He sat in the bed, his back propped up against a pillow, pulling the blanket up over his chest, a thoughtful look in his eyes. Qamar was sitting cross-legged by his feet, holding Ihsan at her breast. The baby was moving her hands constantly, and making soft, strange, undecipherable sounds. A thread of smoke rose from the incense burner in the middle of the room, twisted, then broke and diffused its fragrance, as if confiding a delicious secret. The man stretched his hand out to the bedside table for the glass of caraway drink, sipped at it slowly and replaced it, empty except for the dregs. The woman whispered sweetly to the baby and cuddled her, but the uneasy glances she stole at her husband showed that her baby talk and dandling were only a mask for her feelings.
“How are you now?” she finally asked.
He turned his head instinctively toward the closed door of the room, then toward her. “It’s not sickness,” he told her calmly.
“I’m glad to hear that,” she said, confusion in her eyes. “But tell me what in God’s name is wrong with you!”
“I don’t know!” he said, after hesitating a few moments. “No, that isn’t what I should say. I know everything, but—the truth is, I’m afraid that our days of peace are over.”
Suddenly Ihsan began to cry, and Qamar quickly gave her her breast and looked at him with a searching and anxious gaze. “Why?”
He sighed and pointed to his chest. “I have a big secret here, too big for me to keep alone.”
“Tell me about it, Qassem!” she lamented, even more worried.
He shifted a little as he sat, his eyes serious and purposeful. “I’ll tell it, for the first time. You’re the first person to hear it, but you have to believe me. I’m only telling the truth. Last night something really strange happened there, by Hind’s Rock, while I was alone in the night and the desert.”
He swallowed hard, and she encouraged him with a loving look.
“I was sitting and watching the crescent moon go down, which was covered up by the clouds pretty quickly, and then it was so dark that I was thinking of getting up, when all of a sudden I heard a voice nearby: ‘Good evening, Qassem.’ I was shaking from the surprise, because there hadn’t been any sound or movement before that. I looked up and saw the figure of a man standing one step away from where I was sitting, but his face couldn’t be seen. I could make out his white turban, and the cloak he was wrapped up in. I hid my exasperation, and told him, ‘Good evening! Who are you?’ He answered me—who do you think he said he was?”
Qamar shook her head apprehensively and said, “Go on—I can’t wait.”
“He said, ‘I am Qandil.’ I was amazed, and I told him, ‘Forgive me, I—’ But he interrupted me, and said, ‘I am Qandil, servant of Gabalawi’!”
“What did he say?” the woman cried.
“He said, ‘I am Qandil, servant of Gabalawi.’ ”
The mother’s sudden movement pulled her breast away from the baby’s mouth, and her face contracted, about to cry, but the woman readjusted herself and said, her face pale, “Qandil, the servant of Gabalawi? No one knows anything about his servants. His excellency the overseer prepares all the things the mansion needs, his servants bring them to the mansion, and Gabalawi’s servants take them in the garden.”
“Yes, that’s what people in our alley say, but this is what he told me.”
“Did you believe him?”
“I stood up as fast as I could, partially to be polite, and partially to be ready to defend myself if I had to. I asked him how I was supposed to know he was telling the truth, and he told me, very calmly, very sure of himself, ‘Follow me, if you want, so that you can see me go into the mansion.’ So I was reassured, and said to myself that I’d believe him so that he’d explain himself. I didn’t hide the fact that I was very happy to meet him. I asked him about our ancestor, how he was doing and what he did.”
“You two talked about all that?” Qamar interrupted, stunned.
“Yes, I swear to God, but listen! He said that our ancestor was fine, but he didn’t say anything more. So I asked him if he knew what was happening in our alley. He said that Gabalawi knew everything—that the dweller in the mansion watches every small thing that goes on in our alley, and that was why he had sent him to me!”
“To you!”
Qassem frowned restlessly. “That’s what he said. I let something slip out that showed how surprised I was, but he didn’t pay any attention. He said, ‘Maybe he chose you because you showed wisdom the day of the robbery and because of your honesty in your house. He wants to inform you that all the people of the alley are equally his grandchildren, that the estate is their inheritance on an equal basis and that gangsterism is an evil that must be eliminated. And that the alley must be an extension of the mansion.’ Then there was silence, as I had lost the power of speech. I looked up, and my eye caught the highest clouds as they pulled apart and showed the crescent moon. I asked him politely, ‘Why is he telling me that?’ And he answered, ‘So that you can do it yourself.’ ”
“You!” gasped Qamar.
“That’s what he said,” Qassem went on, his voice trembling. “I was going to ask him to explain, but he saluted me and went away, and I did follow him, until it seemed to me that I saw him go up to the highest wall of the mansion, facing the desert, on a very high ladder, or something like that. I just stood there—I was amazed. Then I went back to where I had been before. I wanted to go to Yahya’s, but I blacked out, and only came to in his hut.”
Silence again descended upon the room. Her dazed eyes never left his face. Sleep slowly closed Ihsan’s eyes as she suckled, and her head drooped against her mother’s forearm, so Qamar laid her gently on the bed and resumed watching her husband with anxious eyes and a pale face. Sawaris’ coarse voice rose from the alley cursing a man, along with the man’s shouts and groans as he was being slapped and beaten; then Sawaris’ voice again, raised in warnings and threats as he walked away, and the man’s cry of rage and despair: “Gabalawi!” Qassem asked his soul, burdened with his wife’s looks, What do you think of me? The woman said to herself, He is telling the truth, he has never lied to me; why would he make up such a story? He is trustworthy. He is not interested in my money, though he could have got it safely. So why would he want the estate’s money, which would be so dangerous to try to get! Were their days of peace really over?
“I’m the first person you’ve divulged the secret to?”
He nodded.
“Qassem, our life is one life. I don’t care about myself as much as I care about you. Your secret is dangerous, and you know what its consequences are. But think, really try to remember, and tell me, was it real, what you saw, or perhaps a dream?”
“It was real and true. It was not a dream,” he said determinedly, and a little resentfully.
“They found you unconscious?”
“That was after the meeting!”
“Maybe you were confused,” she said tenderly.
He sighed, more pained than he had ever been, and said, “I didn’t confuse anything. The meeting was as clear as a sunny day!”
“How do we know,” she said, after hesitating somewhat, “that he was really Gabalawi’s servant and his messenger to you? It might have been any drunk or drug addict from the alley—there are so many of them!”
“I saw him go up to the mansion wall,” said Qassem stubbornly.
“In our whole alley, there’s no ladder tall enough to go halfway up that wall!” She sighed.
“But I saw him!”
She was like a mouse in a trap, but she did not give up. “It’s only that I’m afraid for you. You know what I mean. I’m afraid for our house and our daughter and our happiness. I have to ask myself: Why did he come to you in particular? Why doesn’t he carry out his will himself, when the estate is his, and he’s lord over everybody?”
“Why did he go to Gabal or Rifaa?” he asked in turn.
Her eyes widened, and the corner of her mouth contracted, like that of a child about to cry. She looked away, frightened.
“You don’t believe me,” he said. “I’m not asking you to believe me.”
She burst into tears, and abandoned herself to her sobs as if to escape from her thoughts. Qassem leaned toward her, reached his hand out to hers and pulled it toward him. “Why are you crying?”
She looked at him through her tears, gulping and sobbing. “Because I believe you. Yes, I believe you, and I’m afraid our days of peace are over!” Then in a soft, pitying voice: “What are you going to do?”