Midaq Alley

16

"What do I see? You are indeed a venerable man!"

Zaita made this pronouncement as he looked up into the face of an erect old man standing before him. To be sure, his cloak was in rags and his body emaciated, but it was as the cripple-maker had said, he had a most venerable appearance. His head was large, his hair white, and his face elongated. His eyes were peaceful and humble. His tall and distinguished bearing was that of a retired Army officer.

Zaita sat scanning him closely by the light of his dim lamp. He spoke again. "But you really look like such a dignified man. Are you sure you want to become a beggar?"

"I am already a beggar, but not a successful one," answered the man quietly.

Zaita cleared his throat and spat on the floor, wiping his lips with the hem of his black shirt before he spoke. "You are too frail to bear any great pressure on your limbs. In fact, it's not advisable to perform an artificial deformity after the twenties. You seem to think that a crippled body is just as easy to make as a real one. As long as the bones remain soft, I can guarantee any beggar a permanent deformity, but you are an old man with not long to live. What do you want me to do for you?"

He sat thinking. Whenever Zaita thought deeply, his mouth opened wide and his tongue quivered and darted to and fro like the head of a snake. After a while he suddenly blinked his eyes and shouted, "Dignity is the most precious type of deformity there is!"

"What do you mean, reverend sir?" asked the old man, somewhat perplexed.

Zaita's face clouded with anger as he shouted, "Reverend sir! Have you ever heard me reciting at burials?"

His anger had surprised the old man and he spread out his palms in a gesture begging forgiveness. "Oh no, God forbid… I was only trying to show my respect for you."

Zaita spat twice and his voice took on a proud tone. "The best doctors in Egypt can't do what I can. Did you know that making a person appear crippled is a thousand times more difficult than really crippling him? Why, to really cripple someone would be as easy for me as spitting in your face."

"Please don't be angry with me. God is most merciful and forgiving," pleaded the old man.

Zaita's irritation gradually subsided and he stared at the old man. At last he said, his voice still sounding somewhat unfriendly, "I said that dignity is the most precious deformity."

"How do you mean, sir?"

"Your distinction will ensure you great success as a beggar."

"My distinction, sir?"

Zaita drew out half a cigarette from a mug on the shelf. He then returned the mug to its place and lit the cigarette through the open glass of the lamp. He took a long puff, his bright eyes narrowing, and said quietly, "It isn't a deformity you need. No, what you need is even greater handsomeness and intelligence. Give your robe a good washing and somehow get yourself a secondhand tarboosh. Always move your body with grace and dignity. Casually approach people in cafes and stand aside humbly. Extend your palm without saying a word. Speak only with your eyes. Don't you know the language of the eyes? People will look at you in amazement. They will say that surely you are someone from a noble family who has fallen on hard times. They will never believe that you are a professional beggar. Do you understand what I mean? Your venerability will earn for you double what the others make with their deformities…"

Zaita asked him to try out his new role on the spot. He stood watching him critically, smoking his cigarette. After a while, though, Zaita scowled and said, "No doubt you've told yourself that there'll be no fee for me, since I've given you no deformity. You're free to do as you like, provided you beg in some other quarter, not here."

The old man protested his innocence and said in a hurt voice, "How could I think of deceiving the man who has made my fortune for me?"

At that the meeting came to an end, and Zaita led the old man to the street. He took him as far as the outer door of the bakery. On his way back, he noticed Husniya, the bakeress, squatting alone on a mat. There was no trace of Jaada, and Zaita always seized any opportunity to chat with Husniya. He wished to be on friendly terms with her and to express his secret admiration for her.

"Did you see that old man?" he asked.

"Someone wanting to be crippled, wasn't it?" she asked indifferently.

Zaita chuckled and told her the story. She laughed and cursed him for his devilish cunning. Then he moved toward the door leading into his den but stopped, turned, and asked her, "Where's Jaada?"

"In the baths," the woman answered.

At first Zaita thought she was making sarcastic fun of him for his notorious filth, and he looked at her warily. However, he saw that she was serious. Now he realized that Jaada had gone to the baths in Gamaliya, a thing he did twice yearly. That meant he would surely not be back before midnight. He told himself there was no harm in sitting down and chatting with Husniya for a while.

He was encouraged by the obvious delight she took in his story. He sat on the threshold of his door, leaning back and stretching his legs like two thin sticks of charcoal, deliberately ignoring Husniya's astonishment as he did so. As the owner of his small room, she had only exchanged greetings when he entered or left. Apart from that she treated him as she did everyone else in the alley. She never thought the landlady-tenant relationship would change. She had not the slightest notion that he made a point of observing the most intimate details of her life. In fact, Zaita had found a hole in the wall between his room and the bakery; this served his curiosity and provided substance for his lecherous dreams.

Slowly his intimate knowledge of her made him feel like one of the family, watching her at work and at rest. It especially delighted Zaita to watch her beating her husband. She did this at his slightest mistake. Jaada's days seemed to be filled with mistakes, for which he was constantly pummeled. Indeed, beatings were almost a part of his daily routine. Sometimes he would accept them in silence, and at other times he howled wildly and his fists swung in the air. He never failed to burn the bakery bread, and he regularly stole a little something, which he secretly ate when his duties permitted. Sometimes he bought a special sweet cake from money he earned for delivering bread to the alley houses. He made no attempt to stop or conceal his daily petty crimes; consequently, he could not avoid his wife's painful beatings.

Zaita marveled at the man's servility, cowardice, and stupidity. It was a bit surprising that Zaita should find him ugly and constantly scoff at his appearance: Jaada was extremely tall, with long arms, and his lower jaw jutted out. Long and often Zaita had envied him the pleasures of his formidable wife, whom Zaita both admired and desired. As it was, he despised Jaada and often wished he could toss him in the oven with the dough. And so it seemed natural to Zaita to sit pleasantly with his wife in the absence of the cowardly baker. Now he sat quite lost in his fantasies that centered on the bakeress.

Husniya rose, walked to where he sat, and bellowed out, "Why do you sit there like that?"

Zaita said a silent prayer: "O God, spare me her wrath," and then replied in a friendly manner, "I'm your guest and a guest ought not be insulted."

"Why don't you crawl off and spare me your face?"

His yellowed fangs showed as he smiled and said seriously, "A man can't spend his whole life among beggars and garbage. One must sometimes see nobler sights and people."

"Meaning you can inflict your revolting sight and filthy smell on others?" she asked. "Go away and lock the door behind you!"

"I know of more disgusting sights and filthier smells."

Husniya realized he was referring to her husband, and her face paled as she asked menacingly, "Just what do you mean by that, you snake?"

"Our charming friend, Jaada," answered Zaita, his courage causing him some surprise.

Husniya shouted at him in her terrifying voice, "Be careful, you rat! If I hit you I'll split you in two!"

Zaita paid no attention to the danger looming before him and continued: "I told you guests shouldn't be insulted. Anyway I criticize Jaada because I'm quite sure you have nothing but loathing for him, plus the fact that you beat him up at the slightest excuse."

"Why, his little fingernail is worth more than all of you!"

"Well, I know what you're worth — but as for Jaada…"

"Do you think you're better than he is?"

Zaita's annoyance was obvious. His mouth dropped in amazement, not because he thought he was better than Jaada, but because he thought the comparison was an unpardonable insult. How could he be compared to that lowest of all forms of animal life who had not a single vestige of civilization in his character or personality?

"What do you think, Husniya?"

"I told you what I think," she snapped.

"That animal?"

"He's a man," she shouted. "Not like some I know, you ugly devil…"

"That creature you treat like a stray dog? You call him a man?" She heard the jealousy in his voice and it pleased her. No, she wouldn't hit him, much as she longed to. Rather she decided to feed his envy. "That's something you can't understand. You'll die longing for the blows that fall on him."

"Probably a beating from you is too good for me," said Zaita invitingly.

"Yes, it's an honor you'll never really know, you worm!" Zaita sat thinking a moment. Could she really like living with that animal? He had often asked himself this question but had always refused to believe it was so. After all, what else could she do but defend him like a loyal wife. And he was still sure she was being less than fully frank. His greedy eyes stared at her ample and firm body, and his determination and stubbornness increased. His imagination worked furiously, his lecherous eyes glistened with the feverish fancies conjured up by the empty room.

As for Husniya, his jealousy delighted her and she was not in the least afraid of being alone with him. Her confidence lay in her own strength. She said to Zaita sarcastically, "As for you, you chunk of earth… first, get all that filth off your body and then maybe you can speak to people."

She was not angry. If she had been, nothing would have prevented her from giving him a beating. She was deliberately flirting with him and Zaita was quick to see that the opportunity should be seized.

"You can't even tell the difference between dust and gold dust," he said, pleased with his joke.

"Do you deny that you're just a chunk of clay?" she asked.

"We are all clay," Zaita replied, shrugging his shoulders.

"Shame on you! You're just dirt on dirt, filth piled on filth, and that's why you're only fit to disfigure people. You love to draw other people down to your own filthy level."

Zaita merely chuckled at this and his hopes increased. "But I am the best of people, not the worst," he said. "Don't you realize that regular beggars don't earn a penny, whereas if I give them a deformity they can earn their weight in gold. It's a man's worth, not his appearance, that counts. Now as for our friend Jaada, why he's neither handsome nor worth anything."

"Are you going back to that again?" demanded Husniya threateningly.

Zaita thought it best to abandon the subject he had deliberately broached. He went on in the tone of a public speaker.

"And apart from that, all my customers are professional beggars. What would you have me do with them? Would you like me to pretty them up and set them loose in the streets at the mercy of their 'well-wishers'?"

"You're a real devil! You talk like one and look like one, too."

Zaita sighed audibly and as though meekly seeking sympathy said, "Nevertheless, I was once upon a time a king."

"A king of devils?" she asked.

In the same tone of humility Zaita replied, "No, of mankind. Which of us is not at first welcomed into the world like a king of kings, to be later carried wherever ill fortune decrees. This is one of nature's wisest treacheries. Were it to show us first what is in store for us, we would all refuse to leave the womb."

"What next, you son of a whore!"

Zaita continued, his self-assurance unwavering: "And so I, too, was once a happy creature whom loving hands coddled and enfolded with tender care. Do you doubt that I was once a king?"

"Not for a moment, master!" Her tone was now sarcastic.

Intoxicated by the power of his oratory and filled with anticipation, Zaita went on: "Moreover, my birth was considered a most fortunate blessing. My parents were both professional beggars. They hired a baby, which my mother carried on their rounds, and when God gave them me, they had no need for other people's children. So they were delighted."

At this, Husniya burst into a resounding laugh. This increased Zaita's confidence and desire and he continued: "Oh, what memories I have of my happy childhood! I still remember my resting place on the sidewalk. I would crawl on all fours until I reached the street curb. I'd rest at a spot where there was a mudhole. All kinds of scum and insects floated on its surface. It was a beautiful sight! The water was full of garbage and its shores consisted of rubbish of all colors — tomato skins, fruit stains, beans, filth, and flies floating all around it and falling in. I would lift my eyelids, weighted down with flies, and I'd wallow about in that delightful summer resort. I was the happiest person alive…"

"Oh, how lucky you were," commented Husniya sarcastically.

Her pleasure and the way she listened delighted him, and he went on, even more encouraged: "This is the secret of my love for what you call filth. Man is capable of growing fond of anything, no matter how strange. That's why I'm afraid for you, getting attached to that animal."

"Must we talk of that again?"

"Why not? Man has no reason to disregard what is right."

"It's obvious that you've given up this world."

"I once tasted peace and mercy, as I told you, in the cradle." Then he made a gesture with his hand toward his room and he went on: "And my heart tells me that I may have another joy to taste, in that room of mine." He nodded toward it with a sly wink.

Husniya seethed at his impertinence. She leaned over and roared in his face, "Watch out, you bastard, you!"

"How can you expect a bastard to guard against the natural sins of his unknown father?" he asked, trembling.

"And if I were to break your neck?"

"Who knows — perhaps that would be delightful too."

He got up suddenly and walked back a bit. He felt he had what he wanted and that Husniya would do as he wished. A fit of violent passion gripped him, and he drew off his filthy cloak and stood quite naked. For several moments Husniya remained dumbfounded. Then she seized a heavy mug lying nearby and hurled it at him as violently as she could. It struck him in the stomach and, letting out a bellowing howl, he fell to the floor, writhing in pain.