On the way he thought of going back and contenting himself with the changes they had both undergone. But he was strong enough to go and see her without suffering a relapse or coming unraveled. He told himself that she too must have become strong. Both were somewhere between the divine and the human: he was a poet; she, a saint.
He saw the great crowd of men and women, sick, bereaved, and afflicted, in love and in life, in soul and in body on the stretch of land between the mountain and the valley, all the way to the village of Drunga. He stood at a distance until shortly before her departure. He was penetrated by the halo around her head and face, by the movement of her little lips that spoke mysterious words that no one heard, by her white habit, by her body that was as fragile as a sparrow’s. Then he approached. The moment that had seemed as distant as Judgment Day finally came. She raised her face to him. The small silver cross shook in her delicate hand. Her lips quivered without words. His smell filled her nostrils and she could scarcely stand, and when he was directly in front of her she almost collapsed, but she collected herself and let the tears flow down her cheeks in front of him, to the amazement of the assembled sick, bereaved, and afflicted. ‘Rushdi’ was the word that he had longed to hear.
“I am cured,” he said.
“I knew it. I saw you walking through the fields. I am also cured,” she said.
“I will go to France after the war. God has given me the gift of poetry,” he said.
“And I will not leave the convent. God has given me the gift of helping others. Love is the Lord’s path, Rushdi.”
They both fell silent. His tears also flowed.
“Will you bless me?”
She nodded and he knelt. She placed her hand on his head and murmured an incantation, then took his hand to raise him to his feet, and in front of everyone she stood on tiptoe and kissed him on the forehead and said, “Good-bye, my love.”
He made his way back through the crowd, and she went back to the convent and did not finish her blessings that day. She stayed inside for three days, during which time the people slept outside the convent until she came out again, preceded by the light of her face.
His Holiness, Thrice-Blessed Abba Yuannis, patriarch of the Orthodox Copts and pope of St. Mark’s mission, had died in Alexandria, and the Most Venerable Abba Usab, archbishop of Girga, was elected to succeed him by the Public Church Council. Saint Mark’s Cathedral opened its doors for the people to view the body of the departed patriarch before he was buried. Dimyan went and came out in a daze—why do people die? It was the first time that he asked himself that question. He was afraid that the all-powerful faith, which had possessed his heart in the previous months, had dissipated in the desert and was no longer enough. But he did not stop asking himself. At night, as he slept in the church courtyard on a mat among his family and other poor families, he once again had a vision of Mari Girgis on his horse, surrounded by fire on all sides, unable to extricate himself from it.
The famous new American Grant and Sherman tanks were now arriving at the Suez harbor and pouring into Alexandria and then to the desert as the British forces were retreating before Rommel to the Egyptian border, then Sallum and Sidi Barraní. The Eighth Army stopped at Marsa Matruh, waiting for the battle. It did not have to wait long. The Axis forces pursued the army, and it withdrew from Marsa Matruh, which was taken by Rommel as the Allies continued to retreat. At Daba there were battles with cold steel in which the soldiers from New Zealand acquitted themselves brilliantly, showing great courage. But who could stop the legendary Rommel, whose very name inspired fear in the hearts of his enemies and was enough by itself to win the war? al-Alamein was the spot where retreating and advancing armies had to stop. It was a bottleneck not more than twenty-five miles wide from the sea to the Qattara depression. It was far from the bases of the Axis forces in Libya. Rommel needed to rest there for some time. For the Allies, it was the best defense area since it was close to their supply lines and because it was too narrow for the kind of military operation that Rommel was so good at. Here he would have to attack directly. There was no room for maneuver.
Rommel! Rommel! Rommel! The name was carried by the wind and repeated by the people associating it with power, cunning, genius, and miracles. Rommel could not be defeated, could not be killed. The armored vehicle in which he was riding exploded as soon as he left it. Shells poured on the trench that his soldiers had left only a short while earlier. An English commando force landed on the Libyan coast from its submarine and reached his headquarters, but he was not there; he was attending a friend’s wedding. The commandos were taken prisoner after a battle during which some of them were killed. His car stalled in the desert so he, accompanied by his staff, accidentally entered a British camp that had a field hospital. He ordered the commander of the hospital and the doctors to stand in front of him and behaved as if he had occupied the place. He asked them if there was anything he could get for them after getting the land he had occupied under control and promised to comply with their requests. After he left, they realized that they had been tricked and that the prize catch had gotten away.
Panic increased in the country and large numbers of Jews left, and their property was sold at ridiculously low prices. The Alexandrians heard the racket of guns at al-Alamein, and confusion reigned in the city. The foreign consulates began to burn their documents, as did the embassies in Cairo. The British embassy thought of evacuating five hundred ATS women to Luxor on the grounds that such a delightful bounty should not be left for the Germans. There was a strong rumor that the English had asked the Egyptian government to flood the Delta in case the Germans occupied Alexandria so that the land would turn into a sea of mud in which the German armored vehicles would be stuck. The people’s resentment of the English grew.
For their part, the English insisted that it was necessary to evacuate the popular singers Umm Kulthum and Muhammad Abd al-Wahhab, voluntarily or involuntarily, from Cairo so German propaganda could not exploit their songs.
People mobbed the banks to withdraw their money. They were gripped with fear and stayed at home, venturing out only when necessary and in groups because of news of the arrival of stray animals—Hons, tigers, wolves, foxes, and monkeys—from the desert, driven into the city by the war. And indeed people found that several monkeys had climbed some trees, so they chased them with stones and killed them. At night dogs turned into foxes and wolves that everyone fled from. As for the lions and tigers, no one saw them. There was news, however, of an old Hon that appeared in the Mina al-Basal neighborhood, went to sleep on the streetcar tracks, and was killed by the first morning streetcar, which almost overturned. Thus people began to expect to see Hons and tigers at any moment. The military commander of Alexandria, an Egyptian, fell into confusion since he had no specific instructions about what he should do in case the Germans entered the city. So he sent a letter to the war ministry asking what he should do if such an eventuality came to pass: should he resist or surrender? The letter was brought to the attention of the minister, who ordered that no response be sent. But the confused commander sent another letter to the same effect, whereupon the war minister yelled, “Transfer the son of a bitch!” The minister was afraid that if he ordered resistance, the Germans would try him if they were victorious, and if he ordered surrender the British would try him for treason! An air raid on the city leveled the whole of Manasha Street in one night. The inhabitants of Karmuz, Raghib, and Ghayt al-Aynab ran in panic to the banks of the Mahmudiya canal, but the German planes dropped many bombs on Mahmudiya that night, setting many ships on fire, sinking them and killing dozens of people on the banks. A great exodus to the countryside began by train, car, taxi, carts drawn by horses and donkeys, carriage, bicycle, and on foot, choking the main road out of Alexandria. The women went out in panic in their housedresses or nightgowns. Dimyan made the rounds to see the damage, as he did after every raid. He found that many houses had been destroyed and among them was Khawaga Dimitri’s house. The second floor had fall
en in on top of the first, and the facade wall had collapsed, blocking access to the pavement in front of the locked door, which remained standing. There had been no one at home at the time of the raid, no tenants, and Dimitri had gone to Upper Egypt. Dimyan thought of taking his family there, but he remembered that he had been out of contact with his sisters for quite a long time. So he decided to take his family to the shelters set up by the government in Kafr al-Dawwar.
On the road Dimyan ran alongside the cart driven by Ghaffara, who had the fez on his face. On the cart sat Dimyan’s mother, his wife, and his two daughters. Ghaffara had once again removed the walls of the cart so people could easily sit on the long migration route. He no longer transported the dead. He could not stand it. Now he was moving the living to Kafr al-Dawwar, outpaced by the taxis and the horse-drawn carriages and the long carts drawn by healthy mules. But it was all right. The two sickly donkeys did the job, and people were poor, having left their houses with nothing. So he did not charge much. He asked Dimyan to climb up next to him, but Dimyan, who saw how slowly the cart was moving, and how poorly the donkeys were, was content to walk or run alongside the cart. Why did he not see the scene around him as well? That misshapen line of people fleeing in different garb, nakedness, loud voices, crying, too much baggage, too little baggage, clean, dirty, the sun above exposing them, the trains dashing past them, near them and more crowded, everyone looking at everyone else, moments without meaning. Dimyan thought of Brika. Rommel has made it to al-Alamein, and she and all the Bedouin must be gone by now, having fled before the stupid armies. God Almighty! Would Brika appear in the shelter camps? He did not think so. If that happened, he would marry her. She is married. He is married. He would kidnap her. He could not see her again, just let her go. The mere memory of her almost lifted him from the ground. His service at the church and his undertaking the most menial of jobs was not enough to make him forget, even cleaning the toilets and taking a long time doing it was not enough. But the vast, wide open space in which people and vehicles ran said there was no way that Brika would come back to the vast expanse. The Lord had sent her and the Lord had taken her back. Bedouin did not sleep in government houses. Brika was a grain of sand carried by the wind. He must go back to Magd al-Din.
In Kafr al-Dawwar, Queen Nazli’s tents provided temporary shelters for the refugees until real houses were built. Nothing was more beautiful than living in houses built by royalty, even if they were mere tents! He had to convince himself also that nothing was fancier than being transported by Ghaffara on whose cart he had loaded some belongings and the whole family and which moved ever so slowly on the main road, so crowded with refugees that you could not see ahead or back, and Dimyan was in the middle of it all.
The strange story that surprised the people of Alexandria was the story of the Jewish lady Miss Samhun, who lived in a small villa on Manasha Street with dozens of cats. She came from the famous Samhun family, which was among the first to live on that street in the time of Ismail Pasha. No one knew her name, so they used her family name. No one knew when she was born or the day she had first appeared on the street, but she became well known during the previous world war. She had been in love with a young Jewish man who went to the Eastern front with Lord Allenby and entered Palestine with him and did not come back. He had promised to write her to join him after victory, but he did not. He was killed in the fighting against the Ottoman Turks and their allies. In turn she chose not to go to the land where her beloved was killed. She discovered that she could never leave Egypt. She stayed home alone after the death of her mother and father and after her brothers and sisters married and moved to Saba Pasha. No one remembered her except on Saturdays, when she would go to the synagogue on Nabi Danyal Street. Since the temple was destroyed, she no longer went out on Saturdays. No one knew how she lived. It was said that she had a maid who came from Hadra every day. But the servant was seldom seen, and unlike most servants, she did not speak with anyone. She bought everything from the bazaar in Hadra and brought it in the morning. She rarely bought anything from Manasha Street or from Paulino or Muharram Bey. During an air raid, the Samhun villa received a direct hit, and it fell into rubble like the other houses on the street. Rescue teams came, and crowds gathered around the remnants of the villa. Where had Miss Samhun, the most famous resident on the street, gone? The rescue teams worked, and as they made some progress, small and big cats ran out meowing from the rubble, not believing what had happened to them. Miss Samhun was found on her side in a corner surrounded by strong walls and covered with some pieces of wood from the ceiling. She was dusty and her eyes were closed and she did not move. There is no power or strength save in God! What an end for a true lover! She was the most beautiful woman, but loneliness brought her an early old age. She must have had heaps of money. People talked and waited for the money to appear. It took three days to remove the rubble, and jobless and poor people from all over Alexandria pitched in. They had come to look for the buried treasure of the Samhun family. No one asked why no one from the family had appeared, except for a few moments, to take the body of their sister, then disappeared. In the end they found a few old utensils and some decayed pieces of furniture and some incense sticks, many colorful bundles of incense sticks, that the beautiful Miss Samhun had kept.
We praise you, Lord
Calamities are generous gifts,
Catastrophes a sign of munificence.
We praise you, no matter how long the ordeal
Nor how overwhelming the pain.
Anonymous
27
Magd al-Din’s heart beat fast as the train approached. “Until when will you lie to me, my feeble heart?” he said to himself. This was happening every day and still no Dimyan, still nothing filled the wilderness around him. Even the great commotion of the armies around him did not fill that emptiness, not the retreat and panic before Rommel, not the long queues of the wounded, transported by trains, not the sorrow in the different-colored eyes of the soldiers, the occasional crying, the silence of the bagpipes, not the dust that filled the air, the planes that came and went, went and did not come back, then returned, nor the devilish bombs. He stayed home for days on end, suffering pangs of hunger since the Indians and al-Safi al-Naim had stopped coming. Hilal the stationmaster fled to join Amer, who had left the telegraph room open, ravaged by the wind. All of that did not succeed in making him forget Dimyan. Was Dimyan the reason he stayed? He would never again find events more compelling than those he had just witnessed to cause him to leave the place. It must be Dimyan. He was waiting for him to return, and he would return. And there he was. He saw him getting off the last car of the train, which was carrying military equipment.
He saw him standing there in the middle of the platform, looking exactly as he had when they first came to that place together. Dimyan seemed not to believe that he had come back to his friend, and Magd al-Din also looked incredulous. They rushed to embrace each other.
In the stationmaster’s room they talked and talked. Magd al-Din described the soldiers’ miserable retreat before Rommel, and Dimyan talked about Alexandria’s misery, no one staying, no one sleeping. Magd al-Din could not take his eyes off the aura surrounding Dimyan’s face. This was something that Dimyan did not have before.
“Why are you staring at me so much, Sheikh Magd?”
“Nothing, Dimyan. I just missed you. I didn’t believe we’d meet again.”
Dimyan became lost in thought. The priest, Father Ibshawi, had stared at him a lot. He had taken him to the confession booth and sat him down and stared at him. “What’s the matter, Father?” “Don’t leave the church, Dimyan. Don’t stray far.” The deacons and the other priests also stared at him long, then met and talked. Something, he was not sure what, was happening to his face. But why was his family not staring at him? Or those that sought refuge in the church? What made Magd al-Din like Father Ibshawi and the priests and deacons?
“You should have left this place and joined me,” said Dimyan,
lying. In the last few days he had felt that he no longer knew Alexandria and that she no longer knew him. He had no life away from Magd al-Din, and now he was feeling that he could not stay here.
“Yes, I should’ve joined you,” agreed Magd al-Din.
“Why didn’t you, Sheikh Magd?”
Magd al-Din did not have an answer. He realized that he had almost lost all sense of time, that the world was larger than al-Alamein. He kept staring at the face of Dimyan, who continued talking about Alexandria. When Magd al-Din learned that Dimitri’s house had been destroyed, he felt depressed and was able to recall the smell of the home, that calm, sweet smell that induced sleep and rest, a house where you did not hear the noise outside. That was Khawaga Dimitri’s house. He remembered Bahi and immediately recalled the aura that had surrounded his face for so long. He wondered if Dimyan was going to meet the same fate as Bahi. When Magd al-Din recalled the little house, it brought back all the images that he had lost: Lula, Camilla, Yvonne, Sitt Maryam, Ghaffara, Bahi, and Zahra, the love of his soul, who must be withering away in the village grieving over their separation. He felt a sudden jolt of joy that almost lifted him off his feet when he remembered Shawqiya and Shawqi. That meant that he would soon return, a secret magical voice in his heart told him.
“I didn’t know they’d canceled civilian trains,” Dimyan said.
No One Sleeps in Alexandria Page 35