The young Indians had been smiling at first, but now were bowing their heads, looking at the ground.
“I’ve seen the Indians in Sudan walking arrogantly as peacocks,” said al-Safi al-Naim, “as if they owned the earth with everything on it. But I didn’t see them beat anybody or rape any woman.”
Bahadur did not understand what al-Safi said and naturally the latter did not translate it.
“I’m from Dayrut and I know the story,” Dimyan joined the conversation. “I’ve heard it—it’s a true story.”
“They also killed the men,” said Bahadur loudly.
“The whole village was eradicated without a trace,” added Dimyan. “I remember that it was called Kom Gahannam, ‘Hell Hill.’ The men who survived disappeared, dispersed all over the country. Most of them died of shame.”
Everyone fell silent. There was a wide range of reaction, sorrow on al-Safi’s part, sadness in Magd al-Din’s case, despair in Dimyan’s, and awe in the case of the young Indians.
“In many countries foreigners have raped the women,” said Magd al-Din.
“In Egypt there are many villages that bear that out. Rosetta by the English, and in the deep south there are blond girls of Mamluk origin,” Dimyan said nonchalantly.
Al-Safi al-Naim said, “Thank God you can’t find a single white man in Sudan. Our women are still black, and giving birth to black babies. Blackness has protected our women against rape.”
He wanted to make light of what Bahadur had said. He realized that Magd al-Din and Dimyan, or at least one of them, would explode. It was Dimyan who spoke.
“But Mr. Bahadur, if you look all over Egypt for any trace of anyone Indian, you would find none.”
He fell silent and Bahadur waited for al-Safi to translate. Al-Safi hesitated, but Dimyan told him to go ahead.
“You mean I’m a liar?” Bahadur asked.
“No. You’re telling the truth. It’s your father and the Sikh cavalry that are liars. They didn’t do anything. On the contrary, it was the Egyptians who mounted them.”
Magd al-Din could not laugh, nor could al-Safi al-Naim, whose face turned ashen with fear. He stopped playing his role as interpreter, but Bahadur ordered him to translate at once.
Actually al-Safi liked what Dimyan had said; he got some satisfaction out of it. After all, he was an Arab like Dimyan and Magd al-Din, and they all came from the Nile valley. That was why he translated precisely and slowly what Dimyan had said. The dark of the twilight was descending upon the desert as the night breeze was stirring. The moment al-Safi finished the translation, Bahadur’s hand was on his revolver. He stood up, hurling curses in Hindi at Dimyan, who had jumped up to flee the moment Bahadur got up. Shots rang out in the air behind Dimyan, but he was not hit. The dark helped him escape. Bahadur stood for a few moments fuming with rage, then roared in Hindi at the young soldiers and they all left. He looked askance as al-Safi and Magd al-Din, who in turn got up and moved away. As soon as they were at a safe distance they burst out in jubilant laughter.
What Dimyan did could have cost him his life. How easy it would have been for a bullet from Bahadur’s revolver to hit him! Shooting was going on all day long, trying out new arms, killing scorpions, snakes, and desert rats, or hunting foxes. Sometimes rifles went off, hunting birds that appeared suddenly in the sky. In addition to the sounds of gunshots were the noises made by the planes dashing off from time to time to bomb Alexandria or to return to their airfields in Tripoli and Benghazi, with anti-aircraft guns following them, going and coming. A bullet shot by an angry Indian would not make anyone pause. Who would pause at the killing of a worker at a small, almost deserted crossing in a tiny, Httle-known village that no one had ever heard of before? That was what Magd al-Din and Dimyan spoke about until midnight. Dimyan asked Mari Girgis to protect him from the wretched Indian Sikh and he pledged that if he did that he would himself burn frankincense at the martyr’s church in Ghayt al-Aynab, would light seven candles, and would stay for a week in the service of the church. He fell asleep only after he felt that Mari Girgis would grant him his request.
In the morning Magd al-Din asked him not to leave the house until he had seen Bahadur and tried to calm him down. At noon al-Safi al-Naim came to Magd al-Din in the wooden kiosk next to the crossing. He was smiling, and as soon as he got close to Magd al-Din he burst out laughing. He said that Bahadur had left with a battalion early in the morning to join an Indian division at the border where fierce fighting was taking place. Magd al-Din smiled in relief and felt his body sharing in his joy, so he could not stay put. He left al-Safi al-Naim and hurried to Dimyan to give him the good news. Dimyan was so overjoyed that he felt he was being lifted from the ground, but he stood scrutinising Magd al-Din. Had the love between him and the martyr grown so much that he would never let him down? He let two tears drop, and went out with Magd al-Din, ecstatic at seeing the desert—vast, white, beautiful, and brilliant—with a sky so purely blue, like a faraway sea, and the world expansive and without end.
At night several days later, as they both lay on their government-issue mattresses on the floor in a corner of the room, Dimyan said, “I’m longing for Alexandria, Sheikh Magd.”
In the morning, Dimyan had seen the sheep coming from a distance, with the little boy strolling in their midst and Brika walking behind them. She looked small, but as usual he thought that she would grow as she got closer. His heart started pounding. There she was, appearing after a long absence. He had thought seriously yesterday and the day before of going to her village himself. He even walked a long way south, but when he could see nothing in front of him except vast dunes in every direction, he feared getting lost. Quickly he returned, retracing his steps, and when the railway station loomed in the distance, he took a deep breath and thanked Jesus Christ, the Virgin, and Mari Girgis and all the martyrs and saints he could think of. He had almost forgotten that he had a pledge to fulfill. It was now time for him to forget Brika and to go to Alexandria to fulfill his pledge.
Yet Brika would not let go of him, appearing just at the time that he had decided to get used to forgetting her. But she was not getting bigger as she got closer. His heart kept pounding even more. When she got closer still, he realized that it was not Brika, and the gleam in his eye faded, as did the joy in his heart. He had thought of running to the house to bring as many of the gifts he used to give to Brika as he could. But he forgot about that. He saw Hilal from the door of his room, and he thought he was the rival he did not know, come out to see him and gloat at his misery. Magd al-Din was at home and Dimyan missed him. He wished he could rest his head on his chest like a little child.
As soon as the girl stopped with the sheep and her brother behind the station, he approached her and asked her about Brika. Laughing she said, “You’re Dimyan!”
“Who told you?”
“Brika. She loves you, and she asked me to give you greetings.”
This girl, who could not be more than ten years old, was talking with the matter-of-factness of an experienced female. What kind of people are these Bedouin, and what is the secret of their being so candid and straightforward?
“Where’s Brika?”
“She made a jlasa and got married to my cousin, a horseman who reads and writes and has a good head on his shoulders.”
He left her and walked to his house from which he brought as many gifts as he could.
“For me?” she asked.
“For you and Brika,” he said.
He went home and asked Magd al-Din to go to work in his stead. He lay down facing the wall, finding the room to be completely empty. After reaching forty a man yearned to be young again. He should have realized that and gotten over it in peace. Besides, could he have counted on this wretched love to succeed? Brika was a Muslim, and he a Christian. Even if Brika was Christian he still could not divorce his wife. Every way he looked at it, it was doomed to fail. He should not have laid his heart open. But that was what happened, anyway. The only thing he could do was
to fulfill his pledge to his shepherd and comrade, Girgis the Martyr.
In the evening he asked Magd al-Din, “What happens if I go to Alexandria and don’t come back? Would anyone ask about me? I don’t think so. And you too, you can come with me. Us being here doesn’t make any sense. Mr. Spike no longer asks about us. The inspector who visits us every month hasn’t come in two months, The trains are few and far between. Hilal or any Indian, African, Australian, New Zealander, Egyptian, or English soldier can handle the crossing. Us being here is meaningless, it’s absurd, amid all these soldiers from all over the world.”
Magd al-Din could not get into the discussion with him. He was not used to Dimyan having this tone of despair. Something must have gone wrong in Dimyan’s mind, nothing less. But Magd al-Din started to think about their strange situation here and about his own situation, his being so late in seeing his son Shawqi, far away in the village. This was too much for a human to bear. But he said calmly, “You go, Dimyan, and don’t worry about it. I’ll wait for you until you come back.”
You won’t find a new country or a new sea.
The city will pursue you
You will walk the same streets . . .
There is no ship for you, there is no road.
Constantine Cavafy
26
Dimyan arrived in Alexandria on the second of April. On that same day the Jewish Agency and the General Council for the Jews of Palestine issued an appeal. It called on Jewish men and women to volunteer in the Jewish units working with the British army in the Middle East, since there was a dire need for a large number of volunteers of both sexes to serve in the auxiliary regional force. The appeal stated that the first step was to recruit childless unmarried persons between twenty and thirty years of age. “Let the response of the Jews of Palestine be worthy of our great task and the gravity of the situation,” read the statement issued by the council. At the same time, Dr. Ali Ibrahim, chairman of the Society to Save Homeless Children, was issuing an appeal to the country to come to the aid of its children. The newspapers were filled with stories about Hitler’s connection with the month of April. He was born on the twentieth of April, 1889. On the seventh of April, 1939, he allowed Mussolini to invade Albania. On the twenty-eighth of the same month and year, Hitler delivered his famous speech in which he denounced the Anglo-German naval treaty of 1935. On the ninth of April, 1940, Hitler’s armed forces invaded Denmark, and on the sixteenth of April, 1941, he attacked Yugoslavia and Greece. The newspapers wondered what Hitler was planning for April of this year. Was he going to cross the Caucasus to Iran and Iraq or penetrate Turkey to Iraq and the Levant?
On the fifth of April, the Cathedral of Saint Mark celebrated Easter by holding an elaborate mass that began with a prayer imploring God to bestow his mercy on the world. In al-Alamein, prayer services were held and some priests appeared among the troops during the day, but at night there were parties at which beautiful ATS women sang and danced with the soldiers. Two days earlier, Alexandria had been subjected to a heavy air raid, and rescue operations were still going on. The government hospital was filled with casualties. Dimyan’s family moved out of the house to live in the church courtyard. It was there that Dimyan met Khawaga Dimitri, who looked miserable and oblivious. He silently shook his hand. As usual, many pashas visited Alexandria in the company of the governor to comfort the victims. The casualties of that air raid were fifty-two dead and eighty wounded, each of whom was given two Egyptian pounds in temporary aid. On the seventh of April, Alexandria suffered an even worse air raid. The prime minister, Nahhas Pasha, visited Alexandria after delivering a speech on the Egyptian Broadcasting Service in which he said, “Dear Alexandrians, I address you with a heavy heart for what you have suffered. Alexandrians, I am fully confident that you will withstand this ordeal with the patience I have known you to have. You have given the whole of Egypt the most splendid example and proved yourselves most capable of withstanding catastrophes. It is no wonder that your city has become the object of admiration, appreciation, and respect.”
Meanwhile the prime minister signed a decree abolishing prostitution, except in capitals of provinces and governorates as of May, and banning the establishment of new brothels immediately. Nahhas Pasha played host to about three hundred convalescing soldiers from Pakistan, New Zealand, and South Africa, who spent the day enjoying pleasure cruises and recreation in the parks. The air raids on Alexandria continued to intensify, so the civil defense distributed leaflets advising the public to remain calm during the raids, to go to the nearest shelter, not to look at the sky or watch the anti-aircraft artillery, to avoid crowding, to stop running, because no matter how fast, no human can outrun a plane. It said it was best to prostrate oneself on the ground if one could not find a nearby place with a roof, and to move away from glass surfaces and if in a car, to leave the vehicle, turn off its lights, and park it on the side of the road. Dimyan kept one of the leaflets and memorized it. He thought whoever wrote it was mocking him and people like him. He began to run during the raids to see if he was faster than airplanes or bombs and reached a conclusion that was at variance with the instructions, as he generally was able to move from one side of the street to the other before a bomb hit the ground. In reality bombs never hit the ground, because they usually fell somewhere else, and he could only hear their impact after he had reached the sidewalk. Whenever there was a raid, Dimyan would leave his family at the church, which he had served longer than he had pledged, and go out to watch the people to see for himself whether they really headed for the shelters and the entrances of houses as they used to, before he was transplanted to al-Alamein, or whether they no longer bothered to do anything. He saw that they did not care any more. Those who had stayed in the city no longer feared for their lives.
Dimyan started walking aimlessly from Ghayt al-Aynab to Karmuz to Khedive Street to the Alexandria station. Sometimes he would walk on Muharram Bey Street and at other times he would go to Rami Station, crossing Nabi Danyal Street and from there, on the coastal road, to Ras al-Tin palace. Then he would go back, oblivious to Alexandria’s breeze, the clear light of the day, or the blue sea and faraway sky. There was more emptiness around him than at any other time. He did not venture out late at night and so did not run into the drunkards. He must have seen foreign soldiers, but he was not aware of their presence. The cafés of Manshiya were still filled with merchants, brokers, and strangers, but he saw nothing and did not know why he went on these mysterious walks. He realized that he only made a point of doing this after each raid, and there were many raids. He became like a madman who could see only the destroyed houses and not the houses that had been spared, craters where the bombs had fallen and not the smooth pavement, smell only the smoke of burned flesh and wood and not the fresh breeze coming from the sea. He thought to himself, this was not the city that he knew; it was more like a movie reel. For quite some time he had not been to the cinema and had not seen any new Charlie Chaplin films. He discovered that he was barefoot once again, as he used to be. He did not wear shoes at the church and would go around there all day serving those who had taken refuge in it, offering them food and water, cleaning the walks, the alabaster columns, and the mirrors, and adoringly dusting the huge icon of Mari Girgis. He remembered seeing him from the middle of the fire but did not believe it. He remembered Magd al-Din, who did not believe his vision either. He wanted to go back to his friend, but he also wanted to stay in the city, which had become so large now that so many of its inhabitants had left, and so old now that so many of its buildings had been destroyed. There were still big crowds around the railway station, and fear began to find its way to his heart. Could the day come when there would be no one but him in this city that he no longer recognized?
He did not have any desire for his wife. Every time he looked at her he thought, how could she live after him? He would realize that this meant he would die and, shaking, he would think how wretched the world would be without him. Could people really continue to live aft
er he had died? Kyrie eleison. How he needed Magd al-Din to give him confidence in longevity!
Some Junkers bombers were shot down over the city. Hamidu was released from detention with several others, and he wrote on the wall of the house, “Either take me for good or let me be forever.” The few passers-by knew what he meant and laughed. The city was showered with charitable donations from Salvatore Cicurel and Their Royal Highnesses the Princesses and Queen Nazli. Karmuz remained the target for German air raids, but the neighborhood of the martyrs insisted on remaining in its historic location. Even German Junkers and Heinkel and Italian Savoia bombers were being shot down over it. The spring holiday of Shamm al-Nasim, however, was observed in a normal manner. People went out to Nuzha and the waterfall gardens. The Mahmudiya canal was filled with colorful feluccas adorned with flags, on which boys and girls danced and sang. Alexandrians went out to the beaches unconcerned by the raids. It was a mild day, and the sea, with its blue and white water, was calm. Many people from Karmuz converged on the Anfushi beach, the women carrying trays filled with fish. They went down into the sea with all their clothes on. The boys and girls engaged in horseplay as usual. In Manshiya, however, the children could not go into the sea, as the eastern harbor was now filled with British battleships. In Rami Station people sat around the statue of Saad Zaghloul on the grass of the small garden and began calmly to eat their fisikh, the traditional salted mullet and sardines, without a thought in the world. That day, fifty carloads arrived from Cairo to spend the day on the beaches of Stanley, Glymenopoulo, and Miami. The English ATS women and their friends went into the sea in their bathing suits at the Mustafa Kamil beach. Many people spent the day at the zoo and were very generous in feeding the animals. In the evening, they all went back home exhausted, filling the streetcars, horse-drawn carriages, and carts of all kinds. There was silence everywhere, as their voices had grown hoarse from shouting and singing all day long. When the air-raid siren sounded, no one bothered to move. The cars stopped, but most people were fast asleep. The raid did not last for a long time. One plane was shot down over the city.
No One Sleeps in Alexandria Page 33
