Throwing Sparks (10 page)

The first day Osama donned his father’s
ihram
clothing and performed the seven circumambulations of the Kaaba, he had not even bothered to tame his head of hair. He actually welcomed the pilgrims with words that were too abominable to repeat. His transgressions were reported to the head guide, who grabbed Osama and dragged him away from the Yemeni corner of the Kaaba, warning that he never wanted to lay eyes on him again. Osama had scuttled his mother’s plans for his future. He left Mecca and returned to the neighbourhood and to a life of vice. He did so surreptitiously, in order to maintain a reputation for piety that he had attempted to cultivate to appease his mother after being expelled from school over a porn magazine scandal. At the time his mother had promised that if he mended his ways, she would betroth him to her niece, the beautiful Tahani.

Osama had a proclivity for fair-skinned boys. In pursuing them, he was imitating the neighbourhood’s old pederasts and also joining their ranks. The wizened old wolves still stalked him in the dark alleyways and he was so dashingly handsome that after his father’s death even the head fisherman, Sheikh Omar, made a pass at him. But Osama knew the old men and their tricks, and he refused their gifts.

Sheikh Omar was undeterred and he persisted until one day, after the sunset prayers, Osama grabbed the microphone in the mosque and, in front of the entire congregation, warned the man to keep his hands off him. Sheikh Omar was stunned and, despite repeated attempts to clear his name, his reputation was for ever ruined.

Later, Sheikh Omar approached Osama and tried to explain that his overtures had been misinterpreted – they were purely honourable, sanctioned even, given the heavenly reward promised to those who provided succour to orphans. But Osama’s allegation and public warning caused a lasting rift between the head fisherman and the rest of the community.

Just as Sheikh Omar had pursued him furtively, so too did Osama resort to subterfuge in his pursuit of boys younger than he. He had taken to shaving long before the incident with the fisherman in order to appear older and fend off the pederasts. By the time he was twelve, his moustache and beard were already growing out.

Osama was expelled from his first school for being what school officials called a ‘depraved member of society’. He was caught distributing porn magazines to his classmates by the school janitor, Gebreel Musa, who had been asked to keep an eye on the boy. Gebreel offered Osama the use of his quarters in the school as a safe hiding place for the magazines in case of a surprise search. Later that week, at the first signs a search was in progress, Osama dashed over to Gebreel and, extracting sixteen full-colour porn magazines from his schoolbag, he handed them over to the janitor for safekeeping. Gebreel proceeded to take them straight to the headmaster.

Osama would probably have stayed in school were it not for the worst caning he received in his young life and for the fact that the disgrace was made public. The students were made to line up in the courtyard while the headmaster gave a scathing speech about him over the public address system, thereby broadcasting the scandal to every house in the neighbourhood. Before the froth on his lips had dried, the headmaster got Gebreel and a teacher to hold Osama in place, and reached for his cane.

Three whipping canes were broken on the soles of Osama’s feet that day, and Osama vowed he would get back at Gebreel at the first opportunity.

As a child, Osama was stuck to Tahani and she led him on, even though she was four years younger. However, when she was not around, he clung to her older brother instead. With his father habitually absent in Mecca, Osama learned all the secret ways to crush a man’s virility in the alleyways of the neighbourhood and decided early on to join the ranks of the predators rather than the prey.

The three of us – Osama, Issa and I – broke all the rules and violated all the taboos in the crevices of that islet. It was the launching pad to the slippery paths that all three of us followed, in lives dedicated to the single-minded pursuit of pleasure and sensual gratification.

*  *  *

Despite our delinquency, the three of us managed to get through school. It was generally accepted that the school examiners had been lenient in passing us, year after year, even though our marks were the lowest possible in nearly every subject.

Osama’s marks actually improved after he was expelled from his first school. As he started in his new school, he did not try to deny the porn magazine scandal that had preceded him there. On the contrary, he went to great lengths to appear contrite and remorseful, going so far as to rub his forehead in the sand for hours in order to acquire the tell-tale black mark on the brow and dupe people into thinking he spent his spare time prostrated in assiduous prayer.

As further signs of his newfound fervour, he let his beard grow out, shortened his
thobe
to reach the middle of his calf and, from his first day at the new school, took on the responsibility of reciting the noon prayer, intoning the call to prayer himself. This show of zeal won him the mentorship of the assistant headmaster, who put him in charge of the school’s religious education club. This also impressed his teachers, who gave him extra credit for his participation in the club and who, subsequently, overlooked what should have been a complete failure in the final oral examination. Utterly stumped, Osama had been unable to answer a single question.

When the results were announced, we sat together under the loudspeaker as the names of the graduating students were reeled off to the sound of loud cheering everywhere. We could not believe it when we heard the amplified voice – hesitant and straining as if to swallow a mouthful of mud – call out our three names.

That night, Osama and I became mortal rivals. Puffed up with pride, we sowed the seeds of hatred for one other.

The successful graduates spilled out on to the streets, passing out fizzy drinks to everyone, friends and strangers alike. Cheers rang out across the neighbourhood. From their windows, the mothers of graduating students showered the streets below with sweets and nuts to the sound of
zaghroutas
.

My own successful graduation was a rare opportunity for me to see my mother happy. She hugged me and babbled phrases I could not quite understand. My father was away with his third wife, and Aunt Khayriyyah, who was washing some underwear, cocked her face to one side and exclaimed, ‘Even muddy balls will roll.’

Aunt Khayriyyah still believed that all my actions were evil and even on my graduation day, she had nothing kind to say about my success. While I did not expect any ululations from my aunt, I had hoped for a
zaghrouta
from my mother – but our home was tight-fisted in matters of celebration.

So I left them and went looking for Tahani, hoping she at least could provide some cheer. I stood in front of her house and looked up at her open window, squinting to see a shape behind the lattice screen. But she was not there.

I could see her mother and her aunt leaning out of another window, busy throwing sweets and nuts and ululating above Osama’s head. As my attention turned to the children who had gathered on the street and were rushing to catch the sweets, I spotted her.

Tahani darted out the front door and, right under the noses of her female relatives, came to stand next to Osama. He turned, leaned in towards her and whispered something in her ear which caused her to burst out laughing.

That day I realised how much I hated Osama.

When the three of us met up later in the day, we teased each other about graduating and even mocked former classmates who came to congratulate us. But I was not really with them; my mind kept re-enacting a succession of images – the empty window and Tahani laughing with another boy.

Osama had become my rival. He, too, wanted her and now, as the images were seared in my mind, I could no longer be sure which of us was the intended recipient of her coy smiles and surreptitious gestures.

Gnawed with doubt, I avoided Tahani in the days following our graduation. But one night she tossed a cassette in my path, a compilation of songs by the popular Egyptian diva, Najat al-Saghira. Attached to the tape was a brief note that read:

Darling Tariq,

Life without you is without taste and without flavour.

Don’t deprive me of you.

I am so happy at your success – a million congratulations!

You’ve graduated and you’re going to start university.

Our dreams will come true.

I love you maaaaaaaaaaadly.

Don’t deprive me of you.

Here’s hoping ……..……….. (fill in the blank!)

Your sweetheart for ever,

Tahani

Love of my life, I will always love you, Tahani.

Before the country became awash with money, and residents of the old neighbourhood broke with their old ways, evenings in the Firepit had been lively.

The Palace was the watershed in our lives. It marked a point in time, the transition of an era – from ‘before’ to ‘after’ – as surely as any calendar. Whenever the older generation recounted our history, they would make clear the period by appending ‘before the Palace was built’ or ‘after the Palace was built’.

Before the Palace was built, people would roam through the neighbourhood in search of any available distraction. The women devised celebrations and other occasions to get together; the men congregated at local hang-outs
and told the same old stories, alternating between laughing and crying as they reminisced about their youth; the children ran around the alleyways looking for open spaces in which to play.

As for us, the teenagers, we kept watch on street corners for glimpses of feminine charm. The young girls of the neighbourhood were coming of age and their womanly attributes were becoming ripe for plucking, if only with our eyes.

However insignificant the occasion, our evenings were festive. Always ready for the next adventure, I would slip away from view of Aunt Khayriyyah’s lattice-screen window, escaping both her spiteful tongue and her beady eyes.

It was as if she had a sixth sense about me.

She seemed to know what I was up to from the time I was knee-high to a grasshopper. The very first time I sneaked into my father’s room to rummage through his pockets, she caught me before I could savour the triumph of my first larceny. She pinched my ear, dragging me as she shouted, ‘You little thief! Practising to be the next Ali Baba are you?’

Her shrill, piercing voice woke my father and he proceeded to discipline me in the manner he favoured throughout my upbringing. My body was not sufficiently grown to withstand the brunt of his wrath. He raged with shame at having produced a son who was a thief, which elicited another biting remark from Aunt Khayriyyah.

Referring to my mother, the sister-in-law she detested, she said, ‘What did you expect? Saniyya only ever laid rotten eggs.’

Those were her choice words, the ones she invariably repeated whenever she had a row with my mother, or when she wanted to needle my father about marrying my mother in the first place.

I had always hated her. Right from the start, Aunt Khayriyyah subjected me to relentless vigilance, as if I were nothing more than a device for her to sharpen her own surveillance abilities.

Our home was very small and she could always catch me when I misbehaved. Confident I would fall into her trap, she would set me up and watch with glee for my inevitable stumble. Her greatest delight – yes, delight – was derived from being able to thwart my plans before I had even embarked on them.

My mother entrusted Aunt Khayriyyah with my care. She saw her own role as being limited to disciplining me or lending a hand in my punishment when my aunt found me doing something wrong.

I was the eldest of my father’s children, sprung from a womb that could not bear to swell after me. Suffering from a sense of inferiority at having only one offspring, my father sought out more fertile women, but they, like my mother, proved unable to bless him with the gaggle of children he hoped for.

I was the only child from his first wife; his second wife provided him with two additional sons, one of whom died young, leaving Ibrahim, the apple of my father’s eye. His third wife gave birth to one child, a girl so beautiful she broke the mould – at least that was what I had heard, since I had never actually met her. My father also sought out his pleasure between the thighs of a variety of other women, all of whom were discarded, one after the other.

I inherited my virility from my most immediate forebears. My father and both my grandfathers had irrigated a good many women in their day, although with me signs of that vigour were particularly precocious.

Even as a very young child, I discovered the nature of the ogre that we are born with. All it took was a little friction and I would become aroused and hurtle to the verge of that blissful abyss. I remembered the story of Aladdin rubbing his lamp to make the genie appear in a plume of smoke, and realised that bodily fires could also be ignited, and quelled, by rubbing.

On cold nights, my maternal cousins and I would snuggle up in two beds that had been pushed close together. We would spend the night tugging the blankets from each other to warm our bodies against the biting cold. One night I discovered that the familiar warming flames could be generated using the friction of two bodies. I cleaved to one of my younger cousins and as our supple limbs rubbed against each other, I began thrusting rhythmically.