“Khunfis?” asked Handusa.
“Yes,” said the man.
He joined the men wordlessly. Rifaa’s eyes were still raised to the mansion. Didn’t his ancestor know his situation? One word from him could save him from the claws of these monsters and spare him from their plot. He was capable of making them hear his voice, just as he had made Rifaa hear it in this place. Gabal had been in a predicament like this, and he had been delivered, and triumphed. But Rifaa passed the wall and heard nothing but the footfalls of these evil men, and their regular breathing. They pressed on into the desert, where the sand made their steps heavy. Rifaa had a feeling of banishment in this desert as he thought back on how the woman had betrayed him and how his friends had sought refuge in flight. He wanted to turn back to the mansion, but abruptly Bayoumi’s hand shoved at his back and he fell on his face.
“Khunfis?” called Bayoumi, lifting his club.
“With you to the end, sir,” said Khunfis, also lifting his club.
“Why do you want to kill me?” Rifaa asked despairingly.
Bayoumi slammed his club down on his head, and Rifaa cried out, then called out from the depths of his soul, “Gabalawi!”
In the next instant, Khunfis’ club came down on his neck, and then the clubs took turns.
Then there was silence, broken only by his death rattle.
Their hands began to dig furiously in the sand in the dark.
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The killers left the desert, heading for the alley, and quickly vanished in the darkness. Four human shapes rose to stand at a spot near the scene of the crime, and could be heard sighing and weeping quietly.
“Cowards!” one of them shouted. “You held me back and wore me out, so he died undefended.”
“If we had obeyed you, we would all have been lost, without saving him,” another told him.
“Cowards!” Ali repeated. “You are nothing but cowards.”
“Don’t waste time talking,” sobbed Karim. “We have a terrible job to finish before morning.”
Hussein raised his head and trained his tearful eyes on the sky, and muttered anxiously, “It will be dawn soon. Let’s be quick.”
“A man whose life was as short as a dream—but in him we lost the most precious thing we knew in life!” wept Zaki.
“Cowards,” muttered Ali through his clenched teeth as he headed toward the scene of the crime.
They followed him, and all knelt in a half circle to examine the ground searchingly.
“Here!” shouted Karim abruptly, like a man stung. He sniffed his hand. “This is his blood!”
“And this fresh area is where he’s buried,” shouted Zaki at the same moment.
They crowded around him and began to scoop the sand away with their hands. No one in the world was more wretched than they, because of the loss of their cherished one, and their helplessness at his death. Karim experienced a moment of madness and said simplemindedly, “Maybe we’ll find him alive!”
“Listen to the delusions of cowards,” snapped Ali, his hands still working.
Their noses were full of the smell of dirt and blood. A dog howled from the direction of the mountain.
“Slow down,” called Ali softly. “This is his body.”
Their hearts pounded, and their hands relented slightly as they heartbrokenly felt the edges of his clothing, then they began to weep loudly. They all helped to draw the corpse out of the sand, and gently lifted it up as the cocks in the alleys and lanes began to crow. Some of them said to hurry, but Ali reminded them that they would need to fill up the hole. Karim took off his cloak and spread it on the ground, and they laid the body on it. They all helped to refill the hole. Hussein removed his cloak and covered the body with it, then they took it up and marched toward Bab al-Nasr. The darkness was lifting over the mountain, revealing clouds, and the dew fell on their tearful faces. Hussein led them along the way to his tomb until they arrived there, and they preoccupied themselves silently with opening the tomb. The light of day spread gradually, until they could see the shrouded body, their bloodstained hands, and eyes red from weeping; then they lifted up the body and descended with it into the tomb’s interior. They stood humbly around it, pressing their eyes to stop the unseen tears that flowed.
“Your life was a brief dream,” said Karim in a voice choked with tears. “But it filled our hearts with love and purity. We did not imagine that you would leave us so quickly, let alone that you would be murdered by a member of our infidel alley, which you healed and loved; our alley, which wanted only to murder the love, mercy and healing that you represented. It has brought a curse upon itself until the end of time.”
“Why do the good die?” sobbed Zaki. “Why do the criminals live?”
“If it had not been for your love that lives on in our hearts,” moaned Hussein, “we would have hated people forever!”
“We will never know peace until we expiate our cowardice,” added Ali.
As they left the tomb, heading back into the desert, the light was dyeing the horizons with the melting hue of a red rose.
62
None of his four companions appeared in Gabalawi Alley again. People thought they had left the alley secretly, after Rifaa, out of fear of the gangsters’ retribution. But the friends lived at the edge of the desert in a state of frayed nerves, wrestling with all their might against the oppression of their pain and sharp regret. Rifaa’s passing pained their hearts more than death, and being deprived of his company was a lethal torment; none of them had any further hope in life than to mourn Rifaa’s death properly by keeping his message alive and seeing to the punishment of his killers, as Ali insisted they must. While it was true that they could not return to the alley, they hoped to accomplish what they wished outside it. One morning the House of Triumph awoke to Abda’s cries, and the neighbors hurried to her to hear the news.
“They killed my son Rifaa,” she shouted hoarsely.
The neighbors were shocked into silence, and looked to Shafi’i, who was drying his eyes.
“The gangsters killed him in the desert,” he said.
“My son, who never hurt anyone in the world,” wept Abda.
“Does our protector Khunfis know about this?” some of them asked.
“Khunfis was one of the killers,” said Shafi’i angrily.
“Yasmina betrayed him—she led Bayoumi to him,” wept Abda.
Horror was plain in their faces.
“So that’s why she’s been staying in his house after his wife left,” someone said.
The news spread through the Al Gabal neighborhood, and Khunfis came to Shafi’i’s house.
“Are you crazy?” he shouted. “What have you been saying about me?”
Shafi’i stood before him unafraid, and said sternly, “That you took part in killing him, when you were his protector!”
Khunfis pretended to be angry. “Shafi’i, you are crazy!” he shouted. “You don’t know what you’re saying. I won’t stay here, so I won’t be forced to punish you!”
He left the house frothing at the mouth. The news spread to Rifaa’s neighborhood, where he had lived after leaving the Al Gabal’s. The people were shocked, and raised their voices, raging and weeping, but the gangsters went out into the alley and patrolled it up and down, clubs in their hands and trouble blazing in their eyes. Then the news spread that sands west of Hind’s Rock had been found blotched with Rifaa’s blood. Shafi’i and his best friends went to look for the corpse there. They searched and excavated but found nothing. The people were frenzied and anxious at the news, and many of them expected trouble in the alley. The people of Rifaa’s neighborhood wondered what he could have done to have been killed. The Al Gabal said, Rifaa was killed, and Yasmina is living in Bayoumi’s house. The gangsters infiltrated by night the place of Rifaa’s murder and dug up his grave by torchlight, but they found no trace of the corpse.
“Did Shafi’i take it?” Bayoumi asked.
“No,” said Khunfis. “My spies have told me
he found nothing.”
“It’s his friends,” shouted Bayoumi, stamping his foot. “It was a mistake to let them escape. Now they’re fighting us behind our backs.”
When they returned, Khunfis leaned close to Bayoumi’s ear and whispered, “Your keeping Yasmina is giving us problems.”
“Admit that you’re a weak leader in your territory,” said Bayoumi, exasperated.
Khunfis bid him an exasperated farewell. The tension had mounted in the Al Gabal and Rifaa neighborhoods, and the gangsters continued to attack any complainers. The alley was so thoroughly terrorized that its people hated going out unless it was unavoidable. One night—when Bayoumi was in Shaldum’s coffeehouse—some of his wife’s relatives sneaked into his house with the intention of attacking Yasmina, but she became aware of them and fled in her nightgown into the desert. They chased her, and she ran like a crazed thing through the darkness even after her pursuers had given up the chase, and kept running until she could scarcely breathe, and had to stop. She panted violently, threw her head back and closed her eyes, until she had regained her breath, then looked behind her and, though she saw nothing, shied at the idea of going back to the alley by night. She looked ahead and saw a faint, faraway light that might be from a hut, and made for it, hoping to find there a place to stay until morning. It took her a long time to get there, but it did seem like a hut, so she went up to the door and called out to the people inside. Suddenly she found herself facing her husband’s most intimate friends: Ali, Zaki, Hussein and Karim.
63
Yasmina froze where she stood and looked from one face to another; they seemed to her like a wall blocking her escape in a nightmare. They stared at her with aversion, and the aversion in Ali’s eyes had an iron severity.
“I’m innocent,” she shouted instinctively. “By the Lord of Heaven, I’m innocent. I went with you until they attacked us, and ran away the same as you did!”
They scowled.
“And who told you we ran away?” asked Ali hatefully.
“If you hadn’t run away,” she quavered, “you wouldn’t be alive now. But I am innocent. I didn’t do anything. All I did was run away!”
“You ran to your master, Bayoumi,” said Ali through clenched teeth.
“Never. Let me go. I am innocent.”
“You’ll go into the belly of the earth!” shouted Ali.
She tried to escape, but he jumped at her and grabbed her shoulders tightly.
“Let me go, for his sake—he never loved killing or killers!”
His hands closed around her neck.
“Wait until we’ve thought about this,” said Karim uneasily.
“Be quiet, cowards!” he shouted, grasping her neck with all of the rage, hatred, pain and remorse at war inside him. She tried in vain to free herself from his grip; she clutched his arms, kicked him and shook her head, but all her effort was lost and in vain. Her strength gave out, her eyes bugged out and then she began to spit blood. Her body convulsed violently, and then was still for good. He let go of her, and she fell at his feet, a corpse.
The next morning, Yasmina’s body was found dumped in front of Bayoumi’s house. The news spread like the dust of a hot sandstorm and everyone, men and women alike, ran toward the gangster’s house. There was a huge din of competing comments, but everyone kept his true feelings secret. The gate of Bayoumi’s house flew open, and the man rushed out like a raging bull and began to club everyone he could. Everyone ran away terrified and took shelter in homes and coffeehouses while the man stood in the empty alley cursing and threatening, and striking the dirt, the walls and the empty air.
The same day, Shafi’i and his wife abandoned the alley. It seemed that every trace of Rifaa had vanished.
But there were things that spoke of him constantly, such as Shafi’i’s home in the House of Triumph, the carpentry shop, Rifaa’s house in the neighborhood that was called “the hospice,” the site of his death west of Hind’s Rock and most of all his loyal companions, who stayed in contact with his admirers and taught them the mysteries of his way of cleansing souls of demons to treat the sick; thus, they were certain, they were restoring Rifaa to life. Ali, however, could not rest unless he was punishing criminals.
“You have nothing to do with Rifaa!” Hussein once scolded him.
“I know Rifaa better than any of you do,” said Ali sternly. “He spent his short life in a violent struggle against demons.”
“You want to go back to gangsterism—the most hateful thing in the world to him.”
“He was a leader, bigger than any gangster, but his gentleness fooled you,” cried Ali fervently.
Each of them went on to promote his own view, in total sincerity. The alley retold Rifaa’s story, with all the facts, which most people had not known. It was reported that his body had lain in the desert until Gabalawi himself came and got it; now it was concealed in the soil of his own fabulous garden. The perilous events were just trailing off there, when the gangster Handusa vanished mysteriously. His mutilated corpse was discovered dumped in front of the house of Ihab the overseer. The overseer’s house was just as convulsed as Bayoumi’s had been, and the alley went through a terrible period of fear. Violence fell like rain on anyone who had had any relation, or imagined relation, with Rifaa or any of his men. Clubs crushed heads and feet trampled bellies, words pierced hearts and hands inflamed necks. Some people locked themselves in their houses, and some abandoned the alley altogether; some, contemptuous of the danger, were executed in the desert. The alley, covered in blackness and gloom, was loud in its screams and wails, and smelled of blood, but strangely, this did not impede further actions. Khalid was killed as he left Bayoumi’s house before dawn, and the rage of the terror mounted to madness, but our alley was awakened from its last sleep one night by a tremendous fire that destroyed the house of the gangster Gaber and killed his family.
“Rifaa’s crazy people are everywhere, like bedbugs!” shrieked Bayoumi. “I swear to God, they are going to be killed, even in their houses!”
Word got around the alley that their houses were to be attacked at night, and people were practically insane with fear. They ran out of their houses in a frantic mob, carrying sticks, chairs, cooking-pot lids, knives, clogs and bricks. Bayoumi planned to strike before things got completely out of control; he lifted his club and came out of his house surrounded by a ring of his followers.
Ali appeared for the first time, leading the rioters with some other strong men. As soon as he saw Bayoumi coming, he ordered bricks to be thrown, and a swarm of bricks as thick as locusts landed on Bayoumi and his men, and the blood began to spout. Bayoumi pounced like a madman, screaming like a savage, but a rock struck the top of his head, and he stopped, and in spite of his rage, his strength and his boldness, he staggered, and then fell down, his face a mask of blood. His followers were quick to flee, and waves of angry rioters swept into the gangster’s house; the sounds of smashing and breaking could be heard by the overseer in his house. Mischief reigned as punishment was meted out to the remaining gangsters and their followers and their houses were laid waste. The danger mounted, and total chaos was near when the overseer summoned Ali, and Ali came to meet him. Ali’s men held off from further revenge and destruction, awaiting the results of this meeting, and things calmed down and people cooled off.
The meeting produced a new covenant in the alley. The followers of Rifaa were recognized as a new community, just like Gabal’s, with its own rights and prerogatives, and Ali was appointed overseer of their estate, and their protector. He would receive their share of the revenues, and distribute them on the basis of total equality. All those who had fled the alley during times of trouble now returned to the new community, led by Shafi’i and his wife, Zaki, Hussein and Karim. Rifaa enjoyed respect, veneration and love in death that he had never dreamed of during his lifetime. There was even a wonderful story, retold by every tongue and recited to rebec tunes, particularly of how Gabalawi lifted up his body and buried it in his fabu
lous garden. All Rifaa’s followers agreed on that and they were unanimously loyal and reverent to his parents, but they differed on everything else. Karim, Hussein and Zaki insisted that Rifaa’s mission had been limited to healing the sick and despising power and majesty; they and their sympathizers in the alley did as he had done. Some went further and refrained from marriage, to imitate him and live their lives his way. Ali, however, retained his rights to the estate, married and called for the renewal of their community. Rifaa had not hated the estate itself, but only to prove that true happiness was achievable without it, and to condemn the vices inspired by covetousness. If the revenue was distributed justly, and put toward building and charity, then it was the greatest good.
In any case, the people were delighted with their good lives, and welcomed life with radiant faces; they said with confident security that today was better than yesterday, and that tomorrow would be better than today.
Why is forgetfulness the plague of our alley?