“My son—my only son!” he roared. “I will make the world burn!”
“Everyone out now!” the officer ordered, as his assistants surrounded Rashida.
“I will drink your blood,” said Qadri, aiming his storming rage at the girl.
The news soon spread like wildfire through their quarter.
12
Anous stared insensibly down at his body. Raouf came up to him, smiling, as the other looked at him and blurted, “Raouf, what brought you here?”
“The same thing that brought you here,” he replied. “Come along with me quickly, far away from this room.”
“And leave this behind?” Anous asked, still peering at his corpse.
“That is your old robe. It won’t do you any good to wear it now!”
“Have I … have I … ?” Anous stuttered.
“Yes, you have departed the world, Anous.”
He was silent for a while, then he said, referring to Rashida, “But she is innocent.”
“I am aware of that,” Raouf assured him. “But you can’t save her—so come with me.”
“I’m sorry for what I did to you,” said Anous.
“Regret has no importance.
” “I’m glad to see you,” answered Anous. “And I’m glad to see you,” responded Raouf.
13
Raouf rapidly began to acquaint Anous with his new environs, then told him, “Here is Abu—your lawyer,” when the ancient ex-Egyptian arrived.
“Welcome, Anous, to the First Heaven,” said Abu.
“You mean, it was written that I should go to heaven?” Anous asked in shock.
“Be patient. The road is much longer than you conceive,” Abu replied with his well-practiced smile.
Abu then began to inform him of the facts he needed to know about his new world, about the system of trials, and the kinds of verdicts to expect in them. He paraded Anous’ beastly actions in front of him like ugly ghosts, until the young man’s face grimaced and—wobbling with despair—he could endure no more.
Despite this, Abu said, “In any case, it is my mission to defend you.”
“Is there a chance you could succeed in that?” Anous pleaded. “Will it lighten the burden of my sins that I was deprived of life at an early age?”
“You lost it at the hand of a girl defending her honor as you attacked her. Then you left her facing a charge for your murder.”
“That’s true,” admitted Anous. “How I wish I could become her spiritual guide.”
“She was successful, as was her spiritual mentor. She has no need of you.”
“Does that mean I’m damned?”
“No doubt your father lurks behind your corruption,” said Abu. “He is the one who led you astray, who filled you with selfishness, who suggested that you harm people, who whispered in your ear that you should perpetrate crimes as though you owned the whole world.”
“You’ve spoken the truth,” Anous said animatedly, seeing his hopes revived.
“Yet, since you have your own mind, heart, and will, you are judged on your own account,” said Abu.
“My father’s power numbed all my powers completely!”
“Heaven holds you responsible for yourself—and for the world altogether.”
“Isn’t that responsibility far above the abilities of any human being?”
“But you bear it in exchange for the gift of life itself,” reproved Abu.
“But I was born without any say in the matter!”
“Rather, you took this pact upon yourself while you were still in the womb.”
“In all honesty, I have no memory of that.”
“It is incumbent upon you to remember.”
“This is a prosecution, not a defense!”
“We must establish the truth,” explained Abu.
“I was not without good qualities—I sought knowledge, and I loved sincerely, as well,” said Anous.
“You sought knowledge merely as a means to achieve status, while your love was but a presumptuous urge to possess the girl who belonged to your poverty-stricken friend.”
“She never left my mind for one moment….”
“That was nothing but arrogance and desire.”
Clinging to any thread, Anous pointed at Raouf. “I maintained a pure friendship!” he claimed.
“Did you not ultimately kill it off brutally?”
“I suffered enormous sadness afterward,” said Anous.
“That is uncontestable,” admitted Abu.
“And what of my love for cats and my tenderness toward them?”
“That, too, is beautiful.”
Abu reflected for a moment, then resumed his interrogation. “What was your attitude toward your father’s tyranny?”
“I was just a dutiful son!”
“Such devotion was hardly appropriate in a case like yours.”
“Some of his actions always disgusted me.”
“Yet you greatly admired other things he did that were no less appalling.”
“If only I had lived long enough to change all that….”
“You are being tried for what was, not for what might have been.”
“… Or if I could be given another chance.”
“Perhaps that could be arranged,” mused Abu.
“When will I appear in court?”
“Your trial is already concluded,” replied Abu solemnly. “Anous Qadri, I regret to inform you that you have been condemned.”
At these words, like a wisp of fog in the rays of the sun, Anous vanished into the void.
Raouf gazed at Abu questioningly. “Will I continue as his spiritual guide?”
“He will not be reborn on earth for at least a year, or perhaps even longer.”
“What then, will my new assignment be?” wondered Raouf.
Mournfully, Abu told him, “You must present yourself for trial once again.”
“Did I not put every effort into it?”
“Indeed, you did, but you failed. Your man was condemned, as you have seen.”
“The important thing is the work, not the result.”
“The work and the result are both important,” Abu admonished. “Moreover, you made a monstrous mistake.”
“What was that, Abu?”
“It was not your mission to make him confess to killing you, as though that had been the only or the biggest crime in your quarter.”
“But wasn’t that his main problem?”
“No,” said Abu.
“What was it, then?”
“His father was the problem,” Abu advised. “If you had goaded him against his father, then you would have attained higher goals!”
Raouf fell into a pained silence as Abu continued to lecture him, “You did not choose the right target. Your egoism got the better of you, though you did not know it. It would have been easier to provoke him to rebel against his father. If he had succeeded in that, he would not have been disgraced. But it was hardly easy for a foolish, pampered young man to sacrifice his own life—while his father’s felonies included your murder.”
“Please tell me the verdict,” Raouf said in resignation.
“Raouf Abd-Rabbuh, I regret to inform you that you have been condemned.”
As soon as Abu pronounced his sentence, Raouf, too, was gone.
14
There was a lengthy inquiry into the case of Rashida Sulayman. She went to trial, where she convinced the court that she had acted in self-defense. The result was acquittal. Her mother decided that to remain in the hara at the mercy of Boss Qadri the Butcher posed an unpredictable danger, so she fled that night with her daughter, destination unknown.
At the same time, the bursting stream of life in the alley began to wash away the froth of sadness. Raouf’s destitute mother married Shaykh Shakir al-Durzi six months after the death of his wife. She bore him a son that she named Raouf to immortalize the memory of the one she had lost. Yet this was not really Raouf returning, but the soul of Anous in a new guis
e. Likewise, one of Boss Qadri’s wives gave birth to a boy that the father called Anous, in honor of the son taken from him—but this was none other than Raouf’s spirit transmigrated to a new body.
15
The child Raouf (Anous) grew up in the house of Shakir al-Durzi, along with many brothers and sisters, in a life of luxury, thanks to the bribes that Qadri the Butcher paid the shaykh of the alley. Yet the shaykh did not preoccupy himself with raising his children, or with marrying off his daughters. None of the boys were educated beyond Qur’an school, but worked in the lowest trades, whether in the hara itself or outside it. Nor was Raouf more fortunate than his brothers. At the beginning, his mother insisted that he excel in learning, only to be harshly reprimanded by her husband. Soon the boy was given a petty job in a bakery. Raouf was glad for that, because he did not find within himself either the true inclination or drive to study. As he grew older he understood the actual situation in his alley—the cocky dominance of Boss Qadri the Butcher, and the despicable role played by his father. And there was the life of poverty to which he was fated, in the service of Rashad al-Dabash, the bakery’s owner.
Anous (Raouf) had been his classmate at school. They had a natural sympathy for each other, and spent all their time playing together. A strong bond of affection was forged between them. Nonetheless, life separated them despite their living in the same quarter. Anous was enrolled in primary school after Qur’an school, then in secondary school, before finally entering the Police Academy. Perhaps they sometimes met on the street, or in the home of Qadri the Butcher when Raouf was delivering dough or returning with loaves of bread. At such times they would each exchange a fleeting smile, or a greeting—from Anous’ side—that seemed a bit feeble. Raouf could tell that their childhood friendship was dwindling away and evaporating, and their two worlds were growing further and further apart. He felt more and more sharply the contradictions of life, and its miseries. He was annoyed with Anous, but he utterly loathed Qadri the Butcher and Rashad the Baker, and abhorred his own father. Indeed, the flame of life singed him, kindled by what he heard that the young people were saying in the coffeehouse— until Anous himself would sit with those same youths, expressing his views with passion. With this he appeared to be a strange young man, at odds with the house in which he dwelt, in rebellion against his infamous father.
For his part, Boss Qadri the Butcher watched Anous’s development with unease. This was a peculiarly peevish offspring, one that stirred fears; he even once called him “a bastard son.”
One day he asked him, “What do you say to the riffraff in the café, and what do they tell you?”
“We exchange our concerns, father,” he answered politely.
“They are your enemies,” objected Qadri.
“They are my friends,” Anous said, smiling.
“If you overstep your limits, you’ll find me another person, without any mercy whatsoever,” swore Boss Qadri.
Qadri told himself that soon his son would become a police officer. Then he would become mature and know his place in life. Next, he would marry—and his problem with him would end.
Anous did indeed graduate as an officer. He was appointed to their own quarter through his father’s influence and his courting of highly placed persons.
16
Time is what made Raouf and Anous turn out differently than expected. A current swept through the alley, or rather new currents did—both rebellious and even revolutionary. And so they burst out of the suffocating air at home, each one adopting a new personality. No one sensed the danger from Anous before he became a policeman. Yes, there had been alienating disturbances between himself and his father, yet Qadri had thought everything would change in his favor when his son was officially launched in his career.
As for Raouf, his employer, Rashad al-Dabash, soon grew angry with him. He slapped him on the face, shouting, “Look out for yourself—and don’t lead your pals down the wrong path!”
If it weren’t for his father Shakir al-Durzi’s rank as shaykh of the hara, then Raouf would have lost his job,though Rashad complained to him about the boy. The shaykh was astounded at this new type of insubordination, and sought to tame him with a harsh beating. When he found him still stubborn, he resorted to calling on the officer.
“Effendim,” Anous advised, “threaten him with the law—that is better than our having to arrest him tomorrow.”
Thus Raouf appeared before his old friend Anous. For a long time they traded just looks with each other, then memories they shared together, until their faces glowed with the warmth of their old camaraderie.
“How are you, Raouf?” Anous asked him, smiling.
“Miserable,” Raouf replied, “so far away from you.”
“You should have continued your education,” Anous told him.
“That was my father’s doing—and what’s done is done.”
“Look out for yourself,” Anous told him seriously. “The law has no mercy.”
“The Boss caused all this evil—and there’s no mercy in his heart.”
Lowering his voice, Anous repeated, “Watch out for yourself….”
After this, Anous sought to shake up the hara’s consciousness, and to make his father tremble. He had Shaykh Shakir al-Durzi transferred to another alley, putting a new, more trustworthy man, Badran Khalifa, in his place. This hit Boss Qadri the Butcher like a violent revolution, depriving him of the precious right hand that had shielded him from the law.
“How did this happen when you’re an officer in the station here?” he confronted his son.
“That protection is for you—and the people too.
“You’re my son—and my enemy, Anous.
“Know, father, that I’m your faithful son.
Each speaking their own language, mutual comprehension between the two became impossible, and black dust covered the house’s face.
17
A woman came to meet Anous in the station. When his eyes beheld her face, his breast was moved by a sweet new melody. Such a wonder, this serene beauty with her dark, almond-shaped eyes. It was as though her image was already engraved in his passion to awaken it anew. She was at least twenty years older than he was: her expression entwined serenity and sadness.
“I’ve come to request your protection,” she told him.
“What is your name?” asked Anous.
“Rashida Sulayman, schoolteacher,” she told him. “Recently, I was transferred to the New Era School in this quarter.”
That name—hadn’t it flitted before through the tangle of his memory?
“Whom do you fear?” he queried her, his eyes fixed on her face with infatuation.
“It’s ancient history,” replied Rashida. “I may be exposed to an attack on my life because of it.”
“Really?” he said raptly. “What’s the history? And who would the attacker be?”
“It’s an old legal issue in which I was found innocent— a case of self-defense,” she explained. “But the father of the person killed is a frightful man with many criminal supporters.”
The old story that he had heard repeatedly in his childhood assailed him like a sudden storm. Shaken, he struggled to control his battered nerves. Standing before him was the woman who had killed his brother, the first Anous. Had she beguiled him the way she had bewitched his brother before him?
“We ran away to Imbaba,” she continued her tale. “I trained to be a teacher in the provinces, until I was suddenly transferred to our old neighborhood.”
He fell silent, caught up in the vortex of his emotions. He had not asked her the name of the person she feared— but then she said, “The man is well-known to everyone here: Boss Qadri the Butcher.”
“Are you married, ma’am?” he queried, steadying himself with an enormous effort.
“I have never wed,” she told him.
“Why haven’t you explained your circumstances to the school administration in this district?”
“No one would pay any attentio
n to me.”
“Where do you live?”
“At 15 al-Durri Street, Imbaba.”
“Stay calm,” he told her. “I will speak to the administration myself. And if it takes a while to get results, then I will see to your protection personally.”
“Thank you,” she said warmly. “Please don’t forget me!” No, he would not be able to forget her.
18
Anous found no difficulty in annulling her transfer. He went by himself to the house at 15 al-Durri Street in Imbaba. The time was late afternoon. The Nile seemed still, cool fires gliding along its surface. Rashida received him with surprise blended with pleasure and hope, then guided him into her small, well-furnished sitting room.
“Please excuse my stopping by,” he said, “but I wanted to put your mind at ease immediately. I was able to undo your move at work.”
“A thousand thanks to you, effendim!”
She ordered coffee for him, thus offering him a chance to tarry, as he had hoped.
“Do you live with your mother?” he asked her.
“My mother passed away ten years ago,” she replied. “I have no one but an old woman who is my faithful housekeeper.”
What a shame that Rashida is a spinster, though she still retains her beauty.
“Would it disturb you to know that I am Anous Qadri, son of that same terrifying butcher?”
Rashida was shocked. Her brown face flushed, its expression changed completely—yet she said not a word.
“I have upset you,” he fretted.
“I’m just surprised,” she said tremblingly.
“Please don’t hate me,” he begged.
“You’re just a normal person,” she said shyly.
He continued sipping his coffee while drinking in glances he stole at Rashida. Then he laughed nervously, “I’m not frightening like my father!”
“I’m sure of that,” she said.
“Really?”
“That’s very clear—and the truth is, I’m innocent,” she declared.
“And I’m sure of that,” Anous affirmed. After a moment, he added, “But there is something that perplexes me.”