‘This child born of sin will bring nothing but trouble to us,’ said Sheikh Hamzawi. ‘Since he was brought into our home one misfortune after another has happened to us, and to the whole village. The worm has eaten the crops in the fields and I’ve heard people say he is the cause. No one greets me when I walk along, Fatheya, and I fear the Mayor may chase me out of the mosque and appoint another sheikh in my place. Someone has put into his head the idea that the men of the village no longer like me to lead the prayer, because their prayers might not be favourably received by God since the man who leads them has sheltered a child born of sin and fornication in his house. We will die of hunger, Fatheya, if the Mayor expels me from the mosque.’
‘Allah will care for us, Sheikh Hamzawi, if the Mayor chases you out of the mosque,’ said Fatheya.
‘Allah is not going to make the heavens pour manna on us.’
‘How can you of all people say such things about God, Sheikh Hamzawi? Don’t you always say that Allah cares for the poor who worship Him? Why would He not take care of us also if the Mayor expels you from the mosque? Have you no trust in Allah, O Sheikh? Have you despaired of His mercy, you who enjoin people never to lose faith? Get up, Sheikh Hamzawi, and do your ablutions and pray God that He may have mercy on you and me, and on all the people in this village.’
So he did his ablutions and prayed. After prayer he would sit on the prayer carpet and recite verses from the Koran. The child would crawl up, sit in front of him on the carpet and look at him with questioning eyes. But the eyes of Sheikh Hamzawi were so full of hatred that they scared him, and he would crawl away screaming at the top of his voice. Fatheya would run up, lift him in her arms and pat him. ‘What’s the matter, my sweet one, what’s the matter with you? Are you afraid of your father, Sheikh Hamzawi? Do not be afraid of him, my sweet one. He’s your father and he loves you, and when you grow a little older, he will teach you the Koran, and you will become the Sheikh of the mosque, just like he is. You’ll lead people in prayer and give them a sermon on Fridays.’
‘You’re dreaming, Fatheya,’ snorted Sheikh Hamzawi. ‘Do you think people here would accept that the Sheikh of the mosque be a man who was born in sin?’
‘But it’s not the child’s fault,’ she retorted with insistence.
‘I know it’s not the child’s fault, but people here do not think that way.’
‘Why?’ she asked. ‘Why shouldn’t they think the way we do? We’re no different to them.’
‘Yes, I know, but people are like the waves of the sea, one can never tell when they might become stormy and why. All of them without exception say to me that it’s not the child’s fault. But when their heads get together, they say something else. These people are unbelievers, Fatheya. They don’t have faith in God nor do they worry their heads about what will happen either in this world, or in the next. In their hearts they don’t fear God. What they really fear is the Mayor. He holds their daily bread in his hands and if he wants, he can deprive them of it. If he gets angry their debts double, and the government keeps sending them one summons after the other. “Either pay or your land will be confiscated.” You do not know the Mayor, Fatheya. He’s a dangerous man, and fears no one, not even Allah. He can do injustice to people and put them in gaol when they have done nothing to merit it. He can even murder innocent people.’
‘In the name of Allah the Almighty, why then did you keep repeating that he is a man who believes in Allah, and loves doing good to people. Every Friday morning I could hear your voice echoing in the mosque so loudly that it reached me as you made your sermon to the people gathered there, praying to Allah that he bestow long life on the Mayor, saying that he was the best Mayor we had ever had in Kafr El Teen, and that he always sought for truth and justice. Were you fooling people, Sheikh Hamzawi?’
There was a long silence before he replied, ‘You know nothing about what goes on outside the four walls of this house. Life in the outside world with people as they are is not easy. The prophet says to us, “Do in this world as though you will live for ever.” The Friday sermon, Fatheya, cannot solely be concerned with Allah. Part of it must deal with worldly affairs, and the world in which we live is controlled by the Mayor. We cannot go about our lives if we are in disfavour with him. As far as Paradise is concerned, I am sure that Allah will send me there. Is it not enough that I continue to suffer at the hands of the Mayor and the Chief of the Village Guard in order to protect an innocent child? Or what do you think, Fatheya?’
‘Yes, of course,’ she said hastily, ‘Allah will reward you with many good things because you have adopted an innocent child, and for the protection, tenderness, and care you have given it.’
Taking advantage of the Sheikh’s more favourable mood, she sat down next to him and put the child in his lap.
‘Look into his eyes, Sheikh Hamzawi. Don’t you see how he loves you? Just like a child would love its father. Hold his hand. See how small and soft it is, and how his tiny fingers curl around your thumb as though he’s trying to say to you, “Don’t leave me father. I am small and weak, and need your help”.’
And the child held out its hand and touched Hamzawi’s face. The old man bowed his head, abandoning himself submissively to the playful fingers, enjoying their touch as they moved over his whiskers and beard.
One day the child pulled out a hair from his whiskers. He hit him over the hand and said, ‘Shame on you.’ And so when the boy learnt to speak the first word he pronounced was ‘Ame.’* The Sheikh began to seat him on the prayer carpet and to teach him how to recite from the Koran. The little boy would try to lift the Koran but it was heavy, and one day it slipped between his hands on to the floor with a thump. Sheikh Hamzawi shook with anger and bent down quickly to lift the Koran from the floor. He kissed it on one side, turned it over and kissed it on the other, then hit the boy on his hand, saying, ‘How dare you throw Allah’s book on the ground, you son of sin.’ Fatheya came running out at the sound of the child’s scream, and when the Sheikh explained to her what had happened she said, ‘How can you expect him to understand what you’re talking about, Sheikh Hamzawi?’
On another occasion it was noonday and very hot. Sheikh Hamzawi was seated as normal with the Koran in his hands, reading passages from it. Sleep overcame him and the Koran dropped on his lap as he sat cross-legged. The small boy crawled up to him and sat on the Koran. A few moments later Sheikh Hamzawi was awakened by something warm and wet trickling down between his thighs. He opened his eyes with a start, thinking that he had urinated on himself, to find the child sitting on his lap. Underneath was the book of Allah all soggy and wet. He scrambled up suddenly, throwing the child off his lap on to the floor, kicked him in the belly and shouted angrily. ‘Dost thou pass water on the holy book of Allah, thou son of fornication?’
The boy went pale and could hardly breathe for a moment, as though he was going to choke, or had died suddenly. Then he gave a long wailing gasp which brought Fatheya running up in a terrible panic.
‘What happened, Sheikh Hamzawi? What have you done to the child?’ she cried out.
Sheikh Hamzawi told her what had happened in a voice which shook with anger. She lifted the child in her arms and screamed furiously at her husband. ‘Do you expect the child to realize all this? How can you kick him like that in the belly with your big clumsy foot? Were it not for the grace of Allah you could have killed him!’
‘I wish he would die and relieve me of all the suffering I am obliged to go through because of him. I can’t stand living in this world any more if this accursed creature is going to continue living in it with me. I’m confined to these four walls like any woman. Nobody visits me any more, and I can no longer visit anybody. And when I walk through the village, people avoid me so that they are not obliged to greet me, or to stop and talk to me.’
On the following Friday Sheikh Hamzawi walked out of his house as usual on his way to the mosque, where he was supposed to lead the congregation in prayer. When he approached the door o
f the mosque three men stood in his way, and prevented him from entering. He got very angry and shouted at them, ‘I am the Sheikh of the mosque. How dare you prevent me from going in?’
‘You are no longer the Sheikh of the mosque,’ replied one of the men. ‘The Mayor has ordered that your services be dispensed with, and has appointed another sheikh.’
‘No one can stop me from going in,’ shouted Sheikh Hamzawi angrily. ‘Allah alone is the one who can prevent me from entering this mosque.’ Then he marched straight towards the door. But one of the men held on to his caftan, and pulled him back, upon which he raised his stick and dealt him a heavy blow on the head. The man dropped to the ground immediately, while the other men leapt on Sheikh Hamzawi. One of them struck out at his head with a powerful fist as though he was hitting at the head of a devil, or a snake, while the other man dealt him one slap after the other on the face. He seemed to be taking something out on him, perhaps remembering how his father used to slap him when he was still a young child and say, ‘Allah will burn you in the flames of hell for not obeying your father.’ The face in front of him now was not that of Sheikh Hamzawi, but of his father. But after a little while it changed again to become the face of Allah who had threatened him as a child that the fire of hell would burn his skin until nothing of it was left, and told him that each time it burnt he would allow another skin to grow on his body so he could burn again once and twice and thrice and ten and twenty times, never endingly. When he saw the face of Allah before him he was seized with a deep panic which made him lash out at Sheikh Hamzawi with a redoubled fury.
The villagers who had gathered to attend the prayer, crowded around instead to watch the fight. One of them tried to extricate Sheikh Hamzawi from the blows raining on his head, but a heavy fist aimed at his face drove him back, and nearly knocked out his teeth. He retreated muttering angrily, ‘He who tries to stop a quarrel only gets his clothes torn to shreds.’
One of the men standing around whispered in another’s ear, ‘The Mayor has removed Sheikh Hamzawi from his job and appointed another sheikh in the mosque. Come, let’s go before we miss the prayer.’ When he moved off others followed, and as they walked along different thoughts flitted through their minds. Some of them heard a voice within them say, ‘Since the decision has come from high up, I have no right to oppose it.’ With others, the inner voice said, ‘They’re all the same, these sheikhs, so what difference does it make? All I can do is pray behind one or the other.’
Only a few men remained outside the mosque. They forgot all about the Friday morning prayer. As a matter of fact, they forgot almost everything else at the sight of the quarrel. They stood there enjoying the spectacle of men fighting, not caring who was doing the beating and who was being beaten as though both aspects gave them an equal enjoyment. It was the peculiar pleasure that men experience at watching a violent struggle between opposing parties, be they human beings, or cocks, or bulls. Some people are even prepared to pay a high price just to watch a fight, and be distracted from the conflicts that go on inside them.
Sheikh Hamzawi’s turban fell on the ground and was trodden under the feet of people coming and going. His caftan was now torn to shreds, and blood flowed from his mouth and nose. But he continued to shout out furiously, ‘You impious unbelievers. You people who know not Allah. Is that how you strike at the man of God who devoted his life to serving Him all his life, and to looking after His holy house?’
One of the bystanders said, ‘If he is the man of God, why does Allah not come to his rescue, instead of leaving him to be beaten up like this?’
‘Who said he is a man of God? He is not a man of God at all,’ remarked a second.
A third man intervened in defence of the Sheikh, ‘How do you know that he is not a man of God? I think he is undoubtedly a man of God.’
‘And how are you so sure that he is a man of Allah? I say he is not the man of Allah you say he is,’ retorted the second man in an angry voice. But one of the men standing there intervened in the discussion in a way that cut them both short. ‘Neither you nor he can tell whether he is a man of God, or not.’
‘Then who knows?’ asked a man who had been in the thick of the fight just a moment ago.
Another of the bystanders chipped in, ‘The Mayor certainly knows. The Mayor is the only one that knows.’
There was a profound silence. No one dared object to what the last man had said. But a small boy who was standing somewhere in the throng piped in a shrill voice, ‘How can the Mayor know?’ But before he could say anything more, the hand of his father clapped down over his mouth and his hoarse voice ordered, ‘Shut your mouth, boy, when there are grown-up men present.’
But the boy’s question kept resounding in the mind of one of those who was present. ‘Could it be Allah who told the Mayor about such things? But did Allah speak to the Mayor the way he had spoken at one time to the Prophet Mohamed, God’s blessing and peace be upon him? Perhaps Allah spoke to saints, and therefore spoke to the Mayor who was a devout man.’
Suddenly the man felt his breath come in gasps. He could not figure out why he had started to gasp since he was only standing like the others watching the fight. Somehow the voice which had spoken within him sounded strange and even frightening, although it had only told him that the Mayor was a devout man. And yet the word devout itself had echoed inside him very much like the mysterious voice of the devil, so that all of a sudden the word ‘devout’ started to sound more like the word ‘dissolute’. He was seized with panic at the thought that he had insulted the Mayor even though he had only spoken to himself. He could not be sure that the voice within him had been no more than a faint whisper. It could have been louder than he thought, and in that case one of the men standing around might have heard it saying that the Mayor was a dissolute man. He nodded his head and waved his hand as though chasing away the devil, muttering to himself, ‘O Allah, I do take refuge in Thee against the accursed devil.’
‘Yes, it’s the devil,’ said an angry voice nearby. ‘Who would beat up our devout Sheikh Hamzawi other than the devil?’
‘But he is no longer the Sheikh of our mosque,’ commented a tall man who stood in the small crowd that was still hanging around.
‘Allah has nothing to do with the likes of him,’ added another voice in support of what the last man had said.
A short man with a meek face who had said nothing so far, took advantage of a sudden silence to ask in a low tone, ‘But how can you say that, brother? What wrong has Sheikh Hamzawi done?’
‘Don’t you know what he did? Don’t you live in this village? The worm has eaten our cotton, and we’ve had nothing but trouble since Sheikh Hamzawi gave shelter to that child of sin in his house. How can we allow a man who adopts the children of sin and fornication to lead us in prayer?’
The tall man was about to say, ‘It’s not the fault of the poor child,’ but he swallowed quickly and kept silent at the sight of the anger glinting in many eyes. He remembered how his father used to repeat always that the children of sin only brought misfortune with them. He heard himself say in a voice which resembled that of his father, ‘You’re right, brother. The children of sin only bring misfortune with them,’ then he swallowed again and rushed off to his field. A voice within him said, ‘I’m a coward.’ But he braced his shoulders and lifted his head and this time the voice sounded different when it said more loudly, ‘He’s right, children of sin only bring misfortune with them. Otherwise, why is it that we have had one problem after the other since Sheikh Hamzawi took that child into his house?’
As for Sheikh Hamzawi, he returned home to Fatheya, bleeding from his nose and mouth, his clothes dusty and torn, his head uncovered since he had lost his turban in the fight. Her mind told her that the life of her child was now in danger. She concealed him under her shawl and said, ‘We can no longer live in this village.’
‘I know no other place to live in,’ responded Sheikh Hamzawi in a voice full of despair and exhaustion. ‘I prefer
to die here rather than in a strange place. There no one will lend us a helping hand.’
‘Allah will take care of us, Hamzawi. Do you think He will abandon us to our fate?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Sheikh Hamzawi. ‘Allah seems to have abandoned me since I gave shelter to this child.’
‘How can you repeat the same things that people in the village are saying?’ protested Fatheya.
‘Why does that surprise you? Aren’t I like other people? Am I not human? I never pretended to be a saint, or a god.’
‘What are you driving at, Hamzawi? If you don’t want the child to stay, then before the sun rises tomorrow you will not find him here, and you will never see him again in this house. But I also will leave with him.’
‘Do as you wish, Fatheya,’ answered Sheikh Hamzawi in a weak voice. ‘Go with him, or stay here, it no longer makes any difference. All I want out of life is that people should leave me alone.’
‘I don’t want to leave you alone,’ she said, wiping the tears away with her hand, ‘but people will give us no peace. Every time something goes wrong in the village, they will blame this poor, innocent child. What has the child got to do with the cotton worm, Hamzawi? Was it he who told the worm to eat the cotton? The brain of a buffalo has more sense in it than the mind of these people here in Kafr El Teen. But where can I go? I know no other village apart from Kafr El Teen.’
A few days passed and Fatheya forgot the questions she had asked herself. People no longer talked about them as they had done before. It looked as though they had forgotten the whole matter, or that what they had done to Sheikh Hamzawi was sufficient for them. And perhaps people would have forgotten. But one day the wind started to blow, and carried with it a spark from one of the ovens in which a woman was baking bread. The spark was very small, about the size of the head of a match, or maybe even smaller. It could have gone out had it landed on the dust-covered ground. But instead it flew on to one of the roofs, and landed while still partly alight on a heap of straw. If a gust of wind had happened to blow strongly at that moment, it might have put it out before it had time to ignite the straw. In fact, the wind went suddenly still, and during this time a small flame caught hold of one straw, so that when the wind started to blow again after a short while, the one straw was burning and the flames quickly caught hold of the whole heap, then moved quickly to the dung cakes and the cotton sticks jutting out as far as the roofs of the nearby houses.
God Dies by the Nile and Other Novels Page 13