t get used to sitting in bars!”
Sheikh Shakir laughed, but Taha remained unsmiling and a heavy silence took over. The sheikh continued bitterly, “The National Security Investigation Bureau is now launching a criminal campaign against all Islamists. Detentions, torture, murder. They open fire on our unarmed brothers while arresting them, then accuse us of resisting the authorities. Real massacres are committed every day. Verily, they will come back on the Day of Resurrection with the blood of these innocents on their hands. I’ve been compelled to leave my residence and stop going to the mosque and I’ve changed the way I look, as you can see. Speaking of which, what do you think of Sheikh Shakir in his Western getup?”
The sheikh let out a loud laugh, attempting to create an atmosphere of good humor, but in vain. An unbudgeable, dark shadow stretched between them, to which the sheikh soon submitted, sighing and saying “God forgive me!” Then he said, “Cheer up, Taha. I know what you’ve been through and appreciate your pain, my son. I wish you to think of everything the unbelievers did to you as going to your account with Our Lord, Almighty and Glorious. Verily, He will reward you for it with the best of rewards, God willing. Know that Paradise is the reward of those who are tortured for God’s cause. Everything that happened to you is but a paltry tax that those who struggle pay gladly for the sake of raising high the word of the Truth, Sublime and Magnificent. Our rulers are fighting for their interests and their ill-gotten wealth, but we are fighting for God’s religion. Their stock in trade finds no buyers and is of no worth, but God has promised us His aid and He will never betray His promise.”
As though he had been waiting for the sheikh’s words to unburden himself of his sorrows, Taha said in a husky voice, “They humiliated me, Master. They humiliated me till I felt the dogs in the street had more self-respect than me. I was subjected to things I never imagined a Muslim could do.”
“They are no Muslims. Nay, they are unbelievers, according to the consensus of the jurists.”
“Even if they were unbelievers, wouldn’t they have an atom of mercy? Don’t they have sons and daughters and wives that they care for and have pity on? Had I been held in Israel, the Jews wouldn’t have done to me as they did. Had I been a spy and a traitor to my country, they wouldn’t have done those things to me. I ask myself what offense could merit that horrible punishment. Has the observance of God’s Law become a major crime? Sometimes in detention I’d think what was happening before me wasn’t real, that it was a nightmare that I’d wake up from to find it was all over. Were it not for my faith in God, Sublime and Magnificent, I would have killed myself to escape from that torment.”
The sheikh’s face registered his pain and he remained silent. Taha made a fist and said, “They blindfolded me so that I wouldn’t know who they were. But I have made an oath and committed myself before God to hunt them down. I will find out who they were and take revenge on them one by one.”
“I advise you, my son, to put this painful experience behind you. I know what I ask is difficult, but it’s the only thing to do in your situation. What happened to you in detention is not something peculiar to you. It is the destiny of all those who speak the truth openly in our unfortunate country. Those responsible are not just a few officers but the criminal and unbelieving regime that rules us. You must direct your anger against the whole regime and not particular individuals. The Almighty has said in His Noble Book, You have had a good example in God’s Messenger (God has spoken truly). The Chosen One—God bless him and give him peace—was fought against in Mecca and abused and hurt so much that he complained to his Lord of his weakness and the contempt with which people treated him. Yet despite this he did not consider his struggle to be a personal feud with the unbelievers. On the contrary he directed his energy to spreading the Call and in the end, when God’s religion was victorious, the Messenger pardoned all the unbelievers and freed them. This is a lesson you have to learn and act upon.”
“That was the Messenger—God bless him and grant him peace—and the best of His creation, but I’m not a prophet and I’m not capable of forgetting what those criminals did to me. What happened to me pursues me without rest. I’m unable to sleep. I haven’t been to the mosque since I got out and I don’t think that I shall go. I spend all day alone in my room speaking to no one, and sometimes I think I’m losing my mind.”
“Don’t give in, Taha! Thousands of Muslim youth have suffered detention and been subjected to ugly tortures but left detention more determined than ever to resist injustice. The regime’s true objective in torturing Islamists isn’t just to hurt them physically. What they want is to destroy them psychologically so that they lose their capacity to struggle. If you surrender to melancholy, you will have realized the objectives of these unbelievers.”
The sheikh looked at him for a moment, then grasped his hand on the table and said, “When will you return to the mosque?”
“I will never return.”
“No, you must return. You are an outstanding student who is committed to the struggle and a glorious future awaits you, God willing. Trust in God, forget what happened, and go back to your studies and your faculty.”
“I cannot. How can I face people after…?”
Taha suddenly fell silent. His face crumpled and he groaned out loud.
“They violated my honor, Master.”
“Stop!”
“They violated my honor ten times, Master. Ten times.”
“I told you to stop, Taha!”
The sheikh shouted these words vehemently, but Taha struck the table with his fist, shaking and rattling the cups. The sheikh rose quickly from his place and whi
spered agitatedly, “Pull yourself together, Taha! Everyone’s looking at us. We must leave immediately. Listen, I’ll be waiting for you in front of Cinema Metro in an hour. Take precautions and make sure no one’s watching you.”
Over two months Hagg Azzam used persuasion, temptation, intimidation, and violence. He tried every method on Souad, but she adamantly refused the very idea of an abortion. Soon their shared life came to a complete standstill—no endearments, no tasty food, no pipes of hashish, and no times in bed. The only thing they had left was the subject of abortion. He would come every day and sit in front of her. He would talk to her gently and calmly. Then little by little he would lose his temper and they would fight. He would shout, “You made an agreement and you went back on it.”
“So hang me.”
“From the start we said no pregnancy.”
“You think you’re God, so you can allow things and forbid things?”
“Be sensible and get me out of this fix, for God’s sake.”
“No.”
“I’ll divorce you.”
“Divorce me.”
He said “divorce” with feigned casualness because deep down inside he wanted to keep hold of her, but the idea of having a child at his age was impossible. Even if he allowed it himself, his sons would never allow it, and even though Hagga Salha, his first wife, didn’t even know about his second marriage, how would he keep it from her if he had a child?
When Hagg Azzam gave up on persuading Souad, he left her and went to Alexandria where he met with her brother Hamidu and told him what had happened. Hamidu hesitated and bowed his head in thought for a while. Then he said, “Listen to me, Hagg. We’re both decent people and doing the right thing shouldn’t upset anyone. It’s true I’m her brother, but I can’t ask her to have an abortion. Abortion is forbidden by religion and I’m a God-fearing man.”
“But we made an agreement, Rayyis Hamidu.”
“We made an agreement and we broke it. We’re in the wrong, my friend. We started things on a friendly basis and we should finish them on a friendly basis. Give her her rights according to God’s Law and divorce her, Hagg.”
Hamidu’s face at that moment looked to him ignoble, mendacious, and hateful and he wanted in fact to slap him and hit him, but in the end his good sense prevailed and he left, boiling with rage. On the way back to Cairo an idea suddenly came to him and he said to himself, “There’s only one person left I can trust to save me.”
The war in the Gulf was keeping Sheikh el Samman extremely busy.
Every day he organized lectures and seminars and wrote lengthy articles in the press to explain the legal justification for the war to liberate Kuwait. The government brought him to speak on television numerous times and called on him to deliver the Friday sermon in the largest mosques in Cairo, and the sheikh set about presenting to the people all the legal reasons for the correctness of the Arab rulers’ position in inviting American troops to liberate Kuwait from the Iraqi invasion.
Hagg Azzam spent three whole days searching for Sheikh el Samman before he was finally able to meet with him at his office in El Salam mosque in Medinet Nasr. The first thing he said to him as he anxiously scrutinized his face was, “What’s wrong with you, Master? You look exhausted.”
“I’ve hardly slept since the war began. Every day seminars and meetings and in a few days I leave, God willing, for Saudi Arabia to attend the emergency conference of Muslim scholars.”
“It’s too much, Master. You must look after your health.”
The sheikh sighed and muttered, “Whatever I do is less than I should. I ask God, Sublime and Magnificent, to accept my work and place it in the scale among my good deeds.”
“Can you postpone going to Saudi Arabia and rest a little?”
“God forbid that I should fall short in my efforts! It was Sheikh el Ghamidi, an outstanding scholar—we give precedence over God to none—who contacted me. I shall participate with my brother scholars there in issuing a legal ruling that will silence the arguments of the strife-makers and demonstrate to everyone the incoherence of their arguments. We shall mention in the ruling, God willing, the legal reasons for the permissibility of seeking the help of the Western Christian armies to save the Muslims from the criminal unbeliever Saddam Hussein.”
Hagg Azzam nodded his head in agreement with the sheikh’s words and there was a moment of silence. Then the sheikh patted him on his shoulder and asked him affectionately, “And how are you? I think you came to me to discuss something.”
“I don’t want to add to your worries.”
The sheikh smiled and leaned his well-padded body back in the comfortably upholstered chair, saying, “You are the last person who could cause me worry. Please, tell me.”
When Hagg Azzam and Sheikh el Samman got to Souad’s apartment in the Yacoubian Building, they found her wearing house clothes. She greeted Sheikh El Samman with reserve and quickly disappeared inside, returning a few minutes later with her hair covered and carrying a silver tray on which were glasses of iced lemonade. The sheikh took a sip of his drink, closed his eyes appreciatively, and, as though finding the right point of entry to the subject, turned to Hagg Azzam and said laughingly, “Wonderful lemonade! Your wife’s an excellent housewife. Praise God, my dear chap, for such a blessing!”
Azzam picked up the thread and said, “A thousand praises and thanks, Master. Souad’s a good housewife and a good-hearted, righteous wife, but she’s obstinate and annoying.”
“Obstinate?”
Sheikh el Samman asked the question with feigned astonishment and turned to Souad who seized the initiative and said to him in a serious tone of voice, “Of course, the Hagg will have told you about the problem.”
“May Our Lord never bring problems! Listen, my daughter. You’re a Muslim and follow God’s Law, and Our Lord, Glorious and Almighty, has commanded the wife to obey her husband in all matters of this world. The Chosen One—God’s blessings and peace be upon him—has even said, in a sound hadith, ‘Were any of God’s creatures permitted to prostrate itself to another of His creatures, I would have commanded the wife to prostrate herself to the husband’ (the Messenger has spoken truly)!”
“Is the woman supposed to follow her husband’s orders with regard to what is right or what is wrong?”
“God protect us from what is wrong, my daughter! There can be no obedience to a creature who disobeys the Creator.”
“So tell me, Master. You want me to have an abortion?”
There was silence for a moment. Then Sheikh el Samman smiled and said calmly, “My daughter, you agreed with him from the beginning that there would be no children and Hagg Azzam is an old man and his circumstances do not allow such a thing.”
“Fine. So let him divorce me according to God’s Law.”
“But if he divorces you while you’re pregnant, he’ll be responsible legally for the upkeep of the child.”
“So you agree that I should abort myself?”
“God forbid! Abortion is of course a sin. However, some trustworthy jurisprudential opinions affirm that termination of the pregnancy during the first two months is not abortion because the soul enters the fetus at the beginning of the third month.”
“Where does it say so?”
“In authenticated legal opinions delivered by the great scholars of religion.”
Souad laughed sarcastically and said bitterly, “Those must have been American sheikhs.”
“Speak politely to the reverend sheikh!” Hagg Azzam chided her.
Fixing him with a furious glance, she said challengingly, “Everyone had better be polite.”
The sheikh intervened in a conciliatory tone, saying, “God protect us from His anger! Souad, my daughter, don’t let your temper get the better of you. I’m not discussing the matter on the basis of my own opinion, God forbid. I’m simply passing on to you a well-regarded legal point of view. Some reliable jurisprudents have affirmed that aborting the fetus before the third month should not be con
sidered murder, if there are extenuating circumstances.”
“So if I abort myself it won’t be a sin? Who could say such a thing? There’s no way I could believe you even if you swore on the Qur’an!”
At this Hagg Azzam stood up, went over to her, and shouted angrily, “I’m telling you, be polite when you speak to the reverend sheikh!”
Souad rose and shouted, waving her arms, “What reverend sheikh? Everything’s clear now. You’ve paid him off to say a couple of stupid things. Abortion’s okay in the first two months? Shame on you, Sheikh! How can you sleep at night?”
Sheikh el Samman, taken unawares by this sudden attack, assumed a glowering expression and said warningly, “Mind your manners, my daughter, and watch you don’t overstep your bounds!”
“I don’t give a damn for your overstepping! You’re a farce! How much did he pay you to come with him?”
“You filthy bitch!” shouted Hagg Azzam and he slapped her on her face. She screamed and started wailing, but Sheikh el Samman grabbed him, dragged him away from her, and started talking to him in a low voice. Soon the two of them left, slamming the door behind them.
Souad saw them off with abuse and curses. She was shaking with anger at what Sheikh el Samman had said and at Azzam, who had struck her for the first time since they had gotten married. She could still feel the pain of the slap on her face and she made up her mind to get her own back. All the same she felt a secret relief that she had reached the point of open confrontation with him. Any tie that might have obligated her or embarrassed her had been severed. He had struck her and abused her, and from now on she would express her contempt and hatred for him in the clearest possible form. In fact, her ability to fight and use abuse was something new to her, as though the rancor that was in her had suddenly exploded. Everything she had suffered and that had tortured her had accumulated and now the time had come for a reckoning. Now she was ready to kill him or be killed by him rather than have an abortion.