It was nearly midnight. Gabalawi Alley was sunk in shadows except for the faint light trickling out of the coffeehouse doors, all but closed to keep out the cold. The winter night was starless, youths were confined in their rooms, and even the dogs and cats had sought shelter in the courtyards. In the overpowering silence the monotonous rebec melodies could be heard telling their stories, but the Hamdan district was swathed in mute blackness. Two shapes moved in from the direction of the desert and kept close by the mansion walls, then passed in front of Effendi’s house, traversing the Hamdan district until they stopped before the middle building. One of them knocked at the door, and the knock echoed like a drumbeat in the silence. The door opened to show the face of Hamdan himself, pale in the light of the lamp in his hand. He raised the lamp to see his visitor’s face and hesitated briefly before crying out in surprise, “Gabal!”
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’m not afraid for myself,” said Hamdan in a pleading tone of excuse. “I’m afraid for all of you.”
“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.