The Zafarani Files

Gamal Al-Ghitani, Farouk Abdel Wahab

Description

The intrigues of an old Cairo quarter: gossip, spells, betrayals, and busybodies in a parable about political and personal freedoms
An unknown observer is watching the residents of a small, closely-knit neighborhood in Cairo's old city, making notes. The college graduate, the street vendors, the political prisoner, the café owner, the taxi driver, the beautiful green-eyed young wife with the troll of a husband all are subjects of surveillance. The watcher's reports flow seamlessly into a narrative about Zafarani Alley, a village tucked into a corner of the city, where intrigue is the main entertainment, and everyone has a secret. Suspicion, superstition, and a wicked humor prevail in this darkly comedic novel. Drawing upon the experience of his own childhood growing up in al-Hussein, where the fictional Zafarani Alley is located, Gamal al-Ghitani has created a world richly populated with characters and situations that possess authenticity behind their veils of satire.

Sujets

• Political
• Literary
• Egipto
• Literature
• Egypt
• Politics
• Middle East
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: The American University in Cairo Press
• Date de parution: 01 mars 2009
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781617971495
• Langue: English

Extrait

First published in 2009 by
The American University in Cairo Press
113 Sharia Kasr el Aini, Cairo, Egypt
420 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10018
www.aucpress.com
English translation copyright © 2009 by Farouk Abdel Wahab
Copyright © 1976 by Gamal al-Ghitani
First published in Arabic in 1976 as Waqa’i‘ Harat al-Za‘farani
Protected under the Berne Convention
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Dar el Kutub No. 4343/08
eISBN: 978 161 797 149 5
Dar el Kutub Cataloging-in-Publication Data
al-Ghitani, Gamal
The Zafarani Files / Gamal al-Ghitani; translated by Farouk Abdel Wahab.—Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2008
p. cm.
eISBN: 978 161 797 149 5
1. Arabic fiction I. Abdel Wahab, Farouk (trans.) II. Title
813
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 15 14 13 12 11 10 09
Designed by Andrea El-Akshar
Printed in Egypt
Deliver us from evil
File 1
Containing Profiles of Certain Subjects Residing in Zafarani Alley; Information Drawn from Sources Who Are Closely Informed
about All that Goes on in the Alley
1
S aturday evening, first of Sha‘ban. Usta Abdu Murad, having completed the evening prayer at al-Hussein Mosque and having attended the religious observance organized by the Broadcasting Service on the occasion of the beginning of this Islamic month, came finally to a decision about something over which he had been hesitating for quite a while. He hurried toward the room of Sheikh Atiya on the ground floor of house number 7 in Zafarani Alley. Usta Abdu is employed as a driver by the Cairo Transit Authority. Before joining the said Authority, he drove cars for hire, in which occupation he held the following positions:
In 1949, after discharge from military service at the end of the Palestine War, he worked as driver of an intercity taxicab, transporting passengers between Cairo and Alexandria. The cab was a 1949 Ford that could carry seven passengers, and was owned by a sackcloth merchant in al-Khurunfish by the name of Hagg Abu al-Yazid. Following a dispute that arose between them, Usta Abdu found himself unemployed. After three months of unemployment, he went back to work, this time driving a Cairo taxicab. For ten years he got on well with the owner of the cab, a good hagg who was a dealer in plumbing supplies and who always talked about his good fortune: how he had left his village in the deep South and walked all the way to Cairo, and how God had bestowed upon him so much of His bounty that he had now become one of the select few who sold and installed plumbing supplies, sinks, toilets, and the like. In addition, the good hagg also owned a truck and a number of taxicabs. Usta Abdu liked his job because of the different passengers he got to meet and the conversations he had with them. He would frequently recount the incident that had befallen him during the war when he was engaged in a bitter fight against the Jews in a Palestinian village called Majdal. He still bore the scar he had received just below the knee. He would describe how it had felt as the shrapnel penetrated his skin; how he thought he had died; how he moved his limbs; and how he came to. Only once did he ever show anyone his scar, and that was when two young men rode with him from Heliopolis to Saqiyat Mekki and seemed friendly. One of them even moved onto the front seat, to sit next to him. That pleased him immensely.
In 1957, Usta Abdu began employment with a private bus company. He worked on the Sakakini Square—Citadel line. He did not give up the cab, however, but drove it for hours at the end of his bus shift.
It is not known exactly when he married Sitt Busayna, but it is an established fact among the inhabitants of Zafarani Alley that the two made their acquaintance in the taxi. Whenever this was mentioned by the women, they would lower their voices and grimace in disgust upon pronouncing the word ‘taxi’ (thus implying that he had not asked for her hand from her family). The women would also allude to yet another facet of Sitt Busayna’s life, namely her work during the Second World War as a dancer and her amassing of a fortune estimated at four hundred Egyptian pounds, a sum that had tempted Usta Abdu to wed her. She had bought for him, before the wedding, one suit, three pairs of trousers, five shirts, a number of socks, and underwear. Some people, but not many, claim that he had married her before the Palestine War, then divorced her after his return, and was now living with her in sin. Others maintain that he had not divorced her, and that the ‘isma, or right to divorce, lay in her hands, and that she often beat him. Even on his way back from work every afternoon, he already looked as if he was afraid of her, as he walked quietly along the alley with head bowed, glancing neither left nor right, and speaking to no one, as though in a hurry. The kids of the alley would sometimes taunt him, shouting and sticking out their tongues. He never scolded them or even reacted at all. He just seemed scared and did not even complain to any of their parents.
This particular night, however, the first of Sha‘ban, Usta Abdu did not enter his own house but, instead, went on right to the end of the alley. Zafarani, it should be noted, is a dead end that leads nowhere. House number 7 stands at the far end, and it is here, in a narrow room tucked under the main staircase, that Sheikh Atiya resides.
Usta Abdu entered the room and sat on the floor in front of the sheikh, whose head almost touched the sloping ceiling. The sheikh stroked the beads of the rosary hanging from his neck and said, “Well?”
The Usta spoke quickly and, just as his wife had instructed, came straight to the point, saying that his marital life was in jeopardy, that his home was falling apart, and that he didn’t know what to do. He was no longer able to fulfill his conjugal duties, and this had already lasted a week. When he was engaged to be married, but before signing the contract, his fiancée, as she then was, had asked him specifically, “Can you water the soil, daily?” Refusing to believe his nod of affirmation, she had tested him thoroughly. For many years, apart from the days of her period, he had not ceased. She would fall ill and lose weight if he failed to mount her each and every day. This passing of a dry, unproductive week had been terrible, especially since his condition was showing no signs of improvement. He was getting so tense and his nerves were so bad that he now thought twice about going home. He feared she might give in to temptation because she had a fiery temper and her patience, in the present circumstances, had worn very thin. He said that he had tried folk remedies, bought herbs from al-Hamzawi, and had followed the advice of an old cab driver he knew who has had great experience in life.
The sheikh’s eyes gleamed in the dark. Usta Abdu heard the sound of paper being shuffled. The sheikh was making calculations, mumbling in a childlike voice. The Usta dared not raise his head, but the sheikh seemed to be paying him no attention. The paper kept on being mysteriously shuffled about. If, Usta Abdu whispered with humility, he could not find a cure, his wife would kick him out. After a period of silence the sheikh said: “Come to me on the morning of Friday after next, at the moment of sunrise.”
2
Sayyid Effendi al-Tekirli is an employee of the Department of Public Trusts. He often comes into the alley accompanied by other effendis who wear prescription glasses, and golden cuff links, and clean, shiny shoes. Some of those effendis carry handsome briefcases that, according to several Zafaranites, are worth twenty Egyptian pounds apiece. Various questions have been raised, from time to time, concerning those gentlemen: Are they his relatives? Are they just influential acquaintances? Some of them hold important positions of a certain ‘special’ kind inside those ministries and departments and Sayyid Effendi’s relations with them have helped to resolve a good many of the alley’s little problems.
When Sitt Wagida sought his advice, for instance, he did not hesitate to help her son, when his schooling was complete, to get into a vocational training center, where after only a short time he would leave with mastery of a skill or a trade, thus saving his family a lot of money and even helping with their expenses. Whenever the sewage pipe exploded Sayyid Effendi would immediately make a call, and in no time at all, workmen would arrive in great numbers to remove all the filth and clean the whole place up again. When a scorpion stung Aliya, daughter of Sitt Khadija, the Sa‘idi woman, he went with her to the hospital and, on coming back, she told everyone how he had spoken to the doctors and the nurses as if he were a state minister or a director. Sayyid Effendi is the only one who can restore power to the alley within minutes of a cut. Many of the locals speak of the way in which he dials the telephone and of the rhythm of his voice as he shouts his distinctive “Hello!” He is the only one who is allowed to make calls at any time he wants from the telephone at Me‘allim Daturi’s café.
But in spite of Sayyid Effendi’s many services to the inhabitants of Zafarani, he does not mix with them, and nobody knows what his apartment looks like from the inside. Some assert that he owns a refrigerator, a water heater, and a cassette recorder. But none of the women can eavesdrop on him because his apartment is situated on the top floor of Umm Kawsar’s house, which is fifth on the right as you enter Zafarani Alley but, as it stands opposite