Ibrahim Meguid - No One Sleeps in Alexandria

“The fish will go bad.”

“It’s cold and the fish is fresh.”

Zahra walked like a little child following her mother.

During the feast, Magd al-Din realized that he had lost his land and that he had to stay in Alexandria. As soon as his brother-in-law left, he felt he had to get out of the house. It was not enough to visit Bahi’s tomb and distribute alms. He had no work during the feast; none of the temporary workers had. He wished that Dimyan would visit him. On the morning of the last day of the feast, Dimyan did visit him, and just in time, as he was at his wit’s end. He did not know anywhere to go in Alexandria farther than the Mahmudiya canal and the tombs in Karmuz.

“How about giving your wife a chance to visit with the neighbors and coming with me?” Dimyan said as soon as he sat down, and Magd al-Din agreed without hesitation. He noticed that Dimyan was now wearing shoes, had been wearing a new pair for a week, and this time he had on clean woolen trousers and an old, but clean, wool jacket.

“We’ve been working for a month now,” Dimyan said to Magd al-Din. “1 bought new shoes in the hope that I’ll keep my job. But rolling those bales is hard work, Sheikh Magd, and I’m skinny.”

“You’ll get used to it, Dimyan. Hang in there until we find better work.”

“I also bought the shoes in the hope that I’ll find a better job, but I don’t know what kind of work is better than what we’re doing.”

Magd al-Din laughed quietly, then went out with his friend to take the streetcar. They walked through the hubbub of the children on Ban Street, with their bright new clothes and colorful bicycles, which they dragged with difficulty on the unpaved street, and through groups of children gathered around vendors of balloons, candy, and, despite the cold weather, ice cream.

At the streetcar roundabout at Sidi Karim, where the road was paved, there were more children and even greater noise. Magd al-Din and Dimyan got on the streetcar.

The parade of children was uninterrupted even by the streetcar, which was moving slowly. They looked like joyous, colorful little birds. Magd al-Din and Dimyan got off at Khedive Street, where most of the stores were closed. They turned into Station Square.

A military band in the middle of the park was playing the songs of Muhammad Abd al-Wahhab and Umm Kulthum, surrounded by crowds of children, young people, visitors from the countryside, and inhabitants of the city.

“Watch out for the thieves in the crowds,” Dimyan said to Magd al-Din, as they approached the audience. They stood there for a whole hour without feeling the passage of time. Magd al-Din had not thought that music could transport a man to such heights. They walked away in silence, as if they had just finished saying their prayers. The circle around a juggler enticed them to stop.

“Here thievery is very real. Half the people standing here are thieves the juggler knows,” said Dimyan.

“I have fifty piasters in my pocket. They can steal it if they like,” said Magd al-Din.

“You’re smart, Sheikh Magd. But I am smarter,” Dimyan replied with a smile. “I have nothing in my pocket.”

They burst out laughing and pressed into the circle.

In the middle was a man in his fifties wearing tight old trousers and a tight jacket under which he wore a white turtleneck. He had on a pair of cheap black shoes that were too big for him and had no laces. It looked as though he had never polished them. The shoes looked even bigger because his trouser legs were tight and slightly too short, and his legs were thin. The socks rested on top of the shoes.

“Look — it’s Charlie Chaplin’s shoes, and his mustache too,” Dimyan said excitedly. The man had Chaplin’s mustache, which was still black. Magd al-Din did not know who Charlie Chaplin was.

“Been to the movies yet?” asked Dimyan.

“No.”

“One of these days, I’ll take you to see one of Charlie Chaplin’s films.”

The juggler was explaining what he was about to do, the miracle that no magician in the world had done, not even the infidel Houdini. No one knew who this Houdini was. The juggler said that he would use a person as a water pump, and would make water come out of his mouth and nose. He motioned to a barefoot peasant with disheveled hair and a dirty gallabiya to approach, which he did. He told him to bend over and he did. When the peasant raised his head a little from his bent-over position, the juggler rebuked him, telling him not to do it again or he would obstruct the flow of the water: “The water doesn’t go up, jackass!” The audience laughed. The juggler stood right behind the peasant’s rear end and began to operate an imaginary pump with his hand, as everyone watched in silence. Suddenly the bent-over man spread open his hands under his mouth and water poured out on his palms. He got up, choking and coughing, as the juggler hit him hard on the back to help him breathe. The juggler then went cheerfully around the circle among the spectators, who were laughing in surprise. “Did you see this great act?” he proclaimed. “I challenge any magician, I challenge Hitler himself, that same Hitler who’ll teach the English to behave and who’ll do bad things to them, I mean—”

The audience laughed louder after he said the obscene word. He had a small tambourine in his hand that he used to collect the piasters and pennies that the spectators were giving him. The peasant who had taken part in the show had gone back to the audience. Then the juggler began to speak of another trick that he would perform. But Dimyan shouted to him to do the pump trick again. It seemed that the juggler did not hear him or that he ignored him, so Dimyan continued to shout, requesting that he do the trick again, and several others joined him.

The juggler stood with a confused look on his face. He had taken out some ribbons with different colors from a cloth bag on the ground, so he returned them to the bag and looked at Dimyan defiantly. “You want the pump? Okay, come on over.”

Dimyan had followed with his eyes the man who had taken part in the show and saw that he had moved away and disappeared. He let himself be led by the juggler, who said to the audience, “If no water comes out, it’s because he’s stuck up.”

The audience burst out laughing and Dimyan was annoyed. Some members of the audience kept shouting, reassuring him that water would come out. The juggler told him to bend over, using an obscene word, and Dimyan complied, realizing for a moment how wrong the whole thing was. He had wanted to embarrass the poor juggler in front of the people. But he was not as smart as the juggler, and perhaps the latter would make him the laughingstock. But he did not back down. He bent over, and the juggler moved back a little, pretending to examine the middle of Dimyan’s buttocks closely as the audience laughed. Then the juggler began turning his index finger in the air in front of Dimyan’s buttocks, and the audience laughed more. The juggler kept saying, “We’ve got to clean it out,” and each time, the audience laughed. Blood was now rising in Dimyan’s face, and Magd al-Din felt sorry for his friend for putting himself in such a situation.

“Here goes!” shouted the juggler and turned the imaginary-arm of the pump but no water came out of Dimyan’s mouth.

“Wait for the surprise,” the juggler went on. “No despair with life, in the immortal words of the great Saad Zaghloul!”

Then he backed down a little and kicked Dimyan in the buttocks as hard as he could, making him fall to the ground on his stomach, his face almost hitting the ground, had he not leaned on his arms.

The juggler stood back, saying to the audience, “His pump’s empty — it gave the jinn a hard time for nothing. That’s why I hit him in it.”