Children of the Alley Read online

  “An order from Bayoumi is not something to take lightly,” said Yasmina.

  “Rifaa has friends,” said Ali, the most impetuous of them all. “They defeated Batikha, and he vanished from the alley!”

  “Bayoumi is not Batikha!” Yasmina scowled. “If you challenge Bayoumi, you’ve spoken your last words!”

  “Let’s listen to our master first!” said Hussein, turning to Rifaa.

  “Don’t even think of fighting,” said Rifaa, his eyes nearly closed. “Anyone who struggles for people’s happiness cannot take lightly the shedding of their blood.”

  Yasmina’s face was radiant. She hated the idea of widowhood, fearing that she would be watched again, and thus unable to get away to her wonderful other man.

  “The best thing you can do is to spare yourself that mess,” she assured him.

  “We will never stop our work,” Zaki protested. “We’ll leave the alley.”

  Yasmina’s heart pounded with fear as she imagined living far from her lover’s alley, and she spoke up. “We are not going to live like lost strangers, far from our alley.”

  Every gaze hung on Rifaa’s face. Slowly he moved his head to face them and said, “I don’t want to leave our alley.”

  There was a sudden long, impatient knocking on the door, and Yasmina opened it. The seated men heard the voices of Shafi’i and Abda asking for their son. Rifaa got up and greeted his parents with hugs. They all sat down, and Shafi’i and his wife were out of breath; their faces expressed the unpleasant news they brought.

  “My boy,” the father was saying before they knew it, “Khunfis has given you up. Your life is in danger. My friends tell me that the gangster’s men are surrounding your house.”

  “Our house,” said Abda, drying her bloodshot eyes. “If only we’d never come back to this alley that sells lives for nothing!”

  “Don’t be afraid, ma’am,” said Ali. “All our neighbors are our friends, and they love us.”

  “What have we done to deserve punishment?” sighed Rifaa.

  “You’re from the Al Gabal, whom they hate,” said Shafi’i anxiously. “How my heart has suffered fear ever since you first mentioned Gabalawi!”

  “Only yesterday they fought Gabal because he claimed the estate,” marveled Rifaa, “and now they’re fighting me because I disdain the estate!”

  Shafi’i made a despairing gesture with his hand. “Say whatever you like about them, but it won’t change them one bit. All I know is that you are lost if you leave your house, and I doubt whether you’re safe even if you stay in it.”

  For the first time, fear stole into Karim’s heart, but he hid it with a firm will and spoke to Rifaa. “They are lying in wait for you outside. If you stay here they will come for you, if they’re the gangsters of our alley that I know. Let’s escape to my house over the rooftops, and think there about what to do next.”

  “From there you can escape from the alley in the dark,” shouted Shafi’i.

  “And let everything I’ve built up be demolished?”

  “Do what he says,” his mother begged him, crying. “Please, for your mother!”

  “Resume your work across the desert somewhere, if you want,” said his father sharply.

  Karim got up, looking concerned. “Let’s make a plan. Shafi’i and his wife will stay a little longer, then go to the House of Triumph as if they were coming home after a normal visit. The lady Yasmina will go out to Gamaliya as if to go shopping, and when she comes back you will slip out to my house. That’s easier than escaping over the rooftops.”

  Shafi’i liked the plan.

  “We must not waste a single minute,” said Karim. “I’ll go and check out the roofs.”

  He left the room, and Shafi’i rose and took Rifaa by the hand. Abda ordered Yasmina to pack some clothes in a bundle.

  Yasmina began to pack a few clothes, with a constricted chest and wounded heart, a tempest of hatred gathering inside her. Abda kissed her son, hugged him and tearfully murmured a few incantations to protect him from the evil eye. Rifaa left, pondering his situation with a sorrowing heart. How he loved people with his heart; how he had labored for their contentment; how he had suffered their hatred. Would Gabalawi condone failure?

  “Follow me,” Karim, now back again, was saying to Rifaa and his companions.

  “We’ll follow you,” said Abda, overcome with weeping, “maybe in a little bit.”

  “God bless you and protect you, Rifaa,” said Shafi’i, trying hard not to cry.

  Rifaa hugged his parents, and then turned to Yasmina.

  “Pull your cloak and veil around you tightly so that no one will recognize you.” He leaned closer to her ear. “I can’t stand to think of any hand harming you.”

  59

  Yasmina left the house swathed in black, Abda’s parting words ringing in her ears: “Goodbye, daughter, may God keep you and protect you. Rifaa is in your hands. I will pray for both of you day and night.” Night was beginning to fall; the coffeehouse lamps were being lit, and boys were playing in the light shed by the handcart lanterns. At the same time, cats and dogs were fighting—as they always did at that time of day—around the heaps of garbage. Yasmina walked toward Gamaliya with no room for mercy in her passionate heart. She did not hesitate, but was filled with fear, and imagined that many eyes were watching her. She had no sense of composure until she had left al-Darasa for the desert, and felt truly safe only when she was in the reception hall, in Bayoumi’s arms.

  When she pulled the veil away from her face, he looked at her attentively. “Are you afraid?”

  “Yes,” she answered, panting.

  “No, you’re a lot of things but not a coward. Tell me, what’s wrong?”

  “They fled over the rooftops to Karim’s house, and they’ll leave the alley at dawn.”

  “At dawn, sons of bitches!” muttered Bayoumi scornfully.

  “They talked him into going away. Why don’t you let him go?”

  “Long ago, Gabal went away, then came back,” he said with a smile of mockery. “These vermin don’t deserve to live.”

  “He renounces life,” she said distractedly, “but he does not deserve death.”

  “The alley has enough madmen,” he said, his mouth distorted in disgust.

  She looked at him earnestly, then lowered her gaze, and whispered, as if to herself. “He saved my life once.”

  “And here you are handing him over to his death,” said Bayoumi with a coarse laugh. “An eye for an eye, and the one who started it loses!”

  She felt an alarm as painful as a sickness, and glanced at him rebukingly. “I did what I did because I love you more than my life.”

  He stroked her cheek tenderly. “We’ll be free. And if things get hard for you, you have a place in this house.”

  She felt a little better. “If they offered me Gabalawi’s mansion without you, I wouldn’t take it.”

  “You are a loyal girl.”

  The word “loyal” pierced her, and the sickening sense of alarm came back to her. She wondered if the man was mocking her. There was no more time for talk, and she got up. He stood to say goodbye to her, and she stole out the back door. She found her husband and his friends waiting for her, and sat beside Rifaa.

  “Our house is being watched. It was wise of your mother to leave the lamp lit in the window. It will be easy to get away at dawn.”

  “But he’s so sad,” Zaki said to her, looking sorrowfully at Rifaa. “Aren’t there sick people everywhere? Don’t they need healing too?”

  “There is a greater need for healing where the disease is out of control.”

  Yasmina looked at him pityingly. She said to herself that it would be a crime to kill him. She wished that there was one thing about him that deserved punishment. She remembered that he was the one person in this world who had been kind to her, and that his reward for that would be death. She cursed these thoughts to herself, and thought, Let those who have good lives do good. When she saw him returning her
look, she spoke up as if commiserating with him. “Your life is worth so much more than this damned alley of ours.”

  “That’s what you say,” Rifaa said, smiling, “but I read sadness in your eyes!”

  She trembled, and said to herself: God help me if he reads minds as well as he casts out demons!

  “I’m not sad, I’m just afraid for you!” she said.

  “I’ll get supper ready,” said Karim, getting up.

  He came back with a tray and invited them to sit down, and they seated themselves around it. It was a supper of bread, cheese, whey, cucumbers and radishes, and there was a jug of barley beer. Karim filled their cups. “Tonight we’ll need warmth and morale.”

  They drank, and Rifaa smiled. “Liquor arouses demons, but it revives people who have got rid of their demons.” He looked at Yasmina beside him, and she knew the meaning of his look.

  “You’ll free me of my demon tomorrow, if God spares you,” she said.

  Rifaa’s face shone with delight, and his friends exchanged congratulatory looks and began to eat their supper. They broke the bread, and their hands came together over the dishes. It was as if they had forgotten the death that surrounded them.

  “The owner of the estate wanted his children to be like him,” said Rifaa. “But they insisted on being like demons. They were foolish, and he has no love for foolishness, as he told me.”

  Karim shook his head regretfully, and swallowed. “If only I had some of the power he used to have, things would be the way he wants them to be.”

  “If, if, if, what good does ‘if do us!” said Ali crossly. “We must act.”

  “We have never failed,” said Rifaa firmly. “We have fought the demons ruthlessly, and whenever a demon departs, love takes its place. There is no other goal.”

  Zaki sighed. “If only they had let us do our work, we would have filled the alley with health, love and peace.”

  “It’s incredible that we’re thinking of fleeing when we have so many friends!” Ali objected.

  “Your demon still has roots deep inside you.” Rifaa smiled. “Don’t forget that our aim is healing, not killing. It is better for a person to be killed than to kill.”

  Rifaa turned abruptly to Yasmina and said, “You’re not eating or paying attention!”

  Her heart contracted with fear, but she fought down her agitation. “I’m just marveling at how cheerfully you all talk, as if you were at a wedding!”

  “You’ll get used to being cheerful when you’re cleansed of your demon tomorrow.” He looked at his brothers. “Some of you are ashamed of conciliation—we are the sons of a nation that respects only power, but power is not confined to terrorizing others. Wrestling with demons is hundreds of times harder than attacking the weak, or fighting the gangsters.”

  Ali wagged his head sadly. “The reward of good deeds is the terrible situation we find ourselves in now.”

  “The battle will not end as they expect,” said Rifaa decisively. “And we are not as weak as they imagine! All we have done is shift the battle from one field to a different one, only our battlefield now calls for more courage and tougher force.”

  They resumed their dinner, thinking over what they had heard. He seemed to them just as calm, reassured and strong as he was handsome and meek. In the long lull came the voice of the local poet, reciting: “One noon Adham sat in Watawit Alley to rest, and fell asleep. A movement woke him, and he saw boys stealing his cart. He got up and threatened them, and one boy who saw him warned his friends with a whistle; they overturned the cart to distract him from going after them. The cucumbers tumbled all over the ground while the boys dispersed like locusts. Adham was so enraged that he forgot his decent upbringing and screamed obscenities at them, then bent down to retrieve his cucumbers from the mud. His anger redoubled with no outlet, so he asked emotionally, Why was your anger like fire, burning without mercy? Why was your pride dearer to you than your own flesh and blood? How can you enjoy an easy life when you know we are being stepped on like insects? Forgiveness, gentleness, tolerance have no place in your mansion, you oppressor! He seized the handles of the cart and set out to push it as far as he could get from this accursed alley, when he heard a taunting voice. ‘How much are the cucumbers, uncle?’ Idris stood there with a mocking grin.” Then there was a woman’s shout, over the poet’s voice, crying, “Little boy lost, good people!”

  60

  Time passed, with the men in conversation and Yasmina in torment. Hussein wanted to look around out in the alley, but Karim opposed the idea; someone might see him and get suspicious. Zaki wondered whether Rifaa’s house had been attacked, and Rifaa pointed out that all they could hear was the lament of the rebec and the cheering of the street boys. The alley was leading its usual life, and there was no sign that any crime was being planned. Yasmina’s mind was such a whirlpool of worry that she was afraid her eyes would give her away. She wanted her torment to end any way possible and at any cost; she wanted to fill her belly with wine until she no longer knew what was happening around her. She said to herself that she was not the first woman in Bayoumi’s life and she would not be the last; that stray dogs always collected around piles of garbage; only let this torment end at any cost. With the passage of time, silence slowly overcame the racket, and the voice of the children and cries of the peddlers died down, leaving only the lament of the rebec. A sudden revulsion at these men seized her, for no other reason than that, in a way, it was they who tormented her.

  “Should I prepare the pipe?” asked Karim.

  “We need clear heads!” said Rifaa firmly.

  “I thought it would help us pass the time.”

  “You’re too afraid.”

  “It looks like there’s no need to be afraid at all,” Karim protested.

  Yes, there had been no incidents, and Rifaa’s house had not been attacked. The melodies had fallen silent and the poets had gone home. They could hear the sounds of doors slamming, the conversations of people going back to their houses, laughter and coughing, and then nothing. They continued to wait and watch until the first cock crowed. Zaki got up and went to the window to see the street, then turned to them.

  “Quiet and emptiness. The alley is just the way it was the day Idris was kicked out.”

  “We should go,” said Karim.

  Yasmina was overcome with anguish, wondering what would become of her if Bayoumi was late for the appointment, or had changed his mind. The men got up, each carrying a bundle.

  “Farewell, hellish alley,” said Hussein, leading the way out. Rifaa gently guided Yasmina ahead of him, and followed with his hand on her shoulder, as if afraid of losing her in the darkness. Then came Karim, Hussein and Zaki. They slipped out of the apartment door one by one, and ascended the stairs, using the railing as a guide in the total blackness. The darkness on the roof seemed less intense, though not a single star could be seen. A cloud absorbed all the light of the moon concealed behind it, and its surface reflected the scudding clouds.

  “The walls of the roofs almost touch,” said Ali. “We can give the lady help if she needs it.”

  They followed, and as Zaki—coming last—arrived, he felt a movement behind him and turned to the door of the roof, where he detected four phantoms. “Who is there?” he asked in alarm.

  They all halted and turned around.

  “Stop, you bastards,” said Bayoumi’s voice.

  Gaber, Khalid and Handusa fanned out from his right and left, and Yasmina gasped. She slipped away from Rifaa’s hand and moved toward the door of the roof. None of the gangsters stopped her.

  “The woman has betrayed you,” said Ali dazedly to Rifaa.

  In a moment they were surrounded. Bayoumi began to examine them at close range, one by one, asking, “Who’s the exorcist?”

  When he found him, he grabbed him by the shoulder with an iron hand and sneered. “The demon’s companion! Where did you think you were going?”

  “You don’t want us here,” said Rifaa indignantly. “We�
�re leaving.”

  After a brief sarcastic laugh, Bayoumi turned to Karim. “You—what good did it do, hiding them in your house?”

  Karim gulped with a dry mouth, and his muscles trembled. “I didn’t know of any trouble between you and them!”

  Bayoumi struck him in the face with his free hand, and he fell to the ground, but quickly jumped up again and ran, terrified, toward the adjacent roof. Suddenly Hussein and Ali ran after him, but Handusa pounced on Ali and kicked him in the stomach. He fell down, groaning from his depths. At the same time, Gaber and Khalid went after the others, but Bayoumi said contemptuously, “There’s nothing to fear from them. Neither of them will say a single word, and if they do they’re dead.”

  Rifaa, whose head was bent toward Bayoumi’s fist by the terrible grip, said, “They have done nothing to deserve punishment.”

  Bayoumi slapped him and taunted, “Tell me, didn’t they hear from Gabalawi the way you did?” He pushed Rifaa in front of him and said, “Walk in front of me and don’t open your mouth.”

  He walked, resigned to his fate. He descended the dark stairs carefully, and the heavy footfalls followed him. He was so overcome by the darkness, confusion and evil that threatened him that he could scarcely think of those who had fled or betrayed him. A profound and absolute sadness seized him, eclipsing even his fears. It seemed to him the darkness would prevail over the earth. They came out into the alley and crossed the neighborhood, in which, thanks to him, no sickness remained. Handusa went before them to the Al Gabal neighborhood, and they passed under the closed-up House of Triumph, until he imagined that he could hear his parents’ hesitant breaths. He wondered for a moment about them, and imagined that he heard Abda crying in the quiet night, but he was speedily brought back to the darkness, confusion and evil that threatened him. The Al Gabal neighborhood seemed like a collection of colossal phantom hulks shrouded in darkness; how intense the darkness was, how deep its sleep. The footfalls of the executioners in the pitch-blackness and the creaking of their sandals were like the laughter of devils playing in the night. Handusa turned toward the desert, opposite the mansion wall, and Rifaa raised his eyes to the mansion, but it was as dark as the sky. There was a figure at the end of the wall.