“Of course. You’re my brother’s wife and he’s very dear to me.”
She came toward him in a graceful movement. Leaning closer to him so that her fragrant smell washed over him she said, “Tell me what you really feel.”
He rose to his feet in alarm, saying, “I’ve been completely open with you.”
“You’re scared.”
“I’m not.”
“You’re afraid of your brother, your father, yourself.”
“Stop torturing me.”
“Walls don’t have ears or eyes.”
“Goodbye,” he muttered, making for the door. He walked blindly from the room, his mind and heart numb.
17.
Khidr avoided her. He had lunch in the shop and invented supper invitations. Saniyya noticed nothing out of the ordinary and the hours passed peacefully in the Samari household.
He was plagued with sorrow and anxiety. What should he do? He was alone with his problem, unable to ask anyone for advice. He felt tempted to flee the alley altogether. But where would he go and on what pretext? He had principles; Sulayman always said that he took after his great-grandfather—although he lacked his strength and authority—unlike his brother Bikr who loved business with all its risks and opportunities.
He suffered and did nothing, yielding bleakly to his fate.
18.
Bikr returned from his trip and stopped off at the shop before going home. Khidr welcomed him warmly. He came in beaming with pleasure at his success.
“Thank God, it was a profitable deal,” he said.
Khidr smiled, welcoming the news, and Bikr asked, “How’s business?”
“Great.”
“You’re not yourself. What’s wrong?”
He shuddered inwardly, but mentioned some minor ailment by way of explanation. How could they have a good relationship again after what had happened? He entered the details of Bikr’s transaction in the records, his head in a turmoil. Whether he told him his secret or kept it to himself it would be wrong. How could he get away?
Bikr stood up, saying, “I’m exhausted. I’d better go home.”
19.
At this moment Bikr would be seeing Radwana again. Suddenly Khidr realized how wrong he had been to stay in the alley. He thought of her, bold and beautiful, receiving her husband. Would she be able to act the part of the longing, expectant wife? Would she go toward Bikr with the same graceful movement, passionately, eyes on fire? Would the curtain drop on her brief fancy and life return to its normal course?
Or would she succumb to hidden emotions and pretend to be ill? Would the rot spread in the new marriage, making life complicated and miserable?
He shuddered. “She could easily decide to have her revenge,” he murmured to himself.
Bikr would ask her what was wrong and she would say, tearfully, “Your brother’s a traitor!”
Such a lie would do incalculable harm!
Wait a minute. Why hadn’t she told her father-in-law or her mother-in-law at least? She’d find someone to believe her and he’d never find anyone.
She was cunning and shameless: she would act sad and say cryptically, “I’d like to move away from here.”
Bikr would ask her what was troubling her and she would screw up her face and say nothing. Did you have a fight with my mother, or my father? No, she’d say, no. Then that only leaves Khidr. Didn’t he look after you nicely? She couldn’t bear the sound of his name. What did he do wrong? And the false truth would emerge like the black night from under an overcast sky. She would resort to insinuations which Bikr might or might not believe but they would leave their mark. All she’d actually say was that she didn’t like the way her brother-in-law looked at her; it made her uncomfortable, and that was why she wanted to move away.
How could he defend himself? Was he prepared to destroy his brother’s happiness and his family’s good name, or should he take the blame and run away?
But surely it was likely that his fantasies were the product of groundless apprehensions, and at this very moment the couple were enjoying the pleasures of love after a separation.
He heard the sound of hurried, angry footsteps. Then Bikr came in, slammed the door behind him, and stood there, quivering with rage.
20.
“You dirty bastard,” shouted Bikr.
He fell on him like a wild bear and began to hammer him. Khidr stood there without reacting. Blood poured from his mouth and nose but still he made no response.
“Are you paralyzed with shame?” roared Bikr.
Khidr stepped back. “What’s come over you?” he asked.
“You don’t know? Really?”
“I’ve no idea.”
“You want your brother’s wife, and you’ve no idea!”
“You’re crazy!” yelled Khidr.
At this Bikr fell on his brother again, pounding him savagely until some of their employees, alarmed by the cries, gathered in the doorway and people began to congregate in the alley outside the shop. In the distance Sulayman’s voice could be heard scolding furiously.
21.
The crowd dispersed and the employees went back to work.
“If either of you raises a hand, I’ll cut it off,” shouted Sulayman.
Bikr stepped back and Khidr began to wipe the blood off his face with his handkerchief.
“He’s a traitor. He needs to be taught a lesson,” growled Bikr.
“I don’t want to hear another word while we’re in the shop.”
He looked angrily from one to the other. “Follow me!” he ordered, and set off for the house like a wounded lion.
22.
They all stood before him: Bikr, Khidr, Radwana, and Saniyya.
“The truth!” he roared savagely.
Nobody said a word. “If you’re hiding anything, you’ll suffer for it,” he threatened. He gave Radwana a sharp, commanding stare: “Talk, Radwana!”
She burst into tears.
“I don’t like people crying,” he said with irritation.
“All I said was that I wanted to move away,” she sobbed.
“On its own that doesn’t mean anything much!”
“From how she spoke I gathered she didn’t want to live under the same roof as Khidr,” said Bikr.
“Why not? I want something tangible.”
“I got the picture. I didn’t need explicit details,” said Bikr.
“The truth!” roared Sulayman. “I want the truth, so that I can do what has to be done.”
Looking back at Radwana, he commanded, “Tell me everything that happened.”
Again she burst into tears and he waved his hand crossly, then turned toward Khidr and asked him in exasperation, “What did you do?”
“Nothing. As God’s my witness,” he mumbled.
“I want to know everything. A storm like this doesn’t blow up for no reason.”
Here Saniyya spoke for the first time: “It was just a misunderstanding.”
“Shut up,” said Sulayman ferociously.
“Satan’s causing trouble among us,” she sighed despairingly.
“Satan only interferes if you let him,” said Sulayman wrathfully.
“We’re cursed,” wailed Saniyya.
“Let the curse fall on the one who deserves it,” declared Sulayman.
Suddenly Khidr stood up and left the room.
“Come back, son,” called Sulayman.
But he was gone and Bikr said triumphantly, “Don’t you see now, father? He’s running away.”
“You’re confessing to it now, are you?” shouted Sulayman, getting to his feet.
But Khidr did not come back and nobody went after him.
23.
The scandal in the Nagi family was on everybody’s lips. The harafish regretted the passing of the old Nagi covenant, and considered what had befallen Sulayman and his sons just punishment for his waywardness and treachery. They repeated that Ashur was a saint whom God saved through a dream and would bless through all eterni
ty. Those who bore a grudge said that Khidr was no more than the most recent product of a dissolute, thieving line.
Sulayman confronted the disaster with a ferocity which transformed him for the second time. He paced the alley, a potbellied giant, waiting to pounce on anyone who slipped up, until even his closest associates were afraid of him. He no longer looked the part of clan chief: he was bloated and indolent, addicted to stimulants and luxury. His stomach swelled out in front, his buttocks drooped behind, and he ate so much he would fall asleep as he sat in his accustomed place in the café.
24.
One morning Sulayman stood talking to Sheikh Said al-Faqi, slowly sinking into the mud that had accumulated at the sides of the alley following heavy rain in the night. “God always tests the faithful,” the sheikh was saying.
Sulayman tried to answer, but was suddenly transfixed by the specter of an enemy rushing to attack him. He crashed to the ground, as rigid as a minaret. He tried to get up several times without success. Then he drifted into semiconsciousness. Said and several passersby rushed up to him; he emitted vague sounds but was unable to speak.
They carried him to Saniyya al-Samari’s house like a sick child.
25.
Paralyzed down one side, he lay helplessly in bed. Everyone who saw him realized that Sulayman al-Nagi was finished. Fathiyya and his daughters turned their backs on him like strangers. Saniyya nursed him with sad patience and was forever muttering, “We’re cursed!”
Several years went by before he could move again. He learned to walk by dragging his paralyzed half along with the help of two sticks. To relieve the monotony of his life he would sit in front of the house or in the café, speaking a couple of words from time to time and looking around with an absent gaze; the sense of things had gone from him.
26.
Atris stood in for Sulayman during his illness. At first he was loyal to him, visiting him, bringing him his full share of the protection money and controlling the clan effectively in his name. “You are our lord and master,” he reassured the sick man.
However, his new duties began to keep him away—or so he said—and he stopped coming to the Samari house except to bring Sulayman’s money. Then he declared himself chief of the clan and appropriated Sulayman’s share; none of his men batted an eyelid, perhaps even hoping that with him in charge they would be freed from their few remaining obligations to the harafish.
The clan reverted to what it had been before the days of Ashur al-Nagi, controlling the area rather than working for it, content to concentrate its energies on defending itself against attacks by other gangs. Atris was forced to call truces with some of his enemies and make alliances with others, and he actually paid protection money to the chief of al-Husayn to avoid a battle he knew he would lose. The more he was despised outside, the more arrogant and overbearing he became toward his own people. He neglected his sister Fathiyya, and married and divorced a succession of wives. He and his men kept the protection money for themselves, imposing restrictions and punishments on the harafish and reducing the notables, as Sheikh Said said, to the station allotted them by Almighty God.
27.
Sulayman had not only lost his position as chief but his identity as well. He was nothing; his motivation had gone and things made no sense. He clung on to vague hopes of a cure. “Is there really no potion to help someone in my condition?” he asked Radwan.
“I’ve tried everything in my power,” the herbalist answered, hiding his contempt. To himself he added, “He wants to regain his strength and become chief of the clan again. To hell with him and the whole family.”
Sulayman visited all the saints, dead and living, secretly entertaining high hopes. He continued to drag himself around on two sticks or sit motionless on his seat in the café like a big pot of beans simmering on the fire. For the first time in his life he was struck by the truism that man is a bad joke and life a dream. Atris and his men ignored him, and so did the harafish: they felt no pity for him and considered him the chief author of their present ills.
The misery penetrated his own house when Saniyya seemed to tire of being close to him, let a maid take over the job of looking after him, and wore a morose expression, reflecting the gloom of life around her. She never for a moment forgot her fugitive son Khidr, and so naturally her relationship with Radwana suffered. She began to be out of the house a lot, trying to amuse herself with the neighbors. Her absence was extremely painful for Sulayman; he observed that it was as if the sun had vanished behind the clouds, and that a helpless man could obviously expect no favors.
“You’re out too much,” he reproached her one day.
“There’s nothing here for me anymore,” she snapped back.
He often thought of divorcing her but was afraid that in Fathiyya’s house he wouldn’t get the rest he needed, so he swallowed the humiliation with as much patience as he could.
28.
Said al-Faqi sat with him in the café one day, his expression friendly, his heart full of the old hidden resentment. In an affable tone he said, “Master Sulayman, it’s not easy for us seeing you in this state.”
Sulayman stared at him blankly and the sheikh continued, “But we have a duty to be truthful to you.”
What did he want?
“In my opinion you should divorce Saniyya.”
His eyelids twitched and the hand holding the coffee cup trembled visibly.
“That’s my advice as an old friend,” said Said.
“Why?” mumbled Sulayman.
“I’m not saying another word,” the sheikh answered.
29.
Sulayman no longer felt capable of strong reactions. His pain had become abstract. Nothing made him laugh or cry. But he would have to divorce her, go right along the road to its dead end.
From the café he went to the apartment he had rented for Fathiyya after his momentous about-face. There, he summoned the legal official and divorced Saniyya.
Bikr was devastated when he heard. “That didn’t have to happen,” he lamented.
“It’s up to you to look after your mother now.”
“Damn these lying busybodies!” fulminated Bikr.
They parted on the verge of quarreling. Sulayman began to live off his savings. “God let me die before I do Bikr a mischief,” he prayed.
30.
In the midst of all this, Bikr’s business affairs prospered. Radwana bore him three children, Radwan, Safiyya, and Samaha. His mother’s divorce had shaken him; painful rumors reached his ears until he was forced to talk to her about her behavior and the reactions it provoked. Saniyya was furious and cursed the alley, calling it all the names she could think of and continuing to act with as few inhibitions as ever.
To add to his troubles, Bikr was anxious about his marriage. He had never felt that he possessed Radwana completely although he continued to be infatuated with her. She was not obliging, or communicative or responsive, and there was an anger in her, the causes of which were a mystery to him, but it grew worse as time passed. She had everything she wanted but never seemed grateful or happy, and when she rebuffed him or argued with him the world was unbearable. The thought that she didn’t love him as much as she ought to drove him mad. What more did she want? Wasn’t he an exemplary husband? He went to great lengths to avoid provoking her but still she flared up for reasons he could not have foreseen. The fact that they lived together and had children together appeared to have no effect. He nursed a festering sore which made his private life turn sour on him.
31.
“Radwana, you could make this house a nest of happiness.”
“Isn’t it one already?” she replied vaguely.
“You forget about loving me.”
“You only think about your own pleasures. Remember I’ve got three children to look after.”
He said sadly, “I love you so much. I’m only asking for a bit of affection in return.”
She laughed halfheartedly and murmured, “You’re greedy. I do the be
st I can.”
The breakdown of relations between his mother and wife compounded his misery. Since Khidr’s disappearance Saniyya had changed and Radwana was quick to respond by changing even more drastically in her behavior toward her mother-in-law. On one occasion they were quarreling violently and Saniyya shouted in an accusing voice, “Something tells me Khidr was innocent all along.”
“You’d do better to think about preserving your reputation,” replied Radwana furiously.
Saniyya lost her head and hurled a little candlestick at her and missed. When Bikr returned from the shop he found Radwana blazing with hatred and anger. He reproached his mother for what she had done when they were alone together, but she answered coolly, “I advise you to divorce her.”
Bikr was amazed and said nothing. Saniyya said scornfully, “She’s the scourge that’s done for us all.” Her voice began to tremble with anger, as she went on, “The devil himself couldn’t have done as much harm. Even you, descendant of the great Ashur al-Nagi, pay protection money to a bum who ran errands for your father.”
“We’re well and truly cursed,” said Bikr to himself.
The wheel of the days kept turning as usual. Old Samari died and his daughter Saniyya inherited a fair sum of money. She let Bikr use part of it to increase his capital and he seemed well on the way to making a vast fortune. To forget his worries he began immersing himself in work, plunging into successful ventures and dangerous speculations, until his lust for money had reached the point of lunacy. He hoarded it as if he were fortifying himself against death, sadness, and his lost paradise. From his entrenchment deep in the mire of sorrow, he threw himself into battle, defying pain and the dread of the unknown. Bikr wasn’t entirely generous, nor entirely mean. Outside the house he didn’t spend a penny unless it benefited him directly, but at home he spent lavishly, not counting the cost: he showered Radwana with jewels, renewed the furniture and hangings, and collected curios and objets d’art until the place was like a museum.
“If only money could buy happiness,” he would say, regret gnawing at his heart.
32.
Radwana’s father, Radwan al-Shubakshi, was finally declared bankrupt. The man was extravagant, passionately fond of all kinds of entertainment and long nights of pleasure, and he had lost sight of his businessman’s sense of moderation and plunged into ruin. Bikr welcomed the opportunity to prove to his recalcitrant wife how affectionate and generous he was, and when the Shubakshi house was put up for auction he bought it for some monstrous sum to help his father-in-law cover his debts. He employed Ibrahim, Radwana’s youngest brother, as his manager and secretary. All the same the shock was too much for old Radwan and he died of heart failure. Bikr arranged a fitting farewell for him with the full three days of mourning ceremonies. After this he expected Radwana to change, or become a little more pleasant, but she was unbending like steel, and sorrow made her more listless and reserved than ever. Finally Bikr admitted to himself that nothing was ever going to make her change.