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with His creatures when they sin. I became her God. She worshipped me, chose to be at my feet like a dog, and now I possessed her completely but she had no hold over me at all. The more I turned away from her, the greater her passion for me grew, but I only desired those women who refused me. Each time I was refused, I remembered how my mother used to say to my father: ‘Thou art my shadow on this earth, when I runneth away from thee thou turneth around at once and followeth me.’ And how the Imam was wont to say that my mind thinks only of those who oppose me without my authorization. Then I noticed his look swing towards the place in which she stood at the back of the crowd, saw her eyes shine defiantly, but when I looked at him his pupils were aflame with desire. I said to myself, this girl and no one else will be your death, for in history many a great king has met his end at the hands of a whoring woman.

The Legal Wife
     
    The voices shouting to the heavens ‘God be with you’ were like music to her ears. Her diamond earrings trembled to the sound, shivering with the thousand lights focussed on the Imam from all around. Her neck, a slender column of the whitest marble surrounded by five rows of the purest pearl, swayed ever so slightly. Over her breast she wore the ribbon of the Order and the Medal in the form of a brooch like a sun-disc radiating rays of light. On her fingers were rings and precious stones shining like stars. There she stood on the balcony reserved for the harem, surrounded by the wives of important state dignitaries, their faces mask-like, stretched in a fixed expression suited to the occasion, their silky dresses billowing over their rounded lines, their shameful parts covered by veils of the best and most expensive imported types. She stood proudly, straining her neck as far as she could to follow her husband the Imam in his slightest movement, while he in turn strained his neck as far as he could towards the throne of God, high up in the heavens, trying not to lose sight of Him even for the fraction of a second.
    Her heart beat strongly under the ribs, and just below her breast, cut into the white skin, was a cross with Jesus nailed to it. She raised her hand, made the sign of the Trinity, stopping a moment for each of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. Protect him from his enemies, Holy Mother of Christ, then adding quickly as though she had forgotten: Say O Allah that I am forgiven and that Thou wilt protect him from his mortal enemies. Give him Thy protection O Prophet of Allah. Did I not abandon everything for his love? Did I not abandon the Lord Christ, give up my name, my father’s name, my country and even my faith? Indeed I threw away everything for him, for I was tired of washing up endless piles of plates, of breathing in the air that thousands of people had breathed in and breathed out before me in the underground tunnels where the trains came and went. I was tired of smiling into faces that never smiled, tired of going to church every Sunday and praying to God to save me from my plight. Twenty years of prayer to the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, and yet not one of them stretched out a helping hand.
    Then came the Imam. It was he that took me away from my misery. I saw him seated on his throne and fell in love with him immediately. He carried me away in his arms and from that moment I could look proudly up into the sky. I discovered Paradise on earth and learnt to have faith in Allah and His Prophet, for now I had gardens and parks, palaces and banquet halls, servants and courtiers, rivers flowing with wine and honey, things without end from which I could choose at will. When I raised my head to look around all heads were lowered to the ground. All faces smiled at me, but I did not have to smile. I walked with a serene step in front of Ministers of State amidst flashing lights to inaugurate charity bazaars and hospitals and homes. My name was now etched into the marble