Midaq Alley

28

Uncle Kamil was sitting in his chair on the threshold of his shop, lost in a dream, his head resting on his chest. The fly whisk lay in his lap. He was awakened by a tickling sensation on his bald head, and he lifted his hand to brush off what he thought was a fly. His fingers touched a human hand. Angrily he seized it and groaned audibly, lifting his head to seek the prankster who had wakened him from his pleasant slumber. His gaze fell upon Abbas, the barber, and he could scarcely believe his eyes. He stared in blind confusion. Then his bloated red face beamed in delight and he made as if to get up.

His young friend protested at this gesture and hugged him tightly, shouting emotionally, "How are you, Uncle Kamil?"

"How are you, Abbas?" the man replied in delight. "Welcome indeed. You made me very lonely by going away, you bastard!"

Abbas stood before him smiling while Uncle Kamil gazed at him tenderly. He was dressed in a smart white shirt and gray trousers. His head was bare and his curly hair gave him a decidedly appealing look. All in all, he seemed extremely fit.

Uncle Kamil looked him up and down admiringly and said in his high-pitched voice, "My, my! Oh, Johnny, you do look good!"

Abbas, obviously in the best of spirits, laughed heartily and replied in English, "Thank you… From today on Sheikh Darwish is not the only one who can chatter away in English!"

The young man's eyes roved up and down his beloved alley and rested on his old shop. He could see its new owner shaving a customer and he stared longingly in greeting. Then his gaze lifted to the window. He found it closed just as it was when he had arrived. Abbas wondered whether she was home or not, and what she would do if she opened the shutter and saw him there. She would stare at him in delighted surprise while his eyes feasted on her dazzling beauty. This was going to be the happiest day of his life…

His attention was once again drawn to Uncle Kamil's voice asking, "Have you quit your job?"

"Oh no. I've just taken a short holiday."

"Have you heard what happened to your friend Hussain Kirsha? He left his father and got married. Then they fired him and he came back home, dragging his wife and her brother along behind him."

Abbas looked sad. "What rotten luck! They're firing a lot of people these days. How did Mr. Kirsha welcome him home?"

"Oh, he's never stopped complaining. Anyway, the young man and his family are still in the house."

He sat quietly for perhaps half a minute and then, as though he had just remembered something important, said, "Have you heard that Dr. Booshy and Zaita are in prison?"

Then he related how they had been captured in the Taliby sepulcher and been convicted of stealing a set of gold teeth. This news staggered Abbas. He would not have put it past Zaita to commit the most dreadful evil, but he was amazed that Dr. Booshy was a participant in this ghoulish crime. He recalled how Dr. Booshy had wanted to fit him with gold teeth when he returned from Tell el-Kebir. He shuddered in disgust.

Uncle Kamil continued: "Mrs. Saniya Afify has got married…" He almost added, "Let's hope you do the same." But he stopped suddenly, recalling Hamida. In days to come he was often amazed at his frequent lapses of memory.

However, Abbas noticed no change in Uncle Kamil, as he was quite lost in his dreams. He stepped back a couple of paces and said, "Well then, goodbye for now."

His friend was afraid the news might shock him terribly if it came too suddenly, and he asked hurriedly, "Where are you going?"

"To the cafe to see my friends," replied Abbas, moving along.

Uncle Kamil rose with some difficulty and shuffled off after his friend.

It was late in the afternoon, and Kirsha and Sheikh Darwish were the only ones in the cafe. Abbas greeted Kirsha, who welcomed him, and he shook hands with Sheikh Darwish. The old man stared at him smilingly from behind his spectacles but did not speak.

Uncle Kamil stood to one side, gloomily obsessed with thoughts about how he could broach the painful news. At last he spoke: "How about coming back with me to the shop for a while?"

Abbas hesitated between accompanying his friend and making the visit he had dreamed of these past few months. However, he wanted to please Uncle Kamil and he saw no harm in staying with him. He accompanied him, hiding his impatience with small talk.

They sat down and Abbas talked cheerfully. "You know, life in Tell el-Kebir is perfect. There's plenty of work and plenty of money. I haven't been flinging my money about either. I've been quite content to live as I always have. Why, I've only smoked hashish occasionally, even though out there it's as common as air and water. By the way, Uncle Kamil, I even bought this; look at it."

He drew a small box from his trouser pocket and opened it. Inside was a gold necklace with a small dangling heart.

"It's Hamida's wedding present. Didn't you know? I want to get married while I'm on leave this time."

He expected his friend to comment, but Uncle Kamil only turned his eyes away and settled into a heavy silence. Abbas looked at him in alarm and for the first time noticed his friend's gloominess and worried expression. Uncle Kamil's face was not the kind that could camouflage emotions. Abbas was alarmed now. He frowned, shut the box, and returned it to his pocket. He sat staring at his friend, his happy mood extinguished by a strange emotion which he neither expected nor could account for. The gloomy look on his friend's face was so obvious now that he asked suspiciously, "What's wrong, Uncle Kamil? You're not yourself. What's made you change like this? Why won't you look at me?"

The older man raised his head slowly and gazed sadly at him. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came.

Abbas sensed disaster. He felt despair smothering the last traces of his high spirits and suffocating all his hopes. Now he shouted, "What's wrong with you, Uncle Kamil? What are you trying to say? Something's on your mind. Don't torture me with your silence. Is it Hamida? Yes, by God, it's Hamida. Say it. Tell me. Tell me!"

Uncle Kamil moistened his lips and spoke almost in a whisper: "She's gone. She's not here anymore. She's disappeared. No one knows what's happened to her."

Abbas listened to him in stunned silence. One by one the words engraved themselves on his brain. Thick clouds seemed to swirl over his mind, and he seemed suddenly to have been transported into a whirling, feverish world. In a quivering voice, he asked, "I don't understand a thing. What did you say? She's not here anymore, she's disappeared? What do you mean?"

"Be brave, Abbas," Uncle Kamil said soothingly. "God knows how sorry I am and how grieved I was for you from the very first, but nothing can be done about it. Hamida has disappeared. No one knows anything. She didn't return after going out as usual one afternoon. They searched everywhere for her, but without success. We tried the police station at Gamaliya and Kasr el-Aini Hospital, but we found no trace of her."

Abbas' face took on a vacant stare and he sat rigidly, not saying a word or moving, not even blinking. There was no way out, no escape. Hadn't his instincts warned him of disaster? Yes, and now it was true. Could this be believed? What had the man said? Hamida had disappeared… Can a human being disappear, like a needle or a coin? If he had said she was dead or had got married, then he could foresee an end to his agony. At any rate, despair is easier to accept than torturing doubt. Now what should he do? Even despair was a blessing he could not hope for. Suddenly inertia subsided and he felt a surge of anger. Trembling all over, he glared at Uncle Kamil, and shrieked, "So Hamida has disappeared, has she? And what did all of you do about it? You told the police and looked in the hospital? May God reward you for that. Then what? Then you all returned to work as if nothing had happened. Everything came to an end and you simply returned to your shop and her mother went knocking on brides' doors. Hamida's finished and I'm finished too. What do you say to that, eh? Tell me all you know. What do you know about her disappearance? How did she disappear and when?"

Uncle Kamil was visibly distressed by his friend's outburst of hostility, and he replied sorrowfully, "Nearly two months have passed since she disappeared, my son. It was a terrible thing and everyone was deeply shocked by it. God knows we spared no efforts in searching and inquiring after her, but it was no use."

Abbas slapped the palms of his hands together, his face flushed and his eyes bulging even more. Almost to himself he commented, "Nearly two months! My God! That's a long time. There's no hope of finding her now. Is she dead? Did she drown? Was she abducted? Who can help me find out? What are people saying?"

Gazing at him with sad affection, Uncle Kamil replied, "There were many theories, and people finally concluded she must have had an accident. Nobody talks about it anymore."

"Of course. Of course," the young man exclaimed angrily. "She's not the daughter of any of you and she has no close relatives. Even her mother isn't her real one. What do you think happened? In the past two months I've been dreaming away, happy as could be. Have you ever noticed how a man often dreams of happiness while disaster waits nearby to snatch it? Perhaps I was just having a quiet conversation with a friend while she was being crushed under a wheel or drowning in the Nile… two months! Oh, Hamida!.. There is no power or strength except in God."

Stamping his foot, he rose and made for the door. "Goodbye."

"Where are you going?"

"To see her mother," Abbas answered coldly.

Walking out with heavy dragging feet, Abbas recalled that he had arrived tingling with anticipation and joy; now he left crushed and broken. He bit his lips and his feet came to a halt. He turned and saw Uncle Kamil gazing after him, his eyes filled with tears. Suddenly Abbas rushed into the shop and threw himself on the older man's chest. They stood there whimpering, weeping and sobbing, like two small children.

Did he really have no suspicion of the truth of her disappearance? Did he experience none of the doubts and suspicions common to lovers in similar circumstances? The truth was that whenever a shadow of suspicion had crossed his mind he dismissed it immediately, refusing to harbor it for an instant. By nature Abbas was trusting and always tended to think the best of people. He was tenderhearted and belonged to that minority who instinctively make excuses for others and accept the feeblest excuses for the most frightful deeds. Love had not changed his good nature except, perhaps, to make it even stronger; consequently, the whisperings of doubt and suspicion within him went unheard. He had loved Hamida deeply, and he felt completely secure and confident in this love. He truly believed this girl was perfection, in a world of which he had seen so little.

That same day he visited her mother, but she told him nothing new, merely repeating tearfully what Uncle Kamil had said. She assured him that Hamida had never stopped thinking about him, anxiously waiting for his return. Her lies only made him feel sadder, and he left her as heartbroken as he had arrived.

His leaden feet slowly led him out of the alley. Dusk was falling now; it was the time when, in days gone by, he would catch sight of his beloved going out for her evening stroll. He wandered aimlessly, unaware of what was going on about him, but seeming to see her form in its black gown, her large and beautiful eyes searching for him. He recalled their last farewell on the stairs and his heart seemed to stop dead.

Where was she? What had God done with her? Was she still alive or in a pauper's grave? Why had his heart had no warning all this time? How could this happen? And why?

The crowds in the street jolted him from his dreams and he stared around him. This was the Mousky, her favorite street. She loved the crowds and the shops. Everything was just the same as before, except for her. Now she was gone. It was almost as if she had never existed. He wanted to cry out all the tears in his swollen heart but he would not give way. His weeping in Uncle Kamil's arms had unknotted his nerves a bit. Now he only felt a deep, quiet sadness.

He wondered what he should do next. Should he go to the police stations and the hospital? What was the point? Should he walk the streets of the city calling out her name? Should he knock on the doors of all the houses one by one? Oh God, how weak and helpless he felt. Should he return to Tell el-Kebir and try to forget everything? But why go back? Why bear the additional strain of being away from home? Why go on working and saving money? Life without Hamida was an insupportable burden and completely without purpose. His enthusiasm for life was gone now, leaving him with nothing but a numbing indifference. His life seemed a bottomless void enclosed by a black despair. Through his love for her he had discovered the only meaning of his life. Now he saw no reason for living. He continued walking, bewildered and purposeless. Whether he knew it or not, life still had a hold on his consciousness, for he was quick to notice the factory girls coming toward him, returning from work. Before he knew it he had blocked their path. They stopped in surprise and immediately recognized him. Without hesitating, he spoke: "Good evening, girls. Please don't be angry with me. You remember your friend Hamida?"

A vivacious pretty girl was quick to reply, "Of course we remember her. She suddenly disappeared and we haven't seen her since!"

"Do you have any clues to her disappearance?" A different girl, with a look of spiteful cunning in her eyes, answered him, "We only know what we told her mother when she questioned us. We saw her several times with a well-dressed man in a suit, walking in the Mousky."

An icy shudder shook his whole body, as he asked, "You say you saw her with a man in a suit?"

The cruel look now left the girl's eyes as they registered the young man's anguish. One girl spoke softly: "Yes, that's right."

"And you told her mother that?"

"Yes."

He thanked them and walked away. He was certain they would talk about him all the way home. They would have a good laugh about the young fool who went to Tell el-Kebir to earn more money for his fiancee, who left him for a stranger who appealed to her more. What a fool he had been! Probably the whole quarter was gossiping about his stupidity. Now he knew that Uncle Kamil concealed the raw truth, just as Hamida's foster mother had. In a state of complete confusion he told himself, "I was afraid this might happen!" Now all he could remember were those very faint doubts.

Now he was moaning and muttering, "Oh God! How can I believe it? Has she really run off with another man? Who would ever believe it?" She was alive, then. They were wrong to look for her in the police station and the hospital. They had not realized she was sleeping contentedly in the arms of the man she had run off with. But she had promised herself to him! Had she meant to deceive him all along? Or was she mistaken in thinking she was attracted to him… How did she meet the man in the suit? When did she fall in love with him? Why did she run off with him?

Abbas' face had now turned ghastly white and he felt cold all over. His eyes glowered darkly. Suddenly he raised his head, gazing at the houses in the street. He looked at their windows and asked himself, "In which one is she now lying at her lover's side?" The seeds of doubt were now gone and a burning anger mixed with hatred took its place. His heart was twisted by jealousy. Or was it disappointment? Conceit and pride are the fuel of jealousy and he had little of either. But he did have hopes and dreams and now they were shattered. Now he wanted revenge, even if it only meant spitting at her. In fact, revenge took such possession of him that he longed to knife her treacherous heart.

Now he knew the true meaning of her afternoon walks: she had been parading before the street wolves. Anyway, she must be in love with this man in the suit; otherwise how could she prostitute herself rather than marry Abbas?

He bit his lip at the thought and turned back, tired from walking alone. His hand touched the box with the necklace in his pocket, and he gave a hollow laugh that was more an angry scream. If only he could strangle her with the gold necklace. He recalled his joy in the goldsmith's shop when he selected the gift. The memory flowed through him like a gentle spring breeze, but, meeting the glare of his troubled heart, it was transformed into a raging sirocco…