Children of the Alley
Page 46
He called his men, and they came with two sacks. They pushed Awatif, and she fell on her face. They speedily bound her feet and pulled the sack over her despite her screams, then tied it shut with a tight knot.
Arafa began to scream with crazed agitation. “Kill us if you want, but tomorrow the people who hate you will kill you!”
The overseer cackled. “I have enough bottles to protect me forever.”
“Hanash escaped, he escaped with all our secrets, and he’ll come back someday too powerful for you to resist, and he’ll rid the alley of your evil.”
Qadri kicked him in the stomach, and he collapsed, writhing. The men jumped on him and did to him what they had done to his wife, then carried the two sacks outside and took them to the desert. It was not long before Awatif fainted, but he was still suffering terribly. Where were they taking them, and how would they kill them? Would they beat them to death with clubs? With rocks? Set fire to them? Throw them off the mountain? How terrible that the final minutes of his life had to be so horribly painful! Even magic could find no way out of this choking agony; his head, swollen from the overseer’s blows, lay at the bottom of the sack, and he was almost smothered. He no longer had any hope of rest, except in death. He and his hopes would die, but that cackling man might live a long life. The people he had wanted to destroy would gloat over him. No one would even know what Hanash would do. The men carrying him to his death were silent. None of them spoke a word. There was only darkness, and nothing beyond the darkness but death. It was from fear of this death that he had hidden under the overseer’s wing, and lost everything; now death had come. Death, which killed life with fear even before it came. If he could come back to life, he would shout at every man: Don’t be afraid! Fear doesn’t keep death away, it keeps life away! People of the alley—you aren’t alive, and life will never be possible for you as long as you fear death.
“Here,” said one of the killers.
“The ground is looser there,” complained another.
His heart trembled, though he did not understand the meaning of their words—anyway, it was the language of death. He braced himself for the expected torment, until he almost shouted at them, “Kill me!” But he did not do it. Suddenly the sack was thrown to the ground, and he groaned as his head hit the earth. Pain split his neck and spinal column. He waited, moment after moment, for the onslaught of the clubs, or something even worse. He cursed his whole life for the sake of evil, the ally of death.
“Dig fast, so that we’ll make it back before morning,” he heard Yunis say.
Why were they digging the grave before killing them? It seemed to him that his chest was being crushed under Muqattam Mountain. He heard a moan in which he immediately recognized Awatif’s voice, and his shackled body twitched violently. The sounds of digging reached his ears. He marveled at how cruel men could be.
“You’ll be thrown into the bottom of the hole,” he heard Yunis say. “Then you’ll be covered with dirt. No one’s going to hurt you!”
Awatif screamed despite her exhaustion, and deep inside he screamed in a language no one knew. Rough hands lifted them up and threw them into the bottom of the hole, the soil began to heap up, and the dust rose in the twilight.
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The news of Arafa spread through the alley. No one knew the real reasons for his murder, but the people guessed that he had angered his patron, which led to this inescapable fate. One day it was said that Arafa had been killed with the same magic weapon with which he had killed Saadallah and Gabalawi. Everyone rejoiced at his death, despite their hatred for the overseer, and the gangsters’ families and supporters gloated most of all. They rejoiced at the death of the man who had killed their blessed ancestor and given their tyrannical overseer a terrible weapon with which to humble them forever. The future looked black, or at least blacker than it had looked before all the power had been concentrated in one cruel hand. They lost the hope that a quarrel might break out between two men, weakening both of them, so that one of them would seek the support of the people of the alley. Now it seemed that they had no choice but subjugation; to see the estate, its conditions and the words of Gabal, Rifaa and Qassem as wasted dreams, good only to accompany poets’ melodies, not for anything else in this life.
One day a man stood in Umm Zanfil’s way as she was on her way to al-Darasa, and greeted her, saying, “Good afternoon, Umm Zanfil.”
She peered at him and almost instantly spoke in surprise. “Hanash!”
He came closer to her, smiling. “Did our late friend leave anything in your room the night they took him away?”
“He didn’t leave one thing,” she said in a tone meant to divert any suspicion from herself. “I saw him throw some papers out of the skylight. I had a look in there myself, the next day, and among the garbage I found a notebook, as worthless as it could be, so I left it there and came back.”
A strange light came into Hanash’s eyes, and he spoke urgently. “Take me there so I can find the notebook.”
The old woman started, alarmed, and said, “Get away from me! It was only God’s mercy that saved you the last time.”
He put a coin into her hand to calm her fears, and they agreed to meet late that night when all eyes would be sleeping. At the appointed hour, guided by her, he stole down to the dump underneath the skylight. He lit a candle and squatted among the heaps of trash to search for Arafa’s notebook. He went through the heaps, paper by paper, rag by rag, working his fingers through ashes, dirt, remnants of honeyed tobacco and scraps of rancid food, but without finding what he sought so eagerly.
He went back up to Umm Zanfil, angry and desperate. “I didn’t find anything.”
“I have nothing to do with all of you! You just come here, and trouble follows!”
“Please, just be patient.”
“Days past have not left me any more patience or sanity. Tell me what you want from that notebook?”
He hesitated a little before saying, “It’s Arafa’s notebook.”
“Arafa, God forgive him! He killed Gabalawi, then gave his magic to the overseer and left!”
“He was one of the good children of Gabalawi, but his luck turned on him. He wanted the same things for you that Gabal, Rifaa and Qassem wanted—even better things.”
The woman gave him a skeptical look, and spoke to dismiss him. “Maybe the garbageman took away the garbage I left the notebook in. Look for it where they burn the trash in Salihiya.”
And so Hanash went to the dump at Salihiya and asked for the Gabalawi Alley garbageman and asked him about the trash from the alley.
“You’re looking for something lost! What is it?” the man asked him.
“A notebook.”
A suspicious look appeared in the man’s eyes, but he pointed to a corner in the room next to the bathroom.
“Good luck. Either you’ll find it, or it’s in the furnace.”
Hanash began to look hopefully, patiently through the garbage. This notebook was the last hope he had left in life; it was his hope, and the alley’s. Unlucky Arafa had died defeated, leaving only evil and a bad reputation behind him, but this notebook could redress his wrongs, finish off his enemies and spread hope throughout this infernal alley.
“Haven’t you found what you’re looking for?” the garbageman asked.
“I need more time. Bless you.”
The man scratched his armpits. “What is it about the notebook?”
Hanash fought back his anxiety, and said, “It has my store’s accounts in it. You’ll see for yourself.”
He kept searching in spite of his mounting fear, until he heard a familiar voice.
“Where’s your bean pot, Mitwali?”
He quivered with fear at the voice of Shankal, the bean seller of the alley.
He did not turn around, but wondered uneasily: Had the man seen him? Would it be better to leave now? His hands searched more rapidly, until he looked like a rabbit digging its hole.
Shankal went back to the alley a
nd told everyone he met that he had seen Hanash, Arafa’s companion, at the Salihiya dump busily searching through the trash for a notebook, according to the garbageman. As soon as this news reached the overseer’s house, a force of servants went to the dump, but found no sign of Hanash. When they questioned the garbageman, he told them that he had gone off on some business, and when he came back Hanash had gone. He did not know whether he had found what he was looking for or not. And no one knew why people began to whisper among themselves that the notebook Hanash had taken was the same magic book to which Arafa had entrusted the secrets of his arts and weapons. It was lost during his escape attempt, and ended up in the trash at the Salihiya dump, where Hanash found it. Word spread from drug den to drug den that Hanash would finish what Arafa had started, and then come back to the alley to take the most terrible revenge on the overseer. The prevailing view was that the overseer had promised a huge reward to whoever brought Hanash to him, alive or dead; his men said so, in all the coffeehouses and drug dens. No one doubted any longer the role that Hanash was expected to play in their lives. A wave of optimism and rejoicing rose up in their souls, washing away the scum of their despair and submission. Their hearts were filled with tenderness for Hanash in his unknown exile, a tenderness that now included Arafa too. The people wished they might cooperate with Hanash in standing against the overseer; perhaps in his triumph over the overseer they could score a triumph for themselves and their alley, securing a prosperous, just and peaceful life. They planned to cooperate in any way they found possible, as this was their only way to deliverance. It was incontestable that there was no defeating the magic powers the overseer possessed except by similar powers, which Hanash might be preparing. The overseer was informed what the people were whispering about, so he inspired the coffeehouse poets to sing the story of Gabalawi, especially his death at Arafa’s hand, and how the overseer had been compelled to make a truce with him, and befriend him out of fear of his magic until he was able to kill him to avenge their great ancestor.
Amazingly, the people were lukewarm or mocking at the poets’ lies, and had grown so stubborn that they said, “We have nothing to do with the past. Our only hope lies in Arafa’s magic, and if we had to choose between Gabalawi and magic, we’d choose magic.”
Day after day, the truth of Arafa was revealed to the people. Perhaps it had leaked from Umm Zanfil’s building; she had learned a great deal about him from Awatif during the time she lived with her. Or perhaps it came from Hanash himself, from what he told people who met him in remote places. In any case, people came to know the man, and the wonderful, magic, dreamlike life he had been seeking for the alley, through his magic. They marveled at the truth and extolled his memory, and lifted up his name even above the names of Gabal, Rifaa and Qassem. People said that he could never have been Gabalawi’s killer as they had thought, and others said he was the alley’s greatest man, even if he had killed Gabalawi. They competed for him, until every neighborhood claimed him as its own.
And it so happened that some of the young men of our alley began to disappear, one by one, and it was said, to explain their disappearance, that they had found their way to Hanash’s place, and joined him; he was teaching them magic, in anticipation of the day of their promised deliverance. Overpowered by fear, the overseer and his men sent their spies everywhere to search homes and shops and impose the cruelest punishments for the slightest offenses. They beat people with sticks for a look, a joke or a laugh, until the alley endured a nightmarish atmosphere of fear, hatred and terrorism. Yet the people bore the outrages steadfastly, taking refuge in patience. They held fast to hope, and whenever they were persecuted, they said, “Injustice must have an end, as day must follow night. We will see the death of tyranny, and the dawn of light and miracles.”
Naguib Mahfouz
Children of the Alley
Naguib Mahfouz was one of the most prominent writers of Arabic fiction in the twentieth century. Born in Cairo in 1911, he began writing when he was seventeen. Over his long career, he wrote nearly forty novel-length works and hundreds of short stories, ranging from re-imaginings of ancient myths to subtle commentaries on contemporary Egyptian politics and culture. His most famous work is The Cairo Trilogy (consisting of Palace Walk, Palace of Desire, and Sugar Street), which focuses on a Cairo family through three generations, from 1917 until 1952. In 1988, Mahfouz became the first writer in Arabic to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. He died in August 2006.
About the Translator
Peter Theroux is the author of Sandstorms: Days and Nights in Arabia (1990) and Translating LA (1994). He is the translator of several major Arabic novels. He lives in suburban Los Angeles.
BOOKS BY NAGUIB MAHFOUZ
The Beggar, The Thief and the Dogs, Autumn Quail (omnibus edition)
Respected Sir, Wedding Song, The Search (omnibus edition)
The Beginning and the End
The Time and the Place and Other Stories
Midaq Alley
The Journey of Ibn Fattouma
Miramar
Adrift on the Nile
The Harafish
Arabian Nights and Days
Children of the Alley
Echoes of an Autobiography
The Day the Leader Was Killed
Akhenaten, Dweller in Truth
Voices from the Other World
Khufu’s Wisdom
Rhadopis of Nubia
Thebes at War
Seventh Heaven
The Thief and the Dogs
Karnak Café
Morning and Evening Talk
The Dreams
Cairo Modern
Khan al-Khalili
The Mirage
THE CAIRO TRILOGY
Palace Walk
Palace of Desire
Sugar Street
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