“Let’s sit down and eat our food,” said Qadri, wiping his face on his shirttail.
Humam looked at the sinking sun and said, “Yes—it’s late.”
They sat cross-legged on the sand at the foot of Muqattam, and Humam untied the knot of the red-striped handkerchief and took out their bread, falafel and leeks. They began to eat, glancing up now and then at their sheep, some of which roamed while others ruminated peacefully. There was nothing in the twins’ features or physiques to help tell them apart, though the hunter’s look so striking in Qadri’s eyes lent his appearance a certain distinctive sharpness.
“If this desert were ours, and we didn’t have to share it,” said Qadri with his mouth full, “we could let the sheep graze all over the place and we wouldn’t have to worry.”
“But this desert is for shepherds from Atuf, Kafr al-Zaghari and al-Husseiniya, and we can avoid trouble by being friends with them.”
Qadri laughed mockingly, spraying bits of food from his mouth.
“In these dead-end neighborhoods, they have only one way of handling people who look for their friendship: they slap you around.”
“But—”
“No buts, Humam, there’s only one way. You grab a man by his shirt and hit him on the head and let him fall on his face. Or his back.”
“That’s why we have more enemies than we can count!”
“What, is someone paying you to count them?”
Humam was deep in thought, at a profound distance, whistling softly for a moment before reverting to wise silence. He selected a single leek, hefted it and stuffed it into his mouth with gusto, then smacked his lips.
“That’s why we’re alone and spend so much time not talking.”
“What do you need to talk for? You sing all the time anyway.”
Humam looked at him confidingly and said, “I get the impression that being alone depresses you sometimes.”
“I can always find something to be depressed about, being alone or whatever else.”
Silence fell, interrupted only by eating sounds. They saw from this distance a group coming down from the mountain toward Atuf, chanting. One called out and the rest sang responses.
“This part of the desert is part of our own area. If we were to head north or south, we probably would never make it back,” said Humam.
Qadri yelped with laughter. “You’d find people in the north and south both who’d love to kill me, but not one who’d dare fight me.”
Humam was gazing at the sheep. “I’m not saying you have courage, but don’t forget that we live thanks to our grandfather’s name and our uncle’s fearsome reputation, regardless of whatever feud we have with him.”
Qadri knit his eyebrows in disagreement, but did not speak his protest. He looked over at the mansion, which loomed even at a distance, far off to the west, like a colossal temple of obliterated features, and said, “That place! I’ve never seen anything like it. Surrounded on all sides by the desert, near streets and alleys known for their fights and nastiness, owned by the worst tyrant around, and that’s our grandfather, the one his grandchildren have never seen, even though they live under his nose!”
Humam looked toward the mansion and said, “Father talks about him with nothing but respect and admiration.”
“All Uncle Idris does is curse him!”
“Anyway, he’s our grandfather,” said Humam mildly.
“So what good is that, boy? Our father slaves behind his cart and our mother wears herself out all day and half the night, we go around with these sheep, barefoot and practically naked, while he sits up there behind his walls, heartless, enjoying an easy life we can’t even imagine.”
They finished eating. Humam shook out the handkerchief, folded it, thrust it into his pocket and threw himself on his back, his arms behind his head, to stare up at the crystalline sky that radiated invisible peace. The horizon was filled with flapping kites. Qadri got up and faced away to piss.
“Father says that he used to go out a lot in the past and pass them as he went out and came back, but today no one sees him, as if he’s afraid.”
“How I would love to see him,” said Humam dreamily.
“Don’t think you’d be seeing anything too incredible. You’d find that he looks like Father or Uncle Idris, or like both of them. I’m amazed how Father talks about him with nothing but respect after what he did to him.”
“Well, either he loves him very much or he accepted that the punishment was justified.”
“Or he still has hopes of a pardon!”
“You don’t understand our father. He’s a kind and friendly person.”
Qadri sat down again. “I don’t much like him, and I don’t like you. I swear, there is something wrong with our grandfather. He doesn’t deserve anyone’s respect—if he had one particle of decency in him, he wouldn’t have treated his own flesh and blood so insanely. I think of him the same way our uncle does—as one of the curses of the age.”
“Maybe the worst things about him,” Idris said, smiling, “are things you’re so proud of—I mean, strength and bravery.”
“He was given this land for nothing—he didn’t work for it, but he’s cruel and tyrannical.”
“Don’t deny what I came to admit not that long ago—the ruler himself couldn’t stand to live alone in this wasteland.”
“Do you really think that story they tell us justifies his being so mad at the world?”
“You find lesser reasons to push people around!”
Qadri took a drink from the jug until he was full, then burped. “And what sin have his grandchildren committed? Does he know anything about shepherding, the bastard? I wish I knew what he’s leaving us in his will!”
Humam sighed. “A fortune,” he said dreamily, “that will spare us hardship. We’ll be free to do what we want, and spend our lives having fun and singing.”
“You sound like Father—we work in the dirt and the mud and dream of playing the flute in the shade of the garden. You want the truth? I like Uncle Idris better than our father.”
Humam sat up and yawned, then stood and stretched. “Anyway, we amount to something. We have a home that’s big enough for us, and a living that feeds us, and goats to tend—we sell their milk, and fatten them up to sell them too, and Mother makes us clothes from their wool.”
“What about the flute and the garden?”
Humam did not answer. He picked up the staff laid at his feet and headed off in the direction of the sheep.
Qadri stood up and shouted mockingly at the mansion, “Is it all right with you that we’re your heirs, or will you punish us in your death as you did in life? Answer, Gabalawi!”
“Answer, Gabalawi!” rang the echo.