Ibrahim Meguid - No One Sleeps in Alexandria

Lunch break is from noon to 2 p.m. Workers who live in the Railroad Authority housing one mile away usually go home for lunch and a short rest, then come back to work. On many days Magd al-Din opted not go home for lunch even though his house was closer to work than those of his co-workers. As a peasant he was used to eating his lunch in the field. Now he was bringing lunch with him most days and staying alone at the post, whose location and wooden walls made it a comfortable place to rest in both summer and winter. The two hours gave him a chance to read from the little Quran that never left the vest pocket next to his heart. He would also nap for a few minutes, sometimes half an hour, on the long, low bench. At first, Dimyan did not like to stay during lunch break. Like most workers he liked to have lunch and relax at home. But he found the trip without Magd al-Din more tedious than it already was. So he decided to stay with him, lunching and relaxing and talking, but not for long, because of Magd al-Din’s Quran reading.

The post smelled of dust and tea. The dust of the floor was moist, since there were no windows or openings except for the open door and the narrow gaps between the planks that made up the walls. And since the structure was more than fifty meters square, it seemed that the light pouring from the open door or the thin rays of light breaking through the gaps in the walls were not enough to dispel the humidity. As for the tea, they never really stopped making it, from when they first arrived in the morning to when they came back in the afternoon and during their breaks. They made it on a wood-burning stove outside the post, then drank it and poured whatever tea and leaves were left on the floor next to where they sat, for the soil to absorb it at its own pace. Today Dimyan, who was sitting facing Magd al-Din, said, “What’s to be done, Sheikh Magd al-Din?”

“About what, Dimyan?”

“About this damned job of ours — it’s breaking my back.”

“You’re complaining now, Dimyan, after we’ve gotten used to it?”

“The three pounds’ salary we get is hardly enough, with this inflation.”

“But it’s better than nothing, or spending time in the police station lockup,” said Magd al-Din. He was responding to Dimyan in a perfunctory manner, for they had had this conversation many times before. Magd al-Din reached into his vest pocket and took out the little Quran, then leaned back against the wall, extended his legs, opened the Quran, and began reading.

“Listen to me!” Dimyan said. “Every time I talk to you, you open the Quran and begin to read. Don’t you read enough at home? At this rate, you’ll make me bring the Bible and read it every time you speak to me.”

Magd al-Din started laughing at Dimyan’s exasperation and the way he talked. He also laughed because of what Dimyan had said about reading the Bible, when he was actually illiterate. When he had started the job, there was a condition that he learn how to read and write within a year. Now it was four months later, and he had begun to go to school only a week ago.

After he stopped laughing, he closed the Quran and asked, “What do you want from me, Dimyan?”

“I’m dying to know the real story of the man sitting at the Raven. Every time I pass by him, he just gives me this strange look. Am I the one who told the birds not to come to the tree? It seems like he wants to kill me.”

“He looks at me the same way too.”

“He must want to kill us both, Sheikh Magd.”

Magd al-Din thought for a little while then said, “Leave creation to the Creator, Dimyan.”

They were both silent for a long time. Then Magd al-Din read a few pages from the Quran, and he spoke aloud as he finished the Sura of the Believers. “He will say: ‘How many years did you stay on earth?’ They will say: ‘We stayed a day or a part of a day, ask those who keep count. ‘ He will say:’ You stayed only a while, if only you knew. Did you think that We had created you for naught and that you would not be returned unto Us? Therefore exalted be God, the King, the Truth! There is no God but He, the Lord of the Throne of Grace! He who invokes any other god besides God has no proof thereof His reckoning will only be with his Lord. And verily the unbelievers will not be successful. So say: ‘My Lord, grant your forgiveness and mercy for You are the best of all who show mercy. ’”

Under his breath, Dimyan said, “Kyrie eleison, Kyrie eleison, Kyrie eleison.” Then he asked,” Why is it, Sheikh Magd, that every time I get into a conversation with you, you say, ‘Leave the creation to the Creator’? For starters, I don’t have anything to leave to Him.”

Magd al-Din laughed, and Dimyan continued, “And you don’t either, Sheikh Magd. Do you know what I’m thinking now?”

“No, I don’t.”

“This open door, if somebody were to come and lock it, with us inside, in this godforsaken place — would anyone know? This could happen while we’re napping after lunch. Somebody comes, locks the door, and leaves. Then nobody comes in here or passes by. So, we die. Sheikh Magd, you’ve done something serious in the village, and you’ve managed to escape. You’re very complacent, you accept whatever might happen. It’s as if you want to die.”

Magd al-Din was quite surprised by this strange talk from his friend. He felt sadness well up in his chest and into his eyes, and he would have cried, had it not been for a shrill train whistle, which made Dimyan jump up and go out to look. Magd al-Din waited for his return. When he did, he said, “An endless train, Sheikh Magd, filled with Africans. The caboose is black and so are the soldiers — everything is black except the cars, which were white to start with, but they’re gray now.”

Magd al-Din got up and went out with Dimyan and indeed saw a very long train with dozens of black faces with broad, flat noses. Dimyan said in a soft voice as if thinking aloud, “The whole world is with the English. Hitler will never win the war.”

The train had stopped for a short time to get water at the Raven, then moved slowly again, down the middle of the complex network of tracks in front of the post, where there were several switches. The train was so slow that any soldier, or anyone else for that matter, could have jumped off and then on again.

“They have tails, Sheikh Magd. If one of them got off the train, you’d see the tail poking out of his shorts.”

Magd al-Din laughed and waved to the soldiers, who were waving to him from the windows of the train and making the “V” sign that Churchill had invented and that had become famous all over the world. One of them appeared at the door of one of the cars carrying a small cardboard box and gesturing to Magd al-Din and Dimyan.

“You run, Sheikh Magd, and get the box. I’d die if I saw the tail.”

Magd al-Din laughed and ran up to the train and reached his hand to catch the box that the smiling soldier handed down. Magd al-Din hesitated for a moment, because the soldier had descended a step and held the box in one hand and with the other held on to the shining metal bar of the car door. It would have been easy for Magd al-Din to look at the soldier’s bare legs under the shorts and to see if he had a tail or not. But he did not look but rather focused on the box and on the black hand holding it, which seemed even blacker when he reached out his white hand to take the box. What frightened him, however, was a strange idea that occurred to him as he reached his hand to take the box: what would prevent the soldier from grabbing his arm and pulling him onto the car, which would take him with the soldiers to the battlefields? Bahi had been grabbed from the road during the earlier war. He could very easily be kidnapped too, even though the corvée system had been abolished. Nothing saved him from his thoughts and fear except feeling that the box was light.