The year was nearing its end. Zahra was very afraid of the thunder and the torrential rain. Sometimes it would be dark all day long. But her visits with Sitt Maryam and her two daughters, who frequently stayed home from school because of the rain, made her feel an intimate warmth, especially when Lula joined them with her jokes about vendors, merchants, and other people in the street. Lula’s husband was now beating her more frequently. They would hear her screams coming from downstairs, but that usually subsided after a while and calm returned, only to be broken by her laughter. It was now a nightly occurrence. No one asked her anything about it.

Umm Hamidu’s latest story to Zahra was about Count Zizinya, who was suing the city of Alexandria because it had seized his property in Raml. There was actually a lawsuit filed by Count Zizinya in which he accused the city of Alexandria of seizing land belonging to him along the coast from Glymenopoulo to Saba Pasha. She told Zahra that as a young girl she had worked as a maid in the count’s palace in Raml, that she knew he was in the right, as the whole coastal area of Raml belonged to him, but he was a miser, so God sent someone to take everything away from him.

Unexpectedly, Umm Hamidu asked Zahra if she knew the poor woman that used to follow Bahi around in the street. Zahra said she did not know her. Umm Hamidu smiled and said that in Ghayt al-Aynab many people from Zahra’s village knew her, that in her youth she had been in love with Bahi and that it was he who had caused her to lose her mind. Zahra fell silent, but Umm Hamidu kept on about how she had known many women who were madly in love with Bahi. that his face fatally attractive to women, and that she believed that woman was one of his victims. Zahra said quietly, “This is old history, Umm Hamidu.”

In the meantime the undertaker had found the body of Bahiya near Bahi’s grave, stretched out in the mud, drenched by the rain and clasping her cane tightly with both hands. He had seen her a few days earlier sitting motionless in front of Bahi’s grave, paying no heed to the rain and the cold. He tried many times to send her on her way, but she would give him a frightening glance and he would go away. That night he went to the graveyard to steal the shroud of a wealthy woman who had been buried that morning. On his return he saw Bahiya’s dead body. He thought a little about what he could do and felt pity for the bereaved woman. He thought that if he notified the police, she would end up in a pauper’s grave, since she did not seem to have any family; besides, the police were sure to make a big fuss about stolen shrouds and corpses in the rain. So he asked God for forgiveness, wrapped her in the rich woman’s shroud, and buried her in the same grave as Bahi.

The year ended without a truce between the combatants. There were visits to the fronts by the various commanders, kings, and presidents, a message from King George V to the people and the army at Christmas, a message from General Gamelin to the people of France. Hitler himself went to spend Christmas with his troops on the western front. Everyone wished victory for their peoples and their armies. The Finns were still scoring surprising victories. The League of Nations expelled Russia from its membership. Yusuf Wahbi screened his film Street Children in Cairo, where there was an increase in cases of typhoid fever. Many bottles of cognac, champagne, and whisky were sold in Alexandria, where nightclubs stayed open by candlelight to bid farewell to the old year. Soldiers of the world danced with women of the world, and some cried, hoping for a better new year. Two days before the end of the year, a devastating earthquake reduced many villages in Turkey to rubble and obliterated the town of Erzincan. Zahra was hoping that the cold month of Kiyahk would soon come to an end. Magd al-Din and Dimyan would find work for a day and sit at the café for a week. On the morning of the last day of the year, the idiot boy sat in front of Magd al-Din, who ordered a glass of tea for him. But the boy suddenly burst into tears. Magd al-Din got up and sat next to him and asked him why he was crying. He said in that twang of his, his tears mixing with his snot, “My father killed my mother last night.”

The bells of the church of Mari Girgis on Rand Street rang for the Christmas Eve mass. On the following day, Copts began celebrating Christmas. Young people went out dressed in their best, and so did the adults. The air was filled with the smell of cheap perfume, worn by people on their way to church or looking out of the windows of many houses. The joyous mood spread to young Muslim men and women, and many Muslim families went out to visit their Coptic neighbors to wish them a merry Christmas. Zahra saw Camilla, Yvonne, and their mother — three angelic roses whose faces were filled with a joy that she had never seen before. She wished them happy returns of the day, as Magd al-Din had instructed her the day before. He had heard about it from Dimyan, who told him, “Tomorrow our fast ends — forty-three days without meat, except fish. And we cook all our food using vegetable oil, Sheikh Magd. Our stomachs have had it, and they let us know it.”

“So you fast forty-three days a year?” Magd al-Din asked him.

“Oh, Sheikh Magd,” Dimyan laughed. “Almost the whole year is a fast. You have one month of fasting — we have several. It’s an agony made bearable by poverty, which makes fasting the rule, not the exception.”

After a moment he added, “Sometimes I think the fast goes back to the days of persecution. Take Lent, for instance — a fifty five day fast, and the most important because it was observed by Lord Jesus Christ Himself. He fasted for only forty days, but we’ve added two weeks to it — one week before the forty days to prepare ourselves for it, and the other one after as a symbol of Christ’s Passion.”

“Dimyan, you’re a devil!” Magd al-Din smiled.

After a pause, Dimyan asked, “Will you visit me the day after tomorrow? We’re having a holiday, Christmas.”

Magd al-Din was truly touched and decided to visit him more than once during the holiday. He heard Dimyan murmur, “Glory to God in the highest and peace on earth to men of good will.”

That night he told Zahra about the whole conversation, and she realized the reason Coptic cooking smelled differently from Muslim food: “They fast all the time and they cook with oil — their whole life is an ordeal! God Almighty forgive me.”

Camilla told Zahra, almost jumping for joy, “We’re going to the mass, Zahra. It means prayer. We will sing praises to the Lord and say hallelujah and meet our friends!”

Zahra was surprised and baffled by what Camilla said, but figured it must be real and beautiful, because the mother and Yvonne also smiled. Zahra did not know why she was overcome by the urge to go with them to church, but her face turned pale for a moment at the unusual thought. She shook hands with them again, then heard Sitt Lula’s voice and decided to spend some time with her. Magd al-Din was out late today. Maybe he had found a new job, since work here usually began early in the morning and did not end before seven in the evening.

The Christian holiday continued. It rained so hard on Epiphany that it seemed like the sky was just dumping huge buckets of water onto the earth. At night Zahra sat with Sitt Maryam, her daughters, and Lula, chewing sugar cane. Zahra discovered that the Christians did that just like the Muslims. Yvonne said confidently, “This is an ancient Egyptian custom— it’s neither Islamic nor Christian. Our ancestors, the pharaohs, used to chew sugar cane on this occasion. It happens to coincide with the baptism of Lord Jesus Christ in the River Jordan. He was baptized by John. Do you know who he was, Zahra?”