Children of the Alley by Naguib Mahfouz
He stepped out of the doorway, and Gabal came in, carrying a large bundle and a bag, followed by his wife, who was carrying another bundle. The men embraced, and Hamdan glanced at the woman, noticing her belly. “Your wife? Welcome to you both. Follow me. Take your time.”
They crossed a long covered porch until they came to a broad open courtyard, then headed for a narrow stairway and climbed it to Hamdan’s apartment. Shafiqa went into the women’s quarters, and Hamdan took Gabal into a spacious room with a balcony that over looked the courtyard of the building. In no time word of Gabal’s homecoming circulated, and a crowd of Al Hamdan men showed up, led by Daabis, Itris, Dulma, Ali Fawanis, Ridwan the poet and Abdoun. They shook hands with Gabal delightedly and sat on cushions in the room, watching the returning visitor with concern and curiosity. Gabal was assailed with questions, and he told them about some of his recent life. They exchanged looks of sorrow. Gabal saw their frail spirits reflected in their emaciated bodies: ruin was overtaking their limbs. They told him about the humiliation they endured, and Daabis said that he had told him everything in their meeting a month before, and that he was surprised at his visit now.
“Have you come to invite us to emigrate to your new place?” he asked ironically.
“This is the only place we have,” said Gabal sharply.
They were intrigued by the tone of authority in his voice, and Hamdan’s curiosity was clear in his eyes. “If they were snakes, you could deal with them,” he said.
Tamar Henna came in with glasses of tea. She greeted Gabal warmly and extolled his wife; she notified him that they would have a son. But, she added, “there isn’t any difference between our men and women anymore!”
Hamdan scolded her as she left the room, but the men’s eyes reflected abject agreement with her comment. The clouds of dejection that hung over the group grew darker. No one tasted his tea.
“Why did you come back, Gabal?” asked Ridwan the poet. “You aren’t used to insults.”
“I have told you repeatedly that patience in the face of what we have to bear is better than loitering around among strangers who hate us,” said Hamdan with a trace of something like triumph.
“It isn’t what it looks like,” said Gabal sternly.
Hamdan shook his head and said nothing, and there was only silence until Daabis spoke. “Friends, let’s let him rest.”
Gabal motioned for them to stay. “I have not come here to rest, but to talk to you about something important, more important than you know.”
Their eyes were drawn to him in surprise, and Ridwan murmured that he hoped it was good news.
Gabal surveyed them with his penetrating eyes. “I could have spent my whole life with my new family, without ever thinking of coming back to our alley,” he said, and paused a while before continuing. “But a few days ago I felt like taking a walk by myself, despite the cold and the dark, and I went out into the desert, and my feet led me to the spot above our alley. It was a place I hadn’t gone near since I fled.”
Their eyes were bright with interest.
“I walked on in the utter blackness—even the stars had disappeared in the clouds. My mind was somewhere else until I almost collided with a huge form, and at first I thought it was a gangster, but then it seemed to me unlike anyone in our alley, or like any person at all. He was as tall and broad as a mountain. I was filled with terror and tried to back away, but then he told me in a strange voice, “Stay, Gabal.” I froze where I stood, sweat trickling over my skin, and asked him, “Who—who are you?”
Gabal paused in his story, and interest drew their heads forward.
“Was he from our alley?” asked Dulma.
“He said he wasn’t like anyone in our alley or like any person at all,” Itris was quick to point out.
“But he was from our alley,” said Gabal.
They all asked who it had been, and Gabal said, “He told me in his strange voice, ‘Be not afraid, I am your grandfather—Gabalawi.’ ”
They all shrieked with surprise and looked around in disbelief.
“You are joking, of course,” said Hamdan.
“I am telling the truth, and only the truth.”
“You weren’t drunk?” asked Ali Fawanis.
“I have never been drunk in my life!” shouted Gabal angrily.
“If his wineglasses could talk—only the best vintages,” said Itris.
Anger filled Gabal’s face like a dark cloud. “I heard him with my own ears when he told me, ‘Don’t be afraid, I am your grandfather—Gabalawi.’ ”
“But he hasn’t left his house in a long time, and no one has seen him!” said Hamdan gently, to soothe his anger.
“He could go out every night without anyone seeing him.”
“But no one but you has met him!” Hamdan wondered warily. “I did meet him!”
“Don’t be angry, Gabal, I didn’t mean to doubt you, but the imagination can be a deceiver. By God, tell me—if the man can come out of his house, why doesn’t he want people to see him? Why does he let them violate his children’s rights?”
“That is his secret, and he knows what he is doing,” said Gabal with a frown.
“It’s more likely that people are right when they say he became reclusive because of his old age and poor health.”
“We’re just confusing ourselves with words,” said Daabis. “Let’s listen to his story, if there’s more to hear.”
“I told him, ‘I never dreamed of meeting you in this life,’ ” Gabal resumed. “He said, ‘You are meeting me now.’ I looked hard to see his face, which was above me in the dark, and he told me, ‘You will not be able to see as long as it is dark.’ I was baffled that he could see me trying to look at him, and I said, ‘But you can see me in the dark.’ He said, ‘I can see when it is dark since I got used to walking in darkness, before the alley existed.’ I was amazed. I said, ‘Praise be to the Lord of the Heavens that you still enjoy your health.’ He told me, ‘You, Gabal, are one of those in whom people trust, as a sign of which you fled from luxury out of anger for your oppressed family, and what is your family but my family too? They have a right to my estate which they must possess, they have dignity which must be upheld, and a life which should be easy.’ I asked him—in an outburst of emotion that lit up the darkness!—‘How?’ ‘By force you will all defeat injustice and achieve your rights,’ he said, ‘and you will have a good life.’ I shouted from the depths of my heart, ‘We will be strong!’ and he said, ‘Victory will be your ally.’ ”
Gabal’s voice left a silence like a dream that had enthralled all of them. They were thinking and exchanging looks, and kept their eyes on Hamdan until he ventured out of his silence. “Let us ponder this story in our hearts and minds!”
“This is no drunken hallucination,” said Daabis forcefully. “Everything in it is true.”
“It is no delusion, unless our rights are a delusion,” said Dulma, sounding convinced.
“You didn’t ask him what’s keeping him from establishing justice himself?” Hamdan asked a little hesitantly. “Or what made him turn the management over to people who have no feeling for our people’s rights?”
“I did not ask him,” snapped Gabal. “I couldn’t have asked him. You didn’t meet him in the desert and the darkness, and feel the terror of his presence. If you had, it wouldn’t have occurred to you to argue with him, and you wouldn’t have doubted him.”
Hamdan nodded in apparent resignation. “That talk truly does sound like Gabalawi, but it would be even more fitting for him to do the job himself.”
“Wait until you all die in your shame!” shouted Daabis.
Ridwan the poet cleared his throat and looked cautiously around at their faces. “He talks well, but think where it might lead us.”
“We’ve gone once to beg for our rights, and we know what happened,” said Hamdan wearily.
“Why are we afraid?” young Abdoun suddenly shouted. “There is nothing worse than the way we live now!”
“I’ll go to the overseer by myself,” said Gabal contemptuously.
Daabis shifted closer to where Gabal was seated, and said, “We are with you. Don’t forget that Gabalawi promised him victory!”
“I will go alone, when I decide to go,” said Gabal. “But I want to be reassured that you will be with me, a firm, unwavering group ready to confront adversity and survive it!”
“With you until death!” shouted Abdoun, leaping zealously to his feet.
The lad’s enthusiasm spread to Daabis, Itris, Dulma and Ali Fawanis. Ridwan the poet asked a little slyly whether Gabal’s wife knew the reason he had come back, and Gabal told them how he had confided his secret to Balqiti, how that man had advised him to consider the consequences, how he had insisted on returning to his alley, and how his wife had chosen to follow him to the end.
At this point Hamdan asked, in a voice that made plain his solidarity with the others, “When are you going to the overseer?”
“When my plan is ripe.”
“I’ll prepare a place for you in my apartment,” said Hamdan. “You are our dearest son, and this is a great night. Perhaps the rebec will tell of it someday with the story of Adham. Now let’s make a covenant for better and for worse!”
At that moment the drunken, quavering voice of Hammouda rang out as the gangster came home with the dawn:
“Boys and wine, drink and be cleansed.
Come in the alley, stagger and limp.
Be generous with me
And I’ll let you suck down shrimp!”
His voice kept their attention only for a moment. They then joined hands to make their pledge, with ardor and expectation.
38
The alley learned of Gabal’s homecoming. They saw him strolling with his bag, and they saw his wife going to Gamaliya to do her shopping. They talked about his new trade, which no one in the alley had ever plied before. He performed his magic act, however, in every neighborhood but his own. He avoided using the snakes in his act, so no one realized that he was an expert with snakes. He passed by the overseer’s house many times, as if he had never gone there in his life, enduring deep inside a terrible longing for his mother. Gangsters—Hammouda, al-Laithy, Barakat and Abu Sari—saw him, but did not slap him as they did the other Al Hamdan, but they did crowd him off the sidewalk and mocked his bag. One day he encountered Zaqlut, who stared at him coldly, then blocked his path.
“Where have you been?” Zaqlut asked.
“Somewhere in the wide world,” replied Gabal in a dream.
“This is my turf,” the man said, as if trying to start a fight. “It is my right to ask you whatever I want, and you have to answer me.”
“I answered you.”
“Why have you come back?”
“The same reason any man comes back home!”
“I wouldn’t have come back if I were you,” said Zaqlut menacingly.
He pounced forward suddenly, and would have ended up on top of him had Gabal not quickly stepped aside, restraining his own rage. Then came the sound of the overseer’s gatekeeper calling him; Gabal, surprised, turned that way and went to him. They met in front of the house and shook hands warmly. The man asked him how he was, and informed him that the lady wanted to see him. This was an invitation Gabal had expected since his reappearance in the alley. His heart had told him it was coming, no question about it. For his part, he could not visit the house, because of the circumstances of his leaving it; even apart from that, he had decided not to request a meeting in order not to raise any suspicions before it took place—suspicions in the heart of the overseer or among the gangsters. In any case, he no sooner entered the house than the news was all over the alley. As he walked up the terrace, he shot a quick glance at the garden, at the sycamores, the high mulberry trees, the flowers and rosebushes that filled every corner. The usual fragrances had disappeared in winter’s grip, and a calm light as peaceful as dusk filled the air, as if diffused from the scattered white clouds. He went up the stairs, resolutely resisting the flock of memories in his heart, and entered the hall, in the center of which the lady and her husband were sitting and waiting. He looked at his mother and their eyes met; deeply moved, she stood up to receive him, and he knelt at her hands and kissed them. She kissed his forehead lovingly, and he stood, overcome with love and happiness. He turned his head to the overseer and saw him sitting draped in his cloak, watching them with icy eyes. He extended his hand, and the overseer rose halfway to shake it, then sat down quickly. Huda’s eyes searched Gabal with mixed surprise and panic: he looked handsome in a rough galabiya, drawn in at his thin waist with a thick belt, and worn-out red leather slippers on his feet. His luxuriant hair was covered by a dark skullcap. Her eyes were brilliant with sorrow, and spoke wordlessly of her sorrow at his appearance and the sort of life he had settled for, as if she were gazing at a brilliant hope that had collapsed into wreckage. She motioned for him to be seated. He sat on a chair by her, and she sat down looking almost ill. He realized what she must be going through, and spoke to her in a strong voice about his life in Muqattam Marketplace, about his trade and his wife. He spoke happily of that life in spite of its crudeness, and told her that he was content. This made her angry.
“Live whatever life you want, but how could my house not be the first house you visited when you came back to the alley?”
He almost told her that going to her house was the main purpose of his return, but he postponed that because the moment was not ripe yet and because he still had not overcome his emotions at this meeting.
“I did want to come to your house, but I couldn’t find the courage to intrude after what—”
“Why did you come back if life was so sweet abroad?” Effendi asked coldly.
The lady directed a look of rebuke at her husband, which he ignored.
Gabal smiled. “Perhaps, sir, I came back in the hope of seeing you!”
“Yet you didn’t visit us until we invited you, you mean thing,” Huda scolded him.
“Believe me, my lady,” said Gabal, bowing his head, “that whenever I remembered the circumstances that compelled me to leave this house, I cursed them from the bottom of my heart.”
Effendi stared at him distrustfully, and was going to ask what he meant, but Huda spoke first.
“You have learned, of course, how we pardoned the Al Hamdan for your sake?”
Gabal knew that it was time for this pleasant family scene to end, as he had known from the outset it would have to, and that it was time for the struggle to begin.
“The truth, my lady, is that they are suffering a disgrace worse than death, and that it has killed some of them.”
Effendi gripped his worry beads tightly and exclaimed, “They are criminals, and they got what they deserved.”
“Let’s forget all about the past,” pleaded Huda with an urgent gesture.
“It would not have been right for Qidra’s blood to have been spilled in vain,” Effendi insisted.
“The gangsters are the real criminals,” said Gabal firmly.
Effendi stood impulsively and turned rebukingly to his wife. “Do you see the result of my giving in to you and inviting him to our house?”
“Sir,” said Gabal in a voice that proclaimed all of his strength, “I intended to come to you anyway. Perhaps my awareness of the favor I harbor for this house is what made me wait until I was invited here.”
The overseer showed a look of apprehensive distrust. “What do you expect from this visit?”
Gabal stood bravely to face the overseer, knowing perfectly well that he was opening a door that would admit howling storms, but he had derived unshakable courage from his meeting in the desert. “I have come,” he said, “to claim the Al Hamdan’s rights to the estate and to a peaceful life.”
Anger darkened Effendi’s face, and the lady’s mouth gaped in despair. The man fixed his burn
“Gabal,” sobbed Huda, “I was going to invite you and your wife to live with us.”
“I am only repeating in your hearing the wish of one who may not be refused: your ancestor and ours, Gabalawi!” said Gabal in a resounding voice.
Effendi looked searchingly at Gabal, amazed. Huda got up, looking worried, and placed her hand on Gabal’s shoulder. “Gabal, what has happened to you?”
“I’m fine, my lady,” said Gabal, smiling.
“Fine!” Effendi was thunderstruck. “You are fine? Where is your mind?”
“Listen to my story and judge for yourself,” said Gabal very serenely.
He told them the story he had told the Al Hamdan, and when he had finished, Effendi, who had been studying his face distrustfully the whole time, spoke. “The lord of the estate has never left his house since he isolated himself.”
“But I met him in the desert.”
“Why didn’t he inform me directly of his wishes?” he asked mockingly.
“That is his secret and he knows what he is doing.”
Exasperated, Effendi laughed. “You truly are a snake charmer, but you aren’t satisfied playing tricks with snakes—no, you want to trifle with the whole estate!”