Gods and Soldiers (9 page)

Early the next day, the chief's alkali ordered Zulaikha to return to her family for a three-day
yáji,
or mediation period. One might have expected Zulai to reveal her husband's inability to her family during the yáji, but she did not. However, her folks quickly noticed her flat belly, and without asking her a single question concluded that her barrenness was the reason Zulai and her husband fought so frequently. The family immediately visited a spiritual
mallam,
or medicine man, who proclaimed that Zulai was visited by
men of night,
bad spirits who copulated with married women in their sleep and destroyed their pregnancies.

While Zulaikha was with her family, Mr. Rafique decided it was high time that he, too, see a mallam, for his problem. The medicine man told Mr. Rafique that his inability was a curse, one thrown at him by a rival who had wanted to marry Zulaikha. The mallam never informed him who the mysterious rival was, but he gave Mr. Rafique a talisman and asked him to place it under his mattress before sleeping with his wife the next time. “Wallahi, this is the end of your problem, my son . . . no more sleepy-sleepy manhood,” the mallam swore and gazed at the ceiling in supplication to Allah, as he handed Mr. Rafique the tiny red amulet.

 

On the night Zulaikha returned, Mr. Rafique was confident that the mallam's proclamation would manifest true. But Mr. Rafique once again lost his erection while in action. This particular failure became the straw that broke the “camel's hunched back,” as Hamda-Wán, Zongo Street's infamous latrine cleaner, would say when things went awry. The next morning, Mr. Rafique felt he had been conned by the mallam and the spiritual bodies he had invoked for his “miracles.” What was worse, Mr. Rafique felt slighted by Allah, to whom he prayed daily to save his marriage. At this point he gave up all hope, and waited for the day when Allah, in His infinite mercy, would make good His promise to help those who cry out to Him in their times of need.

As time went by, Zulai came to accept that nothing could be done to improve her husband's inability. And after a bitter, inner struggle, she decided the only thing that would prevent her name from being dragged into the mud was to disclose his problems to the elders. “The sooner I do this, the better for me,” she thought one night. “I must let his people and the streetfolks know that I am not the ‘bottomless pit' they think I am . . . my belly can carry a seed, but only if he plants it!”

The following day she went to the chief's palace and lodged a formal complaint with the alkali, charging her husband with
unmanliness.
According to Islamic shari'a law, a wife can seek divorce from her husband on three conditions: (1) If he doesn't provide
chi da sha,
or food and drink for her, (2) If she deems there is no love between her and the husband, and (3) If he is
sick,
or impotent. A husband, on the other hand, is not bound by any strict stipulation and may divorce his wife at will.

Zulai's complaint quickly became news on Zongo Street. Not many believed the wife's accusations, as Najim was clear testimony to Mr. Rafique's manliness. At a hearing in the palace of the Muslim chief on Zongo Street, Mr. Rafique insisted that his manhood was in perfect condition and that his wife's accusation was false, “a mere excuse . . . so that the conniving wench can seek a divorce from me,” he said. Zulaikha challenged her husband: “He is not a man, and he knows this himself ! Believe me! By Allah, he is not a man!” she swore. The couple began to fight in front of the most revered elders; they screamed and raised fingers in one another's face. The fight was separated, but by the end of the hearing it became impossible even for the wise jurors to decide who was telling the truth. So the alkali decided to give the couple six weeks to either solve their problem or report back to him if they failed to do so.

 

The weeks that followed were quite brutal for Mr. Rafique. He tried to seal his ears to the countless rumors being spread about him and his marriage. At home, the fights between him and Zulai became regular entertainment for the housefolks, who sat and laughed watching the tragicomedy unfold. Then after an ugly fight that lasted all night, Zulaikha resolved that she would be better off without a husband. The next morning she paid her second visit to the alkali and demanded a divorce from Mr. Rafique on the grounds that he still wasn't a man.

Now, on Zongo Street, divorces of that kind were granted only after the accused husband was proven “unmanly” by a neutral person, usually an old woman appointed by the alkali. The
lafiree,
the name given to the old woman, sat in the same room and observed closely as the husband made love to his wife. She would later report her observations to the alkali, who made the final decision in such cases.

Mr. Rafique's test date was scheduled a week from the day of Zulaikha's divorce petition. It was on a Wednesday, a day generally perceived as ill-omened by the streetfolks—though no one knew exactly why. And since “Days never fail to make their weekly appearance,” the test date approached rather too fast for Mr. Rafique, though it seemed to have arrived too slowly for the streetfolks, who were more eager than ever to just see
something
happen to
someone.
Long before it was four-thirty on the appointed day, the palace-front was filled with news and rumormongers, who seemed just as apprehensive as the poor husband and wife who now found themselves in a public drama from which they could not escape participating.

 

About an hour after he woke up on the morning of the test Mr. Rafique was still lying on the couch, his half-erect penis cupped in his left hand. His eyes were dry and itchy from lack of sleep; his mind fatigued by the phalluses he had seen in his nightmares; his body tired from a week of sleeping on the couch. He heard the muezzin's incantations,
“Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar,”
God is Great! God is Great!, calling the faithful to worship, the first of their five daily worships to the Creator. He gently rubbed his penis as he listened:
“Assalát hairi minal-naum! Assalát hairi minal-naum!”
Worship is better than sleep! Worship is better than sleep!

The mellifluous, melancholy, yet commanding voice of the crier soothed Mr. Rafique's heart momentarily, ridding him of the thoughts of the impending test. But this didn't last too long, his mind gradually drifting back to his manhood fixation. He sat upright and began to pray: “Let my enemies be disappointed and ashamed of their enmity today,
yá
Allah!” He lifted his arms in the air, with a face full of self-pity. “And to those who doubt my
manliness, yá
Allah,” he continued, “prove to them that all power comes from You. Equip me with the strength to perform this test, to which I am maliciously being subjected!”

He closed the prayer by reciting
Áyatul-Kursiyyu,
a verse deemed by most clerics as the second most powerful in the Koran, one that is supposed to work wonders in solving all kinds of problems. Finally, Mr. Rafique raised his arms in the air, spat on his open palms, and rubbed them gently on his face. He murmured, “Ámin,” lay back on the couch, and resumed caressing his penis. Before long, Mr. Rafique was once again lost in his activity. But the muezzin's voice, distant and echoing, again reminded Mr. Rafique that it was almost time for worship.

Ash-hadu al-láiláha illallá!,
I bear witness there is no God besides Allah!

As if spurred on by the muezzin's cries, Mr. Rafique's penis suddenly began to harden. A minute later, it was as erect and solid as an unripe green plantain—crooked and curved toward his right thigh. Never before in his thirty-eight years had his penis been this hard; it was bewildering. He moved his butt sideways and spread his legs apart, so as to make room for his bulging crotch. Filled with an inner joy, a sudden desire almost drove him to walk into the bedroom and thrust his way into his wife. But a second thought advised him against it. He decided to wait until the test, “before the eyes of that old lafiree and the entire street. Then I will prove to my wife and all my enemies that I am a full-grown man.”

Then it dawned on Mr. Rafique that the morning worship was about to begin. In one movement he sprang from the couch and got into his prayer-robe, which concealed the bulge in his loose slacks. He slipped his feet into rubber slippers and sprinted out of the room and into the breezy, dew-scented dawn. Outside, a handful of lazy-boned roosters—that had just awaked—crowed. Mr. Rafique ran all the way to the mosque, reciting
dhikr
under his breath.

 

Zulaikha was already at the chief's palace when Mr. Rafique arrived at four. She was accompanied by two middle-aged women from her clan, and they sat in the large, high-ceilinged lounge of the palace and waited for Zulai, who was being briefed by the alkali at the time of Mr. Rafique's arrival. Mr. Rafique ignored the women. “Hypocrites,” he whispered, stealing a mean glance at the women. “That's what they are, all of them! They act as if they like you, when all they are after is your downfall!” He found an unoccupied bench in the corner and sat to wait for his turn to be briefed by the chief's judge.

The meeting with the alkali lasted no more than five minutes, and as Mr. Rafique walked through the foyer to the test room, he saw at least three dozen faces staring at him through the lounge's many windows. He felt as if the entire city of Kumasi was watching him, eagerly awaiting his downfall. Ever so determined to redeem himself “in the eyes of my enemies,” and to “put them all to shame, by Allah,” Mr. Rafique ignored the stares and walked confidently into the long, wide corridor that led into the palace's courtyard. He began to think that the presence of the lafiree would actually be to his advantage, because Zulaikha—who would not want to be perceived as a whore by the old woman—would lie still as she received him, in the exact manner expected of a married woman. The test suddenly appeared exciting to Mr. Rafique, who felt blood surging through his half-erect penis as he walked closer to the test room.

After leaving the alkali's office, the old lady and Zulaikha had walked directly to the test room, located at the northern end of the palace compounds. The palace building was composed of three large rectangular houses, each with its own compound and courtyard and rooms numbering up to twenty-four. The test room had only one window that faced the almost-vacant courtyard. The interior of the room was brightly lit by a three-foot fluorescent tube. A double-sized kapok bed was tucked in the left corner of the room and a small table sat beside the bed. The invigilator's chair was placed facing the bed, and in a way that the lafiree would be able to have a clear glimpse of what went on.

Mr. Rafique paused on reaching the door.
“Assalaamu-Alaikum!”
he said and waited for a response. The door was opened by the old woman, who peeked outside. Despite the freckles all over her wrinkled face, the lafiree looked healthy for her age. She was sixty-eight. Her gracious smile, which exposed two gaps in her front teeth, seemed fake to Mr. Rafique, who simply saw her as another of his enemies. Responding to her warm, inviting smile, he grinned maliciously.

“Come inside,” the lafiree said, though she was quite aware of Mr. Rafique's animosity. “Call me when you are ready to begin. I will be waiting outside.” She smiled as she walked past him.

Mr. Rafique went into the test room.

Meanwhile, a large crowd had gathered outside the chief's palace, to be part of this historical event—for such cases were brought only once in a blue moon to the chief. The older folks on the street claimed that of the few cases that had been brought before to the chief's court, Mr. Rafique's was the only one in which the couple had actually decided to go all the way and perform the test. In earlier cases, many husbands were said to have given their wives a divorce instead of having sex with them in front of a stranger. They stood in small groups, trading rumors about the impending test. A number of women—peanut, yam, and ginger-beer vendors—congregated near the palace gates, and a garrulous woman who claimed to be the best friend of Zulaikha's mother captured their full attention with her story. “The girl's mother did confide in me that the spiritualist they visited told them that the man's
thing
had long been cooked and eaten by witches, at one of their weekly feasts,” the woman told her rapt audience. “And would you believe it if I told you that it was no one but his mother who took the
thing
to the feast? Which goes to show that she herself is a witch.” The woman lowered her voice. “No wonder she has been lying in a grass bed for nine years! But you didn't hear this from me, O! Okay?” But the rumormonger then went on to describe to the vendors (in full, graphic details) how Mr. Rafique's penis was cut, prepared, and eaten by the witches. The garrulous woman's listeners gasped at every sentence and wondered how she came about the information. But none of them questioned her, afraid they may upset her.

Gathered near the vendors was a group of young men from about the age of sixteen to twenty-three. They, too, speculated about the test. One of them swore that he saw Mr. Rafique as he walked into the palace, and that “his prick looked as if it would tear itself right through his trousers. I tell you, man, that was how hard he was!” the young man said. Then he challenged his listeners to a bet of a hundred cedis each if they doubted his word that Mr. Rafique would pass the test. None of his listeners showed interest in betting, though they all rooted for Mr. Rafique, just as most of the women and girls on the street rooted for Zulaikha.

 

Zulai's eyes met her husband's as he entered the room. She had not seen him since that morning, when he left for work. She lowered her head and shifted uneasily toward the end of the bed. Mr. Rafique just stood there, not saying a word. Zulai lifted her face, and their eyes met again. He shrugged his shoulders and moved his eyebrows up and down, gesturing—or rather signaling—for them to begin what they had come to do. Zulaikha felt like a whore, a very cheap one for that matter, given that the entire city of Kumasi knew what was about to happen between her and her husband, and the fact that there were people outside the palace waiting for the results made her feel even cheaper. Hatred surged through her, not for Mr. Rafique, but for the streetfolks.