Midaq Alley Chapter 34
Chapter 34

Uncle Kamel said to Abbas el-Helw, "Master Radwan's advice leaves no room for any other. Gather together your things, put your trust in God, and go. I will wait for you, no matter how long  or  short  your  absence,  God  willing, and be the top barber in the whole of this alley." El-Helw was sitting on a chair in front of the basbousa shop not far from Uncle Kamel, listening to his friend without saying a word. He had told no one of his new secret. When Master Radwan el-Husseini had offered him his advice, he had tried to unburden himself but had hesitated for a moment and Master Radwan  had started speaking to Hussein Kersha and he'd quickly given up the idea. He did not simply ignore  Master  Radwan's  advice:  he  thought  about  it for  a while, though that Sunday, whose strange encounter in the flower shop was now a day past, dominated his thoughts.  He had  turned  over what had happened in his mind calmly and slowly and had realized in the end that  he still loved the girl, even though  his ties to her were now forever severed, and that his desire to seek revenge on his foe could not be denied.
He  listened  to Uncle  Kamel's  words  in  silence,  then  expelled from his depths  a sigh such as a wretch whom fate had shackled and placed on the crumbling  edge of a dike might fetch. "What  have you decided?" Uncle Kamel asked him anxiously.

*****

Hussein raised his eyebrows quizzically, as though it would be too much  trouble to allow the newcomer  to spoil his mood,  but Abbas, jerked from his normal  state of consciousness by worry, took hold of his arm and pulled at him till he stood up, telling him as he did so, "I need  you urgently."
The  other young man let an indignant  gasp escape his lips, paid his check, and left the bar in the company  of  his friend. Abbas had made  a point of dragging him from the bar before he could get too drunk to give him any useful advice.
When  they reached  Mouski Street,  he said, as though  getting a
nightmare off his chest, "I've found Hamida,  Hussein."
Hussein's  small eyes evinced interest and he asked him, "Where?"
"Remember  the woman in the carriage whom I ran after yesterday and you asked me about today but you couldn't get a clear answer out of me? That was none other than Hamida!"
Amazed  and  mocking,  the  young  man  cried, ' re you  drunk?
What  are you saying?"
His voice serious and strongly affected, Abbas said, "Believe me! That was Harnida her very self I recognized her the moment I set eyes on her, so I ran after the carriage, as you saw, till I caught up with her and I spoke to her."
"You expect me to doubt my own eyes?" Hussein  asked, in surprise
and disbelief. El-Helw sighed sorrowfully and started  to tell him the conversa­ tion that had taken place between them, hiding nothing from him. The other  listened with the keenest interest throughout  and Abbas ended by saying, "This is what I wanted to tell you. Harnida  has fallen into the  abyss and  there's  no saving her, but I shall not let  that  wicked criminal escape unpunished."
Hussein gave him a long look that puzzled him. The young man was by nature  disdainful  and  blase, and  he recovered  from  his sur­ prise faster than  his friend  had expected.  Contemptuously, he said, "The   original  criminal  is Harnida.  Didn't  she  run  off  with  him? Didn't  she give in to him? What  do you have to blame  him for? He liked a girl, so he seduced her. He found she was easy; so he got what he wanted,  and he wanted  to exploit her, so he sent her out into the bars. In fact, I'd say he was a clever guy; and  I wish I could do the same so I could get out of  the mess I'm  in. Hamida's the criminal, my friend." Abbas, who understood his friend well and  didn't  doubt  that he would  not hesitate  to do the same as his foe, avoided  criticizing  his conduct  or character and  decided  to try another approach, appeal­ ing to his pride.  "Don't you think  the  man  has insulted  our  honor and deserves to be taught  a lesson?" he said.
It did not escape Hussein  that in saying "our  honor" Abbas was
referring  to the fraternal bonds  that  linked him  to Hamida and  he immediately  thought  of  his sister, thrown  into  prison  because  of  a similar scandal.  Erupting in anger and resentment, he roared, "That's no concern  of mine, and Hamida  can go to hell!"
He was not, however, being entirely honest. Had  he come across
the man at that moment,  he would have leapt on him like a tiger and buried his claws in him. Abbas, however, was taken in and asked him in a somewhat  reproachful tone, "Doesn't it make you angry  that a man should make such a vile assault upon  a woman  from our alley? I grant  you, Harnida  really is a criminal  and  there's  nothing  wrong with what the man did in itself, but isn't it, as far as we're concerned,
a humiliating act of aggression  that  calls for revenge?"
Vehemently, Hussein cried out, "You're a fool! You're not upset over your honor, as you suppose. It is the fires of jealousy that consume your  feeble  heart  and  if  Hamida had  agreed  to return to you,  you would have run  off with her joyfully. How did you find her, you idiot? You argued and  complained back and  forth?  Bravo! Bravo! Hats  off to the gallant gentleman! Why didn't you kill her? If it had been me and fate had handed me the woman who'd betrayed  me, I'd have strangled her without  thinking twice, then cut her lover's throat  and made myself scarce. That's what you should  have done,  you idiot."
A satanic  look  had  taken  possession  of  his swarthy  face and  he went on furiously, "I'm not saying that to get out of anything. The fact is the  man  ought  to pay dearly  for  his aggression, and  he will, and we'll go together at the agreed  time and give him a thorough beating. Then we'll watch all the places where he hangs out•and keep on beat­ ing him up, even if we have to put together an army of helpers. We won't leave him alone until he buys us off with a large sum of money. That way we can take revenge and get something out of it at the same time."
Abbas was pleased  with this unexpected outcome and said enthu­
siastically, "Great idea! You're really a good man in a crisis!"
The  praise  pleased  Hussein  and he started thinking about how to execute  his plan, urged on by his anger  over his honor, his natural tendency  to violence,  and his urgent desire to get his hands on some money. In warning tones, he murmured, ''Sunday isn't far off." They had  reached Queen Farida  Square, so he stopped  and  said, "Let's  go back to Vita's Bar." The  other, however, clung  to his arm,  saying, "Wouldn't it be better  to go to the bar where we'll find him on Sunday so you can find the way back there  on your  own?"
Hussein  hesitated briefly, then went with him as he asked, the two of  them  increasing their  pace. The  sun  was close to setting  and  but little of its light remained. The  sky was enfolded in that  dreamy calm that  overtakes  it  as  the  forerunners of  darkness  appear. The  street lamps   had  been  lit  and  the  stream   of  passersby,  indifferent as  to whether it was night or day, flowed on. The surface of the earth kept up its ceaseless roar, and what with the clanging of the streetcar  and the hum  of the automobiles,  the calls of  the street vendors and the bleating of the horns, not to mention  the susurration of  mankind, it seemed as though in leaving the alley behind them and turning  onto this highway they had moved from dream  to clamorous wakefulness. Abbas el-Helw relaxed and the uncertainty that had for so long settled over him dissipated; he had discovered his path, thanks to his strong and  daring  friend.  Hamida  and  all that  concerned  her  he left sus­ pertded  until circumstances  as yet unknown  should  decide  her fate, and he could not, or perhaps was too apprehensive to, come to a final conclusion regarding  her. It crossed his mind briefly to let his friend in on some of his thoughts, but a quick glance at his dark face caused him to swallow his words and he said nothing. They kept going until they reached the place of the previous day's unforgettable  encounter. Nudging his friend, Abbas said, "There's  the flower shop where I spoke with her."
Hussein regarded in silence the shop to which Abbas was pointing,
then  asked eagerly, "And where's  the bar?"
Abbas  nodded  towafd  a nearby  door, murmuring,  "That's it." They  approached  slowly, Hussein  Kersha  looking  the place and  its surroundings  over with his small, sharp  eyes while Abbas el-Helw, as they passed in front of it, cast a look inside. His eyes fell on a strange scene, a gasp escaped him, and the muscles of his face went rigid. Then events followed one another  too fast for Hussein Kersha to grasp their significance. Abbas beheld Harnida seated in a bizarre position in the midst of a group of soldiers. She was sitting on a chair behind which stood a soldier who was giving her alcohol to drink from a glass in his hand  and  she had  her legs stretched  out  and  resting  on  the lap  of another sitting opposite her. Around  them stood others, drinking and making a racket. The young man blanched and froze where he was. He had forgotten everything he had learned about her trade and the awful truth  seemed to take him totally by surprise, the boiling of  his blood wiping out any good sense. Now he was aware of no foe other than she, and he threw himself into the bar as though possessed, crying in a voice of thunder, "Hamida!" Alarmed, the girl straightened up on the chair and stared  into  his face with  blazing  eyes. For a few seconds,  she was too surprised to do anything. Then she recovered her  wits, terrified  of  the scandal  with which his stupidity  threatened her. In a coarse, vulgar voice that anger turned into a bellow, she shouted at him, "Get out of here this instant! Get  out of my face!" Her  angry yelling acted on him like fire on oil and he lost his senses completely, the fear and hesitation natural to his character vanishing, while the grief, torment, and despair  that  he had suffered over the last three  days found  oudets  from the caldron of his soul, and he erupted, yelling,  pale,  insane.  Catching sight  of  some  empty  beer  botdes  on the counter to his left, he picked one up without knowing what he was doing and  hurled  it at her  with  all the strength, anger,  and  despera­ tion  that  he could  muster and  with  such  sudden speed  that  none  of the soldiers  or bar workers  could  block it. The  botde  hit her face and copious  blood  burst  from  her  nose and  chin,  mixing  with the  paints and  powders and  running over  her  neck   and  dresS.  Her  scream blended   with  the  roaring  of  the  excited  drunks  and  the  angry  mob pounced on him like savage animals, punches,  kicks, and botdes flying.
Hussein  Kersha stood  at the door  to the  bar  watching his friend
tossed to and fro by hands and feet that he could no more fend off than had  he been  a ball and  screaming,  with each new  blow, "Hussein! Hussein!" However,  the young man,  who  had  never  in his life been slow to join  a fight,  remained nailed  to the spot,  unable  to work  out how  he could  force a way to his friend  through all those  murderous, savage soldiers. In rage  and  fury, he turned right  and left in hopes  of finding  a sharp instrument or a stick or knife, but remained impotent and  helpless, standing where  he was as the passersby  gathered at the entrance to the  har.and watched the  batde with frightened eyes and hands that  were as good  as shackled.