“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 speak but the other man spoke first.
“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.
“Dates, cheese, halva and hot falafel,” said Gabal.
Balqiti smiled and pointed first at the pipe, then at the package, saying, “The best nights come from this and that.” He clapped Gabal warmly on the shoulder. “Isn’t that right, estate boy?”
Gabal’s heart contracted in spite of himself. His imagination was overcome by images of the lady who had taken him in, the garden—its music, jasmine arbors, birds and rushing streams—the security, peace and tender dreams of that lost world of grace, until life almost seemed rotten. Then a wave swept away his despairing memories and he felt secure, thinking of this friendly, sweet girl, of the magic power that had drawn him to a house with a den of snakes. He said with an enthusiasm that surprised him, like the flicker of a lantern blown by a gust of wind, “What a nice life you have here.”