Umm Hamidu laughed loudly, saying as she shrugged her shoulders, “A dozen tangerines, darling, are free — and then some.”
He danced in front of her and held her hand and told her, “I want that ‘and then some’ in holy matrimony.”
She did not answer but bowed her head and closed her eyes. He fell upon her, embracing her head and kissing her as she sat there. Alarmed, she pushed him away, looking up and down the street.
This time she agreed to marry him. She did not believe that he would come back, and he did not believe that she had agreed. Rushdi realized that if Germany was defeated once, it could be defeated every time. He was certain that the war would soon be over, and that he would go to Paris. The public health office in Alexandria announced that there were only one hundred Egyptian births that week because of the flight of so many of the inhabitants, and only one birth among the foreigners for the same reason. Deaths among the Egyptian Alexandrians totaled fifty because of old age, different types of fever, dysentery, tetanus, and whooping cough; five foreigners died of drunkenness. There were no suicides, but the public health office registered five deaths among Alexandrians because of heart failure during sexual intercourse. The time for Magd al-Din’s discharge from the hospital drew near, and he and Zahra exchanged lengthy glances. He had come back to life, and Zahra’s face glowed like a rose. Each understood the feelings of the other.
“I am not staying in the village,” he said.
“I know.”
“Will you come with me?”
“Of course.”
They both fell silent. She saw that he was dejected, that a touch of sorrow shaded his face. “I don’t know what Alexandria will be like without Dimyan, or how I will be able to go back to work without him.”
He wiped away his tears. She did not want to dissuade him from going back to the city to which she had first gone against her will, and which she later left also against her will when she left him behind. This time she was going to go in contentment and happiness, even if she did not find the people as carefree and cheerful as they had been. The white city with a blue sea and a blue sky would revive the spirits of its people.
“This time we’ll leave early in the morning,” she said.
“Of course. Arriving in a city at night is hard,” he said.
Harbingers of winter had come in a hurry. It rained hard day and night for several days, but no one complained. Life did not come to a standstill, stores were not closed, and coffeehouses did not turn down the volume on their radios. It seemed to everyone that the sky was washing the city. The clouds were high and white, and that was a miracle. Where had all that rain come from? When black clouds settled over the city, the operator of the main power station in Karmuz forgot to turn the current to the street lights off during the day, so the city remained lit up day and night. People had removed the blue paint from the windows, storefronts, and car headlights. Everyone kept the lights on in the houses and in stores all day and all night long. Alexandria became a city of silver with veins of gold.