The Harafish by Naguib Mahfouz
45.
His father cornered him alone, looking concerned.
“Why don’t you marry her? Surely it’s better to make it legal?”
He didn’t answer.
“If you married Zaynat,” went on his father, “you’d be following Ashur’s example.”
He shook his head.
“In any case, I’ve definitely decided to marry again.”
“You!” exclaimed Galal in amazement, “but you’re in your sixties, father!”
“So what?” laughed Abd Rabbihi. “I’m in excellent health, in spite of everything, and I’ve got high hopes—God willing—of the herbalist’s potions.”
“Who’s the lucky girl?”
“Zuwayla al-Faskhani’s daughter,” he boasted. “A nice, respectable girl in her twenties.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to choose a lady nearer your own age?” smiled Galal.
“No. I need someone young to make me feel young again.”
“I hope you’ll be happy,” murmured Galal.
Abd Rabbihi began singing the praises of the herbalist and his magic powers, and how he could restore a man’s youth.
46.
Farida al-Faskhani married Abd Rabbihi, and the couple set up house in a wing of The Citadel. Galal thought constantly about the magic powers of the herbalist, Abd al-Khaliq. One night he invited him and they got stoned together and ate fruit and sweetmeats.
“What passes between us here must be kept secret,” said Galal earnestly.
Abd al-Khaliq promised that it would, pleased with the new status bestowed on him by the chief.
“I’ve heard you give mature men back their youth,” began Galal tentatively.
The herbalist smiled confidently. “With the help of the Almighty.”
“Perhaps it’s easier for you to stop people aging?”
“That goes without saying.”
Galal’s face brightened. He looked visibly relieved. “You see why I sent for you?” he murmured.
The man thought for a moment, awed by the burden of trust. “The herbalist’s potions aren’t everything,” he said finally. “They must be used in conjunction with the will to act sensibly.”
“What do you mean?”
“You must be honest,” said Abd al-Khaliq cautiously. “Have you experienced any kind of weakness?”
“I’m in perfect health.”
“Splendid. Then you must stick devotedly to a regime.”
“Don’t talk in riddles.”
“You have to eat, but excessive eating is harmful.”
“Anyone in my position should be able to understand that,” said Galal, relieved.
“A little alcohol is a pleasant stimulus but too much is bad for you.”
“Obviously.”
“You shouldn’t try to exceed your capabilities when it comes to sex.”
“Not a problem.”
“A sound faith is highly beneficial.”
“Fine.”
“When all that’s taken care of, the herbalist’s prescription can work wonders.”
“Has it been tried before?”
“By many of the notables. Some of them have preserved their youth so well that people who know them have started to get scared and wonder what’s going on!”
Galal’s eyes gleamed delightedly.
“If someone follows my advice, God willing, he should be able to live to a hundred,” continued Abd al-Khaliq. “And there’s nothing to stop him going on beyond that, until he actually wants his time to be up!”
Galal gave a gloomy smile. “Then what?”
“Death comes to us all,” shrugged the herbalist.
Galal cursed to himself at this general conspiracy to venerate death.
47.
One evening as he and Zaynat were sitting together, relaxed and at ease with one another, she asked suddenly, “Why don’t you do something to fulfill the expectations of the harafish?”
He looked at her, startled. “What does it matter to you?”
She kissed him and said frankly, “To stop people being jealous. That’s fatal.”
He shrugged his shoulders indifferently. “To tell you the truth, I despise them.”
“But they’re poor and miserable.”
“That’s why I despise them!”
A spasm of disgust distorted her pretty face.
“All they think about is getting enough to eat.”
“Your ideas frighten me,” she said pityingly.
“Why don’t they resign themselves to hunger, like they do to death?”
Memories of her youth swept over her like a choking dust storm.
“Hunger’s more terrible than death.”
He smiled, half closing his eyes to hide the cold scorn in them.
48.
The days went by and Galal grew more powerful, more beautiful, more glorious. Time slid over him leaving no trace, like a trickle of water on a polished mirror. Zaynat herself changed, like everything else, despite the great care she took of her beauty. Galal realized that he had begun his sacred struggle of resistance against the passage of time. How sad that it was bound to end! He might delay it for a while, but there was no escaping destiny.
49.
The ties of friendship grew firmer between him and Abd al-Khaliq. The herbalist claimed that if his potions did not cost so much, the alley would be full of centenarians. Galal thought often of sharing the magic potion with Zaynat, but always abandoned the idea. Perhaps he had begun to fear her power over him and her charm, and was loath to immunize her against the tyranny of age. He loved her most of the time, but every now and then he felt like getting his own back and ejecting her on to the nearest rubbish heap. His relationship with her was not simple or clear-cut. It spread and merged into a complex web of relationships, indivisible from his memories of his mother and Qamr, his hostility toward death, his self-respect, his dependence on her which held him captive. What annoyed him most of all about her was her deep-seated assurance, her seemingly boundless confidence. And yet she was worn out by drink and sleepless nights, her cheeks aflame with makeup. Could he detect sly glances of envy in his direction?
50.
“I suppose you’ve heard the tale of Ashur al-Nagi?” he asked Abd al-Khaliq one day.
“Everyone knows it by heart.”
“I believe he’s still alive,” said Galal after a pause.
Abd al-Khaliq was shocked and didn’t know how to reply. He knew that Ashur was a saint for some, a crook for others, but they all accepted that he was dead.
“That he didn’t die,” persisted Galal.
“Ashur was a good man. Death doesn’t spare good men.”
“Does a person have to be evil to live forever?” protested Galal.
“We all have to die. A believer shouldn’t try and live forever.”
“Are you certain of that?”
“So they say. God knows,” said Abd al-Khaliq, taking fright.
“Why?”
“I think people can only live forever if they associate with jinns.”
“Tell me what you mean,” demanded Galal, ablaze with a sudden fierce interest.
“Associating with jinns means you become immortal, and damned forever. You sign an everlasting pact with the devil.”
“Do you think that’s drivel, or is there some truth in it?” asked Galal, his interest mounting.
Abd al-Khaliq hesitated. “It may be true,” he said eventually.
“Let’s hear more details.”
“Why? Are you really thinking of taking such a risk?”
Galal laughed edgily. “I just like to know everything.”
“It’s said that…Shawar…” began Abd al-Khaliq slowly.
“The mysterious sheikh who claims to read the future?” asked Galal.
“That’s what he does on the face of it. But he knows some terrible secrets.”
“It’s the first I’ve heard of it.”
“He’s scared of believers.”
“Do you think there’s anything in it?”
“I don’t know, but the whole business is cursed.”
“Immortality?”
“Mixing with jinns!”
“You’re scared of immortality!”
“That’s not surprising. Imagine if I survived long enough to witness the world I know ceasing to exist, all my friends and family gone, leaving me surrounded by strangers, permanently on the move, rejected. I’d go mad and long to be dead.”
“You’d preserve your youth forever!”
“You’d have children you had to avoid. With each generation you’d have to start all over again, lose a wife and children all over again. You’d be classified as a permanent alien, have no true links of any kind.”
“That’s enough!” cried Galal.
They laughed uproariously.
“But what a dream,” murmured Galal.
51.
Shawar lived in a large basement directly opposite the animals’ drinking trough. It had several rooms, including one reserved for women and another for men. He himself was a mysterious character whom no one had ever seen. He received his clients in a dark room at night. They heard his voice, but saw no sign of him. Most of them were women, but a few may have been men driven to consult him on the advice of knowledgeable women. After the consultation the client was expected to leave an offering with an Ethiopian maid called Hawa.
Galal sent for the sheikh, but was told he lost his magic powers if he left his room, so he had to make his way there under cover of darkness, late enough to ensure that he was the only customer.
Hawa showed him into the room, sat him down on a soft cushion, and vanished. He was in pitch-darkness. He peered around him but could see nothing. It was as if he had lost all sense of time and space. He had been warned to keep quiet, not to initiate conversation and answer all questions briefly and to the point. The time dragged by oppressively. They seemed to have forgotten all about him. It was ridiculous. He had not been slighted in this way since he had become chief. What had happened to Galal the giant? Could he really be this resigned creature, patiently waiting? It would be the worse for mankind and the spirit world if this escapade came to nothing.
52.
“What’s your name?” asked a calm, sonorous voice from the darkness.
Galal gave a sigh of relief. “Galal, the clan chief,” he answered.
“Answer the question,” repeated the voice.
He stuck his chest out. “Galal Abd Rabbihi al-Nagi.”
“Answer the question.”
“Galal,” he said dryly.
“And your mother’s name?”
His anger flared dangerously. Lurid demons danced in the darkness.
“Your mother’s name?” asked the voice, mechanical yet threatening.
He swallowed, suppressing his rage. “Zahira.”
“What do you want?”
He hesitated, but the voice did not allow him this respite. “What do you want?”
“To know about associating with jinns.”
“What do you want?”
“I’ve just told you.”
“What do you want?”
Anger seized him. “Don’t you know who I am?” he said menacingly.
“Galal, son of Zahira.”
“I could flatten you with a single blow.”
“I think not.” This was said with absolute confidence.
“Shall we try?” shouted Galal.
“What do you want?” asked the voice, cold and indifferent.
“Immortality,” answered Galal, surrendering on all fronts.
“Why?”
“That’s my business.”
“The believer does not challenge God’s will.”
“I’m a believer, and I want to be immortal.”
“It’s risky.”
“Too bad.”
“You’ll long to die and be unable to.”
“Too bad,” he said again, his heart pounding.
The voice fell silent. Had he gone away? Once again Galal lost all his bearings, and waited impatiently, his nerves on edge. He peered desperately around him, but could see nothing.
53.
After a period of agony, the voice returned. “Are you ready to do whatever is required of you?”
“Of course,” he replied with alacrity.
“Give my maid Hawa the largest building you own so that I can atone for my sin by providing her with a good source of income.”
“I agree,” he said after a brief pause.
“Build a minaret ten stories high.”
“On to the present mosque?”
“No.”
“A new mosque?”
“No. A freestanding minaret.”
“But…”
“No arguments.”
“I agree.”
“Spend a whole year in your private apartments seeing no one and being seen by no one except your manservant. Avoid all distractions.”
“I agree,” he said, feeling his heart contract.
“On the last day of your seclusion your pact with the Evil One will be sealed and you will never know death.”
54.
Galal made his largest building over to the Ethiopian maid, Hawa. He hired a contractor to erect a giant minaret on a piece of waste ground. The man agreed to this strange commission out of a mixture of greed and fear. Galal put Mu’nis al-Al in charge of his men, leaving him numerous instructions, and announced that he was withdrawing from public life for a year to fulfill a holy vow. He entrenched himself in his rooms, recording each passing day as Samaha had done in exile, and stayed away from the calabash, the narghile, and Zaynat the Blonde in the firm hope that he would triumph in the greatest struggle known to man.
55.
His decision hit Zaynat the Blonde like a death blow. A painful severance, with no preliminaries, no satisfactory reason given for it. It evoked bitterness, fear, desperation. Hadn’t they been like butter and honey, blending sweetly? She had been sure he was hers forever, and now he was shutting the door in her face like the dervishes in the monastery, leaving those who loved him hurt and confused. She wept inconsolably when the servants prevented her entering his room. She went to visit Radi, but found him equally perplexed. She sat with Abd Rabbihi in his room. The old man had changed. These days he seldom visited the bar and had become proper and modest. He too was troubled about his son.
“I’m not allowed to see him, even though we’re living under the same roof,” he said.
Zaynat lived a tormented existence. She was not short of money but had lost her lord and master. Her self-confidence was shaken, and the future loomed threatening and mysterious.
56.
The clan was thrown into disarray. No one was content with Mu’nis al-Al, but they were obliged to obey him. They wondered what vow Galal had made, why he had handed over the leadership of the clan, and entrusted his business and property to his brother.
The dangerous news leaked out to rival chiefs. As time passed, they announced the resumption of hostilities. Mu’nis al-Al suffered his first defeat at the hands of the men of the Atuf clan, followed closely by the gangs from Kafr al-Zaghari, Husayniyya, and other neighborhoods. Eventually he was forced to pay out protection money to safeguard the alley’s peace and security. The men wanted to tell Galal of the disastrous turn of events, but they were prevented as surely as if death had snatched him from them and buried him in a sealed tomb.
57.
The people watched the strange minaret going up in astonishment. It rose higher and higher toward infinity, straight from its firm foundations in the ground. There was no mosque beneath it. No one knew its function or purpose. Even the man responsible for building it knew nothing about it.
“Has he gone mad?” people asked one another.
The harafish said a curse had fallen on him for betraying his great ancestor’s covenant and ignoring his true people in pursuit of his insatiable greed.
58.
As time went by, he sank deeper into isolation. Gradually he pulled up the roots attaching him to the outside world—his power in the clan, money, his beautiful lover—and abandoned himself to silence, to patience, to his conscience. He was worn out by the hope of being the first human being to achieve the impossible dream. Every day he stared time in the face, alone with no diversions, no drugs or alcohol. He confronted its inertia, its torpor, its solid weight. An obstinate, unyielding, impenetrable mass, where he floundered like someone in a nightmare. A thick wall, oppressive and gloomy. Time was unendurable without the aid of work or companionship. As if we only work, make friends, fall in love, seek amusement to escape from it. Seeing time pass too quickly is less painful than seeing it grind to a halt. When he achieved immortality, he would try everything, unhindered by fear or laziness. He would rush into battle without stopping to think. Scorn reason as much as folly. One day he would be at the forefront of the human race. Now he crawled over the seconds and begged for mercy, palms outstretched. He wondered when the devil would come, how he would form a bond with him. Would he see him in the flesh, hear his voice, or be joined with him like the air he breathed? He was exhausted, bored. But he would not succumb to weakness. He was not going to fail. It didn’t matter if he suffered, or gave in to tears. He believed in what he was doing. He could not turn back. Eternity did not scare him. He would never know death. The rest of the world would be subject to the changing seasons, but for him it would be eternal spring. He would be the vanguard of a new form of existence, the one to discover life without death, the first to reject eternal repose. A secret power made manifest. Only the weak are afraid to live. However, living face-to-face with time is an unimaginable torment.
59.
On the last day of the appointed year, Galal stood naked in front of an open window. The sun’s rays, cleansed in the moist air of winter, struck him full in the face, and the cool wind played gently over his body. The time had come for him to reap the fruits of his patience. The weary, lonely night was over. Galal Abd Rabbihi was no longer an ephemeral creature. A new spirit breathed in him, intoxicating him, inspiring him with strength and confidence. He would talk to himself and to others too, and listen to the voice of his conscience with no misgivings. He had triumphed over time by holding out against it, unaided. He was no longer afraid of it. It could threaten others with its ominous passing. He would never be afflicted with wrinkles, gray hair, or impotence. His soul would not betray him. No coffin would ever carry him, no tomb shelter him. This firm body would never disintegrate and become dust. He would never know the grief of parting.