Children of Gebelaawi (12 page)

i nto his father's eyes, si lent and motionless. All power to speak

or thi nk or move deserted him. Gebelaawi commanded him:

- Out!

Bu t Adham was unable to move. Utterly hopeless, he stayed

where he was, like a lifeless object, except that an object cannot

feel despair. His father shouted:

- Out!

Terror aroused him from his paralysis and he moved. His

father stepped aside from the doorway, and Adham left the

private chamber, the candle sti ll flickering in his hand. He saw

Umayma standi ng speechless in the middle of the room, tears

streaming down her face. His father motioned to him to stand

beside her, then addressed him coldly:

- You wi l l answer my questions truthfully.

Ad ham 's expression conveyed his willi ngness. Gebelaawi

asked:

- Who told you abou t the book?

Adham answered wi thout hesi tation, like a broken vessel

pouring out i ts contents:

- ldrees.

- When?

- Yesterday morni ng.

- How did you meet?

- l-Ie slipped in wi th the new tenants and waited till we were

alone.

- Why didn't you throw him out?

- I cou ld n't bring myself to throw him out, Father.

Gebelaawi said sharply:

- Don't call me 'Father'.

Ad ham gathered all his strength and said:

- You're sti ll my father in spite of your anger and my

stupidity.

- Is he the one who made you do this?

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Children of Gebelaawi

U mayma answered, though he had not addressed the ques-

tion to her:

- Yes, sir!

Gebelaawi shouted:

- Quiet, vermin! (Then to Adham:) Answer me!

- He was desperately unhappy and repentant, and he

wanted to feel secure about his children's future.

- And you did this for him!

- On the contrary ... I apologized and told him I couldn't.

- What made you change your mind?

Adham sighed i n despair, and muttered:

- The Devil.

Gebelaawi asked cruelly:

- Did you tell your wife what had passed between you?

At this point Umayma began to wail. Gebelaawi silenced

her, then motioned Adham to answer:

- Yes !

- And what did she say to you?

Adham kept quiet and swallowed hard. His father shouted:

- Answer me, you wretch!

- She was keen to fi nd out your will, and thought i t would

harm nobody.

Gebelaawi glared at him with utter contempt:

- And that is how you consented to betray the one who

preferred you to your betters?

Adham said with a groan:

- It's no use my maki ng excuses for my crime; but your

mercy is greater than any crime or any excuses.

- So you plot against me wi th Idrees whom I expelled for

your sake?

- I didn't plot with Idrees. I 've done wrong, and my only

hope is your mercy.

Umayma implored him:

- Sir. ..

- Quiet, vermi n!

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Adham

He looked from one to the other, frowning,then said i n a

terrible voice:

- Get out of the house!

Adham appealed:

- Father!

In a brutal voice Gebelaawi said:

- Get out of the house before you are thrown out!

9 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The great gate opened again, this time to see the expulsion

of Adham and Umayma. Adham carried a bundle of clothes,

and Umayma followed with a second bundle, some pots and

pans and a little food. They left, crushed and hopeless. When

they heard the gate close behind them their voices rose to a

wai l, and Umayma said between her sobs:

- I deserve worse than death.

Adham 's voice faltered:

- For once you 're telling the truth; but I deserve worse than

death too.

They had gone hardly any distance from the house when a

drun ken laugh rang out. They looked i n that direction, and

there they saw ldrees in front of the hut he had built of

flattened cans and pieces of wood. His wife Narciss sat quietly

spinning, and ldrees was laughi ng spitefully, enjoying their

misery. Adham and Umayma were astonished and stood staring at him. ldrees started dancing and snapping his fingers, annoying Narciss who retreated into the hut. Adham watched,

his reddened eyes filled with tears of rage. He saw at once the

trick ldrees had played and its monstrous wickedness. He

realized too his own immense naivety and stupidity, on account of which the vi llai n was dancing with m alicious joy. This 41

Children of Gebelaauri

was the real ldrecs, the i ncarnation of evil. Adham's blood

boiled and his mind was darkened. He picked up a handful of

earth and threw it at him, shou ti ng, in a voice distorted by fury:

- Damned shil! You're worse than a scorpion.

l drees's answer was to dance still more vigorously, wagging

his head from side to side and jerking his eyebrows up and

down, still snapping his fingers. Adham's rage mou nted stil l

further and he bellowed:

.

- Bloody, lousy, low-down .. � liar ... cheat. . . !

ldrees began swayi ng his body as skillfully as h e was wagging

his head, sniggering silently. Ad ham took no notice ofUmayma

who was tryi ng to pull him away, but yelled:

- You 're worse than a tart, you filthy scum!

ldrees started wriggling his behind, spinning round slowly

and provocatively. Adham was blind with fury. He threw down

h is bu ndle, pushed away Umayma who tried to hold him back,

rushed at him and seized his throat with all his strength. ldrees

took no notice of the attack, bu t went on dancing slowly and

artfully. Adham, by now qu ite mad, rai ned down blows, but

l drees only made more fun of him, chanting:

Rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief.

Then he stopped, ravi ng and cursing, and shoved Adham i n

the chest with a force that sent h i m staggering. He lost his

balance and fell on his back. Umayma hurried over to him,

helped him up and brushed the dirt off his clothes, saying:

- Why bother with this savage? Let's get right away.

He picked up his bu ndle wi thout a word, and she took hers,

and they made their way to the other side of the Great House.

Adham was already tired and he threw down the bundle and

sat on i t, sayi ng he wan Led a rest. His wife sat down facing him,

crying again. They heard ldrees's voice once more. He stood

looking defiantly at Lhe house, thu ndering:

- For the sake of your most despicable child you threw me

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Adham

out, and you see how he treated you? And now you've thrown

him into the dirt - and yourself with him. Tit for tat - and the

one who acts first ends worst. This is so that you shall know that

ldrees can 't be beaten. Stay alone wi th your useless, spi neless

sons. You won ' t have any grandsons except those who will run

about i n the dirt and roll i n the filth. Tomorrow they'l l be

peddling sweet potatoes and melon seeds. Tomorrow they'll

be at the mercy of the strongmen in Otouf and Kafr ei-Zaghari.

Soon your seed wi ll be mixed with that of the lowest of men.

You 'll sit alone in your room, changi ng things in your book i n

anger and frustration. You 'll grow old alone i n the shadows

and, when the end comes, you 'II fi nd nobody to cry for you.

Then he turned to J\d ham and continued his crazy shouting:

-And you, blacky Adham, you weakli ng, how are you going

to face life on your own? You have no strength to help you,

nobody strong to rely on. In this desert what's the use of your

reading, writing and ari thmetic? 1-Ia! 1-Ia! 1-Ia!

Umayma wen t on weeping till it got on Adham's nerves and

he sai d wearily:

- Stop cryi ng!

She dried her eyes.

- I'll often be crying, J\dham. I'm to blame for all this.

- I'm just as much to blame. If I hadn ' t been so weak and

cowardly it wouldn ' t have happened.

- It's all my fau lt.

He shoutE.d angri ly:

- You're only blaming yourself to prevent me from blammg you.

She lost her eagerness for self-reproach and sat for a while

wi th bent head. Then she went on in a fai nt voice:

- I never thought he could be so hard.

- I know him; I have no excuse.

She hesitated a while, then said:

- How can I live here when I'm pregnant?

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Children of Gebelaawi

- After the Great House we must live i n this desert. If only

tears could help ! There's nothing for i t but to build ourselves

a hut.

- Where?

He looked rou nd, and his glance fell for a second on

Idrees's hut.

-We can 'tgo too far from the Great House, even ifit means

living near to Idrees. Otherwise we'd die, all alone on the edge

of this desert.

Umayma though L for a while, then bowed her head in

acquiescence.

- Yes, and we should stay in sight of your father in case he

softens towards us.

Adham sighed.

- I'm going to die of grief. Ifyou weren't here with me I'd

think this was a nightmare. Have I lost h is love for ever? But I

shan't figh t back at him li ke Idrees. Oh no! I'm not at all like

Idrees, so how can I be treated the same?

Umayma said bi lterly:

- Nobody rou nd here has ever known a father like yours.

- When wi l l your Longue stop wagging?

- For goodness' sake, I haven't committed a crime. Tell

anybody what you've done and how you've been rewarded; I

bet you anything they won 't believe it. My God ! There's never

been a father like yours.

- The world has never seen so fine a man. This jebel, this

desert, and the sky itself bear witness to that. Anybody else

wou ld have shrunk back from the chal lenge.

- With his tyranny soon none of his sons will be left in the

house.

- We are the first to go, and we are the worst.

She denied it angrily:

- I'm not - we're not.

- The truth comes out only at times of trial.

They fel l silent. In the desert there was no living thing to be

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Adham

seen, except a few people moving about far away at the foot of

the Jebel. The sun beat down cruelly from a cloudless sky,

drenching the vast expanse of sand, in which glinted a few

stones or bits of glass. The only things that broke the monotony were the Jebel on the horizon, a great rock that lay to the east like the head of a body buried in the sand, and ldrees's

miserable hovel, planted defiantly to the east of the Great

House. The whole atmosphere was harsh, dreary and frightening.

Umayma heaved a deep sigh and said:

- We're going to have a hard time of it, making life

comfortable.

Adham looked at the Great House and said:

- We'll have an even harder ti me wai ting till that gate

opens agam.

1 0 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Adham and Umayma set about putting up a hut for themselves, to the west or the Great House. They fetched stones from M uqattam and collected slates from the foot of the Jebel,

and they picked up pieces of wood around Otouf, Gem alia and

Bab el-Nasr. They soon realized that building a hut would take