This man knew everything. How? Arafa did not know; but he did know everything. Otherwise why was he accusing him among all the people in the alley?
“Were you going to steal something?”
He closed his eyes in despair, but said nothing.
“Say something!” shouted the overseer angrily. “You son of snakes!”
“Sir.”
“Why do you want to steal, when you’re doing better than most people?”
“Temptation to evil,” he said in a tone of desperate confession.
The overseer laughed triumphantly, while Arafa asked himself bewilderedly, Why had the man postponed his destruction until now? Why had he not shared his secret with one of the gangsters instead of summoning him in this strange way? The overseer left him to himself as if to torment him, then finally spoke. “You’re such a dangerous man!”
“I’m a poor man.”
“Should I consider a man with a weapon like yours, that makes clubs a joke, a poor man?”
A dead man does not cry over having lost his sight. How much worse could it get? This man was the magician, not him.
The overseer reveled in Arafa’s desperation for a few moments before he spoke again. “One of my servants joined those who were chasing you, but he was at the back of the group, so he was not hurt by your weapon. He followed you alone, quietly. You did not notice him following you. He recognized you in al-Darasa, but didn’t attack you—he was worried about your surprises. He hurried to me and told me everything.”
“Might he have told anyone besides you?” asked Arafa unthinkingly.
“He is a faithful servant.” The overseer smiled. He added, in a meaningful tone, “Now tell me about your weapon.”
He began to see more clearly. This man covets something more precious than my life, he thought, but his despair was still complete. What was the way out?
“It’s something much simpler than people think,” he said softly.
The overseer’s eyes narrowed and he scowled.
“It is within my power to search your house now, but I will avoid calling attention to you. Do you understand?” He paused. “You will not be destroyed as long as you obey me.”
Menace shone in his eyes as he spoke. Arafa’s heart was cold with despair. “I’ll do whatever you want,” he said.
“You’ve started to understand, my little magician. If I had wanted to kill you, the dogs would be digesting you now.” He cleared his throat. “Enough of Gabalawi and Saadallah. Tell me about your weapon. What is it?”
“A magic bottle,” he said slyly.
“Tell me more,” said the overseer, staring at him mistrustfully.
For the first time, he felt a hint of safety. “Only magicians understand the language of magic.”
“Can’t you explain even if I promise you safety?”
Arafa was laughing inside, but spoke very seriously: “I was only telling the truth.”
The man looked at the floor for a moment, then lifted his head. “Do you have much of it?”
“Right now, I don’t have any.”
“You son of snakes!” The overseer bit his lip.
“Search my house to see the truth with your own eyes,” said Arafa simply.
“Can you make more?”
“Of course,” he said confidently.
The overseer crossed his arms, agitated, and said, “I want a great deal of it.”
“You can have as much as you want,” said Arafa.
They exchanged a look of understanding for the first time.
“His excellency wishes to get rid of the accursed gangsters,” observed Arafa boldly.
A strange look flashed in the man’s eye, and he asked, “Tell me the truth. What made you attack the mansion?”
“Only curiosity,” said Arafa innocently. “Killing that faithful servant hurt me, but it wasn’t intentional.”
“You helped cause the old man’s death!” said Qadri, his eyes mistrustful.
“I have suffered terribly for that,” said Arafa sadly.
The overseer shrugged. “We should all live so long.”
You sinful old hypocrite! All you care about is the estate! thought Arafa, but he said only, “God give you long life.”
“Only curiosity made you do it?” he asked again, suspiciously.
“Of course.”
“Why did you kill Saadallah?”
“Because I’m like you. I want to get rid of all the gangsters.”
The man smiled. “They are a deep-rooted evil!”
But the truth is that you detest them only because of what they take from the estate, not because they are evil.
“That is true, sir.”
“You will be richer than you ever dreamed.”
“That’s all I want,” Arafa said shrewdly.
“You won’t be doing drudge work for next to nothing; you’ll be free to work your magic under my protection, and you will have everything you ever wanted,” said the overseer contentedly.
106
The three of them sat on the sofa, Arafa describing what had happened to him while Awatif and Hanash listened attentively, if nervously. They were afraid. Arafa concluded by saying, “We have no choice. Saadallah’s funeral has not been held yet. Either we agree or we’ll be destroyed.”
“Or get out of here,” said Awatif.
“There is no escape from his spies. They’re all around us.”
“We’ll never be safe from him here.”
He ignored her, the way he would have liked to ignore his own fears. He turned to Hanash. “What’s with you? Not saying anything?”
“When we came back to this alley it was with a few limited expectations. You alone are responsible for the change since then, for these huge expectations. I was against your ambitions from the beginning, but I didn’t hold back. I helped you, and bit by bit I started to be convinced, until all I hoped for was that our alley would be saved, that everything would be perfect here. Now you take us by surprise with a new plan, which will make us a kind of horrible instrument to terrify our alley. An instrument that can’t be destroyed or even resisted, so that gangsters can be resisted, or killed.”
“We’ll never be safe after that,” said Awatif. “He’ll get what he wants from you, then get rid of you with a trick, the way he’s doing now with the gangsters.”
Deep inside, he was convinced by what they said, but he could not stop thinking about it. He spoke aloud, as if debating with himself. “I can make him dependent on my magic forever!”
“In the best case, you’ll just be his new gangster,” said Awatif.
“Yes,” Hanash agreed. “A gangster with a bottle for a weapon, instead of a club. And if you want to know how he’ll feel about you, remember the way he feels toward the gangsters.”
“For God’s sake,” snapped Arafa angrily. “As if I’m the ambitious one, and you two don’t want anything. I’m the faith that made believers out of the two of you. I spent nights in that back room, and almost got killed twice, only for the good of this alley. If you don’t accept what we’ve been forced into, from no choice of our own, then tell me what we should do.”
He challenged them with an angry look. Neither of them spoke. He felt squeezed by pain; the whole world seemed to him a suffocating nightmare. He was suddenly overtaken by the strange sensation that his suffering was revenge for his cruel attack on his ancestor, and this thought only heightened his pain and sorrow.
“Let’s escape,” pleaded Awatif in a whisper.
“Escape how?” he asked irritably.
“I don’t know! But it won’t be any harder for you than getting into Gabalawi’s mansion!”
Arafa exhaled despairingly and spoke with the calm of a mourner. “The overseer is watching us now. His spies are all around us. How can we get out of here?”
Silence fell. What a silence! It was like the silence of the grave that held Gabalawi.
“You see,” he gloated, “I don’t want to take all the blame fo
r our defeat.”
“We have no choice,” sighed Hanash, as if making an excuse. Then he added enthusiastically, “The future might bring a chance for us to escape.”
“Who knows!” said Arafa distractedly. He went into the back room, and Hanash followed him. They began to fill some of the long-necked bottles with sand, pieces of glass, and other things.
“We should agree on symbols to show the steps of the magic processes, and write them down in a safe, secret notebook so that our work won’t be lost, so that my death wouldn’t be the end of our experiments. And I hope you’re ready to learn magic. We have no idea what fate holds in store for us!”
They continued working very busily. Arafa happened to glance at his brother and saw him scowling. He pretended not to notice anything strange, but spoke genially. “These bottles will take care of the gangsters!”
“It won’t help us, or the alley,” said Hanash in a low voice.
“What did the poets teach you?” Arafa asked, his hands still working. “In the past there were men like Gabal, Rifaa and Qassem. What is there to prevent others like them in the future?”
“I used to think you were one of them, at times,” sighed Hanash.
Arafa emitted a brief dry laugh. “Did my defeat change your mind?”
Hanash said nothing.
“I won’t be like them in at least one way. They had followers in our alley. But no one understands me.” He laughed. “Qassem could win supporters with a sweet word, but I need years and years to train one man to do what I do, and make a supporter out of him.” He finished filling a bottle, corked it and held it admiringly up to the lamplight. “Today, these scare brave men and make their faces bloody. Tomorrow they might kill. I told you, there is no end to magic!”
107
Who is protector for our alley? People began to wonder this as soon as Saadallah was resting in his grave. Every side began to promote its man. The Al Gabal said that Yusuf was the strongest gangster in the alley and the most closely related to Gabalawi. The Al Rifaa said that they had produced the noblest man the history of the alley had ever know, the man Gabalawi had buried in his own mansion, with his own hands. The Al Qassem said it was they who had not used their own victory for their own good, but for the good of all; in their man’s day, the alley had enjoyed undivided unity, and justice and brotherhood had prevailed. As usual, the disagreements began with whispers in the drug dens, then moved out into the air; the dust flew, and people prepared their hearts for the worst dangers. No gangster went out by himself, and if he spent the evening in a coffeehouse or den he was surrounded by followers armed with clubs. Every poet propagandized for his gangster. The shop owners and peddlers looked grim, their faces dark with pessimism. The people were so worried and fearful that they forgot the death of Gabalawi and the murder of Saadallah. Umm Nabawiya, the vegetable seller, was moved to observe, at the top of her lungs, “Life is hell! The dead people are the lucky ones!”
One night a loud voice was heard from a rooftop in Gabal. “Children of the alley, listen, and let’s reason together. Gabal is the oldest neighborhood in the alley, and Gabal was its first great man. There is no shame in your taking Yusuf as the protector of your alley.”
Loud, mocking responses came from the Al Rifaa and Al Qassem neighborhoods, along with curses and insults, and in no time children were crowding in front of the buildings and began to chant.
Yusuf, Yusuf, you little louse
Who told you to do what you did?
People’s hearts grew blacker and angrier. The only thing that delayed the catastrophe was the fact that the bloodletting would involve three sides; either two neighborhoods would have to unite or a particular side would have to pull out. Things began to happen far from the alley itself. Two peddlers met at Bait al-Qadi, one from Gabal and the other from Qassem, and they got into a violent fistfight in which the Qassem man lost his teeth and the Gabal man lost an eye. At the Sultan Baths, another battle broke out between women from Gabal, Rifaa and Qassem while they were naked in the plunge bath. They sank their nails into each other’s cheeks and their teeth into thighs and bellies; they pulled hair and hurled mugs, pumice stones, massage loofahs and cakes of soap. The battle left two women unconscious, a third having a miscarriage and countless bodies covered with blood. Early the same afternoon, after the combatants had gone home to the alley, the battle broke out again on the rooftops, only this time they used stones and the vilest obscenities. In no time the sky over the alley was filled with flying objects and screeches that echoed to the clouds. Then a messenger from the overseer secretly visited Yusuf, the gangster of Gabal, and invited him to have a meeting with the overseer. The gangster was careful to tell no one of his meeting. The overseer received him kindly, and asked him to do what he could to quiet people’s fears in his neighborhood, especially as this neighborhood was next to his residence. When he saw Yusuf off, he said he hoped that when they next met he would be the gangster of the whole alley! Yusuf left the overseer’s house intoxicated by this clear show of support, firmly believing that the top position was within his reach. It did not take him long to bring his territory into line. His people whispered about the status and prestige that tomorrow held for them. The news spread out of their neighborhood to the rest of the alley, and people’s imaginations ran away with them. Only a few days later, Agag and Santuri met secretly and agreed between themselves to stop Yusuf now, and to draw lots to see which of them would be top gangster after their victory. At dawn the next day the men of Al Qassem and Al Rifaa attacked the Al Gabal. The battle was fierce, but Yusuf and most of his men were killed, and the survivors fled. Desperate, the Al Gabal gave in to the superior force. They set an afternoon for the lottery they had planned, and on that afternoon the men and women of Qassem and Rifaa hurried to the mansion at the head of the alley. Their throngs stretched as far south as the overseer’s house and as far north as the gang headquarters that would belong to the lottery victor. Santuri and his band showed up, as did Agag and his band, and they all exchanged loyal and peaceful greetings.
Agag and Santuri embraced in front of everybody, and Agag spoke loudly enough for everyone to hear. “You and I are brothers, and we will always be brothers, no matter what.”
“Forever—the toughest man anywhere!” Santuri agreed fervently.
The people of the two alleys stood opposite one another, separated by the open space in front of the mansion gate. Two men—one from Qassem and the other from Rifaa—came up with a basket filled with little cornets of folded paper. They placed it in the middle of the open space, then each man withdrew to his own side. It was announced to all that the hammer was Agag’s symbol and the cleaver was Santuri’s; miniatures of each filled the folded paper cornets, half and half. A boy was brought up and blindfolded; he would select one. The boy put his hand out in the tense silence, and drew it back with one cornet in his hand. He opened it, still blindfolded, took out what was inside and held it up.
“The cleaver! The cleaver!” shouted the Al Qassem.
Santuri offered Agag his hand, and Agag clasped it and smiled.
“Long live Santuri, protector of our alley!” everyone roared.
A man detached himself from the Al Rifaa crowd and approached Santuri with open arms. Santuri opened his arms to embrace the man, but in a flash of speed and strength the man produced a knife and drove it into Santuri’s heart. Santuri fell over on his face, dead. For a moment there was only shock, but then screams, threats and rage exploded in a cruel and bloody battle between the two neighborhoods. None of the Al Qassem, however, could withstand Agag, and before long defeat crept into their hearts; some of them fell, others retreated, and before evening came the whole alley belonged to Agag. The Al Qassem neighborhood was loud with wailing, but Rifaa rang with delighted trilling and people danced in the street behind their protector—the protector of the whole alley—Agag.
A voice rose over all of the trilling. “Shhhh! Listen! Listen, you sheep!”
They look
ed in surprise at the source of the sound, and saw Yunis, the overseer’s gatekeeper, walking in front of the overseer himself, who was surrounded by a halo of supporters. Agag moved toward this procession and said, “Your servant Agag, protector of the alley, and your servant!”
The overseer stared coolly at him. A terrible hush fell over the whole crowd.
“Agag,” he said contemptuously, “I don’t want gangsters or gang rule in this alley!”
Rifaa’s people were stunned. Their smiles of victory and joy died on their lips.
“What does his excellency mean?” asked Agag, sounding very surprised.
The overseer spoke clearly and forcefully. “We do not want gang rule, or even one gangster. Let the alley live in peace.”
“Peace!” sneered Agag.
The overseer threw him a cruel look, but Agag asked him menacingly, “Who will protect you?”
A hail of bottles, pitched by the servants, landed on Agag and his followers, and the explosions shook the walls. Sand and glass splinters wounded faces and bodies, and blood began to spout. Terror assaulted the people as a vulture attacks a chicken; they lost their minds, and their legs gave out under them. Agag and his men fell, and the servants finished them off. The shrieks from Rifaa grew louder, while Gabal and Qassem were loud with gloating cheers.
Yunis went down the middle of the alley, calling for quiet, until everyone fell silent, and then he addressed them in a shout. “People of the alley! Happiness and peace are now yours, thanks to his excellency the overseer, may God lengthen his life! From now on no gang will oppress you or take your money!”
The sounds of their cheers reached the heavens.
108
Arafa and his family moved, by night, from the basement in Rifaa to the gang headquarters to the right of the mansion. This was the overseer’s order; he could not be disobeyed. They found themselves in a house that was more like a dream. They walked around the rich garden, the elegant halls and terrace, the bedrooms, sitting rooms and dining room on the second floor and the roof, whose every wall and corner was crowded with chicken coops, rabbit cages and dovecotes. For the first time they wore beautiful clothes and breathed sweet air, sniffing all the beautiful smells.