WiT-Month Special: Rachida el-Charni’s ‘God Loves Me, Credo’

To mark this Women in Translation Month, today, we share a short story by Tunisian writer Rachida el-Charni, which was shortlisted for the 2023 ArabLit Short Story Prize in Anne Willborn’s translation.

At the time, judge Muhammad Hajj said of this story: “Smooth, lively and well-plotted, ‘God Loves Me, Credo’ builds nimbly, carving a gritty frieze of the tension between an overwhelming sense of defeat and the will to survive.”

God Loves Me, Credo

By Rachida el-Charni

Translated by Anne Willborn

Darkness consumes the desert. I’m standing in an even darker hole, crucified, shouting against the wind for my comrades to rescue me. My anguished cries echo back to me, broadcasting my ultimate fall into this pit of death.

They’re too far away across the sand.

The expansive hole’s walls are hardened by car grease and discarded waste oil. I stick my gnarled fingers into the soil but I’m unable to lift my heavy body to the ground above.

If I were shorter, this filth would’ve swallowed me and I’d have died on the spot.

I don’t know how I stumbled and lost my footing, finding myself trapped in this suffocating tomb. I had been trailing behind my colleagues from the Desert Electric Company. There were five of us: an Egyptian, a Syrian, a Palestinian, a Filipino, and me, Ahmad al-Shareef, a Tunisian.

They had been exchanging funny stories and telling vulgar jokes to keep each other’s spirits up. Their throats burst with laughter that reverberated in the vast void shrouded in darkness. Preoccupied by my own sorrows, I had lagged behind them, oblivious to how distant their voices were, and how dim their searchlights.

Thank God, I still have my headlamp.

I peer out, looking as far as my light reaches, and an emptiness settles in my soul. There is nothing here but the warm, groaning wind scattering the desert sands. I close my eyes slowly, surrendering to this moment of harsh despair. I open them, and am astonished that my body is covered in grime. I try to find words to console myself, but my mind is inundated with the countless injustices I’ve endured throughout my life.

I didn’t want to work tonight because my body has succumbed to a lethal fatigue since the death of my compatriot and friend, Tahir. I had submitted a request for leave along with my Filipino friend Credo, but my boss caught me off guard, knocking on my door at ten o’clock tonight. He barged in, looking as stupid as ever. His voice rasped, “Get up, Ahmad. The power went out. We have to repair the damage to the southern utility box before midnight.”

His hoarse voice made me nervous. Groggily, I got up. Credo calmed me down with a knowing look. He stepped toward me and took hold of my arm, easing my nerves. With great effort, I managed to say, “You’re aware that yesterday I accompanied the body of my friend Tahir to the airport, and a few days before that we mourned the loss of our Tunisian colleague, Najib, due to a mistake one of you made. Can’t you understand I deserve some time to grieve?”

“Come on, man, grieving is only for women — that’s according to God’s wisdom. Get up. We pay you to work, not to sleep.”

His icy tone and his words laced with harshness shook me. I couldn’t help but notice his disgusting flat nose and strong jaw. My gaze then descended to his rounded belly, and I was amazed he managed to bend down to pray at all. I wondered what use God was to this rotten man.

I sluggishly put on my work uniform. The important thing at times like these is to stay calm. Credo decided to come with me to work an extra shift. I heard him muttering softly in Filipino, and saw him spread his palms as if praying to God. Our foolish boss stood by the door waiting for me. His booming voice awoke the other laborers who lived in our quiet building, and they came out to see what was going on.

As I sat in the back seat of the Land Rover, a surge of anger welled up inside me, and my breath quickened. Only in that moment did I realize the truth behind Tahir’s death.

His own fury and the sun joined forces against him.

Tahir was an elegant, soft-spoken man. I’d known him since we were students together at the El Kef Institute. While he was content with a high school diploma and an early marriage to a relative, I traveled to Russia to complete my studies in electrical engineering. By chance, we met again here, driven by a shared desire: to earn a great deal of money as quickly as possible. But I discovered that he had changed — every ounce of joy had been eradicated from his soul, replaced by a mysterious gloom inhabiting his depths.

During our late night gatherings, he would sing Saliha’s most beautiful melodies — Hajr el-Habib, Fel Ghorba Fenani, Ya Khil Salem, Oum El Hassen Ghannet, and Bakhnoug. His mountainous voice resounded, charged with a sweet ripple of melancholy. A profound hush would envelop us as we watched him, captivated by his charm. We struggled to hold back tears as our memories wandered to distant lands. On one occasion, someone stood, overwhelmed, and extended his palms toward the heavens, crying madly: “Lord, let wine rain upon us to perfect our state of ecstasy!”

When Tahir stopped singing, everyone sank into stillness. It seemed that singing relieved him of some heavy psychological pressure. Once I asked him about work, and he answered in a solemn tone,“I’m just trying to adjust my attitude about some idiotic rules I have to follow.”

I knew he was suffering from serious problems at work. The day before his death, he told me that the school principal had returned his students’ grades to him, shouting in his face, “What’s with these dismal results? Are you trying to get yourself deported?”

“These results just show how spoiled and lazy they are”.

“How dare you judge these students and take it upon yourself to decide their fate. We aren’t paying you to fail our children! Change these grades — otherwise, we’ll find someone to replace you. There are thousands of people who want your job.”

That evening, his face was tense, and I found him mired in the chaos of his papers, recalculating grades. Observing his trembling fingers, I wondered, “Can he rise above this? Where we’re from, people kill themselves when someone in power assaults their dignity. They would rather die than swallow their pride and be subjected to any kind of humiliation.”

The next day, Tahir fled the school grounds like a cat running from fire. Consumed by a cruel madness, he hurled the students’ notebooks in the principal’s face when he got in the way, leaving the man stunned. Tahir raced off in his car, wanting to forget the whole thing and extract that splinter of humiliation. His car went faster, and Tahir’s anger transformed, putting him in a trance: he became fixated on his humiliation.

He forgot about his wife and three daughters, the breathtaking mountains of El Kef shrouded with divine white in winter, and our city’s lush meadows. He used to kick up the snow with his sturdy boots as he walked home from school, looking up at the lofty trees with pride. As he carried his bag weighed down with class notebooks, a flock of children would walk behind him, whispering shyly, “Sir, let us carry the notebooks for you.” Once a source of joy, all this was swept aside.

The car madly propelled him north along the desert road and waves of anger pursued him. The sun’s blazing mass loomed overhead, intercepting him, and his mind went blank. He could think only of his humiliation, his powerlessness. Consumed by rage, he disconnected from himself, and accelerated. Veering sharply, the car flipped over, and in that moment, his existence was uprooted.

Pain courses through me, and I return to the present moment where I’m drowning in oily mire. My ribs contract as I stare out at the unyielding darkness of the universe. The torturous memory lingers, and my patience runs out. I let out a shrill cry of despair, the only thing I can do with this filth and my foolish fate.

God damn me for caring about money! I’m trapped in hell now.

I stand amidst death, a profound silence enveloping me, and I look down upon life from the edge of my days. My mother’s face rises in my memory, and I’m engulfed in a tide of longing for her tenderness. I lift my head to gaze at a dreary sky covered with heavy clouds. There’s no trace of the moon, and I realize that a long time has passed.

Rain never finds this parched ground. Day after day, the relentless heat persists, and the sky is filled with thick, suffocating black clouds. Yesterday morning, we had a brief hour of respite when a cool breeze blew as we escorted Tahir’s body to the airport for his burial in his homeland.

How long we hunt for those fleeting moments of coolness; we treasure their memory for an entire year.

I realize for the first time the distance that separates me from my homeland, and I’m terrified to be so far away. When I first came here, I thought I couldn’t work outside during the day because of the heat. The sun always blazes fiercely overhead, following our every move, stalking us.

Anguish detonates in my chest like an old landmine, and my soul nearly bursts out of my ribcage. I emit a piercing scream that defies reason, shattering the desert’s solemnity. I feel possessed by a strange fever.

A faint light appears in the darkness, and I’m flooded with ecstasy. A phantom figure is running toward me.

He must have caught a glimpse of my headlamp.

When he gets close, his voice is filled with astonishment, and words start spilling out of him. I don’t understand anything except for my name. Overcome with joy, my lips tremble, and my eyes shed generous tears. I rave in turn: “Credo, you’ve finally come… I tripped, my friend, and fell into this accursed pit. I know God loves me, Credo, because He sent you to me, guiding your way.”

Credo lies flat on his stomach and extends his small hand toward me. I lick my salty tears like a child. I take laborious steps through the mud and stretch my hand toward him. When our fingertips meet, Credo clasps my hand tightly and uses all his strength to pull. ّWhen he stands next to me, he is like a mythical creature, taking on the world with intelligence and magnanimity, but now this virtuous man’s arms falter, and they’re unable to lift my massive frame.

Credo looks for another solution. He asks me to be patient for a moment while he brings over a cable. He unfurls the coil and throws the end to me. I eagerly pick it up and wrap it tightly around my chest. Credo grabs the other end and starts pulling my body upward. He is straining, and his breath becomes labored, but he insists on exerting every ounce of energy, and rebelling against his own physical weakness.

That stupid man didn’t even leave us a Land Rover to help us in dangerous situations like these. He tossed us into this empty patch of desert like garbage and left, making sure we knew he wouldn’t come back until he received the signal that the power was back on.

Credo is exhausted. He wipes away sweat with the edge of his shirt, and summons another wave of strength to pull me once more. Soon, though, the weight of my body drags him forward, and I fear he’ll stumble into the hole with me. We’re playing a dangerous game—he pulls me toward life and I pull him toward death.

Suddenly, moving lights appear, and we hear the voices of our comrades rushing toward us. After a moment of shock, one of them grabs the cable with Credo, while two others grip my hands, and they combine their strength to lift my body. Moments later, I’m safely back on the surface of the earth. My friends pat my shoulder, thanking God that I’m safe. My tired eyes fall down to my body dripping with oily mud, and I pass out.

Rachida el-Charni is a Tunisian writer. She has published two short story collections, Life at the Edge of the World (1997) and The Neighing of Questions (2000), which won the Sharjah Award for Arab Creativity in Women’s Writing. She has published two novels, Hymns to Her Grief, (2011) and The Wind Raises Their Names (2024). Several of her short stories have been translated into English. They have been published in Banipal and anthologized in Sardines and Oranges: Short Stories from North Africa (2005) and The Granta Book of the African Short Story (2013).

Anne Willborn is a translator based in San Francisco. She holds a BA in Arabic Language from Middlebury College and an MA in Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures from Indiana University. Her translation of Sonallah Ibrahim’s 1974 novel, Star of August, is forthcoming with Seagull Press.

Also read: The Stories of Rachida el-Charni