He said to himself: If she hates the idea I’ll go alone. But as usual she obeyed him. She began packing suitcases. A spark of doubt shot out from his belly and he examined his surroundings for a while. The airplane will probably burst into flames. I know how these things work! he said to himself. But the airplane did not burst into flames. Nor did his misgivings abate.
Amr Aziz Yazid al-Misri
He was born and grew up in the house in al-Ghuriya with Rashwana and Surur. He took the essence of the quarter into his heart, lovingly and eagerly, thus Egyptian peasant traditions swaggered in his soul and his sleeves exuded their spirit and religion. He was probably the dearest of the three to Aziz and Ni‘ma, as he resembled his father in his well-proportioned body, wheat-colored skin, and wide clear eyes. He was the sensible one, steering and checking Surur and Rashwana as they played and wandered between Bab al-Mutawalli and the fountain of Bayn al-Qasrayn. Later he became known for his wisdom and was consulted on all kinds of matters. He enjoyed a similar status among his uncles, Mahmud and Ahmad, and his cousin Abd al-Azim. He faithfully performed his religious duties from childhood and played the role of policeman in Surur’s frequent outbursts. He entered Qur’an school, memorized what he could from the Holy Qur’an, and learned the principles of reading and writing. At the age of twelve he started primary school and, after much strain and effort, obtained the primary school certificate. With Dawud Pasha’s help he was appointed a bookkeeper in the ministry of education.
He always earned the respect of his superiors and colleagues. He enriched his life with friendships, enlightened it reading the Qur’an and writings of the saints, and varied his sphere of activity through generosity that exuded love of religion and the world. Thus, he attended Sufi gatherings in al-Sanadiqiya, listened to al-Hamuli at weddings, and met his good friends at the Misri Club. He was peaceful by nature, achieving through clemency what could not be achieved through force or anger. The moment his father pronounced marriage a good idea he gave it the welcome of a robust and pious young man. The choice fell on Radia, the eldest daughter of his father’s friend Shaykh Mu‘awiya. She was wedded to him in a newly built house on Bayt al-Qadi Square. It was the beginning of a successful and prosperous marriage. Radia was his opposite. She was nervous and stubborn and her mysteries were unrestrained; were it not for his peaceful nature and clemency, things would not have proceeded along the same peaceful course with his dignity at home remaining intact. He did not escape Radia’s influence, however, for he believed in her heritage and popular medicine and was obliged to let her visit saints’ tombs, even if he would have preferred her to stay in the house like his brother’s wife, Zaynab, and the hanem wives of Mahmud, Ahmad, and Abd al-Azim. “They are all nice hanems but they are ignorant and have no hand in matters of the Unknown,” Radia told him haughtily.
At the same time, she made his house an abode of mercy and love and gave birth to Sadriya, Amer, Matariya, Samira, Habiba, Hamid, and Qasim. Unlike Surur, Amr took pride in his relatives: the mansion on Khayrat Square, the villa on Sarayat Road, the land, money, and rank; and his house enjoyed everyone’s affection accordingly. Carriage after carriage came by, transporting to him the nobles and hanems of Beni Suef and the family of Dawud Pasha with its hanems. They would sit around Amr’s table, shower him with gifts, take pleasure in Radia’s quirks and heritage, and commend the bravery of her father, the hero of the Urabi Revolution. It was these profound friendships that opened the door of marriage into the families of Ata and Dawud, elevating and strengthening Amr’s status and provoking dissension between him and Surur, which could have ruined their relationship, were it not for solid foundations and long memories. Surur often commented regretfully, “If Huda al-Alawzi had died before Ata al-Murakibi we would have inherited!”
“God’s will is unopposed,” Amr would reply.
He surmounted any such twinges with his tolerant faith and it was his habit, when feeling resentful, to remind himself of the many blessings granted him, like good health and children. True, the day Dawud’s family smothered Lutfi’s affection for Matariya he erupted in anger and let Radia rant, saying to himself: They aren’t wrong when they say relatives are scorpions! But it was a cloud that quickly dissolved under the beams of an eternal sun.
His heart was also full of patriotism. He was too young to share his father’s disappointment at the demise of the Urabi Revolution, but he often watched the occupying troops circling the old quarter like tourists and his heart was soon brimming with the speeches of Mustafa Kamil and Muhammad Farid. His excitement reached a climax with the 1919 Revolution; he adored its leader and joined in the civil servants’ strike. He remained loyal to the leader even when his important relatives, Mahmud, Ahmad, and Abd al-Azim, broke away, and eagerly followed the leader’s successor, Mustafa al-Nahhas, by dishing out cups of sherbet the day the treaty was signed. Amr wholeheartedly supported the leader against the new king and, despite the weak heart that was soon to kill him, was angry when he was discharged from government service.
He bore his children’s burdens while they were in his care and shared in their worries once they had each settled in their own homes. “We always dream of rest but there’s no rest in life,” he would say. He sought refuge in his faith and left mankind to the Creator. How many hopes he had pinned on Qasim and to what effect? When he was pensioned off a melancholy spread over him. Heart disease descended out of nowhere, curbing his movements and pleasures and plunging him into the depths of depression. One evening, sitting in the Misri Club, he fell unconscious. He was carried to his bed dying and passed away in Radia’s arms a little before dawn.
Ghassan Abd al-Azim Dawud
HE WAS BORN AND GREW UP IN THE VILLA on Sarayat Road, the second child of Abd al-Azim Pasha Dawud. He was perhaps the only one of Abd al-Azim Pasha’s sons not to inherit any of his mother, Farida Hanem’s, good looks. He was small and thin with a dark complexion and most of the time his face wore a frown and conveyed a look of disgust, as though someone was squeezing a lemon in his mouth. It was as if he was born to detest the world and everything in it. He would shut himself off in his room at the villa, take walks through the quiet streets to the east in the shade of their tall trees, and venture deep into the open desert. He did not make friends with any of the neighbors and he did not form a fraternal bond with either of his brothers, Lutfi and Halim, or his sisters, Fahima and Iffat. On the rare occasions he played with his brother Halim in the garden of the villa or in the street, it ended in misunderstanding and argument. Once it concluded in a fight in which Ghassan was defeated despite being the elder. His father took him to visit relatives, Amr’s family in particular, and he was once invited with his family to the Ata family mansion on Khayrat Square. He would look on but barely utter a word and did not make a single friend; they called him “Men’s Enemy” and mocked his silent, nauseated countenance, thin body, eternal reticence, and reclusive haughtiness. Gleams of hunger may have shone in his eyes as he gazed at his beautiful female cousins but they were not accompanied by a smile or gesture.
“You must stop secluding yourself,” his father would tell him.
“I know where to find peace and quiet and I’m not interested in anything else,” he would cut back.
“What do you do locked in your room?”
“Listen to records and read.”
But he did not reveal any literary or intellectual talents.
He adopted his father’s political views, probably because they fitted his sense of superiority and inborn contempt for the masses. He saw nationalist pursuits and popular leadership as a variety of banal political posturing. It did not escape his attention that he was held in lower esteem than other members of his family, and the degree of ignorance that prevented him from attaining the eminence his social status and class arrogance merited challenged his self-importance. He was hard on himself and put himself through intolerable and unsustainable exertions, staying up all night studying only to gain average marks that were just good en
ough to take him from one grade to the next at the tail end of the top students. He put himself through torture in order to excel but to no avail. He eyed the victorious with resentment and respect and was filled with distress at his own incompetence. How could he be incompetent when his grandfather, father, and older brother were all pashas? The future loomed before him as a stark battle bristling with provocation and aggravation. Nor could he find consolation in religion since, like his brothers and sisters, he knew it only in name, not in substance. Thus, he worshiped work and gave himself to it wholly, only to be forced to content himself at the end with the tiny fruit his arid land could produce.
When he enrolled in the faculty of law, he found his cousin Labib, Surur Effendi’s son, crowned in a halo of admiration for his achievements and tender age, which compounded Ghassan’s depression and wretchedness. He took exception to the divine decree that conferred genius on his penniless cousin, a pauper’s son, while denying it to him, a descendant of pashas and highranking lawyers and doctors. Perhaps part of his contempt for nationalism was to do with the fervor of his poor relations, Amr and Surur’s families. He was unenthusiastic about the 1919 Revolution as it unfolded and quickly sought refuge with his father and his family on the side of those opposing it. When he graduated, he watched his cousin be appointed to the public prosecutor’s office while he was left behind despite his noble descent and late nights. With the help of his father, the grand councilor, he was assigned to the legal department at the ministry of education, and started his career angry and peeved though he had no right to be. He became known in the workplace for introversion, industry, and ignorance; all his promotions were through the intercession of his father. He continued to seclude himself both at the office and at the villa. He had no friends or girlfriends and only left the library, which he built up year after year, when absolutely necessary. He could sometimes be seen alone in a public garden or at the club, or sneaking with extreme caution into a secret high-class brothel.
“It’s time you thought about marriage,” said Farida Hanem Husam.
He looked at her with surprise and annoyance and muttered, “This is all there is.”
He had several reasons to hate the thought of marriage. For a start, it would invade his sacred solitude, which he could not abandon, and he was afraid the right girl would reject his job or family due to the various shortcomings of which he was not unaware. Farida worried about him constantly, especially after Abd al-Azim Pasha’s death, when she sensed her time was approaching and that she would be leaving him in a big empty villa. The July Revolution brought afflictions he had not predicted. “Have we sunk so low as to be ruled by a band of illiterate army fellows?” he asked himself anxiously. He watched what happened to his family’s rank and the value of its lawyers and doctors in dismay, asking himself, “Should I now be sorry the Wafd rabble have gone?”
“I’ll be joining your father sometime soon. You need a wife and children,” Farida said to him.
“Bachelorhood is the final solace,” he replied rudely.
He persisted in this malevolent obstinacy and his resolve was not shaken after his mother’s death. He retired at the beginning of the 1970s and went on living alone like a ghost. It was as though the world could offer him nothing but enduring health, and his only pleasure was to be found in food and books, then television and the new maid.
Faruq Hussein Qabil
THE FOURTH CHILD OF SAMIRA and Hussein Qabil, he was born and grew up on Ibn Khaldun Street. Like his brothers and sisters, he greeted the world with a slender, vigorous body and good looks and he had a promising, brilliant mind. He was, however, brought up in the disciplined climate that prevailed on the family after Hussein Qabil’s death. From childhood, he dreamed of becoming a doctor and, with strong determination, fulfilled his dream, surmounting the obstacles of the system. His heart was divided between enthusiasm for the July Revolution, because of his birth and a disposition he shared with his brother Hakim, and occasional aversion to it out of sympathy for the Muslim Brothers and affection for his brother Salim, who had been thrown in prison. He found deliverance from the contradictions by concerning himself with his work. When he got his license to practice he opened a private clinic alongside his hospital work. He fell in love with a colleague, Doctor Aqila Thabit, and they married and moved into a modern apartment in New Cairo. Faruq was greatly saddened by the fate of his brother Hakim and the absence of his other brother, Salim. Samira’s sons learned the strength of their tenacity just as, like their mother, they learned to stand firm in the face of adversity. He was careful not to let his political views be known outside the family environment, taking the suffering of his brothers as a lesson, and devoted himself to his work. In this arena he achieved a unique position as a surgeon, and his wife, similarly, held high-ranking posts as a midwife. She gave birth to two daughters, who gravitated competently to medicine. Faruq was among the few who believed in Sadat’s politics, with the exception of his unregulated infitah policy, whose gates opened with an exuberance that brought the country significant economic problems. Thus, he did not belong to the section of the population that rejoiced at Sadat’s death. He once commented to his uncle Amr, “Sadat took Gamal Abdel Nasser’s place and so was assassinated in his place.”
He was remembered as a rare doctor, meaning that he always stood by his principles and never overcharged for his troubles.
Fayyid Amer Amr
The third son of Amer and Iffat, like his two brothers he was born and grew up in the house in Bayn al-Ganayin. With his fair complexion, beautiful eyes, and slender figure he bore a close resemblance to his grandmother, Farida Husam. He soaked up a good portion of the heritage of Amr and Radia and the old quarter but was sated by the customs of his other grandparents, Farida and Abd al-Azim Pasha Dawud. From childhood, he adored the law and the glory of legal office, just as he adored modern culture—cinema and radio, then television. He loved his two grandfathers, Amr and Abd al-Azim, but took no interest in the Wafd, nor indeed any other political party. He graduated from law school among the top students and, with his achievements and Abd al-Azim Pasha’s standing, was immediately appointed to the public prosecutor’s office. Of Amer and Iffat’s children, he was perhaps the only one whose behavior and ideas did not cause them worry, in contrast to his brothers, Shakir and Qadri. When he announced one day that he was in love with a student from law school, a girl called Magida al-Arshi, Iffat became agitated because of bitter past experience. However, she was happy when she was reassured that the girl was a doctor’s daughter, a doctor’s granddaughter, and from a very good, suitable family. “It’s the first wedding to whet the appetite!” she remarked to Amer.
Fayyid married and moved into an apartment in New Cairo. He was not averse to the July Revolution, although it invalidated his grandfather and uncle’s rank. Indeed, he was rather drawn to it and made no attempt to hide this from his mother and father.
“It came at the perfect time,” he said.
Fayyid advanced with familiar speed until he became a councilor. His attitude to the revolution and its leader remained the same; even the ordeal of June 5 did not change his mind, though it rent his heart. As for Sadat, he supported him in his war and turning of a new page in democracy but had severe misgivings about the peace plan, then cursed him for the infitah policy and relapse of democracy. Thus, while he did not condone his assassination, he was not sad and believed Sadat had got what he deserved. Fayyid only had one daughter, who specialized in chemistry. Iffat named her Farida after her mother.
Farga al-Sayyad
She appeared in al-Ghuriya at the age of fourteen with a strong body and nice face, walking about in a blue gallabiya, carrying a basket with fish and a set of scales on her head. She was forced to foray from her house in al-Sukariya after her father died and her mother was paralyzed, and was looked after by neighborhood customs and piety. One day a robust man with an accent from outside Cairo called her over to buy some fish. She lowered her basket to the gro
und and, squatting behind it, began balancing the weights. He gazed at her for a while and said, “Dear girl, you’re so sweet.”
“Do you want fish or the scales smashed in your face?” she replied rudely.
The man snorted unconsciously. She got to her feet, appealing to the onlookers. Some men dived on the stranger and the situation became aggravated. However, a man they recognized—Ata al-Murakibi—stepped forward from the crowd and shouted, “Praise the Prophet.” He laughed and said, “He’s an Alexandrian. He lives in my building. He’s not familiar with local custom. When they snort it’s like when we take a deep breath.” Ata recovered his neighbor and took him to his shop.
For his part, Ata saw the man’s arrival as a bad omen since it dragged in its wake an army of infidels, Napoleon’s troops. “What brought you here?” he asked.
“The plague killed my family so I decided to leave Alexandria,” he replied.
Things changed when Ata married his master’s daughter, Sakina; he began to regard the Alexandrian’s arrival as a good omen and started liking him. “Dear old Yazid, you brought blessings!”
Yazid al-Misri did not forget Farga al-Sayyad. He said to his friend, “I want to marry the fish seller.” Ata al-Murakibi asked the mother for her daughter’s hand and Farga was wedded to Yazid at his apartment in the house in al-Ghuriya. Ata al-Murakibi claimed that as soon as he closed the door on the bride and groom, the guests outside in the salon could hear the snorts boring a hole through the door, like water gurgling in a narghile. Yazid al-Misri was happy in his marriage and Farga gave birth to many children, of whom only Aziz and Dawud survived. The couple lived to see their grandchildren. One night, Yazid dreamed he saw a man who said he was Nagm al-Din, at whose tomb he sometimes prayed. He advised him, “Build your grave next to mine so we may come together as friends.” Yazid did not waver. He constructed the enclosure in which he was buried and which, to this day, welcomes his deceased descendants from all over Cairo.