My Happy Days In Hell

by György Faludy

  ‘Perhaps a prayer-book for the unbelievers,’ the youngest suggested.

  ‘Or letters to your boy-lover,’ guessed the second.

  ‘At dinner time you walk home again. You advance along the Riad Zitoun Djedide where at times dishwater is thrown at you. You turn into the Derb Toubib where sheep-guts rot in the roadway. Rutting dogs joggle before your feet. After dinner, in the sooty darkness you work your way back to the café again. Harlots and male whores rub themselves against your thighs. When you return home at night they reach out for you from windows and doorways. A man like you should protect his dignity …’

  ‘I can see you are thoroughly familiar with my way of life,’ I replied. ‘But now that we have come so far, would you betray the purpose of your visit?’

  They exchanged smiles and kept their eyes above my head as if they had not heard my question.

  ‘Six times each day you walk across the market square, along the main street and through the alleys. You walk between careless cyclists, in filth and refuse. Beggars pull at your sleeves, lousy camel-drivers touch you with their clothes. You must jump across opium-eaters and harlots writhing on the ground. A man like you must never walk on foot.’

  ‘Particularly not at your age.’

  ‘And with a dignified exterior like yours.’

  It occurred to me that I must have grown a paunch in the bathtub or suddenly gone grey. A glance into the large mirror on the wall, however, reassured me. These three could easily be my grandfathers. Or even my great-grandfathers, considering how young they are when they start.

  ‘You could do nothing wiser than to buy a donkey. Then you could enter the Café Universel three times a day the way the son of Miriam entered the town of Jerusalem.’

  He must have meditated a great deal before hitting on this analogy because he looked at me triumphantly, watching for the effect. Then he continued:

  ‘We want to help you. Therefore, we brought you a donkey. A she-ass. It pains us a great deal to part with her because she is the comfort of our old days. But for your sake we should be ready to sacrifice her. We offer her to you for a pittance: three thousand three hundred francs.’

  I made an evasive gesture.

  ‘The she-ass,’ the squat brother took the word, ‘lives on air and orange peels. Your servant can rub her down in the evening. But she will do even without the rubbing. Her skin is rough and tempered like shoe-leather. You can kick her and she won’t feel it. Three thousand two hundred and fifty.’

  ‘The café,’ I said, ‘is but a five-minute walk from here. I like to walk. I do not require a donkey.’

  ‘This donkey,’ the youngest explained, ‘inherited modesty from her father and obedience from her mother. You climb on her back, dangle your feet down her rump, turn back and whisper in her ear: “Rrr-zid!” and she will fly like an eagle above the peaks of Atlas. Show her the way to the café but once and she will always find her way there and back, even in the darkness. Even if you fall asleep on her back. Even if an earthquake were to wipe out all the streets of Marrakesh… from which Allah protect us all. Three thousand and two hundred.’

  ‘But I do not …’

  ‘If, after eighty years are past and you lie on your death-bed,’ the old man spoke with unshaken calm, ‘remembering bygone days, you will recall this donkey. And then you will sit up on your death-bed and praise our memories. You will bless us, Sudanese merchants long ago turned to dust, for having given you this blessed donkey with the soul of a dove. Three thousand one hundred and fifty.’

  ‘Dear friends,’ I said, ‘I have no intention whatsoever of buying this donkey. I shall not be here much longer.’

  ‘No matter. The freight train will take her to Casablanca for one hundred francs. But if you hire a driver, he will drive her after you for fifty. We shall deduct it from the price. Three thousand one hundred.’

  ‘But in Casablanca I shall board a ship. Passenger ships do not carry donkeys.’

  ‘Speak with the captain. Every captain is open to suggestions. Three thousand and fifty.’

  ‘But I am going to America where people ride in automobiles. There are no donkeys, camels, or horses there. What am I to do with a donkey in America?’

  My guests whispered to each other in Tuareg and threw me insolent looks.

  ‘Master,’ the oldest said at last, ‘you are wilfully trying to swindle us. The Americans use horses and donkeys for travelling. They no more ride automobiles than the inhabitants of the desert. The Americans live like mountain bandits on Atlas.’

  ‘You are mistaken,’ I said.

  The old man shook his head.

  ‘I am not mistaken. Three days ago we saw American actors in Uarzazate. That is how we know.’

  ‘American actors on top of Atlas? Now? Impossible!’

  ‘They jumped about on a white sheet like ghosts. There we saw that the Americans go to market on horseback, steal their brides on horseback and tie their horses to the fence before the house, as we do. After all, even Americans are human beings! Though they kill one another with great cruelty. Here in Marrakesh, for instance, stand fifty times one thousand houses yet yesterday, for instance, only three men were stabbed to death. There on the sheet in that American town there were perhaps fifty houses but some nineteen men were shot dead within two hours. I shall let you have this donkey for three thousand. I swear to you, only out of compassion because you have to go to America.’

  ‘Listen to me,’ I said seriously. ‘I am going to a town called New York. That town is so large that there stand one thousand times one thousand houses if not more. What am I to do in so large a town with a donkey?’

  ‘Tie her to the iron ring at your front door. Two thousand nine hundred and fifty.’

  After a good hour, when we had finished our third glass of mint tea and had reached the figure of one thousand eight hundred, the oldest Sudanese turned to me.

  ‘Tell me, Master, is it truly not your intention to buy the donkey?’

  ‘Truly.’

  ‘Do you swear?’

  ‘I swear.’

  ‘You are not making a fool of me in order to lower the price? Let me make a last experiment. I shall let you have her for one thousand five hundred, but only because you are so beautiful. Do you want her?’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘I was afraid you might say yes. And if I offered her for one thousand four hundred?’

  ‘I should still not want her.’

  ‘The sun is standing high. We have lost the whole morning.’

  He meditated for a while then turned back to me.

  ‘You have offered us three glasses of tea. Politeness forbids us to accept a fourth glass. Allow me, therefore, to invite you this time. The bargaining was delightful. But it is not to bargain but to converse that we should like to invite you. Do not offend us with your disdain, ragged, miserable Sudanese merchants that we are, but accept our invitation.’

  Aicha threw me a disapproving look as we made ready to go. At the front door I learned that the donkey’s name was Zuleika. She trotted rapidly in front of us until we reached the main street of the Arab sector, the Riad Zitoun Djedide.

  This main street bore little resemblance to the Champs-Élysées: it was at the most, three metres wide, in places only two and where broken by an archway, even less. A stream of sewage trickled along the runnel in its centre, with rotting fruit and vegetables on its two banks. I liked this street with its harlots reclining in the shady doorways, stretching their legs into the street, with its cyclists, riding at the speed of automobiles in novels depicting the coming century, with its open classrooms where little boys squatted on mats while a beturbaned teacher, holding a long cane, was writing beautiful, involved characters on the blackboard.

  A caravan of about thirty camels was advancing towards us from the opposite direction. To make place for it – for each camel was carrying four bathtubs attached to its sides and thus took up the whole width of the street – we wanted to draw back into a door
way, when Zuleika suddenly decided to lie down across the street, barring the caravan’s advance. It must have been that the monstrous sight filled her with indignation; that these ships of the desert which once brought silk from China along the Tarim and the African shore all the way up to Cordoba, silk of as many colours and patterns as there were bales, Damascus swords from Syria, each sword with a different hilt, should now be carrying bathtubs, all painted a nauseating grass-green and proclaiming that the days of lazy rests, long, friendly conversations, amusements of a social or erotic nature above and under the water in the ponds of the oases, the trenches before the town gates and the darkness of the Turkish baths were over: that the joyless days of solitary bathing had come and technical civilization – with all its beauties – was taking the place of culture.

  At first my Sudanese companions encouraged their little donkey with mild words to rise, finally they showed her the cane and kicked her with their slippered feet. Thereupon Zuleika turned on her back and raised her four legs into the air. Traffic came to a complete stop, the camel-drivers and water-carriers cursed, the carters blew their horns, women coming home from the market loaded with merchandise screamed and the children jumped up and down with glee. The Sudanese gave their donkey a good beating but when she still refused to move, they lifted her with the help of a few strong camel-drivers, turned her around in the air, put her down on her four hooves and gave her a tremendous kick in the rump. Thereupon, as if nothing had happened, the donkey with the soul of a dove danced happily on.

  The tea-room in the market square consisted of a single room; instead of a wall it was separated from the pavement by a raised threshold. Opposite stood the tents of the barbers with the clients sitting outside in the warm sunshine. As a result of the British blockade, soap had completely disappeared, the clients were shaved in their own perspiration. Whenever someone was cut we heard the sharp sound of a slap. Sitting with her back to the raised threshold of the café was a little girl of about eight or nine with her face veiled.

  The waiter brought us our mint tea. I expected my Sudanese friends to start the conversation but they remained silent. The oldest, who, as I learned, bore the name of Ben Jusef, reached for his glass. But before touching it he pointed with his finger at the little girl sitting against the threshold.

  ‘My daughter,’ he said with awe. He fell silent for a moment to give me time to look at her. ‘She must be ten or eleven. She was born the year when Abd el-Krim was captured.’

  ‘That happened at least twelve years ago,’ the squat one said. ‘She is twelve. A mature virgin.’

  ‘A beautiful virgin,’ I replied politely but indifferently.

  ‘Only her body is virgin,’ Ben Jusef explained, ‘her soul is not. Her mother has taught her the art of love to spare her future husband annoyance. It occurred to me recently that I might sell her to Glaoui, the pasha. But Glaoui already has three hundred wives and besides, he is seventy years old. I felt sorry for the girl and did not sell her to the pasha.’

  ‘You were right,’ the second brother said. ‘Allah will reward you richly for your kindness of heart.’

  ‘But I should be happy to sell her to you for thirty sheep,’ Ben Jusef turned to me. ‘Marry my little girl. I have always wanted a son-in-law like you.’

  ‘You must know that …’

  ‘Take her for twenty-five sheep. I would do anything for you.’

  ‘You are wasting your time, I …’

  ‘Should you find on the wedding night that she is no longer a virgin I shall return your twenty-five sheep and, as a consolation price, you shall have two additional ones.’

  ‘You know very well that I am a married man and that the laws of my religion prohibit plural marriages.’

  ‘Yes, I had thought of that,’ Ben Jusef replied cheerfully. ‘I know of a Cadi in the Arab sector who will give you a marriage certificate in secret. I shall keep it for you to save you trouble …’

  ‘Now listen to me, old man. I already have a wife. Only one, that is true. But even one is more than I require.’

  ‘Is that so? Then take my daughter as your concubine. For ten sheep. When you go to America you can send her back to me.’

  ‘No, my friend, I don’t want your daughter. Neither for a wife, nor for a concubine. And I want no girl, no woman, no harlot, neither for twenty sheep nor for two, not even as a gift. I don’t want them, I don’t, I don’t.’

  ‘I have suspected this for a long time,’ the squat Sudanese smiled triumphantly. ‘I knew that your taste is more delicate, more discriminating than that of my brother Ben Jusef who has pursued women all his life. Forgive him for it: he is a man of low tastes. He does not know what real pleasure means. Look at that long-legged boy in the square. Do you know which I mean?’

  A tall, slender boy with his head shaved was crouching before a barber’s tent. In his left ear hung a thick gold ring.

  ‘I can see him,’ I sighed, ‘and of course he is your son and a virgin …’

  ‘Not my son,’ the squat Negro replied with feeling, ‘but my boy-lover. Whenever someone looks at him I reach for my dagger. But I should lend him to you. Speak to Mustapha, the barber, and he will let you have his tent. You shall enjoy a delight so extraordinary that you will believe you are listening to the music of angels. Let me reveal to you that this boy has a certain part of his body so big that compared to it all the rest of his body seems but negligible appendage. And as far as …’

  ‘There is no limit to your depravity, you Sudanese merchants,’ I exclaimed loudly. ‘You enticed me here with a low trick: you promised to tell me stories, and instead you are offering me dirty and dirtier bargains. Your minds are empty of thought not connected with lewdness and filth. But your villainy carries its own punishment. I sit at the café day after day to invent stories. Well, today’s story will not have to be invented. I shall write about you and let the whole world know of your baseness. People will read about you even after the earth has caved in on your graves and scarlet weed will grow from your bones like burning torches.’

  I looked from one to the other. They sat motionless, their backs straight, but they had drawn in their chins and huge tears ran down their shiny black faces.

  ‘And Allah will have no mercy on you,’ I continued. ‘You know that the Koran condemns not even fornication with animals as severely as …’

  ‘No, Allah be praised,’ the youngest sniffled.

  ‘… as an offence against guest-friendship. When the Prophet takes hold of you by your white beards to lift you into heaven, and looks into your eyes, he will fling you from him like rotten oranges. And do you know where he will throw you?’

  ‘We know,’ they replied in chorus, nodding their heads.

  ‘But we can still atone for our sin,’ Ben Jusef looked at me entreatingly. ‘And we shall. Here and now. If you will listen, Master, I shall begin my first story. Shall I?’

  ‘Do,’ I agreed generously.

  ‘At the time when the protector of the faithful was still Haroun al-Rashid Ibn Muhammed al-Mahdi – Allah bless his memory – there lived in Baghdad a poor dervish called Kamal …’

  The squat brother told a second story, the youngest a third. Then it was my turn. When each of us had told his fourth story, the guests of the tea-house drew closer and even the boy with the gold ear-ring came in from the market square. He radiated a strong but not disagreeable perfume of roses.

  Towards sunset I ran out of stories and began to tell them Hungarian folk-tales. By then sixty or seventy listeners had crowded around us. The audience sat silently, only when something seemed funny to them did they break into loud, unrestrained laughter. Behind them the pancake-maker made the rounds again and again and the waiter ran to and fro with new and new trays of tea.

  I achieved my major success with a poem by the Hungarian poet, Janos Arany. The poem deals with two peasants who are neighbours. Both like to stand around in their garden listening to the song of a nightingale. The nightingale was wont to perch on
the branch of a tree which stood in the garden of one of the peasants, but the branch itself extended over the fence into the other’s garden. The two peasants quarrel about which of them the nightingale sings for, one says it perches on his tree, the other says that it is breathing his air. They agree to let the magistrate decide, but to be sure to win, both bribe the magistrate, who puts one peasant’s gold in his right pocket, the other peasant’s gold in his left. When the two peasants appear to hear the verdict, the magistrate slaps his right pocket and exclaims: ‘It sings for me!’ – then he slaps his left pocket and exclaims again: ‘It sings for me!’ – then he sends the peasants on their way.

  ‘Ha – ha – ha!’ Ben Jusef laughed, ‘I met a Cadi in Timbuktu who was exactly like yours!’

  ‘His name is Fadl,’ someone in the audience cried. ‘When I was in Timbuktu I met the scoundrel too!’

  After nightfall our audience increased rapidly. There were perhaps a hundred people in the small café, not to speak of the crowds assembling in the square.

  After midnight Bandi and Valy broke through to me.

  ‘We have searched the whole town for you,’ Bandi shouted. ‘We have just come from the police because we believed you had been murdered. There we were told that you were staging a performance of The Arabian Nights in the market square.’

  I resigned myself to my fate and rose. Ben Jusef followed me into the dark square.

  ‘Just a word,’ he begged, ‘alone with you.’

  ‘Now?’ I asked suspiciously.

  ‘You said you would put us in a story and deliver us to the contempt of the whole world to the day scarlet weed grew from our bones. I followed you to entreat you not to do this to us.’

  ‘I cannot promise not to write about you at all, but when I do, I shall do it in a way that people may remember you without malice.’

  ‘Which means that you will lie,’ Ben Jusef stated with a radiant smile.