Bensalem Himmich - A Muslim Suicide

BACK AT THE HOUSE, the only person I found there was Abla, the servant-girl. She took my gear from me and accompanied me to my prayer-cell. Without paying any attention to my annoyance at this situation, she asked my permission to wash and massage my feet. My response was neither positive nor negative; I simply sat down and surrendered my feet willingly to her ministrations and the hot water soaked in sweet basil. While she was doing it, I was either staring up at the ceiling or closing my eyes to the seductive delights of this gorgeous whiteskinned girl. When I signaled to her to stop, she dried my feet with a towel. Picking up her equipment, she asked me if I wanted dinner now; if so, she would bring it. I pretended to be full and sent her away with wishes that she sleep well. But just as she was leaving, she tripped, fell down, and let out a cry of pain, claiming that she had twisted her ankle. I hurried over to help her, and she let me massage her where she was pointing. Once she was able to stand up again, she departed, with modest expressions of thanks.

No sooner had she departed than I rushed to the bathroom to rid myself of the impurities of this contact with another woman. Hoping to wake up and rid myself of the exhaustion caused by my travels, I washed myself, then performed the ritual ablutions. I found that I could not avoid feeling guilty toward the woman who had opened her bosom and home to me and saved me from sinful distractions. In the hope of overcoming my guilty conscience and asking God for forgiveness, I performed my prayers, then fell asleep.

Sometime during the night I opened my eyes in the darkness with the sense that there was someone beside me in the bed. "Fayha'," I asked, "when did you get back?"

"It's `Abla!" replied the voice of someone spread out at my feet.

I lit a candle and sat there, desperately thinking of a way to keep the girl at a distance and to find a better solution to the problem.

"What you're doing is wrong, my girl!" I told her, doing my best to control myself and trying to be as cordial as possible.

"We're the only people here," she replied in a soft, tender voice.

"Not true," I said. "God is the third, so fear Him!"

"Do you realize, Sir, that I'm a virgin? No man has ever touched me before!"

I decided that I could not ask her to explain why that was so and what was the problem, in case my tongue got things wrong and made it all worse.

"I will never be that man!" I replied in a terse and harsh tone that surprised even me. "I'm a married man and I fear God!"

"But just a while ago I washed and massaged your feet," she pleaded. "I only want you to do for me what I did for you."

I made it clear that I was still going to say no. I ordered her to go back to her own bed. No sooner had she got up off the bed and headed for the door than I stretched out and extinguished the candle. But now she turned around and pounced on me like a famished hyena, scratching my neck and chest with her sharp nails. I did nothing to resist her onslaught, but still kept telling her to stop behaving this way and live in fear of her Creator. Suddenly she let go of me and sat on the edge of the bed, crying and sobbing uncontrollably.

"Prayers from a devout man of God such as yourself are much to be desired;' she said. "Pray to your Lord that I may be married to an honorable man. Pray to him also that He may relieve me of the tyranny of the man who has power over me.."

Lighting a candle again, I asked her to tell me more about this person and what precisely he had done. For a moment she said nothing, but then she told me that she had sworn on the Holy Qur'an not to reveal either his name or what he had done. I explained to her that, if he had made her swear anything under compulsion, then the force of the oath was annulled. With that she stood up and went over to a corner by the door. Sitting on a bench, she paused for a moment to calm down and recover her breath.

"My lord," she said, "forget the things I've just told you. Instead please focus on praying for me."

"Dear `Abla," I replied, "I'll make a point of praying for you all the time."

"All in anticipation of our Lord responding to your petitions. Meanwhile, let's agree that, to the extent possible, I'll continue to wash your feet and you'll do the same for me. That is, as long as you don't want me to say anything…"

"Saying anything about what?"

"The scratches on your body are sign enough of the way I tried to resist your advances."

"That's sheer falsehood!"

"My story is much more plausible; by contrast yours seems implausible. And then, I'm only asking you for a fairly light touch; no need for greater involvement or whisperings. Just imagine that I'm your obedient servant-girl, and you're my wonderful doctor. That can be the pact between us until God chooses to set me free. What do you say?"

"I'll think about it when I can and let you know."

"Oh no, dear holy man of God! This pact is an act of kindness. As the old saying goes, the best kindness is rendered the quickest."

I had the bitter feeling that this young girl in my presence who was successfully confronting my faith and probity with her lures had been empowered by Satan himself in order to prevent me from embarking upon a deeper sense of God's unity through my marriage to a single person and to push me right back into my earlier phase of sheer frivolity and unfocused talk. I yelled at her to get out of my sight, but she paid absolutely no attention.

"No, no," she replied in a threatening tone. "If you give me a massage, then I'll say nothing about you and you can say nothing about me. But, if you refuse, I'm going to yell and scream out loud. And then it'll be the neighbors and police!"

It was obviously preferable to do what this flagrant girl demanded-if only to an extent-rather than risk a wholesale scandal.

So I went over and sat down beside her outstretched legs. She grabbed my hands and kissed them. Daubing my hands with a clammy cream, I took a deep breath. She meanwhile kept sighing as she watched what I was doing. I started rubbing the cream on her feet one by one all the way up to her ankles. When I tried to move my hands to her legs, she sighed again and stopped me. Just then I saw her insert one of her fingers between her thighs and start moving it. I turned away, wondering what she was doing as I heard her let out a series of moans, but then I realized. Stopping my massage, I was about to scold her for her scandalous behavior when she suddenly let out a shriek and ran to hide behind the door like a shot from a bow.

Purification and ablution, that's what I needed, and then reading the Sura of Joseph from the Qur'an before performing the morning prayers. Once that was done, I would be locking my doors and windows in the hope of getting my due of sleep.

However, when morning finally arrived and I opened my eyes, there was `Abla standing in front of me with a smile. I was amazed as she greeted me with a "good morning."

"How did you get in here," I asked, when I shut the door and window?"

"When it's the heart that is your guide," she replied, "you can't go wrong. The true lover has no problems finding the key to the locked door. While I was waiting for you to wake up, I've planted some gentle kisses on your face and prepared some food for you, all of it prepared and cooked by myself."

I looked at my table and saw that it was full of dishes for lunch. I realized that I had slept the entire morning. I thanked her for making my lunch and asked her to go back to her own quarters. She told me that her mistress would be coming back soon, news that made me smile in relief. I asked her when that would be.

"Not before noon tomorrow," she replied. "So, my beloved, we have the rest of today, tonight, and tomorrow morning entirely to ourselves."