The Fall of the Imam (22 page)

My legal wife took my arm and we went off to meet Christ. She whispered in his ear in a language I did not understand. He nodded his head and said that he agreed to mediate on my behalf, then enjoined us to follow the straight and narrow path of God, but when I put my foot on it I could not advance even an inch. My legal wife looked at me and said, ‘This is where I shall have to leave you to the good hands of Allah and His Prophet.’ And she went off, leaving me trembling all over, but I noticed a black woman running over the straight and narrow path as fast as she could, and she caught hold of me by the hand before I fell off. I recognized her face immediately, for she had been my slave before God opened the doors of good fortune to me. I had run away from her in the night just before she gave birth to my daughter.

‘You are the first and only love of my life,’ I said. And I walked along beside her, leaning to the left whenever she tried to hold me up on the right, and bending towards the right whenever she tried to hold me up on the left, until we were both exhausted by the effort. So I said to her, ‘Gawaher, if you want to help, then the best thing to do is to act according to the common saying, “Mistress, if you are at your wits’ end what to do, carry me Za‘afouna.”’

‘Now what does “Za‘afouna” mean?’ she asked.

‘It means hang your hands over the shoulders of the other and grasp hold of both his hands, then lift his body up with his back facing your belly. Have you not heard what the Gahglouls of this world have said: “My situation has advanced so much backwards that I now walk backwards.”’

‘“Za‘afouna”? I have heard neither of Za‘afouna nor of Gahglouls,’ she said, ‘but whatever they may be I shall still carry you to the Prophet Muhammad.’

And when we got to the Prophet Muhammad, peace be on Him, He said, ‘I bestow this black woman on thee. Take her with thee, so that she might wait on thee in Paradise.’

But no sooner had we arrived at the door of Paradise than Radwan looked at me severely and said, ‘Have you got a pass?’

And I said, ‘No.’

‘There is no way of getting into Paradise without a pass,’ he said.

I stood there, waiting for a long time under the hot sun, until my bare head felt like an oven and it was almost time for the plane to leave, when I noticed that near the door there was a willow tree. I asked Radwan to give me one of its leaves so that I could go quickly back to the Prophet and get a pass on it, but he said, ‘I cannot let anything out of Paradise except with the permission of His High Majesty.’

‘If He sees me He will know me at once,’ I said, ‘for in the world we were together all the time. I had many supporters in Hizb Allah and innumerable friends inside the country and abroad, and many of them were kings and presidents and great leaders, and when I died they all walked at my funeral. It was really an awe-inspiring thing to see. Did you not see the picture in
Newsweek?’

‘Never heard of
Newsweek.
’

I said, ‘Then you certainly know neither the great men of the world, nor the Great Powers.’

The noises echoed like a deep silence as I stood with my bare head under the scorching sun. In my chest I felt a sharp pain, like a wound or a hole penetrating through to my heart. The door of the other world was still closed, while the first, second, third, and fourth worlds continued very much as usual without me, and the man standing on the platform receiving the acclamations of the crowd was not me but someone else. The rockets of the Feast were still soaring up into the sky and the door-keeper of Paradise was still examining my passport, his eyes peering at my photograph from under his dark glasses as he asked me one question after another. I explained to him that I was carrying a recommendation from the Prophet and that I wanted to see Allah. He asked me whether I had an appointment and I said no, but if He saw me He would receive me at once. He enquired whether the object of meeting God was something official or private.

‘Official,’ I said.

‘What is the official question which brings you here?’ At this I lapsed into silence, not knowing what to answer. ‘Official things are not considered a secret,’ he muttered after some time, looking askance at me from under his dark glasses, reminding me of the Chief of Security when he used to interfere in things which did not concern him.

He left me standing at the door for a long time and, taking off the telephone receiver, plunged into a long whispering conversation with some woman at the other end of the line, every now and then bursting into loud laughter but careful always to address her using masculine pronouns. I kept my silence, not wanting to spoil his mood. When he had finished he noticed that I continued to stand there. He said, ‘You’re still here?’

‘I implore you, let me meet Him,’ I said.

‘Why do you insist on meeting Him?’ he repeated again.

‘I want to ask Him to postpone my death for a year,’ I said.

‘A whole year!’ he exclaimed. ‘Really, you exaggerate, say a month or a couple of months at most.’

‘Master Radwan,’ I said, ‘one month is not enough to rearm the army, pay back our debts, and restore the morale of our people after the defeat. I do not want a year because I’m still interested in the pleasures of life or the frills of the world. I want it in order to serve God and the cause of the nation.’

Just then the telephone rang and he started a conversation with another woman, but his tone this time was sharp and peremptory and he ended it quickly, so I realized she was his legal wife. Before the telephone had time to ring again I said, ‘I am still awaiting your instructions, Master Radwan.’

By this time he had become absorbed in the papers on his desk. He lifted his eyes from them and looked at me from under his dark glasses for a long moment, then said, ‘Drop in tomorrow.’

But my previous experience with security guards now came to my rescue. I took something out of my pocket, and handing it over to him said, ‘Take this double gift to your Master and ask Him to meet me today, for I have no time, and my plane is waiting for me.’

He pocketed the gift, looked at his watch and said, ‘You only have a few minutes to catch your plane, and so it’s better for you if you leave immediately, but I will send you a notification by post if you leave me your address.’ I gave a look of doubt in his direction but then retreated, remembering that he was our Master Radwan and could not possibly be lying. Since he had promised, he would certainly do what he had said. So I left him my address and went off to the airport, but deep within me was the certitude that he was never going to send me anything.

At this point I reached the limits of despair and I slackened my pace, seized with the feeling that I no longer cared if I missed my plane. I sat down, overcome by exhaustion, and no sooner had I laid my head on the ground than I fell asleep. As a result I neither heard the sound of the plane when it landed nor did I hear it when it took off. I woke up with the firm conviction that I should expect nothing since Radwan would certainly not send me the letter despite his promises, and even if I saw him coming towards me with a letter in his hand I should not expect it to be for me. In fact, even if it turned out to be for me I should consider it a mere accident in which something had gone wrong in God’s calculations, so that if Radwan did come to me with the letter, rather than holding out my hand to take it I should tell him to continue on his way, since the letter was certainly not meant for me but for someone else. I could no longer see God addressing a letter to me since I knew I did not deserve it, and at this thought I smiled with a calm contentment, indifferent now to everything, even to the idea of meeting God. I said to myself: God, all I really want is a rightful compensation, neither more nor less, since I was the one who had the courage to proclaim a firm intention to apply the laws of Shari’a and to do everything in my power to ensure that Your precepts were executed in their entirety, including enforcement of the maximum punishment for adultery and theft, and throwing all alcoholic drinks into the waters of the river. Not one of those who try to ingratiate themselves with You, who whisper soft words in Your ear and throw meaningful glances in Your direction, has been bold enough to take the stand I took, not one of them has stood up for You as I did, or has applied Your Shari’a the way I did.

I put my face between my hands and tears started from my eyes at these thoughts, so that I did not hear the voice which spoke in loud imperious tones from behind me and which said, ‘Stand up and raise your arms above your head.’ I refrained from turning round, for I realized that no one would speak to me in such commanding tones unless his rank was higher than mine. I stood up at once, raising my hands above my head, expecting the blow to come from behind at any moment, but instead the voice ordered me to turn around. I found it difficult to believe that anyone seeing his enemy from the back would give him the chance to turn around and face him, since assassination from the back is certainly easier than if it is done from the front. This order to turn around could only signify contempt, and if contempt for an ordinary man is the worst insult, then how should it be met if the object of contempt is the Imam in person? I stood my ground, refusing to turn around and face the voice. It was better to end up an assassinated Imam rather than to become an Imam of diminished stature, so I kept my feet planted firmly on the ground with my arms lifted high in the air above my head, then I threw myself headlong to the ground with a valiant smile on my face like a warrior caring little about life or its worldly desires, ready to meet death at any moment.

The rustle of tree leaves and the croaking of frogs were like joyful music in my ears, and the night breeze was cool and refreshing, carrying with it the smell of the sea. There I lay, steadfast as a rock, unbending, refusing to move, or to run, or to pant. I had plenty of time, for there was no longer anything important or unimportant in my life, anything I was afraid of missing. I no longer felt pain or despair, no longer cared, no longer thought of Hizb Allah or Hizb al-Shaitan, no longer saw images go through my head except that of myself as a child nursing at my mother’s breast with the warm milk running gently down my mouth. Suddenly I choked, then gasped, opening my mouth wide and closing it several times like a fish out of water, beating the air with my arms and legs. My face was turning blue as I choked more and more, as though at any moment I would suffocate and die, leaving the world without an Imam, without a representative of God on earth to deal with the affairs of our world. But my mother gave me a hard slap on the back, expelling the milk from my air passages, making the blood flow back to my face and awareness flow back to my mind so that I noticed her face in front of me, and suddenly my memory returned and I remembered not seeing her at all in twenty years.

I rose to my feet, pressed my hand over the wound to stop it from bleeding, and walked along the old pathway which I knew so well and could never mistake. I knocked on the old dark wooden door of her house, and it opened with the creaking noise of a water wheel. I could hear the sole of her foot tread over the floor as she moved up behind the door, and her voice, which I could never mistake for another voice, came to my ears from afar, ‘Who is it?’

‘It’s me,’ I said, and I could hear her heart beat. Her breathing was hard, and her rough hand shook as she opened the door. Her tears were a white mist over the eyes, her lids were without lashes, her back was old and bowed. Twenty years had gone. Then, she had had lashes which were dense and black and long, and a back as straight as a spear.

She put her arms around me, and her tears wet the expensive wool of my official suit. ‘Twenty years, my son, twenty years since I last saw you,’ she said.

‘I’ve had so much to do, mother, so many problems to deal with, and all of them so difficult to solve that God alone, praise be to Him, can find a solution.’

‘Your face looks so pale’, she said, ‘that it is as though you haven’t had a decent meal in twenty years.’

She went to the kitchen, moving with the brisk pace and the straight back of bygone days, her feet flying over the stone floor as though her body had grown light once more. She came back through the kitchen door, her eyes brimming over with happiness, looking at me through dark thick lashes as she carried a tray of pastry and honey and fresh morning milk in her hands. She came up to me where I sat on the old divan near the window, just as I used to sit as a child, watching the stars and seeing God up in the clouds looking down on me with a face like my father. I could hear the beat of her heart, see the shine in her eyes, feel the trembling of her hands under the tray, shaking the plates. She had only three steps to go and her heart went round and round with happiness, and the world was a merry-go-round on which she rode, and now there was only one step to go, and I could see her trying to make the step, trying to move her leg, but it would not move. She stood in front of me, not more than an arm’s length away, and I saw her drop to the floor. I stretched out my hand to hold her up but it would not move. I held out my arms to try and embrace her, but the distance between us seemed to have grown as though we were moving all the time in opposite directions.

I was not in a hurry to see him sent off in the box. True, he was dead, but his being there gave me the chance to have some kind of dialogue with him. When he was alive there was never any dialogue between us, although he wrote article after article about communication through dialogue. He would be silent all the time or talking all the time, with nothing between. He heard only himself and saw only himself, and always as a picture, either in the newspaper framed in a box or on a tomb of marble. The pen was held always in his right hand and his head was held always with his left hand, as though his brain had to be protected carefully, and yet the writing would not come either with or without pain, like a monthly indisposition which refuses to flow as it should. In the summer he sat drinking wine and swallowing peppered beans, and in winter he stretched himself out in the sun, emitting one yawn after the other until he had rid himself of the fumes around his mind and recovered consciousness. He sat at his desk on the top storey of the biggest building in town, shuffling through the papers in front of him and examining the photographs taken of the Imam and him at top-level meetings, or in special sessions of the Advisory Council and Parliament, or during celebrations and festivities, or at contests for choosing beauty queens or model female martyrs, or at seasonal fashion shows, or during the distribution of prizes to the members of Hizb Allah or Hizb al-Shaitan on Literature and Arts Day. Or he stood in the first row at public meetings, under the admiring glances showered on him from the balcony of the harem by the respected wives of state personalities, widows of martyrs, model mothers, and women presidents of charitable societies, all gathered for the occasion around the wife of the Imam. Her smooth-skinned hand, blazing with diamonds in the sunlight, proffered itself to him, held the Prize of Finest Literature and a Certificate of Good Morals and Manners by the tips of her fingers, while the small plump hands around her applauded delicately, fluttering like a volley of pigeons, and the square bodies dressed in mourning black balanced themselves on the tops of high-heeled shoes, and the hearts beating under the ribs seemed to repeat, God, the nation, the Imam.