No One Sleeps in Alexandria (32 page)

Dimyan helped him move the few articles of furniture to Bahi’s room. As soon as Zahra walked in and opened the window looking out on the street and saw Umm Hamidu in the entrance of the opposite house, she felt relief. Here she was not going to suffer the silence that seemed to have taken root on the second floor. She would hear people and children coming and going and talking. After they moved the furniture, Dimyan took Magd al-Din to the café far away on the Mahmudiya canal near the lupino bean vendors. They had not been here in a very long time.

“Why did you bring me here, Dimyan?” Magd al-Din asked him. “We’d almost forgotten this place.”

“Well, first, I’ve made great progress in reading and writing. In a few days, I’ll be able to read the newspaper.”

“Praise the Lord!”

“Second, I wanted to tell you that Khawaga Dimitri is going through a big crisis.”

“I know that, but I don’t know what kind of crisis, and he doesn’t talk to me.”

“I think it’s a crisis that one doesn’t talk about,” said Dimyan after a pause. “It’s also preoccupying the priest at the church. I’ve heard a few things in church about the subject, but I’m not sure
whether they were talking about Dimitri or somebody else.” They both fell silent for a long time. Magd al-Din was not the inquisitive kind and never made an effort to know what people were doing. Even secrets that came his way, he did not divulge. He hated scandal-mongering and gossip of all kinds.

“There’s talk about a Christian girl’s love for a Muslim boy,” Dimyan finally said.

Magd al-Din’s eyes opened wide in surprise. That was the first time he had heard about that.

“This is something that happens rarely, Sheikh Magd,” Dimyan continued, “and it always fails, but only after causing crises at home and in the church. Eor you in Islam, there’s no problem. In our case, there is.”

Magd al-Din made no reply. “Of course, I don’t know whether this has anything to do with Dimitri’s family or not. But in any case, Dimitri has a problem that only time will reveal.”

Magd al-Din returned home dejected. Zahra asked him why he was down, and he could find no excuse but Hamza to get him out of the sticky situation. He said Hamza had not vet returned— and that was true. She said he had already told her that. He told her there was much talk about his possibly being a prisoner of war, held by the Germans. She could not imagine how he knew that. He also did not know how and why he said that. Hamza’s disappearance a few days before had caused him and his colleagues a great deal of worry. Usta Ghibriyal notified the railroad administration, which notified the Alexandria police department, which informed them that it in turn had notified the military command of the Eighth Army in Marsa Matruh and was waiting for news. Hamza’s wife and his three young daughters never stopped crying at their home in the railroad housing compound. Hamza’s relatives came from Rosetta. They turned out to be well-off and quite respectable. It also turned out that one of his cousins was a notable who held an important position in the Wafd party and that he was pulling all the strings he could to get news about poor Hamza.

Ordinarily when Hamza’s colleagues spoke in disapproval and surprise about what had happened to him, a silent sadness would fall over them. But the matter was not without its
humorous aspects. One of them would say that Hamza would suffer most from silence because he would not understand English or Indian, and the few words that he knew would not really help him. He would not get a chance to say that he had seen what the soldiers said they had seen or that it had happened to him before it happened to them. Neither Bayram’s poetry, nor anyone else’s, would do him any good. But in the end they would express total disbelief. Who would have thought that this had been preordained for Hamza?

Now they were more careful when they approached the troop trains; they did not come too close to them any more. In many instances, they no longer spoke to the soldiers or cared to get what canned foods they used to get. They realized that those things were worthless compared to the disappearance of their colleague, abducted in the dark. Yesterday Dimyan sobbed. He and Magd al-Din felt the loss the most once his disappearance was confirmed the day after his abduction. Dimyan felt sorry because he had always argued with him and was happy to expose his delightful little lies. Magd al-Din felt sorry because he had insulted him once and because he himself had thought about the possibility of being abducted, of being pulled up by the hand to the train and taken to the front, as had happened to his brother Bahi in the previous war. Had he known Hamza’s fate beforehand, but was not aware of it, or was he the cause of it, with this crazy thinking of his?

Hamza had been pleasant with Dimyan and gentle with Magd al-Din; he was kind to children and loved everyone. He was worthy both of pity and love, and that was how everyone felt, especially Shahin, the tallest and strongest among them. He was very muscular and could carry a crosstie with one hand, and usually during work he carried two on his arms. He was the most dejected, but in reality it was for another reason-—when Magd al-Din went to tell him that Hamza was smart and would know how to come back, he was surprised to see Shahin’s eyes well up with tears as he said in a soft voice, “You’re a good man, Sheikh Magd. You know God’s Quran by heart. Please come with me to cure my son with the Quran, or show him the right path.”

In the afternoon of the same day, Yvonne had come back from school shaking. No sooner had she got upstairs to their apartment than she went running back down with her mother behind her. Zahra was coming in from outside as Yvonne ran into her at the end of the staircase and let herself fall in her bosom, crying, “Camilla’s gone, Tante Zahra! Camilla’s never coming back!” The girl’s tender heart was pounding and her eyes were filled with tears, her whole body quivering. The mother appeared behind her looking very angry and grabbed her daughter’s arm and pulled her. Zahra had let the things she had bought drop to the floor and placed her arms around Yvonne, patting her on the back.

“Please let the girl be, Sitt Maryam,” she said. “We’ve eaten bread and salt together.”

“Zahra, don’t come between us.” Sitt Maryam spoke so harshly that Zahra’s arms pulled away and she let Yvonne go. The mother dragged her daughter upstairs. Zahra went inside, oblivious to the things she had bought and dropped on the floor. In her room she sat and cried.

Dimyan went to the right as Magd al-Din turned left toward the railroad houses with Shahin and the other workers. There were a few clouds heralding rain that might fall after midnight, the rain that lasted for a short time but usually took Alexandria by surprise once or twice in the several weeks after winter had ended.

Shahin, with his powerful build, walked briskly, taking long strides as Magd al-Din barely kept up with him. All the workers except Dimyan were walking toward the houses. They had started out together, but after a short while, they spread out as some walked fast and others at a more relaxed pace. As they were crossing the gate separating the houses from the railroad tracks, Shahin told Magd al-Din, “These are old houses from the first war—they used to be warehouses and barracks for the English forces. You should apply to get one of them, since several workers are going to retire soon.”

“I’ll do it, God willing,” Magd al-Din said with genuine hope. If he got a house here, that would be his best accomplishment in
Alexandria. He said to himself that he would tell Dimyan to apply with him, for they had been lucky together so far. As they left the narrow dusty road, the Mahmudiya canal and the road parallel to it came into view. Magd al-Din knew that place well from the days of looking for work. He had come many times to work for the oil and soap company a short distance past the houses. They turned left and passed a few yellow, one-story houses with closed windows.

After a few steps, they crossed the main gateway, which used to have a double door framed with tree trunks that was locked at night when the soldiers were there. Now the door was gone.

In front of the houses were some tin shacks that made the alleys even narrower, barely enough for two persons to walk side by side. From the shacks rose the smell and sounds of goats and sheep and chickens. Shahin led Magd al-Din to a short, wide street between two rows of houses that showed only their closed windows, since the doors were on the other side. After turning right at the end of the street, they stopped at the door to one of the shacks. “This is the house, Sheikh Magd.” Shahin knocked on the door of the tin shack. From inside came a light and a voice asking who was there. The woman opened the door, carrying the small kerosene lamp. She stood behind the door as Shahin entered, then Magd al-Din. The chickens in the corner moved, and in another corner, a little goat moved, kicking its feet as it lay on its side. Shahin entered a big hall, empty except for a mat and a few scattered cushions, a few books lying around, an old wooden table with a few books in no particular order, and behind the table, a straw chair. Then Shahin went into a large inner room that had a bed of medium height and a sofa on which Rushdi was lying down. As soon as Rushdi saw his father and his guest, he sat up. He was wearing a clean gallabiya. The walls were clean and painted sky blue. The ceiling was painted white, and the room was lit by a big number-ten kerosene lamp placed on a shelf on the wall.

“My son Rushdi, Sheikh Magd.” Shahin said then, addressing Rushdi, “Your uncle, Sheikh Magd al-Din.” The woman, Shahin’s wife and Rushdi’s mother, did not come into the room but stayed in the hall, thinking about this Sheikh whose face glowed with light and serenity and about whose piety Shahin often spoke.
Would he succeed in curing her son of his sudden ailment? Magd al-Din sat next to Rushdi. Shahin sat at the other end of the sofa. Magd al-Din saw many little books in the corners of the room and a small unsteady wooden bookcase attached to the wall. He realized that he was in the presence of a young man who was different from what he had expected. He spoke first.

“What’s wrong, Ustaz Rushdi?” he addressed the boy respectfully. “What’s your complaint exactly?”

“Have you come to treat me, venerable Sheikh?”

Rushdi was deathly pale, with profoundly sad eyes. He had not been shaving, but his beard was not long, just a few clumps of hair here and there on his cheeks, hardly reaching the line of his jaw. His face was so gaunt one could see the bones under the skin.

“Only God cures, Ustaz Rushdi.”

Rushdi calmly shook his head and said, “Your task is impossible, venerable Sheikh.” He started to cry and was soon sobbing deeply. The mother too was heard sobbing outside.

His father embraced the boy and told him, “Don’t kill me, my son. Don’t kill your mother. Tell us what’s wrong.”

Rushdi turned and looked at Sheikh Magd al-Din for a long time then said, “The Quran will not cure me, venerable Sheikh. Please forgive me. I mean no disrespect. I have very strong faith and my problem is that my faith encompasses all people and all religions—therefore, I have fallen in love with a Christian girl. This is my ordeal, venerable Sheikh.”

Rushdi spoke in a choking voice, trying to prevent himself from crying. Magd al-Din was now sure that he was in the presence of a very intelligent young man. The father was at a loss for words. Outside, the mother could be heard saying, “God protect us. Why, my son, do you want to waste your life falling in love with an infidel?”

Magd al-Din could not tell Rushdi that he was too young to fall in love, for while he looked gaunt and fragile, he seemed to be widely read, and it would be difficult to convince him of anything that he did not understand. That was why Magd al-Din remained silent as Rushdi continued, “I know how afraid my father and my mother are for me. I’m not insane, and I will not let insanity get to me. I just haven’t seen her for ten days. I think her parents have
found out and killed her. She doesn’t go to school any more. Even her sister—I don’t know if she’s quit school too, or what, but I don’t see her any more either. I’ve gone to their house and stood there during the day and at night, but I didn’t find out anything, and no one’s told me anything.”

The boy’s lips quivered in the pale yellow light as be spoke. His tears flowed ceaselessly. Those made miserable by love die young, Magd al-Din said to himself, as he remembered Bahi—he was certain of the end. The boy’s pale face gave off the same aura of the sacred that Bahi had. The only difference between the two was the difference between the village and the city. City people gave themselves willingly to love, and did not leave themselves at the mercy of the wind.