Raja Alem - The Dove's Necklace

Last month, the Eunuchs’ Goat lost the last of his patience and good sense, and it didn’t take much courage or forethought for him to carry out his next reckless move. He suddenly found himself with his arms wrapped, shivering, around the torso and legs of his beloved — passion and fear have driven you mad, Eunuchs’ Goat, look at you, your fingers are colder than a dead fish in a supermarket freezer! He calmly covered her with her wine-colored muslin and smuggled her out through the narrow alleyways of the Gaza Market till he reached the Mas’a, where he boarded a bus that was just pulling away from the stop. He couldn’t believe how easy it had been for him to steal the body. By the time he got it back to his bedroom above the kitchen, evening prayers were over. He lay down at her magical feet and let out a deep sigh. “This is the fragrance of feet that have never once touched the soil. Virginal feet. Nothing has ever spread these toes apart before.”

He was in seventh heaven, and for days the Eunuchs’ Goat had to fight the desire to dip into that wine-colored cloth, to strip away its many layers and reveal its amazing truth. For days he kept to his room, constantly parched, ignoring his foster father al-Ashi’s calls and foregoing lunches with his foster mother Umm al-Sa’d. When his resistance finally crumbled and he knelt down between her feet, all his limbs were numb. He shivered as he lifted up the hem of her dress, and he was shocked to find a hard wooden pedestal instead of her feet and cold metal columns where there should have been calves and thighs. His blood sugar dropped suddenly and his ears began to ring. With his teeth he tore the straps off her shoulders and ripped the wine-colored muslin to shreds, exposing the woman’s torso. It was perfect and sealed; nothing had split it open, neither scalpel nor desire. The feeling of encountering this woman before her body had even been formed was frightening. She was the mold of a woman, the body of woman before the Fall, before opening up, before extending her limbs.

The Eunuchs’ Goat was frantic but he carefully avoided the al-Ceyloni store and headed instead for its large competitor, the massive Bin Siddiq Outlets. While the security guard was watching, he bent down at the feet of the woman nearest the door. He wanted to make sure they were delicate and when he revealed her calves and saw how perfectly they were executed, his mouth went dry. Without any hesitation, he picked the woman up, wrapping her left arm around his shoulders and walked out. The security guard sitting at the other end of the shop simply finished his tea and said nothing. No one would try to pull something like that unless they were the rightful owner.

The Eunuchs’ Goat took off running, blindly, the fiery satin stinging his tongue. His entire body was propelled toward the Lane of Many Heads with his treasure in tow, deaf to the horns and screeching brakes around him, and it wasn’t until a flash of yellow crossed his path that he was awoken from his trance. A massive blow knocked him sideways and the muslin-covered beauty was mangled under the taxi’s wheel. The mocking laughter was like a slap in the face, but he ignored it and bent down, yanking and pulling, trying in vain to free the woman’s torso from beneath the tire. He lost it. He started beating the door of the taxi with both his hands. Khalil got out and grabbed the Eunuchs’ Goat by the collar. He shoved him against the bent metal of the car’s body and penned him in with his superior size. “Want me to show you the woman trapped inside that doll’s body of yours?” he said, mocking him for being a pretty Turk. The Eunuchs’ Goat kicked and punched him hysterically, but Khalil was enjoying the violence. He then suddenly shoved him to the side, got back in the cab, and reversed a few feet.

“When I was a king in heaven, I knew exactly what this country needed. I used to use my connections with the airlines to smuggle in dolls like you for seamstresses and tailoring workshops.” Khalil was getting off on insulting the object of his infatuation, this boy. “I’d bring in one or two dolls each time, disassembled and laid out in my suitcase, and I’d put them back together as soon as I made it past customs. The cheapest mannequins you can get abroad are priceless in this country. Maybe you should try Afghanistan, you’d probably be worth millions there.” The Eunuchs’ Goat took off his robe, which had been torn to shreds during the altercation, and knelt down to gather the pieces of his beauty up in it. Then he walked off, not once looking back, and Khalil, who was back behind the steering wheel, watched him sneeringly, appreciating the cute young man’s curves under his long white trousers. There was a smell of poison, mixed in with a hint of yellow satin, in the air.

Alone in his bedroom, the Eunuchs’ Goat confronted the frightening perfection of thighs and knees. His eyes weren’t aware that the torso was shattered; he’d never once imagined that his heart could be so enthralled by two knees and the silence that separated them.

It was then that he realized that he’d fallen under the control of women with closed fists, closed mouths, closed — impenetrable women! No matter how hard he tried, his saliva didn’t soften the cork, his touch couldn’t knead it. The first time he looked into her eyes to beg with his own, he saw there was no eye there, no head.

“God curse American democracy! It can’t even give the beauties in shop-windows their heads or severed limbs back. A democracy of cork arms and legs that can’t wrap around men’s necks and waists and make the blood flow back through them.”

He became addicted to those bodies. He no longer had any qualms about stealing them from wherever he could find them. He was consumed by his conflicted feelings about those beautiful women; their skin that never sweated and thus left him craving. Every morning he woke up disgusted with himself. The only thing that he could hope for was that Sa’diya, Imam Dawoud’s daughter, would save him. Sa’diya who was wrapped from her head to her toes in black, who had never been programmed by a fashion designer or by love scenes seen on TV. Sa’diya was his “Surah of the Cow.” Her heart contained the “Throne Verse,” where he would stretch out and be loved like no man had ever been loved before. The Eunuchs’ Goat swore to himself that he would be the recipient of that tiny flame’s love. That he would surrender himself to her completely. That she would make up for all the rejections he was getting from the beauties that were cluttering his bedroom.

From where he was standing in the doorway, Nasser could see the delicate arm, its palm stretched flat and index finger pointed in his direction. In the light coming through the tiny window, the mannequin’s subtle gesture brought him nearer to her. He shut his eyes and the taste of blood overcame all his senses … This was the Eunuchs’ Goat’s blood; there was no doubting that. Nasser fought his attraction to the Eunuchs’ Goat, whom he called to mind through the mannequin’s body, though hers was more feminine.

Discovery

FROM: Aisha

SUBJECT: Message 11

The bird scrapes at the air-conditioning unit, with its stock of feathers and chicks, to build a nest. “Is it spring?” I ask out loud. He doesn’t answer. He disappears and then comes back again. Like you …

Every Sunday since my back was introduced to scalpels and crow’s-foot stitches, my heart feels as if it’s been left here in this chair by the window to wait, and is reluctant to speak to me.

You look out.

You cover me with that heavy raincoat that smells of pine nuts!