I would throw my universal disgust in someone’s face, and he would respond by beating me. In me and through me, he would beat the thing that we both hated: that we were the Lord’s flock, even though our Master never turned toward us but left us standing alone at the edge of the abyss, fearing at every moment that the ground would fall from beneath our feet. We were promised a death that didn’t come, even as we feared His punishment if we made so bold as to leap. I was addicted to the beatings I received as I wandered through the labyrinths of the marginalized, the accursed, and the poor. One day, I’d go down to them in this neighborhood, and the next day in that. I’d get myself turned around, completely lost, and all I had to do was poison someone’s mood with a glance to get him to respond with some provocative word or gesture. I’d respond in kind, and then he would explode with all the coercion and humiliation that had been injected into him. Rock by rock, boulder by boulder, he would collect all the hatred that had calcified within him and smash the stone into my insufferably offensive face.

Was I atoning for some sin? What connection did I have to their misery and wretchedness that made me feel this guilt? What about my own misery and wretchedness? Who was atoning for that? However strange the whole thing seemed, the beatings helped by loosening the painful knots inside. It was as though they healed me by making the pain tangible, visible, like the colors and shapes seen in a photographic negative. After years of treatment and deception, I was now finding my medicine where I least expected, out in the street among ghostly strangers of various dialects and hues.

I began going down to the neighborhoods of my salvation once a week—sometimes twice, according to the damage I could sustain. All things considered, the bruises were no more than spots that changed color with the passage of days, from red to blue and purple, and finally yellow. Then they would fade and disappear. In the yellow stage, it’s possible to camouflage them with a strong skin-colored foundation, which I bought where the Sudanese sex workers bought their makeup supplies. Wounds were more complicated. They were harder to hide, since the skin acquired a thick black crust as it reknit itself, followed by scars that were difficult to hide, especially on my face. So I learned to protect my face as much as possible. Skin needs twenty-one days to renew itself. That’s a long wait, but in the beginning, I tried to respect it. Yet as time went on I gave that up, especially after I noticed that a violated body provokes greater violations, just as submission invites even further assaults. This discovery was a great relief, solving the problems posed by my lack of patience. I started going out for a beating whenever I felt the need, paying no attention to the pain, the damage it did me.