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Chapter 8 Hesqail abul ‘alwa hires a helper Itwasonlytowardtheendof1945,whenIwasalmost twenty-two, that I finally got my secondary school certificate.Itwasaverynarrowescape,sotospeak,sinceinthefinalexams I failed in history and by some mistake or a miracle got 54 in mathematics .The problem of having to sit again for the history exam at the end of the summer vacation caused me a great deal of anxiety throughout the vacation, especially since I could not muster the will-power to really prepare for it properly. By that time I had cultivated so many friendships and my literaryand intellectual interests had become sovaried and ambitious that I could not just put everything aside and memorize the tedious dates, causes, factors, and consequences of all those distant events, especially since the textbooks were badly written and poorly organized. Finally, I did manage to make it in the so-called ‘‘complementary’’ exam, ikmal, getting the incredibly high mark of 70. By the time I received the certificate, whose main advantage was exemption from compulsory military service with an indefinite ‘‘threat’’ of future recruitment in the officers corps, I had worked in a good number of places. The first job I ever had, as far as I can remember, was when I was nine, and my first employer was a man by name of Hesqail el-Hlali. It wasafewmonthsafterourreturnfromNajiyya’sweddinginKermanshah in October 1934, with me still convalescing from my terrible pneumonia, that el-Hlali came into my life. Hlali was married but childless, and he lived with his wife in one or two rooms in Beit Abul Juss. They were in the haram (ladies’ quarter) of the two-house building, and we occupied the diwankhana. Hesqail el-Hlali must have come originally from some village or small town in the south. He dressed, looked, behaved, and spoke like any Muslimfarmerorlandownerortribalchiefcometothemetropolisonbusiness ortoseesomeseniorofficialorminister.Incertainpartsof Baghdad,such as El Karkh (Baghdad west), men of his build, bearing, and dress were to be seen; but I don’t remember having seen any Jew clad in the same hesqail abul ‘alwa hires a helper 75 way—complete with kafiyya, ‘egal, and ‘abaya. His occupation, an auctioneer in thevegetable and fruit wholesale market in Baghdad west—the ’alwa—was strenuous though undemanding in terms of time and apparently quite rewarding financially. He had to be in the ‘alwa, a good half an hour’s walk from wherewe lived, by 3:00 or 4:00 a.m. everydayof the week except Saturdays and the various Jewish feasts, when anyway business was slack because the Jews on those days did no shopping. It was the time the grocers and vendors came to purchase theirdaily supplies of fruit and vegetables from the farmers who had spent the night bringing their wares to the ‘alwa, mostly on donkeys and often enough on their own backs or heads. While Hesqail—who in our household came to be known as Abul ‘alwa—was used to this kind of life, he could not possibly cope with the work alone.There were the wares to move from place to place and to put on display for everyone to see, then the auctioning itself, then when the price had been settled there was weighing to do and calculations to make andmoneytocollectandthentopayafterdeductingthecommissiondue. Andasthoughthatwasnotenough,therewastheaddedworkinvolvedin taking and putting safely aside a certain tiny portion of the fruit or vegetable sold, the lot then to be taken home. By the standards of those days, Abul ‘alwa was not young either: At fortyor thereabout a man was usually considered, and probably he too considered himself, as coming on to old age. In short, he needed help. He approached my parents—or did they in fact approach him?—and the offer was readily accepted. Not that I had any objection to work, especially that it gave me an opportunity to have some pocket money. But rising at such unearthly hours and undertaking the long march to and from the ‘alwa was too much even foranunspoiledchild.Ourfinancialsituation,too,wasnotasbadasithad been in the early days following my brother Eliahu’s bankruptcy though it was bad enough. But the reward was too tempting—all of twenty fils a day and, more important still, a generous and steady supply of free fruit and vegetables that was more than we were used to consuming.Thus my parents made it clear that I should take the job. But the ordeal did not last long.Followingtheschool’sspringvacation,throughoutwhichIworked, it became obvious that I could not possibly...

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