Children of the Alley by Naguib Mahfouz

Author:Naguib Mahfouz
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, pdf
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2016-06-15T04:00:00+00:00

59

Yasmina left the house swathed in black, Abda’s parting words ringing in her ears: “Goodbye, daughter, may God keep you and protect you. Rifaa is in your hands. I will pray for both of you day and night.” Night was beginning to fall; the coffeehouse lamps were being lit, and boys were playing in the light shed by the handcart lanterns. At the same time, cats and dogs were fighting—as they always did at that time of day—around the heaps of garbage. Yasmina walked toward Gamaliya with no room for mercy in her passionate heart. She did not hesitate, but was filled with fear, and imagined that many eyes were watching her. She had no sense of composure until she had left al-Darasa for the desert, and felt truly safe only when she was in the reception hall, in Bayoumi’s arms.

When she pulled the veil away from her face, he looked at her attentively. “Are you afraid?”

“Yes,” she answered, panting.

“No, you’re a lot of things but not a coward. Tell me, what’s wrong?”

“They fled over the rooftops to Karim’s house, and they’ll leave the alley at dawn.”

“At dawn, sons of bitches!” muttered Bayoumi scornfully.

“They talked him into going away. Why don’t you let him go?”

“Long ago, Gabal went away, then came back,” he said with a smile of mockery. “These vermin don’t deserve to live.”

“He renounces life,” she said distractedly, “but he does not deserve death.”

“The alley has enough madmen,” he said, his mouth distorted in disgust.

She looked at him earnestly, then lowered her gaze, and whispered, as if to herself. “He saved my life once.”

“And here you are handing him over to his death,” said Bayoumi with a coarse laugh. “An eye for an eye, and the one who started it loses!”

She felt an alarm as painful as a sickness, and glanced at him rebukingly. “I did what I did because I love you more than my life.”

He stroked her cheek tenderly. “We’ll be free. And if things get hard for you, you have a place in this house.”

She felt a little better. “If they offered me Gabalawi’s mansion without you, I wouldn’t take it.”

“You are a loyal girl.”

The word “loyal” pierced her, and the sickening sense of alarm came back to her. She wondered if the man was mocking her. There was no more time for talk, and she got up. He stood to say goodbye to her, and she stole out the back door. She found her husband and his friends waiting for her, and sat beside Rifaa.

“Our house is being watched. It was wise of your mother to leave the lamp lit in the window. It will be easy to get away at dawn.”

“But he’s so sad,” Zaki said to her, looking sorrowfully at Rifaa. “Aren’t there sick people everywhere? Don’t they need healing too?”

“There is a greater need for healing where the disease is out of control.”

Yasmina looked at him pityingly. She said to herself that it would be a crime to kill him. She wished that there was one thing about him that deserved punishment.

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