No One Sleeps in Alexandria (53 page)

On the third day of the battle, Rommel arrived at the front, cutting short his medical leave. On the fifth day Monty decided to launch his main offensive, which he dubbed ‘Excess Baggage.’ Rommel wrote to his wife, “There’s still a chance today. Perhaps we can still stand fast, but we might not, and that could have dire consequences for the whole war.”

Rommel decided to retreat to Fuka, sixty miles to the west. Monty postponed “Excess Baggage” until the second of November. Hitler issued orders to stay and fight, but it was no use. The Axis army was exhausted, and the whole matter was already out of Rommel’s hands. The Fifth Indian Brigade had launched a lightning attack five miles south of Tall al-Aqaqir, after which the way was open for the armored corps to pursue the Axis in the desert. The jubilant fakir boy soldiers, followers of Ghandi, Nehru, and Muhammad Ali Jinnah, were now on top of their armored vehicles pursuing an army that only yesterday had been
an invincible legend. It was now an army in disarray scattered in the vast desert, beyond the minefields that the Indians had managed to penetrate. Rommel began his quick and total withdrawal. He did not have sufficient means of transportation, and suffered a fuel shortage. There was chaos in the ranks, and the Germans took their vehicles and ran away, leaving behind six Italian divisions, lost in the desert without food or water, their only option to be taken prisoner. The Allies could have turned the defeat into a major killing field, but the rain was Rommel’s ally. It began falling suddenly, and hard, and the Allies were stalled until Rommel left the Egyptian borders. The desert was now a graveyard for wrecked and burned tanks, cars on fire, cars totally burned out, corpses both complete and disfigured, helmets with heads with open eyes, shoes with feet, arms with no bodies attached, legs, burned uniforms. The smell of burned flesh was all over the desert. Scorpions and snakes came out, and blue flies appeared after the rain. Kites and old vultures flew overhead. The smell of death filled the air.

Rommel wrote his wife, “Our neighbor has simply crushed us. I made an attempt to save part of the army. Will my attempt succeed? At night I lie down, my eyes wide open, racking my brain trying to find a way out of this ordeal for my poor soldiers. we are facing difficult days, the hardest that can happen to anyone. The dead are lucky, it is all over for them.”

Churchill ordered that the church bells in London be rung for the first time since the outbreak of the war, and peals were heard all over London and other English cities, and people took to the streets in jubilation. There was jubilation in Alexandria, too. The streets were lit up for the first time in three years. The lights, which were turned on suddenly before midnight, turned the city into an immeasurable mass of amber. The blue paint covering the tall lamppost fixtures had vanished with the passage of time, and the weather conditions changed, giving the city a new, endless phosphorescent ceiling. Those out on the street shouted in jubilation, and those indoors came out to admire the pearls and
diamonds newly studding the night sky. How could it have been possible for Alexandria to remain darkened for so long? Owners of closed stores came out and opened them in the middle of the night. Men went out to coffeehouses that decided to stay open until the morning. Women let loose ululations of joy from the windows of their homes, and children were allowed to play in the streets despite the chill in the air. It seemed everyone had agreed to stay up till morning. Music played on at the Monsignor, the Louvre, and the Windsor nightclubs. Soldiers exchanged kisses with ATS women on the streets. Whiskey and champagne flowed in the posh brothels, now roaring with laughter, and so did rum, brandy, and arak in the poorer brothels, which were suddenly bustling with business again. It was as if everyone, the whores and the pleasure-seekers alike, was just around the corner, waiting for the lights to come back on. Horse-drawn carriages carrying lovers galloped along the corniche, as the sound of the waves became more regular because of the light wind. The destroyers and military ships turned their lights on and started shooting fireworks over the city. Thousands of people went up to the roofs and released balloons into the sky. Cannons started to discharge, and for a moment people were scared, but they soon realized that they were shots of celebration. On the corniche a man who saw the sky lit up with phosphorescent missiles and the surf rising, shouted, “Dance, Alexandria, dance—Hitler had no chance.” Another man heard him and repeated what he had said. The words spread throughout the city, then became a song. People kept talking and telling stories, which everyone knew, about the days of the war, which had ended only the day before. The city administration decided to have decorations everywhere, and the streetcar company decided to give everyone free rides for several days. Celebrations were held at schools. Refugees began to return in droves. Army and police bands played their music in the streets and the squares. The autumn sun rose gently, filling the city with a white glow. Hamidu was released. He had been arrested again, despite what he had written on the walls. As usual his mother celebrated, and he stood there laughing amongst the happy well-wishers. Ghaffara took off his fez, deciding never to wear it again. He was surprised that after losing the glass part, he had also lost
the filter, and realized that he had been breathing regular, unfiltered air. He could not figure out how he had not noticed the loss of the heavy filter. Anyway, he laughed and reattached the wooden side panels to his cart, writing on them, “Sawdust cart. Capacity: four tons. Will deliver all over the country,” and got ready to go back to his old job. Khawaga Dimitri reappeared in front of his house with some workers, who immediately started removing the rubble in preparation for rebuilding the house. The Territorial Army soldier who used to buy tangerines from Umm Hamidu reappeared. She saw him standing over her head, laughing, shaking his head and saving, “Oh tangerine vendor, tell me how much for a dozen.”

Umm Hamidu laughed loudly, saying as she shrugged her shoulders, “A dozen tangerines, darling, are free—and then some.”

He danced in front of her and held her hand and told her, “I want that ‘and then some’ in holy matrimony.”

She did not answer but bowed her head and closed her eyes. He fell upon her, embracing her head and kissing her as she sat there. Alarmed, she pushed him away, looking up and down the street.

This time she agreed to marry him. She did not believe that he would come back, and he did not believe that she had agreed. Rushdi realized that if Germany was defeated once, it could be defeated every time. He was certain that the war would soon be over, and that he would go to Paris. The public health office in Alexandria announced that there were only one hundred Egyptian births that week because of the flight of so many of the inhabitants, and only one birth among the foreigners for the same reason. Deaths among the Egyptian Alexandrians totaled fifty because of old age, different types of fever, dysentery, tetanus, and whooping cough; five foreigners died of drunkenness. There were no suicides, but the public health office registered five deaths among Alexandrians because of heart failure during sexual intercourse. The time for Magd al-Din’s discharge from the hospital drew near, and he and Zahra exchanged lengthy glances. He had come back to life, and Zahra’s face glowed like a rose. Each understood the feelings of the other.

“I am not staying in the village,” he said.

“I know.”

“Will you come with me?”

“Of course.”

They both fell silent. She saw that he was dejected, that a touch of sorrow shaded his face. “I don’t know what Alexandria will be like without Dimyan, or how I will be able to go back to work without him.”

He wiped away his tears. She did not want to dissuade him from going back to the city to which she had first gone against her will, and which she later left also against her will when she left him behind. This time she was going to go in contentment and happiness, even if she did not find the people as carefree and cheerful as they had been. The white city with a blue sea and a blue sky would revive the spirits of its people.

“This time we’ll leave early in the morning,” she said.

“Of course. Arriving in a city at night is hard,” he said.

Harbingers of winter had come in a hurry. It rained hard day and night for several days, but no one complained. Life did not come to a standstill, stores were not closed, and coffeehouses did not turn down the volume on their radios. It seemed to everyone that the sky was washing the city. The clouds were high and white, and that was a miracle. Where had all that rain come from? When black clouds settled over the city, the operator of the main power station in Karmuz forgot to turn the current to the street lights off during the day, so the city remained lit up day and night. People had removed the blue paint from the windows, storefronts, and car headlights. Everyone kept the lights on in the houses and in stores all day and all night long. Alexandria became a city of silver with veins of gold.

Modern Arabic Literature

from the American University in Cairo Press

Ibrahim Abdel Meguid
Birds of Amber • Distant Train

No One Sleeps in Alexandria • The Other Place

Yahya Taher Abdullah
The Collar and the Bracelet

The Mountain of Green Tea

Leila Abouzeid
The Last Chapter

Hamdi Abu Golayyel
Thieves in Retirement

Yusuf Abu Rayya
Wedding Night

Ahmed Alaidy
Being Abbas el Abd

Idris Ali
Dongola: A Novel of Nubia • Poor

Ibrahim Aslan
The Heron • Nile Sparrows

Alaa Al Aswany
Chicago • Friendly Fire • The Yacoubian Building

Fadhil al-Azzawi
Cell Block Five • The Last of the Angels

Hala El Badry
A Certain Woman • Muntaha

Salwa Bakr
The Golden Chariot •The Man from Bashmour

The Wiles of Men

Halim Barakat
The Crane

Hoda Barakat
Disciples of Passion • The Tiller of Waters

Mourid Barghouti
I Saw Ramallah

Mohamed El-Bisatie
Clamor of the Lake • Houses Behind the Trees • Hunger

A Last Glass of Tea • Over the Bridge

Mansoura Ez Eldin
Maryam’s Maze

Ibrahim Farghali
The Smiles of the Saints

Hamdy el-Gazzar
Black Magic

Tawfiq al-Hakim
The Essential Tawfiq al-Hakim

Abdelilah Hamdouchi
The Final Bet

Fathy Ghanem
The Man Who Lost His Shadow

Randa Ghazy
Dreaming of Palestine

Gamal al-Ghitani
Pyramid Texts • Zayni Barakat

Yahya Hakki
The Lamp of Umm Hashim

Bensalem Himmich
The Polymath • The Theocrat

Taha Hussein
The Days • A Man of Letters • The Sufferers

Sonallah Ibrahim
Cairo: From Edge to Edge • The Committee • Zaat

Yusuf Idris
City of Love and Ashes

Denys Johnson-Davies
The AUC Press Book of Modern Arabic Literature

Under the Naked Sky: Short Stories from the Arab World

Said al-Kafrawi
The Hill of Gypsies

Sahar Khalifeh
The End of Spring

The Image, the Icon, and the Covenant • The Inheritance

Edwar al-Kharrat
Rama and the Dragon • Stones of Bobello

Betool Khedairi
Absent

Mohammed Khudayyir
Basrayatha: Portrait of a City

Ibrahim al-Koni
Anubis • Gold Dust

Naguib Mahfouz
Adrift on the Nile • Akhenaten: Dweller in Truth

Arabian Nights and Days • Autumn Quail • The Beggar

The Beginning and the End • Cairo Modern

The Cairo Trilogy: Palace Walk, Palace of Desire. Sugar Street

Children of the Alley • The Day the Leader Was Killed

The Dreams • Dreams of Departure • Echoes of an Autobiography

The Harafish • The Journey of Ibn Fattouma

Karnak Café •Khufu’s Wisdom • Life’s Wisdom • Midaq Alley • Miramar