“I am, and thanks be to God, a very fortunate woman. Marriages I arrange never break up. How many of my couples have gone off and set up homes, produced children, and been very happy. Put your trust in God, and in me!”
“I will never be able to reward you enough with money.”
At this, however, Umm Hamida said to herself, “Oh no you don’t, my woman. You will have to reward me well enough with money and a great deal of it. We will go to the savings bank together, and you won’t be stingy.” She then said out loud and in the serious, determined tone of a businessman who, having finished the preliminaries, was about to get down to the really important matters, “I take it you would prefer a man well advanced in years?”
The widow did not know how to reply. She did not want to marry a youth who would be an unsuitable husband for her and yet she was not pleased at the expression “well advanced in years.” The way the conversation had developed had made her feel a little more at ease with Umm Hamida and she was able to say, laughing to hide her embarrassment, “What, ‘break a fast by eating an onion’?”
Umm Hamida let out a raucous, throaty laugh, increasing in confidence that the deal she was about to make would be lucrative indeed. She went on drily: “You are quite right, Mrs. Afify. The truth is that experience has shown me that the happiest marriages are those in which the wife is older than the husband. A man of thirty or just a little older would suit you well.”
Her visitor asked anxiously, “Would one agree?”
“Certainly one would agree. You are good-looking and wealthy.”
“May you be safe from all evil!”
Her pockmarked face having taken on a serious and conscientious look, Umm Hamida then said, “I will tell him you are a lady of middle age, with no children, no mother-in-law, well mannered and wholesome, and have two shops in Hamzawy and a two-story house in Midaq Alley.”
The lady smiled and said, to correct what she considered an error, “No, the house has three stories.”
Umm Hamida, however, could not agree to this and said, “Only two, because you are not going to take any rent for the third floor, where I am, for as long as I am alive!”
Mrs. Afify agreed happily. “All right, I give my word, Umm Hamida.”
“Your word is taken then. May our Lord work things out for the best!”
Her visitor shook her head as though amazed and said, “What an astonishing thing! I just came to visit you and look where our talk has got us. How has it happened that I am leaving you as good as married?”
Umm Hamida joined in her laughter as though she too was surprised, although she said under her breath, “Shame on you, woman. Do you think your cunning has fooled me?” Out loud she commented, “The will of our Lord, don’t you think? Is not everything in His hands?”
And so Mrs. Saniya Afify returned to her own flat well pleased, although she thought to herself, “Rent of the flat for the rest of her life! What a greedy woman she is!”
As soon as Mrs. Afify left the room, Hamida came in combing her black hair, which gave off a strong smell of kerosene. Her mother gazed at her dark and shining hair, the ends of which nearly reached to the girl’s knees, and said sadly, “What a pity! Imagine letting lice live in that lovely hair!”
The girl’s black eyes, framed with mascara, flashed angrily and took on a determined and intent look. “What lice? I swear by the Prophet that my comb found only two lice!”
“Have you forgotten that I combed your hair two weeks ago and squashed twenty lice for you?”
The girl answered indifferently, “Well, I hadn’t washed my hair for two months…”
She sat down at her mother’s side and continued combing her hair vigorously.
Hamida was in her twenties, of medium stature and with a slim figure. Her skin was bronze-colored and her face a little elongated, unmarked, and pretty. Her most remarkable features were her black, beautiful eyes, the pupils and whites of which contrasted in a most striking and attractive way. When, however, she set her delicate lips and narrowed her eyes, she could take on an appearance of strength and determination which was most unfeminine. Her temper had always, even in Midaq Alley itself, been something no one could ignore.
Even her mother, famous for her roughness, did her best to avoid crossing her. One day when they had quarreled her mother cried out to her, “God will never find you a husband; what man would want to embrace a burning firebrand like you?” On other occasions she had said that a real madness overcame her daughter when she got angry and she nicknamed her tempers the khamsin, after the vicious and unpredictable summer winds.
Despite all this, she was really very fond of Hamida, even though she was only her foster mother. The girl’s real mother had been her partner in making and selling sweet and fattening potions. She was eventually compelled by her poverty to share Umm Hamida’s flat in Midaq Alley and had died there, leaving her daughter still a baby. Umm Hamida had adopted her and placed her under the care of the wife of Kirsha, the café owner, who had suckled her along with her son Hussain Kirsha, who was therefore a sort of foster brother to the girl Hamida.
She went on combing her black hair, waiting for her mother to comment as usual on the visit and visitor. When the silence remained unbroken unusually long, she asked, “It was a long visit. What were you talking about?”
Her mother laughed sardonically and murmured, “Guess!”
The girl, now even more interested, asked, “She wants to raise the rent?”
“If she had done that, she would have left here carried by ambulance men! No, she wants to lower the rent!”
“Have you gone mad?” Hamida exclaimed.
“Yes, I have gone mad. But guess…”
The girl sighed and said, “You’ve tired me out!”
Umm Hamida twitched her eyebrows and announced, winking an eye, “Her ladyship wants to get married!”
The girl was overcome with astonishment and gasped, “Married?”
“That’s right, and she wants a young husband. How sorry I am for an unlucky young woman like you who can’t find anyone to ask for her hand!”
Hamida gazed at her derisively and commented, now braiding her hair, “Oh yes, I could find many, but the fact is that you are a rotten matchmaker who merely wants to hide her failure. What’s wrong with me? Just as I said, you are a failure and you only go to prove the saying: ‘It’s always the carpenter’s door that’s falling apart.’ ”
Her foster mother smiled and said, “If Mrs. Saniya Afify can get married, then no woman at all should despair.”
The girl stared at her furiously and said, “I am not the one who is chasing marriage, but marriage is chasing me. I will give it a good run, too!”
“Of course you will, a princess like yourself, a daughter of royalty.”
The girl ignored her mother’s sarcasm and went on in the same severe tone: “Is there anyone here in Midaq Alley who is worth considering?”
In fact, Umm Hamida had no fear that her daughter would be left on the shelf and she had no doubts about the girl’s beauty. Nevertheless, she frequently felt resentful about her vanity and conceit and she now said bitingly, “Don’t slander the alley like that. The people who live here are the best in the world!”
“You’re the best in the world yourself, aren’t you? They are all nonentities. Only one of them has a spark of life and you had to go and make him my foster brother!”
She was referring to Hussain Kirsha, with whom she had been suckled. This remark annoyed her mother and she objected angrily, “How can you say such a thing? I didn’t make him your brother. No one can make you a brother or a sister. He is your brother because you both suckled the same woman just as God ordained.”
A spirit of devilment seemed to take possession of the girl. She said jokingly, “Couldn’t he have always sucked from one breast and me from the other?”
At this her mother punched her hard in the back and snorted, “May God punish you for saying that.”
Th
e girl replied by muttering, “Nothing Alley!”
“You deserve to marry some really important civil servant, I suppose?”
“Is a civil servant a god?” retorted Hamida defiantly.
Her mother sighed deeply and said, “If only you would stop being so conceited…”
The girl mimicked Umm Hamida’s voice and replied, “If you would only be reasonable for once in your life.”
“You eat and drink my food but you are never grateful. Do you remember all that fuss you made about a dress?”
Hamida asked in astonishment, “And is a dress something of no importance? What’s the point of living if one can’t have new clothes? Don’t you think it would be better for a girl to have been buried alive rather than have no nice clothes to make herself look pretty?” Her voice filled with sadness as she went on: “If only you had seen the factory girls! You should just see those Jewish girls who go to work. They all go about in nice clothes. Well, what is the point of life then if we can’t wear what we want?”
Her foster mother replied cuttingly, “Watching the factory girls and the Jewish women has made you lose your senses. If only you would stop worrying about all this.”
The girl took no notice of what Umm Hamida said. She had now finished plaiting her hair and she took a small mirror from her pocket and propped it up on the back of the sofa. She then stood in front of it, bending down slightly to see her reflection. In a wondering voice, she said, “Oh what a shame, Hamida. What are you doing living in this alley? And why should your mother be this woman who can’t tell the difference between dust and gold dust?”
She leaned out of the room’s only window, which overlooked the street, and stretched her arms out to the open shutters, drawing them together so that only a couple of inches of space was left between them. She then sat resting on her elbows placed on the windowsill and gazed out into the street, moving her attention from place to place and saying as though to herself, “Hello, street of bliss! Long life to you and all your fine inhabitants. What a pretty view and see how handsome the people are! I can see Husniya, the bakeress, sitting like a big sack before the oven with one eye on the loaves and one on Jaada, her husband. He works only because he is afraid of her beatings and blows. Over there sits Kirsha, the café owner, his head bowed as if in a deep sleep, but he is really awake. Uncle Kamil is fast asleep, of course, while the flies swarm over his tray of unprotected sweets. Look there! That’s Abbas Hilu peeping up at my window, preening himself. I’m sure he thinks that the power of his look will throw me down at his feet. You’re not for me, Abbas! Well now, Mr. Salim Alwan, the company owner, has just lifted up his eyes, lowered them, and raised them once again. We’ll say the first time was an accident, but the second, Mr. Alwan? Sir? Watch now, he’s just started a third time! What do you want, you senile and shameless old man? You want a rendezvous with me every day at this time? If only you weren’t a married man and a father, I’d give you look for look and say welcome and welcome again! Well, there they all are. That is the alley and why shouldn’t Hamida neglect her hair until it gets lice? Oh yes, and there’s Sheikh Darwish plodding along with his wooden clogs striking the pavement like a gong.”
At this point her mother interrupted. “Who would make a better husband for you than Sheikh Darwish?”
Hamida remained looking out the window, and, with a shake of her behind, she replied, “What a powerful man he must have been! He says he has spent a hundred thousand pounds on his love for our lady Zainab. Do you think he would have been too mean to give me ten thousand?”
She drew back suddenly, as though bored with her survey. Now she moved in front of the mirror and, gazing into it searchingly, she sighed and said, “Oh, what a pity, Hamida, what a shame and a waste.”
In the early morning Midaq Alley is dreary and cold. The sun can reach it only after climbing high into the sky. However, life begins to stir early in the morning in parts of the street. Sanker, the café waiter, begins activity by arranging the chairs and lighting the spirit stove. Then the workmen in the company office start coming in ones and twos. Presently Jaada appears carrying the wood for baking the bread. Even Uncle Kamil is busy at this early hour, opening his shop and then having his nap before breakfast. Uncle Kamil and Abbas, the barber, always have breakfast together from a tray placed between them containing plates of cooked beans, onion salad, and pickled gherkins.
They each approach their food in a different manner. Abbas devours his roll of bread in a few seconds. Uncle Kamil, on the other hand, is slow and chews each piece of food laboriously until it almost dissolves in his mouth. He often says, “Good food should first be digested in the mouth.” So it is that Abbas will have finished eating his food, sipping his tea and smoking his pipe while his friend is still slowly munching his onions. Kamil, therefore, prevents Abbas from taking any of his share by always dividing the food into two separate sections.
In spite of his portly build, Uncle Kamil could not be considered a glutton, although he was very fond of sweets and extremely clever at making them. His artistry was completely fulfilled in making up orders for people like Salim Alwan, Radwan Hussainy, and Kirsha, the café owner. His reputation was widely known and had even crossed the boundaries of the alley to the quarters of Sanadiqiya, Ghouriya, and Sagha. However, his means were modest and he had not lied when he complained to Abbas that after his death there would be no money to bury him. That very morning he said to Abbas after they finished breakfast, “You said you bought me a burial shroud. Now that really is something that calls for thanks and blessings. Why don’t you give it to me now.”
Abbas, the typical liar, had forgotten all about the shroud. He asked, “Why do you want it now?”
His friend answered in his high-pitched adolescent voice, “I could do with what it’s worth. Haven’t you heard that the price of cloth is going up?”
Abbas chuckled. “You are really a shrewd one in spite of your fake simplicity. Only yesterday you were complaining that you hadn’t enough money for a proper burial. Now that I have a shroud for you, you want to sell it and use the money! No, this time you won’t get your way. I bought your shroud to honor your body after a long life, if God wills.”
Uncle Kamil smiled in embarrassment and shifted his chair nervously. “Suppose my life lasts so long that things get back to the way they were before the war? Then we’ll have lost the value of an expensive shroud, don’t you agree?”
“And suppose you die tomorrow?”
“I hope to God not!”
This made Abbas roar with laughter. “It’s useless to try to change my mind. The shroud will stay in a safe place with me until God works His will…” He laughed again so loudly that his friend joined in. The barber now spoke teasingly. “You’re completely without profit for me. Have I ever managed to make a penny out of you in your whole life? No! Your chin and upper lip simply don’t sprout and your head’s quite bald. On all that vast world you call your body there’s not a single hair for me to cut. God forgive you!”
“It’s a fine clean body which no one would mind washing down,” said Uncle Kamil with a mock seriousness.
The sound of someone yelling interrupted them. Down the street they saw Husniya, the bakeress, beating her husband, Jaada, with her slippers. The man collapsed in front of her, offering no defense at all. His wails reverberated from each side of the alley and the two men laughed uproariously.
“Have forgiveness and mercy on him, madam!” shouted Abbas loudly.
The woman continued pummeling him until Jaada lay at her feet weeping and begging forgiveness.
“Those slippers could do your body some good,” said Abbas, turning to Uncle Kamil. “They’d soon melt that fat away!”
Just then Hussain Kirsha appeared; he was dressed in trousers, a white shirt, and a straw hat. He made an ostentatious show of looking at his gold wristwatch, his small darting eyes filled with pride of possession. He greeted his friend the barber in a friendly fashion and seated himself in a chair. It
was his day off and he wanted his hair cut.
The two friends had grown up together in Midaq Alley. Indeed, they had been born in the same house, that of Radwan Hussainy, Abbas three years before Hussain. Abbas lived with his parents fifteen years before he and Uncle Kamil met and decided to share a flat and had remained close friends with Hussain until their work separated them. Abbas went to work as a barber’s assistant near New Street, and Hussain took a job in a bicycle repair shop in Gamaliya.
From the first, they were of entirely different character: perhaps it was this dissimilarity which strengthened their mutual affection. Abbas was gentle, good-natured, and inclined toward peace, tolerance, and kindness. He was content to fill his leisure time with card playing and idle gossip with his friends at the café.
He avoided participation in quarrels and all unpleasantness by waving both aside with a smile and a kind word for the contestants. He conscientiously performed the prayers and fasted and never missed Friday prayers in the mosque of Hussain. Lately he had tended to neglect some religious duties, not from indifference, but rather out of laziness. However, he still attended Friday prayers and faithfully fasted during the month of Ramadan. Sometimes disputes occurred between him and Hussain Kirsha, but whenever his friend became too excited Abbas yielded and thus avoided a serious quarrel.
He was known to be easily satisfied and he was often rebuked because he continued to work as a barber’s helper for ten years. He had only opened his own little shop five years ago. In that time he thought that he had prospered as well as could be expected. This spirit of satisfaction with his lot was reflected in his quiet eyes, his healthy and vital body, and his perpetually even disposition.
It was agreed that Hussain Kirsha was one of the cleverest people in the alley. He was known for his energy, intelligence, and courage, and he could be most aggressive at times. He had begun by working in his father’s café, but because their personalities conflicted he had left to work in a bicycle shop. He remained there until the war broke out and then went to work in a British Army camp. His daily wages were now thirty piasters compared to the three piasters in his first job. All this was apart from what he made by applying his philosophy: “For a decent living you need a nice quick hand!” Thus his standard of living and his finances had increased.