None of his four companions appeared in Gabalawi Alley again. People thought they had left the alley secretly, after Rifaa, out of fear of the gangsters’ retribution. But the friends lived at the edge of the desert in a state of frayed nerves, wrestling with all their might against the oppression of their pain and sharp regret. Rifaa’s passing pained their hearts more than death, and being deprived of his company was a lethal torment; none of them had any further hope in life than to mourn Rifaa’s death properly by keeping his message alive and seeing to the punishment of his killers, as Ali insisted they must. While it was true that they could not return to the alley, they hoped to accomplish what they wished outside it. One morning the House of Triumph awoke to Abda’s cries, and the neighbors hurried to her to hear the news.
“They killed my son Rifaa,” she shouted hoarsely.
The neighbors were shocked into silence, and looked to Shafi’i, who was drying his eyes.
“The gangsters killed him in the desert,” he said.
“My son, who never hurt anyone in the world,” wept Abda.
“Does our protector Khunfis know about this?” some of them asked.
“Khunfis was one of the killers,” said Shafi’i angrily.
“Yasmina betrayed him—she led Bayoumi to him,” wept Abda.
Horror was plain in their faces.
“So that’s why she’s been staying in his house after his wife left,” someone said.
The news spread through the Al Gabal neighborhood, and Khunfis came to Shafi’i’s house.
“Are you crazy?” he shouted. “What have you been saying about me?”
Shafi’i stood before him unafraid, and said sternly, “That you took part in killing him, when you were his protector!”
Khunfis pretended to be angry. “Shafi’i, you are crazy!” he shouted. “You don’t know what you’re saying. I won’t stay here, so I won’t be forced to punish you!”
He left the house frothing at the mouth. The news spread to Rifaa’s neighborhood, where he had lived after leaving the Al Gabal’s. The people were shocked, and raised their voices, raging and weeping, but the gangsters went out into the alley and patrolled it up and down, clubs in their hands and trouble blazing in their eyes. Then the news spread that sands west of Hind’s Rock had been found blotched with Rifaa’s blood. Shafi’i and his best friends went to look for the corpse there. They searched and excavated but found nothing. The people were frenzied and anxious at the news, and many of them expected trouble in the alley. The people of Rifaa’s neighborhood wondered what he could have done to have been killed. The Al Gabal said, Rifaa was killed, and Yasmina is living in Bayoumi’s house. The gangsters infiltrated by night the place of Rifaa’s murder and dug up his grave by torchlight, but they found no trace of the corpse.
“Did Shafi’i take it?” Bayoumi asked.
“No,” said Khunfis. “My spies have told me he found nothing.”
“It’s his friends,” shouted Bayoumi, stamping his foot. “It was a mistake to let them escape. Now they’re fighting us behind our backs.”
When they returned, Khunfis leaned close to Bayoumi’s ear and whispered, “Your keeping Yasmina is giving us problems.”
“Admit that you’re a weak leader in your territory,” said Bayoumi, exasperated.
Khunfis bid him an exasperated farewell. The tension had mounted in the Al Gabal and Rifaa neighborhoods, and the gangsters continued to attack any complainers. The alley was so thoroughly terrorized that its people hated going out unless it was unavoidable. One night—when Bayoumi was in Shaldum’s coffeehouse—some of his wife’s relatives sneaked into his house with the intention of attacking Yasmina, but she became aware of them and fled in her nightgown into the desert. They chased her, and she ran like a crazed thing through the darkness even after her pursuers had given up the chase, and kept running until she could scarcely breathe, and had to stop. She panted violently, threw her head back and closed her eyes, until she had regained her breath, then looked behind her and, though she saw nothing, shied at the idea of going back to the alley by night. She looked ahead and saw a faint, faraway light that might be from a hut, and made for it, hoping to find there a place to stay until morning. It took her a long time to get there, but it did seem like a hut, so she went up to the door and called out to the people inside. Suddenly she found herself facing her husband’s most intimate friends: Ali, Zaki, Hussein and Karim.