Nael Eltoukhy - Women of Karantina

Umm Salah took a pull on the pipe, passed it to Lara, and began to tell her tale. This all took place a long time ago. In those days, it was easy for any man who wanted to sleep with a girl to do so, anywhere in Alexandria. Everyone was at it. There were locations known to those who wanted to pick a girl and pluck her. Your grandmother made a living out of it. Don’t get upset with me, my girl: everyone was doing it. It was perfectly normal, you see, and no one minded. People thought of it as a creature comfort, a way to let your hair down, you might say.

Lara didn’t feel insulted. She had heard this piece of information, with differing degrees of frankness, from a multitude of sources. The point is that Nadia and Itemad were working for Inshi. They weren’t beauties, but with the right clothes and the right makeup they could look the part, and they appealed to certain types of young men — old ones too. Middle class and lower; a very important category of customer for Inshi, who wasn’t concerned with the richest so much as with the neediest. But even such lofty principles as these were powerless before the demands of the market. Nadia and Itemad’s want of beauty was the direct cause of their coming off the game and devoting their efforts to pulling the customers in, to laying out the advantages their casino had over the others, as well as recruiting the right kind of girl to come and work there.

Nadia and Itemad were sisters, vegetable sellers from Zananiri, Umm Salah said. They started working for Ali and Inji when they were still young, in about 2015. Inji met them at the market. She took their phone numbers and gave them a call the following day. Invited them over for tea. She inquired after their circumstances and offered them a job with her. They thought about it for a bit. Both were married, and Itemad had a little girl. But times were very hard.

We women have to think very hard before taking a step like that, my girl. The way I see it, if a woman’s married with kids she’s better off staying at home. Take me, for instance. I got married, had my children, and told myself I’d never go on the game. When I was younger everything was fine and dandy. These days, not so much. But I’m ahead of myself. I wanted to say that people aren’t all alike. These two gave it a lot of thought and they asked around and took advice. Lots of folk told them not to, but there were some who encouraged them. There were whores everywhere back then. It was so you couldn’t tell who was a whore and who was a God-fearing woman.

With the encouragement of the encouraging few, Itemad began working at the Karantina Casino, while Nadia turned it down. Naturally, Itemad didn’t inform her husband of her decision. She told him she’d met a nice lady who taught the Quran at the mosque and that she went to visit her every day. And this was her cover. A year passed, then two, then three, and Itemad bought herself a car on deposit, upgraded from Cleopatras to Marlboros, and kitted out her apartment from top to bottom. And Nadia was watching all of this, the envy eating her alive. She dropped in to see her sister, who lived in the apartment above hers in Seven Girls Street in Labban, and looked on as, in front of both her sister and her husband, she applied her makeup, slipped into a tank top with built-in support and a miniskirt that showed off her thighs, then draped a long black robe over the lot. At this point she became convinced that her sister’s husband had found out the truth. She went home and spoke to her husband about her sister’s life, about the new furniture and the way she spoke, which had changed considerably. She told him that God had certainly heard her prayers. She paused for a long time, then said that her sister was working for Inji. She was a waitress, she said: she fetched the customers their orders. But her husband wasn’t taken in. He knew who Inji was, who Ali was. He was silent. He said, And you’re not thinking of going to work for them as well? She confessed that she was, and he confessed that he was fine with it.

Umm Salah emphasized her point: Everyone was doing it. It was perfectly normal. People thought of it as letting your hair down, you might say. She warmed a lump of hash, pressed it down into a cigarette, slid the cigarette into a sealed cup, and continued with her tale:

Itemad and Nadia pulled in the young men of Karmouz, and as time went on Inji came to rely on them more than ever before. The product sold and both women learned the secrets of the trade. They learned where the penniless customers could be found and where the rich johns gathered and they focused their attentions on the latter, though the latter, sadly, were in short supply in Karmouz. There wasn’t much cash for their sweat. They spoke to Inji about it and she smiled and said that what was true for them was true for her, her husband, and her son. She took no more than they. This is our trade, people, and this is what we make. Our customers are just getting by. Itemad and Nadia were happy with this explanation, but the demands of home life were many and people are forced by circumstance to do things they would rather not.

Umm Salah was meandering from the hash. As she talked she would hand the cup to Lara, pause as she held the smoke in, squeeze her eyes tight shut, then give a cough or two and go on talking. And Lara was listening, remembering things she’d heard as a child, so long ago, about two women called Nadia and Itemad. She’d never known who they were or what their story was, and now all the stories were being freed from Pandora’s box.

Itemad and Nadia fought with your grandmother. A real blowup. They didn’t like what they saw: they thought their sweat was stocking her larder. They told her to her face: You’re a thief. We’re giving everything we’ve got and all we get from you is crumbs. And your grandmother was one tough old woman. She didn’t let a word go to waste. Truth be told she was straight as a die; she didn’t stand for any messing about. Fine, she tells them. Find yourself work elsewhere. I raise you, I teach you, and you want to take off and leave me. Fine by me. I won’t beat around the bush. Good riddance.

Nadia and Itemad started working out of their building in Labban. The customers were better there. They joined their two apartments together, knocked through the ceiling that separated them, and installed a flight of stairs. In just a few months their home was reeling in the men of the neighborhood, and when the burden became too much for them to bear they had to recruit. It was their two husbands who took on this role, first of all because their wives were swamped as it was, but also because of their expressed unhappiness with the way the building’s residents were looking at their women. They were quite firm on this point. Over a stormy supper they both agreed that they were not going to stand for their wives being subjected to the mudslinging of any worthless bastard. And there was a third reason, which both husbands were well aware of, but which neither stated openly. They were convinced the place would do better with other women, more attractive than their wives. They hung a sign on the building, advertising The Freedom Casino within, then the two men began searching for women and customers, first in West Alexandria, which they knew best, then in the East.

Everything went swimmingly, my girl. People were content and no one asked about a thing. There were a few that gave them trouble, but that’s how it goes. When you live in a building, my dear, you’ve the right to ask who’s coming and going. But no one ever said a word. Or at least, a word might be said, but just a word and never harshly spoken, and then everything would be back to normal. But then there’s greed, Lara. Greed’s the worst thing in the world, my girl. I want you and your sister to keep your eyes peeled for greed. It never brings anything good.