The Harafish

8.

  Galal grew up as just another alley child whose father’s identity was unknown. He was taunted and called a bastard, as his father years before had been taunted and called “Zahira’s son.” But as he grew older, it became obvious to anyone with eyes to see that he was Galal’s son and nobody else’s. He did not possess his strength and grace, but there was no mistaking his origins.

  9.

  Galal attended the Quran school for two years, then went to work for al-Gada, the carter. Zaynat had used up her savings and could not afford anything better for him. She was proud of her son and pleased with herself for holding out and living an honest life. Although she was well past forty she was still beautiful enough for al-Gada to have ideas about adding her to his harem. She did not welcome his interest, but at the same time was afraid he would take it out on her son if she rejected him. However, the man abandoned his pursuit of her when Mugahid Ibrahim, who had succeeded Gibril al-Fas as sheikh, exclaimed to him one day, “How can you trust a woman who killed her lover!”

  Galal found out as time went by that he was the son of the man who had built the minaret, and grandson of the famous Zahira; that Abd Rabbihi was his grandfather and Radi, the notable, his uncle. He learned the sad story of his origins and the glorious history of al-Nagi. But he was doomed to be known as a bastard forever.

  “Watch you don’t start using violence,” al-Gada cautioned him one day. “Just put up with the insults. Otherwise you can look for another job.”

  “Mu’nis al-Al is watching you with interest because you’re a Nagi. Don’t be tempted to use your strength, or you’ve had it,” warned Sayyid Osman, the new imam.

  So Galal controlled himself and kept out of trouble, and his diligence and reliability earned him the respect of his boss.

  10.

  The days passed and hopes were rekindled. Encouraged by al-Gada’s obvious liking for Galal, Zaynat went to ask him for his daughter’s hand for her son.

  The man was blunt. “He’s a good lad, but I’m not marrying my daughter to a bastard.”

  Zaynat wept bitterly, but Galal bore the blow with stoicism.

  11.

  Al-Gada died after eating a baking dish of beans with onions and tomatoes and a tray of vermicelli pastries and sweet cream. He was over seventy. Zaynat waited until the year’s mourning was up, then asked his widow for her daughter’s hand for Galal. She accepted because she had noticed her daughter was fond of the young man.

  So it was that Afifa al-Gada married Galal Abdullah.

  12.

  Through marriage Galal rose from being a driver to running the carter’s business, even though Afifa was not, properly speaking, the proprietor. He was a success, his living conditions improved, and his joy was complete when he became a father. In the happy time that followed, Afifa gave birth to several daughters and then a son, whom he promptly named Shams al-Din Galal al-Nagi, thereby disclosing the fierce pride that was hidden in him like fire in flint. Everyone accepted the name, although the important members of the Nagi family—such as Radi—were annoyed by it. However, nobody had forgotten that Galal was the illegitimate son of the madman who had built the satanic minaret.

  “What a lot of Ashurs and Shams al-Dins there are in our alley!” exclaimed Anba al-Fawwal, the bar owner, who had taken over when Sanqar al-Shammam died.

  It was true that all that was left of the immortal Nagi heritage were the names. The deeds and promises lived on in the imagination along with the legends of miracles overlaid with grief and pain.

  13.

  The days went by pleasantly and mundanely in the lives of Galal Abdullah and his family. He was known for his goodness, honesty, even temper, and piety. He made a good living, adored his devotions, and became a close associate of Sheikh Sayyid Osman, the imam of the alley’s small mosque. He was faithful to Afifa and satisfied with her company, raised Shams al-Din well, and remained a loyal son to Zaynat despite the bad reputation and the troubles she had bequeathed to him. All the signs were that this family would lead a tranquil and uneventful life.

  14.

  When Galal was fifty his life was changed by a series of unexpected events descending on him from out of the blue. First his mother died. She died suddenly, aged eighty. What was strange was that although Galal was a middle-aged man and his mother an old woman, her death came as a violent shock which threw him completely off balance. He sobbed like a child at her funeral and was sunk in such deep depression for the next three months that people thought he was going into a decline. Many found his grief incomprehensible and made fun of him. He even said himself that although he had loved her a great deal he could not have imagined her death would have such an effect on him. More remarkable than that was what happened to him after the depression had lifted. A new person was there in his place, like an apparition discharged from a haunted archway. The love he had felt for his mother seemed to him an odd, misguided sentiment, as if he had been the victim of black magic. It had evaporated into the air, leaving a cold hard stone behind it. Not a trace of sorrow or loyalty was left in his heart. A voice whispered to him that she was the source of all the hostility and dislike he had encountered in his life; and that he was her eternal victim.

  “Was I really sad when she died?” he wondered to himself. “It must have been some crazy, illogical reaction to death.”

  He was sitting with Sheikh Mugahid Ibrahim one day. “My mother had some loathsome characteristics,” he announced suddenly, “and a bad reputation, and evil intentions.”

  “I can hardly believe what I’m hearing,” said the sheikh in astonishment.

  “Now I think she really did kill my father. She was a debauched, loudmouthed drug addict. I’m revolted by her memory.”

  “Don’t speak ill of the dead.”

  “There’s nothing good to be said,” he cried with uncharacteristic ill feeling. Then, his fury mounting, he added, “She had a long, happy life, which she didn’t deserve.”

  15.

  His behavior went downhill to the point of complete collapse.

  He stopped praying, abandoned the mosque, was prone to violent outbursts. One night he stormed into the bar for the first time in his life. Mu’nis al-Al and some of his men were sitting there. “At last the donkey’s found its stall!” jeered the chief.

  The bar erupted into laughter. Galal merely smiled, somewhat embarrassed, and raised the calabash to his thirsty lips.

  “What prompted you to behave like a man?” inquired Mu’nis.

  “It’s the right way to be,” answered Galal cheerfully.

  When the chief left, Galal began to sing:

  At the gate of our alley

  Sits Hasan the coffee man.

  He was thoroughly drunk. “Last night I dreamed I slipped out to my father’s minaret,” he declared convivially. “A handsome creature carried me to the top and invited me to play hopscotch with him. I lost my balance and fell down the stairwell. But I wasn’t the least bit hurt.”

  “You should try it when you’re awake,” remarked Anba al-Fawwal, the bar owner.

  Galal began to sing again:

  At night I hear songs

  Of passionate virgins

  My strength is destroyed.

  16.

  He found Afifa waiting up for him. He had never stayed out like this before. The bar smells hit her in the face. She beat her chest with the flat of her hand.

  “You’re drunk!” she cried.

  He executed a few dance steps. “I’m a man, my beauty!”

  17.

  The news spread. People said, “He’s crazy, just like his father.”

  Sheikh Sayyid Osman went up to him in the street one day. “What’s taken you away from us?” he asked.

  Galal said nothing.

  “Is it true what they say about you?” persisted the sheikh sorrowfully.

  Galal walked off up the street leaving him standing.

  18.

  When he was drunk and didn’t know what he was doing, he was
the prey of new temptations, as if he had developed the instincts of a stranger. He was violently attracted to adolescent and even prepubescent girls. He pestered them, flirted with them, and if he found himself alone with one of them felt as if a ravenous beast was struggling to escape from his skin. He avoided getting drunk in the daytime, fearing the consequences, and at night he slunk around waste ground and derelict buildings like a hungry wolf.

  One night he ended up with a prostitute called Dalal and gave his passions their head.

  19.

  He became thoroughly dissolute and devoted great energy to pouring scorn on everything around him. What bound him to Dalal was probably the fact that she was young, with a face that still bore the imprint of childhood, and tolerated his strange whims, indulging them without criticism.

  “I love people who are crazy and don’t give a damn what people say about them,” she declared one day.

  “At last I’ve found a woman as great as my grandmother Zahira!” exclaimed Galal.

  He lay sprawled on his back, relaxed and contented. “One morning I woke up drunk, even though I’d had nothing to drink,” he confessed to her. “There was a new heart beating in my chest. I hated my present and my past, even the thought of working at my trade and making money. My married daughters’ problems depressed me. So did my son’s lack of spirit. He’s quite happy to work as a driver for me. One donkey driving another! I was fed up with his mother, who protects him every step of the way, and bleeds me just like my mother used to, only using different tactics. My heart, my head, my guts, my prick, and my balls rose up in protest and I yelled out my good news to the devils.”

  “You’re the sweetest man in the world,” laughed Dalal.

  “I’ve heard that men are reborn at fifty,” he said confidently.

  “And sixty. And seventy,” she agreed.

  He sighed. “If it hadn’t been for a spiteful woman’s jealousy, my father would have lived forever.”

  “If you hadn’t been a miracle, I wouldn’t have loved you at all.”

  20.

  The blows continued to land on Afifa’s head. Her world crumbled around her, her dreams evaporated, her happiness vanished. She was convinced her husband was under a spell, and made the rounds of saints’ tombs and fortune-tellers. She followed all the advice she was given, but Galal persisted in his erring ways and showed no signs of repenting. He neglected his work, was always rowdy and drunk, clung to Dalal, and damaged his reputation running after girls.

  Had she not been scared of the consequences she would have complained about him to Mu’nis al-Al. But in her isolation she only had her son, and she turned to him to tell him of her distress. “Talk to him, Shams al-Din,” she said. “Perhaps he’ll be more ready to listen to you.”

  Shams al-Din and his mother had a surprisingly close relationship. He was sad for her reputation and her honor, and summoned the courage to tell his father openly. His father grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him violently. “Are you trying to tell me what to do, son?” he demanded in a fury.

  After that the boy kept his worries to himself. In his physical strength, pleasant manner, and good character he resembled his father before his abrupt transformation. He was at a loss. His feelings were in a state of turmoil: his respect for his father and his mild nature were both under threat. His mother complained constantly, and he was the one who had to take her blasts of venom and bitterness.

  “He’ll squander it all,” she would say ominously. “You’ll be out on the streets.”

  To him, his family seemed permanently cursed. They all ended up mad, debauched, or dead. His heart shriveled, as the love and loyalty began to ebb away, and he adopted a more combative attitude toward the future. “Why did my mother marry a man like that?” he wondered in astonishment.

  21.

  Things went from bad to worse, like a summer’s morning advancing to the blazing heat of high noon. Shams al-Din’s heart hardened, as his feelings of antipathy and rage mounted. Sitting in the café one night, he was told that his father was dancing half-naked in the bar. He rushed there in a frenzy, sick at heart, but determined to take action. He saw his father gyrating drunkenly, clad only in his underpants. His inebriated audience clapped along with him. “Float on the water,” they sang at the tops of their voices.

  Galal did not notice his son’s arrival and remained completely absorbed in his dancing. Some of the drinkers saw Shams al-Din, stopped clapping and singing, and tried to warn the others.

  “Let’s watch this. It should be good,” urged one of them with malicious pleasure.

  As the clapping and singing died down, Galal stopped dancing with an aggrieved air. Then he noticed his son. He saw he was angry and ready to make a stand, and this infuriated him. “What brings you here, lad?” he shouted.

  “Please put your clothes on, father,” said Shams al-Din politely.

  “I said what brings you here, you cheeky son of a bitch?”

  “Please get dressed,” persisted the boy.

  His father lunged unsteadily at him and gave him a slap that ripped through the silence of the bar.

  A chorus of voices egged him on approvingly.

  The man fell on his son again, but he was so drunk that his strength soon gave out and he collapsed on the floor, unconscious.

  There was a short burst of laughter, then silence returned to the bar.

  “You’ve killed your father, Shams al-Din,” a voice called.

  “He didn’t even have time to say his prayers!”

  Shams al-Din bent over his father to put his clothes back on, then slung him over his shoulder and carried him out in a hail of coarse, mocking laughter.

  22.

  Galal came to shortly afterward lying on his bed in his marital home. His red eyes roamed around him and fell upon Afifa, Shams al-Din, and the familiar features of the room he hated. It was nighttime and he should have been in bed with Dalal. This boy had made him the laughingstock of the drunks in the bar and not shown him the respect owing to a father. He sat up in bed, fuming with rage. Then he leapt to the ground. He lunged at Shams al-Din, and began pounding him with his fists. Afifa threw herself between them, sobbing loudly. Galal turned on her in blind fury. He grabbed her around the throat and squeezed hard. Vainly the woman tried to struggle free, giving every sign that she was being choked to death.

  “Leave her alone. You’re killing her,” shouted Shams al-Din.

  Intoxicated by the savagery of the crime, Galal paid no attention. In desperation Shams al-Din seized a wooden seat and brought it down on Galal’s head with demented energy.

  23.

  A heavy calm took the place of the shouting and hysteria. Galal lay supine on the bed, soaked in his own blood. The neighbors came rushing to see, closely followed by Sheikh Mugahid Ibrahim. The barber gave first aid and stopped the bleeding, while Shams al-Din cowered in a corner, abandoning himself to his fate.

  Time was absent altogether. One mocking instant had spread out far and wide, bursting with possibilities. A single haphazard moment, more influential than all the thought and planning in the world. Afifa and Shams al-Din each realized that the present was thrusting away the past, destroying it, burying it.

  “What cruel fate would play games with a father and his only son?” muttered Mugahid Ibrahim.

  “It’s the devil,” wailed Afifa.

  Silence hung over Galal like a mountain. His chest continued to rise and fall.

  “Galal!” called Mugahid Ibrahim.

  “God have mercy on us!” cried Afifa.

  “What can you find?” the sheikh asked the barber.

  “It’s in God’s hands,” answered the barber, still intent on his work.

  “But you have your expertise as well.”

  The barber approached the sheikh. “No one could survive such a beating,” he said under his breath.

  24.

  Galal opened his dim eyes. He could scarcely recognize anybody. Still he said nothing, until the nerve
s of those around him were at breaking point, but gradually he began to recover consciousness.

  “I’m dying,” he murmured.

  “Don’t say such things,” gasped Afifa.

  “The shadows don’t frighten me.”

  “You’re fine.”

  “God’s will be done.”

  Mugahid Ibrahim approached the bed. “Galal,” he said. “It’s Mugahid Ibrahim. Speak before these witnesses.”

  “Where’s Shams al-Din?” asked Galal in a weak voice.

  Mugahid Ibrahim summoned him to the bedside.

  “He’s here beside you.”

  “I’m dying.”

  “What happened?” asked the sheikh.

  “It was an act of God.”

  “Who hit you?”

  Galal said nothing.

  “Tell us,” insisted the sheikh.

  “I’m dying.”

  “Who hit you?”

  “My father,” sighed Galal.

  “Dead people don’t hit you. You have to tell us.”

  He sighed again. “I don’t know.”

  “How’s that?”

  “The alley was dark.”

  “Did someone attack you in the alley?”

  “On my own doorstep.”

  “You must know who it was.”

  “I don’t. The darkness hid him. He didn’t want to be seen.”

  “Do you have any enemies?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you suspect anyone?”

  “No.”

  “You don’t know who did it and you don’t suspect anyone?”

  “I called to my son to help me and then I lost consciousness.”

  Mugahid Ibrahim was silent. All eyes were on Galal as he lay dying.

  25.

  Shams al-Din listened in astonishment to his father’s last words. His courage failed him and he said nothing. He received the dying man’s affection with humility, cowardice, and regret. He avoided meeting Mugahid Ibrahim’s eyes, then buried his face in his hands and wept. Throughout the funeral and the days immediately following it, when people flocked to offer their condolences, he never closed his eyes in sleep and moved among them like a ghost pursued by the shades of hell. His grandfather and great-grandmother had gone mad; one of the line had been a foul pervert; but he was the first of the cursed Nagi family to kill his father.