Bensalem Himmich - My Torturess

“If you’re a woman of steel,” I said, “come on out! Now to the final round when I’ll beat you fair and square. It’ll be a knockout.”

The underlings carried their boss to the middle, albeit with the greatest difficulty, and stood her up on her two feet. With a blow of the whistle the referee indicated that the second round should begin. Mama Ghula was looking exhausted and shattered, so I took advantage of the situation to aim a merciful blow to her right temple that sent her crashing to the floor unconscious. The referee counted to ten in order to stop the fight, while the guards outdid each other in making fun of her. I made my way over to the group of spectators, who were all proclaiming victory, yelling, “The bee’s the winner, three cheers for the bee!”

Flushed by my success, I hugged all the prisoners who were celebrating my victory one by one, including a female prisoner who was wearing a head scarf. I then went back to the defeated woman, who was still spread-eagled on the floor, and strutted around her like a peacock. I told the referee to count out another ten or more, but he refused.

“No, no!” he said, “The rules are the rules.”

I was getting ready to move away victorious when, right out of the blue, the woman pounced on me from behind like a leopard and threw me to the ground with a gymnastic move that only a category-one professional wrestler could manage.

Now I realized why it was that throughout the fight her assistants had never stopped laughing. Mama Ghula had been simply toying with me, turning our fight into a farce. I had obviously been wrong to imagine that any boxing match with her would follow international rules. I was even more in error when I had imagined that in any bodily contest with a female opponent, whether involving Roman or Japanese rules, I could be the winner; at the very least it would be a draw. As it was, I now found myself collapsing under the weight of this barbaric female ghoul, groaning as she throttled me and completely unable to move or resist. At this point I had good reason to doubt my previous masculine calculations. Could I somehow comfort myself with the thought that “there’s many a trial that brings its own reward”? Perhaps my idiotic behavior might convince her that there was something wrong with my head; she might show a little mercy and treat me with less violence.

My thanks to God were profuse when this harpy loosened her grip on me and left me on the floor panting desperately. She meanwhile went over to her corner and sank down on a chair in front of a table filled with files, telephones, sandwiches, bottles of beer and wine, and other things that I could not make out because the guards ordered me to stay where I was. I could, however, see that the woman who had beaten me was busy eating and drinking, all the while uttering uncouth things in French and expressions of utter disgust like “Yuk” and “Ugh”—all as a way of expressing her complete contempt for the effort she had had to exert in order to deal with a puny, lily-livered, and insignificant weakling like me. Sure enough, she soon started venting her spleen and mouthing her disgust.

“This is a total insult,” she said, spewing spittle as she did so, “It’s a crime! Here I am, having to deal with scum and idiots, most of whom faint as soon as I start torturing them. The general and his coterie can play around with drug cartels, terrorist bosses, and organized crime, using all sorts of funds and cash, not to mention the pretty boys and prostitutes. Equal rights for men and women! My ass, a thousand times, my ass!!!”

It was not enough for her to keep on talking about equal rights. She knelt down, bared her enormous backside, and then started doing the rounds of the room. She kept repeating the most disgusting phrases in Arabic; I was unable to block my ears and only record them here only with the greatest reluctance. But then, my only excuse is that it is not obscenity to repeat obscenity.

“Equality, equality!”

“Damn equality, my ass!”

“Equality, equality!”

“My ass to equality!”

All the while her assistants kept clapping as she made her way around the room.

“She’s for real!” they kept chanting, and then they ordered me and all the other prisoners to repeat the chant, “She’s for real. .” None of us was in any position to refuse.

Was I in a prison or a lunatic asylum? What was clear enough was that in this case the difference between the two was as thin as a spider’s web; above all, there were no signs or dividing lines to tell you when you were leaving one for the other. As an indication of that fact, no sooner had this woman finished dancing around and yelling with her backside exposed and then stood still again, sweating profusely, than she singled me out with a wine-soaked gesture. The guard rushed over, grabbed me from my corner and once again put me in her clutches. I decided to wear them out by running backwards and doing various feints and other stunts, but this time the female ghoul, duly aided now by the gigantic black man who was presumably performing another one of his functions, managed along with the other guards to grab hold of me and tie my hands behind my back. They placed a bottle between my legs and withdrew.

“Sit on it,” she said in a lewd tone of voice.

The wine bottle test, I told myself.

“Sit on it?” I said, pretending that I didn’t understand. “Sit on what?”

“That’s right,” she yelled after emptying the bottle of wine. “Sit on it so the mouth goes up your ass! God damn your mother’s religion!”

“Don’t insult my mother, I beg you. Seek refuge with God and his Prophet from foul talk and debauched conduct!”

She repeated her instructions, but this time as a final warning.

“I’ll sit down, yes,” I replied, trying to control my nerves, “but on a chair. That’s only right and proper, Mademoiselle!”

The guards started laughing again, and the gigantic black man joined in as well. I laughed along with them, not because I was that naïve, but to try to keep the atmosphere as conducive as possible. However, I soon changed tack and became serious again. I tried as best I could to address her in such a way as to arouse her sympathy.

“Why are you insulting me like this?” I asked.

With chewing gum in her mouth, she chuckled and winked at one of the guards.

“Oh, no reason at all,” he replied mechanically. “To kill the time, or maybe because the boss doesn’t like your filthy face! Sit on the bottle!”

“Never,” I protested, “my religion totally forbids such things!”

Mama Ghula responded to my protest with an outburst of abuse against my mother’s religion, the like of which I have never heard in my entire life. Her assistants rushed over, still laughing, and attached one of my legs to a rope hanging down from the ceiling. The position I was now in promised nothing good; I looked like a slaughtered sheep about to be flayed. The ghoul now came up to me, with a cigarette between her lips, her features a tissue of hatred and disgust. She now started stubbing her lighted cigarette on the soles of my feet, my backside, my back, and my armpit. Even though I mustered the proverbial patience of Job to counter this onslaught, I still emitted some suppressed groans. However, she then spread my thighs apart and thrust the bottle hard into my anus; this time I could not help filling the entire room with screams of extreme pain. My torturess now seized the opportunity to tighten the noose by asking me over and over again about my cousin called Abu al-Basha’ir and his cell and my own involvement in what she kept calling a sleeper cell. When she did not get the information she was after, she leaned close to my ear and pleaded with me — for the last time, I reckoned — to tell her the truth and offer her my help. She told me that she was a widow with a family to take care of; she pleaded with me to take pity on her crippled daughter and other children. I could help by responding to their needs and guaranteeing their future lives. When she still did not get what she wanted, she showed me her dagger and started sticking various parts of my body, in simultaneous admiration and disgust.