Dem Horizons [Archives:1999/45/Focus]

Common Sense 
By: Hassan Al-Haifi 
“Where have you been all these years, Farid?” asked Mubarak as he struggled to get out from behind the counter of his textiles shop, which was full of several rolls of fabric that he had been showing some customers just before Farid walked in. He continued talking to Farid, as he managed to get out of the multitude of colors and textures that was unrolled in the counter. 
“It is so good to see you again. Where have you been over the last ten years?”Farid jubilantly hugged Mubarak, while at the same time giving his friend just the right amount of support he needed to prevent him from falling, after Farid’s feet had become entangled in some of the hanging fabrics by the door of the shop. Farid had not forgotten Farid’s astigmatism and the tendency of some parts of his body to insist on having a race with the rest of the body, not exactly sure where the finish line is; he answered his friend’s question, happy that he was able to save him from falling on the mannequin standing next to them sheathed in loose unsewn fabrics, which was put there just to give an indication of how the different fabric colors would look on the human anatomy. 
“You will not believe this, but I have not gone anywhere since the last trip we went on together through the Ta’ez-Hodeida-Sana’a triangle. Where is there to go these days? If you have money, you are afraid to go anywhere with it these days, because you are liable to get caught in the crossfire of warring tribes, or your car could break down and it will cost an arm and a leg to get it fixed, if you are lucky enough to find any place where it can be repaired. Tell me, do you see any of the guys in ‘our group’? We really had some good times together. I do not think there was one day when we met that we did not go home with muscle pains from the laughter and merriment we had. It all seems like a dream now. What about all those trips we had together, so many times a year. Just like that, we would abruptly decide to go on to Ibb and within two hours we would be there. Now we never meet at all. Even if perchance we would go to the same wedding feast, it is hard to get everyone together, as there are so many people spread out in three or four houses. Some of the guys have passed away. Others are lying sick at home afflicted with a chronic ailment. Moods have also radically changed. There does not seem to be anything to laugh about these days.””You are quite right,” said Mubarak. Looking out the door, he thought he saw the “tea boy”, so he yelled out to him: “Two teas, please with plenty of sugar and mint,” hoping that his nearsightedness had not deceived him. 
Soon the tea boy came by, but without the tea! 
“You have to pay last month’s bill,” said the boy. 
Mubarak tried to tone down his friend’s embarrassing situation: Don’t bother Farid, I just dropped by to say hello and I just had tea a half hour ago at the office. It seems like business is not so good these days, is it Mubarak?” asked Farid, feeling sorry for his pal. He continued, “We employees thought we were the only ones who had it bad, those days. Why, I remember coming to your store, not being able to talk to you, because you were so busy with all the customers crowding at your shop. Even with two salesmen, you were still always busy. You even used to buy cakes and refreshments for the customers!” This was said in the hope that Mubarak would not blame himself for the lack of business these days. 
“You can bet your life that all the shops here are facing hard times. Rents have gone up; business has gone down; costs for utilities and other services have risen. Nobody buys textiles anymore. People can’t afford to go to tailors or dressmakers; they can’t afford to buy sewing machines anymore. Ten years ago, a sewing machine could be found in every house that I knew of. There was always at least one woman in the household who could sew. But nowadays, if you had a machine and it broke, you couldn’t afford to repair it , or replace it; or you don’t have enough money to buy fabrics to sew! I have stopped ordering new stock, because I can’t pay my suppliers for the old stock, you see in front of you. Three stores down the street have just closed down. Their creditors just came in and took everything that was left, including the lighting fixtures and bulbs. Even at cost price, nothing is selling. I have already sold my other house and the piace of land, which I had bought from your father-in-law fifteen years ago. I had to do that to meet the tax bill and the other expenses that had been accumulating on me. 
Farid cut in: “Why pay taxes if there is no business?”My friend, the phrase ‘economic recession’ does not exist in the Tax Authority lexicon. They will keep pestering you and threatening you with arrest Ð and even arrest you to pay the YR 400,000 tax bill or else! Eventually after they hassle you to the last drop of sweat, they will give you a 25% to 50% “discount,” provided you pay half of the discount ‘off the record.'” Mubarak gave his friend an idea that it does not pay anymore to go it alone these days. 
“Mubarak, with all these hassles why bother continuing to open the store?” asked Farid. 
“Farid, you are employed, and I am sure your salary is not enough to meet the transport costs for you and your family over the month. Yet, you still go to your job everyday. What else can one do? We still look towards the future, believing that it just could never get any worse. But, it does get worse! Frankly, speaking I am not going to be able to continue after next month, as the money of the land will dry up by then. Maybe the only thing left to do is go back to my wife’s village and work on the land she inherited from her father. The only problem here is that her brothers refuse to give her her share of the land. They say they will ‘compensate’ her for it. But to them that means giving her what comes to less than 10% of the land’s market value.” Mubarak was showing that even looking at the alternatives has its problems. 
Farid cut in again: “Now wait a minute, Mubarak. Since when do you know anything about farming? You lack the physical stamina and your eyesight is no encouragement either, let alone, the fact that you lack of the feeling for farming!”Mubarak thought he had the answer to that: “My wife is very good at it. You might be surprised if I tell you that most of our food these days comes from what she grows in our backyard!”Just then, Mubarak’s hand abruptly clutched at a sizable area of his chest, and his body wavered and began to fall to the floor. Farid tried to prevent him from falling, but Mubarak’s leg would not provide the needed steadfastness. In fact, all of Farid’s rather wiry physique had lost its ability to resist the pull of gravity. 
Just then, the tea boy came back with two glasses of steaming tea and their mints floating on top, saying: “The Moallim (coffee shop owner) has decided to give you another week of credit, not wishing to embarrass you again É, hey what happened to him?”Mubarak was just getting his breath back again, after overcoming the shock of seeing his long time friend come to his inevitable end. He explained to the flabbergasted tea boy: 
“When all hope is lost, the human soul seeks greener pastures elsewhere, in the vast realm of the unknown. It is the kind will of Allah and the unkind folly of men finding common grounds amidst dim horizons”
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