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The number of foreign soldiers in the city was on the rise. Some went to the desert and others to the beach for rest and recreation. The Italian school in Shatbi was set aside for Italian prisoners of war. As their numbers increased, they were held in a camp outside the city and in several camps outside Cairo. The land war had begun on the borders. The Allied forces began to wage offensive raids against the Italian forces in Libya, in addition to air raids. On June 14, four days after Italy declared war, the British and Commonwealth forces began to attack the Italian troops in Fort Capuzzo and Maddalena and took more than two hundred prisoners. On August 13, the Italian forces began their march against Egypt under instructions from II Duce himself. Intensive shelling began on the borders near Sallum, and when the dust settled and the smoke cleared, the Italian forces appeared, beautifully arrayed: in front were motorcyclists in formation, followed by light tanks and armored cars. The British changed their plan, and instead of retreating before the Italians, they poured ca
Early one morning, Zahra saw Camilla and Yvo
Magd al-Din had left for work a little earlier. He was the first to leave and, during those weeks that Khawaga Dimitri worked days, he would leave with him.
“Is school so wonderful, girls?”
“Of course, Zahra. Especially the first day, it’s like a holiday. We meet our classmates and teachers, and we talk about the vacation and the summer. The most beautiful thing in the world is the first day back to school, Zahra. After that, school is bad.”
They laughed like two little doves. And since Zahra could not go back in time and go to school and live in the city, she hoped to see Shawqiya, one day, as happy as they were. Yvo
The girls left for school. The cool morning breeze gave Zahra a feeling of heavenly happiness. She was not going back to sleep. She lay down next to her daughter on the bed, and looked up at the white wooden ceiling. Could Alexandria be so beautiful without her realizing it? Yesterday she had gone to Anfushi again with Sitt Maryam, for the first time in a long time. On the streetcar, people were looking healthier and happier than they had the last time she had gone, in spite of the ceaseless air raids. When she saw the statue of Muhammad Ali Pasha, she did not think of complaining to him. She was afraid that the air raids would demolish the statue and laughed at the idea that he might run away on his horse. She was truly surprised by the awesome apartment buildings with decorative balconies on both sides of Manshiya Square. Why had they not looked so majestic to her before? When the streetcar approached the end of Lisan Bahari on the coast, she began to hear the peaceful melody of the waves and smell the refreshing smell of the sea. When the streetcar emerged from the long cold street into the open air, Zahra saw the endless blue sea as its froth-capped waves gently caressed the beach. Along the coast, brown nets were stretched over a long distance with pieces of heavy, silvery lead holding them in place. Next to them were boats with furled sails and little rowboats, stopped or neglected on the sand. In the distance were huge gray ships with long and short ca
“Don’t be afraid, Zahra. Tirsa blood is very nourishing and fattening.”
“What’s tirsa?”
“It’s a sea turtle. The fishermen bring it in and they slaughter it, cut up its flesh, and sell it by the kilo. People also drink its blood — it’s the cheapest kind of sea food.”
Zahra saw the other kinds of fish that looked more splendid than what she’d seen on her last visit. She kept trying to remember their names and asked about the ones she did not know. She also noticed more kinds than before. She saw red shrimp; orange crabs; silver sea bream; speckled red snapper; white mullet; white and red grouper; silver sea bass; long, white swordfish; fish that looked like fat little white bananas; long, strong green eels; dark red mullet, dark gray, almost oval fish; fish that looked like sweet potatoes; and white and black and silvery-white sardines — all displayed on dozens of wooden tables with crowds of women around them. Sardines were a very cheap fish, now in season, and many women bought large quantities to salt and use during the winter. The day before, Zahra had bought crabs, shrimp, and eels, more than a kilo of every kind. She spent a whole half-pound note from the ten pounds that her mother had given her. She also bought five kilos of sardines to salt. What made her splurge so much when she knew that her husband’s salary was no more than three pounds a month? Undoubtedly it was the ten pounds that her mother had given her, but one more certain reason was that she had weaned her daughter the day before and she knew that one did not get pregnant while nursing — she knew that from her mother. Today she was going to become pregnant, she told herself. Her body shook and was shaking now, as she lay awake on the bed. Could a woman know that she was becoming pregnant as it was happening? Maybe. She felt that last night; she felt a little thing inside her attach itself to some other little thing. She felt an i