Divorce Islamic Style (8 page)

Grandfather Giovanni is over eighty, and has some hearing problems. But in my opinion he’s not quite right in the head. He usually sits on a bench, the same one, reading
La Padania, Libero
, and
Il Giornale
. You’re in trouble if you disturb him, even just to ask the time. You have to leave him alone. After he finishes reading, he bursts out with comments like: “I hope I die before Romania enters the European Union”; “Soon we’ll be invaded by the Gypsies, they’re like locusts, and we’ll have migrant camps everywhere, even right outside our houses”; “What’s the government waiting for to close all the mosques and throw the Muslims in jail?”; “If the Muslim immigrants really want to assimilate, they should convert and become Catholics! I want to see them at Sunday Mass!”; “Damn Communists. It’s always their fault.” The finale is almost always the same: “Oh, my country, so beautiful and so lost!”

Grandfather Giovanni calls me “sister.” I’ve told him over and over, “I’m not a nun, I’m a Muslim.” And he answers, “What? You dress like the sisters and you’re not a sister?” I try to persuade him: “I can’t be a sister, I have a husband and a child.” And he: “I see, the Muslims are mad for women. They even marry sisters!” I don’t have the least desire to explain to him that nuns don’t exist in Islam and that the Prophet Mohammed strongly advised against monasticism. Among us people say, “Marriage is half religion,” or “Marriage is prevention.” Many transgressions are linked to sins of the flesh, to sex. When someone marries it becomes easier to hold temptation at bay. But perhaps this applies more to men than to us women, or am I wrong?

Once Grandfather Giovanni made me practically die laughing. After the usual reading of the newspapers he stared at me for ten seconds or so, then he fired off questions like a high-speed train.

“
Libero
says that the Americans are resigned: they won’t get bin Laden alive or dead. Excuse me, sister, I would like to ask you a question.”

“Please, Signor Giovanni.”

“This damn bin Laden, where is he hiding?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know, sister? He can’t have disappeared into thin air. Have you hidden him somewhere, the way you did with Saddam Hussein?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t know anything about it.”

“All right, all right. You don’t trust me because I don’t belong to your religion. You know, I was in the war, so I’m an expert in military matters. You see, I have a hypothesis on bin Laden’s hiding place.”

“Really?”

“Bin Laden is a Saudi, right?”

“Right.”

“So he’s hiding in Mecca, in that square mausoleum you call Ka . . . Ka . . . Kamikaze or . . . Kawasaki.”

Fantastic! An ingenious hypothesis. The Kaaba, built by Abraham, has become a motorcycle brand! But poor Giovanni is only a parrot, he repeats the stupid things he reads in the papers. Luckily he’s almost deaf. Every cloud has a silver lining! What garbage would come out of that mouth if he could follow the programs on TV and radio.

Before going to the market to do the shopping I stop off at the Marconi library to borrow a book or a movie. The staff are all women, who are polite and kind. I choose a book of fairy tales for Aida. Then I go up to the second floor to glance at the newspapers. I see the young man with the tissue, the Arab without a name. I pretend not to notice him. He is looking at me.

Around noon I go home to make lunch. After we eat, the architect plants himself in front of the TV for another round with Al Jazeera. Sometimes I think of Al Jazeera as a real rival, a sort of daytime lover. He spends more time with her than with me. And so? So what. Maybe I’m starting to become a jealous wife. Should I be worried?

At four my husband leaves the house to go to work. The second part of my free time begins. I take Aida and go to see Samira, my best friend. We live in the same building—all I have to do is go down one floor. For me she’s like a big sister. Samira is Algerian; she’s ten years older than I am, and has lived in Rome for fifteen years. She’s married to a Tunisian truck driver, and she has three children. She’s a housewife, but she doesn’t wear the veil. I met her when I arrived in Rome. We became friends immediately, and now we see each other practically every day, usually in the afternoon. We tell each other everything and we give each other a ton of advice. I often leave Aida with her when I have pressing things to do.

At eight I go home. After dinner I put my daughter to bed with a story. I’m not sleepy, so I decide to watch TV. I take a quick tour of the channels, using the remote. Nothing interesting on the Italian ones. So I try the Arabic. On a Lebanese channel I find a classic film with the legendary singer Abdel Halim Hafez and the actress Meriem Fakhr Eddine. It’s a love story about a young aspiring singer, desperately poor, and a beautiful rich girl. Soap-opera stuff? No, not at all. It’s a romantic movie with fabulous songs. It reminds me of my adolescence. I was in love, too. With whom? With a doctor, but he was married and had children. It was a platonic love, consisting of looks and a lot of fantasies. I’ve seen this film a bunch of times. I know all the details. Here’s my favorite scene. The two lovers are on the banks of the Nile. It’s night, the stars are out, Abdel Halim sings to his beloved
Belumuni leh
?, why do you criticize me?

Why do you criticize me?

If you, too, could see

Her eyes, so beautiful you could die,

It would seem to you right that I think only of her

And can no longer sleep.

T
he other day Mohammed the Moroccan received a strange phone call from the Rome police headquarters. He was told to appear the following day to receive his residency permit. He thought they were pulling his leg, but it was true. He woke at dawn so he’d be punctual for the appointment, assuming he’d have to wait in the usual long line for non-Europeans.

As soon as the office opened he went in to make inquiries. The agent, sitting behind a window with a tired and irritated look, merely entered the name in the computer. As he waited for the response Mohammed was very worried. Apart from that blasted telephone call, he had nothing, not a single scrap of paper with an official stamp, to bring as proof. Appointments are serious. You can’t just show up empty-handed. That’s how things work at police headquarters, commissioners’ offices, and checkpoints in airports. And Mohammed knows this very well, because he’s been in Italy since the eighties. Over time he has also developed a system of defense against possible reactions of police and municipal and postal employees, their use of the familiar
tu
rather than the formal
lei
, the sarcastic expressions, the ironic smiles, the provocative questions . . .

This time, however, it was different. The policeman said, with a big, broad smile, “Signor Mohammed, they are expecting you in the diplomatic office. Here, take your pass.” He couldn’t believe his ears. It was too strange. It seemed to him a sort of
Candid Camera
featuring not celebs but poor immigrants. Maybe he let slip to himself some comment like “What’s happening to me?” or “Bastards, they’re making fun of me,” or “I’m only dreaming and soon I’m going to wake up.” In short, he needed time to get used to words like “signor,” “diplomatic office,” and “pass,” since people in his category generally never heard them. You can’t change like that, point blank.

In the waiting room, he sat beside people with connections, people who count, the crème de la crème: families of foreign ambassadors in Italy, Russian and Chinese entrepreneurs, first-class non-Europeans (Americans and Canadians). He got a headache that lasted for the rest of the day. He felt out of place in every sense. And in the end he was issued a residency permit valid for two years. Until that moment he had been living in the nightmare of receiving a permit that was already expired. Now he could enjoy two years of peace.

Mohammed was still in shock. He couldn’t find any explanation for the phone call from the police and the warm welcome they had given him. He continued to speak of an inexplicable miracle. A providential intervention. He didn’t know whom to thank. God? Maybe, because last year he had observed Ramadan. His mother? Maybe, because he always prays for her.

I would have liked to reveal to Mohammed the true identity of his guardian angel, but I couldn’t. State secret.

I get in line for the bathroom. Luckily it’s not long. I dress quickly to go to the café for my usual morning cappuccino. Saber asks me to wait because he wants to tell me something important. Will he talk to me about Simona Barberini or about the Milan team? We’ll see. In five minutes we’re going out together. With him now I speak only Italian, I mean his Italian, with the “b” in place of the “p.”

“I’ve got something imbortant to tell you.”

“What?”

“There’s a sby among us.”

“A spy?”

“Yes, the bastard will be uncovered soon. We’ll bust his ass.”

“Who is it?”

“We have a susbect, but broof is lacking.”

“And who does he work for?”

“For that fucking whore Teresa.”

Shit, I practically had a heart attack! Worse, I was peeing in my pants. That would be the least of it in the face of this goddamn suspense. Saber explains that the “rat” has been employed by the landlady alias Vacation for a long time. So she knows about everything that happens here. The most serious thing has to do with the visitors who sleep in the kitchen. My fellow-tenants are afraid that Teresa will exploit this business to increase the number of beds, by adding a bunk bed to every room. She can come to us and say tranquilly, “My dear immigrant Muslims, you see? Sixteen of you can live happily and comfortably.” So she would have a new source of income, of four or five hundred euros a month. The hypothesis can’t be ruled out, given all the ads for exotic tours and low-cost cruises you see these days. More and more, this apartment resembles an overcrowded prison. The good news is that there’s another spy, although his duties are different from mine. In other words, a new colleague so I won’t feel alone. To each his mission. Hooray!

On the way to Little Cairo I get a text message from Judas. He wants to see me right away. Usually we meet in the afternoon. Why has he changed the plan? It takes me twenty minutes to get to Via Nazionale. Judas opens the door and asks me to follow him out onto the balcony to talk. He grabs a cigarette but doesn’t light it right away. During these weeks I’ve started getting to know him: when he’s nervous he prefers to stand up, preferably outside. Why does he do it? Probably to avoid the gaze of his interlocutor. He stands there and pretends to look at the passersby, the trees, the cars. A perfect way to hide his own emotions. To break the ice, I tell him about Mohammed’s adventure at the police station. He listens without saying a word. In fact he seems really annoyed.

“Anyway, I’d like to thank you for your help at police headquarters.”

“You’re happy for your Moroccan friend?”

“Of course—he was getting really depressed.”

“Wonderful! We’ve become two fine social workers. Instead of uncovering terrorists we’re saving immigrant workers from depression. In short, we’re just as good as Caritas volunteers!”

“Why did you want to see me?”

“To give you some good news.”

“What?”

“Dear Tunisian, your new friends in Viale Marconi are about to fuck us in a big way.”

“What do you mean?”

“We’ve received some disturbing information. In recent days fifty kilos of Goma-2 Eco have arrived in Rome, the same explosive used in the attacks in Madrid.”

“Shit!”

“We’re looking for corroboration. If the information is confirmed we wouldn’t have time to stop them.”

We don’t say much because there’s not much to say. The situation is serious. I return to Viale Marconi distressed and terrified. The scenes of the victims of the slaughter in Madrid pass before my eyes without interruption. Something has to be done to stop the attackers. But what?

In the afternoon I go to Little Cairo. Every day I follow the same script. I call Tunis, and a woman’s voice answers, but not “mamma”’s. “Hello, little brother, it’s Amel.” It’s my “sister,” the pregnant one. It won’t be hard to talk. And in fact we devote the whole conversation to the baby. First of all, they have to find a name. Discussions are under way, but there is no shortage of problems. If it’s a girl her husband wants to give her the name of her dead grandmother. My “sister” is not totally in agreement.

“You think it’s right to give a child born in 2005 the name Saadia?”

“Certainly it’s not a fashionable name today.”

“I have no doubt of its great merit, since it refers to the woman who acted as mother to the Prophet Mohammed when he was orphaned. But should we look to the future or to the past?”

“The future.”

“See? You think the way I do. You wouldn’t call your daughter Saadia, either!”

The list of objections is extremely long. My “sister” is convinced that if the daughter (damn, she’s not even born yet) is named Saadia she’ll have an inferiority complex all her life and never find a husband. Poor Saadia won’t be able to compete with the Jessicas, Pamelas, Samanthas, Isabellas, etc. The Brazilian and Mexican soap operas are endless sources of names of all types and for all tastes. It’s just an embarrassment of choices.

My “sister,” for instance, is very fond of the name Maria. Her husband is against it because he considers it a Christian name. She defends it energetically by pointing out that one of the wives of our Prophet was named Maria: she may have been a Copt, but she converted to Islam. So there would be no religious transgression—it would be in full obedience to tradition. The situation is serious. Is the marriage really in the balance? Don’t be ridiculous. Anyway, we hope that the newborn will be male so we can avoid this mess. I say goodbye to my “sister” Amel after the usual stream of advice for a pregnant woman, and I go to pay for the phone call. Waiting for the news on Al Jazeera I start talking to an Egyptian about the war in Iraq. My companion, a graduate in international relations, explains to me that the Americans’ objective is not to democratize Iraq but to destabilize Syria and, especially, Iran. What a grand discovery! Every knows it, even the camels of the Sahara. I pretend to listen to his analysis, every so often throwing out an observation or a brief comment. I don’t want to be taken for an idiot with nothing to say. In other words, it’s a two-way conversation, not a one-way lesson.

Anyway, I am open to all conversation, from politics to sports, from economics to history, from archeology to medicine. I’m ready to talk to anyone. The important thing is to socialize with as many people as possible. I try to play the part of a friendly young immigrant, carefree and outgoing, who likes to be with people.

At a certain point I take my eyes off the television screen, I look around, and who do I see? The girl with the veil. Luckily this time she’s not crying, in fact she’s smiling. She’s even prettier than before, with that colored veil. As she goes out, I try to photograph her in my memory. I even manage to see the cover of the CD she has in her hands: Om Kalthoum’s
Awedt Einy
, “I’m Used to Seeing You.” I decide not to follow her. I’m here on a very particular mission. I’ve got to get busy and try to find out the members of this damn second terrorist cell.

So far I’ve bought a lot of coffees and teas for quite a number of Arabs in order to grease the wheels of friendship. I have to say that I’ve done pretty well. The Egyptians are like Neapolitans: they know how to make themselves agreeable, or at least they make an effort; sometimes they succeed, sometimes they don’t. Certainly, they are incurable exhibitionists; they never want to go unnoticed. So they’re a bit touchy when they don’t receive the right amount of attention. With me they have no problems: I guarantee total concentration on what they have to say. They’re never tired of seducing you, above all with words. When they use Egyptian Arabic, which is known in the whole Arab world, thanks to the soap operas, they seem like consummate actors. A Tunisian girl once said to me, “Egyptians are never spontaneous, they always seems to be playing a part, with the script in their hand.” She’s right. They’re nothing like the Maghrebi. It’s hard for Middle Eastern Arabs to understand the Arabic of Moroccans, Tunisians, and Algerians

I have to interrupt my conversation with the Egyptian about democracy and the war in Iraq—Akram alias John Belushi is calling me.

“Tunisian!”

“Yes?”

“Are you still looking for work?”

“Yes.”

“Inshallah, there’s something for you. You want to wash dishes?”

Fantastic! A job possibility. I’ve done well to hang out here every damn day. Little Cairo is a strategic place. So many people come and go, as a result they exchange information of every type: apartments, jobs, possible legalization for illegals, couples in crisis, imminent marriages and divorces, and so on. Akram is really clever—he manages to intercept all this flow and use it to his advantage to augment his “commercial” power. My compliments!

The Egyptian explains that the dishwasher job is available immediately, so it would be smart to begin today. Then, it has one great plus: the restaurant is very close to Piazza della Radio. Sleeping over the store, so to speak: I won’t have spend hours waiting for the night bus. The crucial thing is to stay in the neighborhood, not get too far from Viale Marconi. Finally he advises me to go to the restaurant right away and ask for his friend the Egyptian pizza maker, the architect Felice. But what sort of name is that? And then, what the hell is an architect doing in a pizzeria!

“Tunisian, I’ve found you a home and a job.”

“Thank you,
hagg
Akram.”

“Now if you want I can find you a wife.”

“No, thanks. Mamma’s already taking care of it.”

“It’s time to give you a push. Remember that marriage is the goal of Islam.”

I thank Akram with a strong handshake. I get the directions and go to the restaurant without wasting any time. The place is nearby, and I arrive in a few minutes. I ask for the pizza maker, Felice. He’s just arrived.

“My name is Said, but here they call me Felice, my nom de guerre. Hahaha.”

“Nice to meet you, I’m Issa.”

“Akram spoke well of you. He said you’re O.K. In other words, different from the other Tunisians, who deal drugs.”

“Each of us is responsible for what he does.”

“Right.”

I don’t pay much attention to the stereotype of the Tunisian drug dealer. I was inoculated long ago against these shitty prejudices: the Sicilian Mafioso, the Neapolitan Camorrist, the Sardinian kidnapper, the Albanian criminal, the Gypsy thief, the Muslim terrorist, and so on and on. In Arabic Said means
felice
, happy. So it can’t be said that he has changed his name—he’s just found the corresponding Italian. Felice offers me coffee and we exchange a little information. He’s lived in Italy for twelve years, and has an architecture degree from the University of Cairo. That’s why they call him
bashmohandes
, architect. He still harbors dreams of someday practicing his profession. He’s married and has a small daughter. From the way he speaks, I understand that he’s very observant. He’s constantly quoting verses from the Koran and sayings of the Prophet. He’s like an imam. The arrival of the restaurant owner, a guy named Damiano, who’s around sixty, compels us to interrupt our pleasant chat. Felice introduces me, saying I’m a respectable young man. And now the job interview, or, rather, the interrogation.

“Where are you from?”

“I’m from Tunisia.”

“You speak Italian?”