XI.
Speaking directly into the tannoy, he made his pronouncement. “Take this bitch from this place and circumcise her according to the very letter of the Koran. I can smell the filthy magh-waghat (clitoris) from where I sit. And you students, do not bring unclean women before me again. I will not have a clitoris in my madressa!”
“Master, she has been circumcised! We have certificates from Dr Benny Mohammed of Cape Town!” protested one of the senior students.
“Silence, you Hasidic dog!” the Master roared in a high-pitched cackle. “And if what you say is true, then she must be re-circumcised, and properly this time! Even if it requires the amputation of her legs and lower torso! Don’t bring me a fucking bitch-in-heat again!” His hands shook with righteous anger.
I nodded in admiration at his swift counsel. Someone like me would probably have confused a number of the profound issues involved and made a complete mess of the medical examination, not to say the incisive judgement.
If this was how he dealt with everyday practical affairs, I couldn’t wait for his sermon.
We heard the woman screaming in agony from the next room as she was properly circumcised by a group of the senior students. Eventually, they stuffed a cloth in her mouth so that we could continue with our spiritual instruction without having to listen to all that fucking din.
I couldn’t help chuckling at the easy-going informality of it all.
What a laugh.
The Iranians glared at me again. Fucking Persian scum.
Then the Master delivered his lecture.
His discourse was, so I was told later, quite unexceptional—he gave chats like it every day—but I considered it one of the most interesting talks I have ever heard. It made my triumph at the Conway Hall in London begin to look very hollow indeed. I resolved to improve the quality of my public speaking with immediate effect. The problem with me is that I am all book learning; I lack practical experience, the common touch, and a genial bedside manner.
“Before the Most High, in Truth, the facts, curse Satan and all his wicked deeds.” Imam Hittite-lal began, and the audience, including myself, hung breathlessly on his every word.
“Picture the second-hand car salesman. Can he be held responsible for a God-given repair to a faulty car ? He cannot, as only God can give the repair, in Truth. And what is the price, in legal Truth, notwithstanding the directives of the Holy Book, of the car? It cannot be the price on the sales slip, as this is, in the main, open to interpretation. It cannot be the price given at the opening of the contract, as this is liable to change. It cannot be the final price agreed, as this is arbitrarily arrived at. Only the Volkswagen has a standard price, so it cannot be that. The price cannot contradict the parameters written in the Holy Book, as this is both impossible in practice and a blasphemy in theory. There is the law of the land; then there is the Law of God; and there is the Law of the Land of God, al-Valhalla. Neither is sufficient, neither is lacking. Both are what they purport to be. Your enemy does not wait to know the price of the vehicle before driving to kill you. Neither does your death come sooner, because the contract has not been fulfilled, either by the aforementioned party, or the latter.”
And so on.
In fantastic detail, for the next hour and a half.
One of the Iranians next to me, all of whom had been scribbling copious notes, was becoming agitated. He touched his turban with his fingertips, indicating that he wanted to ask a question.
A senior student on the platform, noticing this, bent forward and whispered into the Master’s ear.
The Master fell silent and, by glancing at the Iranian, gave permission for his question.
“Master, could not the contractee be contained within the unfulfilled contract itself?” said the Iranian. “Does not the Law permit the car to the unowned by the contractee, whilst residing in the obligation of the vendor, in this case, the salesman whose repair, in truth, has been undertaken? Surely then, both parties agree that the car is at one and the same time, subject to contract?”
The Master raised his palm. “There is only one car in question, and that is the Volkswagen.” A smile played on his lips.
The gathering burst into howls of cathartic laughter. It was the happy, unrestrained giggling of students and young people, united in their love of theological learning, Judeo-Islamic law, and their deep affectionate love of their master.
The Master’s joke had been a very good one, even if I hadn’t quite fully understood it, and yet it had relieved the tension brought about by the profound intellectual discussion.
I was desperate that the Master should discourse on Nazo-theology. But the gathering was soon brought to an end, and we were all shown out into a sunlight courtyard.
XII.
Thinking of the woman who had been brought before the master, I knew that if she were only able to see the error of her ways, she might even become a famous novelist and travel the world telling us all about the poignant folk-tales of Egypt, or Lebanon, or whatever. Just a thought.
I resolved to see Abdulph Hittite-lal again at the earliest available opportunity.
XIII.
And so it came to pass.
Mufti Hittite-lal and I strolled along an almost empty beach near Tel Aviv in the late afternoon.
In front of us, as well as behind us, at a discrete distance, were seven or eight huge bodyguards, each of them in dark glasses and lightweight suits, and carrying walkie-talkies and Uzi submachine guns.
“Master, what work remains?” I asked.
We spoke man-to-man in a guttural but enchanting Viennese piss-house dialect; a very down-to-earth Wittgensteinian rough trade German; and unavoidably, every second word seemed to be fuck, shit, nigger, or arsehole.
“Master…..” I let my voice trail off into the landscape.
He did not answer immediately, but instead gazed thoughtfully out to sea.
He continued walking in silence, his hands clasped behind his back.
Gentle wavelets lapped the sands at our feet.
“We have always had the Arabs on our side,” he said. “Now we have Farrakhan and his bow-tied coons; at the opposite end we have the Klan and the survivalists; we have also the apeshit youth in western countries, the fags in the S&M clubs, the South Americans, and fucking football supporters and sporting types everywhere. All that remains is to convert the Jews, in sufficiently large numbers,” he said.
I waited for him to explain.
“Beautiful sunset.” he said. “Quite, quite lovely.”
I nodded.
“What do you think of Jane Austen and the English novel?” he asked.
I hadn’t been expecting this. The breadth of the man’s learning! ‘”hey adapt to television very well,” I replied, hesitantly.
“Do you mean Pride and Pridelessness?”
“I believe so,” I answered.
“Have you ever been to Korea?”
I shook my head.
“Fucking lovely place. Japan, too,” he said. “Fucking lovely.”
“I’ve heard Japan is very modern.” I said.
“Mmmm,” he said. “But China is a piss-hole. Someone should form a plan to try to get rid of those horrible people.”
I could think of nothing to say about China.
We walked on.
“The whole world admires me,” he began in earnest. “Nazism is the world’s fastest growing religion. We’ve got rid of the communists and their crap. And the Muslims are doing wonderful groundwork politically with their nightmarish mentality. And you, with your sociopathic charisma, could easily become Nazo-theology’s greatest prophet. God bless you, kind sir. Stay here in Israel and make this place the cradle of International Nazism and Astrology. My work with Mossad and the Israeli government is coming to an end; I am old and tired. Although I have been a member of the Israeli secret cabinet for all these years, the Jews are still suspicious of Nazo-theology. Why I cannot fathom, but there it is. They are the most prejudiced people I’ve ever come across. As thick as planks. I’ve done my best to have the Star of David and the Muslim crescent replaced by the swastika, but it’s been an uphill struggle. Golda Meir never liked me; neither did Ben Gurion. But I believe that you will succeed, somehow, with your modern appearance and your unparalleled knowledge of astrology, the trash ethic, and Russ Meyer films.”
“God bless you, Herr Hitler,” I said, tearfully.
“But,” he went on, “you are too thin to be taken seriously in the Middle East. You must become a fat shit as soon as possible. You must waddle rather than walk. Your cheeks must look like rosy buttocks, and your expression must be stupidly babyish. Let spittle dribble out of the corners of your mouth. And where are your fucking pyjamas?”
I lowered my head in shame.
“Cherry blossom, in spring, is one of my favourite sights,” he said, wistfully.
Then his expression clouded over
“Look at this,” he said, lifting up his robe to reveal a gigantic jet-black penis, neatly circumcised, and in a state of tumescent sexual readiness.
Christ.
So Dr. Rogers was right!
“Impressive,” I said, and meant it.
I honestly hadn’t seen a knob like that outside of a sex toy catalogue; it glistened in the evening light, and looked to have been recently oiled; the head and shaft combined must have measured ten inches, and the girth was thick enough to pleasure a full-lipped negress. And the Mufti’s balls were the size of tinned peaches. Just below the left ball, dangling at the end of an amazingly fashionable silver scrotal ring, was a dinky solid gold swastika, together with an Iron Cross, First Class.
Beat that, San Francisco! Beat it!
“I’m 107 years old, and I can still fuck a kid like Michael Jackson,” he said. “And I owe all this to the successful application of Nazo-theology and a scientific diet. Between you and me, the stiff cock is the very essence of the Nazi salute. And if you think I have tertiary syphilis, think again, punk.”
I nodded, thinking again of Guy de Maupassant and Frank Harris.
He put a hand on my shoulder, drew me to him, and pushed my head downwards. “Would you suck me off, give an old man relief?”
I glanced down at his nightmarish hard-on.
“Sorry, Mein Führer; no thanks. I’m not that kind of guy,” I said, a little unkindly. Dirty old bastard.
“Don’t tell me you like women, you bitch!” he sneered.
I was hating this.
He turned to one of the bodyguards. “Hey, Simey! What was the name of the security police chief? You know, the fat shit-boy in shorts?”
The bodyguard showed no sign of having heard the question, but continued to scan the beach in all directions.
“Gaaah!” spat Adolf angrily, before turning back to me and shaking his head.
“Mossad! No fucking sense of humour.”
We walked on.
Adolf eventually let his robe fall back over his member.
“One last conceptual difficulty,” he said.
I was all ears.
“We must get the Jews to convert to Christianity before joining us,” he said. “It will give their cruelty an edge it might otherwise lack. In his natural state, the Jew is as gentle as a lamb to the slaughter.”
I’d never heard so much piffle in my life!
“What makes you think so?” I asked, astonished.
“Don’t argue with me, young man,” he said firmly. “You haven’t watched as much television as I have.”
I nodded. I was starting to feel very inadequate again.
“All right, young man,” he said, paternally. “Off you go.”
I gave a firm Hitler salute—surely the most noble of man’s greetings—and goose-stepped smartly off towards my waiting taxi.
I left the old man, alone with his thoughts and his bodyguards, on the beach.
From the rear window of my cab, I saw Herr Hitler propositioning an attractive Jewess as she strolled along the sands. A few seconds later, with the Mossad boys taking a smoke break and chatting about Uzis, I saw him lift up her kaftan and, urging her to bend over, mount her.
What a sight.
That night, back at my hotel, I was overcome by the urge to smash every piece of Ikea furniture I could find in my room.
***
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Jakob Zaaiman is an artist and writer living and working in London, U.K. He is interested in creating works which are strange and disturbing, and which hopefully defy easy explanation. So far he has written a book of short stories, two collections of poetry and a book on interpreting modern contemporary art; all available online.
