The Harafish

  Rummana swallowed agitatedly. “True,” he muttered.

  “Sorry to alarm you, but you’d better get moving.”

  54.

  Rummana didn’t dare confront Wahid when he was drunk, so he decided to wait till next morning. However, Ismail Qalyubi, imam of the little mosque, burst into the house at midnight with a warning from Wahid that if he set foot outdoors he’d be exposing himself to certain death.

  Rummana realized that Aziz was the one who’d driven a wedge between himself and Wahid and rushed into his apartments, hurling abuse. The two were about to become embroiled in a violent punch-up. In desperation, Aziza confessed that she’d suspected Rummana of plotting against her son, and had expressed her fears to Wahid. Rummana turned his anger on her, and she screamed in his face, “Get out of my sight! You killed Qurra!”

  The house erupted in a blaze of hatred and anger in full view of the servants.

  Aziza and Aziz moved out immediately to the Bannan’s house, leaving Rummana, Raifa, and Diya alone in the Nagi house.

  Aziz took over the grain shop, restored it, and made business bloom again as it had in Qurra’s day. Wahid lost all his misgivings about Aziz, reassured by what Aziza had told him, visited him to wish him well, and publicly offered him his approval and protection. Aziz abandoned his dreams, sadly, half despising himself for it, and compensated by being good to his employees, agents, and customers, and any of the harafish who threw themselves on his mercy.

  55.

  Rummana cowered in the house, condemning himself to voluntary imprisonment, beleaguered by fear, his heart heavy with shame. He had gone through his and Raifa’s money. Boredom was killing him. He escaped from it into drugs and drink, and took his anger out on the servants, the walls, the furniture, the mysteries of the unknown.

  Relations between Raifa and him became more strained, and worsened from day to day. She despised his cowardice, his inactivity, his stupors brought on by drink and drugs, his noisy outbursts. As their quarreling grew more frequent, a mutual antipathy replaced the domestic harmony. Every time an argument flared up she asked him for a divorce, until one day he lost his head and gave her one. It was a foolhardy decision, since neither of them could do without the other’s love; but rage makes people mad, pride makes them outrageous, and obstinacy can become a chronic sickness. As if each wanted to establish that the other was sterile, Raifa married a relative almost immediately after the divorce, whereupon Rummana married one of the servant girls. But they soon found out almost for sure that they were both sterile. Rummana married a second, third, and fourth wife until he had drunk the cup of despair to the last drop.

  He and Raifa each lived in hell, in a world of tedium.

  56.

  One morning a stranger arrived in the alley. His head was swathed in a black turban, his body in a purple cloak, and he was clearly blind, tapping his way along with the help of a stick. He had a white beard and an impressive brow. People regarded him indifferently and left him to his own devices, some wondering what had brought him there.

  When he had progressed a little way along the alley he called out, “Hello there!”

  Sadiq Abu Taqiya, owner of the bar, answered him. “What do you want?”

  “Lead me to Khidr Sulayman al-Nagi’s house,” he said in a melancholy voice.

  Sadiq looked hard at his face. It was like a vision. The past rushed in on him. “Merciful God!” he shouted in amazement. “Master Samaha!”

  “God bless you,” said the blind man gratefully.

  People rushed forward, with Wahid, Aziz, Muhammad Tawakkul, and Ismail Qalyubi leading the way. They embraced the newcomer feverishly, uttering expressions of welcome.

  “This is a happy day, father.”

  “A day of justice, grandfather.”

  “A day of light, master.”

  “God bless you. God bless you all,” repeated Samaha, his face lighting up with joy.

  Everyone wanted to invite him home, but he said obstinately, “Khidr’s house is my house.”

  The news spread. The merchants called out from their shops and the harafish congregated around their shacks and derelict buildings. The street rang with cheers, then a chorus of joyful trilling broke out from the women at the windows and wooden lattices.

  “Glory be to God!” cried Sadiq Abu Taqiya. “No absence is eternal, no injustice everlasting.”

  57.

  Samaha sat cross-legged on a divan. Wahid, Rummana, and Aziz sat facing him on cushions. Thus, they were united in specious calm, side by side like balm and poison in an herbalist’s workshop, the rivalries temporarily blotted out in the presence of the suffering father, martyr of purity.

  “We’ve prepared a bath and food for you,” said Wahid.

  “Not straightaway,” murmured Samaha gently. “Let me set my mind at rest first.”

  He moved his head in an uneasy gesture. “Where’s Khidr?”

  “Only God is everlasting,” sighed Wahid.

  His face clouded for a moment, then he asked, “And his wife, Diya?”

  “In her apartments. She’s off in her own world.”

  Samaha hesitated sympathetically, then inquired, “And Qurra?”

  There was a silence. Samaha sighed bitterly.

  “That’s too young. I always used to dream a tooth was being pulled.”

  He extended his palm. “Your hand, Aziz.”

  He took the proffered hand affectionately and asked Aziz, “You remember him, of course?”

  “The Almighty took him when I was just a child.”

  “God rest him! And who’s your mother, my son?”

  “Ismail Bannan’s daughter.”

  “A good family. Where is she now?”

  “She and my aunt Safiyya are on their way.”

  “How about you, Rummana?” he asked.

  Rummana and Wahid exchanged rapid glances and Rummana said, “I’ve got four wives who are waiting to look after you.”

  “How many children?”

  “None so far.”

  Samaha took a deep breath. “It’s God’s will. And you, Wahid?”

  Silence returned until Samaha moved his head agitatedly and asked again, “And you, Wahid?”

  Wahid scowled. “I’m not married yet.”

  “What I’m hearing is very strange. So there was a reason for all my nightmares! What’s become of Radwan?”

  “God rest his soul.”

  “Really? Only the names remain.”

  He was silent for a while, digesting the news, unaware of the tension gripping the assembled company.

  “Who’s chief of the clan these days?” he asked finally.

  “Your son, Wahid,” declared the latter, taking heart for the first time.

  “Really?” exclaimed Samaha with a shudder of excitement.

  “Really, Father.”

  He told the tale of his dream and the way he had seized power, and Samaha’s face brightened. “The first piece of good news!” he cried.

  He crossed his arms on his chest in a gesture of gratitude. “So the age of Ashur has returned!”

  They were plunged into confusion, but Wahid echoed boldly, “The age of Ashur has returned!”

  “A blessing from the skies!” shouted the blind man excitedly, his pleasure showing on his face and in his delighted gestures. “May Ashur rejoice with the angels, and Shams al-Din in the gardens of Paradise.”

  Nobody thought for a moment of wakening him from his dream or pouring scorn on his happiness. He seemed to have forgotten his exile and banishment and be exulting in this happy ending. “Now for a bath and food,” he said peacefully, “and may God’s blessings fill the earth.”

  58.

  Samaha slept for the rest of the day and sat up at night in the monastery square, finding his way to it by sound, smell, and touch. He summoned up the images of the monastery building, the mulberry trees, and the old wall, using the power of his imagination. As the melodies filled his heart, a blessed happiness washed over him.
He spread his palms, and prayed, “Thanks be to God who has allowed me to be buried beside Shams al-Din. Thanks be to God who in his mercy has allowed justice to prevail in our alley. Thanks be to God who has let my son inherit the supreme qualities of strength and goodness.”

  His song of thanks was overshadowed by the poetry of the chant:

  Har ankeh janibe khoda negahdorad

  Khodash dar hame hal azbala negahdorad.

  The sixth tale in the epic of the harafish

  1.

  Samaha’s health deteriorated rapidly and he gave up the ghost one morning as he was drifting back to sleep after the dawn prayer, as if he had only returned from exile to be buried next to Shams al-Din. He died happy, under the illusion that he was merely exchanging one paradise for another.

  “We hid the reality from him,” commented Aziz. “So all of us, including Wahid, have acknowledged that our life is something ugly, to be kept from decent people.”

  2.

  The cereal business was hugely successful and Aziz grew wealthy. He contented himself with being heroic in a limited sphere, having faith in people, and doing good when the opportunity arose. He abandoned his dreams of glory, preferring security and appeasing his conscience by telling himself that he was not cut out to be a hero.

  Aziza arranged a marriage between him and Ulfat al-Dahshuri, daughter of Amir al-Dahshuri, the iron merchant. He was content with his mother’s choice: she was his muse and the guardian of his stability and success. The wedding was celebrated a year after his grandfather’s death. He set up house with his bride in the Bannan’s old house which he had purchased for himself and completely refurbished. She was a big, tall, good-looking girl, well versed in the household arts. She was all that he could desire, and a strong bond of affection grew between them. They embarked on a life of happiness and produced a string of children.

  3.

  Rummana remained incarcerated in his house even when there was no longer any need for it. It had only taken Samaha’s return to make Wahid drop his threats, but Rummana hated the outside world and his absence went unremarked and unlamented. He lived more or less cut off from his four wives, could never rid himself of Raifa’s memory, and gave himself up increasingly to drink and drugs.

  One evening, more drunk than usual, he staggered into Diya’s apartments. He weaved around her, spluttering with laughter. “You’re the reason for this foolishness and misery,” he told her scathingly.

  The old woman remained in a world of her own, so he continued, “I need your money. Where do you keep it, you old cripple?”

  He grabbed hold of her hand and pulled her up. Startled, she struck him in the face with the incense burner. He gripped her around the neck in a demented rage and squeezed violently until there was no life left in her.

  4.

  The house trembled with fear. The news took the alley by storm and the new sheikh, Gibril al-Fas, reported the crime to the police. Rummana was arrested, tried, and sentenced to life imprisonment. Before he was transported to the penitentiary he sent for Aziz. “I admit that I was behind your father’s murder,” he told him.

  “I know,” replied Aziz sorrowfully.

  “He’s buried in the clothes he was wearing next to Sheikh Yunis’ tomb.”

  5.

  Aziz exhumed Qurra’s body in the presence of the sheikh and a detective; Wahid and Aziza were there too. When his skeletal frame appeared, the old sorrows were renewed. He was wrapped in a shroud, and given a proper funeral and reburied in Shams al-Din’s tomb.

  “Now my heart can be at ease,” said Aziza. “It was always my dream to be beside him when my time comes.”

  6.

  Aziz’s conscience began to trouble him again. As Wahid’s reputation worsened, Aziz felt the burden weigh heavier on his own shoulders. The clan chief’s depravity and greed had become proverbial in the whole area, not just his own alley. A few years after his father’s death he died of a heart attack as a result of an overdose.

  All this time Aziz was actively looking for a suitable candidate for clan chief from among the many descendants of al-Nagi, in the hope that such a man could make that dead age live again, but he found the Nagi family had been absorbed into the ranks of the harafish, ground down by poverty and misery, and robbed of what was best in them. So when Wahid died, there was no one ready to take over from him. At once Aziz was confronted by an extremely delicate question: should he be buried next to Shams al-Din? His heart told him no.

  “He was your uncle, after all,” remonstrated his wife, Ulfat.

  But he was adamant and had him buried in a pauper’s grave in the Nagis’ plot. Oddly enough, this behavior did not go down well in the alley.

  “He was careful to be pleasant to him while he was alive. He waited till he was dead to take his revenge,” remarked Sanqar al-Shammam, the new owner of the bar.

  7.

  Nuh al-Ghurab filled the vacancy with alacrity. He was coarse and insolent and grasping. He called a truce with neighboring clan chiefs and dominated the alley through brute force so effectively that he became one of the richest men around in the space of a year. The people bore his oppression with indifference. No one grieved for the Nagis’ reign, now that their sweet dreams had come to nothing at the hands of Wahid. The notables were delighted. The harafish entered a new phase of enforced idleness and wretchedness.

  8.

  The sun followed its course, sometimes shining out of a clear sky, sometimes hidden behind the clouds. Aziz renovated the small neighborhood mosque and chose a new sheikh, Khalil al-Dahshan, following the death of Ismail al-Qalyubi. He also restored the fountain, the animals’ drinking trough, and the old Quran school.

  Raifa became a widow and lived alone in her house with the servants. She inherited a small fortune from her second husband but she and her sister Aziza never saw each other and were like strangers, even enemies. She saw Aziza as the reason for all the ills that had befallen her, and claimed she had breathed an unlucky spirit into her when they were together in the cradle. The conventions of the alley were seriously breached when she started visiting Rummana in prison, thereby openly declaring that she still loved him, despite all that had happened.

  So the years passed, with not much that was good and incalculable evil.

  9.

  One day Aziz learned that an employee had met his end while transporting a load of cereal. His name was Ashur and he had considered himself to be a Nagi as he was related to Fathiyya, Sulayman’s first wife. Aziz’ kind heart was filled with sorrow and he gave the man a decent burial and arranged for his wife to be paid a monthly allowance. When he made inquiries he learned that the man had several married daughters and a little girl of six called Zahira who still needed to be cared for. Aziz suggested that she could be taken into his household to work as a maid for Madame Aziza, and the girl’s mother accepted the offer gladly. Zahira moved into Aziza’s apartments and it was as if she had been transported to Paradise. For the first time her natural color appeared, as she benefited from good food and proper clothes, and learned household tasks. She won Aziza’s sympathy and the mistress treated her more kindly than the other servants and even sent her to the Quran school for a while. Aziz was not interested in seeing the girl. He entrusted her to his mother. “Don’t forget she’s a Nagi,” he teased.

  10.

  Zahira’s mother visited Aziz in the director’s office. He had forgotten all about her. She reminded him who she was, and of his worker, Ashur, who had died ten years before, and thanked him effusively. “May you always live in plenty,” she concluded. “Abd Rabbihi wants to marry Zahira.”

  Aziz recollected the girl, whom he had also forgotten. “Do you think he’s suitable for her?”

  “He’s perfect,” she answered proudly. “And he earns enough to support her.”

  “God be with you, then,” he agreed indifferently.

  11.

  At the supper table he told Madame Aziza and Madame Ulfat of the episode. Ulfat burst out lau
ghing. “Abduh the baker! He’s an idiot.”

  “She’s an excellent girl,” protested Aziza. “She deserves better than that.”

  “Are you expecting a rich merchant to try for her?” joked Aziz.

  “Her looks qualify her.”

  “This lad’s good enough for her,” said Aziz carelessly. “It wouldn’t be right for us to let a definite offer go for the sake of some fantasy that may never be realized.” Then, conclusively, “I assured her mother I had no objection. It’s up to her to decide.”

  12.

  Madame Aziza fitted her out with furniture, clothes, and a set of copper pans. “Such a shame,” she lamented repeatedly.

  Aziz was sipping his morning coffee before he went off to the shop when Aziza brought Zahira to say goodbye.

  “Come along, Zahira,” she was calling as she came in, “come and kiss your master’s hand.”

  “There’s no need for that, mother,” protested Aziz in a whisper.

  The girl came in, covered in embarrassment and confusion, and stopped at the door. He looked up to give her an encouraging glance, and found that for a few moments he could not take his eyes off her. Quickly he recovered himself and looked away, conscious of the need to preserve his dignity in front of his mother and his wife, struggling to master his violent astonishment. How had this treasure remained buried in his mother’s apartments for so long? Her posture was more graceful than any dancer’s, her skin miraculously clear, the enchantment in her eyes intoxicating. She was the embodiment of lethal beauty. He noticed Ulfat engrossed in the child at her breast, controlled himself, and said, clinging to this image of security, “Congratulations, Zahira.”

  “Kiss your master’s hand,” insisted Aziza.

  He proffered his hand. She was so close that a fleeting scent of carnations from her abundant black hair took his senses by storm. He felt the imprint of her lips on the back of his hand. As she retreated he had a powerful intuition that one day a miracle would happen.

  13.

  It was his habit to go each morning in the carriage and pray at the mosque of al-Husayn, then take a turn along New Street and through the goldsmiths’ and coppersmiths’ quarters before returning to his business. He dreamed all the way. His soul floated in heaven, leaving his body empty in the carriage. Had he found out at last why the sun rose? Why the stars shone at night? What the songs from the monastery were talking about? Why madmen are happy? Why people are sad about death? This beauty had lived under his roof for ten years! How had his wife and mother escaped her charm? Did the girl have any idea what riches she possessed, or was she like the wind, unaware of the havoc she wrought? Was her mother mad that she could accept Abduh the baker’s offer so blindly? Could he stop the rain falling? He pitied all the ignorant hearts!