The Cheapest Nights Read online

  Nor did Farag himself. All he knew was that he had to answer for his sister and for her screaming femininity. Every lustful look directed at her dug into his flesh. He could not wait to marry her off, preferably in another town, and rid himself of the responsibility. But in this respect Fatma was not doing so well; suitors were few, or none to speak of. For who was the fool who would want to be saddled with that heap of seduction? And once married what was he going to do with her? People in those parts did not marry in order to enjoy beauty and then put up walls to protect it, because in the first place they did not live for enjoyment. They were happy enough to survive. When they married it was for the sake of an extra pair of hands, and eventually a progeny to swell the labor force. For this reason Fatma remained without suitors.

  Not that the farm lacked men or young boys, and Fatma like other girls worked as hard as any of them, going to the fields at dawn and returning with the call for prayer at sunset. But unlike the other girls she stirred trouble wherever she went. That’s why Farag lived in constant fear which he concealed behind a boisterous front. Much of the jolly atmosphere of the farm came from him when he fooled around with the men and made a mockery of their false airs of decorum. He challenged the boys to swimming races, and toppled baskets off the women’s heads, and even the most demure did not escape his pranks. At weddings he wore his white gallabieh and his raw silk turban and cropped his hair short; he shaved his beard smooth and danced for the groom. He never failed to shower the bride with the traditional gift of money, not forgetting the bailiff and the cattle overseer, and anyone else standing around. All from the money he made on the side stealing cotton from the storehouse, or filching a bale on its way to the truck.

  He spent lavishly and filled the farm with his exuberance, and he was popular everywhere. So that though his sister’s irresistible appeal caused even the stones to stir, and though the men, torn with their passion, smoldered with desire for her, Farag was a friend to them all. In deference to him they looked away when they met Fatma, and when one of them allowed a sigh to escape, someone was always there to call him to order.

  And so Fatma remained like a luscious fruit, ripe yet forbidden. None came near her, or allowed anyone else to come near her, while their hearts continued to pine. Old and young lusted for her. But Farag was always there. His wild laughter reminded them of his presence and warned them of the Shame, and they would return to their senses and rush to perform their afternoon prayers, or go around to the corner shop for a glass of tea.

  And today she was caught in the maize field.

  Not for the first time. She was always being caught with someone. Now in the maize field, now behind the stables, now under the thresher. Always by imagination. Rumors which invariably turned out to be false. For there was bound to be rumor wherever she went, just as sighs were bound to rise in her wake.

  There was no malice in the people. They were decent kindly folk who wished for others what they wished for themselves. You could see their goodness even in their geese as they collected near the threshing floor, and cackled down to the canal to splash about and teach their young to swim. At sunset they returned, hundreds of them cackling back to their pens which they found by instinct. And when a foolish one strayed into a neighbor’s pen by mistake, your neighbor would be at your door with the stray creature even before you realized it was missing.

  Everyone on the farm was under Fatma’s spell. She was loved by all. If she went to a wedding it was she who outshone the bride. This strange magnetism was the reason why they feared for her. They feared she might slip, for they could not believe a woman so desirable could long resist the Shame. Their conviction of this even led them to pick the man with whom she was likely to commit the Shame, and that was Gharib.

  Gharib was the son of Abdoun. In spite of his age no one called Abdoun “uncle.” He was an irritable old man addicted to chewing tobacco and drinking sugarless coffee. He quarreled on the slightest provocation. Even the bailiff took care to keep out of his way. He was never known to have had a decent word for anyone. His talent for swearing was revealed at its best when a calamity befell the farm. Then he would take his position by the canal, like a bird of ill omen, and holding his gallabieh up by the hem, he would curse and swear, at the same time spewing out his tobacco chew and spluttering abuse on the peasants as if they alone were responsible for the misfortune. But nobody seemed to mind him for they knew there was no harm in him.

  As for Gharib, he was mistrusted by all. He was rude and impudent, and he grew a forelock which he was fond of showing off, smooth and shining beneath his white woolen skull-cap. What’s more, he had an eye for women and thought nothing of setting out to seduce them—which was why people were wary of him—without much caring whose wife it happened to be.

  In spite of his father’s ungainly appearance, Gharib was a good-looking boy, and although weather-beaten, his complexion was not too dark. He spoke little but his speech was engaging, perhaps because he sounded so carefree, speaking with the raucous rasp of an adolescent. Somehow he escaped the doltish look common to peasant boys, his clothes were always clean, and he was quick and sharp-witted which was probably what made him so smug. He worked tirelessly, and sang lays, and he owned his own equipment for making tea which he was always pressing on his friends. When night fell, he could not bear the narrow confines of his house, and he would go outside to seek the comfort of the hay near the barn. There he would sit, proudly feeling his thighs and his chest, and brag to his friends about his amorous exploits—a field where he was highly proficient and they were hopelessly inept.

  His flirting was flagrant and undisguised. He would eye the women boldly from the legs up, with a glint of irony in his look, or it could have been a repressed chuckle. He couldn’t help it if his look unsettled them. A woman knew when he looked at her that way that he divined her thoughts, and if her thoughts were dwelling on the Shame, which more often than not was the case, she would realize he was stripping her with his eyes and she would get so confused trying to cover herself up that her defenses would weaken and she could not help but succumb. As the number of his victims grew, so did his vanity, and the glint in his eye became bolder still.

  There was something in the boy that set him apart from other men. Perhaps it was his intense virility. It was enough for a woman to catch sight of the back of his neck or the cord of his underpants for her limbs to melt. He didn’t worry much about his methods. All means were fair which led him to a woman. At weddings he used to force himself into their midst making them freeze where they stood. At the mill he was only too pleased to carry their baskets or turn the wheel of their hoppers. Even the sick he did not spare. And except for his fear of the bailiff’s rifle he might even have sneaked into Om George by night. When people complained to Abdoun, he flared up at them, his face contorted into an angry scowl. “There he is,” he would say, “do what you like with him. I wash my hands.”

  But there was nothing much anyone could do. For though Gharib was short he had the strength of a bullock. He was quite capable of lifting the heavy iron water-wheel with one hand while he broke a man’s neck with the other, the same ironical glint never leaving his eye.

  Of all the men he was the most virile, and of all the women Fatma was the most seductive, and it was only natural that they should be coupled by gossip. And yet they were poles apart. Fatma avoided him because of his reputation, while secretly he was intimidated by her. Although he could deftly handle the bailiff’s servant girl, or Shafia, the widow with the many children, when it came to Fatma it was a different matter. For Fatma was a creature apart.

  Sometimes he liked to brag to the boys, sleeping on the hay with him, that she was in love with him, and that she sent him messages. But he was the first one to despise himself for his vain boasts. He worked in the fields like a stallion, everywhere sweeping the women off their feet with his irresistible appeal. But with Fatma he was quite powerless. For her part she fe
ared him, so that if he happened to greet her, his heart pounding as he did so, her reply would come curt and timid. She feared him because she feared the Shame while he feared her because he feared to fail, and all the time their names continued to be linked and Farag continued to hide his misgivings behind his show of goodwill, while playing up to Gharib who was the source of his greatest fears. It all went on covertly. On the face of it they were all happy kinsfolk living in brotherhood, and the farm was small and Abdoun’s house was only three houses away to the right of Farag’s, and there were practically no incidents of geese going astray.

  Meanwhile they all lived on the brink of expectation. Things were bound to come to a head, like waking up in the middle of the night at the sound of a gunshot or a cry coming from the fields to announce she had been caught there with Gharib.

  It wasn’t long before it happened.

  * * *

  —

  It took no one by surprise. They took the incident for granted as something they had expected sooner or later. Even the children—in their private world where they fabricate their own gossip and hold their own notions about grown-ups—even they realized that Fatma at last had committed the forbidden thing their parents had long warned them against. Fatma had committed the Shame.

  So when they saw Farag leaving the field for the first time without his turban, his head uncovered, his waistcoat unbuttoned, with mud clinging to his trousers, and when they saw his ashen face and trembling mustache, and his bloodshot eyes, they huddled close to the stable wall as, instinctively, they felt the enormity of what had befallen Farag. They followed him stealthily through the gateway of the farm until he reached his house. They saw him bawl at his young son who was drumming on an old rusted can. They heard him ask his wife in a low hoarse whisper to bring him his water-pipe, and stood watching him as he inhaled deeply, puffing out the smoke in dense clouds like those which came from damp logs burning in the oven.

  When a few men began to go in, they were emboldened to creep in after them. But they were careful to stand near the door watching what was going on with diffidence. Not that anything fearful was going on. Farag, pale and silent, was puffing away quietly, regularly renewing the supply of tobacco, while the men sat around him, embarrassed and self-conscious. When one of them stirred uneasily, feeling compelled to say something to soften the blow, Farag would look at him and quietly offer him a puff from the water-pipe to keep him silent. The thing he had dreaded for a long time had happened at last, and nothing he or anyone else could say was going to make it change.

  He remembered how he used to watch his sister’s body moving beneath her torn floating black gown, or see her flesh through the holes; how whenever he watched her laugh or speak, or even eat, the blood would race to his head and he would look at her with eyes like hot pokers, or burst into wild laughter by which he hoped to conceal his lurking fear of the impending disaster. Often he had asked himself what he would do if—God forbid—the thing should happen. His hair would stand on end at the thought and he would look at Fatma again and wish he could wipe her off the face of the earth. And now that it had happened it was his duty to act like a man and a brother. It was his duty to kill her and kill Gharib—kill the sister whom he had carried in his arms as a child across the canals, and whom his dying mother had left to his care. It was his duty to kill Gharib, the worthless dog he had sheltered and fed, always half expecting to be betrayed.

  Only blood was going to redeem what had happened. But before he made himself guilty of their blood, their own guilt must be proved. He was about to bring ruin on himself and his wife and his children, and it must not be for nothing. Let him smoke then and wait before he took up his knife. The decision was cold and merciless and irrevocable. For Farag was a farm man, and farm people were accused by village folk of being lax in matters of morality. He was going to show them that farm people have a moral code as lofty as their own and that they do not tolerate the Shame.

  * * *

  —

  An enormous black mass with myriad arms and heads was seen coming in the distance, moving in a cloud of dust. It was the women marching resolutely in their ragged black gowns, driving Fatma before them, white as a sheet, the color gone from her cheeks. There was no trace of beauty now in her face, and her head was covered with her shawl like a woman in mourning as she stared about her, her face a deathlike mask.

  They made a lot of noise as they came nearer, arguing in shrill tones. Some said she should be taken to the farm-steward’s house while others insisted her place was in her brother’s house and that it was more proper for her to be taken there. After a good deal of squabbling she was conducted to the steward’s house which stood in a corner of the farm, while the children stopped at the door and waited.

  As for Gharib, they said he was last seen heading for the fields. He had run away, perhaps never to return, they said.

  Suddenly all was confusion, thoughts were blurred and vision was impaired and no clear course of action seemed open. The men kept silent while the women heaped curses on Gharib, asking God to blight him with a deadly plague. Yet even the women’s loud jabbering failed to lift the gloom that was slowly settling on the farm making even the dogs cower quietly in their corners.

  Over at the steward’s house the ring was closing in on Fatma. She was being badgered with questions, but even before she answered no one was prepared to believe her. She told them she had been taking Farag’s breakfast to him in the fields that day, that she was just crossing the canal when Gharib suddenly appeared out of nowhere and tried to grab her by the hand and pull her to him. She fought him and cried out for help. Here she interrupted her rambling account. But the women urged her on. People came to her rescue, she went on, but Gharib had vanished into thin air. They did not believe her. There was more to this. No there wasn’t, Fatma insisted. That wasn’t true, and they shook their heads and each presented her own interpretation of Gharib’s grabbing of Fatma’s hand with all the color her imagination could bring to it. They were seized by a mad fever to know exactly what had happened, which grew increasingly wild and more persistent as Fatma refused to say any more. Even the men sitting around Farag, far from Fatma and her circle, seemed to have caught the same fever although they appeared more restrained.

  “Wait and see, folks,” someone would say in kindness, “perhaps nothing happened.”

  No one could ignore any longer what they had tried to suppress, now that it had happened. No one was astonished for it was not difficult to imagine the result when a man found himself alone with Fatma, much less when that man was Gharib. Who was going to believe that she had resisted? If she had indeed been alone with him, all was lost. The important thing now was to find out if all was really lost. Even Farag, as he guessed at the people’s secret thoughts, wanted to know the truth not for its own sake but in order to make sure that Fatma was no longer his sister and that he was free to deal with her as he saw fit.

  Strangely enough, women are bolder than men when it comes to such matters. They were quick to whisper it first among themselves, and then to Farag’s wife—who had left the house to go weeping and wailing over Fatma—and then to Fatma’s aunt. When they told Fatma herself, her face darkened, her nostrils quivered with anger, and a few tears fell from her eyes, fewer than the drops of juice squeezed out of a green lemon. She screamed at them that she was not going to let them do anything of the kind. She swore on the Koran that she hadn’t been touched. “You’re afraid of the examination, so something must have happened,” they all said. All of a sudden she flushed crimson, unable to utter a sound. She who had once believed it herself, and who had been told by others that she did not know what it was to be shy.

  Had such a thing happened in a village the people would have done everything to cover up for one of their own. But on a farm where nothing stays hidden, what was the use? Everyone, old and young, was on tenterhooks to know if the inevitable had happened to Fatma as they h
ad predicted.

  The horror of what she was about to face made her grow faint. They splashed water on her face and put an onion to her nose to make her come around. Her head reeled at the thought that she was being accused of the most infamous of crimes, that she was entirely at the mercy of these people, defenseless against their savage prying, within sight and hearing of her own brother and her relatives and all those who used to love her and whom she used to love. She looked up at the circle of women and pleaded for mercy. They only stared with mournful eyes from which all doubt had gone. “Very well,” she said with a stony face, “I am ready.”

  By then Farag’s head was in a daze from too much drawing on his water-pipe on an empty stomach. His head was lowered, resting on his hand. Were he not a man he could have been taken for a grief-stricken widow bemoaning a dead husband.

  There was no one on the farm more expert on such matters than Sabha, the mashtah,4 who was not a professional like the others. She owned an old manual sewing machine and took in sewing for men and women alike. She looked younger than her years, with a clear complexion and a good-natured motherly air about her. But when she spoke she betrayed herself for what she was: a tough, matter-of-fact woman who had knocked about a good deal, with much experience of both men and women, and who did not inspire much confidence.

  When Fatma announced she was ready they should have called in Sabha, but they hesitated. They were keen on having the truth, and although Sabha was experienced in such matters and they were certain that she would know immediately what there was to know, they did not trust her, for she was held in disrepute. True she was the only dressmaker on the farm and she sewed for everybody, but to be seen in her house, even though only to try on a gallabieh, was compromising. It was well-known that Sabha did not mind herself and her house being used as a screen for the clandestine meetings of men and women who had a perfectly good reason for being there. No one of course had actually seen anything. It might have been true, just as it might have been a groundless rumor, but what was certain was that Sabha was a shady character. She might find out the truth and withhold it, or she might say the opposite of what she knew. “There’s only Om George,” said Farag’s wife.