The Price of Innocence (novel)

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Sheikh Ibrahim’s home reeked of solitude and stale grease. Since his wife’s death, his two sons, Youssef and Omar, lived like strangers under his roof, speaking to him only to demand money or clean laundry. At fifty-two, the Imam felt his domestic authority crumbling. To him, the solution did not lie in mourning or patience, but in the acquisition of a new presence—a malleable life he could bend to his will. He spent his afternoons leafing through his volumes, searching the margins of ancient texts for validation of his inclinations. There, he found what he sought: a tradition that, in his eyes, transformed predation into piety.

The Kasbah district awoke under a heavy heat. Ibrahim smoothed his tunic and stepped out, savoring the respectful greetings of passersby. He loved the silent power his title afforded him. His gaze settled on Slimane’s shop, a fabric store overflowing with rolls of silk and cotton. But it was not the merchandise that interested him. It was Sofia, Slimane’s daughter—a nine-year-old child drawing on a piece of cardboard in the shade of the counter. In Ibrahim’s mind, the rights of the child did not exist; only the historical precedent he had erected as absolute law mattered.

He entered the shop. The scent of mint tea and new fabric welcomed him. Slimane rose immediately, abandoning his scissors to greet the man of God. They spoke first of the rain, the price of satin, and the health of Ibrahim’s sons. The Imam took his time, relishing the hypocrisy of the situation. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Sofia—her innocent gestures, her small frame—and mentally recited chapters dealing with early maturity and marriage contracts sealed in childhood. To himself, he was not a monster; he was a rigorous scholar.

The moment came when pleasantries were no longer enough. Ibrahim set down his glass of tea and changed his tone. He spoke of his loneliness as a widower, his need for a stable home, and then slipped in Sofia’s name. He did not do so with hesitation, but with the certainty of one who believes he is in the right. He cited the child’s age and immediately linked it to the prophetic model, presenting his request as an opportunity for Slimane to tie his family to that of a respected scholar. He spoke of the girl as sacred merchandise, a ritual object he wished to possess.

Slimane remained frozen, his hands still resting on a swatch of linen. The silence that followed was heavier than the heat outside. The merchant looked at his daughter, then at the man across from him. He saw the groomed beard, the shifty gaze behind a facade of devotion, and the obscenity of the proposal rose in his throat like poison. It was not an Imam he saw, but an intruder who had just defiled the air of his shop. Without a cry, Slimane rounded the counter. His hand, hardened by years of manual labor, struck Ibrahim’s face with a force that sent his skullcap flying.

The sound of the slap echoed out to the street. Ibrahim, dazed, tried to invoke the heavens, speaking of blasphemy and the respect due to his rank. But Slimane was no longer listening. He grabbed him by the collar of his tunic and dragged him toward the threshold. Neighbors, alerted by the commotion, drew near. There was Brahim the butcher, still in his stained apron, and Mansour the hardware dealer. In a few words spat out by Slimane, the news made its way through the group. The indignation was immediate. These men, who listened to Ibrahim every Friday, suddenly discovered that the wolf had settled in the fold.

Blows began to rain down. It was not a fight, but a collective correction. The butcher and the hardware dealer joined Slimane, their hands striking with the precision of those protecting their own hearths. Ibrahim, on the ground, still tried to stammer verses to protect himself, but the very texts he had used to justify his crime turned against him in the eyes of these fathers. He was no longer a doctor of the law; he was a fifty-year-old man who wanted to buy the childhood of a little girl. The dust of the souk clung to his bloodied face.

Under the force of the impacts, Ibrahim finally collapsed, his breath short, before losing consciousness on the pavement. He lay there, an inert mass of white fabric and shame, in the middle of the circle of merchants whose chests still heaved with rage. Slimane stopped, gesturing for the others to step back. He did not intend to become a murderer, but he would not let this man leave as if nothing had happened. Brahim the butcher pulled his phone from his pocket and dialed the local police with a hand trembling with suppressed fury.

The officers arrived as the crowd began to gather. They found the Imam unconscious and the merchants lined up in front of the shop, forming a human wall around little Sofia, whom her father had sent back inside. Slimane spoke to the police with an icy calm, explaining the indecent proposal and the use of the sacred to mask an ignominy. The officers, fathers themselves, made no comment on the Imam's condition. They loaded him unceremoniously into the van, leaving behind a neighborhood where the fear of the Sheikh had evaporated, replaced by a new vigilance.

That night, Ibrahim’s sons did not see their father return. Silence returned to the Imam’s home, but it was no longer the silence of piety. It was that of a world that had just understood that the robe no longer protected the predator. In the souk, the lights went out one by one, and Slimane closed his iron shutter, knowing that to protect innocence, it had been necessary to shatter the idol that claimed dominion over it.

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