Rifaa knocked at the door of Gawad the poet, at the third house in the Al Gabal neighborhood. Screams of abuse rose from the courtyard, from women who had gathered there to wash clothes and cook. He looked from over the railing of the circular passage that surrounded the courtyard of the house from above. The main fight was between two women, one of whom stood behind a wash bucket, waving her soap-lathered arms, while the other stood at the opening of the passage, sleeves rolled up, answering the obscenities with even more shocking words and jutting out her pelvis contemptuously. The other women had separated into two groups, and their shrieks clashed until the courtyard walls echoed with their hateful curses and filthy libels. He started at what he saw and heard, and turned toward the poet’s door, shocked. Even women, even cats, let alone the gangsters. Claws on every hand and poison on every tongue, fear and hatred in every heart. Pure air was only for the Muqattam Desert or the mansion, where Gabalawi alone was blessed with peace! The door opened on the blind man’s questioning face. Rifaa greeted him and the man’s features broke into a smile as he made room for him to enter.
“Welcome, my boy.”
As soon as Rifaa entered he was met with the strong smell of incense—it was like the breath of an angel. He followed the man to a small square room with cushions around the walls and embroidered reed mats spread over the floor. Through the slats of the closed shutters the afternoon air was as tawny as honey. The ceiling around the suspended light was decorated with pictures of birds, especially doves. The poet sat down cross-legged on a cushion, and Rifaa sat beside him.
“We were making coffee,” the man said.
He called his wife, and a woman with a tray of coffee appeared.
“Come, Umm Bekhatirha, this is Rifaa, the son of our friend Shafi’i.”
“Welcome, my boy,” she said. She was in the middle of her sixth decade, erect and strong, with a piercing gaze and a tattoo above her chin.
Gawad motioned toward their guest. “He listens to everything, Umm Bekhatirha. He’s crazy about stories. People like him really excite poets and please them. The others fall asleep from smoking hashish!”
“To him the stories are new, but they’ve heard them before,” she said playfully.
“That’s one of your demons talking,” said the poet crossly. He turned to Rifaa. “This woman is a very fine exorcist.”
Rifaa watched her eagerly and their eyes met as she offered him a cup of coffee. How he had loved the ceremonies expelling demons in Muqattam Marketplace. His heart had followed them with delight; he would stand in the street with his head raised to the windows, and try to see the incense gliding through the air and the dancers’ rocking heads.
“Didn’t you learn anything about our alley when you lived abroad?” the poet asked.
“My father told me about it, and so did my mother, but my heart was there, and I didn’t really think about the estate and its problems. I was amazed at how many victims it had claimed—I tended to have my mother’s view, to prefer love and peace.”
Gawad shook his head sadly. “How can love and peace live among poverty and gangsters’ clubs!”
Rifaa did not reply; not because there was no answer, but because for the first time his eyes lit upon a strange picture on the right-hand wall of the room. It was painted in oils on the wall itself, like the pictures that ornamented the coffeehouse walls. It depicted a tremendous man, and beside him the houses of the alley, tiny as children’s toys.
“Who is that in the picture?” the boy asked.
“Gabalawi,” said Umm Bekhatirha.
“Has anyone seen him?”
“No, no one of our generation has seen him,” said Gawad. “Even Gabal could not see him clearly in the desert darkness, but the painter drew him from the descriptions of him in the stories.”
“Why did he shut his doors against his descendants?” Rifaa asked with a sigh.
“Old age, they say. Who knows what time has done to him? By God, if he opened his gates, no one in this alley would stay in his squalid house.”
“Can’t you—”
“Don’t trouble yourself about him,” Umm Bekhatirha interrupted. “When the people of our alley start talking about the estate owner, they get to talking about the estate itself, and that leads to every kind of tragedy.”
He shook his head, at a loss. “How can anyone not trouble himself with such a fabulous ancestor?”
“Let’s do as he does—he doesn’t trouble himself with us.”
Rifaa raised his eyes to the picture. “But he met Gabal, and spoke to him.”
“Yes, and when Gabal died, Zanfil came, and then Khunfis, and…heavens! Nothing has ever changed.”
Gawad laughed. “This alley needs someone to rid it of its devils just as you rid people of their demons.”
“Those people are the real demons, ma’am,” said Rifaa smiling. “If you had seen the way Khunfis welcomed my father!”
“I have nothing to do with them. My demons give in to me the way snakes obeyed Gabal. I have all the Sudanese incense and Ethiopian amulets and power-giving chants.”
“Where did you get your power over demons?” asked Rifaa earnestly.
She held him in a wary gaze and said, “It is my profession, just as your father’s profession is carpentry. It came to me from the Giver of all talents!”
Rifaa finished the last drop of his coffee and was about to say something when Shafi’i’s voice rose in a shout from the alley. “Rifaa! Boy! Lazy boy!”
Rifaa went to the window, opened it and looked out until his eyes met his father’s. “Just a half hour more, Father!”
The man heaved his shoulders in what looked like despair and went back to his shop. As Rifaa closed the window, he saw Aisha standing in her usual pose by her window, just as he had first seen her, gazing intently at him. He imagined that she smiled at him, that her eyes spoke to him. He hesitated a moment, then closed the window and sat down again.
Gawad was laughing. “Your father wants you to be a carpenter, but what do you want?”
Rifaa thought about it. “I have to be a carpenter like my father, but I love stories, and these secrets about demons—tell me more, ma’am!”
The woman smiled and seemed inclined to grant him a little of her knowledge. “Every person has a demon which is his master, but not every demon is evil or has to be exorcised.”
“How can we tell one from another?”
“His deeds tell us. You, for example, are a good boy, and your demon deserves only goodness—but this is not the case with the demons in Bayoumi and Khunfis and Batikha!”
“What about Yasmina’s demon, does it need to be exorcised?” he asked innocently.
“Your neighbor?” Umm Bekhatirha laughed. “But the men of Al Gabal want her as she is.”
“I want to know these things,” he said, intensely serious. “Don’t hold anything back.”
“Who could deny anything to this good boy?” said Gawad.
“It would be nice if you visited me as your time allows,” said Umm Bekhatirha, “but only on condition that it doesn’t anger your father. People will ask what this good boy wants with demons; but know that the only illness men have is demons.”
Rifaa listened and gazed at the picture of Gabalawi.