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Authors: Ibrahim Abdel Meguid
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of invalids had been established—and that it was run by a ministry whose purview was charity—mystified the people. And even though people were certain that Egypt would stay out of the war, talk of inflation began, and prices on the stock exchange declined. An era of prosperous trade with British army camps began.
Life went on as usual; the king and the ministers soon went back to Cairo. In Alexandria, the Muwasa hospital lottery was as popular as ever. People crowded in front of Cinema Cosmo to watch Charles Laughton and Maureen O’Hara in The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Orphanages were placed under the supervision of the ministry of social affairs, in agreement with the Alexandria city council. Biba Izz al-Din announced that she would be back at the Diana Theater in Alexandria performing the following summer. Al-Shatbi Casino hosted a group of Lebanese young ladies who performed the dabke dance at the annual party of the Maronite Charitable Society.
The east harbor filled with military and merchant marine ships. Camps were set up along the beach in Mustafa Kamil and Sidi Bishr, and late afternoons saw a promenade of horse-drawn carriages carrying soldiers and Alexandrian prostitutes—native as well as Greek, Jewish, Armenian—on the corniche. The soldiers of the Empire did not go far into the city; the women came to them. There were taverns everywhere, big and small, rich ones on the corniche and poor in the alleys of Bahari and Manshiya. They were filled with Australian, New Zealander, and Indian soldiers, who mixed with ship captains, sailors, stokers, and pimps who knew the dark, decaying, narrow ways to the crumbling houses with dislodged tiles and wooden roofs where rats lived. In the entrances of those houses, old, red-haired women sat smoking narghiles. They permitted the customers to enter after they had inspected the young Jewish, Armenian, and native girls, whose white flesh gleamed through their short, flimsy nightgowns. The scene, with variations, could be observed in many quarters: in the houses of Bahari, open to the harbor, or in those behind Tatwig Street, or in the houses of Attarin, hidden behind the stores and shops, or in the houses of Farahda and Bab al-Karasta or Kom al-Nadur—the hill built at one time by Cafirelli, Napoleon’s engineer, as a strong point in the city’s defenses.
Every morning, very early, Magd al-Din would see more than one streetcar stopping at Sidi Karim Square. People would get on thestreetcars and sit in silence, looking out the windows fogged with the dawn’s dew. Every morning, Magd al-Din could not help turning and looking at the police station at the end of the square and reading the sign over it: “Ghayt al-Aynab Police Precinct.” Why could he not stop doing that? He did not know.
Many did not take the streetcar, but walked up the little slope and across the bridge. A number of them stopped at the flour mill there, as some had stopped earlier in front of the flour mill on Ban street. Others continued on their way, a path now familiar to Magd al-Din, splitting along the banks of Mahmudiya Canal. From the south they went east to the Muharram Bey textile mill. From the north they went east and west to the ice or oil plants or the Ahliya textile mill in Karmuz. Later, Magd al-Din would often go west, and would work at the oil, soap, or fodder plants, or at the warehouses. He would even make it all the way to Mina al-Basal to work in the cotton ginneries. All of that would be later on. For now he knew nothing about the establishments in Kafr Ashri and Mina al-Basal. For now he was stuck between Raghib and Karmuz.
He did not like to stop at the two flour mills. What could he, a peasant, do in a flour mill? And what could he do anywhere? It must be that he just wanted to work somewhere away from home. He still insisted on going out wearing a new, clean gallabiya and the black patent-leather shoes that he always saved for special trips.
On the Mahmudiya canal he saw
Life went on as usual; the king and the ministers soon went back to Cairo. In Alexandria, the Muwasa hospital lottery was as popular as ever. People crowded in front of Cinema Cosmo to watch Charles Laughton and Maureen O’Hara in The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Orphanages were placed under the supervision of the ministry of social affairs, in agreement with the Alexandria city council. Biba Izz al-Din announced that she would be back at the Diana Theater in Alexandria performing the following summer. Al-Shatbi Casino hosted a group of Lebanese young ladies who performed the dabke dance at the annual party of the Maronite Charitable Society.
The east harbor filled with military and merchant marine ships. Camps were set up along the beach in Mustafa Kamil and Sidi Bishr, and late afternoons saw a promenade of horse-drawn carriages carrying soldiers and Alexandrian prostitutes—native as well as Greek, Jewish, Armenian—on the corniche. The soldiers of the Empire did not go far into the city; the women came to them. There were taverns everywhere, big and small, rich ones on the corniche and poor in the alleys of Bahari and Manshiya. They were filled with Australian, New Zealander, and Indian soldiers, who mixed with ship captains, sailors, stokers, and pimps who knew the dark, decaying, narrow ways to the crumbling houses with dislodged tiles and wooden roofs where rats lived. In the entrances of those houses, old, red-haired women sat smoking narghiles. They permitted the customers to enter after they had inspected the young Jewish, Armenian, and native girls, whose white flesh gleamed through their short, flimsy nightgowns. The scene, with variations, could be observed in many quarters: in the houses of Bahari, open to the harbor, or in those behind Tatwig Street, or in the houses of Attarin, hidden behind the stores and shops, or in the houses of Farahda and Bab al-Karasta or Kom al-Nadur—the hill built at one time by Cafirelli, Napoleon’s engineer, as a strong point in the city’s defenses.
Every morning, very early, Magd al-Din would see more than one streetcar stopping at Sidi Karim Square. People would get on thestreetcars and sit in silence, looking out the windows fogged with the dawn’s dew. Every morning, Magd al-Din could not help turning and looking at the police station at the end of the square and reading the sign over it: “Ghayt al-Aynab Police Precinct.” Why could he not stop doing that? He did not know.
Many did not take the streetcar, but walked up the little slope and across the bridge. A number of them stopped at the flour mill there, as some had stopped earlier in front of the flour mill on Ban street. Others continued on their way, a path now familiar to Magd al-Din, splitting along the banks of Mahmudiya Canal. From the south they went east to the Muharram Bey textile mill. From the north they went east and west to the ice or oil plants or the Ahliya textile mill in Karmuz. Later, Magd al-Din would often go west, and would work at the oil, soap, or fodder plants, or at the warehouses. He would even make it all the way to Mina al-Basal to work in the cotton ginneries. All of that would be later on. For now he knew nothing about the establishments in Kafr Ashri and Mina al-Basal. For now he was stuck between Raghib and Karmuz.
He did not like to stop at the two flour mills. What could he, a peasant, do in a flour mill? And what could he do anywhere? It must be that he just wanted to work somewhere away from home. He still insisted on going out wearing a new, clean gallabiya and the black patent-leather shoes that he always saved for special trips.
On the Mahmudiya canal he saw
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