Free The Harafish by Naguib Mahfouz Page A

and Darwish went on, “I thought he’d be around for a hundred years!”
    “He creates that which ye do not know,” intoned the sheikh under his breath.
    7 .
    Evening fell. The night drifted in, unexpectedly cold, and there was no sign of Ashur. The café, the bar, the hashish dens, were cloaked in gloom. His family and his followers watched and waited, unable to sleep.
    “There are so many of them and yet they’re helpless,” sighed Fulla.
    “Have we forgotten something? Is there anything else we can try?” asked Shams al-Din dejectedly.
    She let her tears flow unhindered. “Right from the start I knew it was wrong to have false hopes!”
    “I don’t like people who fear the worst always,” he shouted angrily. “Nobody’s made off with him. He’s not some toy. And he’s too shrewd to fall into a trap. I’m only worried because the trails have all gone cold.”
    8 .
    The following morning Ashur’s men gathered in the café together with Shams al-Din and Fulla; they were joined by Sheikh Mahmoud and Husayn Quffa, imam of the little mosque. All were perplexed and full of foreboding, but none dared to express his fears.
    “In twenty years the chief’s never altered his routine,” said Dahshan.
    “He must have a secret!” said Husayn Quffa.
    “He doesn’t have secrets from us,” said Ghassan.
    “And certainly not from me!” declared Fulla.
    “Could he have joined the dervishes?” suggested Husayn Quffa.
    “Impossible!” objected several voices.
    “Something tells me he’ll reappear as suddenly as he vanished,” soothed Sheikh Mahmoud.
    “It’s hopeless,” wailed Fulla.
    At this Dahshan pronounced dramatically, “Perhaps he’s been betrayed.”
    Hearts raced and eyes flashed angrily. “Even lions are sometimes betrayed,” persisted Dahshan.
    “Calm down,” cried Mahmoud Qatayif. “Nobody bears a grudge against the finest man in the alley.”
    “There are always people with grudges.”
    “Guard against temptation and be patient. God is our witness.”
    9 .
    Darwish was handing a calabash to a drunken customer. The man suddenly gripped his arm and whispered in his ear, “I heard Ashur’s men talking. They were saying that you’re the only person who could have betrayed him.”
    Darwish hurried in alarm to Mahmoud Qatayif’s shop and told him what he had heard. He was shaking with terror. Qatayif lost patience with him. “Stop acting like a woman!” he snapped.
    “How can they suspect me when I’m in the bar night and day?”
    The sheikh thought hard. “Run away,” he said eventually. “You’ve got no choice.”
    Darwish suddenly vanished. Nobody knew if he had fled, or if someone had killed him. Nobody asked about him, and Sheikh Mahmoud appeared not to notice he had gone. Soon the bar was taken over by a local drug trafficker, Ilaywa Abu Rasain, and it was as if Darwish had never existed.
    10 .
    The days passed without a glimmer of hope, slowly, heavily, shrouded in melancholy. They all despaired of seeing Ashur al-Nagi again, sadly remembering the giant figure going about the neighborhood, restraining the powerful, protecting the rights of the humble breadwinners, and creating an atmosphere of faith and piety.
    Fulla wore mourning; Shams al-Din wept uncontrollably, and Ashur’s men were sunk in sorrow and reflection. Some people thought that Darwish had betrayed Ashur, then killed him near the monastery, dragged his body to the cemetery, and buried him in an unmarked grave. There were those who insisted that Ashur would return one day and laugh at all their desperate notions; others imagined that because his disappearance aroused such strong feelings it was a miraculous event, and proved that he was a saint.
    The harsh magic of custom began to have its effect on the sad episode, making it acceptable, ordinary, reducing its significance, thrusting it into the eternal stream of events where it vanished from sight.
    Ashur al-Nagi had disappeared.
    But time and fate will