The Veiled One

When I first met Aziyah, I was doing philosophy at La Sorbonne University in Paris. Our teacher was disserting around Jacques Derrida’s notion of the host when she came late into class. She was wearing a Muslim Burqa, and only her eyes could be seen. She soon became known amongst the class as the “Angel of Death”, the “Owl”, the “Veiled One” and other racist slurs of that sort. I wondered what she was like under the black piece of fabric, what her voice sounded like, but she never talked. Her eyes were impassive. Our teacher only said she was from Iran on an exchange program. He then said no more and returned to his topic.

‘Derrida distinguishes the unconditional from the conditional host. While the former asserts that you are welcomed under my roof but must follow my rules, the latter claims there is no rule at all. My roof is yours and is thus anyone’s, hence becoming a radically open sign, beyond the proper.’

Good old Derrida, I thought. At the same time, I remained sceptical. Here was an example of radical alterity in the flesh; yet I had to resist the compulsive temptation to know what lied behind her veil, to impose my own conditions and leave my mark on her. I was surprised at my own violence, so liberal and tolerant of others I saw myself in comparison to my peers, most of whom had no sense of history at all and took their own history for granted. At liberty they approached her, asking her all sorts of questions – most of them so innate there is no need for me to mention them here – until I recall myself intervening: ‘Leave her alone.’

And alone she was. She would always come late to the class and leave early, as if in transit. I was not particularly a schmoozer myself so I felt some kind of bond united us both. In truth, my “knowledge-power” unsatisfied - as Foucault would have said - I decided one day to follow her after the class. I do not usually follow people, but there I was, hiding amongst the passers-by, along Rue Clovis then Rue Descartes, wondering what on earth I was doing. Rue du Cardinal Lemoine I lost her as she entered a subway station and vanished from sight.

The following week I repeated the experience and managed to get onboard the same subway carriage as her. She did not seem to pay attention to me. I was invisible to her the way she was over-visible to others in her gown. Some looked clearly annoyed at her presence – courtesy, I thought, of our French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s recent decision to ban the Burqa in public spaces. I waited for someone to cry something medieval like “down with the heretic”, or perhaps, “aren’t you hot in here” but everyone remained eerily silent. We changed lines and soon enough I thought I had lost her again until I saw her sitting on a bench waiting for the next train.

At that stage I contemplated the possibility of leaving her alone. Any other decent person would have stopped this silly game. I remember convincing myself to continue, however, out of philosophising myself that someone else might be following me as well. That all of us, in some way, are being followed by the shadows of others; some “shadows” more literal than others, that is true. Perhaps she knew she was being followed, too, only she did not care, so much so that when I sat beside her she did not recognise me. It was hardly if she saw me at all. Her hidden face was lowered down in a pious gesture of submission, waiting. I could smell perfume and wondered (rather stupidly): Do Muslim women go on dates?

I do not remember the rest of the journey. I only remember the dark alley with its flashy neon-signs when we got out of the station. I saw her enter the door of what looked like some hotel. I was left by myself, until I saw a woman walk out of the building and I knew it was her, although she was now wearing a mini-skirt and high heels. And at last she acknowledged me: ‘You’ve been following me;’ and before I could say anything in response she added: ‘I’ve been waiting for you.’

Was this what she would say to any stranger or did she know who I was? Her voice was friendly enough but there was something broken in it. Her face was pretty but her smile was crooked. Suddenly I felt scared. I had had what I wanted. The mask had been unveiled and the comedy was over. The “Veiled One” was a mystery I now wanted to be no part of. The place was lugubrious and I wished to go. But she insisted: ‘Aren’t you gonna come in?’

Now I could not be so sure anymore this was in fact her. The whole situation sounded surreal. I heard myself reply: ‘I was just enquiring after a classmate of mine who works here; her name’s Aziyah.

‘There is no one called Aziyah here. My name’s Brigitte. As I wished to retreat, mumbling some excuse, hands pushed me in the back and grabbed after my neck. I heard a voice whispering in my ears: ‘Now come on in, no drama.’

I was led along endless corridors. I soon felt incredibly hot and asked if wherever we were going there would be water because I needed some. The woman called Brigitte opened a door and let me in: ‘Wait for me, I’ll be back in sec.’ I heard the noise of her high heels down the corridor and soon I heard nothing. I tried to open the door but the door was locked. The first thing I saw was the Burqa which I thought belonged to Aziyah. It lay lifelessly on an armchair. I felt like touching it and soon enough I was searching for the pockets. I only found a word that said: ‘put me on.’

I put it on out of some irresistible drive and lay before the mirror. The robe was light and its tissue soft on my skin. I felt safe in it. When the door opened the woman called Brigitte had a jar and a glass of water in her hands. She offered me a glass and as I drank fast out of some fathomless thirst she commented: ‘You look beautiful. Do you want to leave now?’ We retraced our steps along the same corridors and when I was at the door again, I still had the Burqa on me.

The next morning in class I searched for Aziyah but could not see her. I had kept the Burqa in my closet and slept my way through half of the class. From afar I heard our teacher talk about the way in which signs are always already haunted by other signs, that there is no fixed ontology, only hauntologies, Derrida’s own coinage. Someone made the disparaging comment that Derrida believed in spooks and was just another superstitious charlatan – not a philosopher by any means. When I raised my head out of my desk to see who had made this comment – for the voice sounded eerily familiar to me – I saw the woman called Brigitte. I thought she winked at me for a brief moment.

Later Brigitte and I became friends, although none of us ever mentioned that night again at the hotel. I never saw Aziyah, a.k.a the “Veiled One” again. Her robe is still lying in my closet. Waiting.