It turned out that dozens of women had lost their rights because of husbands or strong brothers. The court always found in favor of these wronged women. Then came an ominous day when the court summoned the mayor himself.
The mayor went, thinking that at most, the court needed some help carrying out the verdicts. But the judge did not receive him in his chamber, but rather in open court, and did not permit him to sit down. True, he was a mayor, but the court had its own traditions that applied to great and small alike. The shocking question to the mayor was whether he was abusing his wife. It was she herself who had lodged the complaint that he did not treat her well, that he did not take her the way the sharia, the Islamic civil law, ordained, but that he took her from behind.
You can imagine the mayor as he sprang forward, as he attacked the judge and the usher, held back only by the guards who had gone with him. They prevented him from making that mistake. They were in a state of great surprise and fear. The mischievous among them hid their smiles.
The mayor left the courthouse without answering any questions. He rode his horse and raced the wind. Halfway home he stopped. The vast open space and the green fields around him restored his feeling of calm. This village had been calm throughout its history. The calm was broken only by the vendetta between the Khalils and the Talibs, which was over and now remained only as a memory. He did not think that similar events would befall any two families after the tragic end of the Khalils and Talibs. Then came this court, which had shaken the village and unearthed all its heinous deeds. The judge, usher, and clerk must be killed and the courthouse demolished. He must contact the authorities requesting that the court be moved somewhere else. It was Satan’s court. But his wife could not have done that. Or could she have? He had tried more than once to sleep with her in a non-customary manner, but she kicked hard and he never tried it again. He had been an impetuous young man. It was impossible that his wife would remember that now and complain against him.
In a few minutes the mayor reached his house. He stood in front of his wife, shaking with anger, nearly breaking into thousands of little pieces. He would die if he did not do something about it. Those dogs, the guards, would spread the news. But she was his beautiful, rich wife from a great family, and he truly loved her. He broke down in tears before her and said nothing. He slept, asking God for death.
His wife was the daughter of one of the notables in the next village. The news made it there instantly. In the evening, her father and his men came. The father said in an almost inaudible voice, “In the morning, we’ll go to the court. If there is a complaint, we’ll kill our daughter and that’ll be the end of that.”
In the morning there was no one in the courthouse. Its doors were wide open. Even the sign on the door had been taken off and was lying on the ground. By noon, policemen from the governorate were there, and the village was filled with laughter and crying. It was not a real court. It was just a trick invented by a devil to ruin the village. The village went to sleep that night wondering who that devil might be.
The people said, “The government is lame, but it can beat a gazelle.” The police were able to track down the first woman who had gone to court, Khadra — who had disappeared from the village after her divorce. They found her in Tanta living with Bahi, who was now dividing his time between Tanta and the village. She said she had tried many times to prevent him from continuing, but that he was intent on wrecking all the homes in the village. People shunned Magd al-Din’s house and family for some time, but because of Magd al-Din’s Quranic education and piety and Bahi’s past, people eventually were friendly to Magd al-Din again. Bahi became a mere memory in his jail cell in Tanta. No one but Magd al-Din knew that when Bahi finished his sentence, he left for Alexandria. No one ever knew what became of Khadra. “No way could she get away with it. She’s probably already been killed by her father or her brothers,” was the comment anyone who brought up her name would get. Several years passed without Bahi making an appearance in the village; he was now totally forgotten. The mayor, who could have looked for Bahi anywhere in Egypt, remembered him suddenly. When he thought of something to do about it, he kicked Magd al-Din out of the village, and to make sure the people would not remember the unpleasant story, he said the expulsion was related to the vendetta. With him he expelled Khalaf, the last of the Talibs. But the people of the village remembered vividly what Bahi had done to the mayor and secretly laughed. And there was Bahi, laid out helplessly before his brother, now devoid of strength, weakness, or rashness. He had chosen his own death in the city that he had said was white.
8
And deliver us all from high prices, the plague,
earthquakes, drowning, fire, being taken captive
by the barbarians, the stranger’s sword,
and the rising of heretics.
Kyrie eleison.
Pompey’s Pillar is the name of the huge column erected by Alexandrians to immortalize the memory of the Roman emperor Diocletian. They dedicated it to him as a gift, in appreciation for the prosperity they had enjoyed under him, forgetting that it was Diocletian who had persecuted them most, and persecuted the Christians in Egypt and Palestine in general.
Pompey’s Pillar is in the middle of Rhakotis, almost in the exact midpoint of Karmuz Street. The pillar is separated from the street by a wall that surrounds the whole archaeological site. To the left of the relics of Kom al-Shuqafa lies the Muslim cemetery, which takes up a large portion of Karmuz Street, extending to Rahma Street. The cemetery is called ‘the pillar tombs,’ in reference to Pompey’s Pillar. The tombs end on the north side at Italian School Street, a quiet, narrow street seldom noticed by pedestrians or cars. For this reason, many lovers go there in the evening, lured by the dark to make out and sometimes, take their love-making farther without fear of being discovered.
Behind Pompey’s Pillar extends the hill of Kom al-Shuqafa, where some Nubian families and gypsy clans live. The Nubians usually sell peanuts and seeds in little paper bags on the street. The gypsies go out on short trips to the city to do their usual things, reading palms and shells, telling fortunes, dancing, and selling cheap costume jewelry.
The streetcar runs up and down Karmuz Street, beginning at the bank of the Mahmudiya canal, halfway between Karmuz Bridge, which leads east to Ghayt al-Aynab, and Kafr Ashri Bridge, which spans the canal near the harbor. In front of the point where the streetcar route begins, on the southern bank of Mahmudiya Canal, lie the houses of workers who work in the railways south of the city. Behind these railroad tracks lies Lake Maryut, which extends farther than Alexandria, reaching as far as Amiriya in the west and Idku in the cast. Magd al-Din will have to discover all these places, but that will be later on.
Every day, Magd al-Din went to the cemetery, where he sat in front of his brother’s tomb and recited the Quran as long as he could. On his way to the cemetery he would see Pompey’s Pillar high above and realize that it was a relic from a bygone era. A strange thought would occur to him. He wished he could go up and sit on top of the pillar, and spend the rest of his life there, without food or drink, ceaselessly clamoring the name of God, exactly as the great Sufi saint al-Sayyid Ahmad al-Badawi did on the roof of a house in Tanta, until he died.
“You can’t go on like this,” Dimyan told him, after following him to the cemetery one day.
“What should I do, Dimyan?”
“Come with me to look for work. I usually get work most days now. Besides, you can’t spend your life sitting in the cemetery. This, God forbid, is an act of godlessness.”