Текст книги "No One Sleeps in Alexandria"

Автор книги: Ibrahim Abdel Meguid

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Текущая страница: 2 (всего у книги 26 страниц)

3

Pain is a treasure.

The core grows more radiant when its shell is removed.

Jalal al-Din Rumi

The railroad station that evening, like all evenings, was empty except for the poor stationmaster, who could not leave until after the last train, at ten o’clock. And as on other evenings the platform was a structure of wide, lifeless slabs of stone, and the sign bearing the name of the village was off-white, with faint black lines, and mounted on two rusted iron poles. Not a single sparrow perched on the sign or flew near it.

There were no sparrows in the nearby trees either. The four rails between the two platforms were black and shiny, but congealed fuel oil stained the crossties and the ballast beneath. Seen from above on summer days, the rails were always shiny, their surface almost white. The road connecting the station with the village was, as usual, a narrow dirt road, hot, with a few curves and a few eucalyptus trees. At that time of the evening there was usually only one man walking on the road. And at that time of day, it took a while for someone standing at the station to decide whether that man was walking toward him or away and toward the village. The truth was that the man always disappeared, as if he were a trick of the eye, and no one knew where he went. What is it in the summer that makes the eye see no change in the scene from one evening to another, or in the distance from the village to the station? Is it the heat and the refraction of the light on the dust? The greenery too was the same as it had been every day, stretched out along the dirt road, with very few birds around or on it – a few crows on the fronds of the tall palm trees, the occasional egret in the branches of the ancient sycamores.

Through this lifeless landscape, Magd al-Din made his way to the station. The world appeared to him like something cast aside, something seen from a hilltop at noon on a day in the blazing hot month of Bauna. Was what happened to him a short while ago real? Was it really he who had complied with the mayor’s order so easily, and left the village as easily – more easily, even, than a thorn pulled from dough? From a distance, he saw Zahra standing on the platform, her brother next to her, and their little daughter Shawqiya on her arm. At her feet were two small baskets and one large one. She was waving at him to hurry up. The donkey was slow, and he urged it on as much as he could. Before he reached the crossing, though, he left the donkey behind and continued on foot. The train had nearly reached the station, and Magd al-Din rushed on. He tripped over a wire stretched between the switches, and had to leave behind his shoes, which had slipped off, but he finally crossed the rails and climbed onto the platform. He saw the stationmaster in his official uniform, its brass buttons shining in the distance, and the red fez above his black face seemed to be floating in the twilight. The stationmaster looked to him like one of those fierce-looking border guards. He wished he could take his time greeting the man and shaking his hand, for it was his friend Abd al-Hamid from the next village who, like him, had memorized the entire Quran. They had met twenty years earlier at the governorate headquarters in Tanta when they were taking the Quran memorization test, on the basis of which they would be exempted from military service. Both of them passed the test, and both were exempted. By law, neither of them was supposed to do any work but recite the Quran. They both spent ten years without work, then they had to find other jobs – surely after ten years the government could not still be monitoring them. So Magd al-Din started working the land with his brothers, while Abd al-Hamid worked for the railroad. They became reacquainted, and then met every time Magd al-Din went to visit his brother Bahi in Alexandria. Why had neither of them worked as a Quranic chanter or a singer of hymns? It could be the voice: Magd al-Din’s was faint and cracking, but Abd al-Hamid’s was loud and strong. Magd al-Din had often thought of bringing it up with Abd al-Hamid, then changed his mind, or rather, forgot.

The train pulled into the station just as Magd al-Din joined Zahra. Magd al-Din saw his old friend coming toward him with one of the small baskets, which he put into the train car, then went back for the other one while Zahra’s brother carried the big basket on board.

“Take your time, Sheikh Magd,” said the stationmaster. “I’ll keep the train waiting for a bit. I want to greet you properly, my friend.”

They rushed to embrace each other. Magd al-Din wondered if his friend knew the reason for his trip today. The train let out white smoke and blew its whistle. The stationmaster also blew his whistle. Magd al-Din leaned out the window to tell Zahra’s brother, “The donkey is just before the crossing.” The train gathered speed, and the sound of the wheels grew louder.

It was only then that Magd al-Din realized that it was over, that he had been kicked out of his village, although he did have a secret desire to leave. This was something that had never happened to anyone before – at least he had never seen it in his lifetime.

The conductor came and Zahra showed him the two tickets she had purchased before Magd al-Din’s arrival. When the conductor left, Magd al-Din noticed the terror in Zahra’s eyes. He turned his eyes away from hers and noticed at the end of the car a woman around whom sat five boys and girls, barefoot and wearing old, tattered gallabiyas. He had seen this very woman and these same children on the train when he went to visit Bahi in the middle of last year. Merciful God! He did not believe it, but it had actually happened; he had seen her before that on yet another trip. It seemed that ever since he had started visiting his brother, he had seen this woman and these nearly naked, barefoot children. Despite the years that had passed, the woman and her children had not grown any older. The silence in the car was profound, with the exception of the sound of the wheels beneath them. Zahra had moved to the edge of the seat and spread out a gallabiya that she had taken from the large basket. She laid the baby to sleep on it and covered her with a black shawl from the same basket. She asked Magd al-Din to close the window tightly. It was now dark, and cold air was rushing in with the movement of the train.

How could the train ride continue? What could be said now that Zahra had laid the baby down to sleep and sat there looking at her husband who kept looking back at her, though his eyes did not seem as frightened as hers?

Zahra felt pained because she had no brother except the one who came to see her off at the station, and he was only her half-brother. Her sisters and mother could not fight the mayor. Yes, she wished she had many strong men in her family to fight the mayor, since Magd al-Din had forbidden his cousins to fight him. Magd al-Din must have feared that his sisters would become widows if their men died. But someone should have prevented them from leaving, even if he acted against Magd al-Din’s will. Since she could not offer her husband the protection that strong men in her family would have provided, she was leaving with him, broken-hearted. But she had accepted what a faithful wife had to do. The frightened look in her eyes would soon disappear, without a doubt. And it did – it changed into a look of profound compassion. She wished they would let him go back home tonight.

At about this time, he would have come back from the field, washed up and had his supper, fed the animals and rubbed them down, changed their water and put out fodder for them. He would have helped Zahra milk the water buffaloes, then performed his late-night prayers and sat alone near the kerosene lamps in their room, reading the Quran.

“Anyway, that’s what happened. Ha, ha, ha!” a coarse voice was heard.

Magd al-Din looked around to see where it came from. Zahra did not look but just sat still, silently annoyed. Magd al-Din saw the man who had spoken, a short, fat man with a faded fez. He was sitting on the edge of the seat, his feet barely touching the floor. He was speaking in utter surprise to a man who sat opposite him, farther to the side of the seat. Magd al-Din could only see his fez and the back of his neck and his white, slightly soiled shirt collar. They kept talking, and because they were close to Magd al-Din, he could hear them clearly.

“Neither France nor England would let him get away with it. It’s the beginning of a new world war.”

“That’s why I’m laughing so hard.”

“What do you mean, laughing like that? I tell you, it’s a world war, and people are going to die.”

“I mean, we’ve been transferred to work in Alexandria the very day Germany invades Poland. This can’t be just a coincidence – it’s been arranged with Hitler.”

Magd al-Din listened, surprised. He knew, from scattered talk in the village and from the big radio he rarely listened to, that there were preparations for war, that Germany was creating problems with other countries, and that people were afraid that a new war, more devastating than the previous one, might break out. He had forgotten all that in the last few days. And here it was coming back. He listened to what the two men were saying.

“I couldn’t get the evening paper in Tanta – people just snatched them away from the vendors. The radio said Warsaw has been bombarded heavily since early this morning and that German troops were invading Poland from more than one direction.”

“This is because of the greed of the European countries. It’s the war of the greedy.”

“The problem is, this war will come to us.”

“Because we’ve been transferred to Alexandria on the same day? No, of course not. There’s no reason to be so pessimistic. What does Alexandria have to do with a war in Europe?”

The conversation took what seemed a strange turn to Magd al-Din, so he took out the little Quran from his vest pocket. But before he could open it, the two were talking again.

“Alexandria itself will be the reason the war comes to it. Yes, sir – don’t forget, Italy is in Libya.”

“You think Mussolini would do it?”

“He is Hitler’s mentor – if he doesn’t join him this year, it’ll be next year.”

“Well, we’re only staying in Alexandria for a year. Besides, I doubt if the war will spread. Hitler swallowed up Czecho-slovakia and Austria before that, and nobody did anything about it. He will swallow Poland and no one will stand up to him. All of Europe is terrified, and the Soviet Union has signed a treaty with him. Besides, why should we go so far? I wish Germany or Italy, or both of them together would occupy Egypt and rid us of the English.”

The sound of the wheels died down as the train stopped in the Kafr al-Zayyat station. The two men stopped talking, the white ceiling lights came on, and the clean, yellow wooden seats now shone more brightly. A man and three little boys came into the train car. The man was well dressed, in a summer white sharkskin suit, a clean fez, and black-and-white shoes with thin, pointed tips. The boys wore blue shorts, short-sleeved white shirts, and blue suspenders with white pinstripes. They had calf-length white socks and black patent leather shoes with wide tips. They looked as if they had just stopped crying.

The man, who sat facing Magd al-Din, now placed his index finger to his lips, warning the children, who sat across from him, not to make a sound. Then Magd al-Din watched him take from his jacket pocket a golden cigarette case, which he pressed and a thin cigarette came out. He lit it and exhaled its blue smoke, closing his eyes in contentment.

The train started moving again. Magd al-Din was familiar with the following stops. In two and a half hours, the train would be in Alexandria. That’s what he had learned from his previous visits to Bahi. Would he find him doing well this time?

On that long-ago day, the father and his sons came back from battle carrying al-Qasim wrapped in a gallabiya. The mother screamed. Magd al-Din, eleven at the time, sat alone in a corner and cried. Al-Qasim was the kindest of his brothers. He was also the bravest, and his courage was well known in their village and in the neighboring villages.

The Talibs buried their son, the one betrayed by his wife, in the late afternoon, and that night the Khalils buried their son who had been killed. The village slept in silence and terror. The following day no one left home. On the third day people went out after a rumor had spread that the Khalils had accepted God’s judgment, that their dandy son had caused the eldest Talib son to die of grief, and for this the Talibs had killed the eldest son of the Khalils. Everyone was even and no one owed anyone anything. By week’s end, though, one of the Talib sons was found killed outside the village. All attempts by the mayor, the county, and the governorate to reconcile the two families failed. No one accused anyone of murder. Everyone knew how it would happen: an eye for an eye, until the two families were extinct. It was no longer surprising for people to know which family harbored the next victim; the game was precise, no matter how much time passed between one victim and the next. Whenever another was killed, the people of the village shunned Bahi even more. It was he who had caused the conflagration of this quiet village that knew of vendettas only from old tales about old times, which no one alive had witnessed. Bahi wished one of the Talibs would kill him, but they paid no attention to him. They humiliated him. They did not kill him because they did not deem him worth it, and he knew it. That was why he frequently left the village and stayed for days on end in Tanta or Kafr al-Zayyat. Abd al-Ghani’s widow took to singing at the edges of the fields and walking along the irrigation canal outside the village. If she entered the village by mistake, the children chased her away with stones and chanted, “Bahiya loves Bahi.” That was what they called her now; her real name was Wagida. Bahi often heard the children and wished that one morning they would find Wagida – or Bahiya, as they called her– dead. But that did not happen, just as the Talibs did not kill him. They had killed five of his brothers, just as his brothers had killed five of them. The children eventually grew tired of chanting whenever they saw Wagida, so she started coming into the village, and the women opened their doors to her and offered her food and drink and followed her in pity as she walked through the village singing sweetly. Britain had declared Egypt a protectorate, and people began to see troop trains pass by the village and told strange stories about them. The county and governorate police forces went into the villages to pick out the best men and send them to fight in faraway lands. People forgot Bahi’s story, and the vendetta between the two families abated. People were now more interested in the stories about the “Authority” and what it was doing to the peasants and in stories about the finest young men, the flower of youth, who had disappeared ¡n mysterious circumstances, as well as the heroes who had come back from the war and those who had not. They wondered how Britain could have defeated Germany, and resigned themselves to God’s will, which had not granted Wilhelm II victory, so that the pestilence of British occupation was not lifted from Egypt. Gradually the stories of the war also began to fade from memory, as did Saad Zaghlou’s revolution after the war. The village, however, remembered its martyrs in the revolution and the war before it, and her lost children. Among them was Bahi, who had disappeared during the war years and had not returned.

The train was leaving another station as the conductor scrutinized the tickets of the well-dressed man and his children. Magd al-Din opened the Quran at random, and his gaze fell on the seventh sura, “The Heights.”

Out of the blue, Zahra asked him, “Why did they do that to us, Sheikh Magd?”

There were many verses preceding the point at which he had opened the book, and he did not think to read the chapter from the beginning. His voice rose a little, heedless of those around him, “Moses said to his people: ‘Seek God’s help and be patient, for the earth belongs to God to give as a heritage to such of His servants as He pleases, and the end will be in favor of those who fear him.’”

“Almighty God has spoken the truth,” he murmured to himself and closed his eyes and the Quran.

He began to recite from memory in no particular order, “And as the unbelievers plotted against you to keep you in bonds or kill you or get you out. They plot and plan but the best of planners is God. Say: ‘Nothing will befall us except what God has decreed for us. He is our Protector… ’ And in God let the believers put their trust… The likeness of this present life is as the rain, which We send down from the sky. By its mingling arises the produce of the earth, which provides food for humans and animals until the earth is clad in its golden ornaments and decked out, and the people to whom it belongs think they have all power over it, our command reaches it by night or by day and we make it like a harvest, clean-mown as if it had not flourished only the day before! Thus do We explain the signs in detail to those who reflect… For to anything which We have willed, We but say ‘Be’ and it is. To those who have left their homes in the cause of God, after suffering oppression, We will assuredly give a goodly home in this world. But truly the reward of the Hereafter will be greater if they only realized it. They are the ones who have persevered in patience and put their trust in their Lord… Do not say of anything: 7 am going to do that tomorrow, ‘without adding, ‘God willing.’“

His voice was rising gradually, until it almost filled the whole car. “And call your Lord to mind if you forget,” he continued. “I hope my Lord will guide me closer to the right road…And if you punish, then punish with the like of that which was done to you. But if you endure patiently, that is indeed best for those who are patient. So give glory to God night and day and give praise to Him in heaven and earth all day long. “

The short man turned to his friend and whispered, “That man is reading, but the Quran in his hand is closed. He is reciting loudly and seems not to be paying attention to what he is reciting. He must be truly troubled.”

“You will see a lot more than that if the war goes on for a long time.”

The short man, surprised at his friend’s comment, said nothing and thought instead of the reception Alexandria was going to give them at night.

King Farouk performed the Friday prayers at the Mosque of Mustafa Odeh Pasha in Fattuh Street in Gumruk – as the morning papers announced. The king was welcomed by the prime minister, Ali Mahir Pasha, Abd al-Rahman Azzam Pasha, His Eminence Sheikh Muhammad Mustafa al-Maraghi and, of course, the mayor of the city. After prayers the king returned to the Muntaza Palace, as happened after every prayer. The morning newspapers also announced that the number of newborn babies this week was 520 for natives and 25 for foreigners. As for deaths, there were 100 for natives and one for foreigners. Causes of death for Alexandrians were old age, scarlet fever, meningitis, malaria, and pulmonary tuberculosis for adults; and for children and infants they were dysentery, whooping cough, and tetanus. The only foreigner who had died was a Greek, killed by a drunken Cypriot.

4

This little murderous world is against the innocents:

it takes the bread out of their mouths and

gives their houses to the fire.

Paul Éluard

“It’s hard arriving in a city at night,” said the short man to his companion as they passed Magd al-Din on their way to the door of the car. Magd al-Din did not listen to the response of the companion; in fact, he did not respond. “Wake up, Zahra. We’re in Alexandria,” said Magd al-Din as he shook his wife’s shoulder. She awoke, slightly disoriented. “God protect us,” she said to herself. She felt her head and found her black head cover in place. She felt her chest and found the money under her clothes. She stared at Magd al-Din, and indeed it was Magd al-Din!

She stood on the platform carrying the baby. He watched the woman and her five children and the well-dressed man and his three sons. What made him do that? The woman and her children disappeared before his eyes, even though the station was not crowded, perhaps because the lights were dim. But that happened every time he visited Bahi; he would see the woman and her children on the train, but they would disappear on the platform. The well-dressed man and his sons did not disappear. He watched them as they left through the nearest door. He stood for a long time on the platform until almost all the passengers had disappeared.

“Porter?”

“Yes?”

The strong, tall, barefoot man carried one small basket on his left shoulder, placed the other one under his right arm, and told Magd al-Din to follow with the big basket. The porter’s strides were long and fast, and Zahra almost stumbled more than once. Magd al-Din was at a loss; he could not ask the man to slow down. His eyes were fixed on the two bare feet of the porter, he did not know why. He remembered that he himself could have been barefoot after leaving his shoes on the tracks when he was hurrying to the station, had not Zahra brought another pair in the big basket.

“It’s hard arriving in a city at night.” The words echoed in his head. When he went out the station door and into its big courtyard, he was met by a vast, profound darkness. The lights in the square facing the station were all out, and the trees were very black. There was no light except for the red glow of the lanterns on the horse-drawn carriages, lit in violation of security regulations.

There were a few carriages in the courtyard, as well as mule carts and taxicabs. The porter put the two baskets on the ground with Magd al-Din’s help. Magd al-Din gave him a piaster.

“The war has started, my man. This won’t get me supper.”

Magd al-Din did not understand what that meant. Had it started just this morning, as he had heard the passengers say, and arrived here by nightfall? Had it come that close? He thought for a while and the porter, despairing of getting anything more, left.

“Where to?” asked the old carriage driver who approached Magd al-Din.

“Ghayt al-Aynab.”

“Five piasters.”

“Fine.”

The driver brought his carriage closer and helped Magd al-Din load his luggage. Magd al-Din and Zahra climbed into the carriage and sat down, Zahra still carrying the baby, praying that she would not wake up in the dark.

The driver cracked his whip in the air, the horse lunged forward, and the whole carriage was jolted. Zahra fell back, then suddenly forward, and the baby almost fell under her feet. She got hold of herself and breathed, feeling the refreshing breeze caress her face and cool her body. “It’s a merciful climate,” she said to herself as the cool breeze soothed her. Zahra slept again as the carriage moved on. Magd al-Dm marveled at that, since she had slept most of the way on the train as well.

“Where in Ghayt al-Aynab?” asked the driver.

“Twelve Street, house number eighty-eight,” Magd al-Din told him.

“I know the street, but you’ll have to handle the number. You know how to read, of course?”

The driver took out of his vest pocket a small dark bottle the size of his palm. He opened it and raised it to his mouth and took a quick gulp. “Care for a sip of quinine tonic?”

Magd al-Din did not answer, and the driver did not press him. They focused on the road.

There were only a very few passers-by and very few carriages. One or two taxicabs passed them. A while earlier, the driver had turned onto Umar ibn al-Khattab street. Candles in small, yellow lanterns cast a dim light in the small stores along the way. Rarely did they see a store with electric lights. At al-Hadari urinal the carriage entered Isis Street. The stores there were few and far between and most of them were closed. When the driver turned onto Raghib Street, the stores were slightly better lit and there were more pedestrians, taxicabs, and carriages. There was a streetcar ahead in the distance, and the lamps on the lampposts were painted dark blue so the light barely reached the ground. The few electric lights in the stores showed many broken tiles on empty floors. It was not vet 11 p.m. Magd al-Din had noticed only one coffeehouse, at the end of Isis Street. There the few customers sat around the light of a single electric lamp pushed into the farthest corner of the café. He saw another café at the end of Raghib Street, directly in front of the bridge to the left, a small café in which only three people sat by candlelight. In front of the bridge, the driver stopped.

“Seems the electricity’s been cut off,” he remarked.

Only a few moments before, Magd al-Din had watched as a black tent covered everything. The streetlights and the few store lights went out, and a black mass enveloped everything.

“Electricity’s off, and the bridge’s been raised for the boats to cross. We’ve got to wait. I could’ve turned on Karmuz Bridge, but going along the Mahmudiya canal at night and in the dark is dangerous, for me, you, and the horse.”

Zahra had awakened at the very time that Magd al-Din wished she would sleep.

“Where are we?” she said

“In Raghib.”

“Raghib? Who is Raghib?”

“Hush, Zahra. Go back to sleep. The electricity is out and the bridge is raised for the boats. We have an hour to wait.”

But Zahra did not sleep. She took out her breast and gave it to the baby, who had also awakened in the dark. Magd al-Din was thinking about the times that he had visited Bahi and how the electricity would be cut off in the night for reasons unknown to the people, and they would talk about it in the morning. There were stories about the police pursuing robbers who had attacked boats going through the Mahmudiya canal, or the arrest of some young men who belonged to political societies. People also knew that sexual harassment took place in the dark; in the dark, a woman would be groped by passers-by who suddenly were behind or next to her, even though she was walking by herself. Therefore, as soon as power was cut off, every woman or girl would try to find another so that they could encourage each other. True, the groping hands would not stop, but the two women would be bolder and shout insults at the man.

A number of men had gathered in front of the bridge, and three women sought safety together in the doorway of the candlelit café. Magd al-Din reached for Zahra to make sure she was there, even though he knew she was. Carriages gathered and drew nearer to each other. The taxicabs, their blue lights barely shining ahead of them, headed for the Karmuz bridge. The driver took out the quinine bottle again and said under his breath, “The boats coming in are chock full of weapons, cannons, and cars. There’re soldiers with flashlights all around them. Seems like the war is coming here.” To Magd al-Din, he said, “Why did you come to Alexandria today? Aren’t you afraid of the war?”

Just then, the streetlights came on, so Magd al-Din did not answer. The bridge began to lower to its normal position on the canal.

As the carriage crossed the bridge, it nearly fell apart going over the potholes. To the right, immediately after the bridge, a strong smell of flour came from a high-walled mill. Its wire-screened windows were covered with fine white flour, making them stand out in the dark. Before the end of the streetcar’s winding tracks at the end of the street, and in front of the police station that occupied a commanding position in the square, the driver turned right onto Ban Street, which people called Twelve Street, because it was twelve meters wide. It was the widest and longest street in the area. Zahra saw several dimly lit streetcars sitting in the square and cried out, “What’s that? A train?”

“It’s a streetcar, Zahra. A streetcar,” Magd al-Din calmly replied.

The driver laughed and asked if it was their first visit to Alexandria. Magd al-Din said yes and fell silent. Once again there was the smell of flour, this time from another mill to the left of the carriage on Ban Street, where the carriage was proceeding with great difficulty, greater even than on the bridge. The street was not paved, only covered with little white stones. A few moments later, Magd al-Din asked the driver to stop. The house was to the right, there was no mistaking it, a small two-story house stuck between two three-story buildings.

“You’re lucky you found me. I just got back from the cafe,” Bahi said, as he made tea for them on a small spirit stove in a corner of the small room.

Magd al-Din, who was stretched out on a mat on the floor, leaning his head to the wall, asked, “What were you doing at the café so late?”

“Nothing, Sheikh Magd – just chatting and drinking tea.”

He laughed as he poured tea in the little glasses. Zahra was squatting with her back to them in another corner of the room, nursing her baby, who had not had her fill in the carriage. How were they all going to sleep in one room? she thought, holding back her tears as she remembered their big house in the village. The baby opened her amber eyes and looked at her mother without letting go of the nipple, then she burst out crying. Did the pain the mother felt flow into her? Probably. Zahra’s feelings, however, soon changed to surprise at how clean and neat Bahi’s room was and at the fragrance of musk that permeated it. She was also surprised at Bahi himself, who wore pants and a shirt like city folk, and white shoes. This is a different man from the one she had seen ten years earlier, she thought. Did Alexandria do this to everyone?

“Why don’t you tell me the real reason you left the village?” Bahi asked. “I didn’t know you hated the village, or loved Alexandria.”

“I told you I’ve been wanting to leave for a long time.”