The Beggar, the Thief and the Dogs, Autumn Quail

  A moment of silence passed, at the end of which Bayaza said, “Calm yourself first.”

  “She must come back to me.”

  “Let the judge decide that,” the detective said sharply, then turned questioningly to Ilish. “Yes?”

  “It has nothing to do with me. Her mother will never give her up, except in compliance with the law.”

  “Just as I pointed out at the beginning. There’s no more to be said. It’s up to a court of law.”

  Said felt that if once given vent, his rage would be unrestrainable and therefore with supreme effort he managed to keep it under control, reminding himself of things he had almost forgotten. “Yes, the court of law,” he said as calmly as he could.

  “And as you can see, the girl is being very well looked after,” said Bayaza.

  “First find yourself an honest job,” the detective said with an ironic smile.

  Able now to control himself, Said said, “Yes, of course. All that’s quite correct. No need to be upset. I’ll reconsider the whole affair. The best thing would be to forget the past and start looking for a job to provide a suitable home for the child when the time comes.”

  During the surprised silence that followed this speech, glances were exchanged, some incredulous, some perhaps not. The detective gathered his worry beads into his fist and asked, “Are we finished now?”

  “Yes,” Said answered. “I only want my books.”

  “Your books?”

  “Yes.”

  “Most of them have been lost by Sana,” Ilish said loudly, “but I’ll bring you whatever is left.” He disappeared for a few minutes and returned carrying a modest pile of books, which he deposited in the middle of the room.

  Said leafed through them, picking up one volume after another. “Yes,” he remarked sadly, “most of them have been lost.”

  “How did you acquire all this learning?” the detective said with a laugh, rising to signal the end of the meeting. “Did you steal reading matter as well?”

  They all grinned except Said, who went out carrying his books.

  TWO

  He looked at the door, open as it always used to be, as he walked up Jabal Road toward it. Here, enclosed by ridges of the Muqattam hill, was the Darrasa quarter, the scene of so many pleasant memories. The sandy ground was dotted with animals, teeming with children. Said gazed delightedly at the little girls panting from both emotion and exhaustion. Men lolled around him in the shade of the hill, away from the declining sun.

  At the threshold of the open door he paused, trying to remember when he’d crossed it last. The simplicity of the house, which could hardly be different from those of Adam’s day, was striking. At the left corner of the big, open courtyard stood a tall palm tree with a crooked top; to the right an entrance corridor led by an open door—in this strange house no door was ever closed—to a single room. His heart beat fast, carrying him back to a distant, gentle time of childhood, dreams, a loving father, and his own innocent yearning. He recalled the men filling the courtyard, swaying with their chanting, God’s praise echoing from the depths of their hearts. “Look and listen, learn and open your heart,” his father used to say. Besides a joy like the joy of Paradise that was aroused in him by faith and dreams, there had also been the joy of singing and green tea. He wondered how Ali al-Junaydi was.

  From inside the room he could hear a man concluding his prayers. Said smiled, slipped in carrying his books, and saw the Sheikh sitting cross-legged on the prayer carpet, absorbed in quiet recitation. The old room had hardly changed. The rush mats had been replaced by new ones, thanks to his disciples, but the Sheikh’s sleeping mattress still lay close to the western wall, pierced by a window through which the rays of the declining sun were pouring down at Said’s feet. The other walls of the room were half covered with rows of books on shelves. The odor of incense lingered as if it were the same he remembered, never dissipated, from years ago. Putting down his load of books, he approached the Sheikh.

  “Peace be upon you, my lord and master.”

  Having completed his recitation, the Sheikh raised his head, disclosing a face that was emaciated but radiant with overflowing vitality, framed by a white beard like a halo, and surmounted by a white skullcap that nestled in thick locks of hair showing silvery at his temples. The Sheikh scrutinized him with eyes that had been viewing this world for eighty years and indeed had glimpsed the next, eyes that had not lost their appeal, acuteness, or charm. Said found himself bending over his hand to kiss it, suppressing tears of nostalgia for his father, his boyish hopes, the innocent purity of the distant past.

  “Peace and God’s compassion be upon you,” said the Sheikh in a voice like Time.

  What had his father’s voice been like? He could see his father’s face and his lips moving, and tried to make his eyes do the service of ears, but the voice had gone. And the disciples, the men chanting the mystical dhikr, “O master, the Prophet is at your gate!”—where were they now?

  He sat down cross-legged on the rush mat before the Sheikh. “I am sitting without asking your permission,” he said. “I remember that you prefer that.” He sensed that the Sheikh was smiling, though on those lips concealed amidst the whiteness, no smile was visible. Did the Sheikh remember him? “Forgive my coming to your house like this. But there’s nowhere else in the world for me to go.”

  The Sheikh’s head drooped to his breast. “You seek the walls, not the heart,” he whispered.

  Said was baffled; not knowing what to say, he sighed, then quietly remarked, “I got out of jail today.”

  “Jail?” said the Sheikh, his eyes closed.

  “Yes. You haven’t seen me for more than ten years, and during that time strange things have happened to me. You’ve probably heard about them from some of your disciples who know me.”

  “Because I hear much I can hardly hear anything.”

  “In any case, I didn’t want to meet you under false pretenses, so I’m telling you I got out of jail only today.”

  The Sheikh slowly shook his head, then, opening his eyes, said, “You have not come from jail.” The voice was sorrowful.

  Said smiled. This was the language of old times again, where words had a double meaning.

  “Master, every jail is tolerable, except the government jail.”

  The Sheikh glanced at him with clear and lucid eyes, then muttered, “He says every jail is tolerable except the government jail.”

  Said smiled again, though he’d almost given up hope of being able to communicate, and asked, “Do you remember me?”

  “Your concern is the present hour.”

  Fairly certain that he was remembered, Said asked for reassurance: “And do you remember my father, Mr. Mahran, God have mercy upon his soul?”

  “May God have mercy upon all of us.”

  “What wonderful days those were!”

  “Say that, if you can, about the present.”

  “But…”

  “God have mercy upon us all.”

  “I was saying, I just got out of jail today.”

  The Sheikh nodded his head, showing sudden vigor. “And as he was impaled on the stake he smiled and said, ‘It was God’s will that I should meet Him thus.’ ”

  My father could understand you. But me you turned away from, treating me as if you were turning me out of your house. And even so I’ve come back here, of my own accord, to this atmosphere of incense and disquiet, because a man so desolate, with no roof over his head, cannot do otherwise.

  “Master, I have come to you now when my own daughter has rejected me.”

  The Sheikh sighed. “God reveals His secrets to His tiniest creatures!”

  “I thought that if God had granted you long life, I would find your door open.”

  “And the door of Heaven? How have you found that?”

  “But there is nowhere on earth for me to go. And my own daughter has rejected me.”

  “How like you she is!”

  “In what way, Master?” br />
  “You seek a roof, not an answer.”

  Said rested his head with its short, wiry hair on his dark, thin hand, and said, “My father used to seek you out when he was in trouble, so I found myself…”

  “You seek a roof and nothing else.”

  Convinced that the Sheikh knew who he was, Said felt uneasy but did not know why. “It’s not only a roof,” he said. “I want more than that. I would like to ask God to be pleased with me.”

  The Sheikh replied as if intoning. “The celestial Lady said, ‘Aren’t you ashamed to ask for His good pleasure while you are not well pleased with Him?’ ”

  The open space outside resounded with the braying of a donkey, which ended in a throaty rattle like a sob. Somewhere a harsh voice was singing, “Where have luck and good fortune gone?” He remembered once when his father had caught him singing “I Give You Three Guesses”: his father had punched him gently and said, “Is this an appropriate song on our way to the blessed Sheikh?” He remembered how, in the midst of the chanting, his father had reeled in ecstasy, his eyes swimming, his voice hoarse, sweat pouring down his face, while he himself sat at the foot of the palm tree, watching the disciples by the light of a lantern, nibbling a fruit, rapt in curious bliss. All that was before he’d felt the first scalding drop of the draught of love.

  The Sheikh’s eyes were closed now, as if he were asleep, and Said had become so adjusted to the setting and atmosphere that he could no longer smell the incense. It occurred to him that habit is the root of laziness, boredom, and death, that habit had been responsible for his sufferings, the treachery, the ingratitude, and the waste of his life’s hard toil. “Are the dhikr meetings still held here?” he asked, attempting to rouse the Sheikh.

  But the Sheikh gave no answer. Even more uneasy now, Said asked a further question: “Aren’t you going to welcome me here?”

  The Sheikh opened his eyes and said, “Weak are the seeker and the sought.”

  “But you are the master of the house.”

  “The Owner of the house welcomes you,” the Sheikh said, suddenly jovial, “as He welcomes every creature and every thing.” Encouraged, Said smiled, but the Sheikh added, as if it were an afterthought, “As for me, I am master of nothing.”

  The sunlight on the rush mat had retreated to the wall.

  “In any case,” said Said, “this house is my real home, as it always was a home for my father and for every supplicant. You, my Master, deserve all our gratitude.”

  “ ‘Lord, you know how incapable I am of doing You justice in thanking you, so please thank yourself on my account!’ Thus spake one of the grateful.”

  “I am in need of a kind word,” Said pleaded.

  “Do not tell lies.” The Sheikh spoke gently, then bowed his head, his beard fanning out over his chest, and seemed lost in thought.

  Said waited, then shifted backward to rest against one of the bookshelves, where for several minutes he sat contemplating the fine-looking old man, until finally impatience made him ask, “Is there anything I could do for you?”

  The Sheikh did not bother to respond and a period of silence followed, during which Said watched a line of ants nimbly crawling along a fold in the mat. Suddenly the Sheikh said, “Take a copy of the Koran and read.”

  A little confused, Said explained apologetically, “I just got out of jail today, and I have not performed the prayer ablutions.”

  “Wash yourself now and read.”

  “My own daughter has rejected me. She was scared of me, as if I was the devil. And before that her mother was unfaithful to me.”

  “Wash and read,” replied the Sheikh gently.

  “She committed adultery with one of my men, a layabout, a mere pupil of mine, utterly servile. She applied for divorce on grounds of my imprisonment and went and married him.”

  “Wash and read.”

  “And he took everything I owned, the money and the jewelry. He’s a big man now, and all the local crooks have become followers and cronies of his.”

  “Wash and read.”

  “It wasn’t thanks to any sweat by the police that I was arrested.” Said went on, the veins in his forehead pulsing with anger. “No, it wasn’t. I was sure of my safety, as usual. It was that dog who betrayed me, in collusion with her. Then disaster followed disaster until finally my daughter rejected me.”

  “Wash and read the verses: ‘Say to them: if you love God, then follow me and God will love you’ and ‘I have chosen thee for Myself.’ Also repeat the words: ‘Love is acceptance, which means obeying His commands and refraining from what He has prohibited and contentment with what He decrees and ordains.’ ”

  I could see my father listening and nodding his head with pleasure, looking at me with a smile as if saying: “Listen and learn.” I had been happy then, hoping no one could see me, so I could climb the palm tree or throw up a stone to bring down a date, singing to myself along with those chanting men. Then one evening when I’d come back to the students’ hostel in Giza I saw her coming towards me, holding a basket, pretty and charming, all the joys of heaven and torments of hell that I was fated to experience hidden within her.

  What had it been about the chanting I’d liked, when they recited: “As soon as He appeared the beacon of faith shone” and: “I saw the crescent moon and the face of the beloved”? But the sun is not yet set. The last golden thread is receding from the window. A long night is waiting for me, the first night of freedom. I am alone with my freedom, or rather I’m in the company of the Sheikh, who is lost in heaven, repeating words that cannot be understood by someone approaching hell. What other refuge have I?

  THREE

  Flipping eagerly through the pages of Al-Zahra until he found Rauf Ilwan’s column, Said began to read while still only a few yards from the house where he’d spent the night, the house of Sheikh Ali al-Junaydi. But what was it that seemed to be inspiring Ilwan now? Said found only comments on women’s fashions, on loudspeakers, and a reply to a complaint by an anonymous wife. Diverting enough, but what had become of the Rauf Ilwan he’d known? Said thought of the good old days at the students’ hostel, and particularly of the wonderful enthusiasm that had radiated from a young peasant with shabby clothes, a big heart, and a direct and glittering style of writing. What was it that had happened in the world? What lay behind these strange and mysterious events? Did things happen that were similar to what took place in al-Sayrafi Lane? And how about Nabawiyya and Ilish and that dear little girl who rejected her father? I must see him, he thought. The Sheikh has given me a mat to sleep on, but I need money. I must begin life afresh, Mr. Ilwan, and for that purpose you are no less important than Sheikh Ali. You are, in fact, the most important thing I have in this insecure world.

  He walked on until he reached the Zahra offices in Maarif Square, an enormous building, where his first thought was that it would be very difficult to break into. The rows of cars surrounding it were like guards around a prison; the rumble of printing presses behind the grilles of the basement windows was like the low hum of men sleeping in a dormitory. He joined the stream of people entering the building, presented himself at the information desk, and asked in his deep “public” voice for Mr. Rauf Ilwan. Staring back with some displeasure at the bold, almost impudent look in his eyes, the reception clerk snapped, “Fourth floor.” Said made for the elevator at once, joining people among whom he looked rather out of place in his blue suit and gym shoes, the oddness emphasized by the glaring eyes on either side of his long aquiline nose. A girl caught his eye, which made him curse his ex-wife and her lover under his breath, promising them destruction.

  From the corridor of the fourth floor he slipped into the secretary’s office before an attendant had time to intercept him and found himself in a large rectangular room with one glass wall overlooking the street, but no place to sit. He heard the secretary on the telephone, telling someone that Mr. Rauf was at a meeting with the editor-in-chief and would not be back for at least two hours. Feeling alien and
out of place, Said poised himself with bravado, staring at the other people in the room almost defiantly, remembering a time when he would have fixed his gaze on people like them as if he wished to cut their throats. What were such people like nowadays? he wondered.

  Rauf was now a very important man, it seemed, a great man, as great as this room. It isn’t a suitable place for reunion of old friends. Rauf won’t be able to behave naturally here. There was a time when he’d been nothing more than a scribbler with the magazine Al-Nadhir, tucked away in Sharia Muhammad Ali, a poor writer whose voice rang with demands for freedom. I wonder what you’re like now, Rauf? Will he have changed, like you, Nabawiyya? Will he disown me, as Sana has done? No, I must banish these evil thoughts. He’s still a friend and mentor, a sword of freedom ever drawn, and he’ll always be like that, despite this impressiveness, this plush office suite, and those puzzling articles. If this citadel will not allow me to embrace you, Rauf, I’ll have to look in the telephone directory and find your home address.

  Seated on the damp grass along the riverbank beside Sharia al-Nil, he waited. He waited even longer near a tree silhouetted by the light of an electric lamp. The crescent moon had gone down early, leaving stars to glitter in a sky profoundly black, and a soft breeze blew, distilled from the breath of the night after a day of stunning, searing summer. There he sat, with his arms clasped around his knees and his back to the river, his eyes fixed on villa number 18.

  What a palace, he thought. It was open on three sides, and an extensive garden lay on the fourth. The trees stood around the white body of the building like whispering figures. A scene like this felt familiar, full of reminders of the good living he’d once enjoyed. How had Rauf managed it? And in such a short time! Not even thieves could dream of owning a thing like this. I never used to look at a villa like this except when I was making plans to break into it. Is there really any hope of finding friendship in such a place now? You are indeed a mystery, Rauf Ilwan, and you must be made to reveal your secret.