“Of course, don’t worry, Zahra,” Sitt Maryam answered, as Yvonne ran to her room, crying.
Zahra went downstairs with a heavy heart. She had not realized she loved her neighbors so much. She felt no joy going back to the village, for she was leaving behind that prince among men, good-hearted Magd al-Din. After she dried her tears, she crossed the street to say good-bye to Umm Hamidu, who insisted on standing up and saying as she laughed, “I stand up every evening. For your sake, I’ll stand up an extra time today.” She took Zahra in her arms and kissed her in the beautiful manner of the local women: she placed her puckered lips against Zahra’s cheek and made many long kissing sounds, then did it again on the other cheek. She told Zahra, if she came back to Alexandria, not to come back to that house, for in less than two years, Bahi was killed, Lula was caught, and Camilla disappeared. She said it had an unlucky threshold. “Houses are their thresholds, Zahra.”
She told her she knew the story of Camilla and the Muslim boy, that everyone did. She said Dimitri was in a pitiable position: “The Christians don’t like him because he didn’t know how to bring up his daughter, and the Muslims don’t like him because he broke the poor boy’s heart. The real victims in the story are Dimitri and his wife — all their lives they’ve been respectable and minded their own business. But no one can figure out God’s ways.” Zahra left wiping her tears. Umm Hamidu did not sit down until Zahra and Magd al-Din had gone quite a distance.
Magd al-Din was able to climb into the train and sit next to the window, then Zahra handed him the only basket she had, which contained nothing but her clothes and a box of candy from the Gazar candy store. When she got into the car, she sat in Magd al-Din’s place, and he got off and stood next to the window, not wanting to leave before the train moved. Shawqiya, the little girl, stood next to her mother, who said to her husband through her tears, “Take care of yourself, Sheikh Magd.”
He did not answer, only looked at her. He really wanted to go with her, but it seemed that he was destined to move even further away from her. He would go to al-Alamein in a few days. Before he had arrived in Alexandria, he had not heard that name, not even before he worked for the railroad. Now he was always hearing the strange name of this desert town. He had never lived in the desert, but after all, it too was God’s country, and God undoubtedly would look after it. He bought four hard-boiled eggs and two big soft pretzels and handed them to Zahra, who placed them with the basket on the shelf. “Maybe the train will be late, you might get hungry,” he told her.
He remembered how Zahra had baked crackers to last him at least a month and filled little jars of dry mulukhiya leaves, tea, sugar, and ghee, and cleaned the Primus stove, and placed everything in two baskets: the food in one and the rest in the other. She did not forget to fold his clothes and place thread and some needles with them. She even packed some matches and candles in case of emergency. All Magd al-Din had to do was to carry the stuff to the cart that would transport him to the desert train at Qabbari in three days. As the train started to move he said, “Don’t forget to let me know after the birth.”
“Don’t cry, Sheikh Magd. Don’t cry,” she told him.
He had not felt the tears as they formed in his eyes. He held her hand and ran along with the train, which had not yet begun to gain speed, and kissed her hand quickly, surprising the people standing on the platform and sitting near Zahra. She said in a soft voice, “Good-bye, my love,” and let her tears flow. He felt his heart wrenched. The world had become a vast, white shaking mass with a distant sky, and he was a little child, crying sadly, like an orphan.
The distance from the platform to outside the station was the longest distance a man could walk, had Dimyan not appeared, standing among the seated masses, looking in every direction. Magd al-Din saw him and felt some consolation. He went toward him. This friend of his was the only one who could dispel his sorrow. He wondered what had brought his friend to the station at that time. Did he come to send his wife, mother, and two daughters to a village?
Dimyan had come directly from the church after passing by Magd al-Din’s house and being told by Sitt Maryam that he had gone to the station to see his wife off. He could not wait, and took the streetcar to meet his friend before his return. Actually, he could have waited. Only now did he realize that there was no need for his going to the station nor for all that hurry. It was the dream he had seen, the nightmare he had had on the saint’s anniversary, which he had attended for the first time in many years. The courtyard of the church had been filled for the last two days with people standing, lying down, and sitting. Many families brought their floor coverings and their food. There were some mats in one corner, sheets in another, a woolen blanket here, and a cotton kilim there. There were men in cotton gallabiyas, men in silk gallabiyas, men in woolen gallabiyas, men in old or new trousers and eyeglasses, women with bare shoulders, sitting in their house gowns, women covered with silk shawls and children of all ages and sizes, naked and in gallabiyas, barefoot and in light sandals. The only light came from the candles in the chandeliers hung around the pillars or on the walls under the darkened dome. Everyone under the dome or in the courtyard in front of it was praying deyoutly, as the sounds of the mass found their way to Dimyan’s heart, In front of him, right under the center of the dome, he could see the large, famous icon of Mari Girgis slaying the dragon. That was Mari Girgis, his patron saint, taking care of him in this world in such a way that gave Dimyan a joy that made him forget the crowded courtyard and peoples’ sorrows and the crowds around the church. Among them were Muslims and Christians who came to watch and participate in popular games or congregate around the carts selling seeds and peanuts or macaroni, or to sit on the wooden benches of improvised cafés set up by vendors who made tea on Primus stoves placed next to the walls. Generally those people appeared only once each year, during saints’ anniversaries. There were tattoo artists, who used red-hot needles to make blue and green tattoos, marks of the cross for women, young men, and also some middle-aged men, and pictures of the martyr on men’s shoulders, arms, and chests. For the Muslims they made pictures of the legendary Abu Zayd al-Hilali brandishing his sword as he attacked a lion, or riding the lion in many cases, in addition to tattooing names and places of birth on men’s forearms. Most of those artists and vendors were the same ones often seen during the anniversaries of the Muslim saints Mursi Abu al-Abbas, Sidi Bishr, Sidi Gabir, Abu al-Darda, Sidi al-Adawi, and other saints in Alexandria. They also were the ones who went to the nearby villages to help celebrate the anniversaries of famous saints. It is a beautiful occupation that affords the people the chance to experience some joy and to break the laws and taboos a little by pursuing love and flirting with women and girls. Celebrating the anniversary of Mari Girgis outside the church is identical to celebrating Mursi Abu al-Abbas’s.
The smell of onions filled the inside and outside of the little church, and the streets were filled with seated people all the way to the Mahmudiya canal on one side and Ban Street on the other, as well as up to Sidi Karim. Before the war, the lights had extended all the way to Raghib and the railroad station, the Kom al-Dikka station, which the Alexandrians called Masr Station because they could not conceive of any other town outside Alexandria except Cairo, which was called Masr. Dimyan slept in the courtyard of the church for the first time in his life. In his youth he had heard adolescent stories about how some women behaved at the anniversary celebration, and he had always thought them to be adolescent stories. That night he thought of finding out for sure, but he quickly asked forgiveness of his patron saint, Mari Girgis, and went to sit on a bench outside, amid the crowds. In the middle of the night, he went into the church courtyard and found most men and women awake. He took his place next to his wife and mother, who were asleep. He lay down looking at the sky. His eyes closed for a few moments, and he saw a great fire engulfing Mari Girgis, his friend and patron, who with his horse tried in vain to get out of the circle of fire. Dimyan got up in great panic and left the whole place. It was shortly after dawn. He crossed the adjacent streets, where people were asleep on the sidewalks, and went to the canal to breathe some fresh air. He did not go back until he had cried alone on the bank of the canal. Then he took his wife, mother and, two daughters home and went to Magd al-Din’s house. But he did not find him, so he came looking for him at the station.