An Unnecessary Woman by Alameddine Rabih Read Free Book Online Page A

a shower.
    “A shower?”
    He nodded.
    “Hot water?”
    Ahmad must have killed many a lizard. During the war in Beirut, the powerful had power, but only those with true power had water.
    I laughed, a bit nervously, dislodging air and apprehension from the nooks of my lungs—laughter of agreement. He met my eyes, more confident, delighted, having read the signs of my capitulation. They say laughter is the ultimate conjoiner.
    I knew what Ahmad was. I’d heard rumors, mysterious stories, most too strange to be believed. One of the war’s preeminent torturers, he was called Mutanabbi (he could make a mute speak, a variation on the poet’s most famous stanza), an apropos literary nom de guerre, while other torturers chose generic names like Kojak, John Wayne, Belmondo, Jaws, or Cowboy. I knew the rumors to be true the instant I saw the apartment, and if not the apartment, every rumor would have been confirmed by the bathroom—marble, stainless steel, hard lines (to use Nabokovian and not Balzacian descriptions).
    I knew, and I agreed to what he wanted. It was probably I, not Marcello or Ahmad, who had no moral code.
    I wanted a gun. I wanted a shower. I made a choice. This could be a problem, being intimate with an almost intimate, but I decided to let him worry about things, let him contemplate if he chose to do so. I would not. I refused to be embarrassed. The water called my name.
    The shower felt like a monsoon: hot, succulent, and baptismal. As filth dissolved off my skin, as grime emigrated, I felt rejuvenated, I was reborn. The near-scalding water changed my body from rigid to supple, turned my skin the color of a pink peony. My senses were sharpened. I used Ahmad’s razor to shave.
    Drying myself with the luxurious towel was as close to a religious experience as I was ever likely to have. He waited for me in the bedroom; he fully dressed, I wrapped only in luxury. Excessive light. The Lladrós on the nightstand were bathed in molten sunlight gold. I nodded my head toward the translucent curtains. Ahmad rushed to draw them, plunging the room into demidarkness. The Ahmad I knew had momentarily returned, astonishingly sensitive, servile and compliant, content and optimistic. Toward the bed I tiptoed barefoot like a thief wishing not to be discovered, wishing not to arouse noise or echoes.
    Before I unwrapped, I turned the Lladrós around. He must have thought it was excessive shyness. It wasn’t. I preferred not to have ugliness stare.
    He said I was beautiful. I told him the figurines weren’t. He moved around the bed and scooped them all into the wastebasket. Once more, he lied and said I was beautiful. I told him I was alive.
    From Donne:
Love’s mysteries in souls do grow,
But yet the body is his book.
    Ahmad was not the first, nor would he be the last. He was surprised I didn’t lie down like a corpse. I wished to tell him that though I was by no means an experienced lover, I had been intimate with a few. I had studied Georges Bataille and Henry Miller, submitted to the Marquis, devoured the racist Fear of Flying , and cavorted with lewd Arab writers of the golden age who constantly thanked God for the blessing of fucking, al-Tifashi, al-Tijani, and al-Tusi, ibn Nasr, ibn Yahya, and ibn Sulayman; so many had taught me. I wanted to tell Ahmad that he shouldn’t have interrupted his studying. I wanted to tell him that it was Moravia, his deflowerer, who had written about the natural promiscuity of women. I did not, none of it.
    How can one describe the ephemeral qualities of sex beyond the probing, poking, and panting? How can one use inadequate words to describe the ineffable, the beyond words? Those salacious Arabs and their Western counterparts were able to explain the technical aspects, which is helpful, of course, and delightful. Some touched on the spiritual, on the psychological, and metaphor was loved by all. However, to believe that words can in any way mirror or, alas, explain the infinite mystery of