Текст книги "No One Sleeps in Alexandria"

Автор книги: Ibrahim Abdel Meguid

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Текущая страница: 18 (всего у книги 26 страниц)

“Congratulations! You can read, Dimyan,” Magd al-Din told him.

“What do you think of that, Sheikh Magd?” asked Dimyan after a second.

“What do you mean?” “I mean, how useful is it?”

“To tell you the truth, Dimyan,” said Magd al-Din with a smile, “I was puzzled too when you read it to me.”

“Is this why I learned to read – for these newspapers?”

Magd al-Din laughed silently and Dimyan said, as if to himself, “What stupid newspapers! Why should I care about a maharaja, well-off or broke?”

Dimyan threw the newspaper out of Magd al-Din’s window and left without bending to pick it up. Churchill gave a speech in which he announced Britain’s options: victory or death. Nothing new was learned about Hamza. Shahin no longer spoke about his son to Magd al-Din. The verdict was announced in the case of the defective helmets, which was declared to be a case of commercial fraud rather than high treason, so the defendants got off with light sentences and everyone was happy. As of April 20, the sale of liquor in Alexandria was restricted to those with permits issued by the military. This was due to the many accidents resulting from drunkenness, and also because alcoholic beverages were used to make explosives. In their new raids on Alexandria, the German planes started dropping small incendiary bombs, and the people were instructed on how to handle them if they had not exploded. The military courts in Alexandria also heard seventy cases against Italians living in the city who had not heeded a previous military order to surrender their radios to the police. The radios were confiscated, but no spies were uncovered. It was announced that on the last Monday of the month, Charlie Chaplin’s film The Great Dictator would be screened in several cinemas in the capital and in Cinema Royal in Alexandria. When it was shown, record crowds in wartime were observed in front of the cinemas. It now seemed that Dimyan had never expressed a strong desire to watch a Charlie Chaplin film; he found out about the film but did nothing about it – he did not even allow himself to think of it. Ghaffara met Magd al-Din on the street and reproached him for taking his wife to the station without asking him to give them a ride on his cart. Magd al-Din smiled and thanked him, telling him that that they left in the late morning, when Ghaffara was nowhere to be found on the street. Then he told him about his trip to al-Alamein the following day and asked him if it would be possible to pick him up at five in the morning to take him with his friend Dimyan and their luggage to the station. Ghaffara said he would then asked him where al-Alamein was, and Magd al-Din told him.

The night was long. His life passed in front of his mind’s eye. He felt as if a whole lifetime had passed since Zahra left. Had Dimitri not come to visit him and sat with him a long time, the night would not have passed. Dimitri asked him if he would come to Alexandria during vacations, and Magd al-Din said that he would not, that if he got a vacation he would go to the village. He said that with great emphasis, which baffled Dimitri. Then Magd al-Din told him that he would give him three months rent, and would send him the rent every month after that with Dimyan, who would surely come to Alexandria to see his family. Dimitri asked him who Dimyan was. Magd al-Din was surprised, and after a pause started to remind Dimitri of him but the man, who could not remember, said, “Oh yes, I remember him,” but he was not telling the truth. This perplexed Magd al-Din, who began to wonder what might have happened to his landlord’s mind. They spoke a lot about people, the country, and the war. Dimitri suddenly asked him if he had found out anything new about Rushdi, and Magd al-Din told him the truth, namely that his father no longer spoke about his son in front of him. Dimitri said with regret that he hoped the young man realized the gravity of the situation and would let it pass peacefully, that he personally would not have liked to stand in the way of his daughter’s wish but that it was a difficult wish. He was sure time would heal all wounds. Magd al-Din thanked Dimitri for the time he had spent in his house and told him that both he and Dimyan had applied to the railroad authority for housing if a vacancy should occur, and that he was hopeful. Dimitri reassured him about his furniture in the room-”exactly as if you are here, Sheikh Magd”—and shook his hand warmly, then went upstairs and left Magd al-Din, who wished to get some sleep that night. He began to recite silently some of the short chapters of the Quran to calm his nerves.

The previous day’s newspapers had announced that the country was ready for Hollywood’s new masterpiece, produced by David Selznick, starring the famous actors Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh, Olivia de Havilland, and Leslie Howard, as well as more than thirty-five hundred new actors and actresses. That masterpiece was based on the famous novel by Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind. The papers also published the name of the German officer commanding the Axis forces in Libya. It was Erwin Rommel, who came from the French front and who had shown great skill in desert warfare. The public health office in the governorate also announced that births in Alexandria that week numbered four hundred locals and twenty foreigners. As for deaths, they numbered 120 locals. The causes of death given were old age, a variety of fevers, malaria, tuberculosis, dysentery, whooping cough, tetanus, and air raids. Deaths among foreigners numbered ten. Causes given were drunkenness, insanity, and suicide.

21

The time that my journey takes is long and

the way of it long.

I came out on the chariot of the first gleam of light and

pursued my voyage through the wilderness of worlds.

Rabindranath Tagore

The Maryut coast – or the Libyan coast, as the ancient Carthaginians called it – extending from Alexandria to Sallum, before it enters Libya, is the forgotten coast in Egypt. It is where Magd al-Din and Dimyan were going this morning. Off the coast lies the Mediterranean, bluer than in Alexandria, with clear water that reveals rocks and sand, enticing you to hold out your hands and scoop up water to drink, and forget that the water is salty. The coast, for whoever hears of or sees it, is the desert itself. It is a barren coast, beyond which the desert extends endlessly, with a horizon in every direction and a mirage on every horizon. On this deserted coast many large armies have marched. The Libyan Shishak I was the first to use it to invade Egypt in 945 B.C. At that time, pharaonic glories had reached the high heavens: the pharaohs sat on the gods’ throne, and one dynasty followed another, twenty-one of them, until the inevitable decline set in. Eventually, though, it was the Egyptians’ turn to march on the coast, this time to Libya. That was in the reign of Aprieus, the fourth king of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty. He set out to Cyrene to rid it of Greek rule, but failed to do so. Ptolemy I, however, was able to reach Cyrene and annex Libya, from which the worship of Isis spread west. The Libyans built a temple for her. It is still standing today in Cyrenaica, as is the bath of Cleopatra VIII (Selene) – daughter of Cleopatra VII, who ruled Egypt – just like her mother’s bath in Marsa Matruh. Both baths are carved out of the rocks in the sea. Were the two of them daughters of Poseidon, god of the sea, or were they both goddesses of the sea?

The road was not completely deserted then. Alexander took it to Marsa Matruh before turning into the desert to head for the temple of Amun in Siwa. The Arab tribes of Bani Salim and Bani Hílal took the same road a thousand years later, migrating from Najd to Morocco, then came back bearing the name “the Fatimids.” The Fatimids were the last to take that road before troops from England and the Commonwealth, from India, Australia, Scotland, Ireland, New Zealand, and Cape Town marched on it, as did troops from southern Italy and Germany, in the opposite direction. The northern coast has been a road of war and death. In times of peace, the Christians took it to escape Roman persecution, and they built small monasteries in the farthest depressions in the desert. They reached all the way to al-Wadi al-Jadid and built churches and monasteries in Bagawat and near Alexandria in Bahig, Ikingi Maryut, and Burg al-Arab. During times of peace, the road was taken by the Bedouin tribes of Ali al-Abyad and Ah al-Ahmar of the Awlad Ali of the Saadi Arabs, and the sedentary Murabitin tribes of Jamayat, Qawabis, and Samalush, who were usually charged with guard duties and took up their positions among the settlements of the different tribes to provide them protection when the Saadi Arabs were busy fighting.

Amiriya is the closest city to Alexandria on that road, thirty kilometers to the west, and southwest of Lake Maryut, which bounds Alexandria and keeps it pressed to the sea. In the days of Muhammad Ali it was know as Ikingi Uthman, named after the ruler’s majordomo. During Abbas Pasha’s reign it came to be known as Biringi Maryut, that is, “First Maryut,” thus Ikingi Maryut was the second city. Amiriya is a hodgepodge of a market town where the Bedouin of the Bihayra governorate meet with the Bedouin of Maryut and some merchants of Alexandria once a week. Beyond that, nothing much: a few scattered houses, an old railroad station, and a train that carries water once a week to the desert, where the few inhabitants go out to meet it and fill their jerry cans and load them on their donkeys’ backs.

Ikingi Maryut is the more famous of the two. It is dry year-round, both a summer and a winter resort. It seems that God has given it the gift of wondrous, enchanting air. Beautiful windmills can be seen pumping pure water that has stayed underground for millions of years, in order to water fig, almond, and pomegranate trees, grapevines, and the memories of visitors. When you enter Ikingi Maryut, you forget all other towns and you feel your life simplified to serenity. Time and space cease to exist.

Amiriya is different. It seems at all times to be a town without an identity, choked by the dust that gathers from all directions, because it has no gardens and because the sun seems to linger above it always, day and night. This is one of the curious things about Amiriya, for despite being close to Alexandria and the lakes, it is always hot. It is said that it got its name from the ancient Greek city of Marea, which is buried near the sea and which used to be a great spot for wine-making, dance, and love. “Alexandria is Marca, a happy city, and its earth is saffron,” as the saying goes. It is also said that the tribes of Rabia and Hilal ibn Amr settled here for some time before moving westward, thus the town got its name from these tribes. This is more plausible, as you could smell the hair of the Bedouin tents in the air; the few scattered dusty houses in Amiriya look from a distance like tent pegs, sometimes screaming with the desire to move in search of water and grass.

Not far from Amiriya is Burg al-Arab, which used to be no more than a guard post. In 1918, Major Bramly, police inspector in the Western Desert governorate, chose a high hill where he built a big palace in which he collected all kinds of artifacts and surrounded with a beautiful garden and fitted with windmills to raise fresh water. At the foot of the hill, several houses were built to serve the alabaster palace, whose Greek and Roman pillars Bramly had moved from the nearby area of Abu Mina. Abu Mina was a site that held scattered Greek and Roman relics as well as the church of Abumna, built by the emperor Arcadius in 405 C.E. on top of the tomb of Saint Menas, who had fled the persecution of Diocletian. But the latter sent troops that captured and killed the saint. Diocletian did not know that the Lord’s children or disciples would not die; none ever truly died. As always happened, Diocletian died and Saint Menas lived on. Bramly died and his palace was taken over by the overseer of royal possessions. The soldiers who guarded it told the few inhabitants of the area stories about the luminescent alabaster walls, about beautiful singing sounds that filled the palace at night together with the sea wind. They spoke of a state of ecstasy that came over the soldiers every night, making them laugh for no reason, inebriated on a wine they had not drunk. They turned at night into happy children and spent the day surprised at what happened during the night.

Figs in the palace garden had the sweet taste of honey, almonds gave off the scent of apples, and the pomegranates were as cool as ice. Beyond this small settlement of Burg al-Arab, to reach al-Alamein one had to pass by the town of al-Hammam, established on the ruins of the Greek town of Kaminos, famous for its natural baths. It was built around an old market frequented by merchants of the west who went there to meet with merchants of the Delta. Al-Hammam was settled by Moroccans a long time ago and contained the Mosque of Ziyad ibn al-Aghlab, which he built while on his way to conquer North Africa. It is a desert town smelling of camels, goats, and sheep, where people moved fast whether going to it, leaving from it, or staying in it, as if everything suddenly has turned into a mirage. It is difficult to retain the memory of a face you come across in that town, where you pause only to push on, a town created for quick commerce. Leaving it and going west means going to al-Alamein, that deserted spot, a small railroad station with a mere half-meter-high platform topped by two wooden rooms for the stationmaster and the telegraph operator. The platform ends at a primitive barricade consisting of a wooden pole with a rope attached to one end and a weight of stone at the other end. When the operator pulls the rope, the pole is lowered, blocking the way. After the train goes through, he lets go of the rope, and the counterbalance causes the pole to be raised so that nonexistent cars and the few people may cross the tracks. That was before the war; now there were many cars and soldiers. That road across the tracks is the only road in al-Alamein. It starts at the sea and goes through the village, which is no more than two rows of houses built of limestone cut from the mountain of al-Hammam.

The houses stood empty. The same Bedouin who had left their encampments built them, but when the war broke out, they moved away again, leaving behind the limestone houses and going back to their tents and encampments on the edge of the Qattara depression. The distance between Alexandria and al-Alamein is one hundred kilometers, and between the sea and the Qattara depression is twenty-five kilometers, thus making it a bottleneck unsuitable for military maneuvers, but a good last line of defense if the armies had to retreat before the Axis. That area was now a repository for weapons, ammunition, and supplies and a training ground for troops. Al-Alamein is six hundred feet above sea level, and the land slopes southwards to the Qattara depression across an area of sand dunes and perilous salty swamps. On the edges of these dunes and swamps live a few Bedouin, Bani Ahmar and Bani Abyad, Saadis and Murabitin who have been at peace for such a long time that their dialect no longer has words for “war” and “fighting.”

Beyond al-Alamein there were no other inhabited towns worth stopping at except Sidi Abd al-Rahman and Marsa Matruh. The dunes of al-Alamein are characterized by their off-white limestone color that continues to Sidi Abd al-Rahman, a little-noticed summer resort next to a small village that is nothing more than a mosque the Bedouin built to honor Abd al-Rahman, of watermelon fame, who had become a saint.

Abd al-Rahman was a handsome young man who was walking with his ugly friend, a barber who had evil designs on him. They had gone far into the desert when the barber took out a razor he had been hiding in his vest and severed Abd al-Rahman’s head, then left him buried in the sand. A year later the barber took the same route, which he had forgotten. In the desert, the land and the dunes looked alike. He saw a watermelon patch bearing a big ripe watermelon lying on the ground, He could not resist; who could resist a watermelon in the desert? He picked up the watermelon, and on his way back, he thought of giving it as a gift to the chief of the tribe. That was more beneficial than eating it, he thought.

The chief of the tribe was happy with the gift. But as soon as he plunged the knife into it, blood gushed forth. He plunged the knife again, and again the blood gushed forth. The wise old chief looked at the barber, who by now was terrified in front of all those present. He had remembered everything. He asked the chief for an assurance of protection, and the chief gave him that assurance. So he started telling everyone how he had killed his friend on that very spot. The Bedouin built a tomb for Abd al-Rahman on top of the watermelon patch, and they buried the watermelon, which they realized contained Abd al-Rahman’s head. The tomb became a shrine around which the little village came into being.

There are no more stories until you get to Marsa Matruh. Daba is a small village deserted by the Bedouin who moved to Sidi Abd al-Rahman and al-Alamein. Fuka is a strategic depression where forces and vehicles gathered to be deployed later on at the Libyan borders. Marsa Matruh, Cleopatra and Antony’s historical city, was now the headquarters of the Eighth Army command through which military vehicles careened all day long. Marsa Matruh was the city of love and death where Cleopatra betrayed Antony by fleeing from Actium and where Antony worshipped at the altar of Cleopatra’s body. It was in Marsa Matruh that both committed suicide. It used to be the capital of the Western Desert governorate; now it was the headquarters for General Wavell, who had defeated Graziani a few weeks earlier. Now the German Rommel came to command the Afrika Korps, now mostly German. What was that new commander who came triumphant from the French front going to do? He had an easy name, apparently destined for fame, like the names of the famous, be they good or evil; Napoleon is just as easy a name as Robin Hood, and Judas as Jesus, and Yazid as Husayn, and Umm Kulthum and Asmahan’s names are just as easy as the serial-killing sisters, Raya and Sakina.

Celebrity makes everyone equal, and as time passes the evil might attain the same status as that of the saintly.

“Good morning. Ready, Sheikh Magd?”

“Good morning. Ready, God willing.”

Magd al-Din had slept only one hour, after dawn. Before Ghaffara called out his name, Magd al-Din had heard the sounds of the creaking wheels and Ghaffara’s voice as he stopped the donkey. Sheikh Magd came out carrying one of the two baskets he had packed. Ghaffara took it from him and put it on the cart, which Magd al-Din noticed now had two donkeys.

“It’s a long ride and a heavy load. I had to get another donkey, so I rented one,” Ghaffara said.

Magd al-Din smiled and went back to his room to bring the other basket. He noticed that Ghaffara was not wearing his mask.

“It’s early. The air’s still clean,” said Ghaffara.

It was a little after five o’clock, with the day still trying to break away from the night. A cool breeze wafted in the dark, and the coming light exuded a pleasant smell. The eyes opened with the coming of day just as flowers opened up to the light.

Magd al-Din jumped up to sit next to Ghaffara on the cart. His eyes caught a glimpse of the little house. He wished he had gone up and said goodbye to Khawaga Dimitri and his family even though the man had visited him the previous night. Was he destined to see them again? Ghaffara started on his way to Dimyan’s house.

That was the first time that Magd al-Din had seen the Qabbari railway station. It was indeed a long ride from his house. The cart covered the road extending along Mahmudiya Canal all the way to Kafr Ashri, then beyond it to the Maks road up to Qabbari Street, and ending at the station. For more than an hour the cart went without seeing anyone else on the road, even at the canal. Then suddenly light burst forth like pouring water. There was no movement to the right; the boats lay still, their sailors asleep. To the left were the warehouses of Salvago and Bank Misr, which Magd al-Din had seen the night he met Rushdi, who had gone crazy on account of his love for Camilla. Who was that figure that Magd al-Din saw sitting before Mahmudiya, his back turned to the railroad houses? That person seemed to be a thin, lost young man. Then it occurred to him that he had not met any of his coworkers going to work. A short while after they passed the houses Dimyan asked Ghaffara, “Isn’t it strange that we haven’t met anyone on the road?”

“It’s early, Dimyan.”

“I feel like God has just created us this very minute. Yes, I think we’ve just descended from heaven – you, me, and the two donkeys.”

“And the two donkeys too?” Ghaffara said, laughing.

“And the two donkeys, Ghaffara!”

“You have a very fertile imagination, Blessed Dimyan.”

A silence fell during which Dimyan thought that no one had called him “Blessed” before. Why was it that no one had shown him such respect?

The cart wobbled along the cobblestone road. It crossed Tigara Street, which went right through Kafr Ashri and Sheikh Abd Allah al-Nadim’s school and his deserted house and entered Maks Street. It was then that they saw some traffic, a few cars and a slow-moving streetcar with hardly any passengers. The streets were bathed in light. Ghaffara stopped the cart and got off it for a few moments and picked up his air-raid mask, which was in a bag hanging under the cart. He put it on his face, then got on the cart again and began gently to prod the donkeys to hurry. Magd al-Din and Dimyan both smiled at Ghaffara’s strange fez-mask but said nothing.

At the station they did not have a long time; the train would arrive soon. There were only three Bedouin men standing far apart on the platform. When the train arrived, each of them got into a separate car. It was an old train, its colors faded and its paint peeling. A thick layer of dust and sand covered it. Magd al-Din and Dimyan got on the car directly in front of them, placed their baggage on the shelf, and sat facing each other. The broken windows to their left were covered by shutters, which they did not think to open, for it was still chilly and they knew it was going to get colder as the train moved and as the air blew through the broken glass and the holes in the shutters. Like any other passengers, they turned their heads to see who else was there. They saw only one middle-aged man, almost their own age, wearing a clean, tan-colored gallabiya and a white silk turban and, showing through the gallabiya, a traditional woolen vest. The man had clasped his hands in front of his chest and rested his head on them and fallen asleep, emitting loud snoring noises. But he would wake up suddenly with a startled gesture, wipe away the saliva running from his mouth, then go to sleep again for a few moments, only to wake up again, startled, and wipe his saliva.

The train proceeded at a tottering speed with no concern for time before or time after. It left Alexandria in the morning, arrived at Marsa Matruh the following day, and started on its way back the third day. There were no other trains except the 3 p.m. train that stopped at al-Hammam and turned around at 7 p.m. The movement of trains on this military route had been limited, and now the only trains one saw were trains transporting military equipment, prisoners, or soldiers. Magd al-Din and Dimyan saw to their left, for the first time, Lake Maryut, which extended for a great distance. On it they saw small feluccas and fishermen who had gone to work early. They were now busy casting their small nets, then pulling them in filled with fish that glimmered like pearls in the sunshine, which now illuminated everything. To the right also were stretches of Lake Maryut, the dry, reddish salt basins that would turn white as the summer advanced. Then cranes and workers would begin to scoop up the coarse salt and transport it to the nearby plant, where it would be refined and packaged. Here the water collected during the winter and began to dry up by the beginning of the spring, then turned into salt in the summer. Huge stretches of the salty, rose-colored land dazzled and delighted the eves. Dimyan left his seat in front of Magd al-Din at the left of the car and moved to the right to look out the window, spellbound.

“This is salt and these are salt basins. In one month it turns white,” said the sleeping man and wiped the saliva running down his lips with his sleeve. He rubbed his eves and coughed several times and his voice became clearer. “From here comes the salt for all of Egypt.”

“Really!” Dimyan exclaimed, still dazzled.

“Egypt is full of bounty, of plenty, brother. Yes – look at God’s might. On this side the water evaporates and turns into salt, and on that side, no matter how much it evaporates, it never runs out, and the lake stays full of fish.”

Magd al-Din had begun to follow the conversation, and he let himself turn around to see from where he sat the glorious rose-colored salt basins extending in the distance.

“Where are we now?” Dimyan asked.

“In Maks,” said the man.

“So we are out of Alexandria.”

“Where are you going?” the man smiled and said.

“Al-Alamein.”

“You have a long way to go,” the man said with a gentle laugh. “God be with you.”

As he said that he stood up. He was on the short side, with a squarish build. He put his hands in the side pockets of his gallabiya and moved over to sit down next to Magd al-Din. Dimyan came back and sat opposite them. The man took a gilded metal cigarette case from his pocket and offered each of them a cigarette.

“Is this your first time in the desert?” he asked.

“Yes,” Dimyan answered.

“I have been traveling the desert all my life. I don’t know any other place.”

“Do you work or live there?” Magd al-Din asked. “Both.”

The train had started to stop so they were all silent for a while.

“Murgham station – the first stop,” the man said.

A young man got onto the car wearing a loose Bedouin garment topped by a loose wrap over his shoulders and a woolen blanket-like scarf and a cap with a small tassel on his head. He looked around the empty car and at them, then hurried to another car after a very quick greeting.

“All the Bedouin here speak fast and walk fast. I’ve spent all my life asking myself about the reason for that and I have yet to find an answer. The desert brings serenity and calm, but the Bedouin here talk and walk as if they were on horseback.”

Dimyan laughed and Magd al-Din smiled at the man’s strange words.

“My name is Radwan the Peasant,” continued the man. “Actually, my real name is Radwan Ahmad, but the Bedouin here have given me this nickname. But most of the time they call me Radwan Express!”

“I’m Magd al-Din.”

“And I’m Dimyan.”

The man’s eyes grew wide and he asked, “Dimyan?”

“Yes, it means I’m a Christian,” Dimyan said to spare the man any surprise or confusion. The. man looked closely at him for a few moments.

“How strange!” he said.

“What’s so strange, brother Radwan?” Dimyan asked. Radwan looked at him even more closely.

“Nothing, brother Dimyan,” he answered. “You just reminded me of a friend of mine whose name was also Dimyan and who used to sell Pepsi here on the trains. He was a sweet man of sweet talk and sweet disposition. I don’t know where he is now. God damn the war and the English and the Germans!”

There was a long interval of silence until Magd al-Din asked, “You didn’t tell us what you do in the desert and where you live.”

“I told you my nickname was Radwan Express. Actually, I work as an abonne. Do you know what that is?”

“I think an abonne is like a postman, except that he works on the train.”

“Very good, brother Magd al-Din. He’s like a postman but he doesn’t work for the post office or for any office. He works for himself. He gets a permit from the railroad to ride the trains, and abonne means a pass that exempts him from buying tickets. He delivers peoples’ mail and goods at different stations. I used to be the abonne of the desert trains until Mussolini entered the war. I had my own corner at the door of the car – the abonne corner– and at every stop people came and gave me letters and bags and baskets and bundles and boxes and everything that could be sent, big or small, and the name of the person they wanted them sent to, and the name of the station. And at every station everyone who wanted to receive a delivery would come to me. If I didn’t find the addressee, I would leave the letters and parcels with the stationmaster. But people used to come and ask about letters and other things just on their own. Many times they would find that I had letters for them from their loved ones. At every stop I saw peoples’ faces light up when they received their letters and the eagerness with which they took the letters. At every stop I saw the kindness and goodness in the eyes of those sending things to their sons or relatives or loved ones. A lot of times they would cry just because they’d gotten a letter. Of course a letter in the desert is something else! I could figure out the contents of the letters from the eyes of the senders and recipients. Now, as you can see, the train is empty. Business in the desert has dried up. The desert is now a battlefield. Nobody is left except armies and the Bedouin. Armies don’t send their letters with the abonne, and the Bedouin don’t send anything. The peasants and people from the Delta have returned to their villages, and nothing is left but me and this train.”

They fell silent. Magd al-Din and Dimyan exchanged glances. The train had stopped at a station. The abonne stopped talking then stood to look out the window at the platform.