Throwing Sparks (20 page)

‘I’m upset that you violated the conditions of your employment. So long as you work for me, women are strictly off limits.’

This time there was a longer pause as though the Master was considering an appropriate punishment for his disobedient servant.

‘I thought I might have you castrated,’ he said slowly, ‘but then you would become utterly useless to me.’ Indicating the video tape in my hands, he warned, ‘I have my eyes on you – always. Another slip-up and it’s over. Do you understand?’

I nodded weakly.

‘Good. So go back to your aunt now,’ he said, ‘and please give her my best.’

His laughter pursued me to the end of the hallway as I walked away, drenched in sweat.

I began watching the video the moment I stepped into my room.

It was an edited recording of everything that had taken place in the villa, in perfect video and audio quality.

The film had captured everything I had given vent to that night and I was thankful that I had not said a single word against the Master. The camera work was professional, shifting seamlessly from the reception areas to my aunt’s bedroom, through the hallways and into the bathroom. It documented all of the main highlights of that evening: the ashtray hurled at the guest, the women who left early and those who stayed on to collect their pay, and the curses streaming from my aunt’s mouth before I grabbed her by the hair and she lost her tongue to the razor.

The camera moved on to focus on me in the kitchen, pla­cing the piece of tongue in the freezer and then, the following day, on the servants changing shifts and the doctor’s visit to administer first aid. His subsequent visits and treatment suggestions were also recorded, as was my recruitment of two women to look after her, with my explanation of how my aunt had fallen and bitten off her tongue.

I had captured a cat outside, but the film showed how I kept it locked up in the house for a couple of days to starve it and to allow extra time for my aunt to recuperate. Then, finally, the closing scene was me sitting my aunt down across from me, chopping up her tongue into tiny pieces and feeding them to the cat one by one, as she watched with horror.

My crime was fully documented, in perfect video and audio quality.

11

I had gone to stock up on groceries for the prisoner in my villa but before I could drop them off, I received an alert message on my phone telling me I needed to rush back to the Palace.

The Palace staff and servants had no set time to sleep. We were supposed to remain awake and be on call whenever the Master was up; he was in the habit of asking about his staff day and night, and if he ever found out one of us was asleep or absent he would fly into a rage and promptly fire the person. That is why we stole a wink here and there whenever he was asleep.

There was a trade in these furtive snatches of sleep: his personal attendants would message the other staff that the Master had dozed off. This was especially useful to those who worked the following shift, since they also got a message to alert them that he had woken. To avoid detection, the phone alerts were written in code and sent only to subscribers of the service, which was called ‘Ever Ready’. For added security, the body of the text messages changed every day, and only the keyword ‘ready’ was retained in any message that went through the service.

The network was headed by Joseph Essam, who was so afraid of being found out by the Master that he operated the service with great subterfuge. In addition to discretion, considerable financial resources were required to join the network. The Master’s personal attendants found this service highly lucrative. They shrouded the enterprise in secrecy and competed with one another to create additional, fee-paying services that they could offer the Master’s acolytes and guests.

My despondency provided Joseph Essam with an excuse to attend to my spiritual health; he wanted to save my soul from eternal torment and bring me closer to God. But he was more interested in converting me than in being my friend, and once I understood that, I stopped being irritated by his futile efforts.

I read the alert message on my phone and called Joseph Essam. ‘That’s right. No going out tonight,’ he warned. I decided to follow his advice and dropped the idea of going to check on my aunt. She could go to hell for all I cared.

*  *  *

The women brought into the Palace to satisfy the voracious lusts of the Master’s guests came in every shape and form. Each had a miserable past buried under a cheery and lively façade, since the men sought them out for their bodies and not their miseries.

Outside the Palace, there was another tumult of women who swarmed the gates. They fluttered around like ravenous crows and were kept out of the grounds since they were destitute. They hitched their infant children to their hips in the hope of a handout, however modest, that would compensate them for the grief meted out by the guards and the unrelenting pounding of the sun on their heads.

The Palace regulars wanted nothing to do with them; they harangued and chased them off as if they were some sort of plague that would spread unless it was swiftly eradicated. When they brought the matter to the Master’s attention, he silenced them with a gesture of his hand. He had heard enough, he indicated.

There had been only a few beggars to start with, but one Eid the Master had been so generous that they were soon joined by others who had heard them bragging about their good fortune. Hundreds of beggars set up camp outside the Palace gates and the swelling din of supplications and crying infants became a source of thrill for the Master.

The sound gratified him because he was experiencing a new pleasure, one he had not encountered before. He instructed the guards to allow the beggars their rugs and cushions but to keep them confined to the area immediately adjacent to the gates, and to placate them with assurances that handouts would soon be distributed.

The Master went in and out of the compound repeatedly, and every time his car passed the ragged figures intoning blessings and prayers for his prosperous life, he felt he was in heaven. The sound of those beggars was so different from anything he had ever known, it went straight to his heart. He made up his mind to distribute the alms personally.

He went out to where the beggars were gathered and began scattering banknotes of every denomination about their heads; the crush of people very nearly tore him to pieces as they clawed at the paper money in the air. He felt so rewarded by this experience that, for a while, he became a serious philanthropist, donating to charitable associations and homes for the elderly and insisting on the media’s presence whenever he did so. The depictions in mass-market newspapers were invariably angelic, portraying him as one who relieved the suffering of the huddled masses in the swoop of his wings.

However, like all his previous pleasures, this one also proved short-lived. He soon grew tired of the beggars, whose numbers augmented daily, and he became so irritated with them that a vehicle from the city’s anti-vagrancy agency
was stationed outside the gates so that the approaches to the Palace could regain their stately splendour.

Now, instead of decrepit and haggard bodies at the gates, there were supple and vivacious bodies crossing the threshold of the Palace to deploy their charms, passions and resonant laughter in the pursuit of fame and lucre.

It was a transaction pure and simple: the women bestowed light – or heavy – favours and in return were paid handsomely. They left at the end of the evening, hoping for similar opportunities in the future. A single evening of lascivious dancing at a Palace party typically earned a woman more money than it took to silence all the beggars outside.

Maram was sexy and provocative.

She belonged to a group of dancers who had been brought in to liven up the evenings at the Palace. Though young, she showed early promise as a professional seductress.

Maram was reserved and coy to begin with, but when she saw that her takings paled in comparison with those of the other dancers, she dropped her demure manner. She would take the dance floor by storm and flash plenty of flesh to fire up the men watching. Whenever she felt she had been short-changed, she negotiated a private deal with a guest to make up the difference. However, unlike her charms, which were stunning, her negotiating skills left a lot to be desired; had it not been for the Master’s eye falling on her, she would have worn her body out for piastres.

I was reminded of young Souad and how the child-sized seductress haggled over one riyal before accepting my nail in her plank.

I had encountered Souad again more recently, when I was sent to the Palace gates to organise the mêlée of beggars. I was told to count the people and collect their requests after the Master had lost interest in going out to scatter money over their heads.

Souad was begging for charity with the other destitute women and had a child with Down’s syndrome beside her. I saw her standing there, holding a piece of cardboard over the boy’s head to shield him from the scorching sun, giving him sips of water from a half-empty water bottle. I asked one of the guards to show her into the reception lobby and she picked her son up off the ground and ran in carrying him, ignoring the snickering comments of the women around her.

As the cold air from the air conditioning in the lobby hit her face, she exclaimed, ‘Dear God, may our graves be as cool as this.’

One of the guards blocked her path and asked her roughly, ‘What do you want, woman?’

‘Bread. What else do hungry folk dream of, brother?’ she replied. Seeing that he was about to push her outside, Souad added urgently, ‘Someone here sent for me.’

I told the guard to let her be and as he went on his way, Souad inched closer and launched into her fevered entreaties, seemingly unconcerned that her face was not properly covered or that her shrivelled breasts were visible from the opening of her tattered dress.

How she had aged! Her two front teeth were broken, her hair parting was streaked with grey and her eyes were set deep in their hollows. Some women wilt like weeds.

I expected her to be at least surprised to see me again. But she just kept mumbling the prayers and pleas of beggars everywhere.

‘Is this your son?’ I asked, interrupting her.

‘Yes,’ she replied, ‘and I have three others who are older than him.’ Then she proceeded to itemise her long list of needs, starting with her electricity bill and ending with her youngest son’s costly treatment.

‘Doesn’t your husband work?’

She shook her head. ‘He’s in jail. He got ten years and he’s got six more to go.’

Our lives are full of ups and downs. Some of us rise and some fall. I had always known Souad to be close to the bottom of the pit, and I was not that far behind her. She and I were alike in that we were both fallen. The only difference was that she had hit rock bottom, while I was still falling and could see myself falling much further.

I pulled out my wallet and handed her 4,000 riyals. She gasped and bent to kiss my hand, but I withdrew it. ‘This isn’t charity,’ I told her. ‘This is to pay back my debt to you. It’s taken a very long time.’

Souad was bewildered. She held on to the money with both hands while her son squirmed at her feet.

She looked down at the banknotes, unsure. ‘I’ve never lent anyone money,’ she said. ‘Are you making fun of me?’ Holding out the wad of cash, she choked back a sob. ‘Here, take back your money!’

‘No, Souad, this is a very old debt,’ I insisted.

At the sound of her name, she peered into my face and asked, ‘Do you know me?’

‘Don’t you recognise me?’

Gathering her abaya around her and shrinking further into her already shrunken frame, she apologised profusely. ‘I’m far-sighted,’ she said. ‘Life has worn me down … I can’t afford glasses.’

‘I’m Tariq. Tariq Fadel.’

‘Tariq?’

Slowly her face brightened and she flashed a grin. ‘Our childhood – what a wonderful time that was,’ she said earnestly. ‘Since you owe me a debt and if you are able to, could you get my husband out of jail?’ She pulled out a piece of paper documenting her husband’s charge and showed it to me. ‘They say that if someone vouches for him, he’ll be out the following day.’

I read the name: Yasser Muft. The boy Issa, Mustafa and I had taken turns with all those many years ago, now in Breeman Prison on drug-peddling charges.

‘Of course, Souad,’ I said. ‘I will do my best.’

She picked up her son and went out through the doors, turning back to look at me while I stood watching her against the glass pane of the reception area. She clutched both her sick boy and her abaya in an attempt to hide the tear at the back. I watched her as she stepped outside, saddened at how diminished she had become. As she vanished into the crush of bodies milling about the Palace, I wondered where that little girl who used to play bride had gone.

*  *  *

I was invisible to all the Palace VIPs except for those unlucky enough to cross my professional path. I was as unseemly as a genital wart kept hidden from view.

I had been hired for one specific purpose. Though over time I took on other, smaller assignments, the Master always made sure I would never forget that these were secondary functions.

One of these functions was to remunerate the women who attended what came to be called the ‘Red-Hot Nights’. I would stuff wads of cash into envelopes at the end of the evening and hand them over to the women in accordance with the Master’s specifications. This afforded me an even more important role, that of go-between: many of the guests were desperate for the services of the Palace women and equally keen to have their affairs kept secret from the Master.