“Really!” Dimyan exclaimed, still dazzled.

“Egypt is full of bounty, of plenty, brother. Yes — look at God’s might. On this side the water evaporates and turns into salt, and on that side, no matter how much it evaporates, it never runs out, and the lake stays full of fish.”

Magd al-Din had begun to follow the conversation, and he let himself turn around to see from where he sat the glorious rose-colored salt basins extending in the distance.

“Where are we now?” Dimyan asked.

“In Maks,” said the man.

“So we are out of Alexandria.”

“Where are you going?” the man smiled and said.

“Al-Alamein.”

“You have a long way to go,” the man said with a gentle laugh. “God be with you.”

As he said that he stood up. He was on the short side, with a squarish build. He put his hands in the side pockets of his gallabiya and moved over to sit down next to Magd al-Din. Dimyan came back and sat opposite them. The man took a gilded metal cigarette case from his pocket and offered each of them a cigarette.

“Is this your first time in the desert?” he asked.

“Yes,” Dimyan answered.

“I have been traveling the desert all my life. I don’t know any other place.”

“Do you work or live there?” Magd al-Din asked. “Both.”

The train had started to stop so they were all silent for a while.

“Murgham station — the first stop,” the man said.

A young man got onto the car wearing a loose Bedouin garment topped by a loose wrap over his shoulders and a woolen blanket-like scarf and a cap with a small tassel on his head. He looked around the empty car and at them, then hurried to another car after a very quick greeting.

“All the Bedouin here speak fast and walk fast. I’ve spent all my life asking myself about the reason for that and I have yet to find an answer. The desert brings serenity and calm, but the Bedouin here talk and walk as if they were on horseback.”

Dimyan laughed and Magd al-Din smiled at the man’s strange words.

“My name is Radwan the Peasant,” continued the man. “Actually, my real name is Radwan Ahmad, but the Bedouin here have given me this nickname. But most of the time they call me Radwan Express!”

“I’m Magd al-Din.”

“And I’m Dimyan.”

The man’s eyes grew wide and he asked, “Dimyan?”

“Yes, it means I’m a Christian,” Dimyan said to spare the man any surprise or confusion. The. man looked closely at him for a few moments.

“How strange!” he said.

“What’s so strange, brother Radwan?” Dimyan asked. Radwan looked at him even more closely.

“Nothing, brother Dimyan,” he answered. “You just reminded me of a friend of mine whose name was also Dimyan and who used to sell Pepsi here on the trains. He was a sweet man of sweet talk and sweet disposition. I don’t know where he is now. God damn the war and the English and the Germans!”

There was a long interval of silence until Magd al-Din asked, “You didn’t tell us what you do in the desert and where you live.”

“I told you my nickname was Radwan Express. Actually, I work as an abonne. Do you know what that is?”

“I think an abonne is like a postman, except that he works on the train.”

“Very good, brother Magd al-Din. He’s like a postman but he doesn’t work for the post office or for any office. He works for himself. He gets a permit from the railroad to ride the trains, and abonne means a pass that exempts him from buying tickets. He delivers peoples’ mail and goods at different stations. I used to be the abonne of the desert trains until Mussolini entered the war. I had my own corner at the door of the car — the abonne corner— and at every stop people came and gave me letters and bags and baskets and bundles and boxes and everything that could be sent, big or small, and the name of the person they wanted them sent to, and the name of the station. And at every station everyone who wanted to receive a delivery would come to me. If I didn’t find the addressee, I would leave the letters and parcels with the stationmaster. But people used to come and ask about letters and other things just on their own. Many times they would find that I had letters for them from their loved ones. At every stop I saw peoples’ faces light up when they received their letters and the eagerness with which they took the letters. At every stop I saw the kindness and goodness in the eyes of those sending things to their sons or relatives or loved ones. A lot of times they would cry just because they’d gotten a letter. Of course a letter in the desert is something else! I could figure out the contents of the letters from the eyes of the senders and recipients. Now, as you can see, the train is empty. Business in the desert has dried up. The desert is now a battlefield. Nobody is left except armies and the Bedouin. Armies don’t send their letters with the abonne, and the Bedouin don’t send anything. The peasants and people from the Delta have returned to their villages, and nothing is left but me and this train.”

They fell silent. Magd al-Din and Dimyan exchanged glances. The train had stopped at a station. The abonne stopped talking then stood to look out the window at the platform.

“Nobody got on. Nobody got off,” he said. “The station-master didn’t even leave his room.”

The train moved on.

22

Magd al-Din had never before seen such an arid expanse before, True, there is open space in the countryside, but it is an expanse of soft green fields teeming with birds flying and humans playing or working peacefully. Next to the water wheels you can see children having fun, animals sleeping, women talking, old men playing tictac-toe, and ducks splashing in the water on which willows cast their shadows, while on the land, camphor, sycamore, and oak trees cast theirs. Now as Magd al-Din stood on the short, low platform of al-Alamein. railway station next to Dimyan, he was seeing nothing but a wilderness, with no birds and no trees. Dimyan likewise was staring incredulously at the awesome, vast expanse. The train had started again slowly, then moved away, looking like a green worm spotted with yellow, wiggling away into the endless beyond. In the distance was military equipment, some scattered, other pieces arrayed close together. Among them were a few wooden kiosks and half-naked soldiers, their bodies above their khaki shorts gleaming in the distance, and other soldiers whose black bodies did not gleam. The train that sped away like a wondrous yellow-spotted worm, the high faraway sky, the mysterious groupings of soldiers, and the all-engulfing wilderness gave both Magd al-Din and Dimyan a sense of being lost. Five or six Bedouin had gotten off the train from the other cars, but they had not paused for a moment. Waiting for them were a few others, who spoke in loud, fast rattling voices, of which Magd al-Din and Dimyan could not understand a word. The two of them watched the Bedouin hurrying away down the narrow road next to the station between two rows of low, limestone houses deserted by their inhabitants. The Bedouin stirred up little eddies of dust, as if they were a herd of goats scurrying around. The stationmaster had gone out of his room to meet the train and spoke briefly with the engineer. As soon as the train began to move and the stationmaster turned around to go back to his room, he saw Magd al-Din and Dimyan and recognized them, for only a railroad worker would be wearing a green suit when he got off the train at the station. He approached them slowly. On the platform were two wooden rooms with pitched roofs also made of wood, painted a dull gray in several thick, clotted layers, betraying the painter’s lack of skill.

“Welcome,” said the stationmaster once he had come very close to Dimyan and Magd al-Din. Either they were still too awed by the expanse to respond or he did not wait for a reply.