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  Copyright © 2014 by Syracuse University Press

  Syracuse, New York 13244-5290

  All Rights Reserved

  First Edition 2014

  141516171819654321

  ∞ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.

  For a listing of books published and distributed by Syracuse University Press, visit www.SyracuseUniversityPress.syr.edu.

  ISBN: 978-0-8156-3369-3 (paper) 978-0-8156-5296-0 (e-book)

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Zafzaf, Muhammad.

  [Short stories. Selections. English]

  Monarch of the square : an anthology of Muhammad Zafzaf’s short stories / translated from the Arabic by Mbarek Sryfi and Roger Allen. — First edition.

  pages cm. — (Middle East literature in translation)

  ISBN 978-0-8156-3369-3 (pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-8156-5296-0 (ebook)

  1. Zafzaf, Muhammad—Translations into English. I. Sryfi, Mbarek, translator. II. Allen, Roger, 1942– translator. III. Title.

  PJ7876.I4A2 2014

  892.7’36—dc232014030648

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  A LATE NIGHT CONVERSATION (1970)

  A Late Night Conversation

  The Path to a Lighted Room

  The Sun Rises Once

  State of Mind

  The Burial

  LOW HOUSES (1977)

  In the Middle of Nowhere

  Shrine Visiting Season

  The Tight Rope

  Daily Concerns

  The Locust

  THE STRONGEST (1978)

  Neighbors

  Behind the Window

  The Clinic

  Illusions

  The Tin Can and the Epaulette Stars

  THE HOLY TREE (1980)

  The Second Marriage

  Drum Beats

  The Final Meeting

  Do Flowers Really Fade?

  The Snake Pit

  GYPSIES IN THE WOODS (1982)

  Worries

  In the Woods

  Why Is Dinner Late?

  The Pound Street Game

  The Cripple and the Whore

  THE KING OF THE JINN (1984)

  Shamharush, King of the Jinn

  Snake Hunting

  Antonio

  An Ongoing Summer

  Metamorphosis

  THE WHITE ANGEL (1988)

  A Newspaper Report

  A Tale of a Drunk

  Monarch of the Square

  Hyena-Struck

  A Night in Casablanca

  THE CART (1993)

  The Scavenger

  Moral Crime

  A Tiny Kingdom

  The Street-Sweeper

  The Baby Carriage

  THE FLOWER-SELLER (1996)

  The Flower-Seller

  Walking

  At the Genoa Beach

  The Rat and the Birds

  Ward #36

  Afterword

  Glossary

  Acknowledgments

  We would like to thank Professor Jilali El Koudia for taking the time to provide us with his helpful comments. We would also like to express our particular gratitude to Hassan Najmi for his insights and encouragement.

  Thanks also to Hèdi Jaouad for providing permission to reprint the stories “The Clinic” and “The Locust,” previously published in the journal CELAAN, spring 2008.

  Mbarek Sryfi and Roger Allen

  University of Pennsylvania

  A LATE NIGHT CONVERSATION

  (1970)

  A Late Night Conversation

  From a spot directly opposite the small café the man kept staring, his eyes riveted in that direction. It felt as if his every nerve was an outburst of blazing fire. Over his head there hung a picture of a mythological being. Outside the café, a square opened up. Lights shone from the tall building across the street, colorful and brilliant. The wind was blowing across the square and weaving its way through the side streets, which were completely empty apart from the light.

  “But that was years ago,” he said without any preliminaries, as he leaned over.

  “I don’t know,” the doctor said, “I was hungry when I learned how to do that job. I had to walk ten kilometers to get to school. How about you? You’ll learn easily enough. You’ll work out how to earn a living.”

  The short man kept rocking backward and forward, over and over again. Staring hawk-eyed at the square, his gaze seemed distant, strange, and frightening.

  I peeped from behind the newspaper and watched his body rocking back and forth. He had a round head that looked somehow out of proportion with the rest of his short, pathetic frame. There was a smile on his lips, but it, too, looked different, unusual. He continued rocking back and forth. “The man’s crazy,” I told myself, “mad!” I kept looking at the round head, the rocking body, and the unusual, broadening smile.

  In the square there were groups of mischievous homeless children who kept bickering with each other. From where he was standing, the short man glanced over at the milk bottles arranged on the shelf, then lowered his head and hitched up his pants. He stared at the torn seams on his homemade shoes.

  “‘You’re a disaster,’ she told me when we were at the public market. Then it happened, an atrocity.”

  “And why weren’t you ready for it when she told you?” I asked.

  “I didn’t know.”

  “You should have been ready.”

  His eyes were fixed on the newspaper. He couldn’t read, of course, but he evidently knew how to sleep until late under the hotel stairs.

  The café owner wasn’t listening to him. It was a well-known story, oft-repeated. The café owner’s eyes were fixed on the square, where dirty puddles reflected the light. I could smell the early odor of rain, and so could the café owner. Paying no attention to the nonsense the short old man was spouting, he reached for the radio switch.

  “I sleep under the stairs at the hotel.”

  “Aren’t you afraid of the police? They’re quick to pick up people like you.”

  “They’ve often taken the money I’ve managed to collect one way or another.”

  “And they let you go?”

  “Yes. . . . Dirty sons of b—. . . . It was a woman.”

  He held his pants, pulled them up, and kept on talking, rocking back and forth.

  “Did you love her?”

  “Of course I did, but she didn’t love me.”

  “You said she wanted you.”

  “That’s right. But, if a woman wants you, it means she doesn’t love you.”

  “Perhaps.”

  I pretend
ed to be reading. It was getting late. Earlier I had walked through the maze of streets, in the all-embracing darkness, and had ended up at this café. I couldn’t afford a hotel room and admitted to myself that my own destiny was similar to his. The only thing was that he knew the city, and I didn’t.

  “When do you close?” I asked the café owner.

  “We’re open 24 hours,” he answered.

  “Great.”

  The short old man kept scratching his belly and back. I could imagine layers of dirt caked on his aged body. That made me start scratching too and rubbing my belly. “Where did you know the doctor from?” I asked him.

  “Here, in this city. It was in 1930, and I knew the woman, too, at about the same time—’30, ’32, some time around there.”

  I folded the newspaper, lit a cigarette, and offered him one, but he refused. The café owner was cleaning some glasses, then went through a small back door toward the radio. Suddenly an irritating sound could be heard. My eyes were heavy with sleep, and I badly needed to rest.

  The short old man came inside the café. Without a word he turned and walked back to the square, which by now had been dampened by early rain. He kept moving, his short body tottering like a turtle. As he walked in that specific direction, his image was silhouetted against the towering wall. Before his small, silhouetted image disappeared, a small flame suddenly sprang up; he was smoking.

  I looked at the newspaper again, then glanced toward the front of the small café. I spoke to the man standing across from me behind the stone bar, who had been totally indifferent to my presence. He was very short with me. I asked him about the old man, and he replied that he knew the man; he was a regular. I tried to keep the conversation going, but his answers were terse. I sat back on the chair, relaxed, and put my elbows on the table. My eyelids felt heavy and tired; I wanted to get some sleep. I assumed that at such a late hour they would arrest the short man. At the same time, I presumed that they would let him go if he had any money. I fumbled around in my pockets, looked up, and kept staring at the square, which was now full of small, dirty puddles. I began to smell the odor from the early rain.

  The Path to a Lighted Room

  The frigid sunshine was pouring down on the street, driven by the wind.

  I was walking along the sidewalk. Even though I was wearing white wool socks that clung to the hairs on my legs, my feet still felt cold and numb. Mathilda and I were walking in step; our joint tread sounded like pebbles being thrown into a stagnant river, or, at the very least, like the echo of somebody beating a drum—sad and remote, resounding beyond gloomy, distant forests, limitless labyrinths.

  I watched my black shoes and Mathilda’s sandals forming strange shapes as they moved along the asphalt; I found that exciting. While the wind was blowing straight at us, it managed to turn Mathilda’s blond hair into something from a fable, like the hair of a lonely fairy on a desert island.

  “The fairy’s been waiting for a long time in the jungle,” I told myself, “and now I’ve arrived on my small boat to rescue her and take her to safety.”

  The whole crazy idea made me laugh. I wanted to tell Mathilda the fable about the fairy with mythological hair, her very own story, but then I was afraid she would just laugh at me.

  “It’s getting cold,” she said as she stared at an ad on the wall. “We’re going to freeze tonight.”

  I looked at her hair flying in the breeze, but said nothing. Instead I looked at her black coat with its wide collar turned up. She was holding it tight around her marble neck as she continued to stare at the ad.

  Now she looked straight ahead and pressed against my thin body. “Look,” she said, “there are some wonderful things in Lillian’s shops.”

  I stared at her through my cigarette-smoke. “They’re of no value to anyone,” I said, throwing my cigarette butt away.

  Mathilda looked at me calmly and stared until I too turned toward Lillian’s shops.

  “Let’s just have a look, okay?” she said with a smile, her hair covering part of her lower lip.

  Tugging me toward her, she led me as we both walked down toward the shops. I kept stumbling because it was so steep. Finally, at the bottom were Lillian’s shops, hidden behind clean display-windows that glistened in the sunshine. As we browsed among the various items and clothing on display, it kept getting colder and colder. Mathilda was shivering, and put her hand in my pants pocket.

  “Look, there are wonderful things for kids inside,” she said, looking at what was beyond the display-window.

  “Toys?” I asked.

  “Yes, toys. Tractors, trucks, and . . .”

  “That bike would be good for you,” I interrupted with a chuckle.

  She eyed me, her hand still clasping mine inside my pocket. “Okay then,” she said with a shrewd laugh, “I’ll choose a toy for you, too!”

  I squeezed her fingers inside my pocket and pulled her back toward the main street again. By now the sun was looking pale and sickly. “No way!” I said to her.

  “Come on,” she begged “Let’s go inside.”

  She kept tugging, and I had to control my temper. Once we were inside the shop, we found that everything was arranged in an attractive and captivating fashion.

  Mathilda drew my attention to a black scarf. “That scarf would suit you,” she said as she walked over to it.

  “And you too . . . but it’s expensive.”

  “It would suit you more. You’re wearing black pants and a white pullover. It would look beautiful around your neck.”

  “It’s too expensive.”

  We kept browsing in the shop, and eventually we discovered the back door. I asked Mathilda to leave with me, and she agreed nonchalantly, as though it didn’t bother her at all. Once outside, I wanted to kiss her in the empty, forked street. She put her cheek against mine, and I felt her soft blond hair playing with my face. I put my lips on her hair.

  “Can we see the Ibsen play tonight?” she asked as she took her hand out of my pocket.

  “We don’t have enough money.”

  “I think I have enough on me. Besides, I’ll get my weekly check tomorrow.”

  “Your boss will apologize to you, just like last week.”

  “This time, I don’t think so.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive.”

  “Positive. So, are we are going to see the play, or what?”

  The pale sun was still brightening our autumnal stroll. The yellow, shining trees kept reflecting the light and seemed high up in cold space. We were heading west. Mathilda loved autumn; in fact, she adored and even worshipped it. She liked to wear this coat, pants, and light sandals. In spite of it all, when the wind disheveled her hair, it never seemed to bother her. It seemed to be able to arouse within her a shiny past, present, and future as well. I watched Mathilda chewing something. I assumed that she was thinking about my being there by her side, because her eyes kept darting erratically between the walls, display windows, and passers-by. I veered to the left, but Mathilda still held me tight.

  “Look there!” she said with a loud laugh. I looked where she was pointing, and saw an old man urinating on a clean wall. Some children were laughing at him while a few grown-ups were acting disgusted at his obscene behavior.

  “Why are you laughing?” I asked, with feigned annoyance.

  “Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to,” she said. “Aren’t there any public toilets?”

  She clasped my hand and kept looking at the old man. Finally she looked away. I was staring at the display window to our right, which reflected the image of the two of us close together.

  “It’s getting very cold,” I told Mathilda.

  “You’ll catch cold,” she replied, “and we won’t be going to the theatre.”

  Going upstairs, we met the janitor on the second floor. She greeted Mathilda and ignored me. When I pointed that out to Mathilda, she told me that the woman was simply jealous. I said that she shouldn’t be; she was old, and we were yo
ung. Once inside the warm room, Mathilda took her coat off and hung it up, then went straight to the kitchen.

  She made coffee while I changed. As soon as I opened the window, the sunshine came in and lay down on the bed and floor. I lay down on the bed, too, and leafed my way through the daily newspaper, which I hadn’t been able to read in the morning as I usually did. Mathilda brought in the coffee. Her hair was now neatly arranged.

  “Listen,” she said, smiling happily, “I’ve something to say to you.”

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Why don’t we get married?”

  “Don’t you think we’re better than married?!” I replied immediately.

  For the second time she kissed me, then raised her cup to her lips. I got out of bed, walked over to the window, and stared at the sun’s pale, sickly face.

  The sky looked like a sad slate, and gray clouds were trailing away somewhere.

  “Come on,” I told Mathilda. “Let’s watch the sunset. The sun’s nearly gone.”

  Sipping my coffee, I turned to call her over, but she was already by my side, her eyes reflecting the colors of the sunset.

  The Sun Rises Once

  [1]

  I waited for a long time by the café counter, feeling at once sad and happy. The faces around me looked as pale as death. My coffee was getting cold. One customer was sipping his juice, but I wasn’t drinking. I had been waiting for a long time, so I couldn’t share other people’s happiness. Faces looked pale. Just a few yards away, the clean shop-windows reflected a tableau that edged towards silver. . . . Four p.m. . . . I let my coffee get cold. “Maybe she’s not coming,” I told myself. The coffee no longer tasted good; it felt weak on my tongue . . . it had lost the zing I was used to . . . that wonderful sweet bitterness. I started telling myself that everything is subject to change, even the heart of a woman who pretends to be faithful.

  But I was wrong. My sweetheart did come, her eyes colorfully bright . . . rhythmic melodies. . . . Then, . . . then the world turned into a happy child who knows nothing of sorrow.

  I left my stool and walked toward her.

  “Will you sit with me?” I asked as I blew both happiness and cigarette-smoke in her face.