O Cairo Citadel, how many people who came to you in search of kindness you have obligated with your charity! How many pompous men have you coerced, and how many swords have you drawn. You combined power and generosity, and could decide as alternatives between life and death.
1.9
ʿĪsā ibn Hishām said: Then the Pāshā turned towards me. “Hurry to my house with me,” he said. “I can put on my proper clothes, buckle my sword, and mount my horse. Then I’ll return to the Citadel and pay my respects to his exalted highness, the dispenser of bounty.”
All this astonished me, and I decided to follow his story to its conclusion.
Miṣbāḥ al-sharq 32, November 24, 1898
2.1
Leaving the Citadel Square, we walked downhill. As we proceeded, we found our path blocked by a donkeyman pulling his donkey behind him. The rogue had the animal trained to stand in the way of passersby and block the road. So, every time we tried to move on, we found the donkey in front of us and the Donkeyman shouting at us in a hoarse voice. Eventually he grabbed the edge of my companion’s coat:
2.2
DONKEYMAN Get on my donkey, Sir—you’ve kept me from my business. I’ve been walking behind you.
PĀSHĀ (to the Donkeyman) You miserable wretch, do you really expect me to ride your donkey? I’ve never had the slightest desire to ride it, nor have I hailed you at any time while I’ve been walking. How could someone such as myself possibly mount a braying donkey rather than a rearing thoroughbred?
DONKEYMAN How can you deny summoning me with the gesture you made with your hand while you were talking to your companion on the way from the cemetery? I’ve been hailed by travelers several times since then, but I didn’t respond or pay any attention to their calls because I was obligated to you by that gesture of yours. Either get on my donkey or else pay me the charge for hiring me.
PĀSHĀ (pushing the Donkeyman with his hand) You insolent devil! Go away! If I had my weapon with me, I’d kill you.
DONKEYMAN (defiantly) How dare you talk to me like that! Either you give me my charge, or else come with me to the police station. You’ll find out there how they’ll deal with you for threatening to kill me!
PĀSHĀ (to ʿĪsā) I’m surprised you’re being so patient with this bumptious yokel who is being so persistently rude and cheeky to me. Get on and kill him for me; that way we’ll relieve him of his life and ourselves of him!
ʿĪsā How can I possibly do that? What about the law and the authorities?
PĀSHĀ Heavens above, am I really to believe that fear has cleft your heart in two and cut short your breath? Are you really afraid in my company? That’s incredible!
DONKEYMAN (scoffing) Oh, begging your pardon, Sir, begging your pardon! Who do you think you are, or who is anyone else for that matter? We’re living in an age of freedom now when there is no difference between a donkeyman and a Pāshā.
2.3
ʿĪsā I’m not going to hit anyone, and, as long as you’re with me, you’re not going to kill anyone either. You must realize that if we commit an infraction, misdemeanor, or felony, we will be punished for it. So don’t be surprised that I am so patient and long-suffering. I will say to you exactly what al-Khiḍr told Moses (peace be upon him): «You will not be patient with me, so how can you endure things of which you have no experience?»24 The way to get rid of this insolent fool is for me to give him some dirhams. Then he will bother someone else. I just pray that we reach home safely.
PĀSHĀ You’ll not give this barking cur a single dirham. Beat him! If you won’t do it, then I’ll have to stoop so low as to beat him myself and teach him a lesson. The only way to improve a peasant’s skin is by flogging.
With that the Pāshā grabbed the Donkeyman by the neck and started hitting him.
DONKEYMAN (yelling for help) Police! Police!
ʿĪsā (doing his best to rescue the Donkeyman from the Pāshā’s clutches) O God, save me from this ill-starred day full of disaster!
I spoke to the Pāshā: Show the fear of God, Amir, in your treatment of His servants!
2.4
I had barely finished saying this to him when I saw his temper get the better of him. His whole expression changed, his eyes began to roll, his lips tightened, his nostrils expanded, and his forehead contracted into a frown. I was afraid that his crazy temper would lead him to do me an injury as well as the Donkeyman. I tried a more rational approach. I told him that a personage of his eminence should not demean himself by behaving in such a manner; he was far too exalted a figure to foul his noble hands by touching a corpse like this one. Using such a stratagem I managed to calm him down. I went over to the Donkeyman and put some dirhams into his palm without the Pāshā knowing. I asked him to go away and leave us alone, but that only made the wretch shout all the louder for the police to help him.
PĀSHĀ (to ʿĪsā) Didn’t I tell you that peasants can only be reformed by beating? Don’t you realize that the only thing he can do to get rid of the pain he’s going through is to yell for help to Shaykhs and Saints! But tell me, is this “Police” he keeps shouting for and asking to help him some new kind of saintly figure?
ʿĪSĀ Well, yes. The “police” is the agency responsible for public order and vested with the government’s executive powers.
PĀSHĀ I don’t understand. Explain to me what this “police” you’re talking about really is.
ʿĪSĀ It’s what you used to call “Kavvas.”25
PĀSHĀ So where is this kavvas who cannot hear all this yelling and screaming?! I want him to appear so that he can receive my orders regarding this wretch.
DONKEYMAN Police! Police!
PĀSHĀ (to ʿĪsā ibn Hishām) Come on, let’s help him yell for the kavvas!
ʿĪsā ibn Hishām said: I asked myself how I could possibly yell for the police when I was really thanking God because I’d managed to quiet him down. All the while, the Policeman was standing close by, not paying the slightest attention to the shouts for help.
I turned to the Pāshā and told him that there was no point in yelling and screaming; as he could see, the Policeman was preoccupied with the fruit seller.
2.5
When the Donkeyman spotted the Policeman directly in front of him, he dashed over to speak to him. All the spectators who had gathered round us followed. They found the Policeman standing there holding a red napkin full of various oddments which he had collected from the market traders during the course of his supervision of the “regulations.” He was busy talking to the owner of the shop, instructing him to put inside the shop the stalks of sugarcane which he had on display outside. In one hand, he was holding a stalk of cane and threatening the owner with it, shaking it in his face like a spear. At the same time, he was looking in another direction, and giggling and babbling at a baby on a woman’s shoulder.
He carried on like this till we all came towards him, then turned round with the napkin in one hand and the sugarcane in the other:
POLICEMAN (to everyone) What’s all this row about in the early morning? Why so much yelling and commotion? Anyone would think that every single person had to have his own private policeman at his service.
DONKEYMAN