Magd al-Din had left for work a little earlier. He was the first to leave and, during those weeks that Khawaga Dimitri worked days, he would leave with him.
“Is school so wonderful, girls?”
“Of course, Zahra. Especially the first day, it’s like a holiday. We meet our classmates and teachers, and we talk about the vacation and the summer. The most beautiful thing in the world is the first day back to school, Zahra. After that, school is bad.”
They laughed like two little doves. And since Zahra could not go back in time and go to school and live in the city, she hoped to see Shawqiya, one day, as happy as they were. Yvonne had turned the radio on to the Voice of London, which was playing beautiful music that Zahra had never heard before, music that made you want to fly or swim in the air like an angel. How was it that she had never heard music without lyrics before? Can such music be so beautiful?
The girls left for school. The cool morning breeze gave Zahra a feeling of heavenly happiness. She was not going back to sleep. She lay down next to her daughter on the bed, and looked up at the white wooden ceiling. Could Alexandria be so beautiful without her realizing it? Yesterday she had gone to Anfushi again with Sitt Maryam, for the first time in a long time. On the streetcar, people were looking healthier and happier than they had the last time she had gone, in spite of the ceaseless air raids. When she saw the statue of Muhammad Ali Pasha, she did not think of complaining to him. She was afraid that the air raids would demolish the statue and laughed at the idea that he might run away on his horse. She was truly surprised by the awesome apartment buildings with decorative balconies on both sides of Manshiya Square. Why had they not looked so majestic to her before? When the streetcar approached the end of Lisan Bahari on the coast, she began to hear the peaceful melody of the waves and smell the refreshing smell of the sea. When the streetcar emerged from the long cold street into the open air, Zahra saw the endless blue sea as its froth-capped waves gently caressed the beach. Along the coast, brown nets were stretched over a long distance with pieces of heavy, silvery lead holding them in place. Next to them were boats with furled sails and little rowboats, stopped or neglected on the sand. In the distance were huge gray ships with long and short cannons and masts and flags casting shadows on the breaking waters. On land Zahra could see crowds of lively women surrounding fish vendors. She had come-here before but had not seen what she was seeing now. That was during the feast days after Ramadan. Summer here was really quite different from winter, and there she was, seeing things with new eyes, imbued with an energy she had gotten from the city whose own sons and daughters were deserting but in which she was now living and loving. True, it was crowded, but in a cheerful way. There were women swathed in long wraps that they let fall off their heads and shoulders and held under their arms, revealing rosy shoulders and soft arms, their hair showing under their head covers with red, yellow, or black edges. They got into long conversations with the vendors, and laughed spontaneously as the vendors raised their voices, and happiness showed in their eyes and faces. Many of the women were moving in a deliberate manner. One would let the body wrap slide off her head, revealing her bare shoulder. Then she would lift the wrap deliberately, raising her white, enticing arms as far up as she could so the vendor would see her armpit, plucked only the day before, silky smooth, and wake unmentionable desires in the hungry vendor. Many women, accompanied by little girls with rosy cheeks that they wanted to remain rosy forever, drank the blood of tirsa, which the vendors sold in cups.
“Don’t be afraid, Zahra. Tirsa blood is very nourishing and fattening.”
“What’s tirsa?”
“It’s a sea turtle. The fishermen bring it in and they slaughter it, cut up its flesh, and sell it by the kilo. People also drink its blood — it’s the cheapest kind of sea food.”
Zahra saw the other kinds of fish that looked more splendid than what she’d seen on her last visit. She kept trying to remember their names and asked about the ones she did not know. She also noticed more kinds than before. She saw red shrimp; orange crabs; silver sea bream; speckled red snapper; white mullet; white and red grouper; silver sea bass; long, white swordfish; fish that looked like fat little white bananas; long, strong green eels; dark red mullet, dark gray, almost oval fish; fish that looked like sweet potatoes; and white and black and silvery-white sardines — all displayed on dozens of wooden tables with crowds of women around them. Sardines were a very cheap fish, now in season, and many women bought large quantities to salt and use during the winter. The day before, Zahra had bought crabs, shrimp, and eels, more than a kilo of every kind. She spent a whole half-pound note from the ten pounds that her mother had given her. She also bought five kilos of sardines to salt. What made her splurge so much when she knew that her husband’s salary was no more than three pounds a month? Undoubtedly it was the ten pounds that her mother had given her, but one more certain reason was that she had weaned her daughter the day before and she knew that one did not get pregnant while nursing — she knew that from her mother. Today she was going to become pregnant, she told herself. Her body shook and was shaking now, as she lay awake on the bed. Could a woman know that she was becoming pregnant as it was happening? Maybe. She felt that last night; she felt a little thing inside her attach itself to some other little thing. She felt an inner tension inside, ending in a profound calm coursing through her blood. Magd al-Din would be happy with her since she was going to bear him a son this time. He never expressed a preference of sons over daughters, but he grew up like all peasants, and perhaps like all men, preferring and hoping for male offspring. She was going to give him that, and this big white city, which accommodated all these people from all over the world without complaining, would help her.
No sooner had Magd al-Din finished his lunch, which he usually had late, after returning from work, than a loud woman’s scream was heard from downstairs.
“It was Lula, that was her voice!” exclaimed Zahra. “I know her voice.”
When another scream was heard quickly after the first one, Zahra went out of the room and met Sitt Maryam in the hallway. As the screams continued, Sitt Maryam went downstairs ahead of Zahra, who quickly followed with Camilla and Yvonne. After a moment, Sitt Maryam and Zahra were calling out to the exhausted Magd al-Din, since Khawaga Dimitri had not come home yet. Magd al-Din put on his gallabiya, to be ready for any development; he had eaten his lunch while in his underwear.
On his way downstairs, Magd al-Din saw Camilla and Yvonne coming up. They said nothing to him because they were hurrying. He heard men’s voices at the foot of the stairs and the sounds of a large crowd standing in the street in front of the house. He heard Lula in her room screaming, “Have pity! Have pity!” Sitt Maryam and Zahra were standing in front of the door.
“What’s happening?” Magd al-Din asked, and they did not answer but motioned him to enter the room. As soon as he did he closed his eyes. Lula was wearing a sheer white slip, almost naked. True, her hair was disheveled and her eyes swollen from crying, but, in the final analysis, she was an almost-naked woman. As soon as Lula saw him, she collapsed at his feet and held on to one of his legs and said, “Please, Sheikh Magd al-Din, I kiss your foot,”—and she actually did, since he was barefoot—”protect me, protect me from those sons of bitches.”
She said the last sentence in anguish. He looked at the men standing in the room: her husband, a policeman, and a thin, sickly man. Zahra and Sitt Maryam had come close to the door, and Magd al-Din asked them to bring something to cover the lady’s nakedness. But the policeman said, “No,” and the thin man added, “She must come as she is.”