Midaq Alley

3

As soon as Mrs. Afify left the room, Hamida came in combing her black hair, which gave off a strong smell of kerosene. Her mother gazed at her dark and shining hair, the ends of which nearly reached to the girl's knees, and said sadly, "What a pity! Imagine letting lice live in that lovely hair!"

The girl's black eyes, framed with mascara, flashed angrily and took on a determined and intent look. "What lice? I swear by the Prophet that my comb found only two lice!"

"Have you forgotten that I combed your hair two weeks ago and squashed twenty lice for you?"

The girl answered indifferently, "Well, I hadn't washed my hair for two months…"

She sat down at her mother's side and continued combing her hair vigorously.

Hamida was in her twenties, of medium stature and with a slim figure. Her skin was bronze-colored and her face a little elongated, unmarked, and pretty. Her most remarkable features were her black, beautiful eyes, the pupils and whites of which contrasted in a most striking and attractive way. When, however, she set her delicate lips and narrowed her eyes, she could take on an appearance of strength and determination which was most unfeminine. Her temper had always, even in Midaq Alley itself, been something no one could ignore.

Even her mother, famous for her roughness, did her best to avoid crossing her. One day when they had quarreled her mother cried out to her, "God will never find you a husband; what man would want to embrace a burning firebrand like you?" On other occasions she had said that a real madness overcame her daughter when she got angry and she nicknamed her tempers the khamsin, after the vicious and unpredictable summer winds.

Despite all this, she was really very fond of Hamida, even though she was only her foster mother. The girl's real mother had been her partner in making and selling sweet and fattening potions. She was eventually compelled by her poverty to share Umm Hamida's flat in Midaq Alley and had died there, leaving her daughter still a baby. Umm Hamida had adopted her and placed her under the care of the wife of Kirsha, the cafe owner, who had suckled her along with her son Hussain Kirsha, who was therefore a sort of foster brother to the girl Hamida.

She went on combing her black hair, waiting for her mother to comment as usual on the visit and visitor. When the silence remained unbroken unusually long, she asked, "It was a long visit. What were you talking about?"

Her mother laughed sardonically and murmured, "Guess!"

The girl, now even more interested, asked, "She wants to raise the rent?"

"If she had done that, she would have left here carried by ambulance men! No, she wants to lower the rent!"

"Have you gone mad?" Hamida exclaimed.

"Yes, I have gone mad. But guess…"

The girl sighed and said, "You've tired me out!"

Umm Hamida twitched her eyebrows and announced, winking an eye, "Her ladyship wants to get married!"

The girl was overcome with astonishment and gasped, "Married?"

"That's right, and she wants a young husband. How sorry I am for an unlucky young woman like you who can't find anyone to ask for her hand!"

Hamida gazed at her derisively and commented, now braiding her hair, "Oh yes, I could find many, but the fact is that you are a rotten matchmaker who merely wants to hide her failure. What's wrong with me? Just as I said, you are a failure and you only go to prove the saying: 'It's always the carpenter's door that's falling apart.'"

Her foster mother smiled and said, "If Mrs. Saniya Afify can get married, then no woman at all should despair."

The girl stared at her furiously and said, "I am not the one who is chasing marriage, but marriage is chasing me. I will give it a good run, too!"

"Of course you will, a princess like yourself, a daughter of royalty."

The girl ignored her mother's sarcasm and went on in the same severe tone: "Is there anyone here in Midaq Alley who is worth considering?"

In fact, Umm Hamida had no fear that her daughter would be left on the shelf and she had no doubts about the girl's beauty. Nevertheless, she frequently felt resentful about her vanity and conceit and she now said bitingly, "Don't slander the alley like that. The people who live here are the best in the world!"

"You're the best in the world yourself, aren't you? They are all nonentities. Only one of them has a spark of life and you had to go and make him my foster brother!"

She was referring to Hussain Kirsha, with whom she had been suckled. This remark annoyed her mother and she objected angrily, "How can you say such a thing? I didn't make him your brother. No one can make you a brother or a sister. He is your brother because you both suckled the same woman just as God ordained."

A spirit of devilment seemed to take possession of the girl. She said jokingly, "Couldn't he have always sucked from one breast and me from the other?"

At this her mother punched her hard in the back and snorted, "May God punish you for saying that."

The girl replied by muttering, "Nothing Alley!"

"You deserve to marry some really important civil servant, I suppose?"

"Is a civil servant a god?" retorted Hamida defiantly.

Her mother sighed deeply and said, "If only you would stop being so conceited…"

The girl mimicked Umm Hamida's voice and replied, "If you would only be reasonable for once in your life."

"You eat and drink my food but you are never grateful. Do you remember all that fuss you made about a dress?"

Hamida asked in astonishment, "And is a dress something of no importance? What's the point of living if one can't have new clothes? Don't you think it would be better for a girl to have been buried alive rather than have no nice clothes to make herself look pretty?" Her voice filled with sadness as she went on: "If only you had seen the factory girls! You should just see those Jewish girls who go to work. They all go about in nice clothes. Well, what is the point of life then if we can't wear what we want?"

Her foster mother replied cuttingly, "Watching the factory girls and the Jewish women has made you lose your senses. If only you would stop worrying about all this."

The girl took no notice of what Umm Hamida said. She had now finished plaiting her hair and she took a small mirror from her pocket and propped it up on the back of the sofa. She then stood in front of it, bending down slightly to see her reflection. In a wondering voice, she said, "Oh what a shame, Hamida. What are you doing living in this alley? And why should your mother be this woman who can't tell the difference between dust and gold dust?"

She leaned out of the room's only window, which overlooked the street, and stretched her arms out to the open shutters, drawing them together so that only a couple of inches of space was left between them. She then sat resting on her elbows placed on the windowsill and gazed out into the street, moving her attention from place to place and saying as though to herself, "Hello, street of bliss! Long life to you and all your fine inhabitants. What a pretty view and see how handsome the people are! I can see Husniya, the bakeress, sitting like a big sack before the oven with one eye on the loaves and one on Jaada, her husband. He works only because he is afraid of her beatings and blows. Over there sits Kirsha, the cafe owner, his head bowed as if in a deep sleep, but he is really awake. Uncle Kamil is fast asleep, of course, while the flies swarm over his tray of unprotected sweets. Look there! That's Abbas Hilu peeping up at my window, preening himself. I'm sure he thinks that the power of his look will throw me down at his feet. You're not for me, Abbas! Well now, Mr. Salim Alwan, the company owner, has just lifted up his eyes, lowered them, and raised them once again. We'll say the first time was an accident, but the second, Mr. Alwan? Sir? Watch now, he's just started a third time! What do you want, you senile and shameless old man? You want a rendezvous with me every day at this time? If only you weren't a married man and a father, I'd give you look for look and say welcome and welcome again! Well, there they all are. That is the alley and why shouldn't Hamida neglect her hair until it gets lice? Oh yes, and there's Sheikh Darwish plodding along with his wooden clogs striking the pavement like a gong."

At this point her mother interrupted. "Who would make a better husband for you than Sheikh Darwish?"

Hamida remained looking out the window, and, with a shake of her behind, she replied, "What a powerful man he must have been! He says he has spent a hundred thousand pounds on his love for our lady Zainab. Do you think he would have been too mean to give me ten thousand?"

She drew back suddenly, as though bored with her survey. Now she moved in front of the mirror and, gazing into it searchingly, she sighed and said, "Oh, what a pity, Hamida, what a shame and a waste."