Children of the Alley

by Naguib Mahfouz

  “As long as it is possible to exorcise demons, we will get closer to happiness.”

  She did not see what he meant, but suddenly she realized how ridiculous it was to be sitting this way, and she laughed. “What kind of talk is this for our wedding night!” She lifted her head a little grandly, as if she had forgotten all her gratitude, drew her wrap off her shoulders and threw him a look that smoldered with seduction.

  “You will be the person our alley is proudest of,” he said hopefully.

  “Really?” said Yasmina, “I have wine here.”

  “I had some with dinner—it was enough.”

  “I have some good hashish,” she said after a little perplexed thought.

  “I’ve tried it, but I didn’t like it. I can’t stand it.”

  “Your father is a real addict!” She snickered. “I saw him one time coming out of Shaldum’s den. He didn’t know whether it was day or night!”

  He smiled but said nothing, and she turned away from him, defeated and bursting with anger. She got up and went to the door, turned around and came back to stand under the lamp, which backlit her lovely body through her flimsy dress. She gazed into his calm eyes until despair came over her and she asked, “Why did you save me?”

  “I can’t stand seeing a person being tormented.”

  This enraged her. “That’s why you married me? That’s all?”

  “Don’t go back to being an angry person!”

  She bit her lip in what looked like remorse and spoke softly. “I thought you loved me.”

  “I do love you, Yasmina,” he said simply and truthfully.

  “Really?” she mumbled, the surprise plain in her eyes.

  “Yes—I love every living creature in our alley!”

  “I understand.” She sighed dejectedly and stared at him suspiciously. “You’ll stand by me for a few months and then divorce me.”

  His eyes widened. “Don’t think that way anymore!”

  “I don’t understand you! What’s in this for you?”

  “True happiness.”

  “I experienced that often enough before I even saw you!”

  “There is no such thing as happiness without honor.”

  “But we’re never made happy by just honor,” she said, laughing in spite of herself.

  “No one here knows true happiness,” he said sadly.

  She walked heavily to the bed and sat languidly on the edge, and he came toward her. “You’re like everyone here,” he said gently. “All you can think of is lost time.”

  Her exasperation was plain in her face. “God help me to solve your mysteries.”

  “They will solve themselves when you get rid of your demons.”

  “I’m happy with myself the way I am!” she snapped.

  “That’s what Khunfis and the others say!” He sighed.

  She exhaled sharply. “Are we going to talk about this all night?”

  “Sleep. Pleasant dreams!”

  She sat back and then threw herself on her back, looking him in the eyes and then at the empty space beside her.

  “Rest easy—I’ll sleep on the sofa.”

  She had a fit of laughter, but did not give in to it for long. “I’m afraid your mother will visit us tomorrow and warn you against wearing yourself out!” she sneered, looking over to enjoy the sight of his shamed face.

  But he was gazing straight at her with pure and untroubled eyes. “I want to deliver you from your demon!”

  “Leave women’s work to women!” she shouted angrily, and turned her face to the wall. Her chest heaved with fury and despair. Rifaa reached up to the lamp and lowered the wick, then blew it out. The light died, and darkness fell.

  53

  The days following the marriage saw tireless activity in Rifaa’s life. He hardly ever went near the shop, and had it not been for the love and pity of his father he would have had nothing to live on. He invited every one of the Al Gabal he met to rely on him to cleanse them of their demons and secure for them a pure happiness they had never dreamed of before. The Al Gabal whispered that Rifaa bin Shafi’i was not right in the head and had to be considered hopelessly insane. Some pointed to his peculiar behavior. Others said it was because of his marriage to a woman like Yasmina, and people talked of nothing else in the coffeehouse, in homes, among the handcarts and in the drug dens. And how shocked Umm Bekhatirha was when Rifaa bowed down to whisper in her ear, with his characteristic sweetness, “Won’t you allow me to save you?”

  “Who told you I have an impure demon?” she asked, smiting her chest. “Is that what you think of the woman who loved you as a son?”

  “I offer my services only to people I love and respect,” he said earnestly. “You are a source of goodness and holiness, but you are not free of a covetousness that drives you to traffic in sick people. If you were saved from this master of yours, you would do good free of charge!”

  The woman could not refrain from laughing.

  “Do you want to ruin me completely? God forgive you, Rifaa.”

  People retold Umm Bekhatirha’s story with shouts of laughter; even Shafi’i laughed mirthlessly at it, though Rifaa had an answer for him.

  “Even you yourself need me, Father, and it is only right that I should start with you.”

  The man shook his head sadly and pounded the nails with a force that betrayed his irritation. “God give me patience,” he said.

  The youth tried to sway him, but the man asked in a tormented tone, “Isn’t it bad enough that you’ve made us the talk of the alley?”

  Rifaa retreated dispiritedly to a corner of the shop under his father’s skeptical gaze.

  “Seriously,” Shafi’i asked, “did you make the same appeal to your wife that you made to us?”

  “She was like you two,” said Rifaa regretfully. “She did not want happiness.”

  Rifaa went out to Shaldum’s den in the dilapidated ruin behind the coffeehouse, and found Shaldum, Higazi, Burhoum, Farhat, Hanura and Zaituna around the hearth. They looked up at him curiously.

  “Welcome to Shafi’i’s boy,” said Shaldum. “So marriage has taught you the value of a drug den?”

  Rifaa laid a little package of kunafa pastry on the table and took a seat. “I brought you this as a gift.”

  “Welcome—thank you,” said Shaldum, passing the pipe.

  But Burhoum laughed and spoke up boorishly. “And then he’s going to throw us an exorcism party to cleanse us of our demons!”

  “Your wife has a demon called Bayoumi,” called Zaituna with an angry nasal twang, drilling Rifaa with a hateful stare. “Cleanse her if you can!”

  The men gasped, and all their faces plainly showed embarrassment. Zaituna pointed to his smashed nose. “Thanks to him I lost my nose.”

  Rifaa did not seem angered. Farhat looked at him sadly. “Your father is a good man and a fine carpenter, but when you act this way you hurt him and humiliate him. The man had scarcely got over your marriage when you abandoned the shop to go and save people from demons! May God heal you, my boy.”

  “I am not sick. I want you all to be happy.”

  Ziatuna held a draw from the pipe for a long moment, staring harshly at Rifaa, then spat out the smoke and asked, “Who told you we were unhappy?”

  “We are not as our ancestor wanted us to be.”

  Farhat laughed. “Leave our ancestor alone. How do you know he hasn’t forgotten us?”

  Zaituna fixed him with a look of contemptuous rage, but Higazi kicked him and warned, “Respect this group—don’t even think of starting trouble!” He wanted to improve the general mood, so he nodded and gave his friends a special cue, and they began to sing.

  My sweetheart’s ship is coming across the water.

  How sadly the sails hang over the water.

  Rifaa left, and some of them looked sorrowfully after him. He went back to his house, his heart broken. Yasmina met him with a serene smile. She used to scold him for the way he acted, which made him—and, by extension, her�
��something of a joke; but she had given up scolding him as futile. She endured her life, though she did not know how it would come out, and even handled it with grace. Someone came up to the door and knocked; it was Khunfis, protector of the Al Gabal, and he came in without being asked. Rifaa welcomed him, and Khunfis clapped him on the shoulder with a hand as powerful as a mad dog’s jaws. Without preliminaries, Khunfis asked, “What did you say about the estate at Shaldum’s?”

  Yasmina was frightened and the blood drained from her face, but Rifaa, though he was like a bird in an eagle’s talons, spoke calmly. “I said our ancestor wants us to be happy.”

  Khunfis gave him a violent shake. “Who told you that?”

  “It’s one of the things he told Gabal.”

  “He talked to Gabal about the estate,” said Khunfis, gripping his shoulder even more tightly.

  “The estate means nothing to me,” Rifaa replied. Bearing the pain exhausted him. “The happiness I have been unable to give anyone yet has nothing to do with the estate, or with liquor or hashish. I have said that everywhere in the Al Gabal neighborhood and everyone heard me say it.”

  He shook him again. “Your father used to be rebellious, but then he was sorry. Don’t be like him or I’ll crush you like a bedbug.” He gave Rifaa a shove that landed him on his back on the sofa, then left.

  Yasmina ran to help Rifaa up and massage the shoulder he had turned his head to in pain. He seemed half conscious, and murmured as if to himself. “It was my grandfather’s voice I heard.”

  She watched his face with pity and terror, wondering if he had truly lost his mind. She did not repeat what he had said; she was assailed by an anxiety she had never felt before.

  One day when he left the house his path was blocked by a woman not of the Al Gabal. “Good morning, Rifaa, sir,” she said hopefully.

  The note of respect in her voice took him by surprise, as did the “sir.” “What do you want?” he asked.

  “I have a son who is disturbed,” she said submissively. “Please cure him!”

  Every one of the Al Gabal despised the people of the alley, and he hated the idea of putting himself in the service of this woman; it would double his own people’s contempt for him. “Couldn’t you find an exorcist in the alley?”

  “Of course,” she said, choking up, “but I’m a poor woman.”

  His heart was touched, and he was fascinated that she had turned to him, he who had met with only derision and contempt from his own people. He looked at her resolutely. “I am yours to command,” he said.

  54

  Yasmina was looking from the window enjoying the new view. Boys were playing in front of the house and doum-fruit peddlers were crying their wares, while Batikha grabbed a man by the collar and began to slap him across the face. The man pleaded with him, but in vain.

  Rifaa was sitting on the sofa clipping his toenails. “Do you like our new house?” he asked her.

  “We have the alley below us here,” she said, turning to him. “There, we had only that dark passage to look out on.”

  “I wish we still had that passage,” said Rifaa sadly. “It was a blessed passage. That was where Gabal triumphed over his enemies, but there was no way I could go on living among people who made fun of everything we did. Here, the poor are good people, and being a good person is much more important than being one of the Al Gabal.”

  “And I have hated them since they decided to banish me,” said Yasmina disdainfully.

  Rifaa smiled. “So why do you tell the neighbors that you’re of the Al Gabal?”

  She laughed, revealing her pearly teeth, and boasted, “So they’ll know I’m better than they are.”

  He laid his scissors on the sofa and put his feet down on the reed mat.

  “You would be a better and more beautiful person if you got over your snobbery. The Al Gabal are not the best people in our alley. The best people are the kindest ones. I used to be wrong like you, and only cared about the Al Gabal, but only people who try sincerely to find happiness deserve it. Look at how these good people come to me and are cleansed of demons!”

  “But you’re the only one here who works for free!”

  “If it weren’t for me, the poor would have no one to heal them. They can be healed, but they can’t afford it. I never had friends until I came to know them.”

  She decided not to quarrel, but looked angry.

  “Oh, if you would only trust me the way they do! Then I could rid you of what spoils your pleasure in life.”

  “Do you find me that unpleasant?”

  “Only a person who loves her demon without even knowing it.”

  “What a terrible thing to say to me!”

  “You are one of the Al Gabal.” He smiled. “All of them refused to submit to my remedy, even my own father.”

  There was a knock at the door; a new customer had arrived, and Rifaa prepared to receive him.

  The truth is that these were the happiest days of Rifaa’s life. Everyone in this new neighborhood called him “sir,” and they said it sincerely and lovingly. They knew that he expelled demons and gave health and happiness for free, only to please God. No one before him had ever acted so nobly, which was why the poor people loved him as they had never loved anyone before. Of course, the protector of the new neighborhood, Batikha, did not love him, both because of his kind ways and because he could not pay any protection money, but at the same time he had no pretext for attacking him. Everyone he healed had a story to tell. Umm Daoud, who in a nervous fit had bitten her small child, was today a model of serenity and mental health. Sinara, who had no hobby but quarreling and picking fights, was now gentle and mild-mannered, the embodiment of peace. Tulba the pickpocket had sincerely repented and became the coppersmith’s apprentice. Uwais, of all people, got married. Rifaa chose four of those he had treated, Zaki, Hussein, Ali and Karim, as friends, and they became like brothers. None of them had known friendship or love before they knew him. Zaki had been dissolute, Hussein a hopeless opium addict, Ali a gangster and Karim a pimp, but they became good-hearted men. They would meet at Hind’s Rock, amid the desert and the pure air, to exchange tales of fellowship and happiness and to gaze at their physician through eyes brimming with love and loyalty. They all dreamt of a happiness that might fold the alley in its white wings.

  One day Rifaa asked them a question as they sat watching the red glow of the quiet dusk. “Why are we happy?”

  “You,” said Hussein impetuously. “You are the secret of our happiness.”

  “Rather because we have been cleansed of our demons,” said Rifaa with a grateful smile. “We have been freed of the hatred, ambition, hostility and other evils that are destroying the people of our alley.”

  “Happy even though we are poor and weak, and we have no part of the estate, and no muscle,” Ali said.

  Rifaa shook his head sadly. “How much people have suffered because of the lost estate and blind power. Curse, with me, power and that property!”

  They cursed them all at once, and Ali picked up a stone and threw it with all his strength toward the mountain.

  “Ever since the poets told how Gabalawi had Gabal make the houses of his people to be like the mansion in its beauty and majesty, people have coveted Gabalawi’s power and glory. It made them forget his other attributes, so that Gabal was unable to change their hearts by obtaining their right to the estate. When he left this world, the strong took over, the weak became bitter and everyone suffered. While I open the gates of happiness without any estate, power or rank.”

  Karim embraced Rifaa and kissed him.

  “And tomorrow, when the strong sense the happiness of the weak, they will know that their power, glory and usurped wealth are worthless.”

  There were words of agreement and love from his friends. The breeze carried a shepherd’s song to them from deep within the desert.

  A single star shone in the sky. Rifaa looked into his friends’ faces. “But I cannot care for the people of our alley all alone. The
time has come for you to do it for yourselves, for you to learn the mysteries of saving the sick from demons.”

  The delight was plain in their faces.

  “That was our greatest hope,” cried Zaki.

  “You will be the keys to the happiness of our alley,” Rifaa said, smiling.

  When they went back to their neighborhood they found it glittering with lights for a wedding in one of the houses. The crowds saw Rifaa and welcomed him with handclapping.

  Batikha, enraged, left his seat in the coffeehouse, cursing and swearing, slapping people at random, then went to Rifaa and spoke crudely. “Who do you think you are, boy?”

  “A friend of the poor, sir.”

  “Then get out of here, and walk like the poor, not like a bridegroom leading a parade. Have you forgotten that you’re an outcast, and Yasmina’s husband, and just a stupid exorcist?”

  He spat angrily, and the people dispersed amid a mood of anxiety, but the sound of joyful trilling from the wedding drowned everything else out.

  55

  Bayoumi, protector of the alley, stood behind the gate of his back garden that opened onto the desert. The night was young, and the man watched and listened. When a hand knocked softly at the gate, he opened it and a woman slipped into the garden; in her black cloak and veil, she was like a part of the night itself. He took her hand and led her through the garden paths, avoiding the house, until they came to the reception hall, where he pushed open the door and entered; she followed. He lit a candle and put it on a windowsill, and the hall seemed not to be there. The sofas stood along the sides, and in the center, inside a circle of cushions, lay a wide tray holding a water pipe and its accessories. The woman threw off her cloak and veil, and Bayoumi drew her to him with a warmth that penetrated to her bones until she gave him a pleading look. She broke nimbly away from him and he sat down on a cushion and laughed softly. He began to probe the coal ashes with his fingers until he found a live coal. She sat beside him and kissed his ear, pointing to the pipe. “I’d nearly forgotten that smell.”