No One Sleeps in Alexandria (6 page)

When it did lift, he saw in front of him a group of border guards on camelback dragging a group of peasants bound with a
long rope. He had no chance to escape. One of the guards got down from his camel, grabbed his arm, and calmly bound him with the others. He did not object, question, or scream. They marched him with the others to the governorate headquarters in Tanta and from there to the army camps in Cairo. The ‘Authority’ had kidnapped him to serve and fight, against his will, as corvée in the armies of England, which had declared Egypt a protectorate.

…feeling through the hot pavements the rhythms of

Alexandria transmitted upwards into bodies which could

only interpret them as famished kisses, or endearments

uttered in voices hoarse with wonder.

Lawrence Durrell

5

It seemed that everything was ready to accommodate Magd al-Din and Zahra. At night Bahi told them that the landlord, Khawaga Dimitri, was a good man who lived on the second floor in two rooms, next to which was a separate room that he could rent to them. They found out from him that a woman by the name of Lula lived with her husband in the room across the hall from his own. Bahi told them also that he would let them sleep in his room that night and that he would go out and sleep in the entryway of the house, where it was cooler and where he would be more likely to wake up early. Magd al-Din had to agree with him, even though he was surprised at his brother’s talk of getting up early. Then he told him to wake him up early too, so he could go out to look for work.

They spent most of the night talking about the neighborhood and its inhabitants. Nothing said that night stuck in Magd al-Din’s mind, for he knew it already. Zahra, though, was surprised to hear about the tensions between Christians and Muslims and how they had subsided now, and that the real tensions now were between northern and southern Egyptians. Bahi said that the northerners from Rosetta and Damietta and elsewhere were always peaceable, but that the southerners from the Jafar and Juhayna clans stopped them in the street and insulted them. There was always a conflict between the two southern clans, but they united in their
opposition to the northerners. He said he was working for a day when he would lead the northerners to rout the southerners, and that day was going to be very soon.

Zahra found herself breaking in, “What do you do in Alexandria, Bahi?”

He looked at her for a moment and smiled. “Ask Sheikh Magd.” He left them, took a blanket and a pillow, and went out to sleep in the entryway. Zahra was amazed that she slept without a single dream. She placed her head on the pillow in Bahi’s bed and took her baby in her arms and slept. She did not even notice that Magd al-Din was stretched out on the floor next to the narrow bed. He had told her to sleep on the bed. As a peasant wife, she should have refused and let him take the bed, but she found herself, without thinking about it, getting into the bed and going to sleep, as if another woman was doing it. In the morning she sat, ashamed, in front of him and kept herself busy making tea for him and Bahi.

Magd al-Din went out without delay to look for work, and Bahi left after him, no one knew where. As he was having tea with Magd al-Din and Zahra, he told them, “Khawaga Dimitri passed by early, and I told him how you want to rent the room next to his apartment, and he agreed. He even went upstairs and told his wife to expect Zahra today. You can go up in an hour or so, Zahra.”

Around ten o’clock, Zahra found herself alone in Bahi’s room, so she decided to go upstairs. As she stepped out of the room, she saw before her a beautiful, blonde woman wearing a see-through nightgown with bare shoulders and arms. She was washing up at the tap in the hallway. She was startled, and Zahra said awkwardly, “Good morning.”

“Bahi’s sister?” asked the woman as she turned from the tap.

“Sister-in-law.”

The woman looked her up and down. “Where’s his brother?”

“He went out to look for work, and Bahi went out with him.”

Zahra gathered her courage and looked the woman up and down, then went upstairs.

Zahra sat in silence between Sitt Maryam and her two beautiful daughters, Camilla and Yvonne. Sitt Maryam was about forty years old. She had a white, round face and short chestnut-colored hair that she left untied and uncovered. Her daughters also wore their hair untied but long, hanging down their backs. The girls had their mother’s chestnut hair and amber eyes and round face, though a little narrower at the chin. Camilla had two attractive dimples in her cheeks that were quite pleasing to look at.

Zahra was wearing the same long black peasant dress that she had worn the day before, a dress with a wide square neck that made it easier for her to nurse her baby. On her head she had a black shawl that hung down both sides of her chest to cover whatever might be revealed by the loose-fitting bodice of her dress. Under the shawl was a tight head wrap that covered all her black hair. Camilla and Yvonne kept looking closely at Zahra, as though she were from a different planet. It was Zahra’s silence that surprised them, as well as her neatly trimmed eyebrows and her dark, almond-shaped eyes. Zahra was silently studying the icons hanging on the opposite wall. She knew them well. She had seen them many times in the home of Ata, the village grocer, whose wife, Firyal, was a seamstress. Zahra noticed that Sitt Maryam had a pedal-operated sewing machine in a corner of the room. Firyal’s sewing machine was small and hand-operated, and Firyal had it on a low table and worked on it all night long.

Sitt Maryam’s room was smaller than Firyal’s house, but it wasn’t made of mud. Besides, it was painted sky blue, so it seemed sunny, and the window opening onto the street bathed it in light, as did the door open to the hall. Zahra could see another door inside the room and figured that it led to another room for storage. Zahra sat on a sofa next to Sitt Maryam. Camilla and Yvonne sat on another sofa. The two sofas were covered with two clean kilims with geometric patterns of red, green, and blue circles and lines. On the floor was a kilim without any patterns. In the ceiling there was a small, idle fan next to which wires extended to a lamp below the fan. The fan most likely was never turned on, as it would have cut the lamp wire. The ceiling was made with wooden boards
resting on strong beams and painted white. On the wall was an old photograph of Sitt Maryam at twenty, in a wedding gown, standing next to Dimitri. In the picture Dimitri looked slightly balding with black hair. She wondered what he looked like now. Zahra had not seen him yet. Under the photograph was a small wall clock, and under the clock was a glass china cabinet with closed drawers in its bottom half. On top of the cabinet was a wooden, broad-based semicircular Telefunken radio with two big buttons near the base. In the corner, next to the sewing machine, was a small, old table on top of which were several pieces of new fabric and unfinished new clothes.

The clothes and fabrics in Sitt Maryam’s house were more than she had seen in Firyal’s house in the village. People here like to dress up, she said to herself. This is the real Virgin Mary, and this is her son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, may peace be upon him. The face of the Virgin Mary is pleasant, snow-white, and full, and her chin is curved a little like Yvonne and Camilla’s faces. Jesus’ face is happy, but his face in the other icon, once he became a prophet, seems sad, in spite of the halo around his head. Did Bahi really have a halo of light? Yes, it went with him everywhere, but Bahi’s face is not like the face of the Messiah. Lord have mercy, it actually looks a little like him! I ask your forgiveness, Lord Almighty!

The day before, Bahi had told them that Bahiya was also in Alexandria. She had appeared a year earlier. He had noticed her come into the café, look at him, and then go out and stand on the opposite sidewalk to watch him. He did not realize it was Bahiya until she had left in the evening. He froze in place. She still came during the day to observe him from a distance, then disappeared at night.

He said that one night he was taking a walk along the bank of the Mahmudiya canal when he heard a voice calling his name. He thought it was the mythical seductress, the siren of the village, but he could never forget her voice. After he had overcome his surprise he moved closer to the bank and found her standing in front of a hut made of old tin cans, holding a small kerosene lamp that she sheltered from the wind with her other hand. She made way for him at the door, and he entered the hut fearfully: a very harsh life. She slept on sackcloth and had a lot of bread, mostly spoiled, that
people had given her. She had apples and bananas. She gave him an apple and sat watching him in silence. He took the apple home with him, debating whether to eat it or toss it away. He placed it near him in his bed and slept. It stayed on the bed until it became rotten, so he threw it out the window. He fell silent for a long time, then said to Magd al-Din “If I die, bury me in the village.”

“How old are you, Zahra?” Sitt Maryam asked.

“Twenty,” replied Zahra.

Camilla, Yvonne, and their mother all asked at once, “Is this the first time you’ve seen Alexandria?” “Yes.”

“And your husband, why didn’t he rest today after the trip?” was Sitt Maryam’s next question.

“He’s like that. He doesn’t like to be lazy.”

“God be with him. Nobody finds a job easily these days.”

“God will provide.”

Zahra paid 160 piasters, two months rent, for the room. She went in and found it to be a big room, but its window opened onto an air shaft rather than the street. “That’s fine,” she told herself. She felt close to this lady and her daughters. Sitt Maryam asked her if she had more money to furnish the room and she said yes. So Sitt Maryam asked her if she would like to do it that day. Zahra thought a little then said to herself, “Why not? It wouldn’t be bad if Magd al-Din came back and saw the new room with furniture.” She agreed, and Sitt Maryam got up and went into the inner room to put on her street clothes. Zahra, casting a quick glance at the inner room, saw a brass bed with high posts surrounded by a white mosquito net, exactly like her bed in the village, except that the posts of her bed had been discolored in spots. She would buy another one like it today.

Sitt Maryam closed the door quickly. The two girls were once again staring at Zahra. This time she felt embarrassed, so she lowered her head and stared down at the plain kilim on the floor, looking for lines and colors that she did not see. Camilla got up quickly and opened the little cabinet under the radio and took out
a magazine, then sat next to Zahra and opened it to a particular page and asked Zahra, “Do you know Asmahan?”

“Yes.”

“Do you like her voice?”

“When I hear it.”

The girls burst out laughing. Camilla offered the magazine to Zahra. “This is her picture.”

Zahra looked at Asmahan’s splendid face, which she had never seen before. As she studied her beautiful eyes and the beauty mark on her face, she wondered, “Is she really that beautiful?”

Camilla had more questions. “Do you have a radio in the village?”

“We have three—one in the mayor’s house, one in the coffeehouse, and one in our house.”

A look of pain appeared on her face and everyone was quiet. Zahra wiped a tear before it formed in her eye. Camilla turned another page in the magazine to show a bright-faced woman, with brown lipstick on her full lips, wearing a tight dress that showed her curves in reckless playfulness. “This is Esther Williams,” she said. “Do you have a cinema in the village?”