Naguib Mahfouz - Midaq Alley (Chapter 7) lyrics

Chapter 7The bakery is located immediately next to the cafe, adjoining the house of Mistress Saniya Afifi. The building is more or less square, the angles of the walls irregular. Its left side is occupied by the oven, the walls are filled with shelves, and an earthen bench, built into the wall, runs between the oven and the entrance; on this the owners, Boss Husniya and her husband Giada, sleep. Darkness would enshroud the place night and day were it not for the glow from the mouth of the oven. In the wall facing the entrance may be seen a small wooden door that opens onto an empty space that reeks of dust and filth since its only vent is an aperture in the wall opposite the entrance that opens onto the yard of an old house. An arm's length from the aperture, on a long shelf, a lamp shines, casting a pale light on the place and revealing the dusty floor of the yard, which is covered with refuse as voluminous and diverse as that of a garbage dump. The shelf that bears the lamp extends the length of the wall and on it bottles large and small are lined up, along with various implements and bandages, so that it would remind one of a shelf at a pharmacist's were it not so dirty. On the ground, directly below the aperture, lay something in a heap-something that would have been indistinguishable from the ground in terms of its filthiness, color, and smell were it not that limbs, flesh, and blood gave it the right, despite everything, to claim the title of humanity. This was Zeita, who rented the empty space from Boss Husniya the Baker's Wife, and whose infmite primitiveness was enough to ensure that once seen he would never be forgotten. He consisted of a black, thin body and a black gallabiya-total blackness above and below, but for two slits from which gleamed a frightening whiteness that was his eyes. Zeita was, however, no Negro. He was an originally browned-skinned Egyptian over whose body dirt, turned into a crust by a lifetime of sweat, had formed a black layer. Likewise, his gallabiya had not at first been black; to turn black, though, was the fate of everything on the lot. Zeita was connected by only the most tenuous of ties to the rest of the alley in which he lived. He visited no one and no one visited him, for no one derived any benefit from him just as he derived none from any of them. The exceptions were Doctor Bushi, and the fathers and mothers who made use of his image to scare their children. Everyone knew what his profession was--Dne that might have con­ ferred on him the title of 'doctor,' albeit he didn't in fact use such a title, out of respect for Bushi. He fashioned deformities, and not the ordi­ nary natural deformities either. His were artificial deformities of a new type. Any who wished to enter the beggar's profession would seek him out and, through his amazing art-the instruments of which crowded the shelf-he would craft for each the deformity that suited his par­ ticular body. They came to him whole and left him blind, crippled, hunch-backed, pigeon-chested, and minus arms or legs. He had acquired his mastery from the random experiences of life, of which the most important was his long career in a traveling circus. Under the influence of his contacts with the beggars' world (which went back to the days of his boyhood, which he had spent in the bosom of beggar parents), it had occurred to him to apply the art of make-up, which he had picked up at the circus, to certain beggars, at first as a hobby and later, when he found it difficult to find other means of making a living, as a profession. An inconvenience of his work was that it began at night--Dr at midnight to be more precise--but it was one that had become, by dint of repetition, both familiar and comfortable. During the day, on the other hand, he hardly ever left the lot but would squat there, eating, smoking, or entertaining himself by spy.ing on the baker and his wife. He derived enormous pleasure from eavesdropping on their conversations or watching, through the cracks in the door, the woman rain blows on her husband, morning and evening, until, when night came, calm descended upon them and the woman approached her ape-like husband, joking and chatting with him as though they were the best of friends. Zeita detested and despised Giada, above all for his ugly face. At the same time, however, he was jealous that God had bestowed upon him a wife of sound body (or, as he put it, 'a nice bit of beef'), and of whom he often said that she was to women what Uncle Kamel was to men. One of the things that most made the people of the alley avoid him was his fetid smell, for water had never found its way to either his face or his body; he preferred the loneliness of ostracism to bathing. He detested the others as heartily as they did him, and would dance with joy if his ears ever caught the sound of people lamenting over someone who had died, saying, as though addressing the deceased, "Now it's your turn to taste the dust whose color and smell disgusts you on my body!" Often he pa**ed the long hours of his spare time imag­ ining the different sorts of torture he would like people to suffer, find­ ing in that an unequalled pleasure. He would picture Giada the Baker as the target of dozens of mattocks that strnck him until he was reduced to a shattered ma**, full of holes, or Master Salim Elwan laid out on the ground while a steamroller went back and forth over him and his blood ran down toward Boxmakers Street, or Master Radwan el-Husseini with hands dragging him by his red beard toward the roaring oven and then pulling him out of it as a sack of charcoal, or he'd see Boss Kersha thrown under the wheels of a streetcar and cut to pieces, his remains then being collected in a filthy basket and sold to dog owners, and much else that was, in his opinion, less than people deserved. Similarly; when practicing his profession and starting on the production of some defor­ mity for a customer, he would deliberately use him as cruelly as possible, under cover of professional necessity; his terrifYing eyes shining with an insane light as the moans escaped his victim's lips. For all that, he loved beggars more than any other members of the human race, and often wished that they formed the majority of the earth's people. ******** The man beamed and launched into a stream of blessings, which Zeita cut short by asking, "Why don't you work as a highway robber?" Sadly, the man replied, "I'm a good, quiet sort. I don't like to hurt anyone and I love the People of the House." Contemptuously, Zeita said, "You think you can start in on me, of all people, with that kind of smooth talk?" Then he turned to the other man, who was short and skinny. "Nice presentation," said Zeita appreciatively. The man's face broke into a smile and he said gratefully, "All praise to God!" "You were made to be a blind cripple." "The Lord is bountiful!" said the man gratefully. Shaking his head, Zeita said, "The operation is delicate and dangerous. Let me ask you, what if, in the worst case, you really lost your sight, through error or negligence, what would you do?" The man hesitated for a moment. Then he said indifferently, "It'd be a blessing. What did my sight ever gain me that I should be sorry to lose it?" With satisfaction, Zeita said, "With a heart like that, you can really face the world." "God willing, sir, I shall make myself your slave. I'll hand over half of whatever the charitable give me." Zeita fixed him with a merciless stare and said fiercely, "That won't work with me. My take is two milliemes, plus the charge for the operation, and I know how to get what I'm owed in case you should talk yourself into not paying on time." Here Doctor Bushi cautioned him, "You haven't mentioned your bread share,'' and Zeita went on, "That too, of course. Now let's get started. It's a tough operation and it'll test how tough you are. Hold in your pain as much as you can," and, a satanic smile sketching itself on his pale lips, he wondered to himself how much rough treatment at his cruel hands that thin and emaciated body would be able to stand.