“Congratulations! You can read, Dimyan,” Magd al-Din told him.
“What do you think of that, Sheikh Magd?” asked Dimyan after a second.
“What do you mean?” “I mean, how useful is it?”
“To tell you the truth, Dimyan,” said Magd al-Din with a smile, “I was puzzled too when you read it to me.”
“Is this why I learned to read — for these newspapers?”
Magd al-Din laughed silently and Dimyan said, as if to himself, “What stupid newspapers! Why should I care about a maharaja, well-off or broke?”
Dimyan threw the newspaper out of Magd al-Din’s window and left without bending to pick it up. Churchill gave a speech in which he announced Britain’s options: victory or death. Nothing new was learned about Hamza. Shahin no longer spoke about his son to Magd al-Din. The verdict was announced in the case of the defective helmets, which was declared to be a case of commercial fraud rather than high treason, so the defendants got off with light sentences and everyone was happy. As of April 20, the sale of liquor in Alexandria was restricted to those with permits issued by the military. This was due to the many accidents resulting from drunkenness, and also because alcoholic beverages were used to make explosives. In their new raids on Alexandria, the German planes started dropping small incendiary bombs, and the people were instructed on how to handle them if they had not exploded. The military courts in Alexandria also heard seventy cases against Italians living in the city who had not heeded a previous military order to surrender their radios to the police. The radios were confiscated, but no spies were uncovered. It was announced that on the last Monday of the month, Charlie Chaplin’s film The Great Dictator would be screened in several cinemas in the capital and in Cinema Royal in Alexandria. When it was shown, record crowds in wartime were observed in front of the cinemas. It now seemed that Dimyan had never expressed a strong desire to watch a Charlie Chaplin film; he found out about the film but did nothing about it — he did not even allow himself to think of it. Ghaffara met Magd al-Din on the street and reproached him for taking his wife to the station without asking him to give them a ride on his cart. Magd al-Din smiled and thanked him, telling him that that they left in the late morning, when Ghaffara was nowhere to be found on the street. Then he told him about his trip to al-Alamein the following day and asked him if it would be possible to pick him up at five in the morning to take him with his friend Dimyan and their luggage to the station. Ghaffara said he would then asked him where al-Alamein was, and Magd al-Din told him.
The night was long. His life passed in front of his mind’s eye. He felt as if a whole lifetime had passed since Zahra left. Had Dimitri not come to visit him and sat with him a long time, the night would not have passed. Dimitri asked him if he would come to Alexandria during vacations, and Magd al-Din said that he would not, that if he got a vacation he would go to the village. He said that with great emphasis, which baffled Dimitri. Then Magd al-Din told him that he would give him three months rent, and would send him the rent every month after that with Dimyan, who would surely come to Alexandria to see his family. Dimitri asked him who Dimyan was. Magd al-Din was surprised, and after a pause started to remind Dimitri of him but the man, who could not remember, said, “Oh yes, I remember him,” but he was not telling the truth. This perplexed Magd al-Din, who began to wonder what might have happened to his landlord’s mind. They spoke a lot about people, the country, and the war. Dimitri suddenly asked him if he had found out anything new about Rushdi, and Magd al-Din told him the truth, namely that his father no longer spoke about his son in front of him. Dimitri said with regret that he hoped the young man realized the gravity of the situation and would let it pass peacefully, that he personally would not have liked to stand in the way of his daughter’s wish but that it was a difficult wish. He was sure time would heal all wounds. Magd al-Din thanked Dimitri for the time he had spent in his house and told him that both he and Dimyan had applied to the railroad authority for housing if a vacancy should occur, and that he was hopeful. Dimitri reassured him about his furniture in the room-”exactly as if you are here, Sheikh Magd”—and shook his hand warmly, then went upstairs and left Magd al-Din, who wished to get some sleep that night. He began to recite silently some of the short chapters of the Quran to calm his nerves.
The previous day’s newspapers had announced that the country was ready for Hollywood’s new masterpiece, produced by David Selznick, starring the famous actors Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh, Olivia de Havilland, and Leslie Howard, as well as more than thirty-five hundred new actors and actresses. That masterpiece was based on the famous novel by Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind. The papers also published the name of the German officer commanding the Axis forces in Libya. It was Erwin Rommel, who came from the French front and who had shown great skill in desert warfare. The public health office in the governorate also announced that births in Alexandria that week numbered four hundred locals and twenty foreigners. As for deaths, they numbered 120 locals. The causes of death given were old age, a variety of fevers, malaria, tuberculosis, dysentery, whooping cough, tetanus, and air raids. Deaths among foreigners numbered ten. Causes given were drunkenness, insanity, and suicide.