by Tayeb Salih
The trilling sounds of joy from the women would draw nearer, become more clear cut, till Zein was able to distinguish the voices of the various women. Then the lights came into view, also the assembled shapes that rose and fell like devils in the Valley of the Jinn. Then could be seen the dust that was raised by the feet of people dancing, caught in the strands of light. All of a sudden the night would be shattered by a call that everyone knew: ‘Hear ye, people of the wedding, men of the dance, Zein has come to you.’ And with a leap Zein would land like Destiny herself in the dance circle. Suddenly the place would quicken into life, for Zein would have imbued it with new vigour. From afar one could hear their shouts as they greeted him: ‘Welcome! Welcome! Join in the company!’ When the women’s voices died in their throats and the lights went out and the people went off to their homes, Zein would rest his head against a stone or the trunk of a tree and would, as birds do, take a quick nap. When the muezzin gave the call to dawn prayers, he would take himself back to his people and wake up his mother for her to make tea.
One morning, though, the muezzin gave his call and Zein did not return. The eastern horizon grew red just before sunrise, then the sun rose up to the height of a man and still Zein had not returned. Zein’s mother, experiencing a slight quivering sensation in her left side, had ominous forebodings, for she held the opinion that if there was a quivering in her left side harm would surely befall someone in her family, and she thought of going to Zein’s uncle. Then she heard a movement at the courtyard door, heard the large door creak, then a loud crash, and found herself all of a sudden face to face with a terrible sight. She gave a scream which was heard by Hajj Ibrahim, Ni’ma’s father, four houses away where he was sitting on his prayer-mat drinking his early morning cup of coffee. The house filled with people, men and women, and they bore Zein’s mother off unconscious. The people split up into two groups, one going off with the mother, and the other, mostly composed of men, gathering round Zein, whose head bore a large wound stretching right up to near his right eye, while his chest, outer robe and trousers were stained with blood. The people lost their heads and Abdul Hafeez began shouting at Zein, his eyes reddened with anger: ‘Tell us who did this to you—who’s the criminal dog who struck you?’ The women screamed and some of them began weeping. Ni’ma stood looking on from afar, silent, her eyes fixed on Zein’s face, the sullenness in them having been replaced by a great tenderness. ‘The doctor!’ said Hajj Ibrahim, and the words fell like water on fire. The women’s wailing died down. Mahjoub called out, ‘The doctor!’ Then Abdul Hafeez called out, ‘The doctor!’ and Ahmed Isma’il set off on his donkey to fetch him.
When Zein returned from the hospital in Merowi after a stay of two weeks, his face was sparkling clean and his clothes a spotless white. When he laughed, people no longer saw those two yellow fangs in his mouth, but a row of gleaming white teeth in his upper jaw and another row of pearly dentures in his lower. It was as though Zein had been transformed into another person—and it struck Ni’ma, as she stood among the ranks of people come out to meet him, that Zein was not in fact devoid of a certain handsomeness.
For a long time after that Zein could talk of nothing else but his trip to Merowi. He enjoyed it when his old friends— Mahjoub, Abdul Hafeez, Ahmed Isma’il, Hamad Wad Rayyis, Taher Rawwasi and Sa’eed the merchant—gathered round him and he would relate to them what had happened.
‘Directly I arrived they took my clothes off and dressed me in clean ones. The bed was a splendid affair, the sheets as white as milk, and the stone floors so highly polished you slid around on the rugs’.
‘Never mind about the rugs and stone floors,’ Mahjoub interrupted him banteringly. ‘What did they fill that great stomach of yours with?’
Zein’s mouth trembled as though he were about to tuck in to a banquet. ‘Now you’re talking! Merowi Hospital’s food— there’s nothing like it. There wasn’t any sort of food they didn’t have—fish dishes, egg dishes, dishes of roast meat, dishes of chicken.’
‘But aren’t the helpings in the hospital a bit small?’ Mahjoub again interrupted him. ‘How did you manage to get enough?’
Zein gave a wide, knowing smile, revealing his new teeth. ‘Because my nurse took a fancy to me’.
‘There is no god but God,’ exclaimed Abdul Hafeez. ‘You good-for-nothing, were you even flirting with the nurses?’
Zein’s body shook with stifled laughter. ‘Oh yes, believe me she was quite a wench.’
Hamad Wad Rayyis, who up to now had been listening and laughing but not saying anything, intervened with: ‘The Prophet bless you, Zein—give us a description of her.’
Zein looked behind him as though frightened that someone might overhear him and lowered his voice: ‘God save us, men, she had quite a backside on her!’
The thread of the conversation was broken for a time as the assembly rocked with laughter. When Hamad Wad Rayyis had recovered his breath—though vestiges of laughter still remained in his chest—he said: ‘What did you do to her, you rascal?’
‘The wench was from Omdurman,’ Zein continued as though not having heard the last question. ‘She was smooth-checked without cuts.’
Wad Rayyis crawled up close to Zein and repeated his question in another form: ‘And how did you come to know she had a large backside?’
Zein immediately retorted: ‘Did they tell you I’m blind? Can’t I see what’s there right in front of me?’
Mahjoub, delighted at the reply and looking at Wad Rayyis, said: ‘The scoundrel knows what’s what.’
Zein put his hands behind his head, and leaned backwards slightly; then, with a mischievous smile on his face, he slowly said: ‘Do you want to know, men, what I did to her?’
Eagerly Wad Rayyis said, ‘By the Prophet, Zein, tell us what you did to her.’
Zein’s smile widened, then he opened his mouth to speak and some of the light from the large lamp hanging in Sa’eed’s shop was reflected on his teeth. But suddenly, at a bound, he was on his feet, just as though he’d been stung by a scorpion. Up jumped Ahmed Isma’il and Mahjoub, Taher Rawwasi and Hamad Wad Rayyis. ‘Hold on to him,’ shouted Abdul Hafeez. Zein, though, was quicker than them and in a flash had seized hold of his man, had raised him high in the air and thrown him to the ground. Then he tightened his grip on his throat. They all fell upon Zein, Ahmed Isma’il seizing hold of his right arm, Abdul Hafeez of his left, with Taher Rawwasi taking him by the middle, and Hamad Wad Rayyis by his legs. Sa’eed, who was weighing out something in his shop, hurried out and also took hold of Zein’s legs. Even so they were not successful.
There flowed into Zein’s lean body an immensely terrifying strength with which no one could deal. All the inhabitants of the village knew of this fearful strength and stood in awe of it, and Zein’s family did all they could to see he did not use it against anyone. They would shake in terror when they remembered how Zein had once seized a difficult calf by the horns, had lifted it from the ground like a bundle of hay, and had then swung it round and thrown it to the ground; how, too, in one of his fits of excitement, he had torn an acacia bush up by the roots as though it were a stick of maize. They all knew that this emaciated body concealed an extraordinary, super-human strength and that Seif ad-Din—the prey upon whom Zein swooped—was doomed. For a while their various voices were intertwined. ‘The he-donkey, I’ll kill him,’ Zein was repeating angrily. Abdul Hafeez’s voice was raised, tense and afraid: ‘By the Prophet, Zein—for God’s sake, let him be.’ Mahjoub began swearing in desperation. Ahmed Isma’il, the youngest and strongest of them, at a loss as to what to do next, bit Zein in the back. Taher Rawwasi, too, was a man famed for his strength and could swim the Nile back and forth, staying under the water for minutes on end, in his search for fish at night. His strength, though, was nothing in comparison with Zein’s. Amidst their clamour they heard a snorting sound emanating from Seif ad-Din’s throat and saw him striking out at the air with his long legs. ‘He’s dead, he’s killed him,’ shouted Mahj
oub.
But suddenly a new voice, that of Haneen, rose calm and serene above the hubbub: ‘Zein the blessed, may God be pleased with you.’ Zein released his grip and Seif ad-Din fell limply to the ground. The six men also dropped down in a heap, for Haneen’s voice had surprised them and they had been taken unawares by Zein’s sudden immobility—it was as though there had been a wall in front of them that had suddenly collapsed. A very short instant passed, something of the order of the twinkling of an eye, during which complete silence reigned, a silence that was inevitably a mixture of terror, consternation, and hope. After that, life once again welled up within them and they remembered Seif ad-Din. Their heads bent over him, and then Mahjoub called out in a joyful, trembling voice: ‘Thanks be to God. Thanks be to God.’ They carried Seif ad-Din off and put him on a bench in front of Sa’eed’s shop, and with voices tense and low, they began bringing him back to life. Only then did they remember Zein and notice him sitting on his backside, his hands between his knees, with his head bowed. Haneen had placed his hand with extreme tenderness on Zein’s shoulder and was talking to him in a voice firm but filled with love. ‘Zein, blessed one of God, why did you do it?’
Mahjoub came up and scolded Zein, but Haneen silenced him with a look. ‘If you hadn’t come, reverend Sheikh, he’d have killed him,’ Mahjoub said to Haneen after a while. Ahmed Isma’il and Taher Rawwasi joined them, while Abdul Hafeez, Sa’eed the merchant, and Wad Rayyis stayed with Seif ad-Din.
After a time, his head still bowed, Zein repeated what Mahjoub had said: ‘If you hadn’t come, reverend Sheikh, I’d have killed him. The he-donkey—when he struck me on the head with an axe did he think I’d let him get away with it.’ There was no anger in his voice, the tone being more like that of his natural gaiety; though the others remained silent, they too were infected by this feeling of lightheartedness.
‘But you were in the wrong,’ said Haneen.
Zein remained silent. ‘When did Seif ad-Din strike you on the head with an axe?’ continued Haneen.
‘At the time of his sister’s wedding,’ replied Zein laughing, his face full of mirth.
‘What did you do to his sister on her wedding day?’
‘His sister had her eye on me. Why did they want to marry her off to that good-for-nothing fellow?’
Ahmed Isma’il could not help laughing.
‘All the girls are after you, blessed one of God,’ Haneen said in a more gentle and tender voice. ‘Tomorrow you’ll be marrying the best girl in the village.’
Mahjoub felt a slight palpitation of his heart; having an innate awe of religious people, specially ascetics like Haneen, he used to remove himself from their path and have nothing to do with them. Yet he took warning of their predictions, feeling, despite his lack of outward concern, that they had mysterious powers. ‘The predictions of such ascetics are not made fruitlessly,’ he would say to himself. It was perhaps this that made him say in a loud voice tinged with contempt: ‘Who would marry this imbecile? On top of everything he was going to commit a crime.’
Haneen gave Mahjoub a stern look, and though Mahjoub trembled inwardly, he did not show his fear. ‘Zein’s no imbecile,’ said Haneen. ‘Zein’s a blessed person. Tomorrow he’ll be marrying the best girl in the village.’
Suddenly Zein gave an insolent, childish laugh and said: ‘I wanted to kill him, the he-donkey of a man—splitting me open with an axe just because his sister had her eye on me.’
‘Now we want you to make it up,’ said Haneen firmly. ‘Let it end there—it’s over and done with. He hit you and now you’ve hit him.’ He called Seif ad-Din, whose tall form approached, surrounded by Sa’eed, Abdul Hafeez and Hamad Wad Rayyis. ‘Get up and kiss him on the head,’ Haneen said to Zein, and without protest Zein got up, took hold of Seif ad-Din’s head and kissed him. Then he bent over Haneen’s head and covered it with kisses, saying, ‘Our Sheikh Haneen. Our father, blessed of God.’ It was a stirring moment that silenced them all.
Seif ad-Din’s eyes were wet with tears. ‘I have wronged you,’ he said to Zein. ‘Forgive me.’ He got up and kissed Zein’s head, then seized Haneen’s hand and kissed it. All the men came along: Mahjoub, Abdul Hafeez, Hamad Wad Rayyis, Taher Rawwasi, Ahmed Isma’il, and Sa’eed the merchant. Each silently took hold of Haneen’s hand and kissed it.
‘God bless you. God bring down His blessings upon you,’ said Haneen in his soft, unassuming voice, and he rose and took up his pitcher.
‘You must dine with us tonight,’ Mahjoub quickly invited him.
Haneen, though, gently refused. Clasping Zein’s shoulder with the other hand, he said, ‘Dinner’s to be in the house of the blessed one,’ and the two of them made off into the darkness. For an instant a shaft of light from the lamp hanging in Sa’eed’s shop flickered above their heads, then slipped off them as a white silk gown slips from a man’s shoulder. Mahjoub looked at Abdul Hafeez, Sa’eed looked at Seif ad-Din, and they all exchanged looks and nodded their heads.
Long years after this incident, when Mahjoub had become a grandfather many times over, as had Abdul Hafeez, Taher Rawwasi and the rest, when Ahmed Isma’il had become a father and his daughters had become of marriageable age, the inhabitants of the village used to look back on that year and on the incident with Zein, Haneen, and Seif ad-Din that had taken place in front of Sa’eed’s shop. Those who had taken part in the incident remember it with solemn awe—including Mahjoub who had never previously bothered about anything. The lives of each one of those eight men, the participants in the incident, were affected in one way or another. In the days that were ahead of them these eight men were to go over the details of the incident among themselves thousands of times, and each time the events made a more magical impression. They would remember in amazement how Haneen had appeared to them from out of the blue at the moment, the very instant, when Zein’s grip had tightened on Seif ad-Din and he had all but throttled him. In fact some of them insist that Seif ad-Din had actually died, had breathed his last, and had fallen to the ground a lifeless corpse. Seif ad-Din himself affirms this version and says that he did actually die; he says that the moment Zein’s grip on his throat had tightened he completely departed this world. He saw a vast crocodile the size of a large ox with its mouth agape; the crocodile’s jaws closed upon him, then came a wave so large it seemed like a mountain, which bore off the crocodile with Seif ad-Din between its jaws into the valley that was the trough of the wave, and the crocodile plunged down into a vast bottomless pit. It was then, Seif ad-Din says, that he saw Death face to face, and Abdul Hafeez, the person closest to Seif ad-Din when he recovered consciousness, is adamant that the first words he uttered on breath coming anew to his lungs, the first thing he said on opening his eyes, was: ‘I bear witness that there is no god but God, and I bear witness that Mohammed is the Messenger of God.’ At any event, there is no doubt that from that moment Seif ad-Din’s life underwent a change undreamt of by anyone.
Seif ad-Din was the only son of Badawi the Jeweller—so named because he had followed this trade at the beginning of his life, and when he had grown rich and was no longer a jeweller, the name had inevitably stuck to him. Badawi was well-off, possibly the richest man in the village. Some of his wealth he had collected by the sweat of his brow from his trade as a goldsmith, from commerce and travelling about; some had come to him from his wife. He was, as the village folk expressed it, a man ‘with a green arm,’ who touched nothing without it turning to money. In less than twenty years he had built up a fortune from scratch, partly in lands and estates, partly in goods distributed along the length of the Nile from Kareema to Karma, partly in the form of boats loaded with dates and merchandise plying up and down the river; partly in the shape of the great mass of gold worn by his wife and daughters in the way of jewellery covering their necks and arms. Seif ad-Din was brought up an only son among five daughters, pampered by his mother, pampered by his father, and pampered by his five sisters. He could not but be spoilt, or, as the village folk put it,
he could not but become soft and flabby like the tree that grows in the shade of a bigger tree, being exposed to no winds and not seeing the light of the sun.
Badawi died with a bitter lump of disappointment in his throat because of his son. He had spent a lot of money on his education, but the boy had done no good. He had set him up in the village in a business, which had failed within a month. After this he had put him into a workshop to learn a trade, but he had run away. In the end, by bringing influence to bear, he had succeeded in having him appointed as a junior government employee, hoping that he would learn to stand on his own feet. But no more than a few months later a succession of reports came, both from the mouths of enemies and friends, from those who enjoyed such misfortunes and those who were well-wishers, that his son was spending all his nights in a wine-shop and was seen at office only once or twice a week, and that his superiors had warned him time and time again, threatening him with dismissal. The father had therefore set off for the city, to return herding along his son like a captive, having sworn he would keep him imprisoned in the fields his whole life long, like a man in bondage. Those were his words.