He kept listening for someone who knew him to call out his name, but that did not happen. One morning followed another, and the search for work never stopped. Every day he saw men with bare feet and bare heads walking or hurrying along with him to look for work. He noticed that one young man in particular, who looked lost and whose eyes rolled in a way that Magd al-Din had never seen before, had tried deliberately to stay close to him. When the young man spoke, saying “Every day it’s like this,” Magd al-Din realized that he had a nasal twang. He always looked angry when he did not get work, but would soon smile and hurry along with the others, following close to Magd al-Din who, for a moment, thought the reason he was not picked for work was because that half-idiot stood next to him. But he knew that these were the blessed children of God, so he asked Him for forgiveness. He was turning left now because most of the men seeking work were turning left after crossing the bridge. He stopped with the others in front of one plant’s big metal gate.
“What kind of work do they do here?”
“Ice.”
“What do we do with the ice?”
“We stack it or carry it to the delivery carts. This plant will close next month — it doesn’t work in the winter.”
A worker at the plant went out and looked at the crowd of job seekers. He picked a few among them, but not Magd al-Din, who noticed that most of those seeking temporary work wore tattered clothes and were barefoot, and so deduced that work was in very short supply. He decided he would not change his new gallabiya or shiny shoes; he was never going to appear shabby, and when he found work he would buy suitable new clothes. Zahra had already taken thirty pounds that he had saved over the last few years and spent twenty pounds to buy all the necessary furniture. Magd al-Din felt sad every time the job seekers jostled each other rudely and cruelly when a company representative would ask for five or less. He would choose a spot in the back of the crowd. In front of the Ahliya textile mill with the big green metal gate, he stood with the others. The black man who came out every day to pick the workers pointed to him and said in a confident voice, “You there — come here.”
Magd al-Din approached.
“Tomorrow I will give you a job,” the man said with a smile. “You have to come in pants and a jacket.”
He got a job at the mill rolling the bales of cotton from the cars that carried them from the ginneries up close to the spinning machines. The job lasted three days, then he went back to job hunting with the others. Their rounds would begin at six o’clock and end at eight. By that time they would have passed all the companies on the north bank of Mahmudiya Canal, the oil, soap, ice, and textile companies. They would have demonstrated their strength for the tugs and ships anchored at close intervals, which came from Upper Egypt to unload their cargo of sugarcane, fava beans, cotton, grains, and earthenware jars and pitchers. Usually a contractor with his own crew of workers would get the job to unload the ships, and if Magd al-Din or any of his colleagues was hired, he would receive ten piasters for the day’s work.
At eight o’clock in the morning, just getting over his disappointment at not finding work, he would sit down in the café next to the bridge and order a glass of tea. Moments later he would feel heartened and get up to buy al-Ahram from the little boy who sold newspapers from a small wooden stand in front of the café. He was always the only one in the café, but he would hear a voice calling out his name and imagine meeting someone he knew. One day he got the newspaper and gave the little boy a whole pound. The boy said he did not have any change. Magd al-Din did not know what to do and returned the newspaper, but the boy, who recognized him by now, told him he could read the paper in the café and return it when he was done. Magd al-Din sat down to read and realized that the world was a great big mess: sandbags distributed by the civil defense department to hospitals and public establishments; advertisements for Longines, Zenith, and Vulcan watches; this evening, on the radio, Fathiya Ahmad and her band; before that at eight-thirty, comic monologues by Husayn al-Maligi and Nimat al-Maligi, and before that a selection from the Sura of al-Hajj, recited by Taha al-Fashni; Queen Elizabeth arrives at Easton station from Balmoral on her way to Buckingham Palace; Warsaw wiped out; at least five million Poles perish in the war in one month; giant cannons, bigger than the world has ever seen, reduce Warsaw to rubble.
“The world is in a great big mess, Magd al-Din — where are you going?” he thought to himself. He got up to return the newspaper to the little boy only to find that the boy had picked up his newspapers and was running away as fast as he could. Alarmed, he followed after him, but a policeman grabbed him by the arm, saying, “And you’re reading the newspaper, to boot?”
Two other policemen went into the café and arrested two people sitting there. They were all led to a police van originally used to transport criminals between jail and the courthouse. He dropped the newspaper and climbed into the van parked on the bridge. He noticed a car blocking Raghib Street and two others blocking the road parallel to the Mahmudiya canal, so that people were forced onto the bridge, where they were grabbed. Anyone who made any effort to resist was smacked on the back of the neck and kicked every which way.
In the lockup at the Ghayt al-Aynab police station, more than twenty people who were arrested that morning, including Magd al-Din for the first time in his life, were herded in. Before he could think of anything else, Magd al-Din saw that idiotic young man sitting in front of him, his gaze fixed on Magd al-Din and smiling as usual. Magd al-Din turned his eyes away to the yellow walls, visible through the high black bars of the cell. The walls formed a semicircle around them, with bars placed close together, like those on prison windows.
The police station was a rotunda with high yellow walls, and its main gate opened onto the square where the streetcar turned. Inside a corporal with thick eyebrows sat behind an old, black wooden table; three other policemen were milling about. In a corner some rifles hung on the walls; in another corner a closed door led to the prefect’s room. The corporal fixed his glance on Magd al-Din and ordered one of the policemen to open the jail cell. He motioned Magd al-Din to approach.
“What’s your name?”
“Magd al-Din Khalil Sulayman.”
“You don’t look like the rest of the riffraff, Magd al-Din. Why don’t you have your identity card?”
“I forgot my card in the village.”
“Village? What village?”
“My village. I’ve only been in Alexandria a few days.”
“Are you a farmer?”
“Yes.”
“Here for a visit or permanent residence?”
“Residence, God willing.”
“Well, do you have five piasters? Anyone who pays the government five piasters can be released.”
“I do. Nobody asked me before,” Magd al-Din said with a sigh of relief and reached his hand into the vest under his gallabiya, took out the one-pound note, and gave it to the corporal. It was about 2 p.m. Six hours had passed since he had been thrown into the crowded cell to sit in silence with the other detainees. The corporal said he did not have change for the pound and sent a policeman to get change from a streetcar conductor. When the corporal saw that Magd al-Din had not moved, he asked him, “Why don’t you go back to the cell? Are you afraid you’ll lose the pound?”
“No,” Magd al-Din found himself saying, “but this poor idiot boy, why is in there with us?”
The corporal looked at him for a moment then smiled. “We’ll take ten piasters from you then and let him go, if that’s what you want.”
He got up from his desk, walked over to the cell, and dragged out the idiot boy, who kept staring and smiling at Magd al-Din, even twisting his neck to see him, until he was out of the precinct. Magd al-Din sat back down with the others, and the corporal locked them up again.