71 Quotes by Michael Benzehabe

After we sat, Ava glared sidelong at Giti. 'Sorry I slap you last week, but I did not think you would ever stop talking, and I had somewhere to go.' Then, with a quick toss of her head, 'Bad day.

I sized her up and got this sick feeling that she was about to ruin everything. Giti never missed an opportunity to show up her superiors. I stopped dead in my tracks and patted her down for a hidden prayer rug. No religious drama was too outrageous for her.

Although my words were temperate and well-expressed, they seemed to repulse Ava. My timing has never been precise. Ava regarded me the way a widow spider examines a housefly. She laughed loudly, a vulgar Occidental laugh, the laugh of a person who wraps their next meal in silk before draining their lifeblood. But, I have been known to imagine things.

A boorish laborer of some type emerged from a crowd of timid Coke-drinking men. He moved toward us with the wide menacing stance of a wrestler, black glistening hair, jutting like straight shards from beneath a Pashtun cap. Strong as an acre of garlic. He stared at me with an undignified glimmer in his eye that I wished wasn't there.

Iran. Hot for certainties, but all us women get are rhymes. Always a metaphor; always a clever turn of phrase; always quoting poets without giving a direct answer. Give us definitive wedding dates. That's certainty! Those are the certainties we ache for--as certain as the sunlight that our sun-loving botany aches for.

Voices of village idiots roiled in a jester's stew of odds-making tomfoolery. Occasionally, a monkey screamed in the heat of competition, and crude words were freely spoken. The more sophisticated were forced to tolerate such low-minded displays.

It's forbidden to bite a woman's arse. In the absence of a legal precedent, the Imams decided to apply human law to the guilty monkey, whoever it turned out to be. They narrowed it down to Bosco or Shin Bone. The victim was unable to distinguish one monkey from the other.

This feminine billboard of Middle-Eastern fashion stopped me on the street last month. She ran her hand over the seam of my jilbab, admiring the color and fabric. She only said a few words. 'We are living in a gender-quake, a modern sexodus. We have a duty to project dis female revolution in da way we dress. Come visit me at the Monkey Bar and tell me who tailors your outfits.' She's been my fashion role model ever since.

Eviction day at the orphanage loomed large over Giti--and I worried deeply for her. 'Allah will provide,' I whispered. But Giti rolled her eyes, unconvinced.