Telepathy by Amir Tag Elsir Page B

big problem. Either help us achieve a better standard of living or leave us in peace.”
    I was about to interrupt to clarify the situation for this man, who seemed capable of understanding my motivations if I explained them more fully, when an old geezer started shouting. He wore a patched green loin cloth and was leaning on the shoulder of a girl of about seven. She might have been his granddaughter or that of any other sheikh his age, because I know that in these districts, paternity isn’t limited to one’s actual father – men play father to their own children and all the other kids.
    â€œGod is most great! Down with the villains! Down with the traitors! Glory and honor to the people of the fatherland!”
    This ill-timed cry from the elderly man, who was as old as Abd al-Qawi but lacked the Shadow’s wisdom and talent, was a senile outburst with consequences that I had not wanted or expected when I set out in search of Nishan Hamza. We hadn’t come as villains and weren’t enemies of the state. An enemy of the proletariat does not come searching for one of them.
    I realized then that I found myself in a serious crisis that was growing more dangerous with every passing moment.
    Why had I listened at all to Nishan Hamza? Why had I brought him, eyes closed and bewildered, into my spiritual mother’s home and allowed him to speak? Why hadn’t I acted like some damn writer who creates ivory towers for himselfand recruits an arrogant guard force to repel problems like Nishan – without the author having to know about it? I could have signed a copy of the novel for him at the Social Harmony Club and laughed or felt sad for a few moments or fled to my car – without waiting for him. He would never have come across me when I was alone, and at any other time the people surrounding me would have stopped him from ending my life. In fact, I myself could easily have escaped from him but hadn’t.
    â€œ
Allahu Akbar!
Down with all who betray the people!”
    Voices assailed us as the ring around us tightened threateningly. Then the imam, Hajj al-Bayt, whether on purpose or because he had no other choice, finally sided with us and used his voice at its maximum strength to stop the mayhem. He made it clear that we intended no harm to anyone in Wadi al-Hikma and that we were benevolent souls who actually had come to treat a son of the district. He could have said this at first, when harmony reigned supreme, but hadn’t. He could have prolonged that harmony, but hadn’t.
    The angry talk eventually calmed in response to the imam’s appeal, and the circle began to loosen. Selling resumed from rags spread on the ground, and buying perked up too. Hajj al-Bayt, the imam, insisted on accompanying us in person on our expedition to track down Nishan.
    We didn’t find him in his shack, which contained a worn-out mat, a dirty
dammur
cotton pillow from which soiled stuffing protruded, a number of tunics and turbansthat were tossed here and there, and many books. These must have been law books for his legal studies, which had been suspended. I also glimpsed some ragdolls and shuddered.
    We didn’t discover him at any of the construction sites teeming with workers, even though he had occasionally worked as a day laborer. That ceased, however, when he was no longer able to work.
    The indefatigable Hajj al-Bayt climbed out of my car whenever it came to a stop. He would enter a house and pop back out. Finally he was obliged to accompany us to an outlying section of the district with seven mud-brick houses, which he said were filthy and of bad repute. Ethiopian women lived there, and he didn’t know whether Nishan visited them or not. Our fugitive, however, wasn’t there either.
    Finally we discovered him on an abandoned section of railroad track. In the past, this line had carried passengers and freight from the port to the capital, but fast, modern, paved roads had rendered