Yasmina was looking from the window enjoying the new view. Boys were playing in front of the house and doum-fruit peddlers were crying their wares, while Batikha grabbed a man by the collar and began to slap him across the face. The man pleaded with him, but in vain.
Rifaa was sitting on the sofa clipping his toenails. “Do you like our new house?” he asked her.
“We have the alley below us here,” she said, turning to him. “There, we had only that dark passage to look out on.”
“I wish we still had that passage,” said Rifaa sadly. “It was a blessed passage. That was where Gabal triumphed over his enemies, but there was no way I could go on living among people who made fun of everything we did. Here, the poor are good people, and being a good person is much more important than being one of the Al Gabal.”
“And I have hated them since they decided to banish me,” said Yasmina disdainfully.
Rifaa smiled. “So why do you tell the neighbors that you’re of the Al Gabal?”
She laughed, revealing her pearly teeth, and boasted, “So they’ll know I’m better than they are.”
He laid his scissors on the sofa and put his feet down on the reed mat.
“You would be a better and more beautiful person if you got over your snobbery. The Al Gabal are not the best people in our alley. The best people are the kindest ones. I used to be wrong like you, and only cared about the Al Gabal, but only people who try sincerely to find happiness deserve it. Look at how these good people come to me and are cleansed of demons!”
“But you’re the only one here who works for free!”
“If it weren’t for me, the poor would have no one to heal them. They can be healed, but they can’t afford it. I never had friends until I came to know them.”
She decided not to quarrel, but looked angry.
“Oh, if you would only trust me the way they do! Then I could rid you of what spoils your pleasure in life.”
“Do you find me that unpleasant?”
“Only a person who loves her demon without even knowing it.”
“What a terrible thing to say to me!”
“You are one of the Al Gabal.” He smiled. “All of them refused to submit to my remedy, even my own father.”
There was a knock at the door; a new customer had arrived, and Rifaa prepared to receive him.
The truth is that these were the happiest days of Rifaa’s life. Everyone in this new neighborhood called him “sir,” and they said it sincerely and lovingly. They knew that he expelled demons and gave health and happiness for free, only to please God. No one before him had ever acted so nobly, which was why the poor people loved him as they had never loved anyone before. Of course, the protector of the new neighborhood, Batikha, did not love him, both because of his kind ways and because he could not pay any protection money, but at the same time he had no pretext for attacking him. Everyone he healed had a story to tell. Umm Daoud, who in a nervous fit had bitten her small child, was today a model of serenity and mental health. Sinara, who had no hobby but quarreling and picking fights, was now gentle and mild-mannered, the embodiment of peace. Tulba the pickpocket had sincerely repented and became the coppersmith’s apprentice. Uwais, of all people, got married. Rifaa chose four of those he had treated, Zaki, Hussein, Ali and Karim, as friends, and they became like brothers. None of them had known friendship or love before they knew him. Zaki had been dissolute, Hussein a hopeless opium addict, Ali a gangster and Karim a pimp, but they became good-hearted men. They would meet at Hind’s Rock, amid the desert and the pure air, to exchange tales of fellowship and happiness and to gaze at their physician through eyes brimming with love and loyalty. They all dreamt of a happiness that might fold the alley in its white wings.
One day Rifaa asked them a question as they sat watching the red glow of the quiet dusk. “Why are we happy?”
“You,” said Hussein impetuously. “You are the secret of our happiness.”
“Rather because we have been cleansed of our demons,” said Rifaa with a grateful smile. “We have been freed of the hatred, ambition, hostility and other evils that are destroying the people of our alley.”
“Happy even though we are poor and weak, and we have no part of the estate, and no muscle,” Ali said.
Rifaa shook his head sadly. “How much people have suffered because of the lost estate and blind power. Curse, with me, power and that property!”
They cursed them all at once, and Ali picked up a stone and threw it with all his strength toward the mountain.
“Ever since the poets told how Gabalawi had Gabal make the houses of his people to be like the mansion in its beauty and majesty, people have coveted Gabalawi’s power and glory. It made them forget his other attributes, so that Gabal was unable to change their hearts by obtaining their right to the estate. When he left this world, the strong took over, the weak became bitter and everyone suffered. While I open the gates of happiness without any estate, power or rank.”
Karim embraced Rifaa and kissed him.
“And tomorrow, when the strong sense the happiness of the weak, they will know that their power, glory and usurped wealth are worthless.”
There were words of agreement and love from his friends. The breeze carried a shepherd’s song to them from deep within the desert.
A single star shone in the sky. Rifaa looked into his friends’ faces. “But I cannot care for the people of our alley all alone. The time has come for you to do it for yourselves, for you to learn the mysteries of saving the sick from demons.”
The delight was plain in their faces.
“That was our greatest hope,” cried Zaki.
“You will be the keys to the happiness of our alley,” Rifaa said, smiling.
When they went back to their neighborhood they found it glittering with lights for a wedding in one of the houses. The crowds saw Rifaa and welcomed him with handclapping.
Batikha, enraged, left his seat in the coffeehouse, cursing and swearing, slapping people at random, then went to Rifaa and spoke crudely. “Who do you think you are, boy?”
“A friend of the poor, sir.”
“Then get out of here, and walk like the poor, not like a bridegroom leading a parade. Have you forgotten that you’re an outcast, and Yasmina’s husband, and just a stupid exorcist?”
He spat angrily, and the people dispersed amid a mood of anxiety, but the sound of joyful trilling from the wedding drowned everything else out.