Children of the Alley

  Hamdan was about to speak, but Gabal spoke first. “Gabalawi did not choose you for his love so that you might fight one another. We will have a life based either on order or on chaos that will do away with everyone; and that is why you are going to lose your eye, Daabis.”

  Daabis was consumed with terror and shouted, “No one is going to lay a hand on me, even if I have to fight all of you.”

  Gabal made for Daabis like a wild bull and struck him so hard in the face with his fist that he fell and lay motionless. He picked him up, still unconscious, and clasped him from behind, grasping him around his arms and chest. He turned to Kaabalha and spoke in a tone of command. “Get up and take your rights.”

  Kaabalha got up but stood uncertainly. Screams could be heard from Daabis’ home. Gabal watched Kaabalha sternly and shouted at him. “Approach, before I bury you alive.”

  Kaabalha moved toward Daabis, and drove his index finger into his right eye until it flopped out; everyone saw it happen. The pitch of the screams from Daabis’ home increased, and some of Daabis’ friends, such as Itris and Ali Fawanis, began to cry.

  “You cowards and evildoers!” shouted Gabal. “By God, you only hated the gangs because they were against you. As soon as any of you get the least power, you lose no time in harassing and attacking others. The only cure for the devils hidden deep inside you is to beat them unmercifully—pitilessly! Either order or ruin!”

  He departed, leaving Daabis with his friends. This incident had a profound effect. Before, Gabal had been a beloved leader; his people thought of him as a gangster who did not want that title or the outward trappings of gangs. Now, he was feared and dreaded. People whispered about his cruelty and oppression, but there were always others to turn their words against them and remind them of the other side of his cruelty: his compassion for those who had been injured, and his genuine desire to establish an order that would safeguard the law, justice and brotherhood among the Al Hamdan. This last view found new support every day in the things that the man said and did, so that even people who had an aversion to Gabal came to like him; those who had feared came to believe; those who turned away from him were inclined to him; and everyone jealously guarded the order he had set up, and abided by it. Honesty and security prevailed in his days, and he remained a symbol of justice and order among his people until he left the world, without having ever deviated from his path.

  —

  This is the story of Gabal.

  He was the first to rise up against oppression in our alley, and the first to be honored by meeting Gabalawi after his isolation. He attained such a degree of power that no one could contend with him, yet he shunned bullying and gangsterism and self-enrichment from protection rackets and drug dealing. He remained a model of justice, power and order among his people. True, he did not concern himself with the other people of our alley. Perhaps he secretly despised them or scorned them as the rest of his people did, but he never wronged them or harmed them, and he set an example for all to follow.

  Good examples would not be wasted on our alley were it not afflicted with forgetfulness.

  But forgetfulness is the plague of our alley.

  Rifaa

  44

  It was nearly dawn. Every living creature in the alley had gone to bed, even the gangsters, the dogs and the cats. Darkness lingered in the corners as if it would never leave. Amid the perfect silence, the gate of the House of Triumph in the Al Gabal neighborhood was opened with extreme caution, and two figures slipped out of it, moving quietly toward the mansion, and they followed along its high wall out to the desert. They stepped warily, and looked back every now and then to make sure that no one was following them, and pressed on into the desert guided by the light of the scattered stars until Hind’s Rock appeared to them as a blotch of darkness blacker than its surroundings. They were a middle-aged man and a pregnant young woman, each carrying an overstuffed bundle. When they reached the rock, the woman sighed wearily. “Shafi’i, I am tired,” she said.

  The man stopped walking and spoke crossly. “May God afflict those who tired you! But rest.”

  The woman set her bundle down on the ground and sat upon it, resting her large belly on her lap. The man stood for a moment to look around, then sat down on his bundle. Breezes laden with the fresh scent of dawn wafted in their direction, but the woman was preoccupied. “Where will I have my baby, do you think?” she asked.

  “Anyplace, Abda, would be better than our accursed alley,” Shafi’i said unhappily.

  He raised his eyes to the mass of the mountain that loomed from the far north to the far south.

  “We’ll go to Muqattam Marketplace, where Gabal went in his time of affliction, and I’ll open a carpentry shop and work just as I did in the alley. I have two hands as good as gold, and enough money for a good start.”

  The woman drew her veil closer over her head and shoulders and said sadly, “We’ll be living in exile, like people who have no family, when we are of the Al Gabal, the best people in the alley!”

  The man spat with contempt and said bitterly, “Best people in the alley! What are we but cowering slaves, Abda? Gabal and his glory days are gone. We got Zanfil, may God send him to Hell, who is against us instead of being for us, who swallows up our money and destroys anyone who complains.”

  Abda could deny none of this. It was as if she were still living through those bitter days and sad nights, but feeling reassured by her distance from the misery of the alley, she turned tenderly to her heart’s happy memories, and she sighed deeply. “There is no other alley like ours, for all the bad things in it. Where would you ever find another mansion like our ancestor’s? Or neighbors like we had? Where could you hear the tales of Adham and Gabal and Hind’s Rock? God’s curse on those evil creatures!”

  “They clubbed anyone for the flimsiest reason, and the others stalked around us like fate itself, with their arrogant faces!”

  He remembered the horrible Zanfil and how he had taken him by the collar and shaken him so violently that his ribs nearly broke, then rolled him in the dirt in front of everybody, only because he had talked about the estate just once! He stamped his foot at the memory and spoke up. “That damned criminal kidnapped Sayidhum’s baby, Sayidhum the head-meat seller, and the baby was never heard from again. He had no pity for a one-month-old! And you wonder ‘Where will I have my baby?’ You’ll have your baby in a place where they don’t massacre children.”

  Abda sighed and spoke gently, as if to soften the meaning of her words. “I just wish you could be satisfied with the same things that satisfy other people.”

  He frowned angrily, masked by the darkness. “What have I done, Abda? Nothing but wonder what happened to Gabal, and Gabal’s covenant, and where is the power of justice, and what brought the Al Gabal back to poverty and humiliation? He wrecked my shop and beat me up, and would have killed me if it hadn’t been for the neighbors. If we had stayed in our house until you gave birth, he would have pounced on the baby just as he did with Sayidhum’s.

  She shook her head sadly. “Oh, if only you had been patient, Shafi’i! Didn’t you hear people say that surely someday Gabalawi will come out of his isolation to save his grandchildren from oppression and disgrace?”

  Shafi’i exhaled a long breath and snapped, “That’s what they say! And I’ve heard them say it since I was a boy, but the truth is that our ancestor has shut himself up in his house, and that the overseer of his estate monopolizes the estate revenues, except what he pays out to gangsters for his protection. Zanfil, the supposed protector of the Al Gabal, takes his share and buries it in his belly, as if Gabal had never appeared in this alley, as if he had never taken the eye of his friend Daabis to pay for the eye of poor Kaabalha.”

  The woman was silent, floating in that sea of blackness. Morning would find her among a strange people. The strangers would be her new neighbors. Her child would be born into their hands. The child would grow up in a strange land, like a limb cut from a tree. She had been reasonabl
y happy among the Al Gabal; she had brought food to her husband in his shop, and at night sat by the window to hear old blind Gawad play the rebec. There was no lovelier music than that, and no lovelier story than Gabal’s—the night he met Gabalawi in the dark and Gabalawi told him, “Be not afraid.” He then helped Gabal, loved and aided him until he triumphed. And he had gone joyfully home to his alley—was anything sweeter than a homecoming after exile?

  Shafi’i’s face was turned up to the sky and its watchful stars, as he gazed at the first rays of light over the mountain, like a white cloud on the horizon of a black sky.

  “We should move. We want to get to Muqattam before sunup,” he warned.

  “I still need rest.”

  “May God afflict those who tired you.”

  How wonderful life would be without Zanfil. Filled with blessings, pure air, the star-studded sky, delightful feelings—but there was also the overseer, Ihab, and the gangsters Bayoumi, Gaber, Handusa, Khalid, Batikha and Zanfil. It was possible for every house to become like the mansion, and for their cries to turn to song, but the miserable people longed for the impossible just as Adham had longed for it before them. And who were these poor people? Men whose backs were swollen from beating, whose buttocks were inflamed from kicks. Their eyes were tormented by flies, and lice infested their heads.

  “Why has Gabalawi forgotten us?”

  “God knows,” the woman murmured.

  “Gabalawi!” shouted the man in mingled grief and anger.

  His voice echoed back to him.

  “Trust in God,” he told her.

  Abda stood, and he took her hand. They trudged south, toward Muqattam Marketplace.

  45

  “Here is our alley,” said Abda, joy plain in her eyes and her smile. “And here we are coming home to it after our exile—thanks be to Almighty God!”

  Shafi’i smiled and wiped his forehead with the sleeve of his cloak. “It’s wonderful to be home!” he said gravely.

  Rifaa listened to his parents, his serene, handsome features reflecting surprise mingled with sorrow, and spoke almost reprovingly. “Have you already forgotten Muqattam and our neighbors?”

  His mother smiled and brought the edge of her wrap over her hair, which was graying with age. She realized that the lad loved his birthplace as much as she loved hers, and that with his naturally gentle and friendly disposition he could not forget friendships.

  “Good things are never forgotten,” she answered him, “but this is your original home. Your people are here, the best people in the alley. You will love them, and they will love you. How wonderful Gabal’s neighborhood will be now that Zanfil is dead.”

  “Khunfis won’t be any better than Zanfil,” Shafi’i warned them.

  “But Khunfis has no grudge against you.”

  “Gangsters’ grudges form as fast as mud after rain.”

  “Don’t think that way,” said Abda urgently. “We have come back here to live in peace. You’ll open your shop, and we’ll make a living. Don’t forget that you lived under gang protection in Muqattam. People do everywhere.”

  The family continued their journey toward the alley, led by Shafi’i carrying a sack, and behind him Abda and Rifaa, who was carrying an enormous bundle. Rifaa was a good-looking lad: tall and slender, with an innocent face that radiated warmth and gentility: a stranger to the earth he walked upon. His eyes lovingly contemplated everything around him until they were drawn to the mansion that stood alone at the head of the alley, and the tops of the trees swaying above the wall. He gazed at it for a long time. “Our ancestor’s house?” he then asked.

  “Yes,” said Abda delightedly. “Remember what I told you about it? Your ancestor is there, the owner of all the land and everything on it. All goodness is his, and all gratitude is due to him. If it weren’t for his isolation from us, the alley would be full of light.”

  “In his name, Ihab the overseer plunders our alley,” Shafi’i added mockingly, “and the gangsters attack us.”

  They proceeded toward the alley, along the southern wall of the mansion. Rifaa’s eyes hung on the locked house. The house of Ihab, the estate overseer, came into view, its gatekeeper seated on a bench by the open gate. Before him stood the house of the alley’s gangster, Bayoumi, in front of which was parked a horse-drawn cart filled with bushels of rice and baskets of fruit; servants were making several trips to carry these into the house. The alley seemed to be a playground for barefoot boys, while in front of the doorways families were spread out on the ground or on reed matting, cleaning beans or chopping greens, talking and telling jokes, scolding and snapping at one another with loud shouts and shrieks of laughter. Shafi’i’s family headed for Gabal’s neighborhood, and encountered an old blind man in the street, slowly feeling his way with his stick.

  Shafi’i lowered the sack from his back and approached him, his features aglow with pleasure, until he stood before him. “Peace upon you, Gawad the poet!” he cried.

  The poet stopped and cupped his ear attentively, then shook his head in puzzlement. “And peace upon you! I know that voice!”

  “Have you forgotten your friend Shafi’i the carpenter?”

  The man’s face lit up with delight. “Shafi’i, by God!” He opened his arms and the men embraced warmly until passersby stared at them and two wicked boys imitated their embrace. Gawad squeezed his friend’s hand. “You left us twenty years ago or more, a lifetime ago! How is your wife?”

  “Fine, Gawad,” said Abda. “I hope you are well. This is our son Rifaa. Kiss the dear poet’s hand.”

  Rifaa approached the poet gladly, took his hand and kissed it.

  The man patted him on the shoulder and explored his head and the features of his face curiously. “Marvelous—marvelous!” he said. “You are just like your ancestor!”

  The praise lit up Abda’s face, and Shafi’i laughed. “You wouldn’t say that if you saw how skinny he is.”

  “Close enough. There is only one Gabalawi. What does the lad do?”

  “I have taught him carpentry, but he’s a pampered only child. He spends a little time in my shop and then the rest of the day he wanders in the desert and on the mountain.”

  “A man never settles down until he’s married.” The poet smiled. “Where have you been, Shafi’i?”

  “In Muqattam.”

  “Just as Gabal did,” the man said with a deep laugh, “but he came back a snake charmer, and you come back a carpenter as you were when you left. Anyway, your enemy is dead, even if his replacement is no better.”

  “They’re all the same,” Abda put in quickly. “But all we want is to live like peaceable people.”

  Some men recognized Shafi’i and hurried over to him. They all embraced him and there was a clamor of welcomes, while Rifaa resumed his infatuated examination of his surroundings; his own people were alive and breathing around him, which considerably lightened the gloom that had clouded his heart since he had left Muqattam Marketplace. His eyes roamed around until they settled on a window in the first house, out of which a girl was looking intently at his face. When their eyes met, she lifted her gaze to the horizon. One of his father’s friends noticed this and whispered, “Aisha—daughter of Khunfis. One look at her could start a massacre!”

  Rifaa blushed.

  “He’s not that kind of boy,” his mother said. “He’s just seeing his alley for the first time.”

  A man with a bull’s muscular bulk came out of the house, swaggering in his flowing galabiya, a coarse mustache bristling over his mouth. His face was scarred and cratered. “Khunfis…Khunfis,” people whispered to one another. Gawad took Shafi’i by the hand and guided him toward the house.

  “God’s peace on the protector of the Al Gabal. May I present our brother Shafi’i the carpenter. He has come home to his alley after a twenty-year absence!”

  Khunfis stared into Shafi’i’s face but ignored the hand offered him for several moments before extending his own, though even then his face did not soften. “
Welcome,” he murmured coolly.

  Rifaa considered him resentfully. His mother whispered to him to go and introduce himself; which he did unwillingly, and put out his hand.

  “My son, Rifaa,” said Shafi’i.

  Khunfis gave Rifaa a look of aversion and disdain, which the people understood as contemptuous of the boy’s gentleness, so out of place in this alley. He shook his hand indifferently and turned to Rifaa’s father. “So, have you forgotten the way things go in our alley?”

  Shafi’i understood what was meant, but did not show his irritation. “We are at your service anytime, sir.”

  “Why did you leave your alley anyway?” Khunfis asked, searching his face suspiciously.

  Shafi’i was silent a moment as he tried to think of the right answer.

  “Fleeing Zanfil?” he was asked.

  “It wasn’t for doing anything unforgivable,” Gawad the poet said promptly.

  “You can’t flee from me when I’m angry,” Khunfis told Shafi’i in a tone of warning.

  “You’ll find us to be very fine people,” said Abda hopefully.

  Shafi’i and his family passed among their friends to the walk of the House of Triumph to move into the empty rooms to which Gawad guided them. A girl of insolent beauty came into view from a window that overlooked the walk; she stood combing her hair before a glass window, and when she saw the new arrivals she asked coquettishly, “Who’s the dreamboat?”

  Everyone laughed.

  “A new neighbor for you, Yasmina,” said one man. “He’ll live in the walk right in front of you.”

  “God give us more men!” She laughed.

  Her eyes passed briefly over Abda but settled firmly and admiringly on Rifaa, who was even more taken aback by her stare than by that of Aisha the daughter of Khunfis. He followed his parents to the door of their home, across from Yasmina’s on the other side of the walk. He heard Yasmina’s voice singing, “Mama, what a pretty boy!”