2. Hazzah | Night of Nights
belladonna. He pours the hallucinatory refreshment
into miniscule glasses from an enormous, spouted jar
strapped to his back. Legless, stone-faced beggars
with painted fingernails push themselves along on
rickety, wheeled plywood boards. An organ grinder in
tatters gazes apprehensively at a chained, red-assed
baboon that he has trained to do somersaults. Atef
walks unperturbed past the gathering frenzy. I watch
him stop at the corner of Maher and sharic el
Khiyamiya, the medieval Street of the Tentmakers.
He peers into the covered passageway. Suddenly, he
turns and glances at me − by chance, I wonder, or
destiny? Then he disappears. The call to salat el
zuhr, the noon prayer, saves me from following him
like a dizzy schoolgirl. I walk to the mosque, singing
a ditty that my Englishman enjoys hearing:
I work in a shop that sells patched frocks,
And try not to think of the sjamboks.
Even after the prayers, I am still drawn to him. I
leave the mosque and hurry to el Khiyamiya. The
crowd outside Zuweila has thinned out although the
red-assed baboon is still there. The organ grinder has
vanished. I enter the covered street. It is strangely
deserted. The street is crooked, and roofed over with
rushes, canvas, and rotting planks of wood. I walk
past one closed stall after another. Atef is nowhere to
be seen. I almost give up hope. I feel embarrassed. I
am never the pursuer. A gang of young thugs jumps
out from a side door. They are children of the
zabaleen, the spectral garbage collectors of Cairo.
They live like feral cats in a nearby cemetery amidst
smoldering heaps of garbage. They surround me
menacingly. I recognize one among them. Atwa. I
study with him in the madrasah. We memorized the
Koran together. He held my little finger once during a
lesson. The Night of Power is better than a thousand
months.
He recited the words, over, and
over again, as he clutched my little
finger.
I
was
transported
by
the
loveliness of his voice and the music of
the phrase. Afterwards, he gave me a sprig of
jasmine to put behind my ear. Now he is making
obscene kissing sounds and taunting me in a singsong
2
3. Hazzah | Night of Nights
effeminate voice: Rayih fein, ya sharmouta? Where
are you going, queer? The others laugh. I wiggle my
eyebrows at him, which infuriates the little shit. He
inches closer. The heat of the afternoon sun is
overpowering. Suddenly I hear a noise behind me.
Atef is standing in front of an empty stall. It is
abandoned and filled with detritus. I notice the curved
dagger in his belt. He is looking straight at Atwa.
“Do you live in this filthy hole?” he asks, in his
guttural desert accent. “You seem wretched enough.”
Atwa hesitates. He looks at Atef’s dagger.
“Il mara el gai’a, next time,” he says to me, and
walks away. I hurl curses at Atwa’s back as the
teenage thugs follow him down the street, until I
realize that Atef is no longer standing behind me.
Later that evening, I find him in an ahwa near
Zuweila. I sit next to him.
Intense men playing backgammon fill the outside
tables of the coffee bar. It is abuzz with rumors of
Farouk’s surprise appearance earlier at Opera Square
in his red convertible. The men rattle dice in leather
cups. They nervously hold unfiltered cigarettes
between their yellow-stained fingers. They do not sip
their coffee; they aspirate it. Sheesh beesh! Doush!
Turkish argot for the roll of the dice slices through the
air as the men slam the pieces hard on the board while
they play.
A farash brings out a mint tea for Atef. He tilts
his head toward me.
“Shay’ bil laban,” I say, “tea with milk.”
He returns with a water pipe, which he sets down
beside Atef. The farash stokes up the burning mixture
of apple-flavored tobacco. He takes a puff and then
some more quick puffs from the pipe. He hands the
mouthpiece to Atef, its amber tip gleaming with his
spittle. I wait for the farash to bring my tea. When it
arrives, I shyly introduce myself.
“I am Sofyan,” I say.
“Atef.”
“The stall is unrented,” I tell him. “I can help you
clean it if you wish.”
“You are a pimple waiting to burst,” he says.
I try to comprehend his insult.
We sit in silence as Atef’s pipe gurgles. I am
about to finish my tea, when one of two one-eyed
3
4. Hazzah | Night of Nights
soothsayers approaches our table from the street. It is
the one with a missing left eye.
“Good evening to you, brother!” he says to Atef.
Atef draws on his pipe without returning the
greeting. The soothsayer is unruffled.
“I hope you are not deaf, good brother! Or is it
that I look like a nipple to you? A vagina, perhaps?
Or is it the evil eye?”
Atef remains silent.
“Behold the year you live in. Is it 1356, or 1937?
Add up the numbers of the after hegira year.
Khamastasher. Fifteen. Is that your magic number,
brother? How long have you wandered alone in the
desert before arriving here? Do you remember?
Fifteen days?”
Atef snorts at the question.
“I will show you one thing, my Bedouin brother.
A mirror of your life.”
He signals to the second one-eyed soothsayer who
fumbles in a satchel and retrieves a glass frame. The
frame is made of silver. It is ornamented with the
names of Allah in Kufic script. A crude drawing of a
square divided into nine boxes is under the glass.
Centered inside each box is a single number, one
though nine.
٤ ٩ ٢
٣ ٥ ٧
٨ ١ ٦
“Look closely,” says the one-eyed soothsayer. “If
you know the Prophet’s alphabet, Peace be unto Him,
see the names of He who has determined your fate.
Within the calligraphy of his appellations, the khat el
arabi, the Arabic line, my brother, lays your path. Do
you see it?”
Atef remains impassive. The soothsayer hesitates.
His pale eye is fixed on the furrows of Atef’s brow, as
if searching for a sign.
“Good brother, listen to me. You may once have
lost your way. You may even have abandoned Him. I
4
5. Hazzah | Night of Nights
see many who do and ask myself this. Is not a heart
without God beating itself? Many are searching, my
brother. The winds from the desert have blown like a
swarm of locusts upon us. May Allah preserve us all.
Now pay attention! The numbers in the boxes are not
in random order, as it may initially seem. Can you see
the pattern that is set before your own eyes? If you
can count, count. Add the numbers of the top row.
Fifteen. Add the numbers of any row. Add the
numbers of any column. Add the numbers of either
diagonal. Marvel at how all equal fifteen no matter
which way you count.
Fifteen, brother.
Khamastasher. All is fifteen. Even the nilometer on
Rhoda Island on a good flood year rises to fifteen
cubits!”
“Sixteen,” I say.
“Are you certain, my unbearded child? Do not
speak when you should be learning. Anyway, it
matters not. Fifteen, sixteen. It is close enough. Now
look carefully at the mirror. See, too, what is hidden
there in plain view. See what is in the middle of the
square. Rob yourself of blindness. Is it a number or
hā, the letter ‘h,’ brother? And if a letter, is not its
sublime roundness a symbol of Allah’s perfection?
Within the mirror of your own life! Fifteen I tell you.
One and five, ١٥, Aleph, and the letter of God. The
pursuer and the pursued. Either it is your fate, or there
is nothing.”
“You are a complete charlatan,” says Atef. “You
disgust me.”
The one-eyed soothsayer turned his pale,
unblinking eye to me.
“When were you born, child?”
“1922.”
He looks at Atef.
“He is fifteen. Younger even than our glorious
new king. Fifteen, my brother!”
This silver-tongued man amazes me, but Atef
seems unimpressed.
“I know what you are thinking. This soothsayer
sees only half the picture. Ach! What do you think I
see when I look at my own brother?”
The second one-eyed soothsayer giggles. He
sounds as if he is bleating.
5
6. Hazzah | Night of Nights
“Now here is what I will do. Tonight, and only for
you, I will reveal your fate for a paltry fifteen piasters.
What say you, brother?”
He waits for Atef to answer.
“I’ll pay you fifteen millimes.”
“Mashi,” says the soothsayer, “all right. But only
because you are my brother. Give it to him.”
Atef hands the second one-eyed soothsayer the
money.
The soothsayer clears his throat.
“I will say it in fifteen words. Listen carefully, for
I will not repeat it. Ready?”
“Yes.”
“Your choice of any given path is known to Allah
but not preordained by Him.”
“Is that it?”
“Yes.”
Atef sneers
“This could apply to anyone,” he says.
“So it can, for that is the fate of all men. Women,
too. Salaam on you, my brother! Salaam!”
And with a synchronized wink, the two one-eyed
soothsayers move on.
The next day, Al Ahram’s headlines scream, Yom
tareekhi el azeem! A day historical and magnificent!
I ignore them. I fly in the air with Bulbul past the
ahwas filled with people listening to Farouk’s speech
on the radio. I do not hear it. I do not hear the
muezzins calling me to prayer. I hear only Atef’s
voice. I want him to sing desert songs to me. I want
only his presence. I want him near me. I do not care
why he left the clean desert to come to this wretched
place. It is Friday, and the shop where I work is
closed. I find the widow of the owner of the empty
stall. She agrees to rent for a few piasters a week. I
run to the Street of Tentmakers. I sweep the stall
clean and wash the walls.
It takes a few days to
prepare everything. I find a worktable, and bins that I
fill with brilliant swaths of silk and cotton. I place a
pair of scissors, threads, large sheets of tracing paper,
a few crayons, and an assortment of stitching needles
on the table. O what sweet work this is! I wonder
what sort of things he will stitch. Will it be appliqué?
6
7. Hazzah | Night of Nights
Yes cushions, yes, pillowcases, yes, and mural
stitchery. He could teach me to help him. Perhaps we
can make suradeq, in fulgent patterns of red, green,
blue and yellow. It is expensive to obtain all these
things for him. I bargain with dry good merchants. I
convince them to supply Atef on credit. Some of
them I have to be alone with in the back of their
stores. Some of them want me to meet them in the
hamam. I do not care. I will soap down these men in
a bathhouse in the steam for him. They are delighted
when I meet them privately outside the shop. Pretty
nightingale, they coo to me, I have caught you at last.
I wait for him in the stall. The days drift. Where is
he? Where is my absent love? Did he silently pass by
and dislike the haberdashery I bought him? Or was I
the object of his contempt? La’a, no. No. I wish he
would sit on the pillows beside me. He is troubled. I
saw it in his brow. I want him to melt inside of me. I
want to walk along the Nile corniche and listen to him
tell me everything. I want to see our reflection in the
swirling brown water. I do not want us to be forever
trapped in the Old City, with her shahateen, her halfclothed beggars, her flies, her scurvy-addled donkeys,
and her antiquarian sadness. I want him to know
another Cairo, different from all that, before he
becomes part of it, like all the others. I want to cross
El Malek el Saleh’s bridge with him, to Rhoda Island,
that nosegay paradise, and whisper to him that it once
belonged to Moses. I want to stroll with him there
through Ibrahim Pasha’s rose gardens, by the luxuriant
bamboo stands, and the yellow and green banana
trees, and the sycamore, acacia, and swaying palms. I
want us to walk to the nilometer and watch the slow
moving feluccas glide serenely up the Nile with their
lateen sails furled out. I want him to let go.
Muhammad saw Jibreel in the form of a handsome
young man. I am more than handsome. I am
beautiful, and I want him to adore me. I want Atef to
destroy me. I want to veil and reveal myself a
thousand times to him from behind a coquettish fan of
colored plumes.
A full week goes by. I feel as if I am going mad.
I go to the mosque for the first time since Farouk’s
coronation. I sit alone in the cool shadows of the
mosque and perform salat el maghrib, the evening
7
8. Hazzah | Night of Nights
prayer. Afterwards, I meditate for a sign of His divine
pleasure. I walk out; that is when I again see him.
Beloved! He is squatting on the ground of the Street
of the Tentmakers like a penniless mendicant. He
sees me, and stands up tottering. He is plastered.
Artisans from the street hover outside their stalls like
worried hens. A member of Atwa’s gang slips around
a corner. I take Atef to my room above the shop. The
owner is in his pajamas. He helps me carry him up
the stairs. He is annoyed at having to do this. He
argues with me. No one has been allowed up before.
But in the end, he resigns himself to Atef’s presence.
After all, we have an arrangement. He does not bother
me; I pay his bills. It suits him well enough
pretending that I work in the shop selling the patched
frocks that no one buys except during the festivals. I
let Atef sleep it off in my bed. I wash his body and
soiled clothes and in the morning bring him a plate of
fava beans and a glass of honeyed tea. He sleeps
again. The next day is better. He looks refreshed, less
old. I take him to the stall. How I wanted him to kiss
me so. He says nothing. Instead, he sits down crosslegged and begins to draw a pattern. I stay with him
most of the day and watch him work. That night, he
returns to me and sleeps on the floor. A few weeks
later, we smoke hashish together. I am not
used to it, at first, and become unwell.
Sleep on this straw mat on the floor where
I sleep, he says. I do. He eases himself
beside me, and I wait in vain for him to
ravage my soul. This goes on for several months.
Every day until evening, including the holy day, he
hunches low over his worktable. He does not stop to
eat, unless I bring him something. At night, he returns
to me. One evening, he mentions that he
tried once to make a perfect tent in the
desert.
He tells me of a terrible
Khamaseen that blew in from the West and
destroyed everything in its path. I wanted
to know more but he would not say anything
else. I wept in sadness that night. After a
while, he begins spending less time in the room with
me. He goes to the ahwa after leaving the stall and
stays there most of the night smoking hashish. I pay
for all this, too, as his work does not sell.
8
9. Hazzah | Night of Nights
Occasionally, curious tourists come inside to
view the fury of his work. Atef ignores them,
particularly the English ones, as they stare mutely in
puzzlement. They leave feeling disturbed, and hollow
at not having bought anything. Later, some of them
linger on the grand verandah of the Shepherd Hotel.
They sip shandies, gin and tonics, and bottles of Stella
beer served to them in sweating ice buckets by Nubian
suffragis. They gossip: Did you see that awful man in
the tentmaker place? Did you see all his horrible
unfinished murals? All those destroyed tents? All
those women in black sinking into the sand? All those
dying children? How depressing! And what a
revolting wog! No manners whatsoever! It’s no
wonder he can’t finish any of it. At least that is what
my Englishman says they talk about; I do not care one
way or the other, for Atef’s sickness is my healing.
I sleep with Atef, but no longer love
him.
It is early December and the last days of
Ramadan are afoot.
My tongue is fissured
from thirst.
We are in my room. He finishes salat el ‘asr, the
mid afternoon prayer. He smells of wine and hashish;
the odor pervades the room. Salat el ‘ars, I say to
myself: the prayer of pimps. He passes out after
praying. I leave, and spend the afternoon at a
hotel with my Englishman.
It is evening
when I return.
“Were you with him?”
“No.”
“How much did he pay you?”
He stares at me.
“Not even a tareefa.”
“Give me the money.”
“No.”
He slaps me on across
starts bleeding.
“Burn it, then.”
the
mouth.
It
Atef goes to the window and unlatches the wooden
shutters. He opens them wide. Bulbul alights on the
windowsill.
“You’re lying about your rich Englishman,” he
says.
I shrug.
9
10. Hazzah | Night of Nights
“At least he doesn’t beat me.”
“Don’t be so angry with me, ya habebti,”
he says sarcastically.
“Are you coming to my wedding?”
He looks at me. His eyes are puffy and
bloodshot.
“I might. Where is it anyway?” he says.
“I have to get ready.”
“Where is it?!”
“Ask God.”
“I need money.”
I throw a shilling on the floor.
My heart
does not ache as I watch him pick it up.
They come in secret after salat el isha,
the night prayers.
The heretics climb
silently up the Moqattām hills from the Old
City in a path of ashes marked by a few
candles.
They file solemnly into the
suradeq that is set up in a hidden place
overlooking the valley.
The night sky is
dancing.
A shooting star… it is Leila Al
Qadr, the elusive Night of Power.
Inside
the massive, unadorned tent, a single torch
crackles brightly in the middle of a rough
circle formed by the inchoate crowd. It is
the circle of revelation.
It grows larger
as the heretics jostle each other entering
the suradeq.
They settle down when a
storyteller steps into the circle.
He
tells Omar Khayyam’s ribald tale of the
Three Choices on the Night of Power.
The
heretics laugh without mirth.
They have
heard it many times.
The storyteller
drinks poison from a jar and falls dead to
lend panache to his story.
They growl
their approval.
An emaciated man steps
over his body and levitates a row of snakes
that he produces from a basket. The snakes
join themselves mouth to tail in a circle
that spins around the man’s extended arm.
Another steps in and plunges fearsome
knives into his body, then smites his eyes
with
rusted
nails
for
good
measure.
Another
viciously
whips
a
blindfolded
prostitute for tempting men of faith.
Finally, an enormously fat man steps into
the circle and incinerates himself without
uttering a sound.
When he turns into a
charred cadaver, the heretics utter the
words Allah is Great! with a single voice.
They are ensorceled. They are ready. The
circle begins to tighten; it is my cue. I
10
11. Hazzah | Night of Nights
step into the
suradeq from behind a
curtain.
I walk through the corridor they
make with their bodies.
I stand in the
middle of the circle and drop my veil.
I
am at my most beautiful.
I have not
adorned myself with any female artifacts.
There is no powder on my cheeks or rouge on
my lips.
A little kohl around my eyes is
all I have allowed myself. I drop my frock
and stand before them.
The heretics gasp
at the perfection of their arroussa, their
bride.
I see Atwa at the edge of the
circle.
I wait as he comes to me and I
lower my eyes and almost surrender.
The
heretics murmur, awaiting the inevitable.
Finally, he is here.
They sigh as Atef
dramatically pushes his way in.
He will
slit Atwa’s throat.
He will spike his
severed head on a stick in front of the
roseate gate. I wait for him to claim me.
I am a virgin in Paradise.
He stands at
the edge of the shadows.
He fingers the
handle of his dagger.
He has me.
The
heretics groan as he takes his hand off his
dagger, and the venom in the jar becomes
wine and I drink it and no longer see
anything.
I wake up at false dawn, the anticlimactic dawn
that precedes the true rising of the sun. My back is
sore from sleeping on the straw mat. My head aches
from the wine. I tap my swollen lips with my fingers.
Outside, a lone muezzin sounds reveille for the fajr
prayers. Another beckons; then another. Within
seconds, the streets reverberate with their calls.
Hay’a ala-s-salat! Come to pray! As-salatu khayrun
minan-nawm! Prayer is better than sleep! It is time to
wash my uncleanness. Ha! The cries to morning
prayer grow louder, more insistent. I am paralyzed.
How can I pray? Ulema permit the sick to do so using
only their eyelids. Atef had taught me that, not long
after we met. I am half-asleep in the half shadows. I
pat the straw mat beside me. His chaste, wiry body is
not there, but I find a shilling on the mat. He has
wrapped a woolen blanket around me; I shiver,
nonetheless. I do not feel like performing my
ablutions without him. How beautiful a ritual it was:
pouring water from a jug into a white porcelain bowl
with a blue rim and washing each other completely.
11
12. Hazzah | Night of Nights
His faint scent is still on the blanket and mat from
yesterday afternoon. I do not wish to abandon them. I
swab my palms on the dirty floor. I wipe my face
with them, pretending the dirt is pure sand, and that I
am a traveler in the desert, far from any water. Then I
flutter my eyelids. Ha!
Sofyan’s beauty quickly faded.
He was
never again a bride.
His Englishman left
soon
after,
promising
to
send
many
postcards.
Bulbul flew away one day and
never came back. Atef returned to the rolling sea
dunes west of Alexandria where he lived before
meeting Sofyan. He pitched a tent near a watering
hole nestled in the middle of a grove of succulent fig
trees. In winter, he concealed nets in their branches to
catch the nightingale that flew down from across the
sea. He never again thought about that night. From
time to time, Sofyan would still hear the
muezzin’s voice that woke him up that last,
benighted morning.
He heard his cry of
longing that once sounded so hauntingly
from the ancient minarets.
The reedy
voice helped Sofyan suppress the ineffable
disappointment that occasionally plagued
his remaining days.
His voice.
۞۞۞
12
