Children of the Alley by Naguib Mahfouz
“Not as much as your mother, with her famous nights at the Sultan Baths!” shrieked Tamar Henna angrily. She was quick to close her window, and the stone that flew from Hammouda’s hand struck the outer shutter with a report that made the boys on the street corners cheer.
The door of the house opened and Gabal entered its damp air and strange smell. His people welcomed him with hugs and a clamor of loving words, but the welcome was cut short by a loud fight at the far end of the courtyard. Gabal looked and saw Daabis arguing fiercely and struggling with a man named Kaabalha.
He went over to them and pushed himself between them and spoke sharply. “You argue with each other while they imprison us in our houses!”
“He stole a sweet potato from a pot on my windowsill,” said Daabis, breathing heavily.
“Did you see me take it?” shouted Kaabalha. “Shame on you, Daabis!”
“Show mercy to one another so that Heaven will show mercy to us!” shouted Gabal angrily.
“My sweet potato is in his belly—I’ll pull it out with my hand!” Daabis insisted.
“I swear to God, I have not tasted a sweet potato in a week,” said Kaabalha, adjusting his cap on his head.
“You are the only thief in this building.”
“Don’t condemn someone without evidence the way Zaqlut did with you,” said Gabal.
“I’m going to punish this son of a whore,” shouted Daabis.
“Daabis, son of a radish seller!” Kaabalha shouted back.
Daabis flew at Kaabalha and punched him. Kaabalha stumbled, blood flowing from his forehead, and Daabis hit him again and again, ignoring the protestations of the bystanders, until Gabal lost his temper, intervened and seized him tightly by the neck.
Daabis tried futilely to free himself from Gabal’s grip. “Do you want to kill me the way you killed Qidra?” he gasped.
Gabal pushed him violently and he fell against the wall and glared at Gabal, enraged. The men looked from Gabal to Daabis and back again, wondering if Gabal had really killed Qidra. Dulma hugged him and Itris shouted, “God bless you—you prince of the Al Hamdan!”
“I only killed him to defend you!” Gabal told Daabis bitterly.
“But you loved doing it,” said Daabis softly.
“You are ungrateful, Daabis. For shame!” shouted Dulma. He pulled Gabal by the arm. “You’ll be my guest in my apartment, come, leader of the Al Hamdan!”
Gabal gave in to Dulma’s grasp, but felt that a bottomless abyss was opening under his feet this day.
“Is there no way to escape?” he whispered in Dulma’s ear as they walked together.
“Gabal, are you afraid someone will betray you to our enemies?”
“Daabis is an imbecile.”
“Yes, but he’s not that low!”
“I’m afraid that their accusation against you will be strengthened because of me!”
“I’ll show you the escape route if you want it, but where would you go?”
“The desert is wider than anyone knows.”
33
Gabal was able to escape only as the night was nearly over. He moved from roof to roof in the peace of the night, and while sleep was still soothing sleepers’ eyelids, he found his way to Gamaliya. In spite of the intense blackness he went on to al-Darasa, then turned toward the desert, headed for Hind and Qadri’s rock. By the time he reached it, by the faint starlight, he could not hold off sleep any longer, after so much weariness and wakefulness. He threw himself onto the sand, wrapped up in his cloak, and slept. He opened his eyes with the first rays of sun that touched the top of the rock, and got up immediately in order to reach the mountain before anyone happened through the desert. But before he set off, his eye was drawn to the spot where he had buried Qidra. His arms and legs trembled as he looked at it. His mouth grew dry, then he fled, very upset. All he had done was kill a criminal, but he ran from the grave like a fugitive. He said to himself, “We were not born to kill, but we can no longer count our dead!” He marveled to himself at how he had found no place to sleep but the place where he had buried his victim! He felt his urge to flee mounting; he would have to bid farewell forever both to those he loved and to those he hated: his mother, Hamdan and the gangsters. He reached the foot of Muqattam, his soul overflowing with grief and homesickness, but he kept on, moving south, until he reached Muqattam Marketplace in midmorning. He took a long look at the desert behind him and said, relieved, “Now at least there is some distance between us.” He looked closely at Muqattam Marketplace, that small clearing surrounded on all sides by alleys, whose walls rang with an uproar in which the voices of men and the braying of donkeys intermingled. A saint’s feast day seemed to be in progress, to judge from the crowds in the square, the peddlers, lunatics, dervishes and entertainers, even though the real action of the feast would not start until sundown. His eyes looked over the surging waves of people, and he saw, at the edge of the desert, a hut made of sheet metal surrounded by wooden seats. Despite its wretchedness it seemed to be the most popular coffeehouse in the marketplace: it was full of customers. He made for an empty chair and sat down, his body desperately craving rest. The proprietor came over to him, intrigued by his unusual appearance among the others: he wore a fine cloak, a high turban and expensive red leather shoes. He ordered a glass of tea and sat back to watch the people. Before long he heard a rising noise from the public pump, and saw people crowding around it to fill their vessels with water. The jam was like a violent riot complete with victims. The shouting grew louder and people were cursing, then there were sharp, high-pitched screams from the center, from two girls trapped in the heart of the struggle. They began to retreat to save themselves, and extricated themselves from the battle with empty buckets. Their bright yellow dresses draped their bodies from the neck to the heels; only their radiantly youthful faces were exposed. His eyes took in the shorter of the two but did not linger, then focused on the other, with the dark eyes, and stayed there. They walked to an empty spot near his seat, and he saw a family resemblance in their features, though the one that had caught his eye was more beautiful. Elated, Gabal said to himself, “What amazing features—I never saw anyone like this in our alley.” The girls stood, rearranging their hair and putting their kerchiefs on, then set down the buckets upside down and sat on them.
“How are we going to fill the buckets in that crowd?” complained the shorter of the two.
“This feast—God help us! Father is waiting and getting mad,” said the charming one.
Gabal joined the conversation without a second thought. “Why didn’t he come himself to fill the buckets?”
They turned to him as if in protest, but his good appearance had a soothing effect, and his girl said only, “What is it to you? Did we complain to you?”
Delighted to hear her speak, Gabal apologized. “I just wanted to say that it would be easier for a man to deal with holiday crowds!”
“It’s our job; he has a harder job.”
“What does your father do?” he asked, smiling.
“None of your business.”
Gabal got up, paying no attention to the staring eyes around him, and when he was standing before them he said, “I will fill the buckets for you.”
“We don’t need you,” said the charming one, turning her face away.
“Do it, and thank you,” said the short one daringly. She stood up and pulled the other girl up. Gabal took the buckets by the handles and moved his strong body through the throng, bumping into men and being pushed until he reached the pump, behind which the water seller sat at his wooden stand. He gave him two coins, filled the buckets and brought them to where the two girls stood. He was disturbed to see that they were arguing with some boys who had been harassing them, and he set down the buckets. He turned menacingly to the boys. One of them began to throw a punch at him but Gabal knocked him down with a blow in the chest, so the others came to attack him as a group, swearing at him.
Suddenly a strange voice bellowed at them, “
Everyone looked at this short, compact middle-aged man with his bright eyes, whose galabiya was belted at the waist. “Balqiti, sir,” called the boys, ashamed, and ran off, looking crossly at Gabal. The girls flocked to the man and the short one said, “Today it was hard because of the holiday, and those brats.”
“When you were late, I remembered the festival,” Balqiti answered her, looking Gabal over at the same time. “So I got here just in time.” He turned to Gabal. “You are a good man—how rare they are these days!”
“It was nothing,” said Gabal shyly, “just a little help—no thanks are in order.”
Meanwhile the girls had taken the buckets and silently left the place. Gabal yearned for his eyes to feast on their beauty, but did not dare withdraw them from Balqiti’s bright gaze. He imagined that this man could see into his depths, and was afraid that he could read his desires, but Balqiti said, “You chased those evil boys away. Men like you deserve respect. How dare those boys harass Balqiti’s daughters? Liquor! Didn’t you notice that they were drunk?”
Gabal shook his head.
“I can smell like a genie! Let it pass. Do you know me?”
“No, sir, I do not have that honor.”
“Obviously you aren’t from around here.” This was said self-assuredly.
“That’s right.”
“I am Balqiti the snake charmer.”
Gabal’s face lit up with sudden remembrance. “This is indeed a pleasure. You are well known in our alley.”
“What alley is that?”
“Gabalawi Alley.”
Balqiti’s narrow white eyebrows arched. “I am pleased and honored,” he said melodiously. “Is there anyone who does not know of Gabalawi, owner of the estate? Or that Zaqlut! Have you come for the saint’s day, sir?”
“Gabal—please.” Then he added cunningly, “I’ve come to look for a new place to live.”
“You’ve left your alley?”
“Yes.”
Balqiti looked at him more closely. “Wherever there are gangsters there are emigrants! But tell me—did you kill a man or a woman?”
Gabal’s heart almost stopped, but he said in a strong voice, “Your jokes aren’t as charming as you are!”
Balqiti’s ruined old mouth emitted a laugh. “You aren’t one of the common mob the gangsters toy with. You aren’t a thief. Someone like you leaves his alley only if it’s murder.”
“I told you—” Gabal began sternly but awkwardly.
“Sir,” Balqiti interrupted, “I don’t mind if you’re a killer, especially after you’ve proved you decency to me. There’s not a man here who hasn’t stolen or plundered or killed, and just so that you can trust in the truth of what I say, I would like to invite you for a cup of coffee and a few puffs at my house!”
“I would love it. I would be honored,” said Gabal, his hopes rekindled.
They walked side by side through the marketplace toward an alley up ahead, and when they had left the crowds behind them Balqiti asked him, “Did you want to see anyone special here?”
“I don’t know anyone.”
“Or anyplace to stay?”
“Or anyplace to stay.”
“Be my guest, if you wish, until you find someplace to stay,” said Balqiti expansively.
“You are so kind, Balqiti, sir,” said Gabal, his heart dancing with joy.
“It’s nothing to marvel at,” the man laughed. “In my house I have snakes and serpents—what problem could a man be? Does this frighten you? I’m a snake charmer, and in my home you will learn how to get used to snakes.”
They crossed the alley for the open desert. At the beginning of the desert Gabal saw a small stone house set far from the alley. It was unpainted but was new compared with such a tumbledown alley. Balqiti pointed to it proudly. “The house of Balqiti the snake charmer!”
34
“I chose this isolated spot for my house,” Balqiti told him when they reached the house, “because people think a snake charmer is just a big snake himself!”
They entered a good-sized hall together. It led to a locked room at the end, flanked by two more closed doors. Balqiti pointed to the door facing the entrance and continued: “That’s where I keep my work tools, the live ones and the other kind. Don’t be afraid of anything—the door is strong and locked, and I promise you that the snakes are easier to live with than a lot of people. The ones you fled from, for example.” His ruined mouth emitted a laugh. “People are frightened of snakes—even gangsters are frightened of them, but I owe them my livelihood. Thanks to them I built this house!” He pointed to the right-hand door. “That’s where my two daughters sleep. Their mother died a long time ago, leaving me in old age, unfit to remarry.” He pointed to the door on the left. “That’s where we will sleep.”
They heard the short girl’s voice calling from a side stairway leading to the roof: “Shafiqa, help me with this washing. Don’t stand there like a stone.”
“Sayida!” called Balqiti. “Your voice will upset the snakes. And you, Shafiqa, don’t stand there like a stone.”
Her name was Shafiqa! What a sweet girl! Her unfriendliness hadn’t hurt much. That wordless thanks in her black eyes. Who would tell her that he had accepted this perilous hospitality only for those eyes?
Balqiti pushed the left-hand door and held it open for Gabal, then followed him in and reclosed it. Leading Gabal by the arm, the man walked to a couch that ran the length of the right-hand wall of the small room, and they sat down together. With one look Gabal sized up the room. He saw a bed across the room, covered with a brown blanket, and on the floor between the bed and the couch a decorated mat and in its center a copper platter so stained that it had lost its color. In it rested a pyramidal brazier of ashes, a pipe lying beside it, and along the surface of its rim a skewer, pincers and a handful of dry honeyed tobacco. From the one open window he could see only desert, the colorless sky and a towering wall of Muqattam in the distance. Through it, amid the dead silence, the shout of a shepherdess sounded and a soft wind blew in, charged with the heat of the blazing sun. Balqiti was studying him to the point where it was irritating, and he considered diverting his attention by starting a conversation, but then the ceiling above them shook from footsteps on the roof, and his heart bounded. Instantly he imagined her feet, and his heart was filled with a yearning that this house should be happy, even should its snakes get loose. He said to himself, “This man might assassinate me and bury me in the desert, just as I buried Qidra, and my girl would never know that I was her victim.”
Balqiti’s voice brought him back: “Do you have work?”
“I’ll find work, any work,” he answered, remembering the last coins he had in his pocket.
“Perhaps you aren’t in urgent need of work?”
This question made him a little uncomfortable. “Well, I’d be better off looking for work sooner rather than later!”
“You have a fighter’s body!”
“But I hate violence.”
Balqiti laughed and asked, “What work did you do in your alley?”
Gabal hesitated before saying, “I was managing the estate.”
“Oh, how terrible—how did you lose such a good job?”
“Bad luck.”
“Did you have your eye on some lady?”
“God forbid, old man.”
“You are very careful, but you’ll get used to me quickly and then share all your secrets.”
“God willing.”
“Do you have money?”
His panic returned, but he stifled it and said innocently, “I have a little, but I still have to look for work.”
Balqiti winked. “You are as sharp as a devil. Do you know, you’d make a good snake charmer. Perhaps we could work together. Don’t be surprised. I’m an old man in need of an assistant.”
He did not take this suggestion seriously, but was moved by a profound desire to strengthen his ties to Balqiti. He was about to s
“We can take our time thinking about that. For right now—” He got up, leaned over and lifted the brazier, then took it outside to light it.
—
Before midafternoon the two men went out together. Balqiti wandered as he generally did while Gabal went to the marketplace to look around and to shop. He returned at evening to the desert and headed for the isolated house, guided by the glow from his window.
As he neared the house his ear caught angry voices arguing and he could not help eavesdropping. He heard Sayida say, “If it’s true what you’re saying, Father, he has committed a crime, and we can’t face those alley gangsters.”
“He doesn’t look like a criminal,” said Shafiqa.
“How well have you gotten to know him, snake girl?” said Balqiti with pronounced sarcasm.
“Why did he leave his good job?” asked Sayida.
“There’s nothing unusual in a man leaving an alley so famous for its gangsters!”
“Since when do you have this gift for knowing the unknown?” asked Sayida pertly.
“Living with snakes has made me beget two serpertns,” sighed Balqiti.
“You’re letting him stay here, Father, without knowing anything about him?”
“I do know things about him, and I’ll find out everything else. I have two eyes to depend upon in case of need. I invited him here because I was impressed with his decency, and I have no reason to change my mind.”
He would not have hesitated to leave if things had been different.
Hadn’t he left his privileged life without a second thought? But he would give in to the power that drew him to this house. His heart bounded with intoxication at the sound of the voice defending him; a comforting voice that dispelled the lonesome night and the desert, and made the crescent moon floating over the mountain smile in the darkness like someone bringing good news. He waited in the darkness, then coughed, went up to the door and knocked. The door opened, revealing Balqiti’s face, reflecting light from the lamp he held in his hand. The two men went to their room, and Gabal sat down after leaving on the copper platter a package he had brought. Balqiti looked at it questioningly.