Children of the Alley Read online

  He told her how much he liked the ewe, and left it with her, turning back, when the lady of the house appeared, entering the courtyard from the alley. She stood before him, her cloak wrapped around her full body, her dark eyes looking at him tenderly over the black veil that covered her lower face. He stood aside and averted his gaze, and she spoke to him with refined amiability.

  “Good evening.”

  “Good evening, ma’am.”

  The woman now walked more slowly, looking carefully at Naama, and then at him. “Naama is getting fatter every day, thanks to you!”

  “Thanks to God, and your good care,” he said, touched by her affectionate looks even more than by her kind words.

  “Give him some dinner,” said Lady Qamar, turning to Sakina.

  He lifted his hands to his head in thanks. “You’re very kind, ma’am.”

  He was rewarded with another look from her as he said goodbye and left. He went away deeply moved by her warmth and sympathy, as he was whenever good luck permitted him to meet her. It was the kind of sympathy he had never experienced, except in what he had sometimes heard of the mother’s love he had never known. If his mother had lived, today she would be about the same age as this woman in her forties. How strange this affection seemed in his alley, so proud of its power and violence. Even more wonderful was her reticent beauty and the copious delight it imparted to his soul. It was nothing like his passionate adventures in the desert, with their blind, raging hunger and brief melancholy satisfaction. He hurried to his uncle’s house, his staff over his shoulder, hardly able to see what was in front of him, so great was his excitement. He found his uncle’s family assembled on the balcony overlooking the courtyard, waiting for him. He sat with the three of them around the low table which held a meal of falafel, leeks and watermelon. Hassan, now sixteen, was so tall and strong that Zachary dreamed of seeing him someday become protector of the Desert Rats. When dinner was ended, the woman cleared the table, Zachary went out and the two friends stayed on the balcony until a voice called to them from the courtyard: “Qassem!”

  They both got up, and Qassem answered, “We’re coming, Sadeq.”

  Sadeq met them, radiant with joy. He was about the same age and height as Qassem, but slenderer. He worked as an assistant to a coppersmith in the first shop in the Desert Rats’ neighborhood, close to Gamaliya. The friends headed for the Dingil Coffeehouse, and as they entered they were spotted by Taza the poet, who sat cross-legged on his bench toward the front. Sawaris sat near Dingil at the entrance, and the young men went over to the gangster and greeted him humbly despite the pride Qassem and Hassan felt at being related to him. They took their seats on one bench, and a boy speedily came to take their usual order; Qassem loved a pipe and mint tea. Sawaris surveyed Qassem disdainfully and asked bluntly, “What’s with you, boy, all neat like a girl?”

  Qassem blushed. “There’s nothing wrong with being clean and neat, sir,” he said apologetically.

  “At your age it’s stupid!” sneered Sawaris.

  Silence fell in the coffeehouse, as if its customers, silverware and walls were all listening in on the gangster. Sadeq looked kindly at his friend, knowing how easily hurt his feelings were, and Hassan hid his face behind his glass of ginger drink, so that the gangster would not see his anger. Taza took up his rebec and began to pluck melodies from its strings; after saluting Rifaat the overseer, Lahita the gangster, and Sawaris, protector of this neighborhood, he began his chant.

  “Adham imagined that he heard footfalls. Slow, heavy footfalls that stirred misty memories, as a strong, sweet smell may defy perception and definition. He turned his face to the entrance of the hut and saw the door open, then saw it blocked by a huge form. He started in surprise, and peered through the dark, his hopes enclosed by fears, then a deep moan escaped him. ‘Father?’ he murmured. He seemed to be hearing the old voice: ‘Good evening, Adham.’ His eyes swam with tears. He tried to get up but could not. He felt a delight, a bliss that he had not known in twenty years.”

  67

  “Wait, Qassem,” said the slave Sakina. “I have something for you.”

  Qassem stood where the ewe was tethered to the trunk of the palm tree, waiting for the slave, who had gone inside, his heart thumping; he told himself that any good the slave’s voice promised him had to come from a nobler good in the heart of the lady of this house. He felt a keen longing to see her look at him, or to hear her voice, which would blissfully cool his body, which had burned in the desert all day long.

  Sakina came back out with a package and handed it to him. “A pastry. Eat it in good health!”

  He took it and said, “Please thank the generous lady of the house for me.”

  Then her voice came from behind the window, saying kindly, “The thanks are God’s, my good man.”

  He waved his hand in thanks, without looking, and left, repeating her words, “my good man,” with almost drunken delight. The shepherd had never heard these words before. And who had pronounced them? The only respectable lady in his miserable neighborhood! He gave the darkening alley a loving look and said to himself, “Our alley may be miserable, but it still has a few things that can give happiness to weary hearts!” He was jerked out of his reverie by a voice shouting, “My money! My money’s been stolen!” He saw a turbaned man in a loose white galabiya running toward the opening of the alley, coming from the fringe of their neighborhood. Everyone in the alley turned toward the screaming man, the children ran to him and the merchants and people sitting in doorways craned their necks to see him. Heads emerged from windows and from the ground, through cellar trapdoors. Customers came out of the coffeehouse and surrounded the man on all sides. Qassem noticed a man nearby, scratching his back with a wooden stick through the neck of his galabiya, watching the scene through expressionless eyes.

  “Who is the man?” Qassem asked him.

  “An upholsterer who worked in the overseer’s house.”

  Sawaris, the Desert Rats’ gangster, Hagag, the gangster of Rifaa, and Galta, the gangster of Gabal, closed in on the man and quickly ordered everyone to move back. They all immediately retreated several steps.

  “The evil eye got him!” said a woman from her window in a building in the Rifaa neighborhood.

  “Yes!” said another woman, from her window in one of the closest buildings in Gabal. “Everyone has been jealous of the money he was going to get for upholstering the overseer’s furniture. God keep us from the evil eye!”

  A third woman, standing in front of a gate and picking lice from a boy’s head, said, “And, my God, he was laughing when he left the overseer’s house. He didn’t know he was going to be shouting and crying! Damn money!”

  “He stole all the money I had!” screamed the man in his loudest voice. “A week’s pay, and even more, money for my house and shop and children—twenty pounds and change! Goddamn bastards!”

  “Whoa! Everyone shut up!” said Galta, the gangster of Gabal. “Shut up, you animals! The alley’s reputation is at stake here, and in the end the gangsters will get the blame.”

  “By your God,” said Hagag, the gangster of Rifaa, “no one’s going to be blamed. But how do we know he lost his money in our alley?”

  “I swear I’ll divorce my wife!” the man shouted hoarsely. “I was robbed in your alley—I got the money from the gatekeeper of his excellency the overseer, and at the end of the alley I felt my breast pocket and it was all gone!”

  A babble of voices rose, and Hagag shouted, “Shut up, you stupid beasts! Listen, man, where did you notice that your money was gone?”

  The man pointed to the end of the Desert Rats’ territory.

  “In front of the coppersmith’s shop, but actually no one came near me there.”

  “So he was robbed before he entered our area,” said Sawaris.

  “I was in the coffeehouse when he passed by,” said Hagag, “and I didn’t see anyone in our neighborhood go near him.”

  “There are no thieves in Gabal!” said
Galta angrily. “We are the finest people in this alley!”

  “That’s enough, Galta,” said Hagag crossly. “You’re wrong about the finest people in the alley too.”

  “No one can deny it.”

  “Don’t push me!” Hagag thundered. “Goddamn peasant beliefs.”

  “A thousand curses, a thousand curses on peasant gutter isms that are below us!” shouted Galta just as angrily.

  “Please! My money was lost in your alley,” wept the upholsterer. “I’m sure you’re all fine people, but what about my money? What about me, poor Fangari?”

  “We must start a search,” said Hagag sharply. “We’ll search every pocket, every man, every woman, every child and every corner.”

  “Go ahead and search,” said Galta contemptuously. “You’ll find the criminal, and it won’t be one of us.”

  “The man left the overseer’s house, and passed first of all through Gabal,” said Hagag. “So let’s start the search in Gabal.”

  Galta snorted.

  “Not while I’m alive. Remember who you are, Hagag, and who I am.”

  “Listen, Galta, I have more knife scars on my body than you have hairs!”

  “I don’t have any room left for hair on my body!”

  “Don’t wake the devil in me!”

  “I’m ready for all the devils in the world.”

  “What about my money?” shrieked Fangari. “Isn’t this bad for you, that people will say I was robbed in your alley?”

  This angered one woman, who shouted, “Watch out, you ugly creep, you’ll ruin our reputation!”

  Someone said, “Why wouldn’t the money have been stolen in Desert Rat territory? Most of them are thieves and beggars.”

  “Our thieves do not steal in our own alley!” Sawaris proclaimed.

  “How do we know that?”

  “That’s all the insolence we need,” said Sawaris, his eyes reddening with rage. “The search will find the thief, or it’s the end of this alley!”

  “Start with the Desert Rats!” several voices called.

  “Anyone who goes beyond a routine search, I’ll smash his face with my club,” shouted Sawaris. He lifted his club, and his men gathered around him. Hagag lifted his own club, and Galta retreated to his own territory and did the same. The upholsterer withdrew, weeping, to a doorway. It was nearly night. Everyone was expecting a bloody battle when Qassem came out into the middle of the alley and raised his voice.

  “Wait! Blood won’t find the lost money! They will say, in Gamaliya, in al-Darasa and Atuf, that if you go into Gabalawi Alley you’ll be robbed, even if you have the protection of its overseer and all the alley’s protectors!”

  “What does the shepherd want?” asked one of the men from Gabal.

  “I have a solution for getting the money back for its owner without a fight,” said Qassem magnanimously.

  “I would appreciate that,” said the upholsterer, running to Qassem’s side.

  “It will restore the money to its owner without exposing the thief,” Qassem told the crowd.

  Silence fell, and all eyes settled very intently on Qassem, who spoke up again. “Let’s wait until it’s dark—that will be very soon. Don’t light even one candle in the alley, and let’s all walk from one end of the alley to the other, so that suspicion won’t be on any one neighborhood. In the meantime, whoever has the money will be able to put it down in the dark, without giving himself away. We will find the money, and the alley will be spared the tragedy of a battle.”

  The upholsterer grabbed Qassem’s arm in humble supplication, and shouted, “Yes, this is the solution, please accept it, for my sake.” “It’s a good idea!” someone called. “It’s a good chance for the thief to save himself and the alley.” A woman trilled with joy. The people looked from one gangster to the others, not knowing whether to be hopeful or afraid; none of the proud and touchy gangsters wanted to be the first to give his agreement, so the people of the alley could only wonder whether reason would prevail, or whether the clubs would be swung to shed blood.

  A voice known to all of them suddenly rang out: “Listen!”

  All heads turned to the source of the voice, to where the protector of the whole alley, Lahita, stood, not far from his house. Silence fell, and everyone waited breathlessly for him to speak again.

  “Accept the idea, you filthy gypsies,” he said contemptuously. “If you weren’t so stupid, you wouldn’t need a shepherd to save you.”

  A murmur of relief ran through the crowd, and the women trilled shrilly with joy. The pounding of Qassem’s heart intensified. He saw Qamar’s house; knowing that her dark eyes were watching him from behind one of the two windows that looked out on the alley filled him with a splendid happiness. He savored a sense of great triumph thus far unknown to him. Everyone waited for night, looking up at the sky out into the desert, following the gradual descent of darkness. Their surroundings began to disappear from sight, and their faces to be hidden as the people turned into mere shapes. The two paths around the mansion that led out into the desert were closed off by blackness. The phantom shapes began to move, walking toward the mansion, then quickly crossed the alley to Gamaliya and headed from there to their own neighborhoods. At this point Lahita shouted in his most commanding voice, “Lights!”

  The first light to come on was in Qamar’s house in the Desert Rat district, the handcart lanterns were lit, then the coffeehouse lamps, and once more the alley existed. A group of people went to scour the ground by lamplight, and shortly one of them sang out, “Here is the wallet!”

  Fangari raced over to the light and snatched up the wallet, counted his money and hurried toward Gamaliya without looking back, leaving behind him a loud roar of laughter and women’s trilling. Qassem found himself the center of attention, the recipient of congratulations, jokes and every kind of commentary, tossed his way like roses. When Qassem, Hassan and Sadeq went to their local coffeehouse that evening, Sawaris greeted him with a smile of welcome. “A pipe for Qassem, on the house!”

  68

  Blushing, bright-eyed, smiling and with a light heart, he went into Qamar’s courtyard to fetch Naama, the ewe. “Here I am,” he called, and was untying Naama’s tether at the bottom of the steps, when he heard the door to the women’s quarters creak open, and the lady’s voice. “Good morning.”

  “God give you a very good morning, ma’am,” he said earnestly.

  “Yesterday you did a great thing for our alley.”

  “God was my guide,” he said, dancing with joy inside.

  “You taught us that wisdom is better than violence,” she said in a melodious voice that gave away her admiration.

  And your love is better than wisdom, he said to himself.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  There was a smile in her voice when she said, “We saw you tending the men of Gabalawi the way you tend your flock. Be safe; goodbye.”

  He left with the ewe, and with every building he passed he added kids, billy goats, nanny goats or sheep to his caravan. He heard many pleasantries, and even the gangsters who had always ignored him now returned his greetings. He moved down the path alongside the mansion wall, behind a wide column of sheep, on his way to the desert. He was met by a blazing sun high over the mountain, and the hot breath of the bright morning air. Some shepherds came into view at the foot of the mountain, a man in ragged clothes playing a pipe passed by and a flock of kites circled under the clear dome of the sky. With every breath he took, he smelled the pure and immaculate air; the massive mountain seemed to him to harbor great treasures of promised hopes. As he surveyed the desert with a marvelous feeling of relaxation, an expansive happiness took hold of him, and he began to sing.

  Sweet, beautiful and Upper Egyptian,

  My arm’s tattooed with your inscription!

  His eyes moved over Hind and Qadri’s rock, the sites where Humam and Rifaa had died, and where Gabal encountered Gabalawi. Here were the sun, the mountain, the sand, grandeur, love and a heart burs
ting with love, and yet he asked what it all meant, both the part that was history and that which was to come; the alley with its feuding neighborhoods and puffed-up gangsters and the stories that were told in every coffeehouse—with differences.

  Shortly before noon he drove his sheep toward Muqattam Marketplace, went into Yahya’s hut and sat down.

  “What’s this I hear about what you did in our alley yesterday?” the old man called.

  Qassem hid his shyness by taking a sip of tea.

  “It would have been better for you to let them all fight and kill one another,” Yahya added.

  “You don’t really mean that,” said Qassem, his eyes still lowered.

  “Avoid having admirers or else you’ll provoke the gangsters,” Yahya warned.

  “Do gangsters feel provoked by people like me?”

  “Who would ever have imagined that a traitor would betray Rifaa?”

  “What’s the comparison between the great Rifaa and me?”

  When Qassem was ready to leave, the old man bid him goodbye, saying, “Always keep the amulet I gave you.”

  That afternoon, he was sitting in the shade behind Hind’s Rock when he heard Sakina’s voice calling, “Naama!” He jumped up and looked around the rock, and saw the slave standing by the ewe’s head, petting her snout. He greeted her with a smile.

  “I have an errand in al-Darasa,” she said in her coppery voice, “and I came this way, for a shortcut.”