the floor!” he instructed. “Become the rooster.”
The rooster was the preferred punitive position at the madrassa . It was so named because of the way you bent your anatomy in order to comply. I leaned forward and crouched into a squat, bending my head down until it was almost on the floor. I hitched my arms behind my knees and brought them forward to hold the lobes of my ears.
My posterior went up. Qari Jamil’s cane reeled back and came down. The bones accepted their walloping, though my thighs quivered from sustaining the squat. I constricted my rectum because I’d heard that some qari s shoved their stick into the anus. The pain of each blow required me to take a squatting shuffle forward.
After I finished crying, I went back to recite my lesson.
A fter I’d been there several months, the madrassa hired a new teacher named Qari Asim. He was in his twenties, with sleek black hair, a chiseled face, and a kempt beard. He dressed in the finest white cotton, crisped with kalaf . His checkered red-and-white kafiya was new, neatly folded on his shoulders, and it smelled of Medinan musk. His sandals were black and polished. He rode a red Kawasaki70cc and sported black-market Ray-Bans. Now the class was split into two. Marjan ended up in his section, though I stayed with Qari Jamil.
Within hours of Qari Asim’s arrival, news of his severity spread among the students. We gathered around the boys in his section before the evening prayer and looked at the signs of the qari ’s violence upon his students. Many had had their ears yanked and twisted so that they turned blue and purple. A couple had received full-handed slaps on the face, the red imprints still radiating heat. Some had been beaten with sticks, either on their backs or on their shins.
Marjan didn’t say anything. He was one of the few who had managed to avoid getting called for a face-to-face encounter with the qari . But he had a guarded look about him: he knew his time was coming.
One day, on my way to the madrassa later than unusual, I detoured through Marjan’s neighborhood to see if he was still home and wanted to walk together. As I approached his house I heard loud wailing punctuated by cursing inside.
I flipped open the jute curtain to the house and went inside, where I found his mother shrieking hysterically, chased around the veranda by her husband, who was trying to gather his lungi into a knot.
“Bring my son to me!” she commanded.
“Sit down, woman. Sit down! It’ll be fine. We’ll go get him right now!”
“Bring my son! Allah curse the qari !”
Marjan’s grandfather and an uncle, who had been standing to one side when I entered, conferred with one another and walked into the alley, concern on their faces. Meanwhile, Marjan’s mother made a beeline for the door, only to have a chorus of people remind her that her face was uncovered so she couldn’t leave the house. An old masi that cleaned their latrine, her sludge-tipped sweeper dripping slime on the floor, stood immobile, taken aback by the entropy in the house. Another one of Marjan’s uncles sat in the shade of a toy-fabrication machine. I recognized him. He had suffered near-electrocution a few weeks earlier when the machine had malfunctioned, and he’d come to Pops’s clinic for treatment. He sat in a stoic squat with his back to the wall; partially fabricated cars, tops, and plastic animals littered the floor near him, awaiting his final touches once he was fully healed.
Unable to leave for school in the face of all this drama, I waited, unnoticed, in the courtyard. Marjan’s grandfather and uncle soon came back, carrying Marjan in their arms. He was comatose. His pants were rolled up to his thighs, and his legs hung limply. The length of each leg was covered in blue and black bruises. There was blood dribbling from various blows to the shin. The beaten calves looked clumpy, protruding in some areas, deflated in others. His legs were clearly
The rooster was the preferred punitive position at the madrassa . It was so named because of the way you bent your anatomy in order to comply. I leaned forward and crouched into a squat, bending my head down until it was almost on the floor. I hitched my arms behind my knees and brought them forward to hold the lobes of my ears.
My posterior went up. Qari Jamil’s cane reeled back and came down. The bones accepted their walloping, though my thighs quivered from sustaining the squat. I constricted my rectum because I’d heard that some qari s shoved their stick into the anus. The pain of each blow required me to take a squatting shuffle forward.
After I finished crying, I went back to recite my lesson.
A fter I’d been there several months, the madrassa hired a new teacher named Qari Asim. He was in his twenties, with sleek black hair, a chiseled face, and a kempt beard. He dressed in the finest white cotton, crisped with kalaf . His checkered red-and-white kafiya was new, neatly folded on his shoulders, and it smelled of Medinan musk. His sandals were black and polished. He rode a red Kawasaki70cc and sported black-market Ray-Bans. Now the class was split into two. Marjan ended up in his section, though I stayed with Qari Jamil.
Within hours of Qari Asim’s arrival, news of his severity spread among the students. We gathered around the boys in his section before the evening prayer and looked at the signs of the qari ’s violence upon his students. Many had had their ears yanked and twisted so that they turned blue and purple. A couple had received full-handed slaps on the face, the red imprints still radiating heat. Some had been beaten with sticks, either on their backs or on their shins.
Marjan didn’t say anything. He was one of the few who had managed to avoid getting called for a face-to-face encounter with the qari . But he had a guarded look about him: he knew his time was coming.
One day, on my way to the madrassa later than unusual, I detoured through Marjan’s neighborhood to see if he was still home and wanted to walk together. As I approached his house I heard loud wailing punctuated by cursing inside.
I flipped open the jute curtain to the house and went inside, where I found his mother shrieking hysterically, chased around the veranda by her husband, who was trying to gather his lungi into a knot.
“Bring my son to me!” she commanded.
“Sit down, woman. Sit down! It’ll be fine. We’ll go get him right now!”
“Bring my son! Allah curse the qari !”
Marjan’s grandfather and an uncle, who had been standing to one side when I entered, conferred with one another and walked into the alley, concern on their faces. Meanwhile, Marjan’s mother made a beeline for the door, only to have a chorus of people remind her that her face was uncovered so she couldn’t leave the house. An old masi that cleaned their latrine, her sludge-tipped sweeper dripping slime on the floor, stood immobile, taken aback by the entropy in the house. Another one of Marjan’s uncles sat in the shade of a toy-fabrication machine. I recognized him. He had suffered near-electrocution a few weeks earlier when the machine had malfunctioned, and he’d come to Pops’s clinic for treatment. He sat in a stoic squat with his back to the wall; partially fabricated cars, tops, and plastic animals littered the floor near him, awaiting his final touches once he was fully healed.
Unable to leave for school in the face of all this drama, I waited, unnoticed, in the courtyard. Marjan’s grandfather and uncle soon came back, carrying Marjan in their arms. He was comatose. His pants were rolled up to his thighs, and his legs hung limply. The length of each leg was covered in blue and black bruises. There was blood dribbling from various blows to the shin. The beaten calves looked clumpy, protruding in some areas, deflated in others. His legs were clearly
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