deaf. Sanker was bustling with activity, never still and incessantly shouting. Kirsha made his way quietly to his seat behind the till, avoiding the customers' glances. Just at that moment Uncle Kamil was asking friends to persuade Abbas to give up the shroud he was holding for him, but they all agreed to refuse his request.
Dr. Booshy spoke to Kamil. 'Don't worry about the clothing of the next world. A man spends much of his time on earth naked, but he can't cross the threshold of the grave naked, no matter how poor he may be.'
The simplehearted Kamil repeated his request and was repeatedly refused and ridiculed, until at last he remained silent in defeat. Abbas told his friends of his decision to work for the British Army. He listened to their comments and advice as they all approved of his plan and wished him good fortune and wealth.
Radwan Hussainy was engaged in one of his long conversations filled with exhortation and advice. He turned to the man talking with him and said, 'Never say you are bored. Boredom is disbelief in God. Boredom is an illness that destroys faith. Does it mean anything other than dissatisfaction with life? Life is a blessed gift from God Almighty, so how can a believer become bored or dissatisfied with it? You say you are dissatisfied with this or that, and I ask you from where did this or that originate? Doesn't everything originate with the Glorious God who in His kindness rights all wrongs? Never rebel against the work of the Creator! All of life has beauty and taste, although the bitterness of an evil soul will pollute the most appetizing tastes. Believe me, pain brings joy, despair has its pleasure, and death teaches a lesson. How can we be bored when the sky is blue, the earth green, and the flowers fragrant? How can we be depressed when hearts have a capacity for love and our souls have the power of faith? Seek refuge from the devil in God and never say you are bored…'
He took a sip from his cinnamon-flavored tea and then added as though expressing the doubts of his own conscience, 'As for life's tragedies, our love will defeat them. Love is the most effective cure. In the crevices of disasters, happiness lies like a diamond in a mine, so let us instill in ourselves the wisdom of love.'
His pinkish-red face glowed with benevolence and light, his reddish beard framing it like a halo around the moon. In comparison with his own towering tranquillity, all about him seemed chaos and confusion. His expression was all purity and it spoke of his faith, love, and aloofness from personal ambitions.
It was said of him that he lost his dignity the day he failed his examinations at al-Azhar University and that he despaired of immortality when he lost his children; thus, he found compensation for his losses by winning people's hearts with his love and generosity. No one doubted that he was sincere in his faith, in his love, and in his kindness. It was remarkable, however, that this gentle man was harsh and uncompromising in his own house. Some thought that, having despaired of any authority on earth, Hussainy imposed his influence on the only person who would submit to his will — his wife. Thus he satisfied his greed for power by inflicting tyranny on her.
However, we must not underestimate the power of the traditions of the time and the place. We must not forget that among this class the prevailing opinion was that women were best treated as children, above all for the sake of their own happiness. His wife, nevertheless, had nothing to complain of in his treatment of her. Apart from those wounds indelibly engraved on her heart by the deaths of her children, she considered herself a fortunate woman, proud of her husband and of her life.
Kirsha was both present and absent at the same time. Sitting gave him no peace for a single minute; he suffered the bitterness of victory in spiritless silence. Every few minutes he peered toward the alley entrance. He stared at the till, patient, motionless, and telling himself, 'He will surely come. He will come just as those before him did.'
He seemed to see the boy's face and looked toward the chair standing between him and Darwish's sofa and in his mind's eye saw the boy putting his trust in him. In times gone by he would never have invited such a boy to his cafe, but now his vice was well known to the alley inhabitants. Now Kirsha's mask was removed and he indulged his perversion openly. Raging scenes took place between him and his wife, providing rich gossip for people like Dr. Booshy and Umm Hamida. However, he did not care at all. The flames of one scandal scarcely died down before he would delight them with the fuel of other misdemeanors; it was as though he found pleasure in creating scandals. Thus he now sat in apprehension, peace unable to find a path to his tarnished soul. At last Dr. Booshy noticed his anxious state and said to Abbas, 'These are the signs of the hour!'
Now Sheikh Darwish emerged from his silence and recited two lines of ancient love poetry, muttering, 'Oh, madam, love is worth millions. I have spent, madam, for love of you, a hundred thousand pounds, but this is just a paltry sum!'
At last Dr. Booshy saw Kirsha look intently at the entrance to the alley. Suddenly he saw him sit up straight and smile broadly. Booshy looked toward the cafe door and soon the face of the lad appeared, his innocent eyes gazing hesitantly at the people in the cafe.
7
The bakery is next to Kirsha's cafe, near Mrs. Saniya Afify's house. It is an almost square building, its sides built unevenly. An oven occupies the left side and the wall is lined with shelves. Between the oven and the entrance is a bench on which the owners of the bakery, Husniya and her husband, Jaada, sleep. Darkness would envelop the spot day and night were it not for the light issuing from the door of the oven.
In the wall facing the entrance, there is a small, wooden door which opens onto a grimy little outbuilding smelling of dirt and filth, for it has only one tiny window in the opposite wall overlooking the courtyard of an old house. About an arm's length from the window there is a lighted lamp, placed on a shelf, throwing a dim light on the place, with its dirt floor covered with various and indeterminate rubbish; the room looks like a garbage heap. The shelf supporting the lamp is long and stretches the entire wall; on it are bottles, both large and small, various instruments, and a great number of bandages, making it look just like a pharmacist's shelf, were it not so extraordinarily dirty.
On the ground, almost directly beneath the little window, something is piled, no different from the floor of the room in color, filthiness, or smell, but possessed of limbs, flesh, and blood, and which therefore, despite everything, deserves to be called a human being. It was Zaita, the man who rented this hole from the bakeress Husniya.
If you once saw Zaita you would never again forget him, so starkly simple is his appearance. He consists of a thin, black body and a black gown. Black upon black, were it not for the slits shining with a terrifying whiteness which are his eyes. Zaita is not a Negro; he is an Egyptian, brown-skinned in color. Dirt mixed with the sweat of a lifetime has caked a thick layer of black over his body and over his gown, which also was not originally black. Black was the fate of everything within this hole.
He had scarcely anything to do with the alley in which he dwelt. Zaita visited none of its people, nor did they visit him. He had no need for anyone, nor anyone for him. Except, that is, for Dr. Booshy and the fathers who resorted to scaring their children with his image. His trade was known to all, a trade which gave him the right to the title of 'Doctor,' although he did not use it out of respect for Booshy. It was his profession to create cripples, not the usual, natural cripples, but artificial cripples of a new type.
People came to him who wanted to become beggars and, with his extraordinary craft, the tools of which were piled on the shelf, he would cripple each customer in a manner appropriate to his body. They came to him whole and left blind, rickety, hunchbacked, pigeon-breasted, or with arms or legs cut off short. He gained his skill by working for a long time with a traveling circus. Zaita had, moreover, been connected with beggar circles since his boyhood, when he lived with his parents, who were beggars. He began by learning 'makeup,' an art taught in the circus, first as a pastime, then as a profession when his personal situation became worse.
One disadvantage of his work was that it began at night, or at midnight, to be exact. It was, however, a trivial disadvantage to which he had become completely accustomed. During the day, he scarcely left his den and would sit cross-legged, eating or smoking or amusing himself by spying on the baker and his wife. He delighted in listening to their talk, or peeping through a hole in the door and watching the woman beating her husband, morning and night. When night fell he saw them overcome with friendliness toward each other and he would see the bakeress approach her apelike husband and tease him and talk to him coyly. Zaita detested Jaada, despised him and considered him ugly. Apart from this, he envied him for the full-bodied woman God had given him as a wife, a really bovine woman, as he said. He often said of her that she was among women what Uncle Kamil was among men.
One reason why the people in the alley avoided him was his offensive odor, for water never found its way to
