My Torturess by Bensalem Himmich

Author:Bensalem Himmich
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
ISBN: 9780815610472
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
Published: 2015-04-21T04:00:00+00:00

16

Between My Walls

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.

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