Bensalem Himmich - My Torturess

The music stopped all of a sudden, and the group left the stage to applause, most of it artificial. The emcee now came back.

“Thank you, thank you to the TTI group,” he enthused. “Now this wonderful soirée will continue. It’s time now for humor and jokes, something that’ll make us all feel so much better. This is the way things were in the past, those fortunate people who imitated the behavior of our Prophet — the purest of peace be upon Him! The story is told about him that, whenever he attended a ceremony of some kind, he had it recorded. So no scowling and frowning, people!”

While his enormous body was swaying and dancing this way and that, another group came up on to the stage, singing in the rap-style:

“Take it down, folks, take it down,

Take a good look, folks, a good look!

Watch and be watched,

Have a good time and sing,

Sing, O sing again,

Life goes by so fast,

If you don’t have a laugh,

Things’ll get you down, and you’ll be dead!”

“So then,” the emcee went on, “it’s time for some good old-fashioned laughter. Our center’s clown for the evening is a master at telling jokes and humorous stories — the salt of life and the best cure for depression and anxiety. So a round of applause, please, for our witty midget with the long white beard and experienced penis. He comes from a family of jokesters and inherits the talent from the old masters of racy humor, the ones to whom the well-known slogan applies: ‘There’s no modesty in faith.’ There are countless examples who could be cited — al-Jahiz, al-Tawhidi, Ibn al-Jawziyya, al-Suyuti, al-Tifashi, and many, many others as well — God’s mercy on them all!* We have all benefitted from their mention and memory, and both they and we are thereby forgiven. Everyone say ‘Amen!’”

Some people responded enthusiastically, others less so. At this point, a group of senior officials at the center came out through a door at the back of the stage. There were seven of them, including the same ghoul with her amazing body clad in black and her usual searing glances. The emcee leapt up to welcome them and escorted them all to their special seats with a welcoming bow. He then turned and told the assembly to stand up and greet them all with applause. Some groups did as they were asked, but others refused. The guards went over and started hitting and threatening the recalcitrant prisoners, so all were eventually on their feet and clapping. The loudspeakers added their own mechanical applause to the noise, along with some weird military band-music — may God never empower such people! Once this particular farce was over, the officials sat down in their seats and so did everyone else. The emcee now thanked everyone for welcoming the senior officials so warmly and displaying their genuine feelings in this way. He then called on the official clown to perform his act. The midget came forward and bowed to each of the officials one by one. His beard looked long enough to serve as a broom for the stage.

“Dear prisoners, our beloved in God,” he said, grabbing the microphone to a chorus of hysterical laughter from the audience, “have you heard the one about the smart young dandy? He kept on saying wonderful things about one of his singing-girls and her sexual performance in a whole variety of rarely encountered positions, all with a professional approach that was unrivaled. Is this slave girl of yours going to enter heaven or not, he was asked. ‘No, she won’t,’ he replied, provoking all kinds of laughter and applause, ‘By God, not unless I hide her with me on the Day of Judgment and cross the narrow path to heaven with her. Then she’ll be able to make it under my cloak!’”

Mechanical applause emerged from the loudspeakers.

“May God preserve you all from collective repression and inadequacy! So here’s another one, about an old monk sitting on a crowded bus. Standing next to him is a beautiful and attractive young girl. When the bus brakes suddenly, she loses her balance and her lovely backside lands up in his lap. When she gets to her feet again, she’s blushing furiously and asks him to forgive her. ‘My dear girl,’ the monk replies, ‘I totally forgive you. All you’ve done is to arouse the church keys from a prolonged slumber!’”

There was some feeble laughter, followed by more when people finally understood the symbolic meaning behind the joke.

“So now you’re enjoying my jokes,” he went on, “and you want more. However, the program is a busy one, and time’s short. So just one more as a farewell gesture. Here’s one about a shaykh who liked boys. One day he spotted a truly lovely boy, so he followed him and decided to use every means possible to seduce him. The boy got on a bus, so he did too. Standing right behind the boy, he started whispering in his ear. The boy indicated his agreement, but the shaykh started rubbing the boy’s backside hard. ‘Enough!’ the boy told him angrily. ‘We’ve agreed already, so why are you tickling me like that?’ ‘Just to remind you!’ the shaykh replied.”

That was followed by a lot of lewd laughter, led by the female ghoul, who had a microphone right in front of her. The loudspeakers duly amplified the laughter and applause, which grew louder and louder. She stopped laughing all of a sudden. The midget stood in front of her and proceeded to perform some amazing gymnastic tricks, as though he were dedicating them to his only acknowledged patroness and guardian. Once he had finished, he disappeared behind her.

“God fight you, master clown and midget!” the emcee now said, faking a broad smile. “Now it’s the enormous black guard’s turn. He’s a loyal servant of this center and needs no introduction. From time to time you’ve undoubtedly heard the sounds of tom-tom drums that trace their origins to deepest black Africa. However, you’ll never have heard anything as loud and superb as what our African giant can do. The amazing thing is that, as he’s playing, he can actually hear nothing — whether it’s soft or loud — because, as you all know, his hearing and speech are both impaired — we seek refuge in God from such calamities! He’ll be coming up on the stage, so please give him some applause to encourage him. Count down with me. . three, two, one, zero. .”

True enough, the giant black guard now came up on the center stage. I got up from my seat to look at him; in fact, I was one of the first to do so. In this case, the applause was heartfelt and genuine, not compulsory or under threat. People were yelling support for him and offering prayers for his continent, his people, and his tribe. The guards now started interfering to get people to stop yelling and take their seats again. The giant guard bowed low to the audience, then sat there with the drum between his knees. With taps and drumbeats he started creating melodies that were at turns soft, medium, and loud. The feelings of joy and rapture that they aroused made everyone want to shake and dance. And that is precisely what happened: as the atmosphere intensified, people started standing up and dancing, soon followed by others. Feet, legs, heads, hands, and bodies all started moving in crazy, swaying circles. One of them asked me to join in, but I excused myself because of my bad leg. He did not hear me. I was pulled toward him and did my best to imitate his movements.

This went on for a while, and the emcee was not able to do anything about it. The dancers were clearly totally absorbed. It felt as though they were not yet rid of their feelings of filth and repression and were using their sweat, shouts, and frothy moans to expunge it all. The emcee did his best to rewind things and used the microphone to ask the assembled company to stop; there was a still a lot to go in the soirée’s program. He reminded them all that the crowning touch would come when new groups and ranks of recanting prisoners would be presented, people who had now seen the light and were going to cooperate in a spirit of true devotion, to root out extremism and terrorism from all quarters of the globe. When this announcement totally failed to achieve any result, he went over to the black guard and signaled to him to stop playing and leave the stage. But the guard refused and hit him so hard that he fell to the floor.