After Coffee

The Wolf Slayer-2

He stopped to shoo away the boys who had gathered around the back door. They were carrying sticks made of reed, and some were as naked as the day they were born. The pack started to disperse but two lingered: Medhat and his black dog.

Medhat was rooted to his spot by the door and gazed out at the far corner of the mosque where a rectangular wooden box stood, tipped upright on four legs. They called it ‘the coffin’. He would always see it there, in the same place, unless it had been removed by the village men as they hauled someone inside it to a distant place from which there was no return. This had happened when they carried his mother away and when they took his grandmother, covered in a white sheet that fluttered in the breeze. He may never have discovered what all this meant had he not wondered why neither his mother nor grandmother had come back from that faraway place. ‘Where’s my ma?’ he had asked Na’sa, his wet-nurse. ‘She went to the market to get you halva and a couple of loaves of special bandar bread,’ she replied. ‘And where’s my nana?’ he asked her. ‘She went to visit her relatives in Hassiniya,’ she said. Oh, how he’d waited for his mother to return with the halva and the special bread. And how he’d waited for his grandmother to come back from her family visit. But he now knew that Na’sa had lied and that anyone carried off in that box would not be back. That was the distant place they called ‘death’.

One of his friends pulled at his arm and another struck him on the shoulder with a stick, but he didn’t move. They were gesturing excitedly with their reed sticks because they were on their way to war…their mission at this hour was to attack the wasps that built their nests in the straw and firewood stored on the roofs of the houses. They were not deterred from battle by the fact that wasps defended their homes fiercely and were capable of inflicting serious injuries on the attackers - especially the naked ones. The child didn’t budge until Hajj Zaki put his hand on his shoulder. ‘Isn’t it rude to walk around naked like that, Medhat?’ ‘We left our clothes by the canal,’ Medhat replied. ‘We sped off when the Sa’ida’s dogs started chasing us’. ‘All right, but hurry on along now please,’ Zaki said. ‘Goodbye.’

The two sheikhs, Hamed and Sayyid, approached, but stepped aside from leading the prayer when they saw Hajj Zaki. It wasn’t because he was more educated than them, since he hadn’t studied at al-Azhar Islamic University. And it wasn’t because he was older, since he was actually younger than them both. It was because they recognised his stature. If he wasn’t there, they would have ended up competing over who would lead the prayer and some of the congregation might have sided with one or the other, since they each had their own supporters. The first one, Sheikh Sayyid, had spent God knows how many years boarding at the revered University of al-Azhar without receiving a graduation certificate. As for the second sheikh, Hamed, he had spent only five years at the Religious Institute of Zagazig. Thus Sheikh Sayyid believed, along with his supporters, that it was his right, being the more educated, to lead the prayers. But Sheikh Hamed believed, and so did his supporters, that to pray behind Sheikh Sayyid was an arduous ordeal because he would forever stutter and stammer. And from time to time, he would emit a sound that resembled a cross between a sip and a slurp, and he would end up reciting the rebellious phrase or word over and over again until it obeyed him. Not only that, but these falterings that seemed to haunt Sheikh Sayyid would prompt the boys in the back rows to snigger and nudge each other, or worse. Sheikh Hamed, however, was characterised by his wit and eloquence. Most importantly, he would complete the prayer before the worshippers’ patience had completely depleted, knowing that some of them wanted only to carry out the religious obligation in a slapdash manner. And so he would leave no room for the devil to penetrate the rows of worshippers and distract them from their state of submission as they stood in the hands of God.

If Hajj Zaki was present, it meant the end of the dispute; everyone would be in agreement, tranquillity would abound, and the prayer would be performed as it should be. Even Shabana, whose mockery no one could escape, would declare during his gatherings at the village’s public jurn that ‘Saad Pasha and Nahhas Pasha may be the elected leaders of the nation, but my cousin Zaki is the chief of the “sons of Qassim”, without election or royal decree.’ But this unelected leadership no longer pleased Zaki, since it had become too heavy a burden to bear. It had somehow been thrust upon him through neither his nor anyone else’s will but God’s. He was simply performing his duty, just as he had when his father was alive. Back then, he would receive guests generously and would sometimes act on his father’s behalf in resolving conflicts. But he just couldn’t keep doing it anymore; God burdens not a person beyond his scope, after all.

He called for the worshippers to straighten the rows as he led the congregational prayer so that ‘God may have mercy on you’, and everyone shuffled into position behind him. There was still some respect left. No one complained, no arguments erupted, and the boys didn’t nudge each other in the back rows or snigger if the prayer dragged on. And so everyone was humble in the hands of the Sacred King. The crisis now was that he himself struggled to stay humble and focused. His mind would wander just as he started to recite a verse from the Quran, and he would try to remember the next one, but it would only come through arduous effort. Between one verse and another was a gap filled with silence, a gap mired in darkness. Between one verse and another, fear reared its head. And recently - since the quarrel with his brother - these gaps had been growing. If this continued, people would surely abandon him. Then there was Shabana at the jurn gatherings; if people found out about his situation, there was no way he would escape Shabana’s ridicule. Fear resided deep inside him, and it surfaced during the prayers, or as soon as he laid his head on the pillow, or whenever he saw his brother. There was a phrase that was desperate to launch itself from the depths of his soul towards his lips in the shape of a scream, but it would always get lodged in his throat. And there were words he wished he could raise to the One from Whom Nothing is Concealed, but he found himself mute.

***

The village of the Qassimis, the descendants of the original settler, Qassim, was an odd kind of place, surrounded by secrets on every side. Most of the locals believed jinn inhabited the mosque’s well, and it was said that a black, horned serpent guarded the bathing basin of the mosque. Sheikh Sayyid claimed that ‘The Enemy’ extended his hand and poked him on the right side of his body, trying to nullify his prayers, whenever he performed the voluntary, late-night tahajjud. Beyond the fields that extended south of the mosque was a stagnant pond with algae that rose above the water’s surface. People would try to keep their distance as they walked past, because it was said to be deep, bottomless, and inhabited by various types of ghouls. Woe betide anyone who lost their footing and toppled in! The main road that split the village in two ended at the perpendicular country road that bordered the canal. Those were the northern borders of the village. But beyond those borders was the opposite bank of the canal, where the Sa’ida lived. There was some interaction between the Sa’ida people and the villagers, and they would sometimes visit each other. The village children would also cross to the other side on foot when the water was shallow - since the canal was four metres wide at most - or swim across during the periods of flooding. They would climb the Sa’ida’s palm trees to steal their fruit in the date season. And they would chop up the reed branches they found floating on the surface of the water to use as spears that they would fling at wasps, or make reed pens to use at the Quranic school. Crossing to the opposite bank would fill the boys with fear and, to them, reaching the other side was an adventure to top all adventures.

At the western side of the village there was the waterwheel, shaded by the old sycamore tree whose branches extended over the path. The well at the waterwheel was inhabited and had its own tales of terror. It was said that a man called Abdulhadi had been mesmerised by a female jinn - one of the women of the underworld - while he watered his land one night. She had appeared to him from the well and forced him into an engagement, offering to take him to live down in the abundant bliss amongst her family. But he refused because he was faithful to his wife, the mother of his children. It was also said that he was strong and fought with her until she defeated him. She only managed to overcome him when she embraced him, pressing her breasts into his chest such that two nails protruding from her n*****s hammered into him and pierced his heart. When was this? And to which past generation did Abdelhadi belong? And where was his wife whom he’d abandoned? And where were his remaining family? These were questions for which no one had answers. It wouldn’t even cross anyone’s mind in the village - apart from Shabana at the jurn gatherings - to ask them. There was another story about a young man called Abdelsalam who was enticed by a female jinn and disappeared with her to live together in her underground world, where they have remained ever since. Who were his mother and father? In which era did he live? These questions had no answer and no one except Shabana thought to raise them, to ridicule the sons of Qassim and to highlight their foolishness. If ever the water buffalo’s hoof slipped when it was in the vicinity of the waterwheel, causing it to topple into the well, it would be taken as an ominous sign and a harbinger of great catastrophe. The women’s voices would then ring out as they screamed and wailed, and the men would rush from the outskirts of the village to the helpless animal to try and pull it out. If they failed to rescue it, they would bring a knife and slaughter the buffalo on the spot before it died.

The area around the waterwheel was inhabited, too. There was a spirit that appeared to passersby at night in the shape of a donkey whose back rose higher and higher until it was taller than the top of the sycamore tree and even reached the sky. If anyone approaching from the western side at night was destined to come across a spirit, then they would most likely spot it near the waterwheel and the sycamore tree. And it would be that satanic donkey they’d see.

This paranormal activity wasn’t restricted to the western side of the country road, since the eastern side had its peculiar stories in turn. There, the spirits would not be limited to nocturnal appearances. Either ‘Mother Ghoul’ or ‘The Summoner’ might emerge in broad daylight, and especially during the siesta hour. Everyone would be asleep, and all the animals would appear stunned - the water buffalo, for example, would be powerless to bat the flies pinching at its tail - and the whole area around the jurn would be vacant. But people returning from the central market on Wednesday might be unfortunate enough to be heading back during the witching hour and could be half-asleep astride their donkeys when they would suddenly be woken up by the call of ‘The Summoner’. Then woe betide those who responded, for the call was irresistible.