No One Sleeps in Alexandria

by Ibrahim Abdel Meguid

  Strict orders were given to drivers to paint their headlights dark blue, after it was noticed that they had become lax about it in the past few months. People were instructed to paint their windows and to apply adhesive gauze strips vertically and horizontally to the glass from inside so that it would not fly around if shattered. People were also warned not to assemble on the streets during raids, and that all vehicles must come to a stop and passengers get out of the cars. Landlords were instructed to vacate the ground floors of their buildings and to convert them to shelters for people without access to the public shelters. People whose property was damaged as a result of the air raids were told to apply as soon as possible to the city of Alexandria to get new building materials—wood, steel, and cement—to repair the damage or to reinforce old buildings.

  That night when Magd al-Din awoke, people heard the intermittent sound of the sirens and felt it was different from earlier ones. It was accompanied by unusual scurrying about and panic; there was more worry in their hearts. The daytime air raids the previous week had been shorter and had not caused any obvious casualties or damage. Tonight it seemed that real war would come to the sky over Alexandria.

  It was midnight and very hot. A few people walking on Ban Street quickly went into the nearby houses and stood in the entrances. Two taxis stopped; one of the drivers did not leave his cab. One of those standing in the entrance of a nearby house looked at him and invited him to come in to be safe, but he said, “If the house falls on top of me, will I live?” It seemed to make sense. Those standing in the entrance looked at each other, but they could not violate the civil defense regulations. Standing in the entrance of a house was safer than being out on the street in the open.

  Even though the moon was not full that night, it was bigger than a crescent, and it lit up the streets and betrayed everyone.

  Khawaga Dimitri, his wife, and his two daughters had gone downstairs to Bahi’s empty room and turned off the light. Lula had also joined them. In the confusion, she did not think to wear something to cover her shoulders and arms. Her husband did not join her there. He was the solitary type. Besides, he lived on the first floor, so what good would it do him to move to another room? The truth was slightly different. As soon as the air raid sirens sounded and the guns began blasting away, Lula shook with fear and moved closer to her husband, who hugged her tight and reached to take off her panties. She heard the footsteps and voices of Dimitri and his family and tried to break away from her husband, who held on and wanted to have sex right then and there. He thought that was the best way to overcome fear. She resisted him and also resisted her own desire, which lit up as soon as he touched her. She was thinking of what would have happened if the sounds of their lovemaking were to reach the ears of Dimitri and his daughters. That was why as soon as she was able to break away from her husband, she dashed out and joined them in her long, white nightgown, her shoulders and arms lighting up the eyes of those standing in the dark.

  Magd al-Din was guided in the dark by Dimitri’s voice and did not let go of the hand of Zahra, who screamed as soon as she got in the room, “My God! Shawqiya is upstairs!” Magd al-Din had to go up to bring the little girl while Zahra stood with the others in Bahi’s room.

  The guns fell silent but the all-clear was not sounded. The silence lasted for a long time, and so did the people’s patience. They all pricked up their ears to hear a slow, calm droning sound like rains coming from far away. The buzz grew in volume, as if swarms of killer bees were coming to the city, like a storm gathering on the horizon to overrun the desert, or armies of locusts homing in on green plants: ZZZZZZZ. That was sound of the German and Italian planes coming in for their targets in large formations, coming in close to the city and close to the ground. The sounds of bombs and explosions and the flashes of lightning passed quickly in front of the closed windows, penetrating the shutters and the glass.

  “Open the windows so we’ll know what’s happening,” Dimitri exclaimed. Magd al-Din was close to the window so he opened it. In front of them the night looked like daylight, white and red, and engulfed in a river of blue smoke. The sky was burning to the north and people on the opposite side of the street screamed as they saw the smoke. Magd al-Din, Dimitri, and the women watched the light come in from the north and burn bright into the south, like a sword brandished by a celestial warrior. Magd al-Din began to recite the beginning of Sura 36:

  “Yasin. By the Wise Quran, verily you are among those sent on a straight path, a revelation of the Mighty, the Merciful, to warn a people whose forefathers had not been warned, so they are heedless. Already the word has proved true of most of them, for they are not believers. Verily We have placed yokes around their necks to their chins so that their heads are forced up. And we have put a bar before them and a bar behind them and so We have covered them up so that they cannot see. God Almighty has spoken the truth.” Then he repeated, “And We have put a har before them and a bar behind them and so We have covered them up so that they cannot see.” He repeated the verse, his voice growing louder, and as he swayed the moonlight revealed him to everyone, though he was completely oblivious.

  “And We have put a bar before them and a bar behind them and so We have covered them up so that they cannot see.” Zahra began to repeat after him, and his voice kept getting louder. Sitt Maryam kept repeating, “We ask you God, the Father, lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil,” while Dimitri repeated with her, “We ask you God, Our Lord, lead us not into temptation, which we cannot endure because of our weakness. Give us help to avoid temptation, so that we might extinguish Satan’s fiery arrows.” His voice and Sitt Maryam’s voice grew louder, “And deliver us from evil Satan by Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.” Magd al-Din raised his voice even louder, “O God I ask you to lift every veil, to remove every barrier, to bring down every obstacle, to make easy every difficulty and to open every door. O God, to whom I appeal and resort in hard times and in easy times, have mercy on me in my exile. Amen, Lord of All Creation.” Magd al-Din, still swaying, began reciting the Quran again after his prayer. Dimitri continued his own prayers. The words intermingled in such a way that one could only make out that they were the prayers of sincere souls devoting every bit of their being to God, the Savior:

  “By the wise Quran, . . .”

  “O God, our Lord,. . .”

  “... on a straight path . . .”

  “.. . lead us not into temptation .. .”

  “... a revelation of the Mighty . . .”

  “. . . deliver us from evil . . .”

  “. . . whose forefathers had not been warned . . .”

  “. . . because of our weakness . ..”

  “. . . true of most of them, for they are not believers . . .”

  “... us from evil ...”

  “... and we have put a bar before them ...”

  “... that are Satan’s ...”

  “. .. that they cannot see.”

  Amen. Amen.

  Voices come from the street, men, youths, frightened women, and crying children.

  “Where’s it coming from?”

  “The searchlights or the bombs?”

  “The bombs.”

  “From Mina al-Basal, Bab Sidra, and Karmuz.”

  “All the bombing is in Karmuz—the houses are shaking.”

  “The searchlights are not stopping. The guns in Kom al-Nadura, Kom al-Dikka, Maks, Qabbari, and Sidi Bishr are all going at the same time. More than a hundred planes!”

  “The sky is full of the blue flies of death!”

  “Where has all of this been hiding, so that it appears all at once?”

  “Khawaga Dimitri, get out, the houses are going to collapse,”

  a voice came from outside.

  “Who’s that?”

  “Ghaffara.”

  The voice was nearby and muffled. Ghaffara looked in on them from the window. The women had gathered in a corner close to each other. As soon as Camilla and Yvonne saw him, they screamed, “Mama
!” They heard a muffled voice coming from behind the fez-mask that he had tied on his face.

  “Have no fear, ladies. This is Ghaffara’s anti-air-raid mask. Khawaga Dimitri, Sheikh Magd al-Din, please forgive me. I know you, and I was friends with the late Bahi. The houses in Karmuz are falling down and they are shaking here. You’d be better off coming out and standing in the street.”

  He was looking from behind his glass eye-pieces at Lula’s arms and shoulders gleaming in the dark as if they had black covering in the daytime. Dimitri and Magd al-Din came out but the women did not.

  Zahra had said, “No one dies before his appointed time. If we die here, at least we’ll be protected from the eyes of strangers.”

  Khawaga Dimitri liked this logic, and he asked his wife and daughters to stay with Zahra. Lula of course stayed with them.

  “Merciful God! Most Merciful! The fire is burning in the sky!”

  The sky over the buildings to the north was red with thick clouds of smoke. The planes were buzzing and circling over the city like wasps as the searchlights followed them over Bab al-Karasta, Kom al-Nadura, the harbor, Manshiya, Qabbari, and all around, with bursts of gunfire following closely. People assembled on the sidewalks shouted, “God protect us,” when they saw the numerous planes dropping their bombs, and they covered their ears as the sounds of nearby explosions were heard. They shouted, “God is great!” when the guns hit a plane and it fell down quickly in the distance, filling the sky with black smoke. The whole place smelled like a colossal fire.

  Lula’s husband, his hair disheveled and a cigarette in his hand, had joined the people on the street. A young man rushed up and hit Lula’s husband’s hand, knocking the cigarette to the ground, and gave him a strong look. Lula’s husband apologized, scratched his head, and said, “The confusion made me forget the civil defense instructions.”

  Suddenly it felt as if the earth and everyone on it rose up, then fell, and their hearts dropped. The houses had also risen and fallen, or at least they thought so, but because they were low and small they did not collapse. They heard the sounds of houses collapsing in Karmuz, though.

  “That’s a bomb that just hit Karmuz!” a man shouted, and the earth rose and fell again.

  “Another bomb! God have Mercy!” another man shouted.

  Cries resounded at the entrances of the houses, then the whole place rang out with the screaming of women. Women, children, and men were now out on the street, as the earth shook and the anti-aircraft guns poured fire into the sky. The huge black planes dropped phosphorous strips over the city, making it look like a nighttime celebration. Everything was now very visible. The planes circled over the city in calculated maneuvers that seemed never to end. Every time a plane went down, another joined the formation. Many of the planes came very close to the ground and hit their targets dead on. Terror reigned.

  Ban Street was now filled with people running aimlessly to Sidi Karim then rushing to Karmuz Bridge. As they approached the end of the street and saw the open space extending in front of Rlaghib Street and Karmuz Bridge, they were horrified by the extent of the fire north of Mahmudiya over that well-known neighborhood. The fire had reached Raghib and Masr Station, and the world was a giant trap, filled with screaming, fear, and tears. Zahra’s strength was the only reason Sitt Maryam, Camilla, Yvonne, and Lula stayed in the room in the house, even though it did not stop shaking, and the ground did not stop moving. Yvonne was sobbing quietly, but Camilla had lost consciousness in her mother’s lap. She had stretched out on the floor, placed her head in her mother’s lap, and slept—or so Sitt Maryam thought. The truth was, she had fainted a long time before and only came to in the morning after the raid was over. There were dozens of women and children who had fainted in the streets and alleys, and neighbors were kept busy taking care of their neighbors, until that long night that no one thought would ever pass, had passed.

  At dawn, Hamidu the shoeshine man appeared. He stood in the middle of the street, a barefoot giant shouting at the faraway planes, “You sons of bitches!” Then he called on the young people to go with him to Karmuz to rescue people. He ran down the street followed by dozens of young people, as well as Ghaffara, who could not catch up with them but did not stop nonetheless, and had to hold up the fez with his left hand so that he would not lose it. Magd al-Din thought of going with them, but he was afraid to leave Zahra alone. What would happen if he were to die there or she here? He saw Dimyan, his face pale and his eyes unfocused, coming toward him. As soon as Dimyan saw him, he sat down on the sidewalk, placed his head between his palms, and started weeping.

  “Don’t cry, Dimyan. This is God’s will.”

  “Thousands of people will leave Alexandria tomorrow. Where would I go, Sheikh Magd?”

  “Stay with me. I am not leaving.”

  “You’ll stay?”

  “Can I leave a job like the one we’ve got, Dimyan? Besides, death is in the hands of the Creator, my friend. Where’s your family?”

  “In the church. They opened the door, and lots of people went in. The Sidi Karim mosque, too. The bombs fell just a few steps behind us in the Mahmudiya canal.”

  “Say: ‘Nothing will befall us except that which God has decreed for us,’ Dimyan. Ask God for mercy.”

  “Kyrie eleison. Kyrie eleison. Kyrie eleison.”

  If a window or a house is filled with light,

  be certain that only the sun is illuminating it.

  Jalal al-Din Rumi

  13

  The whole city was busy worrying and talking about the six-hour air raid. The morning saw corpses on Rahma Street, lined up peacefully as if someone had arranged them lovingly on the ground during the night. Fires continued to burn in Bab Sidra for a whole day, despite the efforts of the fire fighters and rescue workers who converged on the site, but it took too long to extricate the bodies from the rubble. Karmuz Street and the side streets filled with people from all over the city who came to help with the rescue or to see for themselves what could happen again or what could happen to them. Massive migration out of the city began. The king and princes donated money to the victims, hospital space was set aside for the wounded, and Don Bosco School was opened to those recently made homeless. Gloom descended upon the city, as neither daytime nor nighttime air raids stopped. Little by little the city grew accustomed to the new realities. New stories began to fly in the alleys and among the men who stayed up at home or in the few cafes that still opened in the evenings. Teenagers talked about love stories in the public shelters or about women surprised by the air raids in the bathroom or in the arms of their men, wearing nothing at all or, at best, nightgowns. Men talked about Ali Mahir Pasha forming the new cabinet, how to drink iced tea with limes or milk or just straight in this heat, and how Britain recognized General De Gaulle as a representative of free French people throughout the world. The women and girls talked about volunteering for the Red Crescent and moving out of the city. After that six-hour air raid, the summer was never the same. In the commercial district of Ghurbal a fishmonger lusted for the wife of a southern Egyptian merchant. She was a white-skinned woman of dazzling beauty. The fishmonger could not figure out how she had ever lived in southern Egypt. When he could not have her, he started a rumor that she was having an affair with the young teacher who lived in the opposite apartment and that she seized the opportunity afforded by the air raids to make love with the young school teacher in the dark shelter. The houses kept the ugly rumor alive. One day the husband grabbed his beautiful wife by the hair and dragged her to the small alley named Moon Street, adjacent to Stars Street and parallel to Sun Street, in that quiet area for which its developer had chosen these beautiful names. In front of a shocked crowd, the merchant stabbed his wife and stood over her corpse. Hardly a week had passed when the fishmonger, returning drunk one night, told some people that he was the one behind the rumor. He immediately became the object of contempt, and the woman’s father and brothers appeared and, in front of everyone, killed him on the very spot s
he had been killed, then drank his blood, or so people said. The women in the city cried twice, once when the beautiful wife was killed, after which they stayed out of the shelters, and again when the loathsome fishmonger was killed, when they realized the injustice done to the beautiful woman. They started going to the shelters again, more bashfully than before. On the banks of the Mahmudiya canal, more than one abandoned baby was found, and people fished out two bodies in sacks from the water. The two bodies, both girls, were bloated. The water had carried them from the south. The first one was discovered under Raghib Bridge, and the other, a week later, under Karmuz Bridge. In the world beyond, the Germans started their epic air battle over England. The Battle of Britain began on July 10. Hundreds of planes took off from the French coast and from airports in nearby Belgium to attack British convoys in the channel and the airports between Dover and Plymouth.

  The raids were so intense that in one of them, eight hundred planes attacked at the same time. Hitler announced that he was going to wipe Britain off the face of the earth. Now the fate of Britain was truly in the hands of its valiant pilots, of whom Churchill said in a speech in the House of Commons, “Never in the history of human conflict have so many owed so much to so few, as we all do to our pilots.”