Children of Gebelaawi (76 page)
One day a man accosted Snarler's mother as she was on her
way to Derrasa:
- Good evening!
She looked closely at him and in a moment exclaimed:
- Hanash !
He came nearer to her, smiling, and asked:
- Did the dead man leave anything at your place the night
he was caught?
In the tone of one who wants to ward off suspicion from
herself, she replied:
- He didn't leave anything. I saw him throw his papers into
the light-shaft. I went the next day and found a worthless
exercise book amongst the garbage, a useless thing, so I left it.
Hanash's eyes shone strangely.
- Lend me a hand to find the book!
The old woman started with fright and shouted:
- Leave me alone! But for God's grace you wou ld have died
too that night.
He pressed a coin into her hand and she calmed down. l-Ie
arranged to meet her in the small hours, when all eyes wou ld
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be closed. At the appointed time she led him to the bottom of
the light-shaft and he lit a candle and squatted between the
heaps of garbage looking for Arafa's exercise book. He sifted
them paper by paper and rag by rag, poking his fingers into
sand and dust, shreds of tobacco and fragments of rotting
food. But he did not find what he was looking for. He went back
to Snarler's mother and said resentfully in his despair:
- I didn't find anything.
She retorted angrily:
- It's none of my business. When you people come disasters
fol low.
- Patience, mother!
- Ti me has taken away our patience. Tell me why that book
i nterests you.
H anash hesitated, then. said:
- It's Arafa's book.
- Arafa! God forgive him ! He killed Gebelaawi, then gave
the Trustee his magic and wen t.
- He was one of the best sons of our Alley but luck was
against him. He wanted the things that Gebel and Rifaa and
Qaasim wanted for you, and more.
She looked at him suspiciously and then, to get rid of him,
said:
- Perhaps the garbage man took the stuff with the book i n
i t. Look for i t by the bath-house furnace a t Salihia.
Hanash went to the furnace and found the garbage man of
Gebelaawi Alley. He asked him about the rubbish. The man
said:
- You 're looking for something you lost? What is it?
- An exercise book.
The man looked suspicious but pointed to a corner next to
the bath house.
- Try your luck! Either you fi nd it there or it's been burnt.
Hanash began searching through the garbage patiently and
eagerly. The only hope he had left in the world was that book;
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i t was his hope and that of the Alley. The unlucky Arafa had
died defeated, leaving behind only evil and a foul reputation.
This book could make good his mistakes, destroy his enemies
and reawaken hope in the grim Alley.
Up came the garbage man and asked:
- Haven't you found what you 're looking for?
- Please, give me time!
The man scratched his armpits.
- What's so important about the book?
- It has our accounts in it; you shall see for yourself.
He went on with his search with mounting anxiety, till he
heard a voice he knew asking:
- Where's the bean-pot, chief?
Hanash was horrified to recognize the voice of 'Pegnose'
who sold stewed beans in the Alley. He did not turn round, but
he wondered anxiously whether the man cou ld have seen him
and whether it would be best to run away now. His hands
burrowed away still faster like a rabbit's paws.
Pegnose went back to the Alley to tell everyone he met that
he had seen Hanash, Arafa's friend, at the Salihia furnace
busily hunting through the rubbish - for a book, so the
garbage man had told him. No sooner had the news reached
Trustee's House than a party of servants set out for the furnace,
but they found no trace of Hanash. When the garbage man was
asked, he said he had gone to see about something, and when
he had come back Hanash had gone, so he did not know
whether he had found what he was looking for.
No one knows how people first began whispering it around
that the book Hanash had taken was none other than the book
of magic in which Arafa had set down the secrets of his art and
of his weapons, and that it was lost when he had tried to escape
and had been taken to the bath-house, where Hanash had
found it. The rumor spread from one hashish den to another
that Hanash would finish what Arafa had begun and would
take a terrible revenge on the Trustee. The Trustee added
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force to these rumors by promising a huge reward to anyone
who brought Hanash alive or dead, as his men proclaimed in
the cafes and i n the hashish dens.
No one any longer doubted the part that Hanash was
expected to play in their lives. A wave of joy and optimism
swept away their despair and servility, and people were filled
with love for Hanash in his unknown refuge. Indeed, their love
extended to the memory of Arafa himself. They longed to help
Hanash in his stand against the Trustee, to make his victory
their own and secure a life of justice and peace. They were
ready to help him in any way they could, seeing in him the only
path to deliverance, for i t seemed that the magical power
possessed by the Trustee could be defeated only by a similar
power such as Hanash was perhaps making ready. The Trustee
heard what people were whispering and i nstructed the bards
i n the cafes to sing the story ofGebelaawi, emphasizing how he
had died at the hand of Arafa, and how the Trustee had been
forced to make a truce with the killer and be friendly with him
for fear of his magic, till he was able to kill him in revenge for
their mighty Ancestor. The remarkable thing was that the
people met the lies of the rebec with indifference and mockery. They grew so stubborn in their resistance that they said:
'The past is nothing to us. Our only hope is Arafa's magic. If
we had to choose between Gebelaawi and magic, we would
choose magic. '
Day by day more and more of the truth about Arafa was
revealed to people. It may have originated with Snader's
mother, for she knew a great deal about him from Awaatif, or
it may have come from Hanash himself when he happened to
meet people far away. The point was that people came to know
both the man and the wonderful life he had wanted for them
through his magic. They were astonished by the truth and
venerated his memory and exalted his name even above those
of Gebel, Rifaa and Qaasim. Some people said he cou ld not
possibly have been the killer of Gebelaawi as was supposed,
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and others said he was the first and last of the Alley's men even
if he was Gebelaawi 's killer. Each sector claimed him for i ts
own.
Young men began disappearing from our Alley, one by one.
It was said i n explanation that they had been guided to
Hanash's hideout and had joined him, and that he was teaching them magic in preparation for the promised day of deliverance. Fear gripped the Trustee and his men, and they
sent spies into every corner and searched every home and
every shop. They fixed the harshest punish ment for the slightest offence and lashed ou t for a glance or a joke or a laugh, so that the Alley lived in a terrible atmosphere offear and hatred
and intimidation. But people bore the oppression bravely and
took refuge in patience and hope. Whenever they suffered
injustice they said: 'Oppression must end as night yields to day.
We shall sec in our Alley the death of tyranny and the dawn of
miracles.'
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