3. The Outlaws

I was in my second year of high school, and examinations were coming up, when I noticed that my father had recently taken to visiting the monastery more often, without taking me along. One evening he came into my room while I was studying. Frowning, he said, “Leave whatever you’re doing and come with me.”

Puzzled, I followed my father to his room. I was trying to figure out what could be important enough to make him do such a thing, when he was the one who was forever urging me to study harder. I thought to myself it couldn’t be about the marriage of Ward es-Sham. It was true that lately a certain young man, one of our relatives, had been spending more time with my father, and my mother whispered to me that she prayed to God he would propose to Ward es-Sham. This would open the way for her younger sisters, for they could not be married off before the oldest. But I told myself he wouldn’t come and interrupt my studying for that, looking so troubled.

When we had gone into my father’s room, he locked the door behind him. He seated himself on the prayer rug and gestured for me to sit down in front of him. He sat there silent for awhile, moving the beads of his misbaha in one hand, rubbing his forehead with the other. Then he made up his mind. Gathering up the prayer beads in his hand, he said to me in a whisper, “There’s something I need to speak to you about.”

I kept quiet, waiting for him to speak. After a moment he said, moving closer to me, while his voice grew even softer, “They’re going to release Harbi.”

Overjoyed, I exclaimed, “Harb-…”

But before I could get the name out my father had clapped his hand over my mouth. “Not one word,” he said.

I understood, and was silent. My father said, “What do you think?”

I thought for a moment. Then I said, lowering my voice as he had, “There’s still a lot of time before Hassaan grows up—and then the Lord will provide a solution.” My father replied, with a sigh, “That is, if Safiyya waits until he grows up. I’m afraid she won’t have the patience…in fact, I’m almost sure she won’t have the patience.”

An idea came to me. “What if we married him to Ward es-Sham?” I said.

I knew that Ward es-Sham’s being still unmarried—and therefore likewise the other girls—cut my father deeply, just as it did my mother, only more so. He was afraid that the reason his daughters still had no suitors, with the oldest girl nearly twenty, was his insistence on giving them an education. Of all the girls in the village who were about Ward es-Sham’s age, she was the only one who had completed preparatory school, and the only one still unmarried. Although we didn’t discuss this subject, I could tell that my father sometimes blamed himself for not having followed village custom. He was afraid he might have ruined his daughters’ chances for the future. So I thought that my idea would kill two birds with one stone, but my father, trying to hide his smile, said, “My, what a clever idea!” I faltered and said no more, overcome with embarrassment. From the way he had spoken, it was clear he thought I was completely off the mark. He kept silent, waiting for me to say something. Without much conviction, I said, “I figured, since Safiyya loves Ward es-Sham as a sister, she might think twice before killing her sister’s husband.”

With a sigh of resignation and a wave of his hands, my father replied, “I thought you were smarter than that.”

Then he leaned forward, pointed at his heart, and said, “You can be sure that Safiyya wouldn’t hesitate to kill even me, who raised her, and who’s like a father to her, if I stood between her and her revenge.”

“Then he should stay in Cairo,” I said.

“And who’ll look after him there? And who can guarantee that she wouldn’t find out where he was? The bey’s friends and henchmen are everywhere in Egypt.” My father bowed his head. “Harbi is ill,” he said sadly. “They’re releasing him from prison before his sentence is up, because he’s in such bad health.”

I kept silent. At that moment I was also overcome with grief and anxiety. I sat gazing at my father, trying to read his thoughts. He didn’t keep me wondering long, but spoke right up, though without raising his voice. “Listen,” he said, “I’ve thought of everything. Tomorrow morning, hook up the carriage. You and I will go to the station at dawn, before anyone knows about it.”

I said in surprise, “We’re going to Cairo?”

He shook his head. “No,” he replied, “we’re going to meet Harbi at the train that comes from Cairo. We’ll take him to the monastery. I asked Brother Girgis to request permission from the head of the monastery, and he agreed that Harbi could stay there. He can live on the monastery farm. Safiyya won’t be able to harm him while he’s under the protection of the monastery. No one will be able to lay a hand on him.”

I hesitated. “The monastery?” I said. “But…” My father raised his hand in front of my face, saying in the same tone, as if he hadn’t heard me, “And from now until morning, I don’t want anyone in the house to hear a thing about this. The whole village will know soon enough, but for now I want not a word. Not even a bird in the sky must know, or else they might kill him before he gets off the train.”

And so we went out at dawn. The village was used to my father’s going to Cairo sometimes on the train that left at dawn, so none of our neighbors was surprised to hear the noise of the horse and carriage in the dark of night. A few people who were leaving the village on that train were startled to see my father standing on the arrival platform, waiting for the train coming from Cairo. When the train pulled in, they saw him supporting a tall, hooded figure who was getting off. They saw my father lead him quickly out of the station. The carriage was parked right in front of the station door. Harbi got into the back seat, and my father, taking no chances, drew the carriage roof. Then he said to me, “Show us what you’re made of. I want us to be in the village before a single person returns from the station.”

My father gave the horse’s neck a gentle pat, then climbed up next to Harbi. I sat alone on the raised front seat, silently praying to God not to let the old horse go slack on me on the way but to let him fly, as my father put it, “like a dove.” Did the horse sense that secret prayer? Could he feel my uneasiness as I sat in the carriage, cracking the whip over his head without touching him, clutching the reins and shouting urgently at him to get going? Had my father’s brief, gentle touch on his neck before he got into the carriage also been a secret message to our old brown horse not to delay us on that difficult morning? Was it our tension and anxiety that made him take to the road as if all the spirit and lightness of youth had suddenly come back to him, to the point where my father shouted at me from inside the swaying carriage to pull in the reins or we would all tumble over the embankment? I don’t think my father could possibly have heard me, with all the din of our crashing into potholes and the squeaking of the wooden wheels—which I was afraid might fall apart—when I shouted back that I could barely control the reins, either to pull them in or let them out, that I was all but clinging to them for dear life. And what did the villagers think when we arrived in the village and all that noise brought them out of their houses? They saw me, alone, driving that carriage run amok, but they couldn’t make out the two figures sitting inside. Some of them ran after me, yelling, “Stop, you lunatic! You’ll destroy the carriage…you’ll kill people’s chickens! (The boy’s lost his mind—his father will kill him!) We’ll tell your father!” And what did they think when they saw me reach our house at last, not stopping there, but heading east, straight into the desert, while the horse kept on, through the sand and the pebbles in the middle of his path, avoiding rocks and holes, like he knew every stone, every ditch along the way, galloping along with the carriage in tow, on that rough road he’d never been on before, until finally I pulled up by the monastery gate. My father got out. Harbi got out. My father said laughing, almost in a whisper, “Were you trying to rescue Harbi or kill all three of us?” Then he grabbed my arm and added proudly, “God keep you, my boy.” I was panting, the horse was panting. He lifted his head, his nostrils trembling, pulling in the air in quick breaths, while his black eyes rolled, their whites showing plainly. Then he bent his neck and leaned his head toward me questioningly. I said with a smile, “Come on, ya miqaddis Bishai…this horse also deserves some attention!”

And the miqaddis Bishai did come in fact. He opened the door and admitted my father and Harbi, saying formally, “Welcome, hagg and hagg.” He didn’t say Harbi’s name. And he forgot about me, as he closed the door quickly behind him.

But we knew, my father, the old horse, and I, that we had succeeded: we had saved Harbi.

My father took care of the arrangements. He had a small hut built in the middle of the farm lands, well away from the monastery buildings and near the miqaddis Bishai’s hut. He made Harbi swear that he wouldn’t leave this farm for any reason whatsoever, though he said to him sadly, “I know that when you can’t come and go as you like, that’s a prison as well, but we have no choice. Be patient, son of my father. Remember our Lord, and pray to him, Harbi. Find pleasure in prayer so that the space of this little hut opens out before you and widens as if it were the whole earth…look upon Heaven before you enter it by the will of God.”

Harbi listened and trusted my father’s words. He’d learned a new way of speaking in Cairo, and so he replied, “Certainly, sir.” Then he caught himself, shook his head as if to clear it, and said, “Right, son of my father…what you’re saying is right…God have mercy on me.”

It was all I could do to keep from crying out when I saw Harbi after he pulled the hood back from his face. He had lost most of his hair, and his cheeks had become two blue smudges, scattered with small scars and wounds. In his eyes was the look of a light that had gone out—his whole face was like a lamp that had been put out.

On the way home from the monastery, I tried unsuccessfully to find out something from my father about Harbi’s illness—he kept sighing and saying, “Just pray that he’ll get well…God’s mercy is great.”

Contrary to what I expected, the village did not object to the arrangements my father had made. There were two or three people who were unhappy with what he had done, and who openly criticized him after Friday prayers in the mosque. My father listened to them in silence. Then he spoke slowly, in the presence of the whole crowd, saying, “Did not our Beloved Prophet, blessings and peace be upon him, send the first Muslims to el-Nigashi, in defense of their lives? I take solace in the Beloved, the Chosen One.” The crowd responded, “Amen!” and after that no one said a word; Harbi was well loved in the village, and from that point on, the number of his visitors at the farm grew. As for Aunt Safiyya, she did not set foot in our house after that day. My father didn’t go to see her, but my mother visited her one time because he asked her to, and she returned grim faced. She announced the moment she walked in the door—and this was the first time I ever heard her raise her voice to my father—“You’ve disgraced me, ya hagg! No less than drive me away, that’s what she did! You know the hell Safiyya is living, so why did you make me go to her? We deprive her of her revenge, then we go and rub her face in it? My God, this is unspeakable!”

But my father waved his hand, saying, “I’ve done as my Lord would have me do, and that’s good enough. Leave the rest to God.”

This wasn’t the first time I realized that my mother was on Safiyya’s side, despite her affection for Harbi—whom she, too, used to call “son of my father”—and despite the fact that she knew he had suffered the injustice of el-Hasan and el-Hussein. Something deeper than all of that kept reminding her that Safiyya would never rest until she took her revenge, and she was convinced that this revenge was Safiyya’s right.

Sometimes I would find her alone, weeping, crouched on the ground, rocking back and forth and crying, “Poor Safiyya, my poor girl!” And sometimes she would turn toward me and say, as if still talking to herself, “The bey will be on your conscience forever, until Judgment Day, and he’ll never rest in his sleep.”

Nevertheless, all contact had been cut between Safiyya and our family. I no longer saw her, but I heard a lot about her. I heard that from the time Harbi had arrived, she had begun going round to people’s houses. She would go from house to house all day long, saying, “Do you see? The bey was right. Do you see? He knew Harbi was no better than a woman. And here he is, just like a woman. Here he is, hiding from a woman and a child, under the protection of the Christians. If he’s a man, then let him come out. Who’s he afraid of? Who’s he afraid of? Hassaan is a foot and a half tall. Is he afraid of Hassaan, or should I be afraid of him for Hassaan’s sake? Tell him to come out! Ask this woman why he’s afraid of a woman!”

The people listened but said nothing. A short time later, we were startled to learn that Safiyya had driven off the two armed guards who had stood in front of her house. The two men didn’t explain the reason, but we heard that she had ordered them to go to Harbi at the monastery and kill him. The men said, “Madame Safiyya, if he comes out of the monastery, we’ll kill him, but we can’t kill him within the monastery grounds. Even criminals and outlaws don’t do that—it’s a sin!”

It was said that she was sitting on the ground when this took place and that she got up and threw the stove at them with its burning embers, shouting, “Get out of here, you women! Am I being guarded by females? Go and sleep next to him! Take your rifles, and take two of my dresses, you women…!”

It was said that the two men ran away, shaking off the embers from their clothes as they went, and it was said that she kept after them, running barefoot behind them, until the servants carried her into the house. It was said that she had gone crazy, or was about to. But the farmers who rented land from her said that not a penny escaped her reckoning, that her mind was as sharp as any in the whole village.

This is what was said; I hadn’t seen any of it. I didn’t set eyes on her, that day or afterward, but I did see Harbi. In spite of everything, my mother continued to prepare for him the kind of food he liked, and I would bring it to him. Other relatives also went on visiting him and bringing him food. As a result, his hut was always heaped with these visitors’ gifts, though Harbi had little appetite and didn’t eat much. His neighbor, the miqaddis Bishai, joined him at meals and would usually press him to eat, although he was himself a more modest eater even than Harbi. The two of them would take their meals underneath the palm trees that stood between their two huts. They would sample bites of this and that, dipping it into whatever was at hand, and then they would lose themselves in conversation. Though I sometimes joined them, I was too shy to impose on them at meals; I always knew, in any case, that I would eat when I got home.

Their talk was in general much like that of the villagers in their nightly sessions. It had to do with our ancestors, who had built the village after their escape from the crown estates, and their descendants and how the passage of time had affected them. It also touched on how Asran’s star had risen. Asran was the grandfather of the largest family in the village, and a few of his descendants were wealthy. Although the miqaddis Bishai—like all the monks in that monastery—was not originally from the village, all the same he had been a companion of the late Bakhoum and had heard many things from him. Later, the miqaddis Bishai was able to fill in the details through his frequent association with us.

Harbi would talk to him in all seriousness, despite the fact that the miqaddis Bishai often got things mixed up: as, for example, in his tale of how Asran achieved the rank of a bey. We—Asran’s descendants—had heard that he obtained the bey rank after a visit to Luxor by the Khedive, to whom he had rendered various services. But the miqaddis Bishai said that Asran had achieved this status because he invited the Egyptian navy to a great banquet. Harbi laughed at this. “How,” he asked, “did Asran invite the Egyptian navy to a banquet, ya migaddis? Did there use to be an ocean in our village that’s since dried up?” The miqaddis Bishai insisted that he had heard this from the late Bakhoum, who had witnessed the event with his own eyes. He added that the tables Asran laid for the navy reached all the way from the village to the monastery. The members of the fleet had worn brocade, he said, and Asran had slaughtered all his livestock in order to feed them. He had brought two cooks and two waiters from Luxor—from the “Winter Palace,” no less—and they wore brocade, too, he said. When his highness the King Abbas heard this, he sent Asran “a big gold bekawiya.” With this gold, Asran bought a lot of land, which his children later inherited.

When the miqaddis Bishai found that Harbi was still laughing in spite of everything, and that I was trying to hide my grin, he tilted his head, squinting. With that air of embarrassment we knew so well, he said, “I mean, my boy, do you think the navy couldn’t get here any other way than by sea? Couldn’t they have come by train? Weren’t they people just like the rest of us, even if they did wear brocade?”

Harbi, embarrassed in his turn, and ashamed of himself for laughing at the monk, replied, “Yes, you’re right, ya migaddis.”

But other kinds of conversations took place between Harbi and Bishai when they were by themselves. These were mostly on agricultural matters: what would improve the quality of the soil and what would not, what were the best months for planting this, the right times for watering that. Such discussions were no joking matter, for the two sometimes disagreed, raising their voices to such a pitch that a stranger might think they were on the point of a serious quarrel.

One day when Bishai was working in the field, I saw that Harbi had removed his gallabiyya and picked up a hoe in order to help him. When I mentioned this in passing to my father, his face changed color and he flew into a rage. He leaped to his feet. “Come with me,” he ordered. The reason for his anger dawned on me, and I instantly regretted having spoken up, but it was too late for that. My father rode his white donkey, while I followed him on another mount. The whole way, he goaded and cursed at his donkey in a way that was not at all like his usual self.

It was just as well that the miqaddis Bishai was not there when we arrived. My father exploded at Harbi the moment he saw him, “Since when, Harbi, do you behave like tenant farmer, hoeing and ploughing?” Harbi tried to calm my father, at the same time looking accusingly at me. “It wasn’t work, ya hagg,” he said, “I was amusing myself.” “You don’t say?!” my father replied. “And were you amusing yourself all those years ago by hoeing your own soil? Have you ever heard of any man of standing in our village working the land like a tenant farmer? Are you trying to disgrace me, Harbi, in my old age? What would Safiyya say if she heard that you’d picked up a hoe and were working on the land at the monastery? She’d say they’d hired you. You’re going to make yourself and me the laughingstock of the village. Have you lost your mind, Harbi?”

Harbi hung his head. “Forgive me, son of my father,” he said. “It happened once, it’s over, and I won’t let it happen again.”

Harbi, like my father, was one of the leading figures in our village. The lowest work he could do was to guard his land by night with a rifle in his hand or to supervise the field hands and the tenant farmers, advising and directing them. He must not turn his hand to the actual labor of farming. None of the village elite was really wealthy, and none of them owned anything more than he needed, except for the consul-bey, of course, God rest his soul; still, boasting was one of the vices of the village. So at some of the gatherings where men got together to talk and joke, tongues were loosened as the hookah passed from hand to hand. Or, after a glass or two of ‘araq (or “the date,” as the villagers called it) in the back room of Amm Rizq’s grocery, someone would brag about the hundreds of pounds he had squandered during his last visit to Cairo, where he had been in the habit of staying up all night with some of his Cairene friends, among whom were officers of the revolutionary council. Or someone would claim that he had certain moneys owing to him from the bey’s estate, but that he was reluctant to claim his due, as this might grieve Safiyya, and so he preferred to leave the matter to God’s accounting. Or it might happen, as the evening wore on, that one member of the group would turn sorrowful, put his head in his hands, and moan that he didn’t know how he was going to come up with the bribe money^[1] for the outlaws, who had sent for him specifically, demanding such and such a sum. But everyone knew all this was nothing but fantasy that would vanish like smoke, and that each man had to humor his brother, because if a man missed his chance today to plead his case before the listeners, then he’d have another chance tomorrow.

And so we were very surprised when one day there appeared in our poor village an army of men dressed in black gallabiyyas and white turbans, with machine guns and rifles slung over their shoulders. We were even more surprised to see them pass through the village, then leave it behind and make for the monastery. I saw them. There were about twenty of them, who passed through the streets and alleyways of the village without turning to the left or to the right, and without speaking to anyone. Their leader was a terrifying giant of a man, who did not carry a rifle on his shoulder. Instead he held a long stick, which he grasped in the middle, striking the ground in front of him with it as he walked, reaching it out to arms’ length at each step. His gallabiyya fit him tight across the chest and billowed around his feet, like a black sail leading that ill-omened band over the yellow sands. I didn’t dare follow them, but some others who were not paralyzed with fear went sneaking along—at a safe distance—behind those outlaws who had never before set foot in our village and saw them stop some distance from the monastery door. They saw the leader of the band go up to the door and knock on it with his stick.

The miqaddis Bishai said later that he had never in his life known fear such as he felt when he opened the door and saw that face, and beyond it all those faces. He stood paralyzed, and the man spoke to him, but he didn’t hear. And he still didn’t understand anything when he saw the giant shout at his men to throw down their rifles and sit down on the sand. The only thing he got was that the man wanted Harbi. The miqaddis Bishai told us that at that moment the Age of Martyrs came to his mind, and he found the courage to say, “We won’t give him up. We won’t hand over our guest.” He was about to close the door, but the giant lost his temper and put out his hand to keep the door from closing. “Believe me, my boy,” said the miqaddis Bishai, “this was no arm—it was an iron rod that pushed the door aside and me with it, almost knocking me to the ground. He was shouting in my face, ‘Listen!’ And at that moment the Lord willed Brother Girgis to come.” Brother Girgis was able to make some sense of the situation, but he asked the man to go around the monastery, to go unarmed, and to leave his men sitting in front of the monastery gate. It was said that Harbi, when he saw the giant approaching his hut, rushed toward him with his arms outstretched, crying, “Faris!” The giant, embracing Harbi, replied in a hoarse voice, “Your servant, oh master of men.”

But this was the only time that a member of the band of outlaws entered the monastery grounds. The head of the monastery would not allow this scene to be repeated.

We knew part of Faris’s story. We knew that he was the leader of the band of outlaws in our province and that his name alone struck fear in people’s hearts. The previous leader, Ateito, had been an evil man. Not only had Ateito extorted bribes from the wealthy and the needy alike, but he had seized for his own use a large piece of land at the foot of the mountain to the north of the province. There he grew hashish and opium, which he then sold. Also he was an uncontrollable murderer. He would ambush people on the road, killing them with or without cause. But after he attacked some people who had prominent relatives in Cairo, the government took action. They sent in the army, which then besieged Ateito on the mountain. A war ensued in which for some time neither side gained the upper hand. For several weeks the newspapers kept reporting about the “pincers” that were closing in on the criminal and the noose that was being tightened around his neck. But Ateito didn’t fall to any pincers. He was surrounded one night, in the middle of the night, in the house of a woman of leisure he used to frequent, at the foot of the mountain. He hadn’t left off going to see her, even after the noose began to tighten around his neck.

The newspapers published a picture of him the next day. The bullets had pierced his chest, turning him into a sieve. His mouth was open and strangely twisted. For a long time after that, we continued to see articles about the purging of the mountains. Then the government bombarded the outlaws’ strongholds with its planes and burned the opium and hashish farms.

When the outlaws came out of hiding again several months later, it was under a new leader: Faris. It was said that people’s fear of them had dwindled after the killing of Ateito, to the point where one of the wholesale grocers in the capital of the province announced openly that he would not pay the bribe, and that Faris could “go drink river water.”^[2] Faris went by himself to see the man at high noon one day. When the merchant saw him coming like perdition itself, he spread his arms in welcome, saying, “Greetings to our mi‘allim, crown of our head!” But Faris didn’t answer. He entered the shop, grabbed the man by the hair, then smashed his head against the marble floor the way a ruffian might smash an onion with his fist. It was said that a single blow left him sprawled limp armed on the marble, blood pouring from his head onto the floor. Then Faris sat in a nearby coffeehouse, calmly smoking the shisha for an hour or so during which no one dared enter the shop to see if the man was alive or dead. After that, people knew what Faris was capable of. But it was said of him that he would not extort bribes from a poor man or a woman, and that he offered protection at no cost to his neighbors at the foot of the mountain.

Harbi had known Faris in prison, before any of this happened. They were companions at hard labor in the Tura Penitentiary. They went out at dawn to the mountain where they worked quarrying stone, and each prisoner was assigned a daily quota he had to fulfill, before the men could return to their cells. The guard in charge of them accepted no excuses. He would whip any man who fell short of his quota, order him to be deprived of food, and make him stand naked in the sun for hours. And it was only with great difficulty that each prisoner was able to offer up his quota of stone at the end of the day. Faris, however, had no problem fulfilling his quota. His hand was, as Bishai said, a tool of iron, and he had never been sick a day in his life. But once he came down with something that affected only his eyes. The prison doctor gave him eyedrops and applied some ointment, but refused to exempt him from going to the quarry.

Faris, a real man, was not one to complain. Although he could barely see, he went to the quarry.

Harbi saw him fumbling with his pickaxe, striking now at the stone, now at the air, random blows that scattered the dust but didn’t crack the stone. He went up to Faris and said to him, “Sit down, cousin. I’ll be responsible for your quota and mine until God heals your eyes.” At the end of the week, Harbi, who had been turning in two daily quotas of stone all week, could no longer stand on his two feet. Faris embraced him and told him, “If ever you need these eyes of mine, cousin, I’ll pluck them out for you.”

So the outlaws began frequently to appear unannounced in our village—sometimes they came once a month, other times once a week. In the beginning, Faris wanted to take his friend with him and to see to his protection, but Harbi politely turned down this offer. Then the leader of the outlaws suggested to my father that he, Faris, should go himself to “the lady Safiyya,” and offer her the blood price she demanded. But my father managed to talk him out of this plan, telling him it was useless, and that it would be better not to put himself in the way of refusal—or worse. My father foresaw what Faris’s reaction would be to Safiyya’s nervous behavior, and so by preventing their meeting he was taking care to protect her as well as Harbi.

The days the outlaws came to visit were the only days Harbi ever went outside the monastery. Brother Metri, the head of the monastery, was determined that they should stay outside the walls, and he scolded Bishai and Brother Girgis for having let Faris go into Harbi’s hut the first time. He said with finality, “No one who lives outside the law shall enter the sanctuary of the monastery.” Faris, not wanting to cause Harbi any problems, did not argue with this. But he always made sure he protected his friend whenever he left the safety of the monastery: the outlaws would stand guard with their rifles on the mountain lookouts around the monastery, and Faris would put his hand on Harbi’s shoulder as soon as he came out, ready to defend him with his own body from any treachery. Then they would stretch out on the sand, surrounded by a circle of Faris’s men.

During those visits, Faris and his men would behave like Arab sheikhs who followed the rules of proper behavior. They never arrived empty-handed. Rather, they came carrying gifts of fruit and pastry for Harbi. His hut was always piled high with such presents—brought also by his relatives in the village—which he would distribute to the monks. The outlaws would always treat my father with respect and would all stand up, with Faris at their head, whenever he appeared during one of their visits. They would lower their voices when they spoke, and leave off cursing. There were some Christians among Faris’s men, who would press coins into the miqaddis Bishai’s hand, and ask him to put these into the monastery’s collection boxes and to light candles for them in the chapel.

Bishai was the only one of the monks who would join Harbi and the outlaws on the days of their visits. He got into the habit of bringing them tea from the monastery, and he would light a lantern for them if it got to be late at night and they were still sitting on the sand outside the walls.

The outlaws soon became fond of him, just as the villagers were fond of him. They took to joking with him and comfortably asking him to fix them another round of tea. He would do so without complaint. Bishai took to joining them in their late-night conversations, although one of the outlaws, a Christian whose name was Hinein, would sometimes go too far in teasing him. He would look very serious and ask the miqaddis Bishai about the secrets of the monastery and monasticism, saying that he was thinking also of becoming a monk. The mi‘allim Faris responded to this more than once rather irritably, but Hinein said with exaggerated innocence, “Do you begrudge me some happiness ya mi‘allim? Maybe I’ll be ordained, and become like this good man.” And Bishai would say, laughing his loud laugh, “Don’t be ordained and don’t become a monk, ya Hinein…but do give up bad company, and leave the path of evil so you can follow the way of our Savior.”

Hinein replied in a voice of great longing, with his hand on his chest, “Anywhere you go, I’ll be right beside you. Take me with you, and I’ll follow the way…” It didn’t make the mi‘allim Faris angry when the miqaddis Bishai talked about the path of evil; rather he would laugh loudly in his turn, saying, “If only you really would take him with you, ya migaddis, and rid us of him. There’s nothing to him but hot air and a headache!”

If Hinein kept up his teasing after that, the mi‘allim Faris would turn a stern eye on him, and Hinein would cut short his talk, all but shrinking away under that angry glance.

Sometimes when the visit stretched into the night, and the lanterns were brought out to light up the mountain, the mi‘allim Faris would ask Harbi to sing. He told us that when Harbi sang in prison, silence fell on the cells, and even the guards listened. Harbi would agree to his request, as we sat there on the sand. He would begin singing softly, with bowed head. Then, little by little, he would raise his voice until his sad song echoed off the mountain and rang through the air.

In those days, he would improvise to the night, to the long night, to the night whose stars clung by their roots to the sky. To the chains of silver that kept the darkness fettered in the sky, so that the stars would not move, and the night would remain unchanged. At that time, cries of longing would rise up from the throats of Faris and his men—cries that carried the weight of their buried cares and sorrows. And the tears would flow from my eyes when I thought of Harbi as he had once been—the Harbi of whom nothing remained but that beautiful voice and its improvisations that sang of sadness.

Those shadowy nights on the mountain, when Harbi’s voice alone would hold our circle spellbound, spread out upon the sand—how well I remember them!

But, as our people would say, nothing—neither day nor night—stays the same. True enough, for I remember also that day when our troubles with the outlaws began.

One morning, an officer from Luxor came to our house, an unheard-of event until that day. This was a little while after the disastrous defeat of 1967, when an atmosphere of gloom had settled on our village, like everywhere else. We had seen the calamity with our own eyes, when the airplanes flew above our heads—those planes with the stars on them, that looked like broken-off dagger tips. We saw them destroying the secret airport that was nearby. The women screamed as the wings of our waiting planes caught fire and were sent hurtling through the air. We stood still in our tracks, stricken, unable to find the words to speak.

My father thought that the officer’s visit had something to do with donations toward the war effort, so we seated him in the diwan and gave him our warmest welcome. But as he sat there in silence, we grew anxious. The officer, too, was uneasy. After drinking a cup of tea, he had fixed his gaze on the two rifles hanging from the wall. Noticing this, my father observed in passing, “They’re licensed. We’re at the foot of the mountain here, as you know, and besides, we have to protect our farmlands.”

The officer replied, as if defending himself against an accusation, “I know that, ya hagg. God forbid we should be suspicious of you. You’re a blessing on us all.” But having said these words, he lapsed again into silence, and we into our fears. For it was rare that a visit by a government official was anything but bad news.

After a prolonged silence, the officer managed to find the words to tell my father what it was he wanted. He cleared his throat and shifted his position in his chair. Then he said, “You’re aware, ya hagg, that the outlaws have been coming here.”

Laughing and raising his hands in the air, my father replied, “God forbid, my friend, that I should be the one who invited them. If the government wants to see to the matter, I won’t interfere.”

The officer seemed confused. “See to the matter how, ya hagg?” he said.

My father answered, “I mean, if you want to arrest them when they come…”

I understood that my father had only said this in order to clear himself of any official blame. For he, like the miqaddis Bishai, did not believe in handing over one’s guests, and he knew the truth of the matter as well as the officer, who exclaimed in surprise, “Did I say we were going to arrest them, ya hagg? How? You know they have machine guns and automatic rifles, and that there are more weapons to every two or three of them than we have in all of headquarters.”

My father sighed and shook his head. “Well,” he said, “in that case, what is there that I can do, sir? If that’s where the government stands, then what on earth can I do?”

The officer replied, “Don’t do anything…”

Then he glanced uneasily at me. “Could we speak privately?” he said to my father.

I stood up of my own accord.

The business didn’t take long. I saw my father’s expression relax as he was seeing the officer to the outskirts of the village, where his car was waiting for him. I noticed a slight smile on his lips from where I stood waiting for him by the diwan, and as he approached me, he burst out laughing, unable to contain himself. He put his hand on my shoulder and said, “By God, your father’s become a diplomat!”

He said no more than this, but I was to know everything when the outlaws came for their first visit after that event. We were sitting, as usual, on the sand outside the monastery walls: Harbi, Faris with some of his men, my father, and I; the miqaddis Bishai was not with us on that afternoon. The outlaws had eaten and drunk tea, but the kettle still sat on the open fire, which crackled away, occasionally throwing out a series of sparks. And for a little while that was the only sound to be heard.

The sun began to set, and two or three stars appeared in the sky. The outlaws, as was their wont, were about to begin getting ready to go, so they could catch the eight-o’clock train. Harbi looked tired, and it didn’t appear that the visit would be prolonged, or that it would be a night for singing.

My father broke the silence, saying casually, “Tell me, ya mi‘allim Faris…do you all come to Luxor by train or by car?”

Faris looked at my father in some surprise. “Ya hagg,” he said, “you know…if we could get hold of cars, we’d drive, but there aren’t always cars to be found.” Then he laughed, adding, “As you see, there’s quite a large number of us—bismillaahi maa shaa’ allah—so we generally take the train.”

Without looking at Faris, my father said in the same tone, “That is to say, it’s hard to arrange transportation by car, ya mi‘allim?”

Faris replied, “We can’t arrange it every time.”

“There’s something behind your question, son of my father,” said Harbi. “What’s on your mind?” Waving his hand with an air of nonchalance, my father answered him, “Nothing, really…that is, it’s the authorities. You realize the state of things in this country these days, after the war. I mean, if you didn’t pass all together, as a group, through the streets of Luxor for the time being, it might be better that way.”

The mi‘allim Faris understood. He placed both hands on his head, and said, “By my eye and my head, ya hagg. You’re the boss. For your sake and for Harbi’s sake, we’ll do whatever headquarters wants.”

But Hinein objected. “How can you say that, ya mi‘allim?” he demanded. “Tomorrow they’ll ask us to turn ourselves in! What business is it of theirs if we ride the train, or…” My father interrupted him in some agitation, “What’s the meaning of this talk, Hinein?” he said. “The authorities know why you come here, and they know that you observe the rules when you come and when you return peaceably. Have they given you any trouble before now? This is a request, for my sake and for Harbi’s sake.”

But Hinein went on as before, saying, “But what business is it of the authorities’, ya hagg, if we…”

“Shut up, Hinein!” shouted Faris. Then he turned to my father. Lowering his voice, he said, “As I told you, ya hagg, you have only to ask.” Then Faris began to rub his chin, looking thoughtful. He leaned his upper body toward my father and said, “By God, you’ve got me thinking, ya hagg. My blood’s been boiling ever since the day those bastards took Sinai. Tell the commissioner that the mi‘allim Faris is ready to take his men to Sinai to fight those Jews until they leave the country.”

“What are you saying, ya mi‘allim?” my father said, bewildered.

Faris replied seriously, “Tell our esteemed commissioner that the mi‘allim Faris says to you that he and his men, the outlaws of all Upper Egypt, are ready to go to Sinai to drive out the Jews. We wouldn’t be men if we stayed here while those bastards are there.”

My father kept silent, and Harbi said sadly, “If only I still had the strength to speak the way you do, ya mi‘allim.”

“What kind of talk is this?” Faris replied hotly. “Tomorrow you’ll be as strong as a horse, my friend—this sickness will pass, God willing.”

But Harbi shook his head without conviction, and again there was silence.

My father leaned toward me and pulled me closer to him. Whispering in my ear and struggling not to laugh, he said, “Didn’t I tell you? Your father’s become a diplomat!”

Then he sighed, and said in a louder voice, “Well, it’s getting late…”

Hinein had stood up and begun pacing in circles around the mi‘allim Faris. Then in a sudden burst of enthusiasm he exclaimed, “By God, that’s a great idea, man! But we’ll need weapons.”

Faris replied calmly, “The hagg will speak to the commissioner, and the army will give us weapons.”

“Fair enough,” said Hinein, “but that will take time.”

He was quiet for a few moments. Then he said, as if he had just remembered something, “By the way, ya mi‘allim, I’ve heard that this monastery is full of gold.”

But before the words were even out of his mouth, and before we realized anything was up, a shot had rung out. Hinein was sprawled on the ground, screaming, while the mi‘allim Faris stood waving a pistol and shouting, “My name is Faris! I am Faris, you dog! And Faris does not betray his friends, you traitor!” Everyone had gotten to his feet. Harbi was clutching Faris’s hand that held the pistol. Trying to calm his friend, he said in a voice that broke as he struggled for breath, “Enough, Faris…you’ve punished him, now, that’s enough.” Hinein lay sprawled on his stomach with his arms wrapped around his head, crying out in terror, “Please, ya mi‘allim…I was joking…it’s enough you’ve wrecked my leg!”

Neither Harbi nor my father succeeded in wresting the pistol from Faris’s hand, but they were able to persuade him to sit down. He spoke in a voice that filled the mountain, saying, “This dog will get out of my sight…He will not stay with me one minute after this day.”

“Whatever you say, ya mi‘allim,” said Harbi soothingly, “just calm down.”

Once he felt safe enough, Hinein sat up. Moaning, he said, “You’d throw me out because of a joke, ya mi‘allim?” Hardly able to control himself, Faris replied in a pained voice, “Do you want me, Hinein, to turn on these monks, whose protection, according to the Qur’an, is enjoined by our Lord—may he be praised and exalted?”

Turning then to my father for confirmation, he said, “Isn’t that so, ya hagg?”

“The monks are mentioned in the Holy Qur’an, ya mi‘allim,” my father replied cautiously.

“Did you hear that?” said Faris to Hinein. “Are you testing me, Hinein, or are you a traitor to your own people? Who are you to reckon with Faris, ya Hinein?”

In a voice once again filled with pain, he repeated, more quietly this time, “Who are you to reckon with Faris? If it hadn’t been for Faris, at one time…” Then he fell silent, his head bowed. After a little while he said to my father, “When will you give me an answer?”

“Answer to what, ya mi‘allim?” my father replied, confused.

But Faris had already turned away from my father and directed his attention to Hinein. In a voice just as calm as before, he said, “Go on, Hinein. Get out of here.”

“Ya mi‘allim,” Hinein groaned, almost in tears, “I’m your servant, here at your side for life…”

But Faris shook his head. “If you sell your own people for gold today,” he said, “tomorrow you’ll sell me for a penny.” After a moment he went on. “Go, Hinein,” he said shortly. “You no longer have a living with me.”

At that moment, we noticed that the miqaddis Bishai was hurrying toward us, and that some of the other monks had gathered at the gate and were staring at us in silence.

Bishai, who was carrying cotton and gauze, knelt beside Hinein, who was still sitting, clutching his knee. “Did the bullet enter the bone?” he asked.

Then, examining the wounded man’s leg, he went on, “I knew it hadn’t gone in that far, but it’s a large wound all the same, Hinein. Let me clean it for you.”

The miqaddis Bishai was speaking in a deep, quavery voice I had never heard before. I couldn’t see his face, but I thought he might very well be crying.

Hinein stretched out his leg, submitting to the treatment, as the miqaddis Bishai cleaned the wound caused by the bullet, which had struck him below the knee. Hinein moaned when the tincture of iodine stung the wound. Bishai kept drying the blood and cleaning out the wound, laughing briefly, intermittently, a laugh that was nothing like his usual clear, loud laughter. “I told you,” he said to the injured man, “leave this path. You didn’t take my advice, and now look where it’s gotten you.”

Hinein shouted at Bishai to be quiet and do his job, and let ill enough alone.

But Bishai, after he finished bandaging Hinein’s leg, patted him and, repeating that strange laugh, said, “Do you know your own religion, Hinein?” Rubbing his leg, Hinein replied sarcastically, “Why don’t you teach me, ya migaddis?” As if he hadn’t heard, the miqaddis continued, “Did you know, Hinein, that our Savior washed Judas’s feet on the night of the last supper?”

“I’d forgotten that,” answered Hinein, in a mixture of pain and mockery, “so I thank the Lord you’ve reminded me.”

Bishai rose to his feet and looked at the sky, crying out in a loud voice, as if in protest against all the world’s injustices. Then he said, “But afterward Judas betrayed, ya Hinein. He betrayed.”

Notes