I winced. Less at the deterioration of my status and more at Marie-Anne’s desperation to get me back into the workforce, so that I’d once again be productive, an earner. It was an interesting reversal for us. Until a few years ago, before the break with her parents, when she still took stipends and allowances from them, I used to say that she was too casual with what it meant to be a breadwinner. Now she pursued the paycheck like she was its shadow. Her true turning point had been taking the job at MimirCo. Back when she had been a writer she fancied herself a kind of mystic in the world who, much like Rumi or Meister Eckhart, was compelled to be withdrawn from the exigencies of life, someone whose purpose was to root herself to one spiritual place, one’s personal Yoknapatawpha County, and from there reach into her being and fling into the world, like rice at a wedding, invisible satellites made of empathy, tasked with sending back information to be processed at her heart. She had taken this idea of fiction as mysticism quite seriously. She even wrote an essay about it for some far-flung publication. The piece had evaluated ancient Islamic mystical orders, called the tariqas, and likened them to creative writing departments at our universities. She had found a great deal of similarity between the two institutions, both in terms of their guild-like structures, and in their emphasis on serving as a kind of spiritual pole to the world. But Marie-Anne wasn’t that mystic anymore. With MimirCo she had chosen another guild. Its axis was money, not infinity, not empathy.
“To top it off,” she said, “I think I even got you a gig.”
I looked at her with rage. I deserved blame for turning her this way, for having seeped into her with my lust for acquisition and rotted the mystic in her.
There had to be a word out there for someone who slaughtered a saint.
* * *
My potential project involved a cohort of Mahmoud’s named Qasim, a playboy princeling who was based in the Wazirate. He was hoping to launch a DVD in America. As a favor to Marie-Anne, Mahmoud had hyped me as someone Qasim might hire to promote his venture.
“Do you think you can do this?” Marie-Anne inquired.
I grasped her thigh and gave her a squeeze. If Marie-Anne had made the effort to juggle some balls for me, I didn’t see why I couldn’t take over for a little bit. She had many other acts in play as it was. For the first time I saw lines around her eyes. They were even beginning to creep to the edges of her lips. She had always warned me that she would age badly, her paleness chapping and cracking like the salt plains, while I would age better, becoming more polished, smoother, a well-trod wooden handrail. It was a little startling to be presented with the specter of her decline this early. “I don’t see why I can’t give it a go.” She brightened at my acceptance.
I started that day. Qasim and I corresponded via e-mail and had webchats. He was a young man, in his midtwenties, dressed in a white kandura and a red Ferrari hat. His goatee was exquisite, almost painted on, styled more meticulously than the eyebrows of any housewife stalking Rittenhouse.
I worked from home. Qasim worked on the fly. I noticed that he streamed to me from his cell phone while driving around Wazir City, the reflection from the skyscrapers tessellating upon his face. One time he picked up a pair of women while we chatted, Russian by the look of them, and had them in the car with him while he raced some teenagers along streets with domes and minarets in the background. He told me that the Waziri Highway, which linked the only two major cities in the city-state, was the new Autobahn. It had a bridge that was the new Golden Gate. It had an airport that was the new Heathrow. Everything about his world seemed to possess novelty. It was as if their wealth had allowed them to elude the passage of history.
Eventually we got to his business idea. It was a health-and-fitness DVD that he’d recorded, with the Russian girls as background models. The name of his system was Salato. The name was derived from salat, the Arabic word for prayer. The o at the end had been added because yoga ended in a vowel and so did other exercises Americans enjoyed, such as Zumba and Tai Chi. He already had thirty thousand copies of the DVD ready to order. Now he needed press, exposure, word of mouth. He believed that gullible Americans were the best market for a new exercise craze, provided that there was enough noise to accompany the product.
“Creating noise is what I do. Why don’t you overnight the DVD?”
Qasim pulled away from the phone for a few seconds, turned it around, and returned to the camera. “I just uploaded it to your e-mail. Follow the link to download.”
“Your Internet is that fast?”
“Where do you think I am? In bin Laden’s cave? Hell, even his cave turned out to be a bungalow. You guys need to update your stereotypes about us.”
I heated up some nachos and cheesy salsa, poured myself a soda, and headed into the living room to watch the exercise routine.
The video began with a panoramic shot of a beachside resort, glittering teal swimming pools, a placid artificial lagoon. The thrum of Arabian guitar permeated the air. The camera came to a stop at an elevated space between two large golden fountains. Qasim stood in front, dressed in a shirt and loose trousers, and the Russian models were behind him in traditional black robes with sequins down the front. From the fall of the light it was evident they only wore underwear beneath. The production quality was high. The sound was excellent. It was evident Qasim worked with a script.
He started the viewer off on a small stretching routine and gave a short history lesson about the emergence of the Islamic prayer. “Official sources claim that the Prophet Muhammad took the full-body method of prayer that was already known to seventh-century Arabs, modified it, and from there over the centuries it spread to a billion people. So already we’re part of a long history, a long legacy. Think of all your historical brothers and sisters. We are all going to join together as a community of exercise.”
After stretching, he explained the various positions. Salato began in the standing position, hands folded. Then you bent forward with both hands on your knees. “Already you’re cracking the kinks out of your cartilage,” Qasim exhaled. Next, one stood back up, and in the same motion knelt down to the ground, folding both legs underneath the torso. “It’ll be uncomfortable at first,” he said. “But that is just your decadence complaining.” Seated like this, one made two prostrations, head to ground, before standing back up. “You should already feel the spine aligning.” Once you were back on your feet you repeated the aforementioned process again, up to four times, depending on what time of the day you were exercising. Qasim pointed out that there was a small chart available, at an extra cost, which revealed how many repetitions to make at what time in the day. Or you could pay out a little more and receive a small wristband that emitted a wail and reminded you it was “time to Salato.” Due to the history of Salato, where all the leading practitioners had been men, Qasim advised that the routine leader should always be male. For the sake of tradition.
Now that the explanations were over, Qasim began in earnest. The camera zoomed in on his crisp goatee. His head filled the screen. “Normally one would be reading portions of the Koran during each movement,” he said. “But we’re simply going to focus on clearing our minds, focusing on the breathing, and exhaling the power word, Hu.” He demonstrated this for a moment. Then his voice took on an exhortative tone. “This is Salato! I am your Exercise Imam! Now say it with me! Hu! Hu! Hu!”