The Harafish (47 page)

“You're still suspicious of me.”

“No. I think I've made that clear.”

“I'm not letting my mother stay here,” he said, his irritation plain to see.

“You're a good boy, but I won't abandon your brother,” said Halima quickly.

“You're suspicious of me too!”

“God forbid! But I'm not leaving him. Let things take their course.”

“How long do you plan to stay here with the dead?”

“We're not exactly as poor as we were. Things get better each day.”

“I can reinstate you in the alley as respected citizens,” he said vehemently.

“Let things take their course,” implored Halima.

Diya hung his head. “What a disappointment,” he muttered.

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After Diya had gone, Halima said, “We were hard on him, Ashur.”

“There was no other way,” insisted Ashur.

“Don't you trust him?”

“No.”

“I do.”

“I'm certain he must have bent the rules a bit to get where he is.”

“Who could fail to learn a lesson after what happened to Fayiz?”

“We could. Our family history's nothing more than a succession of deviations, disasters, lessons not learned.”

“But I believe him.”

“As you wish.”

“And you wouldn't even tell him your secret?”

“No,” said Ashur sadly. “We believe in different things.”

“He might have joined your group.”

“We believe in different things,” repeated Ashur patiently.

Diya had certainly come at an inopportune moment, for Ashur was poised—after much hard work—to take the decisive step.

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One wondrous day as the alley suffered its normal miserable life and winter prepared to depart, a man stepped out from under the archway. A giant in a blue gallabiyya and brown skullcap, carrying a long stick. He moved calmly and confidently as if he was returning from an hour's trip rather than several years' absence. The first person he met was Muhammad al-Agal. He stared at him in amazement.

“Ashur!”

“God's peace upon you, Muhammad.”

At once astonished eyes were fixed on him. From shops, house windows, from all around the alley. He took no notice of anyone and made straight for the café. Hassuna al-Saba was cross-legged on his couch, attended by Yunis al-Sayis and Galil al-Alim. Ashur entered under the shocked gaze of the clientele. He made for a corner table, uttering a general greeting.

No one answered. It was clear the chief expected a formal salutation accompanied by some conciliatory remarks but Ashur sat down without a glance in his direction. The customers waited to see what would happen next.

“What brings you back here, boy?” demanded al-Saba, losing patience.

“I was bound to come here one day,” he answered calmly.

“But you were chased out, rejected, cursed,” he shouted.

“That was an injustice,” he retorted, “and justice must triumph in the end.”

Sheikh Galil interrupted at this point.

“Approach and ask our chief's pardon,” he said.

“I didn't come here to seek pardon,” answered Ashur coldly.

“We didn't know you were rude and conceited,” shouted Yunis.

“You said it,” mocked Ashur.

Hassuna al-Saba unfolded his legs from under him and sat forward, feet planted firmly on the floor.

“How were you thinking of coming back to live here, if it wasn't with my indulgence?” he asked menacingly.

“By the grace of the Almighty,” proclaimed Ashur unruffled.

“Get out of here, or you'll be leaving on a stretcher,” roared al-Saba.

Ashur stood up, and his fingers tightened around his club. The waiter rushed outside to summon the clan. The customers rushed after him in fright. Hassuna and Ashur lashed at one another with their long sticks. The shock of contact was like a wall coming down. A cruel, merciless battle broke out.

The men of the clan appeared from different directions, the alley emptied of people, shops closed, and the windows and wooden lattices filled with curious heads.

And then there was a surprise which hit the alley like an earthquake. Nobody was prepared for it. The harafish poured out of the lanes and derelict buildings, shouting, brandishing whatever weapons they had been able to lay hands on: bricks, bits of wood, chairs, sticks. They surged forward like a flood against Hassuna's men who, taken by surprise, were rapidly forced on to the defensive. Ashur struck Hassuna's arm and the club dropped from his fingers. He grappled with him, got him in a clinch, and squeezed him until his bones cracked. Then he lifted him high over his head and hurled him into the alley where he lay senseless and robbed of his honor.

The harafish surrounded the men of the clan and beat them with sticks and bricks. The lucky ones were those who escaped. In less than an hour the only people left in the alley were Ashur and a group of harafish.

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The number of combatants made this battle without precedent in the alley. The harafish, the overwhelming majority of the populace, had suddenly joined forces and prevailed over the clubs and long sticks. This sent a violent tremor through the private homes and businesses. The thread holding things in place had been broken. Anything was possible. However, the leadership of the clan had
returned to the Nagi family, to a grave giant, whose clan was drawn for the first time from the people who made up the majority. Contrary to expectation, chaos did not follow. They closed ranks around their chief, with dedication and obedience. He towered above them like a lofty building, the look in his eyes inspiring them to create rather than wreck and destroy.

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At night Yunis al-Sayis and Galil al-Alim came to see Ashur. They were plainly uneasy. “I hope it won't be necessary for the police to intervene,” began Sheikh Yunis.

“How many crimes have been committed under your nose and you never thought of calling the police?” said Ashur angrily.

“Sorry,” said the man excitedly. “You understand our position better than anyone. And can I remind you that although you owe thanks to them you'll soon be at their mercy!”

“No one will be at anyone's mercy.”

“All that kept them in check in the past was their weakness and lack of unity,” Sheikh Galil said apprehensively.

“I know them better than you,” said Ashur confidently. “I've lived alongside them in the open for a long time. And justice is the best cure for their ills.”

“What will become of the rich and the notables?” asked Yunis, after some hesitation.

“I love justice more than I love the harafish and more than I hate the notables,” declared Ashur unequivocally.

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Ashur did not flag for a moment in his efforts to realize the dream which had brought the harafish over to his side. He had taught them his interpretation of it in the open air and transformed them from layabouts, pickpockets, and beggars into the greatest clan the alley had known.

He quickly put the notables and the harafish on an equal footing and imposed heavy taxes on the rich. Many of them found
life so unpleasant that they fled to distant parts of the city where the clans were unknown. Ashur imposed two duties on the harafish. The first was to train their sons in the virtues of the clan to maintain their power and prevent it ever falling into the hands of hooligans or soldiers of fortune. The second was to earn their living by a trade or a job which he could procure for them with money from the taxes. He himself continued to hawk fruit and vegetables and set up house with his mother in a small flat. So began an epoch in the history of the clan which was distinguished by its strength and integrity. Sheikh Galil was obliged to praise it publicly for its justice, and Sheikh Yunis did the same. But Ashur was suspicious of their inner thoughts, and had no doubt they grieved for the handouts that had come their way from the notables, or when the protection money was distributed under the old regime.

Sheikh Galil soon left the alley and Sheikh Ahmad Barakat was appointed in his place. Since Sheikh Yunis was appointed by the authorities, it was hard for him to move. Alone in his shop he would grumble, “There's only rubbish left in this alley.”

He confided in Zayn al-Alabaya in the bar.

“How long is this going to last?” the bar owner asked anxiously.

“There's no hope of a change while that barbarian's alive.” He sighed, then went on, “I'm sure people like us had the same conversation in his ancestor's time. We just have to be patient.”

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Ashur renewed the mosque, the fountain, the trough, and the Quran school, and founded a new school to accommodate the increase in numbers brought about by the arrival of the children of the harafish. Then he did what no one before him had dared to do: he arranged with a contractor to have the minaret demolished. His predecessors had been afraid of the wrath of the evil spirits which haunted it but the new chief wasn't afraid of evil spirits. He towered over the alley like a minaret himself, but he was committed to justice, integrity, peace. He never provoked neighboring chiefs but
brought them sharply into line if they initiated hostilities against him, as a warning to the others. In this way he established his supremacy without having to fight for it.

50
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Diya returned to the alley delightedly with the intention of reclaiming the coal yard and becoming a leading notable under his brother's protection, but he didn't meet with any encouragement and was obliged to stay put in his hotel in Bulaq.

Halima believed that the time had come for Ashur to think of his own happiness, and proposed that he should find a wife. “There are still some respectable families left in the alley who haven't abused their wealth,” she said.

Bitterly Ashur remembered the attitude adopted by the Khashshabs and the Attars.

“I get the feeling you hanker for a better life,” he said to his mother.

“I don't think there's any justice in being unfair to yourself,” she said truthfully.

“No!” he said adamantly.

It was not the strength of a genuine refusal, but a strength assumed to hide the weakness he felt boiling in his entrails. How he longed sometimes for luxury and beauty! How he dreamed of life in a mansion with a soft-skinned woman! That was why he said no with such force. “I'm not going to be the one to destroy the most magnificent structure in the alley!”

He was determined that this refusal should come from within him, and not be the result of pressure from the harafish. He wanted to be better than his ancestor. The first Ashur had relied on his own strength, while he had made the harafish into an invincible force. His ancestor had been carried away by his passion; he would stand firm like the ancient wall. “No,” he repeated firmly. That was his sweetest victory: his victory over himself. He married Bahiyya, daughter of Adalat, the hairdresser, after seeing her and making inquiries on his own behalf. When Galal's minaret was torn out of the ground, the alley celebrated with a night of dancing
and music. After midnight Ashur went to the monastery square to gather his thoughts alone under the stars in the ocean of songs. He squatted on the ground, lulled by his feeling of contentment and the pleasant air. One of those rare moments of existence when a pure light glows. When body, mind, time, and place are all in harmony. It was as if the mysterious anthems were speaking in a thousand tongues. As if he understood why the dervishes always sang in a foreign language and kept their door closed.

A creaking sound spread through the darkness. He looked at the great door in astonishment. Gently, steadily, it was opening. The shadowy figure of a dervish appeared, a breath of night embodied.

“Get the flutes and drums ready,” the figure whispered, leaning toward him. “Tomorrow the Great Sheikh will come out of his seclusion. He will walk down the alley bestowing his light and give each young man a bamboo club and a mulberry fruit. Get the flutes and drums ready.”

He returned to the world of the stars and the songs and the night and the ancient wall, grasping at the tail ends of the vision; his fingers sunk into the waves of majestic darkness. He jumped to his feet, drunk on inspiration and power. Don't be sad, his heart told him. One day the door may open to greet those who seize life boldly with the innocence of children and the ambition of angels.

And the voices sang:

Last night they relieved me of all my sorrows

In the darkness they gave me the water of life
.

Naguib Mahfouz

The Harafish

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.

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