Issue No. 597
Living
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1 - 7 August 2002 Issue No. 597 Living |
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Recommend this page | ||
The unimaginable zero summer
Looking out the window, early this morning, I saw a family loading some suitcases in their car, perhaps ready to leave town for the weekend. I was amazed at how a scene, a scent, or a shade of light, or some gentle breeze, can evoke distant memories. In a fraction of a second, I saw myself many years earlier, in the back seat of my father's car heading to Alexandria. Summer began, as we reached the top of the final hill that descends to the Corniche. Behind the black asphalt of the road were our first glimpses of the blue sea, stretching across. My father would let the car glide fast downhill, our hearts would sink, and we'd let out a loud sigh.
At the intersection were the traffic policemen in their summer uniforms, standing in, or about, little glass towers that were almost always fogged by humidity and sea salt. And on the street the yellow taxi cabs. Finally as we reached the final stretch of the drive, parallel to the sea, heading towards Sidi Bishr, we saw the blue buses with white tops, men in different hats carrying several long bamboo fishing rods, and straw tote bags, walking, or standing by the thick parapet overlooking the water.
On the other side, overlooking the sea, were light coloured apartment buildings, noticeably clean, but always eroded by the elements during the past winters. Underneath them were the little stores, freshly painted with bright colours of blue, red, yellow, and green, hanging out their merchandise of beach toys of all kinds. We wanted to buy everything of course.
Once on the Corniche, we'd roll down the car windows, look at the glare of the sun on the water and the beach, and take it all in. Happiness. Freedom.
Alexandria has its own sounds and voices. The sound of the balcony shutters when you push them open for the first time, and they become unglued from the grip of humidity of the past winter. The sound of the waves when you first step on the beach. The voice of the man selling fuul and belila in the early morning, from a hand-pushed cart, singing for the kids to come out and buy. We used to mimic him, and he loved it. The call of the man selling freska on the beach, particularly after a long swim. The sound of the wind in narrow passages between buildings, the occasional whistle of the life guard. In the evenings, there is the yell of the man behind the glass counter at the phone company, the Centrale, shouting out your phone number, and directing you to a particular cabin. "Number 2, number 2, number 2, yes madam, pick up the phone, go ahead... three minutes!"
Alexandria also has its own smells. That of the sea. The smell of humidity in the bed sheets, and slip covers. Red onions, grilled crabs, and fish. The burning hot bread, fresh out of the oven around the corner. The Nivea cream on your back, to sooth sunburns. Grilled corn, dora mashwi, along the Corniche at night.
But most of all Alexandria had its own feel: freedom. Freedom from the heat and humidity of Cairo. Freedom from school, and studying. Freedom from customary heavy meals. Freedom from the usual routine of life. Freedom from the gravity of earth when you are carried up by the waves of the sea. Freedom in movement, as one walked almost everywhere. Freedom of imaginations as we built castles and dams in the sand, freedom from clothing, as we ran down the beach.
On my last visit to Egypt I went to Alexandria. Almost none of the places I knew remained. The old neighbours were gone. At three in the morning I had to go up to the new tenant of the apartment on top, to ask him kindly to turn down the music. He laughed, and told me "And if I turn down my music, what the hell are you going to do with the noise from the beach?" I took a short walk to find that the beach, at this hour, was full with families sitting there, carrying on like it was midday. The streets were mobbed with people. The entire area looked like it was invaded by people who seemed to have no regards for either land, or sea, let alone others. The sound of the waves had drowned under the flood of human voices. In the light of the following day, I realised that our balcony was full of trash, thrown in from the higher floors of a new tower that was built almost on top of our building.
Still driven by old passions, I went for a swim the following day.
In childhood summers we always measured how far we swam each year, and that would be the starting point of the following summer. The first hurdle was the red barrels, barameel, that marked the safe swimming area, the second major step was to reach the rock off Miami beach, Geziret Miami, and the biggest challenge that was never met yet, was Geziret Sidi Bishr.
That day I swam even past that rock, and floated in the water for a while, looking at the skyline of the city. I located some of the old buildings that were once landmarks, now dwarfed by gigantic buildings looking as lost as I felt in the middle of that crowd on the beach. I looked back from that distance at an Alexandria I hardly knew. The summers of my childhood seemed like a distant mirage.
I had come back looking for a child on the beach, fresh out of the water, wrapped in a towel standing to dry in the sun, eating a cheese sandwich. I wanted to take him for peaceful evening walks, up to Beer Massoud to watch the sun set, as we used to do.
I found myself reciting aloud a line from TS Eliot, there, in the middle of the water, "where is the summer, the unimaginable zero summer?" I swam back.
This week's contributor is an Egyptian expatriate living in New York.
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