No One Sleeps in Alexandria

by Ibrahim Abdel Meguid

  “Al-Alamein, Sallum, it’s all in Egypt,” he said, pretending contentment.

  There was news of the arrival of a large German force in Libya, that the Axis was regrouping its troops and had started attacking Benghazi. Thus it seemed that the desert war would not end as everyone had predicted, following Graziani’s defeat. After Usta Ghibriyal made his announcement and the break was over, everyone went back to work. Magd al-Din went over to Shahin and asked him about his son.

  “He disappeared for three days,” the man told him, tears in his eyes, “then came back for one day, but then yesterday he disappeared again. I don’t know where he goes or what he’s doing to himself.”

  “Did you tell him what I told you?’

  “I did, and since then he’s stopped speaking to anyone.”

  Earlier that week, Magd al-Din had gathered up his courage and gone upstairs to Khawaga Dimitri, who opened the door for him, surprised. Magd al-Din asked him to go with him to the café for a little while. Dimitri welcomed the idea right away, but could not hide his anxiety.

  At the café Magd al-Din told him, “Nobody chooses his own religion, right, Khawaga Dimitri?”

  “Right, Sheikh Magd.”

  “Please pardon me if I tell you that I know Camilla’s story with Rushdi, the Muslim boy.”

  Khawaga Dimitri said nothing for a long while, then asked, “And you also know the young man’s name, Sheikh Magd?”

  “His father works with me,” he said and fell silent.

  “Listen, Sheikh Magd,” Dimitri said abruptly, “your late brother lived with us for years and never felt that we were different. And you have lived almost two years with us—did you ever feel that we were prejudiced against Muslims?”

  “No.”

  “Not only that, but sometimes we pay for the mistakes of some Muslim tenants. Lula, for instance, was a Muslim, and she lied to us and brought shame upon us.”

  “You’re right, Khawaga Dimitri.”

  “I know that nobody chooses their religion, and I’m not surprised that my daughter has fallen in love with a Muslim boy, She is rash, and he is rash, and with a little wisdom everything can settle back in its place.”

  “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  “We tried to make the girl come back to her senses, but we failed—me, her mother, and the priest. We had no choice but to send her back home to keep them away from each other for a while. The girl will lose a school year but that’s better than losing herself. She’s my daughter, Sheikh Magd. Would you agree to your daughter marrying a Christian?”

  Taken by surprise at the question, Magd al-Din thought for a while then replied, “If he converted to Islam, I would have no objection.”

  “And if this young man converts to Christianity, neither I nor anyone else would have an objection. Can he convert?”

  “He’d be killed, Khawaga. In our religion this is apostasy.”

  “Are we wrong because we don’t kill those who abandon our religion?”

  They were both silent, until Dimitri finally said, “How could I beget my daughter, raise her, and then have some young man just come and take her and cut off all her relations with us? When a girl gets married, of course it deprives her of her family’s kindness, and deprives her family of her tenderness. So can you imagine if she’s married to someone from a different religion? How can anyone ask me to be deprived of my daughter forever, Sheikh Magd?”

  Magd al-Din nodded, thinking how sincere Dimitri was.

  “I think you understand me now,” Dimitri went on. “I don’t care if he’s Muslim or Christian. What matters is, how can my daughter, after marriage, remain my daughter? Either he converts to Christianity, or we all convert to Islam, and both are impossible options. So, there’s no alternative to agony for a while, just a little while, Sheikh Magd. Then the problem will be solved. Or do you want us all to suffer forever?”

  Magd al-Din remained silent.

  “Please help me. Can you?”

  “I can and I will, brother Dimitri.”

  “And please forgive me. I asked you to move downstairs so we could discuss our catastrophe freely, so that if we spoke loudly about religion, you would not misunderstand us, also so that the priest could come and go without embarrassment. He was embarrassed coming in and leaving, with a Muslim neighbor so close to us, a neighbor who undoubtedly knew the reason for his visits. He told me, and these were his words, ‘The neighbors might think I hate Muslims, but I am only trying to cure the girl of her rashness.’“

  “And I didn’t leave the house, so I could be ready if you needed me. We’ve spent a beautiful time with you in these difficult days, brother Dimitri.”

  They got up and returned home together. Khawaga Dimitri went upstairs, saying loudly to Magd al-Din, “Zahra can come upstairs any time and sit with Maryam and Yvonne, like she used to.”

  What Dimitri made Camilla do was exactly what Magd al-Din had suggested to Rushdi, that they stay away from each other for some time. So now she was staying away, or had been made to stay away. It did not matter which. The main thing now was for them not to meet, so the wound would heal.

  On the day following that meeting with Dimitri, Magd al-Din informed Shahin, who in turn informed his son. Magd al-Din felt this was an easy and natural end to the matter, and that the problem would resolve itself without Rushdi taking the trouble to go to Camilla’s family. There was no sense in Rushdi declaring that he would stay away as he had promised. What happened afterwards did not bode well. The boy started to leave home for extended periods. Once, Zahra went upstairs and found Yvonne crying and her mother working on the sewing machine in silence. Both the mother and her daughter tried to appear less dejected. The mother asked Zahra about her pregnancy and how Sheikh Magd was doing at work and when she was expected to give birth. All the time Yvonne would stop crying, only to begin again. So she had to go into the other room, the one in which Zahra and Magd al-Din used to live, and there her sobbing continued. Zahra asked Sitt Maryam, “Yvonne loves her sister this much and cannot bear to be separated from her?”

  “She’s afraid that she won’t come back,” the mother said. I don’t know where she gets these ideas.”

  Zahra noticed the mother also struggling to hold back her tears.

  Once news of the German army’s arrival in Libya hit town, the railroad station was crowded again. At one point Alexandria had appeared to be empty of inhabitants; therefore the crowds were a surprise to both Magd al-Din and Zahra as they sat on the floor of the station, in the sweaty, close atmosphere. Around them everywhere sat hundreds of black-clad women and men wearing all manner of clothing. Children were everywhere, running amid people sitting on the floor and baskets, suitcases, and boxes, or crying or sleeping on their mothers’ laps. A state of melancholy permeated the whole scene but, from time to time, a long, loud laugh rose from a man or a woman somewhere. The quiet was also broken whenever a train pulled into the station. Everyone would run to it and stand in confusion, asking the railroad workers about the destination. Then everyone would get aboard. Then everyone would get off the train when they realized it was the wrong one. Because of the crowding and the commotion, it seemed that everyone was doing all these contradictory things at the same time. Earlier, Zahra had gone upstairs to bid farewell to Sitt Maryam, who appeared calm and collected. She kissed Zahra on both cheeks and wished her a safe journey and a safe delivery. Yvonne, on the other hand, could not help crying on Zahra’s bosom as she told her, “I’ll miss you very much!” For the first time Zahra realized that there was no difference between Yvonne and Camilla. Both girls were as gentle as a breeze and as delicate as invisible angels. Zahra could not prevent her tears, mixed with black kohl, from flowing down her cheeks, and she said without thinking, “Please convey my greetings to Camilla if you see her soon, or even not so soon. Please, Sitt Maryam, don’t be hard on the girl, for the sake of Jesus and Mary.”

  “Of course, don’t worry, Zahra,” Sitt Maryam answered, as Y
vonne ran to her room, crying.

  Zahra went downstairs with a heavy heart. She had not realized she loved her neighbors so much. She felt no joy going back to the village, for she was leaving behind that prince among men, good-hearted Magd al-Din. After she dried her tears, she crossed the street to say good-bye to Umm Hamidu, who insisted on standing up and saying as she laughed, “I stand up every evening. For your sake, I’ll stand up an extra time today.” She took Zahra in her arms and kissed her in the beautiful manner of the local women: she placed her puckered lips against Zahra’s cheek and made many long kissing sounds, then did it again on the other cheek. She told Zahra, if she came back to Alexandria, not to come back to that house, for in less than two years, Bahi was killed, Lula was caught, and Camilla disappeared. She said it had an unlucky threshold. “Houses are their thresholds, Zahra.”

  She told her she knew the story of Camilla and the Muslim boy, that everyone did. She said Dimitri was in a pitiable position: “The Christians don’t like him because he didn’t know how to bring up his daughter, and the Muslims don’t like him because he broke the poor boy’s heart. The real victims in the story are Dimitri and his wife—all their lives they’ve been respectable and minded their own business. But no one can figure out God’s ways.” Zahra left wiping her tears. Umm Hamidu did not sit down until Zahra and Magd al-Din had gone quite a distance.

  Magd al-Din was able to climb into the train and sit next to the window, then Zahra handed him the only basket she had, which contained nothing but her clothes and a box of candy from the Gazar candy store. When she got into the car, she sat in Magd al-Din’s place, and he got off and stood next to the window, not wanting to leave before the train moved. Shawqiya, the little girl, stood next to her mother, who said to her husband through her tears, “Take care of yourself, Sheikh Magd.”

  He did not answer, only looked at her. He really wanted to go with her, but it seemed that he was destined to move even further away from her. He would go to al-Alamein in a few days. Before he had arrived in Alexandria, he had not heard that name, not even before he worked for the railroad. Now he was always hearing the strange name of this desert town. He had never lived in the desert, but after all, it too was God’s country, and God undoubtedly would look after it. He bought four hard-boiled eggs and two big soft pretzels and handed them to Zahra, who placed them with the basket on the shelf. “Maybe the train will be late, you might get hungry,” he told her.

  He remembered how Zahra had baked crackers to last him at least a month and filled little jars of dry mulukhiya leaves, tea, sugar, and ghee, and cleaned the Primus stove, and placed everything in two baskets: the food in one and the rest in the other. She did not forget to fold his clothes and place thread and some needles with them. She even packed some matches and candles in case of emergency. All Magd al-Din had to do was to carry the stuff to the cart that would transport him to the desert train at Qabbari in three days. As the train started to move he said, “Don’t forget to let me know after the birth.”

  “Don’t cry, Sheikh Magd. Don’t cry,” she told him.

  He had not felt the tears as they formed in his eyes. He held her hand and ran along with the train, which had not yet begun to gain speed, and kissed her hand quickly, surprising the people standing on the platform and sitting near Zahra. She said in a soft voice, “Good-bye, my love,” and let her tears flow. He felt his heart wrenched. The world had become a vast, white shaking mass with a distant sky, and he was a little child, crying sadly, like an orphan.

  The distance from the platform to outside the station was the longest distance a man could walk, had Dimyan not appeared, standing among the seated masses, looking in every direction. Magd al-Din saw him and felt some consolation. He went toward him. This friend of his was the only one who could dispel his sorrow. He wondered what had brought his friend to the station at that time. Did he come to send his wife, mother, and two daughters to a village?

  Dimyan had come directly from the church after passing by Magd al-Din’s house and being told by Sitt Maryam that he had gone to the station to see his wife off. He could not wait, and took the streetcar to meet his friend before his return. Actually, he could have waited. Only now did he realize that there was no need for his going to the station nor for all that hurry. It was the dream he had seen, the nightmare he had had on the saint’s anniversary, which he had attended for the first time in many years. The courtyard of the church had been filled for the last two days with people standing, lying down, and sitting. Many families brought their floor coverings and their food. There were some mats in one corner, sheets in another, a woolen blanket here, and a cotton kilim there. There were men in cotton gallabiyas, men in silk gallabiyas, men in woolen gallabiyas, men in old or new trousers and eyeglasses, women with bare shoulders, sitting in their house gowns, women covered with silk shawls and children of all ages and sizes, naked and in gallabiyas, barefoot and in light sandals. The only light came from the candles in the chandeliers hung around the pillars or on the walls under the darkened dome. Everyone under the dome or in the courtyard in front of it was praying deyoutly, as the sounds of the mass found their way to Dimyan’s heart, In front of him, right under the center of the dome, he could see the large, famous icon of Mari Girgis slaying the dragon. That was Mari Girgis, his patron saint, taking care of him in this world in such a way that gave Dimyan a joy that made him forget the crowded courtyard and peoples’ sorrows and the crowds around the church. Among them were Muslims and Christians who came to watch and participate in popular games or congregate around the carts selling seeds and peanuts or macaroni, or to sit on the wooden benches of improvised cafés set up by vendors who made tea on Primus stoves placed next to the walls. Generally those people appeared only once each year, during saints’ anniversaries. There were tattoo artists, who used red-hot needles to make blue and green tattoos, marks of the cross for women, young men, and also some middle-aged men, and pictures of the martyr on men’s shoulders, arms, and chests. For the Muslims they made pictures of the legendary Abu Zayd al-Hilali brandishing his sword as he attacked a lion, or riding the lion in many cases, in addition to tattooing names and places of birth on men’s forearms. Most of those artists and vendors were the same ones often seen during the anniversaries of the Muslim saints Mursi Abu al-Abbas, Sidi Bishr, Sidi Gabir, Abu al-Darda, Sidi al-Adawi, and other saints in Alexandria. They also were the ones who went to the nearby villages to help celebrate the anniversaries of famous saints. It is a beautiful occupation that affords the people the chance to experience some joy and to break the laws and taboos a little by pursuing love and flirting with women and girls. Celebrating the anniversary of Mari Girgis outside the church is identical to celebrating Mursi Abu al-Abbas’s.

  The smell of onions filled the inside and outside of the little church, and the streets were filled with seated people all the way to the Mahmudiya canal on one side and Ban Street on the other, as well as up to Sidi Karim. Before the war, the lights had extended all the way to Raghib and the railroad station, the Kom al-Dikka station, which the Alexandrians called Masr Station because they could not conceive of any other town outside Alexandria except Cairo, which was called Masr. Dimyan slept in the courtyard of the church for the first time in his life. In his youth he had heard adolescent stories about how some women behaved at the anniversary celebration, and he had always thought them to be adolescent stories. That night he thought of finding out for sure, but he quickly asked forgiveness of his patron saint, Mari Girgis, and went to sit on a bench outside, amid the crowds. In the middle of the night, he went into the church courtyard and found most men and women awake. He took his place next to his wife and mother, who were asleep. He lay down looking at the sky. His eyes closed for a few moments, and he saw a great fire engulfing Mari Girgis, his friend and patron, who with his horse tried in vain to get out of the circle of fire. Dimyan got up in great panic and left the whole place. It was shortly after dawn. He crossed the adjacent streets, where people were
asleep on the sidewalks, and went to the canal to breathe some fresh air. He did not go back until he had cried alone on the bank of the canal. Then he took his wife, mother and, two daughters home and went to Magd al-Din’s house. But he did not find him, so he came looking for him at the station.

  The two of them had now left behind the station gate, the crowds fleeing the city, and the stench of sweat and dung of the horses and donkeys in front of the gates. They sat on the first bench they came across in the garden. The sun was up, and the air was fresh, neither cold nor warm. Dimyan realized that the open space above the square was vast and soothing.

  “Did you really come to see me, Dimyan?” asked Magd al-Din.

  Dimyan did not respond to the question.

  “I am afraid of al-Alamein, Sheikh Magd,” was all he said. “I am very frightened.”

  He raised the hem of his gallabiya to wipe some tears that had suddenly formed in his eyes. Magd al-Din was quite astonished at his friend, whom no one would believe had the soul of a lonely little child. Dimyan told his dream to Magd al-Din, who in turn was afraid, but for Dimyan himself.

  “Where can we go, Dimyan? There’s nothing for us except the preordained, which no one knows. As the Quran says, “No soul knows what it will earn tomorrow, and no soul knows in what land it will die.”

  Dimyan felt sorry as he saw the traces of tears in his friend’s eyes. He really should not have caused him additional worry now, but should now find a way to take his mind away from worries. He said he had learned how to read and write and would buy the newspaper for the first time and read it. Magd al-Din, still sad over his separation from his family, said nothing.