No One Sleeps in Alexandria (7 page)

Sitt Maryam came out just then, laughing and saying to Zahra, who had begun to feel overwhelmed, “Camilla’s mischievous, Zahra.”

Zahra did not comment. Her attention was drawn to the black dress that did not reach Sitt Maryam’s feet and the semi-transparent veil with the gold pin that draped across her nose. Zahra laid Shawqiya down on the sofa and said, “This is the first time I’ve ever left Shawqiya.”

“We’ll be back soon, before lunch. Camilla will look after her, Would you like to have lunch with us, or don’t you like the food of the Copts?”

Zahra felt slightly at a loss. It surprised her that she had never eaten or drunk anything at the house of Firyal, the village seamstress. She had heard, as a young girl, women talking about the bad smell of Coptic food. “You are good. Your food must also be good,” she murmured.

Sitt Maryam took her gently by the hand, and they went out,

Sitt Maryam walked confidently along the sidewalk, but Zahra could not take her eyes off the unpaved ground. That was why she was two or three steps behind. It was hard to walk on the street covered with little white stones; the sidewalk, also unpaved, was higher than the street and lined with rectangular basalt blocks that were covered with sand and small stones in preparation for tiles to be installed. “Watch out, there’s hole for a drain,” or “There’s a water main,” Sitt Maryam said from time to time. Zahra would stop for a moment and cautiously step around what Sitt Maryam warned her about.

“This is the streetcar. Have you seen it, Zahra?”

“Last night.”

“Let’s get on it. Remember the number—it’s eight. It goes to Abu Warda.”

On the streetcar Sitt Maryam led her to the women’s compartment. “Who’s Abu Warda?” asked Zahra.

Sitt Maryam smiled. “It’s a street in Bahari.”

Zahra noticed that there were three women who had gotten on the streetcar before them who sat silently, their faces veiled.

“We’ll get off at Attarin,” Sitt Maryam told her. “This streetcar goes around in a circle, from here to Attarin, then Abd al-Munim Street, then Istanbul Street, and Safiya Zaghloul and the Chamber of Commerce, then Manshiya and Bahari from Tatwig street, and comes all the way back with the same ticket—something of a joy ride.”

Zahra did not say anything. She could not understand how anyone could spend all that time on the streetcar. It seemed to her that women here had no work to do. She smiled. The streetcar moved and she was taken aback for a moment, her heart beating fast. How could she have left the house without her husband’s permission? How could she have left her baby daughter with people she had just met for the first time? Was it enough that Bahi said they were good people? And since when did Bahi say anything useful? But she could not go back. The vast white space captivated her eyes, and she gave in to it. Where was this city taking her?

She let herself study the two- and three-story homes, with their narrow doors opening onto silent courtyards. The old facades had
balconies on which a few items of wash hung haphazardly to dry. A few stores had opened their doors. She noticed that Sitt Maryam paid the conductor a half-piaster coin and took back a millieme and two tickets. Sitt Maryam saw her looking at the broad window of a store where the streetcar had stopped, a window displaying pots and pans and beautiful china and glassware. She told her these were Ahmad Ibrahim’s stores, the most popular stores in Karmuz and Raghib, and that they could buy whatever Zahra needed on their way back from getting the furniture.

Zahra found herself adjusting to the slow flow of movement around her in the street, and to passengers getting on and off the streetcar. Suddenly, though, she was overcome by a strange smell, and they were in the middle of a street crowded with butcher shops, with carts piled high with cow, water buffalo, and sheep feet and heads and organs, lined with stores displaying small slaughtered sheep with clear red stamps, and filled with a crowd of women wearing black body wraps.

“Let’s get off here. This is Bab Umar Pasha. We’ll cross Khedive Street and go into Attarin.

They got off. Zahra’s eyes could not settle on any one thing for long. A refreshing breeze in Khedive Street began to soothe her. She noticed that the first floors of the houses were predominantly dull. The stores in Attarin were now all open and showed long, deep interiors that looked like manufacturing shops. Zahra looked up several times at the balconies.

The houses here were huge, taller than any she had seen so far. The doors were wide and the spaces inside enormous, filled with cardboard boxes and other things she did not recognize. The balconies were beautiful, resting on supports shaped like animals—little lions, tigers, and rams. The balconies had railings of shiny, black and green wrought iron. A few women stood on the balconies hanging out laundry, while a few others sat in the sun. Many of them were old, with loose gray or henna-colored hair and flabby white arms that could be seen, bare, through the railings. Zahra smelled the water sprayed on the ground in front of the stores. In more than one small alley she saw small cafés in which one or two patrons sat smoking narghiles or reading the papers.

All at once, groups of beautiful young women appeared, laughing. They wore colorful tight pants and tight tops, and their faces were made up and their hair donc à la garçon. Zahra was astonished that women would cut their hair in this boyish style. Sitt Maryam noticed Zahra’s reaction and said, “Don’t worry about it.”

From inside one of the stores, Zahra heard someone comment, “Well, well, well! When are we going to become English?” Then she heard the young women laughing boisterously. One of them shot back, “When hell freezes over, buster! Not even if you became French!”

Zahra smelled the strong odor of tobacco smoke and saw in front of her a store with a red facade and big black lettering, with a scale on the counter, behind which a man sat smoking a narghile. On the shelves were small boxes and many cigarette packs. She saw several of these stores with red facades, apparently characteristic of tobacco shops. Sitt Maryam pointed to a street from which came a strong smell of ghee, coconut, and sugar.

“This is the piazza of the Syrians. They are all pastry makers,” she said. “This is al-Laythi Street, the most famous street for antiques in Alexandria. Here they sell French objets d’art, Belgian chandeliers, Swiss watches, Italian chairs, and expensive things from all over the world.” Zahra was reminded of the strong, European-looking face of the man that she had seen smoking the narghile in the tobacco shop.

A woman in a white nightgown came rushing out of a side alley, holding a man by the scruff of his neck. After giving him a smack on the back of his neck, she pushed him into the street, then stood for a moment looking around. She was barefoot, her hair disheveled, with sparks flying from her tired eyes. Then she went back into the little alley, and three scantily clad women, who had stood by the entrance and watched as she kicked the man out, followed her inside. A young coffeehouse boy carrying a tray with a coffee cup, a small coffee pot, and a glass of water almost ran into the man who had just been beaten. But he skillfully stepped aside, laughing, “In this place, it’s sweet to be smacked on the back of the head.” The man staggered toward Zahra, who was scared and hid behind Sitt Maryam. Sitt Maryam quickly bent down, took off her slipper, and waved it in the face
of the man, who stepped back, giving her a military-style salute as the vendors in their stores laughed.

Sitt Maryam and Zahra went on through al-Laythi Street, where the antiques caught her eye, as did the men and women who moved slowly and gracefully among the wares, looking at and examining them. There was a strong smell of wood varnishes, paint, and alcohol.

“We’ve made it to the Arab street. You’ll find all kinds of furniture here.”

Zahra noticed that one alley was filled entirely with shoes of every style and color, on high tables and low tables and on the sidewalks. She saw another long alley filled with displays of used clothing, and shirts, jackets, and overcoats hung in the store entrances, giving off a faint smell. Then they entered a short street, neither wide nor narrow. In front of the shop doors were living-room sets and all kinds of chairs—wooden, upholstered, bamboo. Little boys were dusting them with feather dusters.

“Good morning, Blessed William.”

“Good morning, Sitt Maryam.”

He knows her by name, Zahra thought to herself. She realized that here she could sit down for a little while. She needed that, after having nearly screamed to leave the whole neighborhood.

Blessed William was about fifty, short with a strong build, wearing a clean gallabiya and a fez on his head.

“It’s been a while,” he said, offering two chairs to Sitt Maryam and Zahra, who sat down at once. The the smell of the concrete floor recently doused with water reached her nostrils, and the smell of frankincense burning deep inside the dark store soothed her nerves. A little boy appeared and the man said to him, “Quick, get a pitcher of carob drink.”

Blessed William went to different points on the wall and lit up the big, long store, revealing shiny armoires, beds, tables, chairs, and other pieces of furniture.

“How are things, Blessed William?” Sitt Maryam asked.

“Things are bad. The war has broken out, and everything is going sky high.”

“The war broke out only yesterday, Blessed William.”

“We’ve been living in fear for the last few months. The
drunken English have chased the customers away. I swear by God, I considered selling the store to a Moroccan or a Greek. Only last night, some hoodlums caught three drunken Englishmen and beat them and stole their money. A police force from Kom al-Dikka came and dragged everyone to the governorate headquarters and beat them on the back of the neck until they almost went blind.” He laughed and added, “I was there—I went to the governorate because they’d arrested one of my workers. There was this Indian soldier there who really upset me—he stood there saying ‘Again, again,’ as the the secret police were beating the men. Can you imagine that? An Indian! I wanted to tell him that Gandhi was starving himself to death so that people like him would become real human beings, not lackeys to the English.”

“And then?”

“They let the people go, of course. The hoodlums were long gone.”

“Everyone’s turn will come,” remarked Zahra.

Blessed William took a long look at her and said, “You are good-hearted.”

An old woman with heavy make-up and bright yellow dyed hair passed in front of the store. She was carrying a cheap red leather handbag and wearing a short skirt and a pair of sheer red stockings, through which the green veins of her legs showed. Zahra recoiled and Blessed William said, “One day the land will be cleansed.”

Sitt Maryam could not tell Zahra that in that neighborhood, at the end of the street where they had walked and in the narrow alleys, many women were prostitutes. Zahra must have figured that out for herself, but she had begun to feel a little pain in her breasts, and drops of milk were leaking from her nipples and staining her gallabiya. She had to buy what she needed quickly so that she could hurry back to her baby daughter.

“On our way back we’ll buy the fabric and cotton for the mattress and pillows,” Sitt Maryam told her. “Tomorrow you’ll have the furniture of a bride, God bless it.”

But Zahra, desperate for anything that would give her happiness, still felt ill at ease and afraid of the city.

“I want a sane man to consult about a problem.”

“The only sane man in our city is this madman.”

Jalal al-Din Rumi

6

Did Alexander know that he was building not just a city to immortalize his name, but a whole world and a whole history? Probably: he was concerned not just with immortality, but with changing the world.

The distance from Pharos Island, now Anfushi, to Rhakotis, now Karmuz, took one hour on foot. It must have taken the same amount of time in the old days, because there were no buildings to walk around. The land was flat and sandy. Therefore when Alexander stopped his horse in Rhakotis, he was able to see the farthest spot in the sea, Pharos, and he decided to connect the two points—but he died before that was done. It was Ptolemy I and his successor, Ptolemy II, who actually finished building the city. Alexander had laid the city’s foundation stone and delegated the task of planning to Dinocrates, a skilled architect. He planned it like a chessboard, with streets running straight from north to south intersected by straight east-west streets. Why did he plan it like a chessboard? Did he intend for it to be a stage for playing and dying? Its inhabitants, under Augustus, after the death of Antony and Cleopatra, numbered three hundred thousand free citizens and an equal number of slaves. But Alexandrians were fond of cockfights and writing verses that made fun of the rulers. That was why, when Napoleon Bonaparte conquered it, its inhabitants numbered only eight thousand.

Since then, Alexandria has raced against time, expanding and becoming crowded with strangers from everywhere. It became a real port. Palaces were erected in the space between Ras al-Tin and Abu al-Abbas. Muhammad Ali dug the Mahmudiya canal. The Jewish architect Manshi drew up the plan to develop Alexandria, a process that continued under the reign of Muhammad Ali’s sons, Ibrahim, Said, and Ismail. As the number of foreigners increased, they went east to the vacant land in Raml.