“You’re still young.”
“No one’s ever treated me like a child,” she replied caustically.
He frowned. The attentive stares directed at his precious cargo had not escaped him. “Why are you going to Margoush?” he asked her abruptly.
When she did not answer, he regretted his slip of the tongue. She asked him to stop at the entrance to Margoush alley. “I wish the ride had been longer,” she said. Then as she started to walk away, she looked back and added, “But it will soon be nighttime!”
Ashur patted his donkey on the neck and whispered in its ear, “Your master’s finished.”
26.
At first light he stormed into the bar. Darwish woke up, protesting loudly. He was taken aback when he saw who his visitor was.
“What brings you here?” he asked.
Ashur pulled him to his feet and stared wildly at him. “There’s no way out,” he muttered.
“Why have you come, Ashur?”
“You’re malicious and evil. You know very well why I’ve come,” said Ashur roughly.
Darwish rubbed the back of his neck, squinting at him through reddened eyes.
“I should be starting work,” he mumbled.
“I’ve decided to take her,” said Ashur, jumping in with both feet.
“There’s a time for everything,” smiled Darwish.
“But as my lawful wedded wife…”
Darwish’s eyes widened in surprise and the two men glared at each other silently. “What’s this all about?” murmured Darwish.
“It’s not what you think.”
“Have you gone mad, Ashur?”
“Maybe.”
“I can’t manage without her,” said Darwish, tiring of the conversation.
“You’ll have to!”
“Have you thought of the consequences?”
“It makes no difference.”
“Don’t you know that all the men in the neighborhood…” began Darwish with a vicious air.
Fulla interrupted him from her couch, making it clear that she had heard the whole conversation. “What are you trying to tell him? If he’d wanted you to give evidence, he’d have asked you!”
“You’ll be the laughingstock of the whole place,” shouted Darwish, erupting into anger.
“He can look after himself,” Fulla shouted back.
Darwish fell on her, striking her so hard that she cried out in pain. Ashur sprang toward him, locked him in his arms, and squeezed him until he begged for mercy. Then he let go of him, growling with rage, and Darwish sank to the floor, doubled up. “To hell with you!” he shouted.
27.
Ashur put his plan into action with blind resolve. Even the sadness he felt on Zaynab’s behalf, and his memories of his life with her did nothing to stop him.
“I can’t help it,” he said, head bowed.
She looked at him with innocent curiosity.
“I’m going to marry another woman, Zaynab.”
Zaynab was dumbstruck. She felt as if she was losing her mind and flocks of twittering birds were pouring out of her head. “You! The paragon of virtue!” she shouted.
“It’s God’s will,” he said contritely.
“Why do you make a mockery of God’s name?” she demanded. “Why don’t you admit it’s the devil? Do you think you can palm me off with that?”
“You won’t lose any of your rights,” he said confidently.
“You’re leaving me all alone,” she said, choking on her tears. “You traitor! How can you turn your back on everything we’ve been through together?”
28.
Fulla and Ashur had a quiet wedding. He rented her a basement at the end of the alley near the main square. He was so happy in his marriage that he looked like a young man again.
29.
News of the marriage swept through the quarter like wildfire.
“Couldn’t he have done the same as everybody else does?” people asked.
Hasballah said sourly, “So he was banning us because he wanted her for himself!”
Ashur’s reputation as a good and upright man was diminished when people heard the news. Is this how the good fall? Where was his gratitude to Zayn al-Naturi? Who made him a donkey boy, then gave him a cart to drive? Who took him in off the streets in the first place?
“If I wasn’t who I am, I wouldn’t have bothered to marry her at all,” said Ashur defensively.
As the days passed, his happiness grew, and he learned to ignore the gossip. Fulla was fonder of him than he had dreamed possible and determined to prove to him that she was a good housewife, docile and anxious not to arouse his jealousy. One of the things that made her more exquisite in his eyes was his discovery that she, like him, had never known her mother or father. Because he loved her so much he excused her for her ignorance of many useful things and tolerated her bad habits. From the beginning he realized that she only paid lip service to religion, had no conscious moral values, and simply followed her instincts and copied those around her. He wondered when there would be time to correct the serious omissions in her life. Love protected her now, but would it always be enough?
He preserved relations with Zaynab and respected all her rights. She began to grow accustomed to her new life, resigned herself to her pain, and tried not to spoil his visits to her.
Darwish watched events unfolding and said spitefully to himself, “The scorpion adores him so far, but when will she turn around and sting him?”
After some time had passed Fulla gave birth to a son named Shams al-Din. Ashur rejoiced as if it had been his firstborn.
The days passed in happiness and serenity, the like of which Ashur had never known in his life before.
30.
What’s happening to our alley?
Today is not like yesterday, nor yesterday like the day before. Grave events are taking place. Did they descend from heaven or explode out of the depths of hell? Or are they the product of mere chance? However, the sun still rises each morning and makes its daily journey through the sky. Night follows day. People go about their business. The mysterious anthems rise into the air.
What’s happening to our alley?
He watched Shams al-Din, ecstatically suckling from his mother’s breast and smiling, oblivious to events around him.
“Another death. Can’t you hear the wailing?” he said.
“I wonder who it is,” said Fulla.
He peered out between the window bars, trying to hear where the sound was coming from.
“It might be from Zaydan al-Dakhakhani’s house,” he muttered.
“There’ve been so many deaths this week,” said Fulla anxiously.
“More than there usually are in a year.”
“Sometimes a year goes by without a single person dying.”
The crisis showed no sign of abating.
One morning Ashur was driving along when Darwish accosted him. “Have you heard what they’re saying, Ashur?”
“What?”
“That people vomit, have uncontrollable diarrhea, collapse and die like flies.”
“People say anything around here,” muttered Ashur irritably.
“Yesterday it happened to one of my customers. He made the place filthy.”
Ashur regarded him scornfully and Darwish went on, “Even the rich aren’t safe. Bannan’s wife died this morning.”
“Then it must be the wrath of God!” said Ashur as he drove away.
31.
The emergency reached gigantic proportions. The path leading to the graveyard hummed with new life. Mourners thronged down it as one coffin followed another and queues of bodies waited to be buried. Every house was in mourning. Not an hour went by without a death being announced. Death swept through the alley, attacking rich and poor, weak and strong, men and women, old people and children indiscriminately, pursuing all alike with the sword of destruction. Other alleys nearby were similarly affected and the whole area was cordoned off to contain the epidemic. Night and day,
fractured voices rose in prayer, imploring saints and angels to stop the disaster.
Amm Hamidu, the sheikh of the alley, stood before his shop beating a drum to summon his flock. Dropping whatever they were doing, they rushed to hear his announcement. “It’s the plague,” he said gravely. “It strikes without warning and no one is spared, unless God has decreed it.”
A fearful silence settled over the audience and he hesitated a little before continuing, “This is what the authorities advise.”
They listened intently. Could the government save them from this catastrophe?
“Avoid all public gatherings and crowded places.”
They looked at one another in astonishment. They lived their lives in the street. At nights the harafish congregated under the archway and in derelict buildings. How could they avoid crowds?
The sheikh elucidated: “Avoid the cafés, the bars, the hashish dens!”
Escape death by dying! How cruel life is!
“And hygiene! Always remember to take precautions!”
The mocking eyes of the harafish looked at him from behind masks of caked dirt.
“Boil the water from wells and water skins before using it. Drink lemon and onion juice.”
The silence returned. The shadow of death hovered above their heads.
“Is that all?” someone asked eventually.
Amm Hamidu replied in a tone which invited no further discussion, “Say your prayers and accept the Lord’s judgment.”
The crowd broke up despondently. The harafish went off to their slums exchanging sarcastic jokes. The funeral processions went on without a break.
32.
Anxiety drove him to the monastery square in the middle of the night. Winter was coming to an end. A gentle, invigorating breeze blew and the clouds hid the stars. In the darkness the anthems floated from the monastery as clearly as ever, their serenity undisturbed by a single elegiac note. Don’t you know what’s happened to us, gentlemen? Have you no cure? Haven’t you heard the wailing of the bereaved? Seen the funeral processions going by your walls?
Ashur stared hard at the outline of the great arched door until his head spun. It grew until its top disappeared in the clouds. What’s going on, Lord? The door undulated slowly in its place and seemed ready to fall. A strange smell reached his nostrils; it was earthy, but governed inexorably by the stars. For the first time in his life Ashur was afraid. He rose to his feet trembling and made for the archway, conscious that he had encountered death. As he went home he wondered sadly why he should be so terrified of death.
33.
He lit the lamp and saw Fulla asleep. Only Shams al-Din’s hair showed above the bedcovers. Fulla had abandoned her beauty to sleep: her mouth was half-open, without the trace of a smile, and her scarf had slipped back, allowing strands of hair to escape. Fear aroused his slumbering desire. A silent call licked around him like a tongue of flame.
Frantic with lust, he went forward impetuously whispering her name until she opened her eyes. When she realized who it was, and understood from the look in his eyes and the way he was standing, she stretched voluptuously beneath the covers, smiled, and asked, “What were you doing out at this hour of the night?”
But he was too agitated to answer her: a sensation of violent grief swelled in his huge chest.
34.
He fell asleep for a couple of hours.
He saw Sheikh Afra Zaydan in the middle of the alley and rushed toward him, wild with hope. The sheikh turned and began to walk away, taking two steps for every one of his, and so they progressed along the path and through the graveyard out into the hills and the open country. He tried to call out to the sheikh but his voice stuck in his throat and he woke up in the depths of depression.
He told himself that there must be a reason for this dream and thought about it at length. By the time the dawn light came flooding through the window he had reached a decision. Cheerfully he rose and woke Fulla. Shams al-Din began to cry. She changed him and thrust her full breast gently into his open mouth, then turned reprovingly to her husband.
He stroked her hair tenderly. “I had a strange dream.”
“I want to go back to sleep,” she protested.
“We have to leave the alley without delay,” he said with a severity which surprised her.
She stared at him in disbelief.
“Without delay,” he repeated.
Frowning, she asked, “What on earth did you dream about?”
“My father Afra showed me the way.”
“Where to?”
“The hills and the desert!”
“You’re off your head.”
“No. Yesterday I saw death. I smelled its smell.”
“It’s not for us to resist death, Ashur.”
He looked down in embarrassment and said, “We have a right to resist death as well as to die at the appointed time.”
“But you’re running away from it!”
“Flight can be a form of resistance.”
“How will we survive in the open country?” she asked anxiously.
“Survival depends on how hard you work, not where you live.”
“People will laugh at our stupidity,” she sighed.
“The sources of laughter have run dry,” he remarked sorrowfully.
She burst into tears.
“Are you abandoning me, Fulla?” he asked anxiously.
“I’ve got no one but you,” she answered tearfully. “I’ll go where you go.”
35.
Ashur went to see his first wife Zaynab and his sons Hasballah, Rizqallah, and Hibatallah. He told them of his dream and his decision to flee the area. “You must come too. There’s no time to lose,” he urged.
They looked at him in amazement, refusal etched on their faces.
“Is this a new way of avoiding death?” asked Zaynab sarcastically.
“We earn a living here. We can’t just drop it all,” said Hasballah.
“We’ve got the strength of our arms, and the donkey and cart,” said Ashur angrily.
“Doesn’t death exist out there, father?” asked Hibatallah.
“We have to do all we can to prove to my lord Afra that we’re grateful for his blessing,” said Ashur, his anger mounting.
“The girl’s turned your head,” exclaimed Zaynab.
He looked at each of them in turn and asked them finally, “What are you going to do?”
“Sorry, father,” replied Hasballah. “We’re staying. Let’s hope it turns out for the best!”
Overcome with grief, Ashur left them.
36.
Hamidu, the local sheikh, looked up from his desk to see Ashur towering over him like a mountain. “What do you want, Ashur?” he inquired sharply. Before Ashur could reply he went on, “Hasballah told me what you intend to do. I’ve heard some funny things in my time…”
Strangely calm, Ashur continued, “I came to ask you to try and persuade the people yourself. They’re more likely to listen to you.”
“Have you gone mad, Ashur?” shouted the sheikh. “Perhaps you imagine you know more than the authorities?”
“But…”
“Take care you don’t put people’s livelihoods at risk preaching anarchy.”
“But I saw death and had a dream of salvation.”
“This is madness incarnate! Death is invisible and most dreams come from the devil.”
“I’m a good man, Master Hamidu…”
“Didn’t you go to the bar one day to save your sons from a woman, then fall in love with her and keep her for yourself?”
“I saved her from evil,” returned Ashur angrily, “and anyway I’m not saying I’ve never committed any sins.”
“Do what you want,” cried the sheikh in exasperation, “but try to influence anyone else and I’ll report you to the police.”
37.
Ashur fled at dawn. He drove out through the archway toward the cemetery as if it was a feast day. Behind him on the swaying cart sat Fulla w
ith Shams al-Din in her arms, hemmed in by bundles and packages, bags of peanuts, jars of pickled lemons and olives, and sacks of crusty bread. As they drove out into the monastery square, they were greeted by the last strains of the night’s chanting:
Joz astane tovam dar jahan panahi nist.
Sare mara bejoz in dar havale gahi nist.
Ashur listened to it sadly, then prayed for the alley with all his heart.
He drove down the long track, then made his way between the tombs, seldom closed for long these days, and out into the open country. A cool breeze enveloped him, kindly and refreshing. “Make sure you and the child are well wrapped up,” he said to Fulla.
“There’s not a living creature in sight,” she complained.
“God is everywhere.”
“Where are we going to stop?”
“In the foothills.”
“D’you think we’ll be able to stand the climate?”
“We’ll be fine. And there are plenty of caves.”
“What about bandits?”
“Just let them try!” he joked.
As the cart drew nearer to its destination the darkness began to lift. The shadows dissolved in the rosy, translucent, liquid air and new worlds were revealed between heaven and earth. Strange colors streamed from them, blending together and staining the horizon a pure brilliant red, which merged into the clear blue of the sky’s arch. The first rays of sun broke through, bathed in dew, and the mountain appeared, lofty, calm, enduring, indifferent.
“God is great!” exclaimed Ashur.
He looked at Fulla and said encouragingly, “The journey’s over.” Then with a laugh he added, “The journey’s just begun.”
38.
They spent about six months in the open. Ashur only left the cave where they had settled and its immediate area to take water from the public drinking fountain in Darasa, or buy fodder for the donkey and such basic necessities as their slender means allowed. Fulla suggested they should sell her gold earrings but he refused, without telling her why: she had worn them before he married her, so they had been bought with tainted money.
The early days in the cave seemed like a picnic, an adventure, an excursion. In the shadow of her giant of a husband she felt no fear. But very soon life appeared empty, monotonous, unbearable. Have we come here to count the seconds as they crawl steadily over our skins, the grains of sand in the day, the stars at night?