35
The morning brightened, its light illumining the sides of the alley, some of the sun's rays falling on the upper walls of the ware house and the barbershop. The boy Sunqur, the waiter at the cafe, filled a bucket and sprinkled the ground. The alley was turning another page in its monotonous life, its inhabitants greeting the morn ing with their customary cries. At this early hour, Uncle Kamel is more active than normal and stands in front of his basbousa tray surround ed by children from the nearby elementary school filling his pocket with pennies. Opposite, the elderly barber bends over his razors, sharpening them, while Giada the Baker brings the dough from peo ple's houses. The workers walk toward the warehouse, opening its doors and its storerooms and shattering the prevailing calm with their noise, which will continue throughout the day. Boss Kersha sits cross legged behind the box of tokens in a dreamy pose, nibbling something between his front teeth, masticating it, and then squeezing it into a cup of coffee. Sheikh Darwish has taken his seat close to him in silent with drawal. At this hour of the morning too, Mistress Saniya Afifi appears at her window, to see off her young husband as he leaves the alley on his way to the police station. Life in the alley will continue thus on its even course until such time as one of its girls disappears or one of its menfolk is swallowed up by prison, though even then such ripples will disperse quickly through its calm, or stagnant, waters, and evening will barely be come before oblivion casts its skirts over the events of the morning. The morning brightened and the alley turned to face its tranquil, quiet life.
With the forenoon, Hussein Kersha arrived, glowering, his lids burning from a whole night's lack of sleep, walking with heavy foot steps. He went to where his father was sitting and threw himself down on a chair opposite him. Without greeting or salute, he said in a rough voice, "Abbas el-Helw has been k**ed, Father." Boss Kersha had been on the point of scolding him for spending the entire night outside the house, but he said nothing and stared into his face with stupefied eyes, remaining for a few moments frozen and silent, as though not comprehending what he had heard.
******
Boss Kersha again slapped palm upon palm, saying, "We are God's and to God we return. Have the boy's family been told the bad news? Go to his uncle Ha**an el-Qabaqibi in Khurunfish and tell him of his d**h. After that, it's up to God."
Conquering his fatigue, Hussein rose and left the cafe. The news
spread and Boss Kersha repeated what his son had told him again and again to those who came to enquire. Tongues pa**ed it on from one to the next, each adding something of its own. Uncle Kamel arrived at the cafe staggering from the impact of the news, which had struck him like a blow in the face, and he threw himself down on a bench, bursting into bitter tears and sobbing like a child, scarcely able to believe that the young man-the young man who had got him a shroud-was no longer among the living. When the news reached Umm Hamida, she left the house wailing; someone who saw her said that she was "crying for the murderer and not the victim." The person most strongly affected, however, was Master Salim Elwan, not for grief over the young man who had died, but out of dread that d**h had broken its way into the alley, reawakeuing his anxieties and compounding his sufferings; the black thoughts, morbid imaginings and fantasies of the final throes, of d**h itself, and of the grave that had ruined his nerves came back to him and he was stricken by panic. Agitated and .unable to bear being seated any longer, he began walk ing to and fro about the warehouse or going out into the alley, where he would cast a wandering glance over the shop that had for so many long years been Abbas el-Helw's. Because it was so hot, he had aban doned his practice of drinking hot water, but now he ordered the worker charged with serving him to heat some for him as he did.in the winter, and spent the next hour prey to fear and anxiety, Uncle Kamel's weeping battering at his ears.
This ripple, like those before it, disappeared, and the alley a**umed
once more its eternal virtue of forgetfulness and indifference. It con-
tinued, as was its won't, to weep, were there occasion for weeping, in the morning and to laugh uproariously in the evening, and betwixt the one and the other doors and windows creaked on opening and again on closing. During this period of its history, nothing of great note occurred, unless we are to count Mistress Saniya Afrli's insistence on clearing out the apartment that Doctor Bushi had occupied before his incarceration and Uncle Kamel's volunteering to move his furni ture and medical equipment into his own, an act which people inter preted as indicating that Uncle Kamel preferred sharing his home with Doctor Bushi to an unaccustomed loneliness; and no one held him to be in the wrong for so doing, for prison was not considered, in the alley, something to shame a man.
During those days, they spoke of how Umm Harnida had estab
lished contact with her daughter, who was now convalescing, and of the woman's dreams of garnering some of the fruit from that cornucopia. Next the alley's atten#on was aroused -when a butcher's fumily unex pectedly moved into Doctor Bushi's apartment. The family consisted of the butcher, his wife, seven boys, and a lovely girl, whom Hussein Kersha described as "a half-moon." As the time of Master Radwan el-Husseini's return from the lands of the Hejaz approached, how ever, no one could think about anything but that long-awaited day. Lanterns and flags were hung, the floor of the alley was strewn with sand, and everyone held high hopes for a night of joy and happiness that would be remembered long into the future.
One day, Sheikh Darwish observed Uncle Kamel joking around
with the elderly barber, and declaimed, looking upward at the ceiling of the cafe,
Man is so called for his amnesia,
The heart for its heartless inconstance.
Uncle Kamel's face fell, its color fled, and his eyes gushed floods of tears. However, Sheikh Darwish just shrugged his shoulders dismis sively and declared, his eyes never leaving the ceiling,
He who dies if love must die if grirf In love without d**h there is no good.
Then he trembled, sighed, and continued, "Mistress of Mistresses, Answerer of Prayers-mercy! Mercy, 0 People of the House! By God, verily I shall be patient so long as I shall live! Do not all things have a quietus? Indeed, all do, and in English it is called the end, spelled e-n-d."