The Harafish (39 page)

“You're drunk!” she cried.

He executed a few dance steps. “I'm a man, my beauty!”

17
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The news spread. People said, “He's crazy, just like his father.”

Sheikh Sayyid Osman went up to him in the street one day. “What's taken you away from us?” he asked.

Galal said nothing.

“Is it true what they say about you?” persisted the sheikh sorrowfully.

Galal walked off up the street leaving him standing.

18
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When he was drunk and didn't know what he was doing, he was the prey of new temptations, as if he had developed the instincts of a stranger. He was violently attracted to adolescent and even prepubescent girls. He pestered them, flirted with them, and if he found himself alone with one of them felt as if a ravenous beast was struggling to escape from his skin. He avoided getting drunk in the daytime, fearing the consequences, and at night he slunk around waste ground and derelict buildings like a hungry wolf.

One night he ended up with a prostitute called Dalal and gave his passions their head.

19
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He became thoroughly dissolute and devoted great energy to pouring scorn on everything around him. What bound him to Dalal was probably the fact that she was young, with a face that still bore the imprint of childhood, and tolerated his strange whims, indulging them without criticism.

“I love people who are crazy and don't give a damn what people say about them,” she declared one day.

“At last I've found a woman as great as my grandmother Zahira!” exclaimed Galal.

He lay sprawled on his back, relaxed and contented. “One morning I woke up drunk, even though I'd had nothing to drink,” he confessed to her. “There was a new heart beating in my chest. I hated my present and my past, even the thought of working at my trade and making money. My married daughters' problems depressed me. So did my son's lack of spirit. He's quite happy to work as a driver for me. One donkey driving another! I was fed up with his mother, who protects him every step of the way, and bleeds me just like my mother used to, only using different tactics. My heart, my head, my guts, my prick, and my balls rose up in protest and I yelled out my good news to the devils.”

“You're the sweetest man in the world,” laughed Dalal.

“I've heard that men are reborn at fifty,” he said confidently.

“And sixty. And seventy,” she agreed.

He sighed. “If it hadn't been for a spiteful woman's jealousy, my father would have lived forever.”

“If you hadn't been a miracle, I wouldn't have loved you at all.”

20
.

The blows continued to land on Afifa's head. Her world crumbled around her, her dreams evaporated, her happiness vanished. She was convinced her husband was under a spell, and made the rounds of saints' tombs and fortune-tellers. She followed all the
advice she was given, but Galal persisted in his erring ways and showed no signs of repenting. He neglected his work, was always rowdy and drunk, clung to Dalal, and damaged his reputation running after girls.

Had she not been scared of the consequences she would have complained about him to Mu'nis al-Al. But in her isolation she only had her son, and she turned to him to tell him of her distress. “Talk to him, Shams al-Din,” she said. “Perhaps he'll be more ready to listen to you.”

Shams al-Din and his mother had a surprisingly close relationship. He was sad for her reputation and her honor, and summoned the courage to tell his father openly. His father grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him violently. “Are you trying to tell me what to do, son?” he demanded in a fury.

After that the boy kept his worries to himself. In his physical strength, pleasant manner, and good character he resembled his father before his abrupt transformation. He was at a loss. His feelings were in a state of turmoil: his respect for his father and his mild nature were both under threat. His mother complained constantly, and he was the one who had to take her blasts of venom and bitterness.

“He'll squander it all,” she would say ominously. “You'll be out on the streets.”

To him, his family seemed permanently cursed. They all ended up mad, debauched, or dead. His heart shriveled, as the love and loyalty began to ebb away, and he adopted a more combative attitude toward the future. “Why did my mother marry a man like that?” he wondered in astonishment.

21
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Things went from bad to worse, like a summer's morning advancing to the blazing heat of high noon. Shams al-Din's heart hardened, as his feelings of antipathy and rage mounted. Sitting in the café one night, he was told that his father was dancing half-naked in the bar. He rushed there in a frenzy, sick at heart, but determined to take action. He saw his father gyrating drunkenly, clad
only in his underpants. His inebriated audience clapped along with him. “Float on the water,” they sang at the tops of their voices.

Galal did not notice his son's arrival and remained completely absorbed in his dancing. Some of the drinkers saw Shams al-Din, stopped clapping and singing, and tried to warn the others.

“Let's watch this. It should be good,” urged one of them with malicious pleasure.

As the clapping and singing died down, Galal stopped dancing with an aggrieved air. Then he noticed his son. He saw he was angry and ready to make a stand, and this infuriated him. “What brings you here, lad?” he shouted.

“Please put your clothes on, father,” said Shams al-Din politely.

“I said what brings you here, you cheeky son of a bitch?”

“Please get dressed,” persisted the boy.

His father lunged unsteadily at him and gave him a slap that ripped through the silence of the bar.

A chorus of voices egged him on approvingly.

The man fell on his son again, but he was so drunk that his strength soon gave out and he collapsed on the floor, unconscious.

There was a short burst of laughter, then silence returned to the bar.

“You've killed your father, Shams al-Din,” a voice called.

“He didn't even have time to say his prayers!”

Shams al-Din bent over his father to put his clothes back on, then slung him over his shoulder and carried him out in a hail of coarse, mocking laughter.

22
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Galal came to shortly afterward lying on his bed in his marital home. His red eyes roamed around him and fell upon Afifa, Shams al-Din, and the familiar features of the room he hated. It was nighttime and he should have been in bed with Dalal. This boy had made him the laughingstock of the drunks in the bar and not shown him the respect owing to a father. He sat up in bed, fuming with rage. Then he leapt to the ground. He lunged at Shams al-Din,
and began pounding him with his fists. Afifa threw herself between them, sobbing loudly. Galal turned on her in blind fury. He grabbed her around the throat and squeezed hard. Vainly the woman tried to struggle free, giving every sign that she was being choked to death.

“Leave her alone. You're killing her,” shouted Shams al-Din.

Intoxicated by the savagery of the crime, Galal paid no attention. In desperation Shams al-Din seized a wooden seat and brought it down on Galal's head with demented energy.

23
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A heavy calm took the place of the shouting and hysteria. Galal lay supine on the bed, soaked in his own blood. The neighbors came rushing to see, closely followed by Sheikh Mugahid Ibrahim. The barber gave first aid and stopped the bleeding, while Shams al-Din cowered in a corner, abandoning himself to his fate.

Time was absent altogether. One mocking instant had spread out far and wide, bursting with possibilities. A single haphazard moment, more influential than all the thought and planning in the world. Afifa and Shams al-Din each realized that the present was thrusting away the past, destroying it, burying it.

“What cruel fate would play games with a father and his only son?” muttered Mugahid Ibrahim.

“It's the devil,” wailed Afifa.

Silence hung over Galal like a mountain. His chest continued to rise and fall.

“Galal!” called Mugahid Ibrahim.

“God have mercy on us!” cried Afifa.

“What can you find?” the sheikh asked the barber.

“It's in God's hands,” answered the barber, still intent on his work.

“But you have your expertise as well.”

The barber approached the sheikh. “No one could survive such a beating,” he said under his breath.

24
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Galal opened his dim eyes. He could scarcely recognize anybody. Still he said nothing, until the nerves of those around him were at breaking point, but gradually he began to recover consciousness.

“I'm dying,” he murmured.

“Don't say such things,” gasped Afifa.

“The shadows don't frighten me.”

“You're fine.”

“God's will be done.”

Mugahid Ibrahim approached the bed. “Galal,” he said. “It's Mugahid Ibrahim. Speak before these witnesses.”

“Where's Shams al-Din?” asked Galal in a weak voice.

Mugahid Ibrahim summoned him to the bedside.

“He's here beside you.”

“I'm dying.”

“What happened?” asked the sheikh.

“It was an act of God.”

“Who hit you?”

Galal said nothing.

“Tell us,” insisted the sheikh.

“I'm dying.”

“Who hit you?”

“My father,” sighed Galal.

“Dead people don't hit you. You have to tell us.”

He sighed again. “I don't know.”

“How's that?”

“The alley was dark.”

“Did someone attack you in the alley?”

“On my own doorstep.”

“You must know who it was.”

“I don't. The darkness hid him. He didn't want to be seen.”

“Do you have any enemies?”

“I don't know.”

“Do you suspect anyone?”

“No.”

“You don't know who did it and you don't suspect anyone?”

“I called to my son to help me and then I lost consciousness.”

Mugahid Ibrahim was silent. All eyes were on Galal as he lay dying.

25
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Shams al-Din listened in astonishment to his father's last words. His courage failed him and he said nothing. He received the dying man's affection with humility, cowardice, and regret. He avoided meeting Mugahid Ibrahim's eyes, then buried his face in his hands and wept. Throughout the funeral and the days immediately following it, when people flocked to offer their condolences, he never closed his eyes in sleep and moved among them like a ghost pursued by the shades of hell. His grandfather and great-grandmother had gone mad; one of the line had been a foul pervert; but he was the first of the cursed Nagi family to kill his father.

When he was finally alone with his mother she said encouragingly, “You didn't murder your father. You were forced to defend me.” Then she added, “Don't forget. God knows the whole truth.” Then, impassionedly, “The way he protected you is enough to atone for all his sins. He'll meet his Lord as pure and innocent as a newborn baby!”

Shams al-Din dissolved in tears, murmuring, “I've killed my father.”

26
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Abd Rabbihi invited Shams al-Din to The Citadel, former home of Galal, the builder of the minaret. Shams al-Din knew he was his great-grandfather and that he was about a hundred. He found an old man who no longer left his house, or even his room, but who, for his age, was astonishingly healthy, lively, and dignified, and saw, heard, and understood what went on. Shams al-Din marveled at the way he had remained in such good shape and outlived both
his son and grandson, but felt not one jot of love or respect for him and did not forget how he had treated his father.

Abd Rabbihi scrutinized him for some time, his face a few inches away from Shams al-Din's. “My condolences,” he said at last.

Shams al-Din responded coldly.

“You resemble your grandfather,” said Abd Rabbihi.

“You severed all connections with my father,” said Shams al-Din icily.

“Things were complicated,” replied Abd Rabbihi.

“You mean you wanted the legacy to yourself,” he said fiercely.

“Apart from Ashur's legacy, inherited wealth is a curse.”

“But you're enjoying it right up till the end.”

“I invited you here to express my sympathy,” said the old man, troubled. “Take your share if you want it.”

“I refuse to accept any kindness from you,” said Shams al-Din, as if expiating his sin.

“You're stubborn, my child.”

“I don't want anything to do with a man who disowned my father.”

The old man closed his eyes. Shams al-Din left the house.

27
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Shams al-Din had to confront life. His features were stamped with a gravity which aged him by fifty years. He tried to behave devoutly and honorably. He took his father's place at the head of the carting business and immersed himself in work as a means of escape. He was known in the alley as a father-killer, a curse on two legs, corresponding to that stationary anathema, the minaret. What would you expect of a young man who was the son of a bastard and the grandson of the man responsible for building the minaret? Shams al-Din resolved to brave his ill luck with a stern face and an inflexible will, nourished by the regret which filled his heart. He followed his religion faithfully, gave alms to the poor, behaved amicably to his customers, but led an outcast's existence. His eyes
wore a look of permanent melancholy. He hated all forms of merriment, singing, music, the bar, the hashish den. Since people caused him anguish, he hated them too, but he clung on to life.