They stopped in front of the stone wall, which was about two and a half meters high. Magd al-Din thought that jumping over the wall might be forbidden. He was confused for a moment, then heard Dimyan say, “It’s not that high, as you can see. I’ll clasp my hands together, and you can climb on them, then you get to the top and sit down, then give me a hand up to join you — then we’ll get down on the other side.”

Dimyan clasped his hands together, but Magd al-Din hesitated. He lifted his foot from the ground then put it down again.

“It’s hard for me to step with my shoes on the hands of one of God’s noble creatures.”

“What?”

“How could I step with my shoes on a creature that God has exalted?”

Dimyan looked at him incredulously then saw Magd al-Din actually take off his shoes and throw them over the wall. Dimyan smiled and shook his head at his friend’s meekness. He clasped his hands, and Magd al-Din stepped on them with his right foot then jumped up and grasped the top of the wall, feeling the hard stones of the wall, which could not have been more than twenty centimeters thick. Dimyan pushed him up, and finally Magd al-Din was able to sit on top of the wall. He suddenly said, “The wall is shaking!”

“Don’t be afraid. It’s very solid.”

Dimyan stood wondering how he was going to climb. It would be hard to grasp Magd al-Din’s hand and jump; that might pull Magd al-Din down. Magd al-Din himself must have thought the same thing. He said, “You can step on my foot. Think of it as a stair and then give me your hand.”

Dimyan took off his shoes and threw them over the wall and jumped up until he held on to the top of the wall, pushing down a little which helped him to get a little higher. That made it possible for him to place his foot on that of Magd al-Din, who held him by the jacket to help him up. Dimyan’s torso was now higher than the top of the wall. God in heaven! What happened? Crash! A big chunk of the wall collapsed with them on top of it; it fell down in one piece, and quietly.

Magd al-Din fell down on his backside, and Dimyan’s chest hit the wall, and both felt great pain where they fell. But a few moments later after they overcame the shock of the fall, they were now facing each other, and they both laughed happily: two solitary men in a huge open space laughing without an echo. They both got up, leaning on their hands, and started looking for their shoes. Neither of them had looked around nor seen anything until now. The first thing they saw was the vast, open space and the sun rising strong to their left and the faraway blue sky. But the land appeared dreary, lime and sand and little rocks, two old and rusty rails, beyond which stretched land covered with thorny plants and short cactus, then a few rails, between which were pebbles and evaporated fuel oil that appeared to have separated from the soil, its black color turned gray by the eddies of dust. At intermittent distances they could see a few small thickets of unkempt thorny plants.

They walked to the right. Dimyan was quite surprised at how vast the land was as it opened up before him. How could he have missed all of this even though he had lived for many years in Ghayt al-Aynab? Why had he never thought of going beyond the wall so close to Ban Street, separated only by two alleys? This vast open space to the south was matched only by the vast sea to the north.

Some of the railroad tracks seemed to end at new bumpers attached to short concrete columns. There were many cars lined up on more than one line. They appeared to have been lined up carefully, for on every line there were for the most part cars of one kind only: the flatbed cars on one line, the boxcars on another, and the semi-closed ones on a third. All the cars were dull brown, with the exception of the boxcars, which were dark gray. The floors of the flatbed cars were covered with thick wooden boards, planks attached together by wide, thick iron tics nailed to the boards. But despite all the obvious care taken in storing the cars, the place appeared deserted. Magd al-Din thought that perhaps they had been duped, that Adam, peace be upon him, when he descended from heaven must have descended to a place like this one, that God who sent Adam to earth in the care of providence, would forsake them here. There was not one single bird in the sky, but they saw in the distance a pipe rising from the ground, with an oilcloth hose that almost reached the ground, attached to it. Next to the pipe a man sat next to a big green mulberry tree under a canopy made of bare tree branches.

“So there are people here,” exclaimed Dimyan, who must have been thinking along the same lines as Magd al-Din.

“Come on. Let’s go ask him.”

The man was about their age, but his clothes were tattered and he was barefoot. He was so dejected that he seemed not to have heard their footsteps. When they got close to him both of them thought they probably should just keep going and leave him alone, for he seemed totally oblivious. But in the way that one sometimes thinks of doing something, changes his mind, yet still does it, Magd al-Din asked him, “Where do we find Post Number Three?”

He pointed with his index finger, indicating that they were headed in the right direction. But Dimyan, who did not like the man’s silence, exclaimed,

“What’s with you, man? Speak, the day’s just begun!”

The man looked at him for a long time, and Dimyan was at a loss and began to shrink back in fear. Magd al-Din almost burst out laughing, not believing what was happening to his friend.

“Get out of here,” the man said in a faint voice.

“Yes, sir,” said Dimyan meekly and walked despondently in silence as Magd al-Din tried to muffle his laughter.

After they were far enough away Dimyan said, “That was a jinn, Sheikh Magd.”

A big wooden kiosk appeared, its walls made of wooden planks planted close together in the ground. On top of them was another row of planks, attached to the lower row by broad metal strips, and on top of it all was a pitched roof of corrugated iron.

Next to the kiosk a man was crouching over a little fire holding a big tankard with a long handle made of braided wire. “Greetings,” they both said. The crouching man raised his head. He was making tea, which had begun to boil in the tankard. They could smell its pleasant aroma.

“You must be the new workers, Magd al-Din and Dimyan. I’m Hamza. We’ve been waiting for you.”

Today should be considered a feast day. Zahra went to the market at Sidi Karim, behind the police station, and bought a pair of pigeons for five piasters and a chicken for ten piasters. Sannusi, the butcher on Fawakih Street, slaughtered them for her. She cleaned them and boiled the chicken and the pigeons, then she stuffed them with southern Egyptian hulled wheat, which she had bought from Bishri, the grain and spice dealer on Raghib Street.

The pleasant aroma filled the second-floor hallway and also the first floor. So Lula too went out quickly and bought pigeons and chicken and came back and started cooking them. She did not forget to go up to the second floor and tell Zahra that she could not resist the delicious aroma of her cooking and so had to do like her. She asked Zahra, who was quite surprised, to forgive her. Zahra insisted that Lula taste the chicken gizzards. All the while Sitt Maryam followed the exchange smiling, for she understood the intricate meanings of women’s little games!

Zahra’s little girl, Shawqiya, was playing in the hallway between the two rooms, and Camilla was teasing her from behind the open door and their laughter could be heard. A kitten came up from the first floor and stood in front of the hallway meowing and looking around. This frightened Shawqiya and made her run to her mother, and as she did she stumbled on the door’s low threshold. Her mother held her up to her bosom, patting her on the back and calming her down.