Usta Ghibriyal announced that the railroad authority needed two workers to work at the al-Alamein railway station. He had been summoned to the administration office that morning and was charged with the task, to be completed within a month. “So, whoever wishes to go should come to me, and I will convey his name to the administration.” Then he added, “I know that you’re all married with children, and that you don’t like to stay away from home for a long time. But you have time to think. I hope to find someone who volunteers to go because if that doesn’t happen, I will make the choice myself and, I am told, my decision is final.” Magd al-Din and Dimyan felt they might end up being chosen for that. If no one stepped forward, Ghibriyal would choose them to minimize the problem as much as possible, for they had the least seniority.
Ghaffara began to stay away from Ghayt al-Aynab and Karmuz after most houses there had become vacant. He started working in the neighborhoods of Ghurbal, Paulino, and Muharram Bey every day in the early morning, but would return in the middle of the night, desperate and tired since he had earned hardly enough to feed his donkey. One of the pieces of glass that he used as an eyepiece had fallen off his fez and he did not replace it.
As for Zahra, she had grown big; her seventh month was almost ending, and sitting with Umm Hamidu was no longer a welcome distraction. How could a pregnant woman sit at the entrance of a house on the pavement? Therefore she was deprived of her stories at a time that she needed them most, for now Sitt Maryam’s door was only opened to let someone in or out. It seemed the whole family wished to avoid speaking to anyone. The priest’s visits increased— they became almost a daily occurrence. Zahra would always hear mumbling, muffled quarrels and groans, and sometimes silent weeping. She did not know what to do for the good family that suddenly seemed not to want to talk with anyone.
Umm Hamidu also needed Zahra more those days since Hamidu, her only son, had been arrested and moved to Sinai together with criminals who threatened the security and safety of the country during wartime. The few inhabitants still left in the street were depressed. When a man or a woman would come to buy fruit or vegetables, they would come in silence and leave in silence, their eyes fixed on the ground, as if carrying a mountain of shame. It was feeling the emptiness surrounding everything and expecting death at any time during an air raid that made people so fragile. The only one left for Umm Hamidu to talk with was the vegetable wholesaler each dawn on his cart drawn by a strong horse. As for the Territorial Army soldier who sang and proposed to her, he had been transferred to Damanhur. Zahra told Magd al-Din, “The priest is coming everyday now. I don’t see either of the girls. I don’t know when they leave in the morning. Apparently they sneak out quietly so I won’t see them. Sitt Maryam doesn’t open her door during the day.”
She was surprised when Magd al-Din told her, “And I’ve met Dimitri more than once on the stairs, and he hasn’t stopped to speak to me — he just says hello and goes on. Today he politely asked me if I could move down to Bahi’s room. But I felt he wanted to tell me to move out of the house altogether.”
Right away Zahra said, “There are so many vacant houses, and thousands who want to rent rooms.”
“No. We won’t leave the house. We’ll go downstairs. Dirmtri’s in a tight spot. Today he doesn’t want us to know anything, but tomorrow he might need us.”
Dimyan helped him move the few articles of furniture to Bahi’s room. As soon as Zahra walked in and opened the window looking out on the street and saw Umm Hamidu in the entrance of the opposite house, she felt relief. Here she was not going to suffer the silence that seemed to have taken root on the second floor. She would hear people and children coming and going and talking. After they moved the furniture, Dimyan took Magd al-Din to the café far away on the Mahmudiya canal near the lupino bean vendors. They had not been here in a very long time.
“Why did you bring me here, Dimyan?” Magd al-Din asked him. “We’d almost forgotten this place.”
“Well, first, I’ve made great progress in reading and writing. In a few days, I’ll be able to read the newspaper.”
“Praise the Lord!”
“Second, I wanted to tell you that Khawaga Dimitri is going through a big crisis.”
“I know that, but I don’t know what kind of crisis, and he doesn’t talk to me.”
“I think it’s a crisis that one doesn’t talk about,” said Dimyan after a pause. “It’s also preoccupying the priest at the church. I’ve heard a few things in church about the subject, but I’m not sure whether they were talking about Dimitri or somebody else.” They both fell silent for a long time. Magd al-Din was not the inquisitive kind and never made an effort to know what people were doing. Even secrets that came his way, he did not divulge. He hated scandal-mongering and gossip of all kinds.