‘The Interpreter’ is the English version of Arabic novel ‘Al Tarjuman’, authored by Ashraf Aboul Yazid, an eminent writer and poet of Egypt

“Our homes in exile are made of glass, not only revealing to those who live in them, but also fragile enough to break.”

From the very first moment, I knew that what had been published in Shaden newspaper was nothing but a lie. The translator — as we all knew him — was a man of principle, perhaps too much so. Therefore, it was only natural for the investigations to show that the man had no knowledge of what had happened in his apartment, and the neighbors did not testify against him. Unfortunately, the rumors and initial reports would linger like smoldering embers, flaring up from time to time. There’s no way to erase them from every page they were printed on, nor can we correct them with every individual who heard them.

But no one would have attacked the translator or harbored such animosity toward him if they had only listened to me.

One day, I told him, “We must placate everyone here. Our homes in exile are made of glass, not only revealing to those who live in them but also fragile enough to break. How many times have Egyptian colleagues mocked my personal life, and I never retaliated? How many times have Kuwaitis been harsh in their words, and I didn’t respond? These accusations don’t stick in a life like Teflon, dry and cold as metal, with a heart as black as the life it holds. Life is grim enough, and the only thing that will save us is laughing at it.”

From the moment I arrived in Kuwait, I quickly learned of Salman Al-Ibrahim’s love for dark humor, eagerly awaiting jokes like children waiting for their school holidays. Later, I discovered that the quickest way to ask him for something he would never refuse was to tell him two crude jokes.

When he would call me on the internal line, his voice soft and sweet:

“Good morning, Munsef. Don’t you want to have coffee with me?”

I knew right then that it was time for the coarse, sexual jokes, and he waited for them like an addict longing for his next fix. He would laugh loudly, his laughter echoing out of his office, as if he would never laugh again.

Just as I would prepare my stockpile of crude jokes before entering his office, I also reviewed my little blue notebook, which never left my pocket. In it, I recorded the requests I slipped between the strong jokes, just as a man thrusts his desire between a prostitute’s thighs, her screams a distant echo.

I saw Salman Al-Ibrahim like a child, eager to break his toys so his father would spoil him with new ones. I knew this about him, just as that old Lebanese man, “Jan Hallak,” had known him for fifty years. No doubt, he, like me, kept a similar notebook, perhaps with a cedar tree on its cover, recording the things he wished Salman would approve.

We were the only ones who had kneaded and baked him, and we knew the secret of dealing with him. He had grown fond of us, and there were no longer any secrets between us. Just as we, Hallak and I, accepted his interference in our private affairs, he allowed us access to his kingdom of secrets.

Perhaps in a single conversation, he would speak to me about both of my wives, as though relishing the sight of a live victim before him. But his voice would lower when he would then add a secret about his own wife! And if he loved to repeat the stories he heard from me, from Hallak, or from others, my only hobby was burying those stories of his.

Once, I told him a story about something that happened to me on a plane, and from that moment, he kept asking me to repeat it, just as they would rerun Red Heart during every anniversary of the revolution.

He had sent me on a mission for the institution in his place because he hated long flights. The journey wasn’t direct, and would take about 30 hours, including travel and waiting. It started from Kuwait to Istanbul, then a transit of more than ten hours, and then from there to Tashkent, where the Arab Translation Organization had agreed to purchase microfilm copies of several Arabic manuscript collections from Uzbek libraries.

After the stop in Turkey, the second flight from Istanbul to Tashkent would take more than four hours and forty minutes, covering 3344 kilometers. Alcoholic beverages were served to those who requested them.

My seat was next to a delicate Uzbek girl, her lips resembling two dark red berries. She told me her name was “Mika” (the way she pronounced it), and that she lived in the Emirates, having flown from Dubai and boarded the plane after her transit in Istanbul. She wasted no time, immediately asking for a can of beer, then nudging me with a smile to share mine. In no time, we were drinking together. Then, she nudged me again to order for both of us, took the cans, and repeated the process. It seemed she was starting to loosen up, unbuttoning her blouse, smiling wider, her cheeks flushing. Then she leaned forward and planted a kiss on my cheek near my mouth, sending a hot, intoxicating rush between her lips.

When the plane dimmed its lights so passengers could rest before the arrival, two hours away, the Uzbek girl spread her blanket, placing half on her lap and the other half on mine. She began extending her hand to caress me, her other arm around my back, her head resting on my side. Without thinking, I slid my hand under her skirt, and we began to touch in the darkness of the plane.

Every time I told that story, with new variations and embellishments, adding fresh details each time — like her moistening her hand with a scented napkin and stroking my heated member with vigor, or biting my ear, or me reaching around two small breasts like tangerines, squeezing them as if I were juicing them — I told it while watching Salman Al-Ibrahim’s eyes shine, as if he were imagining the scene, his emotions a tangle of jealousy, hatred, and lust. Perhaps he wished he had not sent me in his place, or that he had been sitting in that same seat, next to that same girl, performing the same movements together.

Later, Salman Al-Ibrahim would introduce me in private meetings as “the man who drove the girls of Uzbekistan crazy.”

I would know he had a bad sexual night when he asked me to repeat the story the next morning. He would start with a story about a flight, setting the stage to bring up mine, and I would comply, as though it were a tacit conspiracy we both understood. I had come to know him more than he knew himself.

When the story reached the translator, he scolded me gently, with his usual kindness:

“I wish you hadn’t told that story, Munsef, especially this one. It will put you under suspicion, not only with the men, but it might even reach your wife’s ears, and that could lead to consequences you won’t like.”

I laughed for a long time as I said to him:

“You’re so naive, Translator. Do you think these stories bother women? It’s a form of flexing muscles, like a subtle message to your wife that you’re a man in demand, even if the man is like me, with a huge belly, short like a dwarf, frizzy hair, and a bald spot like a Jewish man’s cap.

Some women believe it’s their right to let the man have that freedom, allowing themselves the pleasure of laughing coquettishly with strangers, maybe even more. You don’t know anything about women, Translator, it’s a shame that the letters on the paper didn’t give you enough time to contemplate the living letters dancing on the road.”

The Translator asked seriously:

“Living letters on the road?”

I explained my theory to him:

“Yes, there’s a woman who resembles the letter ‘Y’ of a goose, with her large hips and her rolling movements over two tiny dotted curves. She would love it if you put your hands around her hips and rubbed them hard. Then there’s a woman like the letter ‘H’, a pregnant woman. Sexual encounters with her are safe. And there’s a woman like the letter ‘W’, who puts her foot in your way for you to trip on. On the road, there are 28 letters that form thousands of women, and you only see the woman of the letter ‘A’, who wears a veil with a hamza over her hair!”

The game of women as letters amused “Salman Al-Ibrahim” greatly, and he would guess it when describing the female visitors to his office sometimes, right after they left. But the game didn’t amuse the Translator, so he fell silent and walked away, saying to me:

“There’s no hope for you, Monsef!”

One random day, the Translator was sitting while I was telling my usual jokes to the manager. I had a new batch, and I decided to tell them in a theatrical way, stopping after each joke to mimic the music of “Hamada Sultan”:

“A stoner in the Batiniya bought a porn movie, and to cover it up, he wrote on it: ‘The World of Semen’.”

“A man from Upper Egypt took three Viagra pills and wrote on the back of his galabiya: ‘Caution: Frequent Stops!’”

“An Egyptian man slept with a prostitute in a pension in Tahrir, and she started screaming: ‘Enough, enough, enough!’ He slapped her and said: ‘What’s wrong with you? This is sex, not a protest, you soul of your mother!’”

“A boy saw his mother’s chest and asked: ‘What’s that, Mom?’ She replied: ‘Two balloons, my darling!’ He responded: ‘The maid’s balloons are bigger than yours!’ She was surprised and asked: ‘How did you know?’ He innocently replied: ‘I saw Dad blowing them up!’”

“One man said to his wife: ‘I’m going to do it from behind.’ She refused. He brought her a fatwa saying that anyone who has sex with his wife from behind is like killing a Jew. She agreed. He came to her once, twice, three times, but on the fourth time, exhausted, she stopped him, saying: ‘Are you planning to liberate all of Palestine at the expense of my behind?’”

After we left “Salman Al-Ibrahim’s” office, I found the Translator yelling at me, calling me irresponsible for telling jokes about Egyptians just to make the Kuwaiti boss laugh, as if I were the king’s clown, and mocking the Palestinian cause carelessly, without setting any boundaries for joking about religion.

I smiled at him with even greater contempt and said to him, for the first time, something that angered him when I made him understand that we were both trying to please the king in our own way:

“Listen, Translator, forget this story. We’re both trying to please the king in our own ways. You do it with your pen, and I do it with my tongue. That’s how we’re balanced.” (Continues)

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Published under International Cooperation with "Sindh Courier"