to the circle of men. All raised their hands.
Every one of these men was married. Some had divorced and married twice, three times. Famously, the man telling the story of the eye, who went by the moniker “Abu Islam,” had married a Christian woman from the east of Nablus. That was proof of a love match, if anything was.
Pouring the first cup of coffee, he wondered if it could be possible to defy his father, and at the same time obey his imperatives. The secrets of his life in France, the joys there but also the shame—that something large and dramatic had happened to him, leading him to abandon the course his father had chosen and begin anew, moving to Paris of his own accord, seeking other men to guide him, studying history instead of medicine, so that he knew the entire saga of Western Europe but nothing about healing a human body—he could see all of this taking on its own charge, so that his very privacy would become a kind of power. Never mind that much of what he was hiding was painful. His languishment would be more bearable because it was poetic, and suppression of the past would become a virtue, a secret source of grace.
The rest of the day passed unremarkably. The merchants packed up their wares and pulled the gates over their stalls. Midhat was bolting the green door when someone did actually run through the khan calling his name.
“Midhat! Midhaaat!”
Tahsin Kamal, his trouser legs riding up his knees.
“Habibi ta‘al. There’s a rawi at Sheikh Qassem.”
Midhat shrugged, sliding on the padlock.
“Yalla. Ta‘al.”
“Wait a moment, I’m coming. Do you know what tale he’s telling?”
“We’ll find out.”
They weren’t the only ones walking in the direction of Sheikh Qassem. Before long they were in the middle of a nodding throng. Kufiyas trailed from the heads of fellahin, older men wore sagging shirts and belts around their soft bellies, the younger men slick-haired with cheap grease. Three shoeshine boys with dirty tarabish carried their equipment under their arms and shouted at each other like tiny adults. An old fellah in a red headdress and overlarge suit smiled at Midhat with a toothless mouth, his kinked fingers pointing at the café.
Sheikh Qassem was already crowded and dark. A circle of lamps in one corner indicated the rawi, sitting beside a qanun player with a stage space around them where the tables were pushed back. Behind him stood an idle gramophone, its silent horn like a huge black lily. The rawi was conversing with some nearby members of the audience, while his player plucked at the instrument in his lap and adjusted the pegs. Tahsin rested his head against the back wall and made a face: when are they going to start? Men from the major families occupied the chairs. By the window Midhat saw Abdallah Atwan hunched with a hand on the shoulder of his young son, and then a few tables nearer by he recognised Jamil’s broad back. He slid between tables to kiss his cousin hello. A few people were singing along to the qanun music now, tripping in and out of a familiar melody. The rawi looked up: a little boy had entered, carrying a drum. The qanunist pulled up a third chair, and as the boy wriggled back on his seat the poet’s practised face cooled the audience. Moving his head he hummed, and the qanun’s notes ran like water around his voice. Men cheered and whistled.
“Abu Zayd al-Hilali,” he sang. “Ana sa-aqool lakum qissat Beni Hila-a-al.”
The qanun quietened, the little boy trilled his fingers lightly on the drum. The poet began to speak:
“In the name of God, the Almighty, this is the story of the Arabs of the Beni Hilal. In the time of the Sultan Sarhan, the mightiest warrior of Beni Hilal was Rizq the Brave, son of Nayil. Rizq the Brave had married eight women and sired many daughters. But not one of his eight wives had ever borne him a male heir. His soul grew troubled, and he began to sing:
Ah-ah-ah the World and Fate and Destiny
all I have seen with my eyes shall disappear
My wealth is great, oh men, but I am without an heir
and wea-alth without an heir after a life will disappear.
“Jamil,” Midhat whispered. “Can we talk?”
His cousin sucked on his pipe and nodded. They slid along the back wall, and the boys by the door stood aside to let them pass. Outside, the light was leaving the sky.
“What’s