In the afternoon of the same day, Yvonne had come back from school shaking. No sooner had she got upstairs to their apartment than she went running back down with her mother behind her. Zahra was coming in from outside as Yvonne ran into her at the end of the staircase and let herself fall in her bosom, crying, “Camilla’s gone, Tante Zahra! Camilla’s never coming back!” The girl’s tender heart was pounding and her eyes were filled with tears, her whole body quivering. The mother appeared behind her looking very angry and grabbed her daughter’s arm and pulled her. Zahra had let the things she had bought drop to the floor and placed her arms around Yvonne, patting her on the back.
“Please let the girl be, Sitt Maryam,” she said. “We’ve eaten bread and salt together.”
“Zahra, don’t come between us.” Sitt Maryam spoke so harshly that Zahra’s arms pulled away and she let Yvonne go. The mother dragged her daughter upstairs. Zahra went inside, oblivious to the things she had bought and dropped on the floor. In her room she sat and cried.
Dimyan went to the right as Magd al-Din turned left toward the railroad houses with Shahin and the other workers. There were a few clouds heralding rain that might fall after midnight, the rain that lasted for a short time but usually took Alexandria by surprise once or twice in the several weeks after winter had ended.
Shahin, with his powerful build, walked briskly, taking long strides as Magd al-Din barely kept up with him. All the workers except Dimyan were walking toward the houses. They had started out together, but after a short while, they spread out as some walked fast and others at a more relaxed pace. As they were crossing the gate separating the houses from the railroad tracks, Shahin told Magd al-Din, “These are old houses from the first war — they used to be warehouses and barracks for the English forces. You should apply to get one of them, since several workers are going to retire soon.”
“I’ll do it, God willing,” Magd al-Din said with genuine hope. If he got a house here, that would be his best accomplishment in Alexandria. He said to himself that he would tell Dimyan to apply with him, for they had been lucky together so far. As they left the narrow dusty road, the Mahmudiya canal and the road parallel to it came into view. Magd al-Din knew that place well from the days of looking for work. He had come many times to work for the oil and soap company a short distance past the houses. They turned left and passed a few yellow, one-story houses with closed windows.
After a few steps, they crossed the main gateway, which used to have a double door framed with tree trunks that was locked at night when the soldiers were there. Now the door was gone.
In front of the houses were some tin shacks that made the alleys even narrower, barely enough for two persons to walk side by side. From the shacks rose the smell and sounds of goats and sheep and chickens. Shahin led Magd al-Din to a short, wide street between two rows of houses that showed only their closed windows, since the doors were on the other side. After turning right at the end of the street, they stopped at the door to one of the shacks. “This is the house, Sheikh Magd.” Shahin knocked on the door of the tin shack. From inside came a light and a voice asking who was there. The woman opened the door, carrying the small kerosene lamp. She stood behind the door as Shahin entered, then Magd al-Din. The chickens in the corner moved, and in another corner, a little goat moved, kicking its feet as it lay on its side. Shahin entered a big hall, empty except for a mat and a few scattered cushions, a few books lying around, an old wooden table with a few books in no particular order, and behind the table, a straw chair. Then Shahin went into a large inner room that had a bed of medium height and a sofa on which Rushdi was lying down. As soon as Rushdi saw his father and his guest, he sat up. He was wearing a clean gallabiya. The walls were clean and painted sky blue. The ceiling was painted white, and the room was lit by a big number-ten kerosene lamp placed on a shelf on the wall.
“My son Rushdi, Sheikh Magd.” Shahin said then, addressing Rushdi, “Your uncle, Sheikh Magd al-Din.” The woman, Shahin’s wife and Rushdi’s mother, did not come into the room but stayed in the hall, thinking about this Sheikh whose face glowed with light and serenity and about whose piety Shahin often spoke. Would he succeed in curing her son of his sudden ailment? Magd al-Din sat next to Rushdi. Shahin sat at the other end of the sofa. Magd al-Din saw many little books in the corners of the room and a small unsteady wooden bookcase attached to the wall. He realized that he was in the presence of a young man who was different from what he had expected. He spoke first.
“What’s wrong, Ustaz Rushdi?” he addressed the boy respectfully. “What’s your complaint exactly?”
“Have you come to treat me, venerable Sheikh?”
Rushdi was deathly pale, with profoundly sad eyes. He had not been shaving, but his beard was not long, just a few clumps of hair here and there on his cheeks, hardly reaching the line of his jaw. His face was so gaunt one could see the bones under the skin.
“Only God cures, Ustaz Rushdi.”
Rushdi calmly shook his head and said, “Your task is impossible, venerable Sheikh.” He started to cry and was soon sobbing deeply. The mother too was heard sobbing outside.
His father embraced the boy and told him, “Don’t kill me, my son. Don’t kill your mother. Tell us what’s wrong.”
Rushdi turned and looked at Sheikh Magd al-Din for a long time then said, “The Quran will not cure me, venerable Sheikh. Please forgive me. I mean no disrespect. I have very strong faith and my problem is that my faith encompasses all people and all religions — therefore, I have fallen in love with a Christian girl. This is my ordeal, venerable Sheikh.”
Rushdi spoke in a choking voice, trying to prevent himself from crying. Magd al-Din was now sure that he was in the presence of a very intelligent young man. The father was at a loss for words. Outside, the mother could be heard saying, “God protect us. Why, my son, do you want to waste your life falling in love with an infidel?”
Magd al-Din could not tell Rushdi that he was too young to fall in love, for while he looked gaunt and fragile, he seemed to be widely read, and it would be difficult to convince him of anything that he did not understand. That was why Magd al-Din remained silent as Rushdi continued, “I know how afraid my father and my mother are for me. I’m not insane, and I will not let insanity get to me. I just haven’t seen her for ten days. I think her parents have found out and killed her. She doesn’t go to school any more. Even her sister — I don’t know if she’s quit school too, or what, but I don’t see her any more either. I’ve gone to their house and stood there during the day and at night, but I didn’t find out anything, and no one’s told me anything.”
The boy’s lips quivered in the pale yellow light as be spoke. His tears flowed ceaselessly. Those made miserable by love die young, Magd al-Din said to himself, as he remembered Bahi — he was certain of the end. The boy’s pale face gave off the same aura of the sacred that Bahi had. The only difference between the two was the difference between the village and the city. City people gave themselves willingly to love, and did not leave themselves at the mercy of the wind.
“What do you think, Sheikh Magd?” the poor father asked after Magd al-Din’s long silence. Magd al-Din looked at the boy, then reached out his hand to the boy’s shoulder and pulled him to his chest. The boy rested against Magd al-Din’s chest as the latter began to recite verses from the Quran. The mother sobbed outside, and the father prayed for a cure for his son in silence. Magd al-Din was the only one who realized that the boy had been preordained to feel this agony, that his end was near, and that he was no match for this age. He lifted the boy’s face from his chest and began to dry his tears with his handkerchief, saying, “If I were to ask God for anything, Ustaz Rushdi, it would be for a boy as intelligent and wise as you.