Umm Hamidu never missed a chance to talk about the scandalous police behavior in Kom Bakir, Attarin, Mina al-Basal, Mahamil, and Marsilya Street. She noticed that Zahra was not particularly fond of that line of talk, especially after.she heard it the first time. But Umm Hamidu loved to discuss it, if only briefly. She would tell her about the many respectable families whose daughters went to those places during the day, then went back home, chaste and honest for all intents and purposes, and about the many poor women whose men sent them there also, “Filthy men.” There were also widows that sold themselves rather than marry, so they could raise their children alone. That was, of course, in addition to the divorcees and peasant girls who had run away from home. “The whole country is throwing women at Alexandria these dark days, when it’s filled with soldiers from the white world and the black world.” She told her that Hamidu, her son who worked as a shoeshine boy in Rami station, Manshiya, Bahari, and Attarin, came to her with stories that would make one’s hair turn gray, about the women, the soldiers, and all the foreigners. Hamidu was always upset at what he saw, and he did bad things to the English. “He’ll either end up dead or banished to Mount Sinai.” Zahra asked her where Mount Sinai was, and she said it was in the faraway place where they banished criminals. Zahra, who still had not learned where Mount Sinai was, fell silent. Umm Hamidu asked her once if she had noticed how in the Rashidi family, which lived in the house next to Khawaga Dimitri’s, the men were very short and the women very tall. “Each woman needs two men, end to end, one to kiss her and the other to fuck her. Why aren’t you laughing?” she asked Zahra, who was always shocked at the audacity of this fat woman who seemed, as she sat there, as if she had been planted, who seemed not to be able to stand up, as if her waist and huge posterior were part and parcel of the earth.
Zahra was even more surprised that she was so fascinated by what Umm Hamidu had to say. Zahra told her only one story, about the raid that took place the previous month and how her husband Magd al-Din and his friend Dimyan, when they ran to Karmuz to help with the rescue, found Lula in the rubble suffering from a severe injury. Umm Hamidu, who looked genuinely sorry, said that Lula was a poor woman who had not run away with her lover, but that her husband, the accordion player, was a pimp, that she had heard about her fame the last few months in the mansions of the pashas and hoped to see her, but God’s will was done. She said that she herself had worked for some time with the troupe of Naima al-Saghir in Bahari. “A dancer?” Zahra asked in surprise. Umm Hamidu realized why she was so surprised, for who has ever heard of a fat dancer who cannot get up off the ground all day? She said no, that she was a dresser, and explained to her how she used to dress Sitt Naima al-Saghir for singing and dancing, and for the pashas’ parties. Sitt Naima, she told her, had a short fuse. Every time she met a movie producer, she asked him to find her a role in a movie, and he would promise, but not deliver. So Sitt Naima took it out on her helpers, and Umm Hamidu left her service.
She talked to Zahra about the world of the awalim, the singing and dancing women. She told her that the piazza where Lula died was their headquarters in Alexandria. There were the artists’ cafés, the houses of impresarios and leaders of the troupes, and the ‘workshops for teaching singing and dancing girls. Any girl who in away went to the piazza, for dancing was more honorable than prostitution, and, “as the proverb says, ‘Every bean finds her measurer.’ But the awalim say, ‘Every dancer finds her drummer. The dancer always marries a drummer or a tambourine player, seldom an accordionist or some other instrument — those love the singers. Each leader of a troupe has her own girls and her turf. So Naima al-Saghir, for instance, cannot enter Karmuz — Bata al-Salamuni would kill her — and so on. And now, after the movies, each dancer wants to be another Hikmat Fahmi, and every dancer who used to dream to dance in the corniche nightclubs is now dreaming to dance in front of the king. King Farouk is a handsome man whose face is as beautiful as the full moon; all the dancers are in love with him and women hunger for him! “
Then Umm Hamidu takes her spiel in a different direction. “Alexandria is a happy city, and its earth is saffron, as people say. They say that Alexandria was built by a crazy man named Alexander who filled it with wineries, and people danced and sang all day and night and cavorted with women. To this day they still find relics of Alexander and ancient Alexandria, just like they find treasures under collapsed houses after the air raids. After every raid the rescue workers find a lot of money and gold and jewelry under the rubble. They once found a clay vessel filled with gold coins stamped with the name of the Greek queen Naisa, who ruled Alexandria a long time ago. Yes, that’s why they call the area Mount Naisa, because the queen lived there. They say she was a mighty queen, so the folks who live in Mount Naisa are mighty drug dealers and robbers that the government can’t do anything about. In front of Mount Naisa on one side is the piazza, and on the other side Pompey’s Pillar. The piazza is a very old neighborhood, and Pompey’s Pillar is even older. It’s surrounded by Kom al-Shuqafa, which has catacombs underground where the Nubians and Sudanese live. These Nubians and Sudanese spend their days selling seeds and peanuts, and at night they sleep in the caves like bats. The caves are full of relics known only to those blacks and to the gypsies. The gypsies also live there, but since the war started, nobody sees them on the streets any more. Where did they go? God only knows!”
Thus, after having seen the sea and the big squares with Sitt Maryam, Zahra entered Alexandria’s magic world. Umm Hamidu’s stories have given the city, whose inhabitants were leaving, a warm soul in a winter that now appeared truly frosty. But after the rain fell, warmth prevailed, spaces grew wider, and the sky moved higher, bluer, happier. Alexandria has always been a happy city, despite the apparent malaise because of the migration. Umm Hamidu’s stories made it twice as happy. The rain, which had not stopped in days, would surely let up with the beginning of the new year, when the Christian and Muslim holidays would coincide for the first time in many years: the Orthodox Christmas would be on the same day as the Feast of the Sacrifice. If the rain did not stop, however, it would fall on Muslims and Christians alike, and there would be joy for all and rain for all, and even Epiphany, which Yvonne had said the previous year was an ancient Egyptian feast, would be for all.
Orders were given throughout the country that the new year be celebrated, but without lighting up the streets, and people were warned about the possibility of surprise air raids. For even though the combatants in Europe had announced a cease-fire on the last day of the year, no one could guarantee the actions of Hitler and Mussolini, especially since “our country has no interest in the European celebrations of the birth of Christ, it being an innovation that came with the occupation.” At any rate, the raids had stopped in Europe on the penultimate day of December, in view of bad weather conditions, so people in Europe enjoyed two days in a row without raids. That was a particularly welcome respite for the British, whose cities Hitler had vowed to wipe out. The night of the thirtieth of December, however, witnessed intensive British air raids on the Gazala and Tobruk airports in Libya. Italian airplanes in turn attacked the British bases in Malta.
The world was still following the surprising advances of the Greeks in Albania, at the Italians’ expense and amid the confusion of the Albanians themselves, who had not yet settled on one occupier of their land. The Führer addressed a message to the German army in which he enumerated Germany’s triumphs during the past year and promised final victory in the new year. “The German Army of National Socialism has achieved brilliant victories in the year 1940. This army, on the threshold of a new year, has prepared itself with armaments hitherto unknown to humanity.”