The Time and the Place Read online

  “I’m in need of Sheikh Zaabalawi,” I answered his inquiry as to the purpose of my visit.

  He gazed at me with the same astonishment as that shown by those I had previously encountered.

  “At least,” he said, giving me a smile that revealed his gold teeth, “he is still alive. The devil of it is, though, he has no fixed abode. You might well bump into him as you go out of here, on the other hand you might spend days and months in fruitless searching.”

  “Even you can’t find him!”

  “Even I! He’s a baffling man, but I thank the Lord that he’s still alive!”

  He gazed at me intently, and murmured, “It seems your condition is serious.”

  “Very.”

  “May God come to your aid! But why don’t you go about it systematically?” He spread out a sheet of paper on the desk and drew on it with unexpected speed and skill until he had made a full plan of the district, showing all the various quarters, lanes, alleyways, and squares. He looked at it admiringly and said, “These are dwelling-houses, here is the Quarter of the Perfumers, here the Quarter of the Coppersmiths, the Mouski, the police and fire stations. The drawing is your best guide. Look carefully in the cafés, the places where the dervishes perform their rites, the mosques and prayer-rooms, and the Green Gate, for he may well be concealed among the beggars and be indistinguishable from them. Actually, I myself haven’t seen him for years, having been somewhat preoccupied with the cares of the world, and was only brought back by your inquiry to those most exquisite times of my youth.”

  I gazed at the map in bewilderment. The telephone rang, and he took up the receiver.

  “Take it,” he told me, generously. “We’re at your service.”

  Folding up the map, I left and wandered off through the quarter, from square to street to alleyway, making inquiries of everyone I felt was familiar with the place. At last the owner of a small establishment for ironing clothes told me, “Go to the calligrapher Hassanein in Umm al-Ghulam—they were friends.”

  I went to Umm al-Ghulam, where I found old Hassanein working in a deep, narrow shop full of signboards and jars of color. A strange smell, a mixture of glue and perfume, permeated its every corner. Old Hassanein was squatting on a sheepskin rug in front of a board propped against the wall; in the middle of it he had inscribed the word “Allah” in silver lettering. He was engrossed in embellishing the letters with prodigious care. I stood behind him, fearful of disturbing him or breaking the inspiration that flowed to his masterly hand. When my concern at not interrupting him had lasted some time, he suddenly inquired with unaffected gentleness, “Yes?”

  Realizing that he was aware of my presence, I introduced myself. “I’ve been told that Sheikh Zaabalawi is your friend; I’m looking for him,” I said.

  His hand came to a stop. He scrutinized me in astonishment. “Zaabalawi! God be praised!” he said with a sigh.

  “He is a friend of yours, isn’t he?” I asked eagerly.

  “He was, once upon a time. A real man of mystery: he’d visit you so often that people would imagine he was your nearest and dearest, then would disappear as though he’d never existed. Yet saints are not to be blamed.”

  The spark of hope went out with the suddenness of a lamp snuffed by a power-cut.

  “He was so constantly with me,” said the man, “that I felt him to be a part of everything I drew. But where is he today?”

  “Perhaps he is still alive?”

  “He’s alive, without a doubt…. He had impeccable taste, and it was due to him that I made my most beautiful drawings.”

  “God knows,” I said, in a voice almost stifled by the dead ashes of hope, “how dire my need for him is, and no one knows better than you of the ailments in respect to which he is sought.”

  “Yes, yes. May God restore you to health. He is in truth, as is said of him, a man, and more….”

  Smiling broadly, he added, “And his face possesses an unforgettable beauty. But where is he?”

  Reluctantly I rose to my feet, shook hands, and left. I continued wandering eastward and westward through the quarter, inquiring about Zaabalawi from everyone who, by reason of age or experience, I felt might be likely to help me. Eventually I was informed by a vendor of lupine that he had met him a short while ago at the house of Sheikh Gad, the well-known composer. I went to the musician’s house in Tabakshiyya, where I found him in a room tastefully furnished in the old style, its walls redolent with history. He was seated on a divan, his famous lute beside him, concealing within itself the most beautiful melodies of our age, while somewhere from within the house came the sound of pestle and mortar and the clamor of children. I immediately greeted him and introduced myself, and was put at my ease by the unaffected way in which he received me. He did not ask, either in words or gesture, what had brought me, and I did not feel that he even harbored any such curiosity. Amazed at his understanding and kindness, which boded well, I said, “O Sheikh Gad, I am an admirer of yours, having long been enchanted by the renderings of your songs.”

  “Thank you,” he said with a smile.

  “Please excuse my disturbing you,” I continued timidly, “but I was told that Zaabalawi was your friend, and I am in urgent need of him.”

  “Zaabalawi!” he said, frowning in concentration. “You need him? God be with you, for who knows, O Zaabalawi, where you are.”

  “Doesn’t he visit you?” I asked eagerly.

  “He visited me some time ago. He might well come right now; on the other hand I mightn’t see him till death!”

  I gave an audible sigh and asked, “What made him like that?”

  The musician took up his lute. “Such are saints or they would not be saints,” he said, laughing.

  “Do those who need him suffer as I do?”

  “Such suffering is part of the cure!”

  He took up the plectrum and began plucking soft strains from the strings. Lost in thought, I followed his movements. Then, as though addressing myself, I said, “So my visit has been in vain.”

  He smiled, laying his cheek against the side of the lute. “God forgive you,” he said, “for saying such a thing of a visit that has caused me to know you and you me!”

  I was much embarrassed and said apologetically, “Please forgive me; my feelings of defeat made me forget my manners.”

  “Do not give in to defeat. This extraordinary man brings fatigue to all who seek him. It was easy enough with him in the old days, when his place of abode was known. Today, though, the world has changed, and after having enjoyed a position attained only by potentates, he is now pursued by the police on a charge of false pretenses. It is therefore no longer an easy matter to reach him, but have patience and be sure that you will do so.”

  He raised his head from the lute and skillfully fingered the opening bars of a melody. Then he sang:

  “I make lavish mention, even though I blame myself, of those I love,

  For the stones of the beloved are my wine.”

  With a heart that was weary and listless, I followed the beauty of the melody and the singing.

  “I composed the music to this poem in a single night,” he told me when he had finished. “I remember that it was the eve of the Lesser Bairam. Zaabalawi was my guest for the whole of that night, and the poem was of his choosing. He would sit for a while just where you are, then would get up and play with my children as though he were one of them. Whenever I was overcome by weariness or my inspiration failed me, he would punch me playfully in the chest and joke with me, and I would bubble over with melodies, and thus I continued working till I finished the most beautiful piece I have ever composed.”

  “Does he know anything about music?”

  “He is the epitome of things musical. He has an extremely beautiful speaking voice, and you have only to hear him to want to burst into song and to be inspired to creativity….”

  “How was it that he cured those diseases before which men are powerless?”

  “That is his secret.
Maybe you will learn it when you meet him.”

  But when would that meeting occur? We relapsed into silence, and the hubbub of children once more filled the room.

  Again the sheikh began to sing. He went on repeating the words “and I have a memory of her” in different and beautiful variations until the very walls danced in ecstasy. I expressed my wholehearted admiration, and he gave me a smile of thanks. I then got up and asked permission to leave, and he accompanied me to the front door. As I shook him by the hand, he said, “I hear that nowadays he frequents the house of Hagg Wanas al-Damanhouri. Do you know him?”

  I shook my head, though a modicum of renewed hope crept into my heart.

  “He is a man of private means,” the sheikh told me, “who from time to time visits Cairo, putting up at some hotel or other. Every evening, though, he spends at the Negma Bar in Alfi Street.”

  I waited for nightfall and went to the Negma Bar. I asked a waiter about Hagg Wanas, and he pointed to a corner that was semisecluded because of its position behind a large pillar with mirrors on all four sides. There I saw a man seated alone at a table with two bottles in front of him, one empty, the other two-thirds empty. There were no snacks or food to be seen, and I was sure that I was in the presence of a hardened drinker. He was wearing a loosely flowing silk galabeya and a carefully wound turban; his legs were stretched out toward the base of the pillar, and as he gazed into the mirror in rapt contentment, the sides of his face, rounded and handsome despite the fact that he was approaching old age, were flushed with wine. I approached quietly till I stood but a few feet away from him. He did not turn toward me or give any indication that he was aware of my presence.

  “Good evening, Mr. Wanas,” I greeted him cordially.

  He turned toward me abruptly, as though my voice had roused him from slumber, and glared at me in disapproval. I was about to explain what had brought me when he interrupted in an almost imperative tone of voice that was nonetheless not devoid of an extraordinary gentleness, “First, please sit down, and second, please get drunk!”

  I opened my mouth to make my excuses, but, stopping up his ears with his fingers, he said, “Not a word till you do what I say.”

  I realized I was in the presence of a capricious drunkard and told myself that I should at least humor him a bit. “Would you permit me to ask one question?” I said with a smile, sitting down.

  Without removing his hands from his ears he indicated the bottle. “When engaged in a drinking bout like this, I do not allow any conversation between myself and another unless, like me, he is drunk, otherwise all propriety is lost and mutual comprehension is rendered impossible.”

  I made a sign indicating that I did not drink.

  “That’s your lookout,” he said offhandedly. “And that’s my condition!”

  He filled me a glass, which I meekly took and drank. No sooner had the wine settled in my stomach than it seemed to ignite. I waited patiently till I had grown used to its ferocity, and said, “It’s very strong, and I think the time has come for me to ask you about—”

  Once again, however, he put his fingers in his ears. “I shan’t listen to you until you’re drunk!”

  He filled up my glass for the second time. I glanced at it in trepidation; then, overcoming my inherent objection, I drank it down at a gulp. No sooner had the wine come to rest inside me than I lost all willpower. With the third glass, I lost my memory, and with the fourth the future vanished. The world turned round about me, and I forgot why I had gone there. The man leaned toward me attentively, but I saw him—saw everything—as a mere meaningless series of colored planes. I don’t know how long it was before my head sank down onto the arm of the chair and I plunged into deep sleep. During it, I had a beautiful dream the like of which I had never experienced. I dreamed that I was in an immense garden surrounded on all sides by luxuriant trees, and the sky was nothing but stars seen between the entwined branches, all enfolded in an atmosphere like that of sunset or a sky overcast with cloud. I was lying on a small hummock of jasmine petals, more of which fell upon me like rain, while the lucent spray of a fountain unceasingly sprinkled the crown of my head and my temples. I was in a state of deep contentedness, of ecstatic serenity. An orchestra of warbling and cooing played in my ear. There was an extraordinary sense of harmony between me and my inner self, and between the two of us and the world, everything being in its rightful place, without discord or distortion. In the whole world there was no single reason for speech or movement, for the universe moved in a rapture of ecstasy. This lasted but a short while. When I opened my eyes, consciousness struck at me like a policeman’s fist, and I saw Wanas al-Damanhouri peering at me with concern. Only a few drowsy customers were left in the bar.

  “You have slept deeply,” said my companion. “You were obviously hungry for sleep.”

  I rested my heavy head in the palms of my hands. When I took them away in astonishment and looked down at them, I found that they glistened with drops of water.

  “My head’s wet,” I protested.

  “Yes, my friend tried to rouse you,” he answered quietly.

  “Somebody saw me in this state?”

  “Don’t worry, he is a good man. Have you not heard of Sheikh Zaabalawi?”

  “Zaabalawi!” I exclaimed, jumping to my feet.

  “Yes,” he answered in surprise. “What’s wrong?”

  “Where is he?”

  “I don’t know where he is now. He was here and then he left.”

  I was about to run off in pursuit but found I was more exhausted than I had imagined. Collapsed over the table, I cried out in despair, “My sole reason for coming to you was to meet him! Help me to catch up with him or send someone after him.”

  The man called a vendor of prawns and asked him to seek out the sheikh and bring him back. Then he turned to me. “I didn’t realize you were afflicted. I’m very sorry….”

  “You wouldn’t let me speak,” I said irritably.

  “What a pity! He was sitting on this chair beside you the whole time. He was playing with a string of jasmine petals he had around his neck, a gift from one of his admirers, then, taking pity on you, he began to sprinkle some water on your head to bring you around.”

  “Does he meet you here every night?” I asked, my eyes not leaving the doorway through which the vendor of prawns had left.

  “He was with me tonight, last night, and the night before that, but before that I hadn’t seen him for a month.”

  “Perhaps he will come tomorrow,” I answered with a sigh.

  “Perhaps.”

  “I am willing to give him any money he wants.”

  Wanas answered sympathetically, “The strange thing is that he is not open to such temptations, yet he will cure you if you meet him.”

  “Without charge?”

  “Merely on sensing that you love him.”

  The vendor of prawns returned, having failed in his mission.

  I recovered some of my energy and left the bar, albeit unsteadily. At every street corner I called out “Zaabalawi!” in the vague hope that I would be rewarded with an answering shout. The street boys turned contemptuous eyes on me till I sought refuge in the first available taxi.

  The following evening I stayed up with Wanas al-Damanhouri till dawn, but the sheikh did not put in an appearance. Wanas informed me that he would be going away to the country and would not be returning to Cairo until he had sold the cotton crop.

  I must wait, I told myself; I must train myself to be patient. Let me content myself with having made certain of the existence of Zaabalawi, and even of his affection for me, which encourages me to think that he will be prepared to cure me if a meeting takes place between us.

  Sometimes, however, the long delay wearied me. I would become beset by despair and would try to persuade myself to dismiss him from my mind completely. How many weary people in this life know him not or regard him as a mere myth! Why, then, should I torture myself about him in this way?

  No soon
er, however, did my pains force themselves upon me than I would again begin to think about him, asking myself when I would be fortunate enough to meet him. The fact that I ceased to have any news of Wanas and was told he had gone to live abroad did not deflect me from my purpose; the truth of the matter was that I had become fully convinced that I had to find Zaabalawi.

  Yes, I have to find Zaabalawi.

  The Conjurer Made Off with the Dish

  “The time has come for you to be useful,” said my mother to me. And she slipped her hand into her pocket, saying, “Take this piaster and go off and buy some beans. Don’t play on the way and keep away from the carts.”

  I took the dish, put on my clogs, and went out, humming a tune. Finding a crowd in front of the bean seller, I waited until I discovered a way through to the marble counter.

  “A piaster’s worth of beans, mister,” I called out in my shrill voice.

  He asked me impatiently, “Beans alone? With oil? With cooking butter?”

  I did not answer, and he said roughly, “Make way for someone else.”

  I withdrew, overcome by embarrassment, and returned home defeated.

  “Returning with the dish empty?” my mother shouted at me. “What did you do—spill the beans or lose the piaster, you naughty boy?”

  “Beans alone? With oil? With cooking butter?—you didn’t tell me,” I protested.

  “Stupid boy! What do you eat every morning?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You good-for-nothing, ask him for beans with oil.”

  I went off to the man and said, “A piaster’s worth of beans with oil, mister.”

  With a frown of impatience he asked, “Linseed oil? Vegetable oil? Olive oil?”

  I was taken aback and again made no answer.

  “Make way for someone else,” he shouted at me.

  I returned in a rage to my mother, who called out in astonishment, “You’ve come back empty-handed—no beans and no oil.”

  “Linseed oil? Vegetable oil? Olive oil? Why didn’t you tell me?” I said angrily.

  “Beans with oil means beans with linseed oil.”