At home there was a row between Elias and Nagib, and Farid was sent to bed without any supper. Claire, trying to make the peace, was silenced by her husband’s furious outburst. Grandfather kept apologizing, saying it was all his fault and nothing to do with Farid, but Elias was beside himself with rage. He shouted at the old man, forbidding him ever to take his son anywhere again. That silenced Nagib, who was very downcast, and in his bedroom Farid cried because Elias was shouting so dreadfully. Two neighbours came hurrying along and tried to intervene, but in vain.
After that day Grandfather still called, but he avoided going for long walks with his grandson. He took him to the nearby ice cream parlour, but never for more than half an hour, and when they came back they parted company, to be on the safe side. Farid hurried on ahead, and Grandfather strolled slowly in to see his daughter. Elias never suspected anything, and Claire staunchly covered up for both of them, telling lies when it came to protecting her son from his father’s wrath.
The night after the fight, Farid dreamed that his father was punching his grandfather, a hook to the chin. Nagib staggered back and lay on the ground unconscious. Grandmother Lucia was the referee; she raised her son-in-law’s arm and shouted, “K.O.” Farid woke in alarm. It was dark and he felt hungry. When he put the light on, he found a large apple and a glass of water on his bedside table.
70. Temptation
One summer day, when Farid was eight, he went out with his mother. She wanted to do some shopping in the Suk al Hamidiye and then visit a woman friend who lived in Qaimariye, a quarter in the heart of the Old Town near the Ummayad Mosque. Most of the people who lived there were Muslims, but Claire’s friend was a Christian. She would rather have lived somewhere else, but her husband had got the apartment cheap through his boss, so she put up with her dislike of the area.
The woman had no children, and Farid felt bored. He asked his mother if he could play in the street until she had finished drinking her coffee. Both women agreed, so Farid went out of doors. The street was almost empty. A pretty little girl was standing in one doorway. When she saw him she asked if he would like to play with her. Farid hesitated for a moment, and then nodded.
From outside, the building looked as unpretentious as all old Arab houses. Built of mud brick, it rose hardly any higher than the other two-storey buildings in the alley, but the inner courtyard was a masterpiece of the Arab art of life. A narrow corridor led to it from the door of the house. With every step the noise of the street died down. Orange and lemon trees protected the courtyard from the blazing sun, and besides the fragrance of their blossoms they cast a magical play of light and shadow on the coloured tiles at every breath of wind. A small marble fountain provided a little moisture and the sound that Arabs most love to hear: the splashing of water. No one window was the same as any of the others; each was a work of art in wood, metal and stained glass.
Farid stood marvelling at the beauty of the courtyard for a long time. Suddenly the little girl turned the tap of the fountain up and laughed out loud as a jet of water shot up to the sky. It drenched her. Her thin dress stuck to her body. He turned the tap down again. Taking his hand, the girl led him past the arcades and into the back part of the courtyard, where a coloured mattress lay on the ground.
“Here!” she said, lying down. Farid didn’t know what kind of game this was supposed to be.
“You lie down beside me and we’ll play at weddings,” she begged him. He was baffled by her boldness. “Aren’t your parents here?” he asked, sitting down on the far end of the mattress.
“No,” she said, rubbing her leg against his arm. “Don’t you want to kiss me?” she added, and she closed her eyes and laughed. There was something crazed in her laughter, and it scared Farid.
“No,” he said shyly, and stood up. “Don’t you have a ball? Or some marbles or playing cards?”
At that moment two strong boys fell on him, grinning maliciously. The girl cried out in alarm, “Go away, you devils!” But before Farid realized what was going on the stouter boy had grabbed him by the arm.
“Caught you! Let’s see your prick! If you’re a Muslim you’ll have to marry this crazy kid, if you’re a Christian we’ll circumcize you first.”
The girl shouted for help, but the second boy took a large flick-knife out of his pocket and threatened to kill Farid if she didn’t shut up. The girl crawled into a corner and looked at him with her mouth open and her eyes wide and crazy.
He hadn’t been frightened until the smaller boy took out his knife, but the sight of the sharp blade paralysed him, and he was unable to tear himself away. The smaller boy, who had one eye half stitched up, came towards him. He pressed the point of his knife into Farid’s navel and asked, enveloping him with wafts of bad breath, “Are you a Christian?”
“Yes,” said Farid, with his throat dry, trembling.
“Trousers down!” cried the stout boy, laughing like someone possessed. He held Farid’s head firmly between his legs. A few seconds later his trousers were on the ground.
“Now your underpants!” he shouted. The girl suddenly attacked the smaller boy. He hit back, but she fought grimly to free Farid. Her words still echoed in his ears years later: “Castrate your own friends, not the only friend I have!”
After a while the smaller boy had Farid’s underpants down too. This humiliation dispelled the last of Farid’s paralysis. He freed his right arm and hit the stout boy in the balls with all his might. The boy bellowed like a steer and writhed in pain. Then Farid ran to the smaller boy, who was slapping the infuriated beauty, grabbed a chair and brought it down on the boy’s back until he fell over.
Suddenly a man entered the courtyard and stared wide-eyed at the exhausted combatants. “What the devil’s going on here?” he cried in alarm, and fell on the stout boy and the smaller boy. They flew through the air. The lighter boy landed next to the fountain, the larger one head over heels beside the mattress.
“They were going to circumcize me,” said Farid, crying and covering his penis with both hands.
“For God’s sake! That’s the last time I tell you, you dogs!” cried the man. He ran into the kitchen and came back with a long bamboo cane. The stouter boy began whimpering, but the man lashed out at both of them, hardly minding where he hit. “How often do I have to tell you not to touch that knife, how often?” he bellowed.
Farid put his clothes on and was going to slip away. The man stopped for a moment and looked at him with a smile. “You won’t tell your parents, will you? They’re just a couple of stupid boys and a feeble-minded girl.”
The girl laughed and lifted her dress above her head, exposing her buttocks. She was shaking with laughter.
Farid promised not to tell his parents, and at first he didn’t want to accept the five-piastre coin held out to him. But the man urged him in friendly tones to take it. So he finally put it in his pocket and ran out. He bought himself a packet of chewing gum and went back to his mother, who was just saying goodbye to her friend.
“Well, did you have a nice time?” she asked.
“You bet!” he muttered. His groin hurt.
On the way home Claire suddenly stopped at a barber’s shop where men had gathered around a radio set. The barber had turned the volume right up. “War,” Farid heard. He didn’t understand.
“Come on, we must get home, quick,” said Claire, and her face was clouded.