The headscarf
It is walking very slowly alongside a group that walks forward.


The veil
It is a total pause, assuming that the group is heading toward an abyss.


In this city
Every person wears a headscarf, and when one’s horizon narrows one dons the veil.



Cairo is a city that has grown old and senile. The city is dying. This is how I came to see it. I see it in the image of an old man who is standing in the spacious square, which is crowded with people and vehicles. The old man tries to cross to the other side of the square on a hot, sweltering day. He wipes his sweat with a white handkerchief and is leaning on a wooden stick. He adjusts his spectacles from time to time to gaze at passers-by. His old, worn-out suit is dusty and reminds me of old buildings in Cairo, which are on the verge of collapse. In his other hand he is carrying a black bag full of books and newspapers. It might be stories of this city and its history.

He is trying, at noon, to cross to the other side of the square.

Is he going to fall down in the middle of the square among the crowds and vehicles?

Will a natural catastrophe occur and obliterate the old man and the square?

Will the aircraft of the enemy bombard the city and the old man be killed?

Will he find someone to help him cross to the other side of the square?

Will he try to cross to the other side of the square, all alone, and reach safety?

His white handkerchief has turned black. His hands are tired from constantly adjusting his spectacles and his suit.

Under the harsh rays of the sun he gazes at passers-by with a pining heart as he yearns to reach the shade on the other side of the square. He is still hesitating between standing and crossing.



In the mid-1960s Cairo was overpopulated and some of the poor could not find shelter. They resorted to the cemetery yards and used them as houses and they lived among the dead.

I was born in one of those cemetery yards near the district of El-Heseiniyya. Our house stood at the end of this district and the beginning of the cemetery area, or rather marked the boundary between this district and the cemetery.

Our house was a two-storey building: the second floor was deserted and had a balcony on the verge of collapse. This second floor was for us children a source of panic, as it was said to be haunted by ghosts and evil spirits. Any child who was naughty or neglected their studies was threatened with solitary confinement on this second floor for a whole night.

The ground floor was divided into two sections, the first had a cemetery yard in the back with a big, heavy wooden door which was always closed. This door was never opened unless to bury those who were transported to the other world. My father was the only one who kept the key to this door.

The other section was for my family and it was divided into large rooms separated by a long hall, at its end was located the wooden door and on either side of the hall at the back there was a kitchen and a bathroom. The entrance of the house was at the front with two bedrooms opposite one another. One bedroom was for my parents, and sometimes for guests who spent the night, the other bedroom was for seven siblings. I was the youngest of them. There were four houses in the neighbourhood that resembled ours but our house was the only one that had a second floor.

My father, in his rare moments of inner peace with himself and with God, used to say to me:

—You have come into this world in spite of ourselves, and lived in spite of ourselves, and this is the wisdom of God.

However, when he was angry with me and upset with the world he used to say to me:

—I wish I could have masturbated and never brought you into this life!



In 1967, and specifically during the Six Day War in June, I was a one-year-old child, as my elder sister told me:

—We were living in abject poverty and you were such a beautiful child! Many people used to hold and pamper you, especially the women of the neighbourhood. One day nobody was at home except you and me. We were sitting together in bed and you were laughing your innocent intermittent laugh. We were playing in bed as if you were running playfully in a vast green land. Suddenly you turned pale and your body trembled as if you’d received an electric shock. Your eyes goggled and then you stood still. In a moment you lost your breath and I thought you’d given up the ghost and died.

This was my elder sister’s description of that weird situation, and I listened to her curiously as she continued her story in her vernacular language:

—Of course I screamed loudly for help. When you stopped breathing and moving I thought you’d died. Within a few moments a lot of people gathered quickly in our house. Some showed up motivated by sheer curiosity, others waited for the event in order to weave a story for their own amusement. Few people tried seriously to save your life, some tried to bring you back to consciousness by moving an onion before your nose, others tried to help you by reciting some Quranic verses near your ear. The rest asked questions about what had happened.
When my mother and Um Fawzy heard the news they came at once and moved with great difficulty through the crowd to reach you. Um Fawzy with her fat, huge body almost crushed people as if she were a tank. She reached you before Mother, who without knowing any details kept screaming in grief while some people tried to calm her down, saying that you were still alive.

Um Latifa and Um Ali could not get inside the crowded house but they performed the duty expected from them outside, both wearing black gowns of mourning over their dresses to stand by my mother and both screaming and crying before the gate of our house. God willing, we would reciprocate if any calamity befell them.

When the news reached my father he was at the café, he promptly left his hookah and ran home. Of course all the people who were at the café ran straight after him to perform their duty of consolation. The owner of the café cursed death secretly, as it drove his customers away. My father encountered many people on his way home and each of them said to him:

—I offer you my sincere condolences Abou Zoheir (father of Zoheir)!

Thus the people of the neighbourhood decided to declare me dead. When my father reached home the crowd moved aside to let him pass. My father glanced at me and saw Mother beside me, crying, while Um Fawzy was trying to breathe life into me again, as if she was defying Fate.

My elder sister continued her story and tried to drive a wedge between my father and me:

—I saw a hidden glee in your father’s face, Zoheir. He just threw a quick glance at you and then ran to Muhammad the undertaker to arrange your burial.

This was what my sister had said, but I forgot to tell you that she hated my father because he refused to marry her off to a man whom she fell in love with. My father justified his refusal by saying:

—He’s a loser, a womanizer and unemployed to boot! Why should I marry my daughter to him?

I was filled with curiosity to know the rest of my story; it was told to me as if I were a complete stranger, not part of it. I could only listen to it, unconscious of the world around me. I had to believe whatever was being said, be it truth or lie. I was a toy in the hands of others.

As I was lying in bed, having lost my breath and seemingly my life, my father arranged with the undertaker to bury me in exchange for a humble sum of five LE (pounds), as the distance between the house and the cemetery was but a few steps. The wooden door would be opened and I would be buried.

Then a strange, unbelievable thing happened. When Nabila, the most beautiful woman in the neighbourhood, heard the news of my assumed death she ran out of her nearby house and cried bitterly, wailed loudly and slapped her cheeks. Suddenly she suffered a violent spasm, fell on the floor and kicked at it several times. A few women tried to calm her down. This strange occurrence stirred the curiosity of many people in the neighbourhood, especially when Aboudi, her husband, came and hit her violently several times in front of all the people of the neighbourhood and dragged her home. All were bewildered at such a scene.

The undertaker took me in his arms. After a few steps I was about to be buried. My sister said:

—The wailing and crying increased as if everyone was crying over their status in life and not your sudden death.

My sister said that when the undertaker took me in his arms she fainted.

I was stupefied and listened to my story in awe and felt my limbs to verify that I was still alive and that my heart was still beating. My sister couldn’t continue her narration as she had lost consciousness. At that moment I realized that there was no difference between a child who is unconscious of his time as an infant and adults who have lost their sense of time. I resorted to my father to continue the story as he was the most conscious participant in it.

My father, in his usual sarcastic tone, said:

—You come into this world by mistake, one that I paid dearly for.

He justified his words by saying that I was an adorable child who did not deserve to grow up in misery and abject poverty. He saw that no future lay ahead of me. He acknowledged that he was happy on the day of my presumed death as it would have saved him the cost of providing food for one more child. Yet he said to me that when the undertaker raised me in his arms he felt like crying for the first time in his life and his heart trembled. He wished I would come back to life. He suddenly felt immune to poverty and cared for my future. Once again I felt obliged to believe my father, for I could not know his inner thoughts.

The undertaker took me in his arms and stepped toward the cemetery, followed by my father and behind him the rest of the men and women. Some recited verses from the Quran, some cried and some women wailed. My sister was still unconscious. When they reached the cemetery a miracle occurred. Before I was put into a tomb my father said:

—Suddenly, Zoheir, we saw you moving about and then you screamed. We looked at one another in complete astonishment. Your second scream proved to us that you were still alive. We suddenly felt afraid and the hair on our heads stood on end. Um Fawzy ran toward you and removed the shroud quickly from your face. Your mother came along with her. Both took you to the nearby hospital, Sayed Galal.

My father was talkative and used to crack jokes and speak acerbically. Half of what he said was not related to my story, which I very much wanted to know. He didn’t care about my story; he only cared about speaking about himself. The situation turned into a silly joke. My sister regained her consciousness and resumed her role as a narrator, as Father had become part of the event. She said that she heard many conversations from everyone as they exited our house, bewildered at what had occurred. They congratulated my father on my return to life.

—Congratulations, Abou Zoheir!

—God is Omnipotent!

Um Latifa and Um Ali removed their black gowns of mourning. Um Latifa took a bucket and drummed on it for joy and Um Ali danced to the beat as a kind of celebration of my return to life. God willing, we would reciprocate by doing the same if any calamity befell them.

What happened inside our house was stranger than ever. For my father had paid the undertaker the amount of 5 LE and agreed to help him open and close the tomb. My father had already helped him open the tomb but he wanted to regain the money as the operation was not completed. A heated argument ensued between both of them while my sister watched.

—It’s enough that the child has come back to life, he needs food and medical treatment.

—It’s none of my business. I opened the tomb and did my job. I myself have children to support.

—I helped you open the tomb and I will close it on my own.

They cursed and abused each other. The argument and insults led to a fight over the payment. My sister said:

—After cursing each other they fought and beat one another. Um Latifa and Um Ali tried to separate them.

These people should not have narrated to me what happened as they were part of the event itself. My sister continued her description of the four people: the two who fought each other and the two who tried to separate them. My sister said naively, revealing her slyness:

—I swear by God, Zoheir, that Um Latifa embraced my father and their chests stuck together. My father pretended that he was cursing the undertaker but was so happy he embraced her more. Um Ali did the same with the undertaker. Both men pretended to fight but in fact they were fondling the bodies of the two women and vice-versa. I swear they would have got undressed and had sex but for my presence.

I want to remind you that the narrator was my elder sister, whom my father refused to marry to the man she loved. My father used to recount this situation in his peaceful moments to my mother as a kind of joke and to spite her at the same time, while she was serving tea for all of us when we were sitting on the floor. My father used to say:

—I swear by God the undertaker pushed me to the floor, but I allowed him to push me, on purpose, because I fell on the soft bosom of Um Latifa, that is why I forgot about the fight.

Then my father would wink at us and my mother would glare at him. All of us would then burst out laughing, as if my father was testing my mother’s love for him.

The story did not end at that point. While the heated fight was raging cries and screams were heard outside the house. The four people stopped fighting and fondling and rose from the floor. They stood still like ancient statues. Their first thought was that I was dead once more.

Oh my God, I got such a headache from this story. Did no-one else die and live?

People outside chanted:

—God is the Eternal; no one is eternal but Him.

Men were chanting this sentence while they lifted a shrouded dead body, to be buried in the cemetery near our house. These men were moving toward our house and all the people went outside to find out who was dead. Some people from the funeral came forward and asked us:

—Where is the house of Salem, Abou Zoheir?

Um Latifa and Um Ali now wore the black gowns of mourning over their dresses, again. The same situation was reenacted and people gathered once more but this time in complete silence and surprise. It was a military funeral, of an officer in the Egyptian army who had been killed by the Jews, as I was told. This officer was a distant relative of ours but now he would be close to us as he would be buried in our house. Burying a martyr in our house meant that all the ghosts and evil spirits that haunted it would vanish. My father was still in a state of amazement. The undertaker looked at him and retrieved the five LE from his wallet. He offered the sum to my father, who put it in his pocket at once, while the undertaker was still shocked. The undertaker said to him:

—I offer you my sincere condolences, Abou Zoheir. May God grant you patience. You are a lucky man; angels will dwell in your house from now on.

Muhammad the undertaker hurried to the funeral to help carry the shrouded body of the dead man. He said cunningly:

—We heard the news this morning and we opened the tomb to be ready. May God grant you patience my fellow men. May God grant us victory over the Jews.

The martyr was buried in the tomb previously prepared for me. People of the neighbourhood and my family were perplexed by this strange occurrence. They were bewildered and some of them said:

—May God be glorified; His divine wisdom knows no bounds.

—God is Omniscient and Omnipresent, man dwindles before His glory.

—It was God’s wisdom to send His angels to do this so that the tomb would be ready and open to receive the martyr.

—God has created us and He knows our destinies.

Where was I in all these events? I did not care about all this! Where was I? War... setback... martyr... fight in the house... lies and deception... the joy and sorrow of Um Latifa and Um Ali... weeping and ululating... I do not care about all this. What I was interested in was where I was. Where was I in this story that people told me in parts, while I was just a child, unconscious of it? Um Fawzy told me the missing section:

—When we reached the hospital carrying you the place was brimming with soldiers and injured people from the war. We were not allowed to be admitted as they saw that you were all right. However your mother insisted that we should wait for you to be admitted. I did not understand the reason behind her insistence. You were in excellent health and we wasted an hour in vain. I asked your mother why she insisted and she said:

—I didn’t cook today, my friend. Maybe they will give the child something to eat here.

—I embraced your mother tightly and took her and you to my house, where we ate as much as we could and I gave you a bar of your favourite chocolate.

It was strange that every narrator of my death-and-life story recounted it differently, according to their interests, desires, tendencies and whims. My curiosity to know the truth made me feel as if I had lost my willpower. Listening to each version of the story without having the right to comment on it left me unconscious of myself and time.

The only thing that baffled me in this story was the question of how I lost consciousness. Of course no logical answer could be obtained from them. All of them related the matter to the wisdom and omnipotence of God. After many questions I found myself no better informed than they, and eventually I too attributed the matter to the omnipotence of God.

Yet I realized that the one who loses consciousness of self and time will be a puppet in the hands of the conscious one. The unconscious one will be lucky if the conscious one is frank. I realized as well that I was born in a time void of good luck.

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