Azazeel (9 page)

I left the tent to look for some water to wipe my face, but could not find any. The people were busy with the start of another hard day in their lives. At their usual early hour they headed to
the city gate. I was amazed to find that the city gate was not closed at night. In fact it was never closed, and the bottom part of each door was buried in sand which had turned to rock and salty
rust, showing that it had not been opened for many years. So why did these people sleep outside the gate?

The river of poor people streaming towards the gate swept me along. They were walking with heavy steps, not rushing. I walked along with them, succumbing to the current in this river of poor
people as it submitted to the will of the Lord. The faces of those going in were sallow, their clothes old but clean, and they exuded a mysterious euphoria that belied their appearance. In a flash
I realized that all of them, Christians and pagans, were the children of the Lord.

The guards were at the gates, carefully examining those going in. They did not stop anyone, even if their alert posture suggested they were about to do so. The city wall was high, higher than
any wall I had ever seen. Other guards stood on top, looking lazily towards us. The gate in the wall was wide enough to take many at a time. In the open gate there was a smaller door, wide enough
for one person. The rust on the edges of it showed that it too had not been opened for many years. I do not recall seeing a single smile the day I passed through the Moon Gate.

Alexandria is amazing, vast in extent. Its streets easily absorbed the river of people coming in, as though they were ants walking along a crack in a great rock. The streets were paved with
small grey stones and there were pavements on the sides of most streets. That was when I understood the meaning of the word ‘pavement’, which the priest from Damietta, my teacher in
Naga Hammadi, used to use in his speech. The streets are clean, as though the city were a newlywed who washes every night and wakes up cheerful. The labourers wash it every night and sleep outside
the walls. On that early morning I did not see many of the city’s inhabitants. In my first country, they would say the Alexandrians are not like us, they like to stay up late and do not get
up early.

The magnificence of the Alexandria houses and churches did not surprise me, because in Egypt I had seen old temples which were much more splendid than these buildings, but what did surprise me
around the city was the tidiness and the elegance – the roads, the walls, the house fronts, the windows, the little gardens at the entrances, the balconies edged with flowers and decorative
plants. The whole city was carefully constructed and elegant, although this ubiquitous beauty did not make me feel that Alexandria was the city of God Almighty, as they call it. I thought it more
like the city of Man.

‘Hey southerner, this is the way to the stadium. Are you going there? Or to the Egyptians’ quarter?’

‘No, uncle,’ I said. ‘I’m going to the sea.’

‘The sea is everywhere. Go back where you came from, then head left, cross the Canopian Way and keep walking north. Keep the Boucalia church on your left and walk till you find the sea. In
fact the sea will find you.’

I thanked the volunteer guide, the guard of a house, and went off as he described. And why didn’t he leave me to wander around as I wanted and as the Lord wanted for me, so that I could
see things that I did not expect? The Boucalia church which he mentioned I would see some months after that. It is said the remains of St Mark the Apostle are preserved in it. As for that day, on
my way I crossed a small stone bridge over a freshwater canal which flows from the south of the city to the north and then debouches into the sea. I did not follow the course of the canal but
preferred to walk east along the Canopian Way, the large street which cuts the city in two halves. The northern half is where the rich live, while the poor live in the south, though the poor of
Alexandria are richer than the rich in my native country.

When the sun had ascended to its zenith, life crept into the side streets. The number of people was greater than I had surmised. I passed one group of churchmen going north, surrounded by
workmen carrying pickaxes and reciting after them: ‘In the name of Jesus the true God, we will demolish the houses of the idols and build a new house for the Lord.’ The three phrases
rhymed in Greek, with a rhythm different from the Syriac text, but Alexandrians do not speak Syriac.

I hurried away from them until the large church appeared on the left. I did not go their way but walked east with the Canopian Way, which was wide and elegant and extended all the way from the
Moon Gate, where I entered, to the Sun Gate in the east of the city. Behind it stretched the houses of the Jews which I passed the day I left Alexandria three years later.

The Canopian Way is a world in itself, fully paved and with elegant houses on both sides. Into it flow other smaller streets which run south and north. Everything around me that day was amazing,
except for that wretched statue which stands in the middle of the road. I found out a few weeks later that it was a statue of a god they call Serapis, and the former bishop of Alexandria,
Theophilus, had preserved it from the Serapaeum temple after he brought the temple down on the heads of the pagans who had sought refuge inside. The bishop had set up the wretched statue in the
middle of the road to intimidate the pagans by reminding them of the fate of their god, and to immortalize his triumph over them by humiliating their god forever. The great temple was destroyed in
the year I was born, I mean the year 117 of the Martyrs, or the year 391 of the glorious birth. For thirteen years the statue stood as an effective witness to the abject state of an extinct
paganism. It was moving to see it, covered in the droppings of sea birds and surrounded with rubbish on all sides. It seemed to be laughing, its feet planted in the paving stones of the street,
with no plinth on which to stand.

I did not look too closely at the statue, so as not to attract the attention of the Christians and pagans passing around me. Nobody should notice me, neither these nor those, nor even the Jews
who endured the hatred of both groups in the city. The pagans hate them for their avarice and the Christians detest them for betraying the Saviour and handing him over to the Romans to be
crucified. I wonder, was he really crucified?

In a square halfway along the long street, my train of thought and the rhythm of my pace were broken by the voice of a crier shouting out in Greek from the seat of his mule. ‘Governor
Orestes invites scholars and students to a lecture by the Savante of the Ages on Sunday morning at the Great Theatre.’ I was surprised when I established that he really was saying the Savante
of the Ages. Could a woman scholar gain such prestige? At first I doubted I had understood the phrase correctly, although the different female and male forms of the words in Greek leave no room for
ambiguity. Then I doubted the sanity of the crier, although he looked serious to me, and being serious, so I was taught in Akhmim, is the opposite of insanity.

My doubts drove me to abandon my caution. I caught up with the crier and asked his young servant, who looked at me in astonishment and did not answer me. The crier had stopped the mule by
squeezing his legs against her belly and he reached into his bag to take out a long-necked white earthenware bottle from which he drank a mouthful. I took the chance to ask him, ‘Uncle, where
will the lecture be?’

‘What are lectures to you, peasant? Or perhaps you’re after the sweets the governor gives out there?’

‘I don’t eat sweets,’ I said. ‘I only want to know who this Savante of the Ages is.’

‘A peasant who doesn’t eat sweets, speaks good Greek and doesn’t know Hypatia. That, by Serapis, is amazing,’ he said.

The crier left me, moved on scornfully and started to shout out the same phrase again: ‘Governor Orestes invites scholars and students...’ He disappeared down a side street, leaving
me puzzled as I thought about the woman who might be the Savante of the Ages.

After this intellectual detour I reverted to the objective from which I had been distracted, that is to reach the sea. I kept walking east along the Canopian Way until I met a large street
heading north. I had passed the place which the volunteer guide, the house guard, had described to me, but I hurried on in the hope that I would reach my destination, or make a second attempt. The
further north I walked, the more I felt the sea. Little by little, the surface in the side streets grew more sandy and the houses were more scattered. The stone of the walls was eroded and pale,
and I later learnt that this was an effect of the sea air close by.

The sea had a strong smell and as the sound of the waves started to caress my ears a strange feeling enveloped me. When the sea appeared between the houses, I quickened my pace until I reached
the wide sandy area which extended beyond the houses. One of the houses was as big as a palace, the last of the houses with handsome walls. At the big gate an elderly guard was sitting, an
emaciated sheep lying at his feet. I walked past them without noticing them, and the guard too did not look towards me. It was the sheep that looked.

When I saw the sea, enclosed by the sandy spit which jutted into it, I walked along until I came close to a rocky patch in the middle of the spit, then followed a sandy path which wound between
the rocks. The Alexandria rocks are rough and ragged, with sharp edges. They are not like the smooth oval rocks which the Nile brings rolling down from heaven and which come to rest on its banks in
my native country. That day the sea seemed to have no banks, although it had looked small to us in the maps in the geography book. I walked away from the rocks until I reached a wide sandy area and
the sea surrounded me on three sides. Close to where the foam of the waves melted away I threw down my bag, which had grown heavier and heavier the longer I carried it. I stepped forward eagerly
until the seawater touched my feet. The vastness of the sea frightened me and I almost fainted in terror at how far away the water stretched. I extended my arms as though I were about to take off
and filled my lungs with the wind blowing across the waves. I was enchanted by the sensation of the sea around my ankles and the gentle tumbling of the waves as they broke at my feet.

The sea. It is the great water from which existence begins. Beyond this sea lie other lands, and beyond those a greater sea which surrounds the world. I can remember now that moment twenty years
ago. I can almost feel the spray touch my face and the awe that stopped me in my tracks on the shoreline, where I stood stiff as an ancient statue.

The smell of the sea was unfamiliar and the water salty. I longed to plunge into this vast ocean, as I used to swim in the Nile in the days of my childhood. I knew from books there were no
crocodiles in this sea, nor hippopotamuses, and no iguanas live on the banks of it, but I was wary of the dangers which this great sea might be hiding.

I looked in all directions and saw no one in the distance. I dipped my hands into the sea and rinsed my face in the salty water, and my anxiety abated. I stepped forward hesitantly until the
water reached my knees. I felt another sensation which I had not known before: there is no mud or ooze at the bottom of the sea, just the expanse of sand with the waves above, rolling in one after
another. The waves were buffeting me and stimulating senses which I had forgotten. I closed my eyes, yielding to the slapping of the waves, which was gentle and exciting. One wave almost knocked me
over and I laughed out loud in a way I had not heard myself laugh for many years, and would not hear for many years to come. I hurried back to the shoreline, put my bag next to a rock protruding
from the sand, threw my wretched gown on top of it and rushed into the water. My God, my heart beat in ecstasy at that moment.

Swimming in the sea is easy. The water lifts you up and the current does not pull you as the Nile would do in the days of my childhood. The water of the Nile is fresh and the bottom is muddy,
but this sea is salty and you can see right to the sandy bed. I was standing with the water up to my chest and touching my shoulders, yet I could still see my feet, the sand and the pieces of rock
resting on the bottom. If you go into the Nile you disturb the mud at the bottom and the water gets murky, and the murk could hide crocodiles. But the sea has no dangers to threaten swimmers and
spoil the pleasure of returning for a while to the primal water from which the world began.

Because the surface of the water buoyed me up without great effort on my part, I was able to look around at the sky and the horizon around me. Towards the west I saw big ships far off, and to
the east seagulls were flying along the beach. The seagulls were plentiful and it was wonderful to see them fly. I wonder if these are the birds that every year visit the Bird Mountain which the
man in the tent told me about.

On the surface of the water I was full of glee. On the glistening surface of the water tremors of inner warmth dispelled the chill within me and stilled the trembling in my limbs. When the sea
lifted me up, I felt like a baby emerging from an enormous womb. Strange sensations assailed me. I had an urge to touch and be touched and I felt the tingle of desire. Although I had never in my
life known a woman, and had never intended to do so, yet at that moment I thought of that pleasure and it came to my mind that the sea is a playful woman who gives pleasure to men who swim in her,
without making them answerable for any sin. The sea is a mercy from God to the deprived, glory be to You, most merciful of the merciful.

I abandoned myself to the clear water, lying on my back on the surface and stretching my arms out wide. I used to do that in my youth on the surface of the Nile, then I came to do it in my room
when I was alone, and it gave a sense of serenity. I would lie outstretched on the ground, spread my arms and float into heavens of my imagining. But when I did that in the sea of Alexandria, it
was different. The seawater buoyed me more than the Nile water did. I was lighter and the sunlight sparkled where my floating body met the surface of the waves. The light bounced off my naked body,
as the rays crisscrossed over my brown skin and bathed it in a strange radiance. It was the first time I had thought my body beautiful and my brownness pleasing. Unlike the river, the sea reveals
the wonders of divine creation in the universe and in our bodies.