The Harafish

  “What do you think about finding nice girls for both of you?”

  They were poor, inhibited. So they accepted gladly.

  “We’ll move to a bigger flat with room for us all,” said Halima briskly. “That’ll make life easier.”

  She chose Fathiyya and Shukriyya, daughters of One-Eyed Musa’s stableman, Muhammad al-Agal. Neither of the boys had set eyes on his girl before, but they were burning with youthful passion and in their unruly imaginations eager to embrace any female.

  So the engagements were formalized.

  10.

  A stranger came to the alley. His face glowed with health and well-being. He was dressed in a flowing dark brown cloak, red slippers with turned-up toes, and a slip of striped silk wrapped around his head and garnet prayer beads between his fingers. The first to see him was Zayn al-Alabaya, the bar owner. He didn’t recognize the young man until he smiled. “Fayiz!” he exclaimed.

  All eyes turned to look, but he kept going to the café, where he made straight for Hassuna al-Saba. He bowed low to kiss his hand, then straightened up and waited submissively.

  “Well, well. The fugitive’s returned,” said Hassuna, looking him up and down.

  “People always come back to their roots!”

  “It looks as if you’ve done well for yourself.”

  “That’s the Lord’s doing,” Fayiz said modestly.

  One-Eyed Musa entered the café, followed by Sheikh Yunis al-Sayis.

  “It’s up to you to see justice is done, chief,” cried Musa.

  “Don’t bray like an ass,” scolded the chief.

  “He sold the donkey and cart, then used my capital.”

  The chief turned to Fayiz. “What did you do with his money?”

  “I swear the cart was stolen while I was asleep. That’s why I ran away.”

  “Liar!” shouted Musa. “How did you get to be so grand?”

  “A bit of luck, hard work, God’s help.”

  “Odd business,” muttered Sheikh Yunis.

  “It’s my money. If I’d stolen it, would I have come back? I only came because I was eager to pay what I did owe.”

  He handed the chief a small bag. “Two years of money due to you.”

  The chief took it, and smiled for the first time.

  “I came first of all to see you,” Fayiz told him, “and then to visit my family.”

  “Are you a thief?” said Hassuna al-Saba. “Never mind. You’re a smart operator, anyway. I believe you!”

  “What about me?” demanded Musa.

  “Halima gave you the price of the donkey and cart,” said Sheikh Yunis.

  “His money is really mine,” persisted Musa.

  “Musa deserves the same amount as me,” decreed the chief.

  Without hesitating, Fayiz handed another bag over to him. The men, delighted by this just ruling, cried in chorus, “God bless him! God bless him!”

  But Hassuna kept a firm hold on the second money bag and a despairing look appeared on Musa’s face.

  “Go and see your family now,” said the chief to Fayiz.

  11.

  He found Halima waiting for him at the door of the basement room. She had been there since she first heard the news. It was like a dream, a fairy tale, a miracle. An impossible happiness, in any case. She held him tight, sobbing and repeating, “Thank you, Lord. Thank you.”

  Once Diya and Ashur came home the family was reunited. Astonishment mingled with joy again. Fayiz sat in the little room like a diamond in a heap of straw. He gave off light, a light of hope which made the future look more bewitching than in their wildest dreams. The family’s perceptions changed. They were reborn.

  Fayiz began to speak. “People always envy someone who’s made good. They’ll invent stories about me. But I’m innocent, as God’s my witness.”

  “I believe you,” declared Halima emotionally.

  “Why did I go? Very briefly, the cart was stolen while I was asleep. I panicked and decided to make a run for it. Perhaps it was the wrong decision, but that’s what happened.”

  They gazed at him, delighted, credulous.

  “I wandered around for some time without a job, until a foreigner rescued me. It’s a long story, but I worked for him as a domestic servant and driver, protected him from some louts, and learned how to do business. Then I had a piece of luck. You need luck. I won a lottery and decided to work for myself. I was more successful than I ever guessed I would be.”

  “What is it you do exactly?” asked Ashur.

  “It’s not easy to explain. Have you ever heard of brokerage, speculation? Right. No shop or office. We make our transactions in the street, in cafés. It’s complicated. I’ll come back to it in more detail. But I won’t ask you to be my partners! I’ve got various specific projects planned for the future, whose success is guaranteed.”

  Their faces flushed with delight and hope and they waited in silent expectation.

  “It’s God’s will that the Nagi family should be restored to its proper place in society,” continued Fayiz.

  “Are you talking about the leadership of the clan?” breathed Ashur.

  “No, no,” laughed Fayiz. “Wealth and luxury!”

  “That would be splendid,” said Diya, his face radiant.

  “We have to change this paltry way of life. From today we’re no longer harafish. No more shepherds or porters in the family! This is God’s will.”

  “You’re the fruit of my love and my prayers!” cried Halima.

  “We must think fast,” said Fayiz with great seriousness. “My activities require me to make frequent trips away.”

  12.

  Changes took place as definite as the four seasons. In the space of a day Halima gave up being a maid and became a lady of leisure. Diya and Ashur handed in their notice to the coppersmith and the shepherd and the family moved temporarily to a four-room flat while a house was built for them on a plot of waste ground opposite the moneylender’s. Fayiz bought a coal yard for his two brothers to run. They sat in the manager’s office in ample robes, giving off aromas of musk and amber.

  The reality was indistinguishable from the dream. People stared, their eyes transfixed by the dazzling sight. Exchanging their old rags for such sumptuous attire, the brothers felt dazed, afraid, then enraptured. They went into the street as if they were going into battle. The harafish surrounded them. They were greeted by a deluge of conflicting remarks: insults, blessings, wisecracks, solemn advice, taunts, congratulations. By late morning rank had been awarded its privileges and settled in its rightful station, and everyone had submitted to the decrees of fate. But so many hearts were burning with envy, overwhelmed and disoriented, drunk on ill-defined hopes.

  Galil al-Alim, imam of the mosque, and Sheikh Yunis al-Sayis were standing exchanging confidences. Ashur went by and Yunis commented, “They say that boy looks like the first Ashur.”

  “Don’t confuse pure gold and gold plate,” joked Galil.

  13.

  A grim obstacle loomed in sight, blocking the smooth path ahead: their engagements to Fathiyya and Shukriyya. They had weighed heavily on them from the beginning.

  “Why were you in such a hurry?” Diya asked his mother reprovingly.

  Halima didn’t know what to say. She was no longer enthusiastic about the arrangement, but she didn’t want to do anything she would be ashamed of, and she was a pious woman.

  “It’s fate,” she announced.

  “What?”

  “The proverb says, ‘If you marry a poor woman, God will make you rich,’ ” she said lamely.

  “But God made us rich before we married them!”

  “You thought they were all right at the time.”

  “It’s a joke!” muttered Diya angrily.

  Ashur remained silent and morose. He was no longer happy at the engagement either but—like his mother—he was God-fearing and hated to dishonor a contract.

  “What about you, Ashur?” asked his mother.

  “We’v
e promised on the Quran,” he muttered helplessly.

  “I refuse to go through with it,” shouted Diya. “I’m sorry, but there it is!”

  “Do what you want,” said Halima. “But don’t expect me to back you up.”

  14.

  Diya had a meeting with Sheikh Yunis and asked him to convey his excuses to Muhammad al-Agal. The sheikh stared at his small face with its delicate features and inexplicably pale good looks and said to himself that here was a real bad egg, but out loud he commented sycophantically, “What you’re doing is perfectly fair. Only someone with a grudge against you would criticize you for it.”

  “I’ve no choice,” said Diya, concealing his embarrassment.

  “What about Ashur?”

  “He’s good and stupid!”

  Yunis al-Sayis laughed. “People will praise him and then ridicule him for being so naive.”

  15.

  Diya breaking off his engagement provoked a storm of anger and sarcasm, to which both the good contributed with their outraged sense of justice, and the spiteful with their jealous envy. Diya’s despicable conduct outweighed Ashur’s decency, which was quickly overlooked as curses rained down on the family of traitors whose cruelty and egotism had been made manifest; their aura of sanctity melted away in a rush of wildly speculative tales about their past history.

  Ashur was on his way to the coal yard when he heard a harsh, commanding voice call his name. He saw Hassuna al-Saba sitting cross-legged on his usual sofa in the café, surrounded by a group of his henchmen. He went up to him at once and greeted him politely. Without inviting him to sit, the chief started haranguing him. “You Nagis are a bunch of rogues and frauds.”

  Ashur wondered why he did not direct his insults at Diya, and realized that he was testing out the giant of the family. He had not forgotten his mother’s advice and with instinctive shrewdness he replied courteously, “May God forgive us our sins!”

  “You seem to forget your background very quickly. The madness. The immorality. Isn’t Muhammad al-Agal a more honorable man than any of you?”

  Suppressing his rage, Ashur replied, “He’s an honorable man, and I’ll soon become part of his family.”

  “Oh, no, you won’t.”

  “That’s the truth.”

  “He won’t allow one of his daughters to be happy at the other’s expense.”

  “But I haven’t broken off my engagement.”

  “No. He’s done it himself. And I’m informing you of his decision.”

  Ashur was silent, grim-faced.

  “You’ll have to compensate him for the trouble you’ve caused him,” went on Hassuna.

  “We’ll do whatever our chief thinks is right.”

  16.

  The heavy fog of resentment, bitterness, and regret lifted. The days went by bathed in happiness and good fortune. The elevated status of Diya and Ashur became a normal part of life. The luxurious household was established opposite the moneylender’s. Halima al-Baraka went about in a carriage. But Fayiz, instigator of all the changes, only visited his family and inspected his property every once in a while.

  17.

  They quickly grew to enjoy their status and accept it without questioning. Ashur was secretly delighted that his engagement had been broken off, especially since he hadn’t had to do anything wrong. He savored his comfortable existence and thought of Fayiz as one of the family’s miracles, and a genius. He used to admire beautiful girls going by in their family carriages, for he loved beauty, just as he loved the monastery and the true glory of his family whose pure fragrance rose up from the recesses of the past. He gave freely to the clan chief and the sheikh, renewed the mosque, the fountain, the drinking trough, and the Quran school, and gave alms to the harafish.

  His mother cautioned him about the harafish. “Don’t provoke Hassuna al-Saba. Leave them to me. I can distribute alms to them in secret.”

  Ashur agreed, knowing that the rebellion of the harafish was still fresh in the clan chiefs’ minds.

  Diya was perhaps the happiest of the three. He loved the fame and status with all his heart, enjoyed his superior position at work, the luxury at home, and driving about in a carriage. He was wild about elegant clothes and exotic food, and chose the finest wines, hashish, and opium. He secretly worshiped his brother Fayiz, and all the Nagi men, heroes and renegades alike. He used to say proudly, “The important thing is to be out of the ordinary!”

  Halima was probably the most frugal of them, but she too reveled in their good fortune. At saints’ days and festivals she would smuggle alms to the harafish. She was especially generous to the mother of Fathiyya and Shukriyya, who soon forgot the bad blood between them and became one of her closest friends.

  18.

  A secret voice kept calling Ashur back to the monastery square to hear the songs, and sometimes out into the open countryside where he used to guard the sheep and goats. His happiness was like a sky with a few clouds that usually stayed out around the edges but sometimes scurried across the face of the sun. In his sweetest moments he was sometimes assailed by vague fears, sapping his zest for life, and he wondered why.

  His mother noticed his fluctuating moods. “A man without a wife he can rely on is a poor creature,” she declared one day.

  “That’s true. But it’s not everything.”

  “What more do you want?” asked Diya.

  Ashur kissed his brother’s hand in a gesture of gratitude. But the chief’s insulting behavior was lodged inside him like a dagger. He dared not contemplate his ancestor Ashur. His happiness was lacking some essential component. “How can a man be anxious when God has given him everything?” he demanded.

  “It’s the devil, son,” said his mother automatically.

  It was the devil all right. But which devil?

  19.

  Two girls from old-established families took the Nagi brothers’ fancy. Diya got engaged to Salma al-Khashshab, daughter of the owner of the timber yard, and Ashur to Aziza al-Attar, daughter of the biggest spice merchant in the alley. Fayiz appeared at the engagement party dressed like a king.

  The days went by, happy and serene.

  20.

  One night Fayiz arrived unexpectedly.

  The family was gathered around the glowing coals of a big copper stove. Halima was telling her rosary, Ashur smoking a water pipe, Diya getting stoned. Outside a cold wind blew, threatening rain.

  Fayiz usually came—when he did come—at midmorning, showing off his splendid clothes and fine carriage. They all rose to greet him and noticed immediately that the miracle of the family looked tired and cross. He sat on a divan, pushing his cloak back off his shoulders, despite the cold.

  “What’s wrong?” asked his mother anxiously.

  “Nothing,” he said listlessly.

  “I know there is, son!”

  “I’m not well.”

  His words tailed off. They all looked at him and saw a hardness in his expression that used to be there in the old days, before he made good.

  Halima got to her feet. “I’ll make you a caraway tisane.”

  “Then you can sleep,” murmured Diya.

  Fayiz let his eyelids droop for a moment, then said, “There are times a man can’t help longing for home.”

  “The winter’s been bad this year,” said Ashur.

  “Worse than you can imagine!”

  “And you work harder than most men could bear to.”

  “Than most men could bear to,” he repeated vaguely.

  “A man has a right to rest,” said Diya.

  “I’ve decided to have a long rest.”

  Silence fell. He stood up abruptly. “I’m off to bed.”

  Halima took him his tisane. The candelabra lit up the room. Fayiz lay on the bed fully clothed.

  “Why don’t you get undressed?” she asked.

  Then suddenly the glass slipped from her hand and she let out a piercing scream.

  21.

  They stood staring with crazed expre
ssions.

  His eyes were wide open, his face frozen, as if he had been dead for a thousand years. His left hand hung down over the edge of the luxuriant bedcovers and below it a little pool of blood was forming on the Shiraz carpet. A gold-handled dagger lay on his beige caftan. Diya began to search feverishly behind the divan, under the bed, in the cupboard, combing the room whose windows were closed and shuttered. “It’s absurd! What can it mean?” he shouted.

  “The Prophet save us!” cried Halima hoarsely.

  “The barber!” shouted Ashur, and flew out of the room.

  Halima began to wail.

  Diya screamed at her. “He’s still alive.”

  “It’s over,” she sobbed. “My son! Why did you do this to yourself?”

  The barber surgeon arrived, followed by Yunis al-Sayis, Galil al-Alim, and members of the Khashshab and Attar families.

  He took one look at Fayiz and retreated, muttering, “Only God is immortal.”

  A demented wind swept through the elegant house.

  22.

  The police arrived shortly before midnight, interrogated the family and the servants, and examined all the possibilities with scrupulous care.

  “Why do you think he did it?” the officer in charge asked the assembled family.

  “Until yesterday he was the happiest man alive,” said Halima.

  “Do you know if he had any enemies?”

  “None at all.”

  “What was his occupation?”

  “He was a businessman, a speculator.”

  “Where did he work?”

  “Nowhere in particular. He had a house in Darasa, in the foothills.”

  “What do you know of his employees and his partners?”

  “Absolutely nothing.”

  “How’s that possible?”

  “It’s the truth.”

  23.

  It was announced that Fayiz had committed suicide for reasons which the inquiry had so far failed to identify. Despite the manner of his death, he was given a splendid funeral and buried beside Shams al-Din.

  The three days of the mourning ceremonies passed with the family in a state of shock, unable to find an explanation for this terrible disaster.