The Harafish (36 page)

43
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One evening, Zaynat the Blonde asked to see him. He received her in the guest hall and let her marvel at the furniture, the objets d'art, the ornamented lamps. She removed her wrap and veil and sat on the divan, armed with all her weapons of seduction.

“How should I justify my presence here?” she asked adroitly. “Shall I say that I was trying to rent a flat in one of your new buildings?”

He found himself being pleasant, trying to put her at her ease. “No one's going to ask you to justify yourself.”

She laughed contentedly. “I said to myself, I'll go and visit him, since he can't decide to come and see me!”

He sensed he had taken a step down into the abyss of temptation, but did not let it concern him. “That's as good a reason as any. Welcome!”

“I was encouraged by the nice way you received me each afternoon.”

He smiled. Behind the smile he was wondering as he so often did what Qamr looked like now.

“Don't you like me?” she asked with unusual boldness.

“You're exquisite,” he replied truthfully.

“And is a man like you content to have this feeling and not act on it?”

“You're forgetting certain things,” he said in embarrassment.

“You're the most powerful man around. How can you sleep like the poor people?”

“The poor sleep deeply,” he said sarcastically.

“What about you?”

“Maybe I don't sleep at all!”

She laughed sweetly. “I've heard from people who know that you've never drunk or smoked in your life, and never touched a woman. Is it true?”

He was at a loss to know how to reply, but had the feeling she would find out what she wanted.

“Love and pleasure—they're what life's about,” she continued, undaunted.

“Really?” he replied, feigning surprise.

“The rest we leave to others when we go!”

“We leave love and pleasure too,” he said angrily.

“No! They're absorbed by the body and soul, so no one else can have them!”

“What a farce!”

“I haven't lived a single day without some loving or enjoyment,” she said passionately.

“You're an astonishing woman!”

“I'm a woman, that's all.”

“Aren't you worried about death?”

“We all have to die, but I don't like how it happens.”

Have to? Have to? “Do you know anything about the life of Shams al-Din?” he asked her abruptly.

“Of course,” she answered proudly. “He's the one who fought old age.”

“He resisted it for all he was worth.”

“The lucky ones are really the people who enjoy a quiet old age,” she said softly.

“The lucky ones are those who never grow old.”

She was taken aback at the change in him. “This moment's all you've got for sure,” she said provocatively.

He laughed. “That sounds like an appropriate homily when night's approaching.”

She closed her eyes, listening to the wind whistling and the rain beating on the shuttered windows.

44
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Zaynat the Blonde became Galal's lover. People were shocked but said in any case it was better than what happened to Wahid. Her former lovers stayed away from her, and he had her to himself. She taught him everything, and added a gilded calabash and ornately embellished water pipe to the other luxurious objects in the house. He had no regrets, and thought this way of life had a certain appeal. Zaynat loved him with a love that possessed her heart and soul, and was tantalized by a strange dream that one day she would be his lawful wife. To his surprise his old love for Qamr was reborn too, like an unchanging memory filled with sweetness. He realized he would never escape it. Nothing would cease to exist. Not even his love for his mother. He would remain indebted to Zahira's shattered head and Qamr's face for his knowledge of the tragedy of existence, the faint, recurrent melody of sorrow beneath the facade of bright lights and brilliant victories. He had no idea of Zaynat's age. She could have been the same age as him, or older. It would remain a secret. He grew attached to her. Was he in love again? He grew attached to the calabash and the water pipe. To them he owed
this inner ecstasy which gave rise to both joy and anguish, and he had no qualms about abandoning himself to the current.

45
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His father cornered him alone, looking concerned.

“Why don't you marry her? Surely it's better to make it legal?”

He didn't answer.

“If you married Zaynat,” went on his father, “you'd be following Ashur's example.”

He shook his head.

“In any case, I've definitely decided to marry again.”

“You!” exclaimed Galal in amazement, “but you're in your sixties, father!”

“So what?” laughed Abd Rabbihi. “I'm in excellent health, in spite of everything, and I've got high hopes—God willing—of the herbalist's potions.”

“Who's the lucky girl?”

“Zuwayla al-Faskhani's daughter,” he boasted. “A nice, respectable girl in her twenties.”

“Wouldn't it be better to choose a lady nearer your own age?” smiled Galal.

“No. I need someone young to make me feel young again.”

“I hope you'll be happy,” murmured Galal.

Abd Rabbihi began singing the praises of the herbalist and his magic powers, and how he could restore a man's youth.

46
.

Farida al-Faskhani married Abd Rabbihi, and the couple set up house in a wing of The Citadel. Galal thought constantly about the magic powers of the herbalist, Abd al-Khaliq. One night he invited him and they got stoned together and ate fruit and sweetmeats.

“What passes between us here must be kept secret,” said Galal earnestly.

Abd al-Khaliq promised that it would, pleased with the new status bestowed on him by the chief.

“I've heard you give mature men back their youth,” began Galal tentatively.

The herbalist smiled confidently. “With the help of the Almighty.”

“Perhaps it's easier for you to stop people aging?”

“That goes without saying.”

Galal's face brightened. He looked visibly relieved. “You see why I sent for you?” he murmured.

The man thought for a moment, awed by the burden of trust. “The herbalist's potions aren't everything,” he said finally. “They must be used in conjunction with the will to act sensibly.”

“What do you mean?”

“You must be honest,” said Abd al-Khaliq cautiously. “Have you experienced any kind of weakness?”

“I'm in perfect health.”

“Splendid. Then you must stick devotedly to a regime.”

“Don't talk in riddles.”

“You have to eat, but excessive eating is harmful.”

“Anyone in my position should be able to understand that,” said Galal, relieved.

“A little alcohol is a pleasant stimulus but too much is bad for you.”

“Obviously.”

“You shouldn't try to exceed your capabilities when it comes to sex.”

“Not a problem.”

“A sound faith is highly beneficial.”

“Fine.”

“When all that's taken care of, the herbalist's prescription can work wonders.”

“Has it been tried before?”

“By many of the notables. Some of them have preserved their youth so well that people who know them have started to get scared and wonder what's going on!”

Galal's eyes gleamed delightedly.

“If someone follows my advice, God willing, he should be able to live to a hundred,” continued Abd al-Khaliq. “And there's nothing to stop him going on beyond that, until he actually wants his time to be up!”

Galal gave a gloomy smile. “Then what?”

“Death comes to us all,” shrugged the herbalist.

Galal cursed to himself at this general conspiracy to venerate death.

47
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One evening as he and Zaynat were sitting together, relaxed and at ease with one another, she asked suddenly, “Why don't you do something to fulfill the expectations of the harafish?”

He looked at her, startled. “What does it matter to you?”

She kissed him and said frankly, “To stop people being jealous. That's fatal.”

He shrugged his shoulders indifferently. “To tell you the truth, I despise them.”

“But they're poor and miserable.”

“That's why I despise them!”

A spasm of disgust distorted her pretty face.

“All they think about is getting enough to eat.”

“Your ideas frighten me,” she said pityingly.

“Why don't they resign themselves to hunger, like they do to death?”

Memories of her youth swept over her like a choking dust storm.

“Hunger's more terrible than death.”

He smiled, half closing his eyes to hide the cold scorn in them.

48
.

The days went by and Galal grew more powerful, more beautiful, more glorious. Time slid over him leaving no trace, like a trickle of water on a polished mirror. Zaynat herself changed, like everything else, despite the great care she took of her beauty. Galal realized
that he had begun his sacred struggle of resistance against the passage of time. How sad that it was bound to end! He might delay it for a while, but there was no escaping destiny.

49
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The ties of friendship grew firmer between him and Abd al-Khaliq. The herbalist claimed that if his potions did not cost so much, the alley would be full of centenarians. Galal thought often of sharing the magic potion with Zaynat, but always abandoned the idea. Perhaps he had begun to fear her power over him and her charm, and was loath to immunize her against the tyranny of age. He loved her most of the time, but every now and then he felt like getting his own back and ejecting her on to the nearest rubbish heap. His relationship with her was not simple or clear-cut. It spread and merged into a complex web of relationships, indivisible from his memories of his mother and Qamr, his hostility toward death, his self-respect, his dependence on her which held him captive. What annoyed him most of all about her was her deep-seated assurance, her seemingly boundless confidence. And yet she was worn out by drink and sleepless nights, her cheeks aflame with makeup. Could he detect sly glances of envy in his direction?

50
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“I suppose you've heard the tale of Ashur al-Nagi?” he asked Abd al-Khaliq one day.

“Everyone knows it by heart.”

“I believe he's still alive,” said Galal after a pause.

Abd al-Khaliq was shocked and didn't know how to reply. He knew that Ashur was a saint for some, a crook for others, but they all accepted that he was dead.

“That he didn't die,” persisted Galal.

“Ashur was a good man. Death doesn't spare good men.”

“Does a person have to be evil to live forever?” protested Galal.

“We all have to die. A believer shouldn't try and live forever.”

“Are you certain of that?”

“So they say. God knows,” said Abd al-Khaliq, taking fright.

“Why?”

“I think people can only live forever if they associate with jinns.”

“Tell me what you mean,” demanded Galal, ablaze with a sudden fierce interest.

“Associating with jinns means you become immortal, and damned forever. You sign an everlasting pact with the devil.”

“Do you think that's drivel, or is there some truth in it?” asked Galal, his interest mounting.

Abd al-Khaliq hesitated. “It may be true,” he said eventually.

“Let's hear more details.”

“Why? Are you really thinking of taking such a risk?”

Galal laughed edgily. “I just like to know everything.”

“It's said that…Shawar…” began Abd al-Khaliq slowly.

“The mysterious sheikh who claims to read the future?” asked Galal.

“That's what he does on the face of it. But he knows some terrible secrets.”

“It's the first I've heard of it.”

“He's scared of believers.”

“Do you think there's anything in it?”

“I don't know, but the whole business is cursed.”

“Immortality?”

“Mixing with jinns!”

“You're scared of immortality!”

“That's not surprising. Imagine if I survived long enough to witness the world I know ceasing to exist, all my friends and family gone, leaving me surrounded by strangers, permanently on the move, rejected. I'd go mad and long to be dead.”

“You'd preserve your youth forever!”

“You'd have children you had to avoid. With each generation you'd have to start all over again, lose a wife and children all over again. You'd be classified as a permanent alien, have no true links of any kind.”

“That's enough!” cried Galal.

They laughed uproariously.

“But what a dream,” murmured Galal.

51
.

Shawar lived in a large basement directly opposite the animals' drinking trough. It had several rooms, including one reserved for women and another for men. He himself was a mysterious character whom no one had ever seen. He received his clients in a dark room at night. They heard his voice, but saw no sign of him. Most of them were women, but a few may have been men driven to consult him on the advice of knowledgeable women. After the consultation the client was expected to leave an offering with an Ethiopian maid called Hawa.

Galal sent for the sheikh, but was told he lost his magic powers if he left his room, so he had to make his way there under cover of darkness, late enough to ensure that he was the only customer.

Hawa showed him into the room, sat him down on a soft cushion, and vanished. He was in pitch-darkness. He peered around him but could see nothing. It was as if he had lost all sense of time and space. He had been warned to keep quiet, not to initiate conversation and answer all questions briefly and to the point. The time dragged by oppressively. They seemed to have forgotten all about him. It was ridiculous. He had not been slighted in this way since he had become chief. What had happened to Galal the giant? Could he really be this resigned creature, patiently waiting? It would be the worse for mankind and the spirit world if this escapade came to nothing.