Bensalem Himmich - My Torturess

Most of the people present now sat in clusters in the floor. The techno music stopped, and voices were raised to announce that there were some dead. I noticed an old man just by my feet; after checking his neck vein and closing his eyelids, I was able to confirm that he was one of that number. Accompanied by the people close to me, I said the fourfold takbir . I then noticed the door opening and a group of armed guards wading their way through the clusters of people and starting to remove the dead on rubber stretchers. When two of them came over to get the dead man close to me and put him on the trolley, I collapsed on top of him, holding my breath. They were forced to take me with the dead man, the assumption being that I myself was also in the Angel of Death’s clutches. They transported me to the graveyard, while my ears resounded to the sound of gunfire, as the imam yelled out: “Remain steadfast, servants of God, remain steadfast!”

By now it was dawn. The guards made do with lining up the corpses alongside a wide, deep ditch in the graveyard. They went off to do something else or to use what was left of the night to get some sleep. Like a wounded crocodile, I slithered my way from this ditch that had obviously been dug for an indiscriminate corporate burial. Eventually I reached a grassy strip where I was able to breathe freely and rest for a bit. Holding my hand over my mouth to stop coughing, I was able to empty my bladder, something I had had to control while I was on top of the dead old man.

The sun rising in the sky shows no mercy on people trying to hide in this bare open desert, however much they try to scrunch up and make themselves invisible. Actually, the sun uncovers and exposes them, making them completely obvious to any wandering guard or person in a watchtower. As I lay there on the ground, I noticed a soldier’s boot close to my eyes. Raising my head to look at him, I heard him threaten me and tell me to stand up. It soon became obvious to him that I could not do that. He asked me if I was trying to escape, and I told him I was not. He then asked me for my prisoner’s number, and I spelled it out, quickly the first time, then more slowly. He was happy to carry me on his shoulders, as though I were hunting spoils.

“They’ve been searching for you all over the place,” he shouted. “This morning you’re my prize. Pray to God that, when it comes to salaries, you’ll be the reason for my increase!”

I now told my rescuer the story of my getting misplaced in the lunatics’ block, then in the hall for those practicing for the Day of Judgment. However, his mind was elsewhere, repeating the same thing over and over again and asking me to pray for him. Before he put me back in my cell and locked the door, he spoke about me to a number of soldiers and guards on the way — far more than required, and made them witnesses to the fact that he was the one who had discovered my hiding place and arrested me.

The Christian Fayruz

How many long hours, or maybe whole days, I spent asleep, elongated periods that were interrupted only by abrupt episodes of wakefulness, about which I cannot remember any specific details but only the terrifying impact of their visions.

When I rubbed my eyes — it was noontime, I was appalled to see rats and mice congregating to consume the food that had piled up while I was asleep. What appalled me even more, however, was to see a woman’s head poking out of the bedcover in front of me. When I tried to stand up, I found that I could not do it. I shooed the mice and rats away, and they went back down the holes from which they had emerged. I hobbled over to the toilet and put the stone over it, then towards the door and pulled myself up using the bars. I started yelling, pointing out that, contrary to the practice enjoined by both God and His Prophet, there was a woman in my cell. The only result of my yelling was to hear my voice echoing back weak and feeble. That was followed by a remark from the prisoner who was my closest neighbor:

“You moron!” he said. “They bring you a woman for your bed, and you turn her down! What are you, a man or a hermaphrodite? Fuck the harlot for free, you lucky man! If not, then give her to me, and I’ll fuck her as I’ve never fucked a woman before. I’m so frustrated, it’s unreal. Give her to me for a fair piece of hashish and a bit of spare change for the guard. What do you say?”

I paid no attention to such foul-mouthed drivel, but still decided to give my breath and vocal chords a rest for a while. I then resumed my yelling and shouting. This time all I got out of it was waking up my newly arrived cell mate, who proceeded to accuse me of being a plant and spying on her in her cell while she was asleep. I immediately denied her any ownership of the cell, pointing out that the number 223 coincided with my own number. In exchange, I expended some choice words on a counterattack, accusing her of being an informer herself, someone whose function was to tempt me with sex as a way of getting information that the female ghoul had been unable to do by torturing me.

I imagined that the investigating judge might be watching me through some hidden camera and laughing his head off at us. With that thought in mind, I leapt up, grabbed my blanket, and used it to cover myself as I squeezed against the back wall. I forced my mind and body to put God’s protective veil between me and this woman and imposed all possible barriers between us. But no sooner had she watched as I calmed down and avoided looking at her than she too leapt to her feet and stripped off her prison clothes.

“Look,” she upbraided me, “here’s my body. See how they’ve carved trenches on my back! There’s hardly a bone or muscle that the ghoul and others have not destroyed with electric shocks and various other torture devices. Now that you’ve seen all this, can you still accuse me of being a spy or infiltrator?”

“But you’re the one,” I responded bashfully as I looked at her cuts and bruises, “who started things by accusing me of evil intentions. .”

She put her clothes back on and then sat down with a sigh.

“You’re right,” she said. “Suspicion and caution are both rampant, spreading like a cancer among us, even those people who have experienced the dungeon and humiliating torture. Those tyrant pigs have managed to completely subvert documents and roles. Companions in misery have turned into enemies — may God destroy them all and bring their own treachery down on them!”

From the way she was talking, this new cell mate of mine seemed both badly scarred and yet perceptive.

“By the way,” she went on, “the fact that your number and the cell’s are the same is not a pretext. The fact that this complex is packed with prisoners means that no prisoner can regard a cell as being his own. Many times they’ve put me in cells with women; and at other times with men. All too often men have used the situation to take advantage of my body and destroy my honor. Don’t be scared. I’m not going to seduce you or rape you as hired female prisoners sometimes do. Like them, I may have syphilis or AIDS, but I swear by the God whom I fear, I’m not going to infect anyone with any disease I might have contracted. That even applies to my enemies and people who’ve done me wrong. .”

She suddenly fell silent and closed her eyes, as though by suppressing her tears she could somehow control her emotions. At this point I took a look at her face, with its attractive but harsh features. She was forty or so, and her already thin body had clearly been worn out by starvation and violence. Her hair was streaked with hints of grey that gave her appearance and speech a staid and august tinge.

“So, my dear servant of God,” I asked her as tenderly as I could, “tell me about yourself. Who are you, and what has brought you to this appalling center?”