When he had leisure time, he loved to sit on an old sofa and watch what was going on through the window that looked out on the alley. He sat with his forehead against the bars of the window, his eyes level with the surface of the alley, with its rush of feet, wheels, dogs, cats, insects and children. He never saw people’s torsos or faces unless he crouched and raised his head. A naked child stood in front of him, playing with a dead rat; an old blind man walked by, carrying in his left hand a wooden platter heaped with seeds, beans, sweets and drowsy flies, and a thick cane in his right; the sound of wailing came from another basement window; two men were fighting, and blood ran down their faces.
He smiled at the naked boy. “What’s your name?” he asked gently.
“Una.”
“Hassuna, you mean. Do you like your dead rat, Hassuna?”
He threw it at Arafa, and had it not been for the bars it would have hit him in the face. The boy ran away, and Arafa turned to Hanash, who was dozing at his feet.
“You see signs of the gangsters in every inch of this alley, but you don’t see a single sign of people like Gabal or Rifaa or Qassem.”
Hanash yawned. “We see people like Saadallah, Yusuf, Agag and Santuri, but all we hear about are Gabal and Rifaa and Qassem,” he said.
“But they did exist, right?”
Hanash pointed to the floor of the room. “This building is in Rifaa. Everyone who lives in it is of the Al Rifaa. They belong to Rifaa, and every night the poets remind us that he lived and died for love and happiness. And we have breakfast every morning listening to their screaming and fights. That’s how they are—men and women both.”
Arafa curled his lip, annoyed. “But they did exist, right?”
“And screaming is the least of what goes on in Rifaa. The battles—God help you from them. Only yesterday one of them lost an eye.”
“Strange alley!” said Arafa sharply. “Rest in peace, Mother. Look at us, for example. Everybody uses us, and no one respects us! They don’t respect anybody.” He set his teeth. “Except the gangsters.”
Hanash laughed. “It’s enough that you’re the only person in the alley that everyone does business with—from Gabal, Rifaa and Qassem.”
“God damn them all.” He was silent a few moments, his eyes bright in the dim light of the basement, then said, “Each of them is so stupidly, so blindly proud of its man—all proud of men of whom nothing is left but their names. And they never make any attempt to go one step beyond that false pride! Bastards. Cowards.”
His first customer was a woman of the Al Rifaa, who came in the first week after he had moved into his basement. “How can I get rid of a woman without anyone knowing?” she asked in a subdued voice.
He was alarmed, and looked at her in surprise. “I don’t do that, ma’am. If you want medicine for the body or spirit, I am at your service.”
“Aren’t you a magician?” she asked dubiously.
“In everything that does good for people. For killing, there are other people who do that.”
“Maybe you’re afraid. But we would be partners, with one secret.”
“That wasn’t Rifaa’s way,” he said with gentleness that contained a hint of mockery.
“Rifaa!” she exclaimed. “God have mercy on him. We live in an alley where mercy doesn’t do any good. If it was any good, Rifaa wouldn’t have been killed.”
She left him, in despair, but he was not sorry. Rifaa himself—the best man that ever was—had never found safety in this alley; how could he aspire to it if he began his work with a crime? And his mother! How she had suffered, she who had never harmed anyone. He had to have good relations with everyone, as befitted every decent businessman. He began to frequent all the coffeehouses, and in every one of them he found a customer he knew. He listened to the poets’ stories in every neighborhood until they all mingled in his head, and made it spin.
His first customer from the Al Qassem neighborhood was an elderly man, who smiled and whispered to him. “We heard about the gift you gave Agag, the protector of Rifaa.”
He smiled at the wrinkled face of the old man, who spoke again. “Give us what you have, and don’t be surprised. Believe me, I’m still alive!”
They both smiled at the secret, and the old man was encouraged.
“You’re one of the Al Qassem, aren’t you? That’s what the people in our neighborhood think.”
“Do they know who my father is?”
“The Al Qassem are known by their looks!” said the man earnestly. “You are one of us. We are the ones who raised this alley up to the peak of justice and happiness, but, what a pity, it’s an ill-omened alley.” Then he remembered why he had come. “The gift, please.” The old man departed, holding the box close to his weak eyes, with new hope, energy and spring in his feeble gait.
Arafa’s most recent visitor was an unexpected one. He was sitting on a cushion in the reception room, behind an incense burner exhaling delicate, bewitching smoke, when Hanash came in with an old Nubian man. “Yunis is the gatekeeper for his excellency the overseer,” he said.
Arafa immediately stood up and offered both his hands in welcome. “Welcome! Welcome! It’s like a visit from the Prophet! Have a seat, sir!”
They all sat down together, and the gatekeeper spoke with typical Nubian frankness. “Lady Nazira, the overseer’s wife, cannot sleep because of bad dreams.”
Arafa’s eyes showed clear interest, and hope and ambition made his heart beat faster, but he said simply, “That’s a temporary condition. It will go away.”
“But the lady is very disturbed. She sent me to you to find something that would help.”
Arafa felt a happiness and control he had never known in all the wandering life he had been used to with his late mother. “The best thing would be if I could talk to her myself.”
“Impossible!” said the gatekeeper sharply. “She will not come to you, and you must not go to her.”
Arafa repressed his despair in order to pursue this golden opportunity. “Then I need her handkerchief, or something else of hers.”
The gatekeeper bowed his turbaned head and got up to go. When they reached the basement door, the gatekeeper paused, then moved close to Arafa’s ear and whispered, “We have heard about your gift to Agag, the protector of Rifaa.”
When the gatekeeper had left with the gift, Arafa and Hanash laughed for a long time.
“Whom do you think he took the gift for?” Hanash asked. “For himself, or the overseer, or maybe the overseer’s wife?”
“An alley of gifts and clubs!” jeered Arafa. He moved to the window to look out on the alley at night. The opposite wall was silver in the moonlight, the crickets were chirping loudly and the voice of the local poet rose from the coffeehouse.
“And Adham asked, ‘When are you going to realize that you and I have nothing to say to one another?’ And Idris said, ‘Heaven forgive us, aren’t you my brother? That’s a bond that can never be broken.’ ‘Idris! You’ve done enough to me.’ ‘Sorrow stinks, but we’re both bereaved. You lost Humam and Qadri, and I lost Hind—now the great Gabalawi has a whore for a granddaughter and a murderer grandson.’ And Adham’s voice rose in a roar. ‘If the punishment you get isn’t as horrible as the things you’ve done, I hope the world drops into Hell!’ ”
Arafa turned wearily away from the window. When will our alley stop telling its tales? When will the world go to Hell? Once upon a time my mother used to say, “If the punishment does not fit the crime, let the world go to Hell!” My poor mother, who dwelled in the desert. But what good have the tales done you, poor alley?