The Beggar, the Thief and the Dogs, Autumn Quail by Naguib Mahfouz
The shadows are lengthening now. It’s getting dark in the room and outside the window. The silence of the graves is more intense, but you can’t switch on the light. The flat must look the way it always has when Nur is out. Your eyes will get used to the dark, the way they did to prison and all those ugly faces. And you can’t start drinking, either, lest you bump into something or shout out loud. The flat must stay as silent as the grave; even the dead mustn’t know you’re here. God alone can tell how long you’ll have to stay here and how patient in this jail. Just as He alone could tell you’d kill Shaban Husayn and not Ilish Sidra.
Well, you’ll have to go out sooner or later, to take a walk in the night, even if only to safe places. But let’s postpone that until the police are worn out looking for you. And let’s hope to God Shaban Husayn isn’t buried in one of these graves here; this run-down quarter could hardly stand the strain of such a painful irony of fate. Just keep cool, keep patient, until Nur comes back. You must not ask when Nur will come back. You’ll have to put up with the dark, the silence, and the loneliness—for as long as the world refuses to change its naughty ways. Nur, poor girl, is caught in it, too. What, after all, is her love for you but a bad habit, getting stuck on someone who’s already dead of pain and anger, is put off by her affection no less than by her ageing looks, who doesn’t really know what to do with her except maybe drink with her, toasting, as it were, defeat and grief, and pity her for her worthy but hopeless efforts. And in the end you can’t even forget she’s a woman. Like that slinking bitch Nabawiyya, who’ll be in mortal fear until the rope’s safely installed around your neck or some rotten bullet is lodged in your heart. And the police will tell such lies that you’ll be cut off forever from Sana. She’ll never even know the truth of your love for her, as if that, too, was just a bullet that went astray.
Sleep came over Said Mahran and he dozed off for a while on the sofa, unaware that he had been dreaming in his sleep until he awoke, to find himself in complete darkness, still alone in Nur’s flat in Sharia Najm al-Din, where Ilish Sidra had not surprised him and had not fired a hail of bullets at him. He had no idea what time it was.
Suddenly he heard the rattle of a key in the lock and then the door being closed. A light in the hallway went on and filtered in above the door. Nur came in smiling, carrying a big parcel. She kissed him and said, “Let’s have a feast! I’ve brought home a restaurant, a delicatessen, and a patisserie all in one!”
“You’ve been drinking,” he said as he kissed her.
“I have to; it’s part of my job. I’ll take a bath, then come back. Here are the papers for you.”
His eyes followed her as she left, then he buried himself in the newspapers, both morning and evening. There was nothing that was news to him, but there was clearly enormous interest in both the crime and its perpetrator, far more than he’d expected, especially in Al-Zahra, Rauf Ilwan’s paper. It discussed at length his history as a burglar and the list of the exploits revealed at his trial, with stories about the great houses of the rich he had burglarized, comments on his character, his latent insanity, and an analysis of “the criminal boldness that finally led to bloodshed.”
What enormous black headlines! Thousands upon thousands must be discussing his crimes at that moment, all amused at Nabawiyya’s infidelity and laying bets as to what his fate would be. He was the very center of the news, the man of the hour, and the thought filled him with both apprehension and pride, conflicting emotions that were so intense they almost tore him apart. Meanwhile, so many other thoughts and ideas crowded in confusion into his mind that a kind of intoxication seemed to engulf him. He felt sure he was about to do something truly extraordinary, even miraculous; and he wished he could somehow communicate with all the people outside, to tell them what was making him—there all alone in the silence—burst with emotion, to convince them that he’d win in the end, even if only after death.
He was quite alone, separate from everyone else. They didn’t even know, did not comprehend the language of silence and solitude. They didn’t understand that they themselves were silent and alone sometimes, and that the mirrors dimly reflecting their own images were in fact deceptive, making them falsely imagine they were seeing people unknown to themselves.
His mind’s eye focused on the photograph of Sana with a sense of wonder, and he was deeply moved. Then, in his imagination, he conjured up all their pictures—his own wild-looking self, Nabawiyya, looking like a whore—coming back to the picture of Sana. She was smiling. Yes. Smiling. Because she could not see him and because she knew nothing. He scrutinized her intensely, overwhelmed by the sense that he’d failed, that the night out there through the window was sighing in some kind of sympathetic sadness, desperately wishing he could run away with her to some place known to no one else. He yearned to see her, if only as his last wish on earth before his execution.
He went over to the other sofa to pick up the scissors lying on a pile of pieces of fabric, then returned to snip the picture carefully out of the newspaper. By the time Nur emerged from the bathroom he felt calmer. When she called him, he went into the bedroom, wondering how she could have brought him all those news reports and know nothing of them herself.
She’d spent a lot of money. As he sat by her side on a sofa, facing the food-covered table, his mouth watered, and to show his pleasure he stroked her moist hair and murmured, “You know, there aren’t many women like you.”
She tied a red scarf around her head and began filling the glasses, smiling at the compliment. To see her sitting there, proud and confident of having him, if only for a while, made him feel somehow glad. She was wearing no makeup over her light brown skin and she looked invigorated from her bath, like a dish of good food, somehow, modest and fresh.
“You can say things like that!” she said, giving him a quizzical stare. “Sometimes I almost think the police know more about kindness than you.”
“No, do believe me, I’m happy being with you.”
“Truly?”
“Yes. Truly. You’re so kind, so good. I don’t know why anyone could resist you.”
“Wasn’t I like that in the old days?”
No easy victory can ever make one forget a bloody defeat! “At that time, I just wasn’t an affectionate person.”
“And now?”
“Let’s have a drink and enjoy ourselves,” he said, picking up his glass.
They set about the food and drink with gusto, until she said, “How did you spend your time?”
“Between the shadows and the graves,” he said, dipping a piece of meat in tahini. “Do you have any family buried here?”
“No, mine are all buried in al-Balyana, God rest their souls.”
Only the sounds of their eating and the clink of glasses and dishes on the tray broke the silence, until Said said, “I’m going to ask you to buy some cloth for me—something suitable for an officer’s uniform.”
“An army officer?”
“You didn’t know I learned tailoring in jail?”
“But why do you want it?” she said uneasily.
“Ah, well, the time has come for me to do my military service.”
“Don’t you understand I don’t want to lose you again?”
“Don’t worry about me at all,” he said with extraordinary confidence. “If no one had given me away the police would never have caught me.”
Nur sighed, still troubled.
“You’re not in any danger yourself, are you?” Said asked, grinning, his mouth stuffed with food. “No highwayman’s going to waylay you in the desert, right?”
They laughed together, and she leaned over and kissed him full on the lips. Their lips were equally sticky.
“The truth is,” she said, “that to live at all we’ve got to be afraid of nothing.”
“Not even death?” Said said, nodding toward the window.
“Listen, I even forget that, too, when time brings me together with someone I love.”
Astonished at th
A moth overhead made love to a naked light bulb in the dead of the night.
ELEVEN
Not a day passes without the graveyard welcoming new guests. Why, it’s as though there’s nothing more left to do but crouch behind the shutters watching these endless progressions of death. It’s the mourners who deserve one’s sympathy, of course. They come in one weeping throng and then they go away drying their tears and conversing, as if while they’re here some force stronger than death itself has convinced them to stay alive.
That was how your own parents were buried: your father, Amm Mahran, the kindly concierge of the student’s hostel, who died middle-aged after a hard but honest and satisfying life. You helped him in his work from your childhood on. For all the extreme simplicity, even poverty of their lives, the family enjoyed sitting together when the day’s work was done, in their ground-floor room at the entrance to the building, where Amm Mahran and his wife would chat together while their child played. His piety made him happy, and the students respected him. The only entertainment he knew was making pilgrimage to the home of Sheikh Ali al-Junaydi, and it was through your father that you came to know the house. “Come along,” he’d say, “and I’ll show you how to have more fun than playing in the fields. You’ll see how sweet life can be, what it’s like in an atmosphere of godliness. It’ll give you a sense of peace and contentment, the finest thing you can achieve in life.”
The Sheikh greeted you with that sweet and kindly look of his. And how enchanted you were by his fine white beard! “So this is your son you were telling me about,” he said to your father. “There’s a lot of intelligence in his eyes. His heart is as spotless as yours. You’ll find he’ll turn out, with God’s will, a truly good man.” Yes, you really adored Sheikh Ali al-Junaydi, attracted by the purity in his face and the love in his eyes. And those songs and chants of his had delighted you even before your heart was purified by love.
“Tell this boy what it’s his duty to do,” your father said to the Sheikh one day.
The Sheikh had gazed down at you and said, “We continue learning from the cradle to the grave, but at least start out, Said, by keeping close account of yourself and making sure that from whatever action you initiate some good comes to someone.”
Yes, you certainly followed his counsel as best you could, though you only brought it to complete fulfillment when you took up burglary!
The days passed like dreams. And then your good father disappeared, suddenly gone, in a way that a boy simply could not comprehend, and that seemed to baffle even Sheikh Ali himself. How shocked you were that morning, shaking your head and rubbing your eyes to clear away the sleep, awakened by your mother’s screams and tears in the little room at the entrance to the student’s hostel! You wept with fear and frustration at your helplessness. That evening, however, Rauf Ilwan, at that time a student in law school, had shown how very capable he was. Yes, he was impressive all right, no matter what the circumstances, and you loved him as you did Sheikh Ali, perhaps even more. It was he who later worked hard to have you—or you and your mother, to be more precise—take over Father’s job as custodian for the building. Yes, you took on responsibilities at an early age.
And then your mother died. You almost died yourself during your mother’s illness, as Rauf Ilwan must surely remember, from that unforgettable day when she had hemorrhaged and you had rushed her to the nearest hospital, the Sabir Hospital, standing like a castle amidst beautiful grounds, where you found yourself and your mother in a reception hall at an entrance more luxurious than anything you could ever have imagined possible. The entire place seemed forbidding, even hostile, but you were in the direst need of help, immediate help.
As the famous doctor was coming out of a room, they mentioned his name and you raced toward him in your gallabiya and sandals, shouting, “My mother! The blood!”
The man had fixed you in a glassy, disapproving stare and had glanced where your mother was lying, stretched out in her filthy dress on a soft couch, a foreign nurse standing nearby, observing the scene. Then the doctor had simply disappeared, saying nothing. The nurse jabbered something in a language you did not understand, though you sensed she was expressing sympathy for your tragedy. At that point, for all your youth, you flew into a real adult’s rage, screaming and cursing in protest, smashing a chair to the floor with a crash, so the veneer wood on its back broke in pieces. A horde of servants had appeared and you’d soon found yourself and your mother alone in the tree-lined road outside. A month later your mother had died in the Kasr al-Aini Hospital.
All the time she lay close to death she never released your hand, refusing to take her eyes off you. It was during that long month of illness, however, that you stole for the first time—from the country boy resident in the hostel, who’d accused you without any investigation and was beating you vigorously when Rauf Ilwan turned up and freed you, settling the matter without any further complications. You were a true human being then, Rauf, and you were my teacher, too.
Alone with you Rauf had said quietly, “Don’t you worry. The fact is, I consider this theft perfectly justified. Only you’ll find the police watching for you, and the judge won’t be lenient with you,” he’d added ominously with bitter sarcasm, “however convincing your motives, because he, too, will be protecting himself. Isn’t it justice,” he’d shouted, “that what is taken by theft should be retrieved by theft? Here I am studying, away from home and family, suffering daily from hunger and deprivation!”
Where have all your principles gone now, Rauf? Dead, no doubt, like my father and my mother, and like my wife’s fidelity.
You had no alternative but to leave the students’ hostel and seek a living somewhere else. So you waited under the lone palm tree at the end of the green plot until Nabawiyya came and you sprang toward her, saying, “Don’t be afraid. I must speak to you. I’m leaving to get a better job. I love you. Don’t ever forget me. I love you and always will. And I’ll prove I can make you happy and give you a respectable home.” Yes, those had been times when sorrows could be forgotten, wounds could be healed, and hope could bring forth fruit from adversity.
All you graves out there, immersed in the gloom, don’t jeer at my memories!
He sat up on the sofa, still in the dark, addressing Rauf Ilwan just as though he could see him standing in front of him. “You should have agreed to get me a job writing for your newspaper, you scoundrel. I’d have published our mutual reminiscences there, I’d have shut off your false light good and proper.” Then he wondered aloud: “How am I going to stand it here in the dark till Nur comes back near dawn?”
Suddenly he was attacked by an irresistible urge to leave the house and take a walk in the dark. In an instant, his resistance crumbled, collapsing like a building ready to give way; soon he was moving stealthily out of the house. He set off toward Sharia Masani and from there turned toward open wasteland.
Leaving his hideout made him all the more conscious of being hunted. He now knew how mice and foxes feel, slipping away on the run. Alone in the dark, he could see the city’s lights glimmering in the distance, lying in wait for him. He quaffed his sense of being alone, until it intoxicated him, then walked on, winding up at last in his old seat next to Tarzan in the coffeehouse. The only other person inside apart from the waiter was an arms smuggler, although outside, a little lower down, at the foot of the hill, the sounds of people talking could be heard.
The waiter brought him some tea at once and then Tarzan leaned over. “Don’t spend more than one night in the same place,” he whispered.
The smuggler added his advice: “Move way up the Nile.”
“But I don’t know anyone up there,” Said objected.
“You know,” the smuggler went on, “I’ve heard many people express their admiration for you.”
“And the police?” Tarzan said heatedly. “Do they
The smuggler laughed so hard that his whole body shook, as if he were mounted on a camel at the gallop. “Nothing impresses the police,” he said at last, when he’d recovered his breath.
“Absolutely nothing,” agreed Said.
“But what harm is there in stealing from the rich anyway?” the waiter asked with feeling.
Said beamed as if he were receiving a compliment at some public reception in his honor. “Yes,” he said, “but the newspapers have tongues longer than a hangman’s rope. And what good does being liked by the people do if the police loathe you?”
Suddenly Tarzan got up, moved to the window, stared outside, looking to left and right, then came back. “I thought I saw a face staring in at us,” he reported, clearly worried.
Said’s eyes glinted as they darted back and forth between window and door and the waiter went outside to investigate.
“You’re always seeing things that aren’t there,” the smuggler said.