A TRAVELLING TALE
P h o t o: S a m u el S hi m o n
KHALED NAJAR
Alexandria
TRANSLATED BY GHENWA HAYEK
10 BANIPAL 43 – CELEBRATING DENYS JOHNSON-DAVIES
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A TRAVELLING TALE
P h o t o: S a m u el S hi m o n
KHALED NAJAR
Alexandria
TRANSLATED BY GHENWA HAYEK
10 BANIPAL 43 – CELEBRATING DENYS JOHNSON-DAVIES
The San Stephano riviera district of Alexandria today
You recall San Stephano, Sidi Bishr, Sidi Jabir, the Raml station, al-Ibrahimiyya, al-Shatibi, al-Manshiyya, al-Miks.You recall them that night, as they passed before you through the window of the double-decker Alexandria train, like a coloured reel of cinematic film, bathed in orange electrical lights like a festival, a never-ending spectacle passing before your eyes.
You recall Petro’s café, and the Burj al-Arab before it . . . and the Greek antiques dealer on the narrow side street, in that long, dark shop, chock full with different antiques: silver chandeliers, crystal goblets, copper pots, silver pocket watches, Christian prayer books
King Fouad in Latin and Greek with old binding, golden Coptic and Byzantine icons, their expressions similar to ones you come across in small churches in Greek villages. Black and white photographs from the 1920s, their subjects dead, including a sepia-tinted one of King Fouad sitting on the throne in his gold-embroidered royal robes, with his medals and his enormous moustache . . . Oil paintings in ornamental frames and others without frames, covered in dust, depicting landscapes: the banks of the Nile, two palm trees stretching out into the green Egyptian landscape, almost invisible under the dust of
BANIPAL 43 – SPRING 2012 11
