The Harafish

  He strolled naked around the room, repeating serenely, “This life is blessed indeed.”

  60.

  The door opened agitatedly and Zaynat the Blonde rushed into the room. She flew at him in a frenzy of longing and they melted in a long, passionate embrace. She began to sob convulsively. “What did you do?” she asked him reproachfully.

  He kissed her on the cheeks and lips.

  “How did you pass the time?”

  He was overcome by a rush of yearning for her. A precious, transient feeling. He saw her young and beautiful, old and ugly in turn. A sweet deception. As if fidelity had become impossible.

  “Let’s forget what’s happened,” he said.

  “But I want to know.”

  “Think of it as an illness that’s over now.”

  “You’re so deceitful.”

  “You’re so nice.”

  “Do you know what happened while you were away?”

  “Let’s talk about that later.”

  She took a step back. “How beautiful you look,” she said admiringly.

  He felt a pang of guilt and looked at her regretfully. “I’m sorry for making you suffer.”

  “I’ll be fine again in a few hours. But I want to know your secret,” she said stubbornly.

  He hesitated, then said firmly, “I was ill and now I’m cured.”

  “I should have stayed with you.”

  “Isolation was the cure!”

  She held him close and whispered amorously, “Show me if love’s still the same. I’ll tell you my troubles later.”

  61.

  He received Abd Rabbihi and Radi in the salon and embraced them warmly. They were followed by Mu’nis al-Al and men from the gang. They kissed him respectfully.

  “It’s all gone. We were powerless to stop it,” said Mu’nis pitifully.

  Escorted by his men, Galal emerged into the alley and made for the café. The whole alley turned out to greet him, friends, enemies, admirers, detractors. He leaned toward Mu’nis. “Do some people think I’m crazy?” he asked.

  “God forbid, chief,” murmured Mu’nis.

  “Let them get back to work. Tell them we’re grateful,” said Galal, gazing at the crowd contemptuously. Then he muttered, “How much hatred there is. How little affection!”

  62.

  He visited the minaret, accompanied by Abd Rabbihi and Radi. It was firmly planted in the waste ground, with the rubble and litter cleared from around about it. It had a square base the size of a large room with an arched door of polished wood. Its sturdy bulk rose endlessly toward an invisible summit, towering above the surrounding buildings. Its sharp sides evoked power, its red color strangeness and terror.

  “If we accept that this is a minaret,” asked Abd Rabbihi, “then where’s the mosque?”

  Galal did not answer.

  “It cost us an inordinate sum of money,” said Radi.

  “What’s it for, son?” persisted Abd Rabbihi.

  “God knows,” laughed Galal.

  “Since it was finished, people talk of nothing else.”

  “Don’t pay them any attention,” said Galal disdainfully. “It’s part of my vow. A man may do a lot of stupid things in the course of becoming unusually wise.”

  His father was about to repeat his question, but he interrupted him in a decisive tone. “Look, you see this minaret? It will still be here when everything else in the alley is in ruins. Interrogate it. It’ll answer your questions if it pleases.”

  63.

  Taking the herbalist aside, he asked him with terrifying solemnity, “What did you think of my year’s retreat?”

  “I took what you told me at face value,” said the man sincerely, his heart beating with fright.

  “What about the minaret?”

  “I suppose it’s part of your vow,” he said hesitantly.

  “I thought you were a man of sound judgment, Abd al-Khaliq,” scowled Galal.

  “I’m damned if I’ve breathed a word of our secret,” he said hurriedly.

  64.

  At dead of night he crept along to the minaret and climbed the stairs, floor by floor, until he reached the balcony at the very top. He braved the winter cold, armored in his absolute power over existence. He craned up at the festival of bright stars spread like a canopy above his head. Thousands of eyes sparkling down at him, while beneath him everything was immersed in gloom. Perhaps he had not climbed up to the top of the minaret, but simply grown to the height he ought to be. He had to grow higher, ever higher, for there was no other way to achieve purity. At the top the language of the stars was audible, the whisperings of space, the prayers for power and immortality, far from the exaggerated complaints, the lassitude, the stink of decay. Now the poems from the monastery sung of eternity. The truth revealed many of its hidden faces. Destinies were laid bare. From this balcony he could follow successive generations, play a role in each, join the family of the celestial bodies for all eternity.

  65.

  He led his men out to teach his enemies a lesson and restore the alley to its former status. In a short space of time he had won brilliant victories over Atuf, Husayniyya, Bulaq, Kafr al-Zaghari, and Darasa. He hurled himself at his adversaries and they scattered before him, crushed by the humiliation of defeat. He was known to be invincible. No amount of strength or courage could work against him.

  66.

  He changed his style of life. He began to eat, drink, and smoke to excess. Whenever a whore flirted with him, he responded discreetly. Zaynat soon lost her hold over him and became no more than a pretty rose in a garden full of roses. Reports of his escapades reached her ears and she was consumed by a frenzy of jealousy and loss. In the mirror of the future she saw her face fading away in the murky gloom of oblivion. She had always seen him as an innocent child with some unorthodox beliefs. His innocence had opened the doors for her to a faraway hope: she was sure of love and hoped for marriage. Perhaps it would be easier to give up life itself than to lose him, the embodiment to her of strength, beauty, youth, and boundless glory. But his year’s isolation had made a different person of him: a creature smitten with power and beauty, and terrified of change, of madness, of being treated with contempt, of having to acquire wisdom the hard way. She felt herself growing small, thin, feeble, almost ceasing to exist in the face of his dreadful, mysterious domination. She could only confront him with weakness, pleading, and a sense of failure. But he met her with haughty gentleness, exulting in his arrogance, clothed in cold tenderness, fortified by a bottomless sense of superiority.

  “Be content with your lot,” he told her. “Many would envy you.”

  She saw him blossoming as she withered, and realized they were going opposite ways. Her heart swelled with love and despair.

  67.

  Abd Rabbihi had a son, Khalid, and tore himself away from the bar once and for all. He found happiness in prayer and meditation, and Sheikh Khalil al-Dahshan became his friend and confidant.

  He was desperately anxious about Galal, and even more so about the terrible minaret. It seemed to him that his relationship with his son was destroyed, that he had become a stranger unconnected to him. He was an alien presence among the people of the alley, like the minaret among its buildings: strong, beautiful, sterile, and incomprehensible.

  “I shan’t rest easy until you marry and have a family,” he told him.

  “There’s plenty of time, father.”

  “And until you revive the glorious covenant of the Nagis,” he entreated.

  Galal smiled without answering.

  “And repent and follow God.”

  Remembering his father’s distant and not so distant past, Galal let out a guffaw like a drum roll.

  68.

  The passing days and changing seasons held no fears for him. His inflexible will dominated the aggressive forces of nature. The unknown no longer scared him.

  In the pit of despair and sorrow, Zaynat the Blonde received a summons to love. She had been waiting for i
t, yearning for it all along, preparing for it in her battered heart.

  Now he was granting her one of his precious nights. She made her way to his house, outwardly pleased at the way she was being treated. She removed the drapes, flung open all the windows in her old rooms to allow the May breezes to circulate, and met him cheerfully, hiding her sorrows. She had learned to treat him with caution, apprehensive of his reactions. She prepared a tray with drinks and glasses.

  “Drink up, my love,” she whispered in his ear.

  “How kind you are!” he said, gulping down the wine.

  She observed to herself that he had lost his heart along with his innocence and that, like winter, he gloried in his power, oblivious to his cruelty. She also acknowledged that she was willfully destroying herself.

  He stared at her, already fairly drunk. “You’re not your usual self,” he murmured.

  “It’s the solemnity of love,” she said gently.

  He laughed. “Nothing is solemn.” Playing idly with a lock of her golden hair, he went on, “You’re still in a very powerful position. But you’re such an ambitious woman!”

  “I’m just a sad woman,” she cried impetuously.

  “Remember what you said about seizing life’s pleasures while you can…”

  “That was in the days when you loved me.”

  “I’m following your advice, and I’m grateful for it.”

  He did not know what he was saying, she thought. She was much better acquainted with the mystery of life than him and knew that evil raised a man against his will to the ranks of the angels. She gazed at him passionately, restraining a desire to cry. Lulled by the breeze, she thought what a treacherous month this was. Soon the khamsin winds would blow, transforming it into a demon which would wreck the spring. He took her in his arms and she clasped him to her with frantic strength.

  69.

  He freed himself from her arms and began stripping off his clothes until he stood naked, like a statue of light. He walked around the bedroom, laughing at his unsteady progress.

  “You’ve drunk a whole sea,” she said.

  “I’m still thirsty.”

  “Our love’s over,” she murmured, as if to herself.

  He staggered a few more steps, before collapsing onto a divan, shaking with laughter.

  “You’re drunk.”

  He frowned. “No. It’s more than that. It’s as if I’m sleepy.” He tried to rise to his feet, without success. “I’m falling asleep just when I don’t want to,” he muttered.

  She bit her lip. The world would end like this one day. The most pitiful people were those who sang victory songs in their hour of defeat.

  “Try to stand up,” she said hoarsely.

  “There’s no need,” he answered, languorous yet dignified.

  “Are you sure you can’t, my love?”

  “Quite sure. There’s a burning like the fires of hell, and I’m sleepy.”

  She leapt to her feet and stepped back into the center of the room, staring wildly at him, all the softness gone. She was a mass of taut muscle, ready to spring, but there was an air of bitterness and sorrow about her. He looked at her dully, then his eyes swam out of focus.

  “Why am I falling asleep?” he said thickly.

  She spoke in the tones of someone making a sacred confession. “It’s not sleep, my love.”

  “So it must be the bull that carries the world on its horns.”

  “It’s not the bull either, my love.”

  “You’re acting the fool, Zaynat. Why?”

  “I’ve never been more serious. I’m killing myself.”

  “Huh?”

  “It’s death, my love.”

  “Death?”

  “You’ve swallowed enough poison to kill an elephant.”

  “You mean, you have?”

  “No, you, my love.”

  He burst out laughing, but quickly fell silent, too weak to continue.

  “I killed you to put an end to my torment,” she said, starting to cry.

  He attempted another laugh. “Galal is immortal,” he muttered.

  “I can see death in your beautiful eyes.”

  “Death has died, stupid woman.”

  Gathering all his strength, he rose to his feet, dominating the room. She drew back, terrified, and rushed out of the room like someone possessed.

  70.

  It was as if he was carrying the dreadful minaret on his shoulders. Death charged at him like a bull, blind with fury, charging solid rock.

  “What terrible pain!” he cried, still without fear.

  He staggered outside, stark naked.

  “Galal can feel pain, but he cannot die,” he muttered as he emerged into the dark alley.

  He inched forward in the pitch-darkness, mumbling inaudibly, “I’m on fire. I want some water.”

  He began to move slowly in the gloom, groaning faintly, believing he was filling the alley with his cries. Where was everybody? Where were his men? Why didn’t they bring him water? Where was Zaynat, the criminal? This must be a terrible nightmare, weighing down on him with all its odious force, but it wasn’t death. The mysterious powers would be working at full strength now to restore him to his mocking, immortal self. But what terrible pain! What unbearable thirst!

  As he stumbled along, he bumped against a cold, unmoving mass. The animals’ drinking trough! A wave of joy and relief swept over him. He bent over the edge of the trough, overbalanced, stretched out his arms. The water closed over them. His lips touched water full of animal fodder. He drank greedily, dementedly, then let out a cry which rang out around the alley, a sound distorted by the savage pain. The top half of his body vanished in the murky water. His knees sagged and his lower half sank down into the mud and droppings. The dark shadows of that terrible, eventful spring night closed around him.

  The eighth tale in the epic of the harafish

  1.

  It took a long time for the alley to forget the spectacle of Galal’s body draped over the side of the drinking trough, a giant white cadaver among the straw and excrement. The huge frame suggested immortality; its emptiness in its wrecked state confirmed death. Above it in the light of the torches the air was charged with terrible derision.

  The proud strength had ended in its prime. Gone its protective shadow with a hundred eyes and a thousand fists. His father Abd Rabbihi and his brother Radi carried him into The Citadel. An immense cortege accompanied his body to the tomb of Shams al-Din. He was remembered as one of the great clan leaders, despite his demonic characteristics.

  He took his good and bad deeds with him to the grave but the legends lived on.

  2.

  Mu’nis al-Al took over the clan. Although Galal’s death evoked a general feeling of relief, the alley lost its sense of equilibrium and was beset by new fears. It relinquished its elevated status in the neighborhood and became just another alley, and its chief no longer reigned supreme. Mu’nis al-Al made alliances, fought battles and lost, and was again obliged to buy peace with protection money and bribes. No one in the alley expected him to honor the covenant which Galal, descendant of the Nagis and miracle of triumphant power, had himself betrayed.

  3.

  Abd Rabbihi and Radi were the sole inheritors of Galal’s vast fortune. Galal’s death was attributed to drugs and alcohol. The fact that he had ended up lying naked in straw and dung was considered a divine retribution for his arrogance and his high-handed treatment of his fellow human beings. No one inherited the minaret, and with its exaggerated structure and sterility of purpose it continued as a symbol of insolence and folly.

  4.

  After some time had elapsed, the herbalist Abd al-Khaliq opened his mouth. In whispers he told of Galal’s strange enterprise, his association with demons, the role played by the mysterious Shawar. The secret was out, and Zaynat the Blonde confirmed people’s suspicions by telling the tale of Galal’s belief in his own immortality. Shawar and his maid vanished, escaping the general anger. Many propose
d demolishing the minaret, but most people were scared that it was haunted by the devil and that its demolition would lay the alley open to undreamed of evil. So it was left standing. People gave it a wide berth, cursed it as they passed, and abandoned it to snakes, bats, and demons.

  5.

  The harafish declared that what had happened to Galal was a fair punishment for someone who had betrayed the great al-Nagi’s covenant, and forgotten his immortal prayer that God would grant him strength to use in the service of others. Every time descendants of al-Nagi betrayed his name, they were cursed and destroyed by insanity. Even Abd Rabbihi and Radi earned the scorn of the harafish, and their ample wealth was of no use to them.

  6.

  Zaynat the Blonde lived for a while in terrified anticipation, but nobody thought of accusing her. Even those who had their doubts about her part in Galal’s death brushed them aside, grateful to her for her anonymous deed. Zaynat did not enjoy her revenge. She lived abstemiously by herself, with no zest, no sense of repose. Sometime after Galal’s death she discovered that their love had borne fruit, and guarded this germ of life with all the strength of her undying love. She was filled with a sense of pride despite the fact that the child would be illegitimate. She gave birth to a boy and, defying the traditions, boldly named him Galal.

  7.

  She gave him love twice over: as her son and as her dead lover’s child. She brought him up in humble surroundings with no desire to return to the life of a rich woman. She never forgot that he was the true heir to Galal’s fabulous wealth and pestered Abd Rabbihi and Radi to give up part of their inheritance in favor of her little boy. But they rebuffed her angrily, insinuating that they suspected her of playing a decisive part in Galal’s death.

  “How can a woman like her know who’s the father of her child?” scoffed Radi.