Spotlight on Ray Abernathy
Wednesday, December 31st, 2008Happy New Year, friends of www.LongShortStories.com!
2009 is going to be a great year for LongShortStories! Please check back in the next few weeks for exciting new features accessible from the Home Page. You’ll be glad you did!
Now, it is my great pleasure to introduce you to my friend, fellow fiction writer and freelance columnist, Ray Abernathy, whose great Web site www.rayabernathy.com will inform and enlighten you to what’s going on in the world.
Friends, you’re in for a real treat as you read Ray’s delightful and timely short story “Behold, the Raisin.”
Behold, the Raisin
by Ray Abernathy
Cairo. Everything is moving. Small, square Russian cars, junkers all, speeding down the broad boulevard next to the Nile, slowing neither for traffic circles nor for pedestrians dodging in and out of lanes. Young men riding cranky bicycles past crumbling French, Soviet and Italianate buildings, right hands gripping handlebars, left hands balancing wide wooden trays of precious flatbread. A bus careens wildly around a tiny girl riding side-saddle astride a donkey, the donkey piled 20 feet high with used tires, the girl furiously beating the slow-moving animal with a stick. Two black armored personnel carriers with no windows, only slits for rifles, lumber off the boulevard into the Garden City district, crawl up narrow streets and come to a stop at the back entrance to the Embassy of Saudi Arabia just as two identical vehicles leave. A boy of twelve skips down the walk of an apartment building, crosses the street, pulls himself up by the gun slits on one of the carriers, sticks his tongue out at the soldiers inside and greets them with the refrain from his favorite cartoon show: “Yabba-dabba-do.” The soldiers, most of them little older than children themselves laugh and reply, “da-da-da-da …. da-da-da-da ….dadadadadadadooo.”
The boy’s name is Ahmed and he is a happy boy. He is happy with his maddrassa, his school he walks to every day. He is happy with his mother, who makes sure he always has a clean pair of jeans, a T-shirt, and a bottle of Dasani laid out every morning, and with his father,
who’s never too tired to play soccer in the street after coming home from his shop on the broad boulevard where he canes chairs all day, every day. Ahmed is happy with his bowab — his doorman, security guard and confidant — who sits in one of those caned chairs in front of their apartment building at Eight Selamik Street doling out wise advice between spurts of brown liquid deposited into the dust of their courtyard. And he is happy with his Imam, Sheikh El Al, and his mosque, Imbab y Paca (Go in Peace). He is not happy, however, with the older boys at the mosque who are joining the latest craze sweeping the city by banging their foreheads on their prayer rugs as they prostrate themselves and raising red and swollen zebibahs, red raisins, midway between their eyebrows and their hairlines.
“I do not need to create a raisin on my face to show my devotion to Allah,” Ahmed tells his parents as they sit for dinner with his older sister Busalyn, who always disagrees with everything he does and says. “I do many good deeds every day to show my devotion, I pray five times every day, and I pray at the mosque four nights each week, three times on Holy Friday. That means many more good deeds, even more than anyone needs.”
“You are a foolish boy, Ahmed,” Busalyn sneers. “One can never earn enough good deeds. They are not like points in a soccer game. They demonstrate your devotion, yes, but so do zebibahs. If you weren’t such a child you’d understand.”
Ahmed’s mother motions for both of them to be silent and eat and when they are finished, Busalyn helps clear the dishes. The boy and his father go out into the narrow street to kick around the soccer ball, careful not to bang it on the side of the personnel carrier where the men inside are dozing heavily in the heat or to fly it into the face of one of the three soldiers standing behind thick lead shields, protecting against a first assault on the Saudi Embassy. The
Embassy is a target for the Muslim Brotherhood, the same Muslim Brotherhood that supplies food for the poor when the mosques and the government fall short of their obligations, the Muslim Brotherhood that is urging young men all over Cairo to create raisins of devotion on their foreheads. Some people say the Brotherhood is good, some people say it is bad. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who is trying to keep them from gaining political power so his son can be elected to succeed him, thinks they are very bad. Ahmed pays the possibility of danger no mind because there are many foreign embassies in Garden City — the British and the American consulates among them — making Garden City the most heavily guarded neighborhood in a heavily guarded Cairo.
On this morning before he crossed the street to josh the young soldiers and begin his walk to school, Ahmed stopped to consult with his bowab about his zebibah problem.
“The older boys are mocking me, calling me an infidel, urging me to bang my face on my prayer rug.”
“Do you fear a red raisin will mark you as a devoted one?”
“I am a devoted one. I follow the instructions of my Imam. I study the Quran. I wear my white galibaya and go to the mosque for prayers. But I’m unconvinced about the raisin because it is like a tattoo, which my father says is forever and is therefore forbidden.”
“By your Imam?”
“No, by my father.”
“Then perhaps you should try one of those temporary tattoos which are sold by Mr. El-alam in his store. They are shaped much like a zebibah. See if you like it. See how people respond to you.”
“You mean the transfers, right? Bowab, you are most wise and I thank you.”
Ahmed takes a one-block detour on his way to school and stops in at Mr. El-alam’s shop, where you can buy anything you need, a roll of toilet paper, a live chicken, a can of Pringles, or a package of Wangle’s Washoff Tattoos. Ahmed leaves the store. He pauses in the street and with a drop of water from his Dasani moistens a tattoo of a dove of peace and presses it to his forehead. The tattoo dries quickly. Ahmed peels off the paper, walks on, then pauses and studies the result in the dusty window of the Mobil station. He does not like the temporary tattoo, so he wets his shirt from his Dasani and rubs it off.
As he makes his way to school, Ahmed encounters Hamed, the baker, who compliments him on his zebibah. The boy looks in the dirty window of the bakery and sees the tattoo of the dove of peace is still on his forehead. He scrubs again, looking in the dirty window, but the tattoo only gets redder and redder. Ahmed covers his head with his hand, returns home running and tells his mother he is not feeling well enough to go to school. In his bathroom, he makes
multiple attempts to wash off the tattoo with soap and warm water, but it gets even redder and swells, with the dove of peace still clearly visible.
That evening, Ahmed’s father stops by the bakery and visits with Hamed.
“Your young son is most determined to show his devotion by developing a zebibah.”
“I did not know, but it makes me proud. I shall stop being such an errant and go with him to the mosque today for five o’clock prayers.”
Hamed chuckles, “And a child shall lead them.”
In the early evening, Ahmed and his father walk together to the mosque, wearing their identical white robes and black caps. Ahmed tries to cover his forehead, but his father pulls
away his hand and admonishes him to be proud. As they approach the heavy front doors of the mosque, men greet his father and remark that the boy is developing a fine zebibah. Some realize the zebibah shows the distinct likeness of a dove, a dove of peace, and a buzz of astonishments begins to flow up and down the narrow street. By the time Ahmed and his father enter the mosque, grown men are falling away from them and the words “dove of peace” are murmured into a life of their own. Maybe this is a sign the threat of war and the reality of poverty are about to be lifted. Perhaps this boy will lead them, help them become the good fighters they have never been.
During prayers, Ahmed is careful to tap his forehead on his rug ever so lightly, trapped by now in his charade. When prayers are concluded, many men walk quickly out of the mosque, anxious to tell their families and friends that Ahmed, the son of the chair caner from the boulevard, has been marked with the likeness of the dove of peace. As Ahmed rises from his prayers and begins to leave, he feels a large hand on his shoulder and turns to confront a towering Sheikh El Al. The Imam is a most thoughtful and gentle man who sometimes plays soccer with the boys in the street after evening prayers. He is revered as a good leader who cares deeply for the poor, but he nevertheless carefully guards his status as Imam. He motions the boy into his office with a sweeping point of the index finger of his right hand, a smile facetious on his face.
“So Ahmed, you are trying to take my place as Imam?”
“No, Excellency, I am much too young and insignificant ever to dream of such a thing. Have I displeased you in some way?”
“You have mocked the devoted young men of this mosque and you have mocked me by coming to prayers with a false symbol of hope on your forehead. A dove of peace zebibah, indeed. Who assisted you in creating this false piety that has so many members of this venerated mosque abuzz with expectation?”
“No one, Excellency. It is a transfer, a washable tattoo I purchased at Mr. El-Alam’s shop on the advice of my bowab, who thought it would help me decide whether I wished to create a real raisin on my forehead. When I tried to rub it off, it swelled and became redder and began to resemble a true mark of devotion.”
“With the dove of peace thrown in for a little extra attention.”
“I wish no attention. I am a good boy. I do many good deeds to show my devotion, I pray five times every day, and I pray at the mosque four nights each week, three times on the Holy Day of Friday. That means many more good deeds, even more than anyone needs.”
The Imam was not placated.
“All Muslims do good deeds, the hassandra, as witness to their piety and devotion. But no one is required to count or to report, and no one knows how many are ‘enough.’ We do know that many, many good deeds may be washed away with one bad deed, as if drowned in the water of the Nile, lost in the abyss of sin that surrounds us. And who is the bowab who gave you such wise advice?”
“His name is Abdallah, Imam, and he has served me and my family and our building for many years, keeping us safe and never asking more than a small portion of bread and meat every day and a packet of chewing matter each week.”
“Ah, yes. Abdallah, the Nubian, the one who organizes the other bowabs into creating their own mosques in the alleys on Holy Fridays, rather than joining us at our mosque and listening to my sermons.”
“He means no offense, Excellency. When I ask him why he does not join us, he says he is too poor and unworthy. But I have found him kind, very wise and helpful in many things.”
“Well, he surely has not been wise or helpful in advising you to feign a zebibah and create such a false impression on the people of our community. My instructions to you are to return to this most worldly and ambitious bowab and ask him to counsel you on how to rectify what you have done.”
Ahmed thought Sheikh El Al might be wandering a bit from the teachings of the Quran, but he’d been raised to follow the instructions of the Imam, who had great influence beyond the streets of Garden City.
By the time Ahmed and his father returned to Eight Selamik Street, Abdallah, their bowab, had retired to the privacy of his shack beside the building, so the boy waited until time to go to school the next morning to talk with him.
“The Imam is most displeased with me over the red raisin I created on your wise advice. He says it has aroused false hope among the people of our mosque. He has instructed me to consult with you about how to correct our error.”
The bowab stroked his chin, spat a stream of brown juice into the dust, and lifted his eyes to the south, in the direction of Nubia.
“Bowabs are very poor, perhaps the poorest of the poor, and therefore we must be very pious and devoted — in Egypt, the poorer you are, the more pious you must be, otherwise there is danger Allah will not provide enough food or water to keep oneself alive. Therefore, I must do as the Imam requests, for to defy him would not be wise.”
“What must we do?”
“My suggestion is that when you go to prayers this evening, tell the Imam that you will pledge to do 20,000 good deeds in atonement. That is a very large number and he will take it as a commitment that you are serious about making up for what he believes is a false deed, a bad deed.”
“But how can I, a single boy, perform 20,000 good deeds, surely more than I’ve been able to do in all of my life.”
“I will ask your family and the other families in our building to increase their good deeds for the next two weeks and donate them to you. Then I will organize the other bowabs at our alley mosques on Holy Friday and they will make the same request of their families. There will be much sympathy for a boy so young who is willing to work so hard, and I believe we will reach our goal in good time. But let’s wait until a later time to tell the Imam exactly how we will reach that goal. He is a very busy man and does not need to worry about such things.”
Ahmed suspected his bowab, like the Imam, was stretching the admonitions of the Quran in suggesting good deeds, the hassandra, could be transferred from one person to another, but he was anxious to end the matter and so made the pledge to Sheikh El Al after prayers that evening. The Imam accepted the pledge, knowing that when the boy failed, people would realize he and his bowab had done nothing very special and they would be gently discredited.
By Holy Friday, the work of the network of bowabs had begun to reveal itself — there are 10,000 mosques in Cairo, but there are easily 20,000 bowabs and they communicate easily with themselves and the families they serve. Because praying at the mosque instead of at home is accepted as a multiple good deed, many more people than usual showed up at the Imbab y Paca mosque, pleasing the Imam because it meant many more would hear his sermon, distressing him because he knew all of the new worshipers had also come expecting they would be fed. He had no inkling into what was causing the upsurge in attendance, but he welcomed the additions to his audiences. He ordered the pious brothers who lived at the mosque to unlock his own freezer and prepare meals large enough to feed everyone. Because the parishioners were so well-fed, the Imam’s sermon was well-received and many waited in line to tell Sheikh El Al they would most assuredly return several times during the coming week and then again on Holy Friday. The Imam realized his own food lockers would not provide enough meat and bread for more people, so he printed and distributed an emergency copy of the Imbab y Paca newsletter, asking the important men of Garden City, the pashas, to substantially increase their donations of food and money. They began to do so immediately, and increased their own visits to the mosque so they could appear to be leading, rather than following what was beginning to be a phenomenal increase in attendance. Before the next week was out, almost every man and many women and children living in Garden City were attending prayers at the mosque on a daily basis, all except the bowabs, of course, who prayed in their alley mosques so they could remain close by the homes and buildings they protected and served.
Meanwhile, the organizing for good deeds done by the bowabs was spreading beyond the mosque. Residents of Garden City began calling the city government of Cairo, asking for good deeds in the form of increased garbage pickup, and refuse started disappearing from the streets like magic. Employees in the Embassies told their bosses of the rising number of good deeds, and the bosses, fearing political backlash if they did not participate, allowed left-over food from their cafeterias to be shared with the disabled and the elderly, who often lived on the verge of starvation because they could not go to the mosque. One evening, a delegation of diplomats from the Saudi Embassy brought leftover desserts from a lavish party to the Egyptian soldiers standing behind the lead shields and stranded in the armored personnel carriers and they sang together late into the night. The next morning, the Saudi Ambassador himself brought coffee and cooling fruit juices to the men and apologized for the evil deeds done by his country. The good deeds phenomenon soon left the boundaries of Garden City and flowed into the rest of Cairo. Before long, millions of people were flooding into mosques all acoss the ancient city, including thousands of starving squatters living in tombs in the City of the Dead. The Imams welcomed them and asked for more help from their bashas. The growing demand for food pushed up farm prices and retail prices and began to pump money into the economy. The Muslim Brotherhood, anxious not to be on the wrong side of what they perceived as a growing movement, issued an edict telling the young women of Cairo they were no longer required to cover their heads and faces in public with their hijabs, advising them not to wear the shawls if the temperature went past 100 degrees, which it did almost every day. Operators of carpet schools in the countryside closed down, sold their assets and used the money to build madrassas for the thousands of children they had been using as cheap labor. President Mubarak heard about the wave of good deeds and, anxious to enhance his son’s reputation, reinstated the government food and fuel subsidies he’d cut off at the insistence of the World Trade Organization. He reversed the privatization of factories and granted workers the right to strike, which they did until they won wages high enough for them to live on and restored their pensions and health care benefits. The Saudis, anxious as usual to trump everyone, decreed they would increase the production of crude oil and capped prices at $100 per barrel (American dollars). Twelve unarmed members of the Israeli military emerged from a “Peace and Prosperity” walk across the desert carrying dates and figs and boxes of doves of peace tattoos for the children of Cairo, promising more for all the children of all Egypt. American President George W. Bush caught the “good deed fever” and ordered his high-altitude surveillance planes to drop millions of autographed pictures of himself along the banks of the Nile. The mullahs of nearby Iran began their own “Good Deeds” campaign by opening their borders to refugees from Iraq and calling for a trans Arab Summit to unite Shia and Sunni Muslims. President Mubarak one-upped them all by lifting restrictions on the news media and releasing them to report on the windstorm of good deeds that was sweeping across Cairo and lifting the spirits and living conditions of the people.
It didn’t take the liberated television and newspaper reporters long to discover that a campaign by the bowabs of Garden City had ignited what had become a full-fledged civic drive, now sponsored by the Cairo Chamber of Commerce and renamed “Do a Good Deed Today, Paradise Tomorrow.” It took even less time for the media to learn the initial organizing had been done by a bowab named Abdallah, who attended to the needs of the residents of Eight Selamik Street, or that he had been inspired to do so by a boy named Ahmed. The press camped out where the armored personnel carriers had protected the Saudi Embassy from attacks now unlikely to take place and when Ahmed emerged to walk to school the next morning, a press representative from the Mayor’s office escorted the boy onto a sturdy stage constructed overnight and helped him climb up on a shallow crate placed behind a podium. Prompted by his bowab, Ahmed wisely denied ambitions to become Mayor of Cairo, or even a pasha. When asked where he got the idea for “Good Deeds Today,” Ahmed confessed he had taken it verbatim from the wise counsel of the Imam of the Imbab y Paca (Go in Peace) mosque, Sheikh El Al.
A year later, the Sheikh was propelled by his followers and the work of 20,000 bowabs into the race for president of Egypt. Making full use of the Internet for organizing and fundraising, he upended Mubarak’s son, taking majorities among Muslims, Christians and even a few Jews and French who had been living for decades in secrecy. President El Al quickly issued an order repealing mandatory military service for young men and freed all the political prisoners in Egypt’s jails, most of whom were intellectuals or heady young radicals who in turn volunteered to work at no pay for the young new president, reforming government and restoring the Egyptian economy further by instituting a minimum wage of $100 per month (American dollars) and guaranteeing free health care to every family. Abdallah the Nubian and the other bowabs in Cairo and the rural areas were appointed official Ministers of Good Deeds and granted stipends of $40 per week ((American dollars). Ahmed, who had become known as the “Dove of Peace” and wore purple garments given to him by the rock star Prince, at thirteen years of age was appointed the Egyptian Ambassador to the United States of America. On April 1, 2009, he hosted a well-attended first reception in Washington, DC for the new President of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama, a man Ahmed called a “distinguished fellow son of Africa.” The 750 highly respected American and world officials and their wives who attended all left with black silk T-shirts, produced in Egyptian textile plants by adult artisans, rather than children. On the front of the shirts, just above the curve of one’s breast on the left hand side, a grey-white dove of peace was emblazoned on a red field, and just below it, in the brightest and most hopeful orange of a sunrise, were inscribed the words,“Behold, the Raisin.” -end-
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