The Time and the Place Page 15

  “How is it that the policeman doesn’t move?”

  “That’s what makes me think the incident might be a scene being shot for a film.”

  “But the beating was real enough!”

  “And the discussion and the speech-making under the rain!”

  Something unusual attracted their gaze. From the direction of the square, two cars rushed out at a crazy speed. It appeared to be a furious chase. The car in front was tearing along, with the other on the point of catching up to it. Then the one in front braked so suddenly that it skidded on the surface of the road and the other knocked into it with a resounding crash. Both cars overturned, causing an explosion, and they immediately caught fire. Screams and groans rang out under the pouring rain. But no one hurried toward the accident: the thief did not stop declaiming, and none of those surrounding him turned toward the remnants of the two cars that had been destroyed a few meters away from them. They took no notice, just as they took no notice of the rain. Those standing under the shelter caught sight of a person covered in blood, one of the victims of the accident, crawling exceedingly slowly from under one of the cars. Attempting to raise himself on all fours, he took a final tumble onto his face.

  “A real disaster, no doubt about it!”

  “The policeman doesn’t want to budge!”

  “There must be a telephone nearby.”

  But no one moved, all fearful of the rain. It was a frightening downpour, and there were cracks of thunder. The thief, having completed his speech, stood regarding his listeners with calm confidence. Suddenly he began to take off his clothes till he was completely naked. He threw his clothes onto the wreckage of the two cars, whose fires had been put out by the rain. He walked around as though showing off his naked body. He took two steps forward, then two steps back and began to dance with a professional refinement of movement. At this those who had been chasing him clapped in time, while the young men linked arms and began circling around him. Perplexed, those standing under the shelter held their breath.

  “If it’s not a scene being filmed, then it’s madness!”

  “Without doubt a scene being shot for a film, and the policeman’s merely one of them waiting to perform his part.”

  “And the car accident?”

  “Technical skill—and at the end we’ll find the director behind a window.”

  A window in a building opposite the shelter was opened, making a noise that drew attention to it. Despite the clapping and the downpour of rain, eyes were directed at it. A fully dressed man appeared at the window. He gave a whistle, and immediately another window in the same building was opened and a woman appeared, fully dressed and made up, who answered the whistle with a nod of her head. The two of them disappeared from the gaze of those standing under the shelter; after a while the two left the building together. Heedless of the rain, they walked out arm in arm. They stood by the wrecked cars, exchanged a word, and began taking off their clothes until they were completely naked under the rain. The woman threw herself down on the ground, letting her head fall on the corpse of the dead man, which was lying facedown. The man knelt alongside her and began, with hands and lips, making tender love. Then the man covered her with his body, and they began copulating. The dancing and the clapping, and the young men moving in a circle, and the downpour of the rain, continued uninterrupted.

  “Scandalous!”

  “If it’s a scene in a film it’s scandalous, and if it’s for real it’s madness.”

  “The policeman is lighting a cigarette.”

  The semiempty street then saw new life. From the south came a camel caravan, preceded by a caravan leader and several Bedouin men and women. They encamped at a short distance from the circle of the dancing thief. The camels were tied to the walls of the houses, and tents were erected, after which the people dispersed, some of them partaking of food or sipping tea or smoking, while others engaged in conversation. From the north came a group of tourist buses carrying Europeans. They came to a stop behind the thief’s circle, then the passengers, men and women, got out and dispersed in groups, eagerly exploring the place, heedless of the dancing, the copulating, death, or the rain.

  Then a lot of building workers came along, followed by trucks loaded with stones, cement, and construction equipment. With incredible speed the workers set up a magnificent tomb. Close by it they made out of the stones a large elevated throne and covered it with sheets and decorated its supports with flowers—all this under the rain. They went to the wreckage of the two cars and took out the corpses, the heads smashed in and the limbs burned. The body of the man lying on his face they also took from under the two lovers, who had not ceased their copulating. They ranged the bodies on the throne alongside one another, then turned their attention to the two lovers and carried them off together, still entwined, and deposited them in the tomb, blocking up the opening and leveling off the earth. After that, cheering with words that no one could make out, they boarded the trucks, which took them off with lightning speed.

  “It’s as though we’re in a dream!”

  “A frightening dream—we’d better be off.”

  “No, we must wait.”

  “Wait for what?”

  “The happy ending.”

  “Happy?”

  “Or else tell the producer he’s got a catastrophe on his hands!”

  While they were conversing, a man wearing judge’s robes sat down cross-legged on the tomb. No one saw where he had come from: whether from among the European tourists, from among the Bedouin, or from the dance circle. He spread a newspaper before him and began reading out an item as though pronouncing sentence. No one could hear what he was saying, for it was drowned by the clapping, the clamor of voices in all sorts of languages, and the rain. But his inaudible words were not lost, for movements of violent conflict like clamorous waves spread along the road, with battles breaking out in the midst of the Bedouin, and others in the areas where the Europeans were to be found. Battles then started up between the Bedouin and the Europeans. Other people began dancing and singing. Many gathered around the tomb and began copulating in the nude. The thief danced in a frenzy of singular invention. Everything became more intense and attained a peak: killing and dancing and copulation and death, the thunder and the rain.

  A large man slipped in among the people standing under the shelter. Bareheaded, he was wearing trousers and a black pullover, and he carried a telescope. He violently cleaved his way through the group and began watching the road through his telescope, moving it around in different directions and muttering, “Not bad…not bad.”

  The eyes of the group fastened on him.

  “Is it him?”

  “Yes, he’s the director.”

  The man once again addressed the road, murmuring, “Keep going, don’t make any mistakes or we’ll have to take everything from the beginning.”

  Then one of the men asked him, “Sir, would you be…?”

  But he cut him short with an abrupt, unfriendly gesture, so the man swallowed the remainder of his question and kept quiet. But someone else, deriving courage from the tautness of his nerves, asked, “Are you the director?”

  The man did not turn to his questioner but continued his surveillance, at which a human head rolled toward the bus stop, coming to rest several feet away, blood spouting profusely from where it had been severed from the neck. The people under the shelter screamed in terror, while the man with the telescope stared for some time at the head, then mumbled, “Well done…well done!”

  “But it’s a real head and real blood!” a man shouted at him.

  The man directed his telescope toward a man and a woman copulating, then called out impatiently, “Change position—take care it doesn’t get boring!”

  “But it’s a real head!” the other man shouted at him. “Please explain to us what it’s all about.”

  “Just one word from you would be enough for us to know who you are and who these people are,” said another man.

  “No
thing’s stopping you from speaking,” implored a third person.

  “Sir,” a fourth entreated, “don’t begrudge us peace of mind.”

  But the man with the telescope gave a sudden leap backward, as though to hide himself behind them. His arrogance melted away in a searching look; his haughtiness disappeared. It was as though he had become old or been shattered by some illness. The people gathered under the shelter saw a group of official-looking men wandering about not far away, like dogs sniffing around. The man tore off at a mad run under the rain; one of the men wandering around darted after him, followed, like a hurricane, by the others. Soon they had all disappeared from view, leaving the road to murder, copulation, dancing, and the rain.

  “Good heavens! It wasn’t the director after all.”

  “Who is he, then?”

  “Perhaps he’s a thief.”

  “Or an escaped lunatic.”

  “Or perhaps he and his pursuers belong to a scene in the film.”

  “These are real events and have nothing to do with acting.”

  “But acting is the sole premise that makes them somewhat acceptable.”

  “There’s no point in concocting premises.”

  “Then what’s your explanation for it?”

  “It’s reality, quite regardless of…”

  “How can it be happening?”

  “It is happening.”

  “We must be off at any price.”

  “We shall be called to give evidence at the inquiry.”

  “There’s some hope left….”

  The man who said this advanced toward the policeman and shouted, “Sergeant…!”

  He called four times before the policeman took note. He scowled, clearing his throat, at which the other gestured to him in appeal, saying, “Please, Sergeant…”

  The sergeant looked at the rain in displeasure, then fastened his overcoat around his body and hurried toward them until he was standing under the shelter. He scrutinized them sternly and inquired, “What’s it to do with you?”

  “Haven’t you seen what’s happening in the street?”

  Without averting his eyes, he said, “Everyone at the bus stop has taken his bus except for you. What are you up to?”

  “Look at that human head.”

  “Where are your identity cards?”

  He examined their cards as he gave a cruel, ironic smile. “What’s behind your assembling here?”

  They exchanged glances proclaiming their innocence, and one of them said, “Not one of us knows any of the others.”

  “A lie that will not help you now.”

  He took two steps back. Aiming his gun at them, he fired quickly and accurately. One after the other they fell lifelessly to the ground. Their bodies were sprawled under the shelter, the heads cushioned on the sidewalk under the rain.

  A Fugitive from Justice

  “The German army has invaded Polish territory….”

  The news burst forth from the radio jammed in an aperture in the wall of the sole room still standing in the ruins, and made its way beyond the boundaries of the vast Khafeer area.

  “Quiet!” shouted Dahroug sharply. “Listen, the lot of you!”

  The boy and his three sisters stopped making a noise. When they saw from their father’s face that he was serious, they slunk off between the piles of scrap iron, tires, and spare parts to the most distant part of the ruins. There they continued their games, safe from his wrath.

  Amna, hanging out the washing, paused and raised her head above the line stretched between a bar in the window of the room and the roof of an old truck. “You scared away the children,” she called out at her husband in protest. “That blasted radio and its news!”

  Dahroug, without anger, ignored her. He took a last puff from the cigarette butt he held between his fingers. “It’s war, then!” he said.

  Salama realized the words were directed at him, so he raised his head from the tire he had been fixing. With eyes gleaming out of a face surrounded by a thick black beard that reached down his neck, the man stared back, then said scornfully, “Yes, they finally believed it.”

  While Dahroug’s head was turned toward the radio, Salama seized the chance to steal a glance at the woman. His gaze lingered on her face that craned upward, then descended to her slim body with the full breasts. The woman caught sight of him before he withdrew his stare, as though she had expected it. Then she turned her back on him, and Salama leaned over the wheel, thinking how terrible was war in the heat of August. How terrible the heat!

  Dahroug turned toward him. “For a long time they’ve been predicting it will bring the world to ruin. But what’s it to us?”

  “We’re far away,” answered the bearded man, smiling. “Let them devour one another.”

  Dahroug crossed his legs as he sat on an upturned can and cast a dreamy look far afield. “We heard fantastic things about the last war,” he said.

  “The fact is you’re old,” said Amna, laughing.

  Dahroug gave a laugh through his blackened teeth, saying scornfully, “All you care about is your stomach.”

  Salama, who though no longer young was a good ten years younger than his companion, said, “Yes, we certainly heard some fantastic things.”

  “Look at al-Asyouti for instance, who was he? Before the war he was nothing but a porter.”

  The children, having forgotten the threats, returned and brought with them their rowdiness. Mahmoud, a boy of seven and the eldest, was running about with the young girls trailing after him. His father glanced at him admiringly and called out, “Mahmoud, my boy, take courage—war’s broken out.”

  In the late afternoon Dahroug and Salama sat together on a piece of sacking outside the fence around the ruins. Before them stretched the desert right up to the foot of the Muqattam Hills, the sands extinguished under their shadow. A faded yellowness, the remnants of choked breaths of high summer, was diffused into the limpid sky. Feeble rays from the inclining sun were quickly scaling the mountain summit, though the desert was puffing out a refreshing breeze with the approach of evening.

  Dahroug began counting out piasters, while Salama, his head resting against the fence, gazed distractedly toward the horizon. Amna brought tea, and the children, barefoot and half naked, ran to the wasteland. Dahroug sipped a little of the hot tea.

  “My heart tells me, Salama, that the work’s going to really take off.”

  “May your heart be right, Abu Mahmoud.”*

  “I wish I could rely on you.”

  “I’m your friend and indebted to you for your generous kindness, but I can’t leave the ruins.”

  Dahroug thought for a while, then asked, “Does anyone in the big city know you behind that beard?”

  “They know the very djinn themselves.”

  “And will you spend your life in the ruins?”

  “Better than the hangman’s noose, Abu Mahmoud.”

  Dahroug laughed loud and said, “I have to laugh whenever I remember the story of your escape from between two guards.”

  “The best way of escaping is when it’s not expected.”

  Amna was standing facing the wasteland, her shawl drawn back over half of her jet black hair. “And the man got bumped off without any blood money.”

  “He was a murderer, the son of a murderer,” said Salama angrily. “He was so old I was afraid death would get to him before I did. My family went on demanding I that take revenge.”

  Dahroug guffawed loudly. “And you made your escape when the papers were on their way to the Mufti to endorse the death sentence.”

  Salama tugged at his arm in gratitude. “And I found myself desperate and said, ‘I’ve got no one but Dahroug, my childhood friend,’ and you gave me shelter, you noblest of men.”

  “We’re men of honor, Salama.”

  “In any case the storehouse here is in need of a man—and I’m that man.”

  Their conversation was interrupted by the appearance of a funeral procession on the horizon. It w
as coming from where the buildings stood and it continued toward the road opposite the western fence of the ruins that led to the Khafeer cemetery. The coffin, shrouded with a white silk covering, came into view. “A young girl,” muttered Amna. “How sad!”

  “This place is beautiful and safe,” said Salama. “The only thing wrong with it is it’s on the road to the cemetery.”

  “Isn’t it the road we all take?” said Dahroug, laughing.

  —

  The wasteland had remained substantially unchanged since war was declared. It was a playground for the sun from its rising to its setting, a place of passage for coffins, and an encampment for silence. The sirens were sounded in exercise for imaginary air raids. The old battered radio achieved the height of importance when it allowed Dahroug to calculate the shells exchanged between the Siegfried and Maginot Lines.

  Whenever Salama’s senses registered the tones of Amna’s melodious voice, or a playful movement or glance, even if not intentional, he became aflame with a voracious fire and at the same time with a merciless anger against himself.

  “Things haven’t changed,” said Dahroug morosely. “Where’s all we heard about the war?”

  “Be patient. Don’t you remember what your Jewish commission agent said?”

  Dahroug looked toward the piles of iron with which, acting on the advice of his agent, he had filled up the place. “Let the days pass quickly.”

  “Let them pass quickly—and let them swallow up fifteen years.”

  “Fifteen years?”

  “Then my sentence becomes null and void.”

  “What a lifetime! By then we’ll be on the brink of a third war.”

  Salama began singing in a strange, hoarse voice, “Come tell me, Bahiyya.” Then he called out, “Master Dahroug, none of my family will be left but the women.”