79
When Qassem went into his house, he found Zachary, Uwais, Hassan, Sadeq, Agrama, Shaaban, Abu Fisada and Hamroush. They looked at him in sympathetic silence. He sat down beside his wife.
“Didn’t I tell you?” said Uwais.
“Please, uncle, let him catch his breath,” Qamar scolded.
“The worst hardships are the ones you cause yourself!” he said anyway.
Zachary studied Qassem’s face carefully. “They insulted you, nephew. I know you as well as I know myself. You didn’t need all this.”
“If it weren’t for Lady Amina, you wouldn’t have come back alive,” said Uwais.
Qassem scanned his friends’ faces. “That dirty lawyer betrayed us,” he said.
Their faces hardened, and they exchanged anxious looks. Uwais was the first to speak. “Disband now, while you can, and thank God that you got away.”
“What do you say, cousin?” Hassan asked.
Qassem thought a moment. “I can’t lie to you: death threatens us. I will excuse any of you who don’t want to help me.”
“Let it end here,” said Zachary.
“I will not abandon it, whatever the consequences may be,” said Qassem with quiet determination. “I will never be less faithful to my ancestor and the people of this alley than Gabal or Rifaa were.”
Uwais got up angrily and left the room, saying, “He’s crazy. God help you, niece.”
Sadeq stood and went straight to Qassem and kissed his forehead. “What you’ve said gives me back my spirit.”
“The people of our alley kill one another over a coin, or for no reason at all,” said Hassan urgently. “Why should we be afraid of dying, when we have something worth dying for?”
Sawaris’ voice sounded in the alley, calling Zachary, who stuck his head out the window and told him to come in. In a moment he entered the room and sat down, scowling darkly. He looked at Qassem. “I didn’t know there was a protector in this alley besides me!”
“It’s not as you’ve been told,” said Zachary worriedly.
“What I was told was worse than that.”
“The devil has played with our children’s minds,” said Zachary plaintively.
“Lahita made me listen to some pretty rough things because of your nephew,” said Sawaris coarsely. “I had thought he was a levelheaded boy, but he’s completely crazy. Now, listen. If I’m too easy on you, Lahita will come and punish you himself, but I will not let anyone expose me to ridicule. So don’t go too far, and God help anyone who decides to be stubborn.”
Sawaris began to watch Qassem’s friends, and let none of them go near his house; he humiliated Sadeq and punched Abu Fisada to enforce his orders, and asked Zachary to advise Qassem to stay inside his house until the trouble was forgotten. Qassem found himself a prisoner in his own house, as no one but Hassan visited him, but there was no power that could imprison the news of the alley. Whispers of the excitement in the Desert Rats’ territory made their way to Gabal and Rifaa: the lawsuit almost filed against the overseer, rumors about the Ten Conditions, even of a meeting between Qassem and Gabalawi’s servant Qandil. People were stirred up with every possible emotion, and the accusations and sardonic jokes flew.
“The alley is whispering about all this,” Hassan told Qassem one day. “In the hashish dens you’re all they’re talking about.”
Qassem turned to him a face clouded with worry and deep thought, as it had been for days. “We’ve become prisoners. Time is passing, and nothing is being done.”
“No creature is expected to be superhuman,” said Qamar soothingly.
“Our brothers are as fired up as they can be,” said Hassan.
“Is it true that in Gabal and Rifaa they say I’m crazy and a liar?”
“Cowardice corrupts men,” said Hassan, sounding pained and looking away.
Qassem shook his head in bewilderment. “Why do people of Gabal and Rifaa call me a liar, when they have people who’ve met Gabalawi or spoken to him? Why do they call me a liar, when they should be the first to believe me and support me?”
“Cowardice is the curse of our alley. That’s why they’re such hypocrites with the gangsters!”
They heard Sawaris’ voice in the street, rising like a bull’s bellow of curses and insults. The family looked out the window and saw Sawaris, who had Shaaban by the collar and was shouting at him.
“What are you doing here, you son of a whore?”
The boy tried vainly to slip out of his grasp. Sawaris had him by the neck with his left hand while he struck him repeatedly on his face and head with his right.
Enraged, Qassem left the window and ran to the door, ignoring Qamar’s pleas. In under a minute he was standing before Sawaris. “Leave him alone, Sawaris,” he said resolutely.
The man did not stop brutally beating his prey. “Just behave yourself, or I’ll have even your enemies crying over you.”
Qassem grabbed his right hand and gripped it hard, shouting furiously, “I won’t let you kill him, do what you want.”
Sawaris let Shaaban go, and the boy fell unconscious on the ground. He snatched a basket of dirt from off the head of a passing woman and dumped it over Qassem’s head. Hassan would have pounced on him had not Zachary’s arm encircled him just in time. Qassem removed the basket from his head; his face was covered with dirt, and the dirt poured from his head and clothing until he was filthy. A fit of coughing seized him; Qamar screamed, Sakina shouted and Uwais came running. Men, women and children poured through doorways toward the scene, amid a rising babble of voices. Zachary was restraining his son Hassan with all his might, and looked into his bugged-out eyes with a plea and a warning.
Uwais approached Sawaris. “I’ll take the blame for this, Sawaris.”
“Mercy, Sawaris,” shouted several voices.
“With all these friends and relatives, Sawaris is lost, and turned into a woman instead of a gangster!”
“God forgive us, Sawaris, you’re our master and we fear you!” said Zachary.
Sawaris walked off to the coffeehouse, the men lifted up Shaaban, Hassan brushed the dirt off of Qassem’s face and clothing and everyone present could—now that Sawaris was gone—express their sympathy.
80
That evening, one of the buildings in the Desert Rats’ neighborhood emitted a ragged cry of mourning, and in moments it was echoed by dozens of voices in the building. Qassem looked out of the window and asked Fatin, the nut seller, what was happening. “Long life to you,” the man said, “Shaaban is dead.” Stunned, he left the house, heading for Shaaban’s building, which was only two houses down from his. There he found the courtyard dark but crowded with the residents of the lower-level apartments who had come to offer words of comfort, sorrow and anger, while the halls of the upper floors rang with voices.
“He didn’t die, Sawaris killed him!” a woman was heard to shout violently.
“God damn you, Sawaris!”
“Qassem killed him! He makes up lies, and our men get killed!” cried a third.
Qassem’s heart contracted with sorrow. He moved through the darkness up to the second floor, where the deceased’s family lived. He saw, by the light of a fixed lamp in the entryway wall, his friends Hassan, Sadeq, Agrama, Abu Fisada, Hamroush and others.
Sadeq came to him, weeping, and embraced him without a word, his face haggard in the dim light. “His death will not go unavenged,” he said.
Agrama approached Qassem and whispered in his ear. “His wife is in a very bad state. She even accused us of killing him.”
“Poor thing,” Qassem whispered back.
“The murderer must be killed,” said Hassan vengefully.
“What witness would come forward in this alley?” said Abu Fisada irritably.
“We can kill just as well as anyone else,” said Hassan.
Qassem jabbed Hassan to quiet him. “It would be wisest not to walk in his funeral, but we’ll all meet in the graveyard.”
Qassem headed into
the dead man’s apartment; Sadeq tried to prevent him, but he brushed him aside and entered. He called Shaaban’s wife, and she came, looking surprised; she gazed at him tearfully, then her eyes hardened. “What do you want?”
“I’ve come to offer my condolences.”
“You killed him,” she said sharply. “We could have done without the estate, but we needed him.”
“God give you patience, and confound evildoers,” he said gently. “We are your family, whenever you need family. His blood will not be lost.”
She stared at him distrustfully, then turned and left him. With her withdrawal there was an outburst of wailing and sobbing, and he left, downcast and worried.
When morning came, the people saw Sawaris sitting at the entrance of the Dingil Coffeehouse, showing passersby a face triumphant in its menace and criminality. People greeted him more warmly than usual to hide their bitterness. They shied away from taking part in the mourning ceremony, instead staying in their shops, behind their carts or on the ground. The bier was carried out at noon, escorted only by family and friends, but Qassem joined them, ignoring the gangster’s burning looks. The dead man’s brother-in-law grew angry.
“You kill a man and walk in his funeral!” he snapped at Qassem.
He kept his silence and patience until someone else asked him roughly, “Why did you come?”
“To fight, the way my friend fought, God rest his soul,” said Qassem firmly. “He was brave. You’re not like him. You know who the killer is, but you aim your anger at me.”
Most of them fell silent. The women massed behind the men, barefoot, hurrying forward in black, throwing dirt on their heads and smiting their cheeks. The funeral moved through Gamaliya toward Bab al-Nasr. When the burial ceremonies were concluded, the mourners went home, except for Qassem, who walked slowly until he fell far behind them. Then he went back to the grave and found his friends waiting for him. His eyes were full of tears, and all of them were tearful and sobbing. He dried his eyes with his hand. “Whoever wants to be safe is free to go.”
“If we wanted to be safe, you wouldn’t have found us around you,” said Hamroush.
Qassem placed his hand on the grave marker. “His loss has hurt me. He was brave and zealous. He was treacherously killed when we needed him most.”
“A treacherous gangster murdered him, but some of us will live to see the last gangster in this alley dead,” said Sadeq.
“But we mustn’t die the way our late friend did,” said Hamroush. “Think of the future, and how we can triumph!”
“And how we can meet to talk.”
“The only company I had in my prison was my thinking about just that, and I’ve made up my mind. It won’t be easy, but it’s unavoidable.”
They all asked him at once, and he went on. “Leave the alley. Each of us has to put his own things in order and leave. We’ll emigrate, the way Gabal did long ago, and as Yahya did recently. We’ll set up our club in a safe place in the desert, until we’ve gotten stronger and have more people.”
“It’s a good idea,” said Sadeq.
“We can cleanse the alley of gangsters only by force. We can only enforce Gabalawi’s conditions by force. Justice, mercy and peace can prevail only by force. Our power will be the first just power, not a power to oppress.”
They listened with heedful hearts. They looked at Qassem and at the grave marker behind his back, and it seemed to them that Shaaban was listening with them, and giving his blessing.
“Yes, force will solve these problems,” said Agrama emotionally. “Just power, not power to oppress. Shaaban was on his way to see you when he ran into Sawaris; if we had been with him, the gangster would have run into a force he couldn’t have beaten. God damn fear and disunion!”
For the first time, Qassem drew a happy breath of relief. “Our ancestor has put his trust in us. Surely he knows some of his children deserve it.”
81
Qassem went back to his house at midnight, but he found Qamar awake and waiting for him. She was even more than usually affectionate and attentive, and it hurt him to think of her waiting up for him until that hour. Then he saw that her eyes were tired and red after crying, much as the sun leaves an aurora.
“Have you been crying?” he asked dispiritedly.
She did not answer, as if absorbed in the cup of warm milk she was preparing for him, so he spoke again. “Shaaban’s death has upset all of us. God rest his soul.”
She answered him suddenly. “I already did my crying for Shaaban, but now I was crying when I thought of that man attacking you. You’re the last person who deserves to have dirt thrown on his head and face.”
“It’s not very much compared to what happened to our poor friend.”
She sat beside him and offered him the cup. “It really hurt me,” she stammered, “what was said about you:”
He smiled, pretending that was unimportant, and lifted the cup to his lips, but she went on resentfully. “Galta is assuring the people of Gabal that you have designs on the estate, to claim it all for yourself. Hagag is telling all the people of Rifaa the same thing. They’re both spreading rumors that you say degrading things about Gabal and Rifaa.”
He did not hide his concern. “I know that. I also know that if it weren’t for you I wouldn’t even be alive today.”
She rubbed his shoulder affectionately, recalling for no reason their past days, when their conversations had no end and their happiness knew no limit; the delights of the radiant nights after Ihsan was born. Today she possessed nothing of him, and he possessed nothing of himself. She even hid the occasional pains of her illness from him; he scarcely gave a thought to himself, so how could she worry him about her? She was too ashamed to overburden him, to help his enemies without meaning to. Who could possibly reassure her about him, when the days of their lives were passing by as quickly as their days of peace? God help you, alley of ours.
“I never lose hope, even in dark times,” Qassem continued. “I have so many good friends, even if I seem alone. One of them challenged Sawaris—who would ever have dared do that before? And the rest are like him. Courage is the most important thing for the people of this alley, if they aren’t going to be trampled down for the rest of their lives. Don’t tell me to take the safe path; the man who was killed was killed on his way to my house. You wouldn’t be happy for your husband to live with the humiliation of cowardice.”
Qamar smiled, and replaced the empty cup. “The gangsters’ wives trill with joy when there are fights, which are evil; how can I be less happy than they are when what I have is good?”
He saw that her sadness was more profound than it had first seemed to him. He stroked her cheek lovingly and said comfortingly, “You are everything to me in this world. You are my best friend in life.”
She smiled, summoning the serenity that she needed before she could sleep.
Sadeq’s disappearance took Shantah the coppersmith by surprise. He looked for him at his house, but found no trace of him or any of his family. Nor could Abdelfatah, the salt-cured-fish seller, find any trace of his employee, Agrama, anywhere in the alley. Abu Fisada did not show up at Hamdoun’s snack shop, though he had not notified him of any absence. And where was Hamroush? Hassuna the baker said that he had vanished, as if the very flames of the oven had consumed him. Others, too, had gone and not come back. The news spread through the Desert Rats’ neighborhood, and its echoes reached the rest of the alley, until people in Gabal and Rifaa sneered that the Desert Rats were deserting, and soon Sawaris would have no one to collect protection money from. Sawaris summoned Zachary to the Dingil Coffeehouse.
“Your nephew is the best person to help us find out where these people have gone,” he warned him.
“Please, Sawaris, don’t blame him,” said Zachary. “Days, weeks and months have gone by, and he has not left his house.”
“Children’s games!” raged the gangster. “I have only brought you here to warn you what might happen to your nephew.”
“Qassem is one of your own family. Please don’t give his enemies anything to gloat over.”
“He is his own enemy, and he is my enemy. He thinks he’s a modern-day Gabal, and that curse is the fastest way to Bab al-Nasr.”
The cemetery was at Bab al-Nasr.
“Patience, Sawaris, we are all under your protection.”
On his way home, Zachary met Hassan coming back from Qassem’s house, and he began to unload on him all of the anger Sawaris had left him with, but Hassan interrupted him. “Please be patient, Father. Qamar is ill—very ill, Father.”
The whole alley learned of Qamar’s illness, even the overseer’s house. Qassem stayed with her, at the extreme limit of sorrow and depression, shaking his head bewilderedly and saying, “With no warning, you lie down, helpless!”
She spoke to him weakly. “I was hiding my condition from you, to spare your heart, which has been so burdened with troubles.”
“I should have shared your pain with you from the beginning,” he said in utter despair.
Her pale lips parted in a smile, like a wilted flower on a dry stalk. “I’ll be healthy again, like before,” she said.
That was his prayer, but what was this cloudiness in her eyes, the dryness over her skin and this ability to hide pain? All this for you. O God, keep her in Your mercy, and spare her for me, and have compassion on the child’s crying, which will never cease.
“Your tolerance toward me has made me unable to tolerate myself.”
She smiled again, in seeming rebuke. Umm Salem was brought in to burn incense for her, Umm Atiya to prepare her some dressings and Ibrahim the barber to bleed her, but Umm Ihsan seemed to resist recovery.
“I would do anything to ransom you from your pain.”
“May no harm come to you,” she answered in a voice as weak as silence. Then she went on: “I love you so much.”
The way she looks makes the whole world black in my eyes, he said to himself.