Children of the Alley by Naguib Mahfouz
The mansion had closed its gates on its owner and his closest servants. All Gabalawi’s sons had died young and there was no offspring left who had grown up and died in the mansion, except for Effendi, who was then the estate overseer. Some of the people of the alley were peddlers, though a few ran shops or coffeehouses; a great many were beggars, and there was a business employing everyone who was able—that was the drug business, especially hashish, opium and aphrodisiacs. The mark of our alley then, as now, was crowding and noise. Barefoot and nearly naked children played in every corner, filling the air with their shouts and covering the ground with their filth. The entrances of the houses were jammed with women—this one chopping moloukhia, that one peeling onions and a third stoking a fire, all exchanging gossip and jokes, and curses and swears as needed. There was no end to the singing and weeping, and the insistent drumming of musical exorcisms. Handcarts clattered by constantly, as arguments and fistfights broke out here and there. Cats meowed and dogs whined and both species fought over mounds of garbage, rats scampered down the walls and through the courtyards, and it was not rare for people to band up to kill a snake or scorpion. Flies, outnumbered only by lice, joined diners in their plates and drinkers in their mugs, frolicked around their eyes and buzzed by their mouths, on intimate terms with everyone.
As soon as a young man found that he possessed daring or brawn, he started interfering with peaceable people, attacking anyone minding their own business and imposing himself as a protector on a neighborhood somewhere in the alley. He would take protection money from working people, and live with nothing to do but be a bully. So you found gangsters like Qidra, al-Laithy, Abu Sari, Barakat and Hammouda. Zaqlut was another of these; he picked fights with one gangster after another until he had beaten them all and became the boss of the whole alley, and he made all them pay him protection money. Effendi, the overseer, saw that he needed someone like this to carry out his orders and keep away any trouble that loomed, so he kept him close by and paid him a salary from the estate income. Zaqlut took up residence in a house opposite the overseer’s, and helped to strengthen his authority. When this happened, fights among the gangsters dropped off, since the biggest one of all did not like these rivalries whose outcome might be the strengthening of one of the lesser gangsters, which would threaten his own position. And so they found no outlet for their pent-up mischief but poor and peaceable citizens. How did our alley reach such a pitiful state?
Gabalawi promised Adham that the property would go to benefit his children. The houses with courtyards were put up, money was given out, and for a while people enjoyed a happy life. For a while after the father closed his gate and shut out the world, the overseer followed his good example, but then ambition stirred in his heart and he began to help himself to estate funds. At first he embezzled small amounts and reduced the wages he paid out, then closed his hand over all the money, reassured by the protection of the gangster he had bought. The people had no choice but to take up the most menial and despised jobs; their numbers exploded and their poverty increased, until they were sunk in squalor and misery. The strong turned to terrorizing others, the poor turned to begging, and everyone turned to drugs. They toiled and slaved in return for morsels of food, some of which the gangsters took, not with thanks but with a slap, a curse and an insult. Only the gangsters lived in comfort and luxury; above them was their boss and above everyone was the overseer; the people were crushed beneath all of them. If any unfortunate man was unable to pay his protection money, revenge was exacted against the whole neighborhood, and if he complained to the boss, he was beaten and turned over to the local gangster to be beaten again; if he dared to take his complaint to the estate overseer, he would end up getting beaten by the overseer, the alley boss and every neighborhood gangster in turn. This was the horrid state of affairs which I myself witnessed in this, our own era, a mirror image of what the storytellers describe of the distant past. The poets of the coffeehouses in every corner of our alley tell only of heroic eras, avoiding public mention of anything that would embarrass the powerful. They sing the praises of the estate overseer and the gangs, of justice that we do not enjoy, of mercy we do not experience, of dignity we do not see, of piety that seems not to exist and honesty we have never heard of. I often wonder why our ancestors stayed—why we stay—in this accursed alley, but the answer is easy. In the other alleys we would only find a life worse than what we endure here—assuming their gangsters did not kill us to pay back what our gangsters have done to them! The most incredible thing is that people envy us! Our neighbors in other alleys say, “What a blessed alley! They have a matchless inheritance, and gangs whose very names curdle your blood!” Of course, we get nothing from our estate but trouble, and nothing from our protectors but insults and torment. In spite of all that we are still here, patient in our cares. We look toward a future that will come we know not when, and point toward the mansion and say, “There is our venerable father,” and we point out our gangsters and say, “These are our men; and God is master of all.”
25
The patience of the Al Hamdan ran out, and waves of rebellion raged through their neighborhood.
The Al Hamdan lived at the top of the alley near Effendi’s house and Zaqlut’s, around the original site of Adham’s hut. Their patriarch was Hamdan, the owner of the Hamdan Coffeehouse, which was the most beautiful in the whole alley; it stood halfway down Hamdan Alley, surrounded by houses with courtyards. Old Hamdan sat to the right-hand side of the coffeehouse entrance in his gray cloak, an embroidered turban on his head, keeping a close eye on Abdoun, his constantly scurrying waiter, and exchanging gossip with the customers. The coffeehouse was narrow but long, extending back to the poet’s bench at the end, under an idealized color picture of Adham on his deathbed, gazing at Gabalawi, who stood at the door of the hut. Hamdan made a sign to the poet, who reached for his rebec and tuned it; then, to the melodies of its strings, he began to extol the overseer, beloved of Gabalawi, and Zaqlut, the finest of men; then he chanted a passage from Gabalawi’s life, before the birth of Adham. The sounds of sipping coffee, tea and cinnamon brew rose with twisting smoke from the water pipes to form a diaphanous cloud around the ceiling lamp. Every eye was on the poet, and heads wagged in admiration at the beauty of the narration or the piety of an exhortation. The fluent and fabulous moments passed as quickly as passion, and as the end came the poet was showered with cries of approval. It was at this point that the Al Hamdan were stirred to the depths by a wave of rebellion. Bleary-eyed Itris spoke from his seat in the middle of the coffeehouse, commenting on the Gabalawi story they had heard: “There was good in the world then—even Adham was never hungry for a day.”
An old woman named Tamar Henna appeared standing before the coffeehouse, lowering the basket of oranges from the top of her head, and spoke to bleary-eyed Itris: “God bless your lips, Itris, your words are as sugary as sweet oranges!”
“Go away, woman,” old Hamdan scolded her. “Give us a break from your nonsense.”
But Tamar Henna sat down on the ground close to the coffeehouse door and said, “What could be nicer than sitting beside you here, old Hamdan!” She pointed to her basket of oranges. “All day and half the night I’ve been tramping around and hawking those things, sir, all for just a few coins!”
The old man nearly answered her, but he caught sight of Dulma approaching, glowering, his face stained with dirt. He stared at him until he stood in front of him in the doorway, and then Dulma shouted, “God damn that bastard! Qidra—Qidra is the biggest bastard—I told him, be patient until tomorrow, and God will provide so I can pay you. And he threw me on the ground and crushed me until I nearly suffocated.”
From the farthest end of the coffeehouse they heard the voice of Daabis: “Come here, Dulma. Sit beside me. God damn the bastards, this alley is ours, but they beat us in it as if we were dogs. Dulma can’t pay Qidra, and Tamar Henna roams around peddling oranges even though she can’t see an arm’s length in front of her. And you, Ham
Dulma went inside.
“Son of Adham, where is your courage?” asked Tamar Henna.
“Go to hell, Tamar Henna, you’re fifty years too late for a husband, why do you still bother these men?”
“Men? What men?” the woman asked.
Hamdan scowled, but Tamar Henna broke in before he could speak, as if in apology. “Look, just let me listen to the poet.”
“Tell her the story of how the Al Hamdan were shamed in this alley,” Daabis told the poet bitterly.
“Calm down, Uncle Daabis,” the poet soothed him with a smile. “Take it easy, master!”
“Master!” snapped Daabis. “Our master beats and oppresses people, and kills them. You know who our master is!”
“Qidra or some other devil might turn up among us suddenly,” said the poet uneasily.
“They’re all children of Idris!” declared Daabis.
The poet spoke to him very softly: “Calm down, Uncle Daabis, before you get this place demolished on top of us!”
Daabis rose from where he sat and crossed the coffeehouse with long steps, then sat on the bench to Hamdan’s right. He was about to speak when his voice was drowned out by the sudden racket of boys crowding like locusts in front of the coffeehouse and exchanging insults.
“Devils’ children!” Daabis shouted at them. “Don’t you have dens to creep into at night?”
But they ignored his shouts until he jumped up as if stung and swooped at them. They raced down the alley shouting “Hurrah!” as a chorus of women’s voices rang out from the windows of the building across the street from the coffeehouse: “For God’s sake, you scared those boys!” He waved his hand irritably and took his seat again.
“What is a man supposed to do? There’s no rest, with these children, and gangsters, and that overseer!”
Everyone agreed with this. The Al Hamdan had lost their claim to the estate; the Al Hamdan lived in the dust of misery and degradation; the Al Hamdan were in the power of a gangster who was not even one of them—he was from one of the most disreputable neighborhoods. Qidra swaggered among them, slapping or demanding protection money from whomever he felt like; and their exhausted patience sent the waves of rebellion raging through their neighborhood.
Daabis turned to Hamdan. “Everyone agrees, Hamdan. We are all Al Hamdan, there are many of us, our lineage is well known, and we have as much right to the estate as the overseer himself.”
“O God, may this night end well,” murmured the poet.
Hamdan drew his cloak around him and raised his arched, bushy eyebrows. “We have said it and said it again: something is going to happen. I can smell it now.”
Ali Fawanis raised his voice in greeting as he entered the coffeehouse, holding the edge of his galabiya, his gray skullcap tilted over his eyebrows, and quickly added, “Everyone is ready, and if money is needed they’ll give it—even the beggars.”
He squeezed in between Daabis and Hamdan, and called out for Abdoun, the coffee waiter. “Tea, no sugar!”
The poet harrumphed loudly to catch his attention, and Ali Fawanis smiled and reached into his breast pocket for a purse, which he opened, extracting a small wrapped item, which he tossed to the poet. He tapped Hamdan’s leg questioningly.
“We are going to court,” was Hamdan’s answer.
“It’s the only thing to do,” said Tamar Henna.
“Think of the consequences,” said the poet, unwrapping his gift.
“No shame is worse than the way we live now, and numbers are on our side. Effendi cannot ignore where we come from, or the fact that we’re related to him, and to the estate owner too.”
The poet gave Hamdan a meaningful look and said, “We’ve never been short of solutions.”
“I have a great idea,” said Hamdan, as if in answer to this.
Everyone’s eyes turned to him.
“Let’s go to the overseer.”
“What a mighty step,” said Abdoun, as he offered Ali Fawanis his tea. “Then we can start digging our graves.”
“Listen to your future from your children!” laughed Tamar Henna.
“We have to go,” said Hamdan resolutely, “and we will go together.”
26
A crowd of Al Hamdan men and women gathered in front of the overseer’s house, led by Hamdan, Daabis, Itris, Dulma, Ali Fawanis and the poet, Ridwan. It had been Ridwan’s idea for Hamdan to go alone, thus putting to rest suspicions of insurrection and avoiding punishment for it, but Hamdan told him frankly that “killing me would be easy, but they could not kill all of the Al Hamdan.” The crowd drew stares from everyone in the alley, especially their next-door neighbors, women’s heads appeared in the windows, eyes peeped from below the baskets and trays being carried on people’s heads and from behind handcarts, and crowds, old and young alike, asked one another what Hamdan’s people wanted. Hamdan seized the brass door knocker and rapped at the gate, which opened a few moments later to reveal the gatekeeper’s sour face and breezes laden with the scent of different types of jasmine. The gatekeeper looked irritably at the crowd.
“What do you want?”
“We would like a meeting with his excellency the overseer.”
“All of you?”
“We are all equally worthy of meeting him.”
“Wait here until I summon you in.” He tried to close the gate but Daabis swiftly squeezed in, saying, “It’s more polite to have us wait inside.”
The others pushed in behind him like chicks behind their mother, among them Hamdan, in spite of his resentment of Daabis’ impetuosity. The demonstration moved down the covered passage between the terrace and the garden.
“You have to get out of here!” shouted the gatekeeper.
“Guests aren’t thrown out. Go and tell your master we’re here.”
The man’s lips moved in protest but nothing came out; his sullen features shifted, and he turned and headed quickly indoors. Their eyes followed him until he disappeared behind the curtain drawn across the hall entrance, and then their eyes either remained on the curtain or roamed over the garden, the fountain surrounded by palm trees, the grape arbors set against the walls of the house and the jasmine climbing up the garden walls. They gazed around, overwhelmed and yet with senses dulled by worry, and soon resumed watching the curtain drawn across the hall entrance.
The curtain was pulled aside and Effendi himself came out, scowling. He took a few decisive, angry steps to the top of the stairs, and stood there. His angry face, his camel slippers and the long loop of worry beads in his right hand were all that could be seen of his securely cloaked person. He cast a disdainful look at the demonstration, then his gaze settled on Hamdan, who now spoke very courteously.
“A very good morning to the overseer!”
Effendi returned the greeting with a mere hand gesture, then asked, “Who are they?”
“Al Hamdan, Your Excellency.”
“Who let them into my house?”
“This is their overseer’s house,” was Hamdan’s subtle reply, “and so it is their house and their sanctuary.”
Effendi’s features did not soften. “You’re trying to justify your rude behavior!”
“We are one family,” said Daabis, exasperated by Hamdan’s mildness. “We are all children of Adham and Umaima.”
“That is history,” said Effendi crossly. “I wish to God people knew who they were.”
“We live in an agony of poverty and mistreatment,” said Hamdan. “We all share the opinion that we should turn to you to relieve our agony.”
Here Tamar Henna spoke up. “By your life, our life disgusts even the cockroaches.”
“Most of us are beggars,” said Daabis in a rising voice. “Our children are starving, and our faces are swollen from being slapped by gangsters. Does that befit the dignity of children of Gabalawi, inheritors of his property?”
Effendi’s grip tightened on his worry beads. “What property?”
Rays of anger darted from Effendi’s eyes. He shouted, “This is my father’s and my grandfather’s property and you have nothing to do with it! You spread fairy tales and you believe them, but you have no proof and no justification!”
Many of them, including Daabis and Tamar Henna, said, “Everyone knows that—”
“Everyone? So? If you spread stories among yourselves that my house belongs to one of you, is that reason for you to claim my house, you scum? An alley of nothing but drug addicts! Tell me when any of you have seen one penny of the income from the property!”
There was silence, then Hamdan answered. “Our ancestors used to get it.”
“What’s your proof?”
“They told us,” Hamdan replied, “and we believe them.”
“Lies and more lies!” shouted Effendi. “Show yourselves out of here before I throw you out.”
“Tell us about the Ten Conditions,” said Daabis purposefully.
“Why should I?” shouted Effendi. “Who are you? What do you have to do with them?”
“They are ours!”
At this point the voice of Lady Huda, the overseer’s wife, rose behind the gate.
“Leave them and come in! Don’t get hoarse arguing with them!”
“Help us reason together, my lady,” said Tamar Henna.
Lady Huda’s voice trembled with fury: “Highway robbery in broad daylight!”
“God forgive you, my lady,” Tamar Henna replied a little resentfully, “the truth is known to our ancestor, who has closed himself up behind his gates.”