do?”
Zakariah al-Khartiti felt a pang in his throat. He had imagined that everybody knew who he was. He thought everyone read his daily column in the paper, saw his picture inside the square frame on the pages of magazines, or recognized his face on television screens during interviews and discussions.
“Don’t you read the papers, brother?”
“Not really, sir. I used to read them when I was younger and I believed every word they published. As I grew older, I came to realize that they were all liars, beginning with our own president to the American, British, and French presidents. Even my son lies to me, and so do my wife and daughter. But my wife is the greatest liar of all. She covered her head with a scarf and is pretending to be a saint. All the women have put on scarves to cheat us, sir, or what do you think?”
“What?”
“What do you mean by ‘what’?”
“It means there are people who fear God and the fires of hell, doesn’t it?”
“Right or what?”
“What!”
A laugh escaped the two at the same moment. It sounded like a jarring note in the middle of the murmurs of holy verses in the mosque. It rang shamefully inappropriate as the heads were bent in holy fear and the foreheads touched the floor in total submission.
“Tell me, sir, does God really exist?”
“Of course, sir. May He forgive us for all our trespasses!”
“My son is an intelligent boy and he has read many books. He tells me that the science of the cosmos proves that God doesn’t exist!”
“Your son is an ignoramus, a half-literate human being. Lower your voice so that no one hears you. Concentrate on prayers, for God exists, no doubt. Let your son read my daily column in the daily
Sphinx
so that he can unite science with religion.”
“Do you write in newspapers, sir? Are you a journalist?”
“Yes, sir!”
“Then you are a liar as well?”
Another laugh escaped, this time not from the lips of Zakariah al-Khartiti. He pouted his lips, got up slowly and rubbed his back. He left the mosque, walking slowly, his thin legs curved a little and his back arched somewhat. He tottered as he walked, vacillating between misery and joy, between virtue and vice, between religious belief and science. He was no different from the words of his column, swinging like a pendulum between the government and the opposition, between sincerity and lies. His column had the title “Honoring Our Pledge”. He borrowed some of his terms from Karl Marx and others from the verses of the Holy Books, quoting freely from the Qur’an, the Bible and the president’s speeches. His readers were puzzled about what he was trying to say. Was he for the war or against it? For peace or against it? For faith or for apostasy? Bodour, his wife, called him the mercury man, while her friend, Safi, described him as the mirage that ignorant eyes mistook for water.
As Zakariah al-Khartiti walked along, the movement of his legs produced a titillating sensation that ran through his veins, invigorated by the warm sun and the soft breeze coming through the opening of his shirt onto his chest and belly, and tickling the lower part of his abdomen containing the hidden body part. With the movement of the thighs as he walked, and the friction of flesh, the hidden body part began to feel some ecstasy, to tremble with some pleasure or the promise of pleasure which his wife could not give him. The reason, perhaps, was that her clitoris had been cut off in childhood. Since the day she was born, she had been repressed and oppressed. She was oppressed by her military father, who became miraculously metamorphosed into a great writer overnight. Or perhaps because she was in love with another man, a fact he realized from their wedding day, and even earlier, when he saw her framed photograph. Her sleepy, downcast eyes radiated an elusive femininity, and revealed a whorish glance that hid behind the veil of literature, art, culture, and dramatic and cinematic
Zakariah al-Khartiti felt a pang in his throat. He had imagined that everybody knew who he was. He thought everyone read his daily column in the paper, saw his picture inside the square frame on the pages of magazines, or recognized his face on television screens during interviews and discussions.
“Don’t you read the papers, brother?”
“Not really, sir. I used to read them when I was younger and I believed every word they published. As I grew older, I came to realize that they were all liars, beginning with our own president to the American, British, and French presidents. Even my son lies to me, and so do my wife and daughter. But my wife is the greatest liar of all. She covered her head with a scarf and is pretending to be a saint. All the women have put on scarves to cheat us, sir, or what do you think?”
“What?”
“What do you mean by ‘what’?”
“It means there are people who fear God and the fires of hell, doesn’t it?”
“Right or what?”
“What!”
A laugh escaped the two at the same moment. It sounded like a jarring note in the middle of the murmurs of holy verses in the mosque. It rang shamefully inappropriate as the heads were bent in holy fear and the foreheads touched the floor in total submission.
“Tell me, sir, does God really exist?”
“Of course, sir. May He forgive us for all our trespasses!”
“My son is an intelligent boy and he has read many books. He tells me that the science of the cosmos proves that God doesn’t exist!”
“Your son is an ignoramus, a half-literate human being. Lower your voice so that no one hears you. Concentrate on prayers, for God exists, no doubt. Let your son read my daily column in the daily
Sphinx
so that he can unite science with religion.”
“Do you write in newspapers, sir? Are you a journalist?”
“Yes, sir!”
“Then you are a liar as well?”
Another laugh escaped, this time not from the lips of Zakariah al-Khartiti. He pouted his lips, got up slowly and rubbed his back. He left the mosque, walking slowly, his thin legs curved a little and his back arched somewhat. He tottered as he walked, vacillating between misery and joy, between virtue and vice, between religious belief and science. He was no different from the words of his column, swinging like a pendulum between the government and the opposition, between sincerity and lies. His column had the title “Honoring Our Pledge”. He borrowed some of his terms from Karl Marx and others from the verses of the Holy Books, quoting freely from the Qur’an, the Bible and the president’s speeches. His readers were puzzled about what he was trying to say. Was he for the war or against it? For peace or against it? For faith or for apostasy? Bodour, his wife, called him the mercury man, while her friend, Safi, described him as the mirage that ignorant eyes mistook for water.
As Zakariah al-Khartiti walked along, the movement of his legs produced a titillating sensation that ran through his veins, invigorated by the warm sun and the soft breeze coming through the opening of his shirt onto his chest and belly, and tickling the lower part of his abdomen containing the hidden body part. With the movement of the thighs as he walked, and the friction of flesh, the hidden body part began to feel some ecstasy, to tremble with some pleasure or the promise of pleasure which his wife could not give him. The reason, perhaps, was that her clitoris had been cut off in childhood. Since the day she was born, she had been repressed and oppressed. She was oppressed by her military father, who became miraculously metamorphosed into a great writer overnight. Or perhaps because she was in love with another man, a fact he realized from their wedding day, and even earlier, when he saw her framed photograph. Her sleepy, downcast eyes radiated an elusive femininity, and revealed a whorish glance that hid behind the veil of literature, art, culture, and dramatic and cinematic
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