Read Online No One Sleeps in Alexandria by Ibrahim Abdel Meguid - Free Book Online
Authors: Ibrahim Abdel Meguid
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land in Raml.
They bought the land and built palaces and magnificent mansions. On the small lakes to the south and east of the city, villages sprang up in Raml, Siyuf, Mandara, and Hadra. Eventually they eroded, becoming urban neighborhoods crowded with the poor who arrived from north and south.
The city kept expanding; the foreign strangers occupied the north, and the poor occupied the south. When the Raml streetcar line was established, development continued to the east and north. The railroad between Raml and Cairo became an easy route for the lost and the fortune seekers from the Delta and Upper Egypt.
Among the foreigners were hundreds and thousands of adventurers, who came to the cosmopolitan city and made it a virtual tower of Babel. Among the Egyptians were thousands of castaways, like Magd al-Din, who preceded and would follow him.
The north of the city was no longer enough for the foreigners, so the poorest of them—Greeks, Jews, Italians, and Cypriots— moved to some of the poorer neighborhoods, such as Attarin and Labban. They moved closer to and mixed with the Egyptians, who lived in the south of the city. Magd al-Din had arrived in an Alexandria that was on top of the world. In addition to the European residents, there were soldiers from Europe and all the Commonwealth—and he, the expelled peasant.
Magd al-Din was still going out every day to look for work in a world that was boiling on top of a volcano. Two days after the German invasion of Poland, Britain declared war on Germany, and a war cabinet was formed. Churchill became first lord of the admiralty. France also declared war on Germany. Young King Farouk, not yet twenty, was still moving between the Ras al-Tin and Muntaza palaces. The ministers were still in their summer headquarters in Bulkely. A reader of the newspaper al-Ahram sentan appeal to the king and the ministers to go to Cairo, because state officials, from undersecretaries to the lowliest employees in government departments, could not make any decisions. As a result, business had come to a standstill at “a difficult time,” as he put it.
In Alexandria, the German ambassador presented the prime minister, Ali Mahir Pasha, with a letter declaring that Germany wished Egypt well. A state of emergency was declared throughout Egypt. Police and security forces were deployed all over Alexandria, perhaps also because Queen Farida celebrated her birthday on 5 September at the Ras al-Tin palace, at which high-ranking statesmen converged. Leaflets and posters in French and Arabic declaring a state of emergency were distributed everywhere. News came of continued tensions and skirmishes between Arabs and Jews in Palestine, after the police were able to arrest a thousand of the twelve hundred Jews who had arrived secretly on the coast by ship. The prime minister of Egypt announced that Italy’s neutrality kept the danger away from Egypt, whereupon the Italian minister plenipotentiary affirmed his government’s friendship with Egypt and its people. People were divided: some supported Egypt’s entering the war on the side of England, and others opposed that; some supported England and its ally, France; and others supported Germany and its sly fox, Hitler. The Egyptian government declared that Egypt would fulfill its obligations to England under the 1936 treaty, but that its army would not take pan in the war. That did not prevent the king from issuing a royal decree to form the new Territorial Army, commanded by Abd al-Rahman Bey Azzam, minister of religious endowments. That army was charged with safeguarding public establishments in peacetime and in war, supplying the regular army with provisions and equipment in war, and joining it in battle if the need arose. The decree establishing that army, the commander in chief of which was the king, stipulated that it would be composed of those who had reached conscription age but had not been accepted because of a physical defect or illness. That an army
They bought the land and built palaces and magnificent mansions. On the small lakes to the south and east of the city, villages sprang up in Raml, Siyuf, Mandara, and Hadra. Eventually they eroded, becoming urban neighborhoods crowded with the poor who arrived from north and south.
The city kept expanding; the foreign strangers occupied the north, and the poor occupied the south. When the Raml streetcar line was established, development continued to the east and north. The railroad between Raml and Cairo became an easy route for the lost and the fortune seekers from the Delta and Upper Egypt.
Among the foreigners were hundreds and thousands of adventurers, who came to the cosmopolitan city and made it a virtual tower of Babel. Among the Egyptians were thousands of castaways, like Magd al-Din, who preceded and would follow him.
The north of the city was no longer enough for the foreigners, so the poorest of them—Greeks, Jews, Italians, and Cypriots— moved to some of the poorer neighborhoods, such as Attarin and Labban. They moved closer to and mixed with the Egyptians, who lived in the south of the city. Magd al-Din had arrived in an Alexandria that was on top of the world. In addition to the European residents, there were soldiers from Europe and all the Commonwealth—and he, the expelled peasant.
Magd al-Din was still going out every day to look for work in a world that was boiling on top of a volcano. Two days after the German invasion of Poland, Britain declared war on Germany, and a war cabinet was formed. Churchill became first lord of the admiralty. France also declared war on Germany. Young King Farouk, not yet twenty, was still moving between the Ras al-Tin and Muntaza palaces. The ministers were still in their summer headquarters in Bulkely. A reader of the newspaper al-Ahram sentan appeal to the king and the ministers to go to Cairo, because state officials, from undersecretaries to the lowliest employees in government departments, could not make any decisions. As a result, business had come to a standstill at “a difficult time,” as he put it.
In Alexandria, the German ambassador presented the prime minister, Ali Mahir Pasha, with a letter declaring that Germany wished Egypt well. A state of emergency was declared throughout Egypt. Police and security forces were deployed all over Alexandria, perhaps also because Queen Farida celebrated her birthday on 5 September at the Ras al-Tin palace, at which high-ranking statesmen converged. Leaflets and posters in French and Arabic declaring a state of emergency were distributed everywhere. News came of continued tensions and skirmishes between Arabs and Jews in Palestine, after the police were able to arrest a thousand of the twelve hundred Jews who had arrived secretly on the coast by ship. The prime minister of Egypt announced that Italy’s neutrality kept the danger away from Egypt, whereupon the Italian minister plenipotentiary affirmed his government’s friendship with Egypt and its people. People were divided: some supported Egypt’s entering the war on the side of England, and others opposed that; some supported England and its ally, France; and others supported Germany and its sly fox, Hitler. The Egyptian government declared that Egypt would fulfill its obligations to England under the 1936 treaty, but that its army would not take pan in the war. That did not prevent the king from issuing a royal decree to form the new Territorial Army, commanded by Abd al-Rahman Bey Azzam, minister of religious endowments. That army was charged with safeguarding public establishments in peacetime and in war, supplying the regular army with provisions and equipment in war, and joining it in battle if the need arose. The decree establishing that army, the commander in chief of which was the king, stipulated that it would be composed of those who had reached conscription age but had not been accepted because of a physical defect or illness. That an army
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