The Zafarani Files by Gamal al-Ghitani

Author:Gamal al-Ghitani [al-Ghitani, Gamal]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781617971495
Publisher: The American University in Cairo Press
Published: 2009-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Some Zafarani Incidents

It is obvious that the sheikh’s commands are not fully carried out as soon as they are given. Some of them appear, at the beginning, to be difficult to abide by. Some people declare their disobedience openly while others harbor it secretly. Continued resistance, however, is difficult in the shadow of the spell. Disobeying the sheikh leads to greater anger on his part. After the ban on quarrels, some little incidents take place—two of them at the sergeant major’s house on the same day.

The first of these takes place in his apartment. He couldn’t care less about the spell or about the whole alley’s impotence, nor could his wife, for that matter. The sergeant major is now approaching his seventy fifth year. His life is now totally tied to his wife, his years are a living part of her days. He cannot stay for one hour without her: If she goes out to buy vegetables or meat, anxiety attacks him. He stares out of the window and when he sees her approaching he shouts out, asking her to hurry up. He spends his time talking about his old friends and their wives and their habits, or looking for an old box to take apart then put together again, or nailing down the frame of the window, or hanging a picture. When he tries to fool around with the electrical wiring, his wife begs him to stay away from it and keeps begging him, but he responds only when she invokes the name of the crown prince.

As the days under the spell passed, they began to worry; something comparable to what had happened to the other inhabitants might happen to them as well. They couldn’t guess what might befall them. That Oweis was living in the same house scared them. It seemed to them that they could hear noises late at night. When that occurred the sergeant major would slightly raise his head and then assert that the jinn had come to the baker’s room. He would tell his wife never to admit to anyone what she had heard and she would nod her head in agreement. He would then say that he knew her and how, with her loose tongue, she couldn’t keep a secret. On those occasions she didn’t answer him; she would ask him to be quiet when he continued to insult her. She would tell him that Sheikh Atiya would be angry if he knew they were talking in the middle of the night.

They both obeyed every order that Oweis announced, fearing the punishment that might be visited upon them if they didn’t. This morning, however, the sergeant major displayed open disobedience. After he got up, his wife asked him to go get their share of fuul and milk. He asked what she was talking about, and she said if he didn’t go down at once they would not have a single bite to eat and would go hungry. He stood up suddenly. Was it

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