The Televangelist Read online

  “Very well, now that you’ve made our mouths water, we’ll cut for a break, Mawlana, and have a bite to eat before we come back,” Anwar answered quickly.

  Anwar turned to the camera, proud of how the program was going and confident he had chosen a good moment to stop.

  “God willing, we’ll resume the conversation with our sheikh, the great promoter of Islam, Hatem el-Shenawi, after a short break,” he said. “Stay with us.”

  As soon as he was off camera, Hatem lost interest. Adverts appeared on the screen—dancing colors, sexy girls running around after soft drinks, with close-up shots of their lips, glossed the color of peaches, as the liquid poured suggestively into their mouths. Then a half-naked young man appeared and an irresistible woman sauntered up to him, took a deep breath, and let her hair loose as if rehearsing for when she would let it down for him. Then a bottle of perfume suddenly appeared on the screen like some new elixir that would attract women and make them fall in love.

  The cameraman pulled the earpiece out of his ear and said, “My God, you were brilliant, Mawlana.”

  “Thanks,” Hatem replied.

  He turned to the director, who was sitting in the control room, and raised his voice.

  “Haven’t I told you to speak to the owner of the station or the general manager and tell them that Hatem el-Shenawi doesn’t want indecent ads running during his program,” he said. “I mean, I go on and on about morals and Islam and then some girl jumps on a guy as soon as Anwar says ‘let’s cut for a break.’ I’m starting to feel that ‘break’ is a bad word.”

  The director’s guffaws boomed into the studio through the internal loudspeakers and the cameramen laughed in turn. The cameramen often gathered around him as soon as the taping was over or during the breaks, asking him questions about religious matters, most of them trivial and vacuous. He talked himself hoarse explaining to them that they needn’t trouble themselves with useless knowledge or worrying that there were things they didn’t know. But, as the cameramen changed and new faces appeared asking pretty much the same questions, he realized it was pointless and he had to keep his cool as he swallowed the inane questions. He gave brief, reassuring answers that were no less inane than the questions but that at least poured cold water on their curiosity. All of them—the sound technicians who had earpieces in their ears as if they were palace guards, the workers who did the wiring, the ones who dusted the table where they sat and cleaned it with some foul-smelling substance or wiped away any footprints on the floor, or sprayed a mist to polish the glass, those who spruced up Anwar’s and the sheikh’s clothes—all of them fell silent and stopped scurrying about and whispering to each other as soon as the voice rang out from the control room:

  “Three, two, one, action.”

  The red light gave the order to Anwar, who opened his mouth and smiled.

  “We’re back after the break and we’re still with Sheikh Hatem el-Shenawi. Before the break we were talking about wealth and children as the adornment of this lower life.”

  Hatem broke into Anwar’s sentence to liven up the discussion after Anwar’s rather flat introduction.

  “Look, dear brother, the verse talks about wealth and children as the adornment of this life. Then you find another verse saying, The day when man flees from his brother, his mother, his father, his consort, and his children. Look at the order God has put them in, to show the horror of the Day of Judgment. He says, ‘You with the money and the children, come and see on the Day of Judgment what you’ll do with your children.’ On the list, who do you flee from first? Your brother, who’s your ally, who comes from the same womb, who is of the same flesh and blood, then your mother, who’s the most precious person in your life. In other words there’s nothing more terrifying than forgetting and running away from your own mother. I don’t think there could be anything more contemptible to show you’ve reached the level of complete terror. After that comes your father, then the consort, that is your wife, then your children, lovely, and of course the list might be in ascending order of proximity of relationship, starting with the brother, who could handle it if you abandoned him, then your mother, who might forgive you running away. If she saw you as a child running away, she would forgive you. You know what a mother’s heart is like. Then the same for your father, then comes your wife, who might shame you in this world if you tried abandoning her. Then comes the ultimate test of the great terror—abandoning the fruit of your loins on the Day of Judgment and running away from them—and they of course are the adornment of this lower life.”

  Sheikh Hatem paused for a moment, thinking that the explanation might be hard for Anwar and the audience to understand. He then decided to lighten it up to pull together all the disparate strands.

  “That’s nice and it’s new. So tell me, is that the first time you’ve heard that?” he said.

  Anwar shook his head.

  “No, but it’s right on the mark, Mawlana.”

  Hatem responded with firm dignity in a tone that reproached anyone who might think he was joking. “But see how God finishes off the verse. He asserts His divine wisdom by saying, And the good deeds that endure are best in the eyes of the Lord as the basis for reward, and for hope. So not only do the good deeds that survive you bring better rewards. No, here there’s an inevitable addition, that they are better as the basis for hope. That means you should put your hope in what you do that’s substantial, not in the adornments you’re attached to, whether money or children or whatever.”

  Anwar, unable to bear these moments of earnestness and Hatem’s stern gaze when he started talking like a sheikh in a turban and a caftan, hurriedly looked up and put the palm of his hand to his ear to hear the voice of the producer read him the name of someone who called in by phone.

  “We have a telephone call from Samir in Cairo,” he said. “Good evening, Samir.”

  The voice started off as a mumble, saying, “Peace be upon you and the blessings of God, Mr. Anwar and Sheikh Hatem.”

  “And peace be upon you, Samir,” Anwar replied.

  “And peace be upon you,” Hatem mumbled with him.

  The caller broke the moment of silence that broadcasters hate, especially Hatem, because they suggest hesitation, slow thinking, and badly prepared questions, but the substance of Samir’s question was very far from welcome.

  “What news of Omar, Mawlana, or have you forgotten him?” he asked.

  The call was cut off and the phone line made a whistling sound.

  The call hit him like a right hook knocking out a tooth, delivered by a boxer that struck and then disappeared in a flash. People who appear on live programs are used to calls that are stupid or weird, or that insult them to their faces and then mysteriously cut off, or that are set up by malicious, envious rivals. This call could have been like one of those, and he could have let it pass, but this one had such an impact on him that Anwar noticed and tried to cover for him. He avoided looking at Hatem’s face or making any reference to the phone call, but instead went on with another call. Anwar definitely knew who Omar was, and Hatem knew that Anwar knew who Omar was.

  *

  Hatem thought back to when his wife Omayma announced that she was going along with a proposal that their son Omar should go abroad for treatment. Hatem had expected a big battle with the doctors but Omayma had disarmed him by agreeing. Her attitude surprised him and he questioned it:

  “It’s strange that you didn’t refuse!”

  “Why strange? It’s logical and common sense and it’s in Omar’s interest. I’m sure it’s in his interest,” she said.

  “It’s in his interest to leave us, and live alone in a foreign country, and in a place like that?” he answered.

  That provoked her.

  “I had to agree. The boy needs very special care and therapy. And if you still cared and paid attention, you’d see I’ve run myself ragged looking after him. I’m ready to carry on and even die for his sake, but as long as there’s hope of a solution, why shouldn’t he
go away?”

  She waited for him to answer but he didn’t, so she continued, “And besides, what does being far away mean? Can you be far away these days, what with cell phones and the Internet and Skype? Thirty years ago people used to talk about ‘being far away.’ And besides, I’ll go and see him to keep an eye on him from time to time, and the whole thing will just take a year or a little longer.”

  He remembered how the doctor smiled as he pulled him over to the incubator where they had put Omar moments after he was born.

  He had taken Hatem’s hand and said, “Don’t worry. This is just a precautionary measure, I swear the boy will be just fine.”

  He pulled the baby in his white wrappings from under a warm light inside a metal crib and lifted him toward Hatem.

  “There you are, Hatem, the crown prince,” he said.

  Hatem was smitten, instantly and forever. He was overwhelmed with tenderness for this fragile bundle of human flesh. Somewhere deep inside him, perhaps in the lining of his kidney or somewhere in his heart, there was a burst of emotion and affection that grew inside him until it seemed to prevent him from being himself, because he was so worried about Omar. If Omar had a temperature Hatem was in torment, as though the boy was going to die and he was going to die with him. If Omar fell ill, Hatem was shaken. He went back to his books, searched in all the biographies of the Prophet and looked through all the bound volumes in the hope of chancing upon someone whose child had the same disease, but he found none. When he thought about the death of the Prophet’s son Ibrahim and the Prophet’s sadness, he fell to pieces. If, in one of his sermons or lectures, he stumbled into a story about a father losing his son, he would break down in tears.

  Like all fathers he didn’t think any father had ever worried about his son as much as he did. When he saw him asleep in his crib he was in agony because he loved Omar so much and was so attached to him. Omar had been born after years of desperate waiting and frantic efforts by doctors and laboratories. They had calculated peak fertility times for having sex, which made sex more like a laboratory experiment than something intimate, wild, and passionate. He was on the rise at the time and his fame was spreading but every night he was pulled down by the feeling that for some reason they didn’t deserve to have children. When Omar finally arrived he tried to protect himself from his weakness toward his son through learning, piety, manliness, and fame. He was strong and self-sufficient, or so he deluded himself, and he had no problem being weak toward a single creature. His weakness toward Omar would strengthen him against the world. Omayma opposed his obsession with his son and consulted psychiatrists (this is what he gathered from her without them discussing it openly), in the hope that he would get over his obsession, but all attempts failed.

  Then one day Omar fell into a swimming pool in front of Hatem’s eyes on an outing to the club. Omayma screamed at the pool attendant and the people around Hatem—fans, people seeking fatwas, and a crowd of club members—all dispersed. Hatem didn’t hear what Omayma said, but he understood what she meant. He was speechless, paralyzed. Every muscle in his body started to go limp, none of his senses worked properly, and a strange feeling came over him. They pulled Omar out and brought him to Hatem in the arms of his swimming instructor, with his mother behind him, stooped, terrified, anxious, bewildered, and confused. Hatem was very distant and didn’t know how he managed to stand up and walk with Omar and Omayma and take the child to the hospital, where Omar lay in a coma for weeks. At night Hatem spent time alone in the dark room, shaking and banging his head on the wall, slapping his cheeks, pulling out his hair, and muffling his cries by biting his hand. Then after two hours he left the room and realized he would have been relieved if he had been told that his son had died. From that day on, his sense of guilt and of abandoning the boy guided his behavior toward his son, who did not die.

  He knew that Omar’s trip abroad would be a relief for Omayma and a reason for hope. Besides it was what the doctors had recommended. But it pulled a stone out of the wall that was their relationship, like that stone that Sinmar the architect inserted into the palace he built for the king. Sinmar knew how to find the stone that, if removed, would bring down the whole palace. His reward was that the king killed him for fear he might use the secret against him. Omayma was pulling the stone out of its place and finishing off the demolition of the dilapidated wall. Omar was his life.

  Hatem didn’t hear the question that the next caller threw at Anwar. But, with the red light on, he somehow managed to keep talking, spouting grandiose nonsense interspersed with prayers, Quranic verses, and hadith of the Prophet. It was the kind of material that would serve in response to any question—his usual recourse whenever he had to improvise. Eventually Anwar, aware that the sheikh hadn’t been listening to the viewer’s question, stepped in to save him by throwing him a quick clue. Hatem picked up the clue and got back on track immediately. But while this ‘game of professionals’ was playing out between them, Hatem was asking himself who that first caller that had floored him with the question about Omar was. Was it the father of one of Omar’s friends? But the voice sounded old. Was it Omayma? But the caller was a man. Who would know that Sheikh Hatem’s son was unwell, in order to be able to ask the question in the first place?

  “Thank you for that thorough answer, Sheikh Hatem el-Shenawi, and now we have a call from Raouf in Alexandria. Go ahead, Raouf, we can hear you.”

  The voice was metallic, as if it came from wires wrapped in plastic rather than the vocal cords in the throat of a human being.

  Raouf, or the man who gave his name as Raouf, said, “I’d like to ask Sheikh Hatem el-Shenawi whether it’s true that the Prophet ogled his neighbor’s wife.”

  Anwar’s heart leapt because this was a question that would enliven the program. In his eyes Hatem saw the gleam of a spectator watching the bull entering the ring and heading for the matador. Anwar interrupted the caller.

  “That’s a serious question, and it deserves us asking what exactly you mean, brother Raouf.”

  From the rhythm of Raouf’s speech Hatem had the impression he was reading from a piece of paper. Raouf replied:

  “One of the Christians who works with us heard me say something about Islam and he got angry and shouted at me, ‘Well, you should know for a start what your Prophet did. Muhammad, may God bless him and grant him peace, and I ask mercy of God, looked at the wife of his neighbor and his son, Zeid bin Haritha.’”

  Hatem smiled.

  “He told you it was Zeid bin Haritha?” he said.

  “Yes,” Raouf confirmed.

  “And he didn’t mention Zeinab bint Jahsh at all?” asked Hatem.

  “He did in fact say a name something like that.”

  There were murmurs and an anxious shuffling of feet among the cameramen. Anwar found himself out of the picture so he decided to find a way back in.

  “Sheikh Hatem,” he said. “Clearly with some callers we’re getting into a debate with other religions that we shouldn’t get into because it could get acrimonious.”

  Hatem laughed, easing the tension in the air.

  “Well, it’s clear that Raouf was anxious and confused and that leads us to remind all the viewers and all those in the live audience here with us today—an assembly of learning on which blessings from heaven descend—that they have to ask religious experts so that they don’t get confused or misunderstand things. This remark that the viewer cited, quoting a Christian colleague of his, and I say this with full respect for our fellow human beings and compatriots, is one of a bunch of accusations made by people who hate the Prophet of Islam and are ignorant about him, and that is the incident of the Prophet’s marriage to Zeinab bint Jahsh, may God be pleased with her.”

  Anwar realized that this was a climactic moment but the director in the control room, whispering through his earpiece, was giving him frantic instructions.

  “Break, Anwar, time for the commercials,” he said.

  Everyone was hot to hear Hatem’s answer. />
  When Anwar cut to the break, Sheikh Hatem cried out, “You sons of devils, how could you do that? Now there are three or four million people watching who are dying to hear the story of this wife of his neighbor.”

  He heard the director’s voice shouting boastfully, “See the suspense, Mawlana!”

  Anwar submitted to the hands of the woman fixing his make-up.

  “But Mawlana, isn’t that Raouf guy a Christian?” he said.

  “How would I know?” Hatem cut in. “Ask Georgette who’s wiping your face and doing your make-up.”

  Georgette gave them a smile that revealed nothing.

  “Every religion has all sorts of people, Mawlana,” she said.

  Anwar jumped in jokingly.

  “Watch out for your livelihood, Georgette,” he said.

  Hatem was almost certain that the call had come from the control room and that the person who made it was from the production team and that his colleagues were impressed when he ended the call so professionally. Hatem leaned back, staring into space and turning away from Anwar and Georgette toward a new cameraman who was always wearing him out with questions such as what Lot’s wife was called and how old Noah was and how the people of Sodom and Gomorrah reproduced if the men had no interest in women and in what language the ant spoke to King Solomon (on that occasion Hatem said he didn’t know but it was probably dubbed into colloquial Syrian, like all the soap operas these days!). After a program they did on how just the Caliph Omar ibn al-Khattab was he asked a real stunner: “Was Omar ibn al-Khattab bald?” Hatem thought he might be about to ask another question about Maria, the Prophet’s Egyptian Coptic wife, so he pre-empted him. “Is there any greater baraka than that of Maria the Copt, that Alexandrian beauty who so impressed the men of Medina?” he said.

  He looked at the wooden screens behind the cameras and the plastic panels around the room, the technicians sitting on four seats behind a console that looked like an electronic organ, with round headphones on their ears, the frantic movement, and the jostling as they arranged the wires along the ground or rolled them up in enormous spools and plugged them into electrical sockets. He looked at the peeling paint, the torn wallpaper, and the dark noisy corners that were the antithesis of the corner that the camera filmed, with its cheerful colors, bright lights, and ordered glitter. He looked up and saw all the metal rails and the dozens of interlocking poles, the high ceilings, the aluminum scaffolding, the massive spotlights fixed to the ceiling, carefully distributed and attached, very high up, and that steel arm like the ladder on a fire truck with a camera on the end that moved and turned like the eye of heaven looking down at their fake, artificial patch of light—a little island of smart furniture, bright colors, tailored clothes, and a polished floor amid a world of terrifying chaos, invisible ugliness, and hidden pretense.