46
Shafi’i opened his carpentry shop at the entrance of the House of Triumph. Abda went out shopping early in the morning, and Shafi’i and his son Rifaa went to work. They sat at the threshold of the shop, waiting for business. The man had enough money to last a month or a little more, so he was not worried. He peered down the passage roofed with residences that led out to the wide courtyard.
“This is the blessed courtyard where Gabal drowned our enemies.”
Rifaa gazed at it with dreaming eyes and a smile.
“And right here is where Adham built his hut and the events of his life actually took place; where Gabalawi blessed his son and forgave him.”
Rifaa’s comely smile broadened, and his eyes were lost in a dream. All beautiful memories were born here. Were it not for the passage of time, the footprints of Gabalawi and Adham would still be here, and the air would still carry their breath. From these windows the water had gushed onto the gangsters in the pit; from Yasmina’s window water had cascaded onto the enemy. Today the window emitted only intimidating gazes. Time satirizes even the sublimest things. Gabal had waited inside the courtyard with weak men, but he had triumphed.
“Gabal triumphed, Father, but what good was his victory?”
“We have promised not to think about it. Have you seen Khunfis?”
“Oh, sir!?” called a flirtatious voice. “You—the carpenter!”
The father and son exchanged grimaces, and the father got up and craned his neck to see Yasmina looking out her window, her long braids loose and swinging.
“Yes?”
“Send up your boy to get my table. It needs to be repaired,” she said in a voice eager with fun.
The man resumed his seat and told his son, “Trust in God.”
Rifaa found the apartment door open for him. “Ahem,” he said, and she gave him leave to come in, so he went in. He found her in a brown robe trimmed in white around the collar and the swell of her breasts. Her legs and feet were bare. She was silent for a moment as if to appraise the effect of her appearance on Rifaa, and when she saw that his eyes were steady and untroubled, she pointed to a small table standing on three legs in a corner of the room.
“The fourth leg is under the sofa,” she said. “Please repair it and refinish the table.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said pleasantly.
“How much?”
“I’ll ask my father.”
“What about you?” she said aggressively. “Don’t you know how much that costs?”
“He’s the one who decides that.”
“Who’s going to fix it?” she asked, looking intently into his face.
“I will, but he’ll supervise and help me.”
She laughed indifferently. “Batikha, the youngest gangster here, is younger than you are, but he can take over a whole wedding procession, and you can’t even repair the leg of a table by yourself!”
“Well, no matter,” said Rifaa, in a voice that made plain his wish to end the conversation, “the table will come back to you like new.” He picked up the fourth leg from underneath the sofa, lifted the table onto his shoulder and headed for the door. “Good day.”
When he put it down in front of his father in their shop, the man examined it and spoke with a trace of exasperation. “To tell the truth, I would have preferred that our first work come from someone more decent.”
“She’s not bad, Father,” said Rifaa innocently, “but she seems to be lonely.”
“There is nothing more dangerous than a lonely woman!”
“Perhaps she needs guidance!”
“Our business is carpentry, not guidance,” snapped Shafi’i. “Pass me the glue.”
That evening Shafi’i and Rifaa went to the Gabal Coffeehouse. Gawad the poet was sitting cross-legged on his bench drinking his coffee. Thick-lipped Shaldum, the coffeehouse owner, sat at the entrance, and Khunfis occupied the seat of honor amid a halo of his admirers. Shafi’i and his son made their way to the gangster to greet him respectfully, then took empty seats near Shaldum. Shafi’i promptly took the pipe and offered his son a glass of cinnamon brew flavored with hazelnuts. The coffeehouse air was lazy. A knotted cloud of smoke rose to the roof, and the motionless air was overlaid with the scent of molassescured tobacco, mint and cloves; the men’s luxuriantly mustached faces were pale and heavy-lidded. There was coughing and hawking, filthy jokes and harsh laughter, and from down the alley came the shouts of boyish songs.
Children of Gabalawi, charm our snakes!
Are you Christians or are you Jews?
What do you eat? We eat dates.
What do you drink? We drink coffee.
A cat crouching by the coffeehouse door sprang under a bench, and there was a rustling sound before she reappeared, racing toward the alley, her teeth closed over a mouse. Rifaa set down his glass of cinnamon brew in disgust and raised his eyes just in time to see Khunfis spitting; then Khunfis bellowed at Gawad the poet, “When are you going to start, old man?”
Gawad smiled and nodded, then took up the rebec and plucked the opening melodies on its strings. He began with one salutation to Ihab the overseer, a second to Bayoumi, the protector of the alley, a third to Gabal’s successor, Khunfis, and went on from there.
“And Adham sat in the estate office, receiving new tenants, and was looking into the ledger when he heard the last man’s voice announce his name.
“ ‘Idris Gabalawi.’
“And Adham looked up in fright and saw his brother standing before him.”
The poet went on with the tale in an air of quiet reverence. Rifaa listened raptly. This was the poet, and these were the tales. How often had he heard his mother say, “Our alley is the alley of tales.” And truly these tales were worth his love. Perhaps they would compensate for the loss of the games of Muqattam and his privacy, and be a repose for his heart, so scorched with a mysterious love, as mysterious as that locked mansion. There was no sign of life there apart from the tops of the sycamore, berry and palm trees. What signs of life were there from Gabalawi, other than trees and tales? What proof was there that he was his descendant, other than the resemblance Gawad the poet had discerned with his hands? Night was coming on, and Shafi’i was smoking his third pipe. The cries of peddlers and shouts of children had died away in the alley, leaving only the rebec melodies, drumbeats from afar, and the shrieks of a woman being beaten by her husband. Adham had now met his fate at the hands of Idris. Out in the desert, followed by sobbing Umaima. Just as my mother left the alley with me stirring in her belly. A curse on all bullies. And on all cats, when mice breathe their last in their jaws, and on every mocking look and cold sneer, and on whoever welcomes his homecoming brother by telling him, “You can’t flee from me when I’m angry,” and on all terrorists and hypocrites. By now there was nowhere for Adham but the desert, and the poet was singing one of Idris’ drunken songs. Rifaa leaned over to his father’s ear and said, “I want to visit other coffeehouses.”
“Our coffeehouse is the best in the alley,” said Shafi’i, surprised.
“What do the poets there say?”
“The same stories, but the way they tell them there you’d never know it.”
Shaldum heard their whispers and leaned over to Rifaa. “Our people are the biggest liars in this alley, and poets are the worst liars of all. In the next coffeehouse you’ll hear that Gabal said he was from the alley, when he just said that he was from the Al Hamdan, by God.”
“A poet will say anything to please his audience,” said Shafi’i.
“You mean he wants to please the gangs!” whispered Shaldum.
The father and son left the coffeehouse at midnight, when the darkness was so intense as to be palpable. Men’s voices came out of nowhere, and a cigarette glowed in an invisible hand like a star falling to earth.
“Did you enjoy the story?” the father asked.
“Yes, what wonderful stories.”
“Gawad loves you,” the father said with a laugh. “What was he telling you
during the break?”
“He invited me to visit him at home.”
“How quickly you come to love people, but you are a boy who learns slowly.”
“I have a whole life for carpentry,” Rifaa said in a tone of apology, “but for now I want to visit all the coffeehouses.”
They felt their way to the passage, where Yasmina’s house resounded with the noise of a drunken brawl and a singing voice: “You in the embroidered cap, who made it? You stitched my heart and now it’s yours.”
“She’s not as lonely as I’d thought,” Rifaa whispered to his father.
“There’s a lot of life you’ve missed, being so solitary,” his father said, sighing.
They climbed up the stairs slowly and cautiously, and abruptly Rifaa said, “Father, I’m going to visit Gawad the poet.”
47
Rifaa knocked at the door of Gawad the poet, at the third house in the Al Gabal neighborhood. Screams of abuse rose from the courtyard, from women who had gathered there to wash clothes and cook. He looked from over the railing of the circular passage that surrounded the courtyard of the house from above. The main fight was between two women, one of whom stood behind a wash bucket, waving her soap-lathered arms, while the other stood at the opening of the passage, sleeves rolled up, answering the obscenities with even more shocking words and jutting out her pelvis contemptuously. The other women had separated into two groups, and their shrieks clashed until the courtyard walls echoed with their hateful curses and filthy libels. He started at what he saw and heard, and turned toward the poet’s door, shocked. Even women, even cats, let alone the gangsters. Claws on every hand and poison on every tongue, fear and hatred in every heart. Pure air was only for the Muqattam Desert or the mansion, where Gabalawi alone was blessed with peace! The door opened on the blind man’s questioning face. Rifaa greeted him and the man’s features broke into a smile as he made room for him to enter.
“Welcome, my boy.”
As soon as Rifaa entered he was met with the strong smell of incense—it was like the breath of an angel. He followed the man to a small square room with cushions around the walls and embroidered reed mats spread over the floor. Through the slats of the closed shutters the afternoon air was as tawny as honey. The ceiling around the suspended light was decorated with pictures of birds, especially doves. The poet sat down cross-legged on a cushion, and Rifaa sat beside him.
“We were making coffee,” the man said.
He called his wife, and a woman with a tray of coffee appeared.
“Come, Umm Bekhatirha, this is Rifaa, the son of our friend Shafi’i.”
“Welcome, my boy,” she said. She was in the middle of her sixth decade, erect and strong, with a piercing gaze and a tattoo above her chin.
Gawad motioned toward their guest. “He listens to everything, Umm Bekhatirha. He’s crazy about stories. People like him really excite poets and please them. The others fall asleep from smoking hashish!”
“To him the stories are new, but they’ve heard them before,” she said playfully.
“That’s one of your demons talking,” said the poet crossly. He turned to Rifaa. “This woman is a very fine exorcist.”
Rifaa watched her eagerly and their eyes met as she offered him a cup of coffee. How he had loved the ceremonies expelling demons in Muqattam Marketplace. His heart had followed them with delight; he would stand in the street with his head raised to the windows, and try to see the incense gliding through the air and the dancers’ rocking heads.
“Didn’t you learn anything about our alley when you lived abroad?” the poet asked.
“My father told me about it, and so did my mother, but my heart was there, and I didn’t really think about the estate and its problems. I was amazed at how many victims it had claimed—I tended to have my mother’s view, to prefer love and peace.”
Gawad shook his head sadly. “How can love and peace live among poverty and gangsters’ clubs!”
Rifaa did not reply; not because there was no answer, but because for the first time his eyes lit upon a strange picture on the right-hand wall of the room. It was painted in oils on the wall itself, like the pictures that ornamented the coffeehouse walls. It depicted a tremendous man, and beside him the houses of the alley, tiny as children’s toys.
“Who is that in the picture?” the boy asked.
“Gabalawi,” said Umm Bekhatirha.
“Has anyone seen him?”
“No, no one of our generation has seen him,” said Gawad. “Even Gabal could not see him clearly in the desert darkness, but the painter drew him from the descriptions of him in the stories.”
“Why did he shut his doors against his descendants?” Rifaa asked with a sigh.
“Old age, they say. Who knows what time has done to him? By God, if he opened his gates, no one in this alley would stay in his squalid house.”
“Can’t you—”
“Don’t trouble yourself about him,” Umm Bekhatirha interrupted. “When the people of our alley start talking about the estate owner, they get to talking about the estate itself, and that leads to every kind of tragedy.”
He shook his head, at a loss. “How can anyone not trouble himself with such a fabulous ancestor?”
“Let’s do as he does—he doesn’t trouble himself with us.”
Rifaa raised his eyes to the picture. “But he met Gabal, and spoke to him.”
“Yes, and when Gabal died, Zanfil came, and then Khunfis, and…heavens! Nothing has ever changed.”
Gawad laughed. “This alley needs someone to rid it of its devils just as you rid people of their demons.”
“Those people are the real demons, ma’am,” said Rifaa smiling. “If you had seen the way Khunfis welcomed my father!”
“I have nothing to do with them. My demons give in to me the way snakes obeyed Gabal. I have all the Sudanese incense and Ethiopian amulets and power-giving chants.”
“Where did you get your power over demons?” asked Rifaa earnestly.
She held him in a wary gaze and said, “It is my profession, just as your father’s profession is carpentry. It came to me from the Giver of all talents!”
Rifaa finished the last drop of his coffee and was about to say something when Shafi’i’s voice rose in a shout from the alley. “Rifaa! Boy! Lazy boy!”
Rifaa went to the window, opened it and looked out until his eyes met his father’s. “Just a half hour more, Father!”
The man heaved his shoulders in what looked like despair and went back to his shop. As Rifaa closed the window, he saw Aisha standing in her usual pose by her window, just as he had first seen her, gazing intently at him. He imagined that she smiled at him, that her eyes spoke to him. He hesitated a moment, then closed the window and sat down again.
Gawad was laughing. “Your father wants you to be a carpenter, but what do you want?”
Rifaa thought about it. “I have to be a carpenter like my father, but I love stories, and these secrets about demons—tell me more, ma’am!”
The woman smiled and seemed inclined to grant him a little of her knowledge. “Every person has a demon which is his master, but not every demon is evil or has to be exorcised.”
“How can we tell one from another?”
“His deeds tell us. You, for example, are a good boy, and your demon deserves only goodness—but this is not the case with the demons in Bayoumi and Khunfis and Batikha!”
“What about Yasmina’s demon, does it need to be exorcised?” he asked innocently.
“Your neighbor?” Umm Bekhatirha laughed. “But the men of Al Gabal want her as she is.”
“I want to know these things,” he said, intensely serious. “Don’t hold anything back.”
“Who could deny anything to this good boy?” said Gawad.
“It would be nice if you visited me as your time allows,” said Umm Bekhatirha, “but only on condition that it doesn’t anger your father. People will ask what this good boy wants with demons; but know that th
e only illness men have is demons.”
Rifaa listened and gazed at the picture of Gabalawi.
48
Carpentry was his living and his future, and there seemed to be no escape from it. If it did not make him happy, what would make him happy? It was better than slaving behind a handcart or carrying baskets, or other lines of work, like being a thug or gangster—how hateful, how detestable they were. Umm Bekhatirha had stirred his imagination as nothing ever had, except for the picture of Gabalawi painted on the wall of the room in the poet Gawad’s house. He begged his father to have a picture like it painted in their house or in the shop, but his father told him, “We have better uses for that kind of money, and it’s only a fairy tale, so what good is that?” All Rifaa could do was say, “I wish I could see him!” His father laughed heartily and chided him, “Wouldn’t it be better to see to your job? You’re not always going to have me here, and you have to prepare for the day when you’ll have the responsibility of your mother, your wife and children, all by yourself.” But Rifaa thought about everything Umm Bekhatirha had done and said, as he had never thought about anything before. What she said about demons seemed to him supremely important. He forgot none of it, even in the happy times he spent visiting all the alley coffeehouses, one after the other. Even the same stories did not make the same profound impression that Umm Bekhatirha’s stories did. Every man had a demon that was his master, and just as the master was, the slave became; that was what Umm Bekhatirha said. How many evenings had he spent with the old lady listening to the drumbeat and watching the taming of the demons. Some ailing people were brought to the house, powerless and still, and others were carried in shackled because of their evil. The right incense was burned, for every condition had its own incense, and the appropriate drumbeat, as every demon demanded its own beat, and then the wonders occurred. We know that every demon has his cure, but what is the cure for the overseer and his gangsters? Those evil things mock exorcism, while perhaps it was created solely for them! Killing was the way to be rid of them, while demons submitted to sweet incense and lovely melodies. How can an evil demon be captivated by beauty and goodness? How strange what we learn from demons and exorcisms! He told Umm Bekhatirha that he wished from the bottom of his heart to pursue the secrets of exorcism. She asked him, Do you crave riches? He answered her that he did not want riches, only to purge the alley. The woman laughed, saying that he was the first man who wanted that job; what fascinated him about it? He assured her, The wisest thing in your work is that you defeat evil with goodness and beauty. His soul was soothed when she began to divulge to him her secrets. To declare his delight, he went up to the roof of the house in the rapture of daybreak to witness the awakening of light, but the mansion, rather than the stars, the silence or the cock, preoccupied his mind, and he gazed at the mansion slumbering among the tall trees and wondered, Where are you, Grandfather? Why don’t you appear, even for a moment? Why don’t you come out, even once? Why don’t you speak—just one word? Do you not know that one word from you could change our alley? Or do you like what is going on here? How beautiful are the trees around your house! I love them because you do. Look at them, so that I can read your looks upon them. His father scolded him when he told him of his notions, and said, “What about your work, you lazy boy! Boys your age are roaming every neighborhood trying to find a living, or making the whole alley tremble when they lift their clubs!”