City Of Love And Fear

In the name of of Allah the Merciful

-1-

Finally the sun rose on the slopes of Mount Ataka! As for this town , this town, which can not say that it is not a town in the understandable sense, but rather a large village, a village that sleeps lying on the slopes of the mountains (Ataka) in the city of Suez, so the morning arrives much later than it does to the rest of the other towns and villages in the same plain. . And he reaches Sarah's bed, caressing her, rocking her dreams.

Despite the bricks of the red brick houses of this town, and in the high minarets of its mosques, and despite the noise of crowded buses and vans traveling between neighboring towns and villages, almost every hour of the day, and despite the loudspeakers in loud cinemas, especially on summer nights.

It was more like a large village, and the sun that rose behind the high mountains looked down upon it with its shining face at least several hours after sunrise.The mountains (Ataka) embrace this town completely !The trees of its forests, with their giant trunks that were not extended by an axe, were lofty .. When the plain was ablaze with the yellow heat of summer, the town enjoyed a lovely moist coolness. In the winter, these giant trees, reaching to the sky, repel storms and bring back sharp frosts like daggers from the town. The forest protected the townspeople from the whims of the harsh weather.

Sarah rose in terror from her mattress lying on the floor in her house, which consists of two rooms surrounded by corroded tin walls . She was soaked in sweat . She has awakened from her dreamy sleep to the sounds of movement, the clamor of the day, and the herd of cows and buffaloes that are still jostling, jostling, and fading.

What a sweet dream that she saw .. the dream that she was not really satisfied with!

She dreams that she is dancing.. Sheer, colorful and fluffy dresses hugging her charms.. She is on the edge of a lake in a forest like paradise.. She dances like a butterfly in front of that dignified mysterious man.. That knight shrouded in darkness.. She dances all eagerly for him.. Why doesn't he move? Why doesn't he rise up, stand up and dance with her.. But the faces of the steadfast silence as much as he annoyed her.. It also stirred in her a mysterious ecstasy .. Her heart was beating as she noticed his eyes shining as she contemplated every place in her body.

Longing interrupted her in waking days and she found something strange. I found that days are life in pieces, how can we chew them? And that what is torn from reality is compensated in her dreams, and she has never been able to do anything but a complete imaginary reality that does not go beyond the doors of a dream, even what they call moments of sanity that she does not recognize, she has never cared about the meaning that life is just moments of sanity when nostalgia and imagination ignite, she was and still respects All the loss, pain, tragedies, wounds and hours, but she does not need to call them by their names, she considers all of this life, one life that sends the agony of loss and the longing of awakening to the world of dreams as compensation. And the disk of the moon in whose face the bosom of the lost lover survived, was all the dazzling moons with which she had waited, her whole life, youth was not youth, because childhood was not childhood, she gave her whole heart boldly to her dreams, as she rested, and she was so tired of words that do not Its meaning is nothing but screaming, objection, and reluctance to move away from the unity of life.

Diving into dreams was her innocent, naive and stubborn attempt to describe a unique way of the meaning of life, and to cobble together all the things she saw scattered into one lost piece. The unknown, they were not words, but tickles, dance, music, and a lot of noses, hugs, longing and joy that he lives with her, with her, in her room, age, place, bed and dreams, but it is the brilliant divine wisdom that stands behind what they call circumstances, it hides for us what we have not seen yet and we will not see, and it is not optimistic By nature, she was never optimistic about life. Rather, she did not know the meaning of optimism. Rather, she accepted and coexisted with its perfection, becoming as one thing that she liked to feel.

I sighed. Her gaze, which was going and coming around her, stopped and finally settled on the white room curtain .The curtain swam in the pale yellow morning sun.You didn't notice it. And you can't notice it. The dream she had just had completely robbed her of her mind. Every time she woke up dreaming about her husband, it was difficult for her to gather her mind and gather her thoughts. Her deviant gaze did not see what was around her , even if these gazes encountered her son,His mother's soul mate, young and old, she would not have seen.

Yes .. she saw the knight in a dream.. he came loaded with mystery .. he sat on a rock close to the edge of the lake while she was dancing.. she got excited and got hot.. she threw her dresses one by one.. she was stripped piece by piece.. as if she was getting rid of her burden.. Solid reality.. from the cruelty of life.. from boredom.. from boredom.. from boredom.. she sees herself with his eyes.. here he searches all her charms with his eyes.. all the hours she spent in front of her mirror alone made her memorize every inch of her body.. you know She is beautiful.. He fascinates her to be naked in front of him and see herself in his eyes.. to have a mirror.. before these charms turn into leaves.. larvae.. papers.. eruption.. until the lover becomes fertile..! !

Here is a voice that no one cares about, here is a dream that no one cares about, an emergency that occurred in her eyes, she sees something that no one else sees,.. she sees love embodied..To embrace her now with all that sobriety and with all that roughness and to shake the thrones and thrones at the sight of spring blooming in the areas of her hot body, joy and ecstasy and a look and freshness, the density of honey in the thirst of the bee before her needle swells from the sting, does she smell the smell of longing on her palm if she touches her skin.. the world around her.. They flutter, mingle, and mate, but everyone is interested in inoculating themselves against a potential love that might kill him, from creatures that fill windows, tree nests, and doorways, but are invisible to the naked eye because of their smallness. It's mating season and virgins will be wrapped in a wind laden with dust and hidden greed: when does the male bee lick the nectar of honey? A question as an answer to another question: When do things unfold?When does he see her.. when does he kiss her.. when does he lick her? rain.. water.. life.. the origins of aromas.. the first causes, the first diversity, before diversity: light - water - dream - imagination - imagination - things - names. Do not be deceived by its division into smaller ones, rather you should study its ability to create and multiply, and to make more of one , for the new does not emerge except from it, and the water of its lust is the lake of the forest that dances on its edge..

Vigilance with its wide shoulders blocked the door of the house surrounded by corroded tin walls, the door of the house whose owner had not asked about it even with a two-line letter since he left him seven years ago... her treacherous husband and the father of her beloved child.

Tears fell from her eyes and her eyelids flooded.

He had just come with his shaven face as it was the morning of his last departure from his house, and with his thick black spiky mustaches, but they fit perfectly with his face.He told her with a hoarse laugh: " I'm back!" Then he added:"Why are you staring at me in such amazement? I'm back. I've come from a long way. I'm covered in symmetrical dust. Come on, warm me up. Sit me in front of you and wash my head with soap and water as you did before!"

Sarah's face flushed.

Many years ago .. since she was a bride dragging herself behind her husband's tails .. she came with him here from her bustling city, full of life .. her father died while she was still a baby .. she served her mother in strangers' homes to support her, and washed hotel covers and sheets. and the inmates' underwear, and then, unable to bear the heavy burden of living, she married a person whom she knew nothing of, thinking that she would obtain a loaf of bread without trouble.but how? The question here is about the man himself.

The man used to earn money .. but he spends whatever he earns on the same day in theaters , cheap nightclubs, and night houses on his lusts and bodily desires, and on wine and wine.He was mean in every sense of the word, so the woman had to leave her daughter (Sara) alone at home and go back to knocking on people's doors to wash their clothes. She first worked for Sarah, her daughter. Later, she worked with love and conviction in order to secure the wine and pleasures of her decadent husband! As soon as her husband takes her in his arms, he cracks her bones, and generously gives her boundless pleasure and ecstasy.

was about eight or ten years old at the time.A child who does not care much about life, attends her lessons in the third grade in one of the city's primary schools. Under the folds of the black and white-domed bodice her child's body bore a head full of the joy of sweet, fragrant little dreams. She was enchanted by the cats chasing each other with lightning speed , and the baboons drawing rough , sharp curves as they flew through the clear blue sky . Perhaps she would continue to be fascinated by this fascination throughout her golden childhood.

One day, however, she woke up to her mother's screams, writhing in severe pain, and when they quickly carried her mother on a stretcher to the big city hospital, Sarah's feet touched the ground, as if the atmosphere of blue space, saturated with joyful dreams, had flown away.ok but mama? Where is her mother? She knows where the mother went .. They took her to the hospital, but, everyone who goes to the hospital must come back!

They, even if they lose the freshness of their cheeks, and if their eyes turn dark, they return to those who left them at home, and they embrace their children in their arms. She is the mother (Ola) who returned from the hospital with a younger brother, her aunt (Bahia) who returned from the hospital and was supported on crutches, the mother (Aisha), the mother (Fatima), and the mother (Narjis)...

One evening, her stepfather came home, staggering drunk as usual, and murmured:"Heh! You... Enough!" She immediately broke off crying. She ran her tears to her guts, but where are her mothers? Where is her mother? Why do n't you come back as other mothers and aunts? Do not count even without the freshness of the cheeks .. even if with gloomy eyes .. it is enough to return, even if with crutches!

With teary eyes I asked him:"My Father? ". And sharply replied:"What is there? ".

I murmured begging:"I was going to ask a question but..."

The man was pouring wine, and with his eyes half closed, he muttered from over the table:"What do you want to know? Are you going to ask about your mother? Your mother won't come back, she's dead. Forget her completely."And he added, with a tongue crooked from the effects of wine:"I will bring you a young mother soon!" Here you are lost!

-2-

Here, at this very moment, Sarah's bright days ended, and the world became dark, rather - the world had completely darkened in her eyes.

She does not want another mother. She is ready to bear her father's reproaches and reprimands, and even to bear his blows, provided that no other mother comes. But her father did not listen to her at all.He first brought in a spoiled young girl to play his stepmother, and after a month...five months, and one day, did the woman run away? Or that her father sent the woman to her father's house for her reckless behavior?Sarah didn't know about it .. and what would it matter to her if she did?

Three months passed.

And this time he brought a new stepmother who was older than the previous one, but this was the entry into the house of a man who slipped like thieves in the absence of her father and said to (Sara):"Go and play in the alley, girl, and do not open your mouth and say something to your father. If you do, by God, by God, I will turn your meat into a meatball!"

Horror filled her heart, Sarah did not say a word, she knows that he is only her stepfather and not a real father, and his treatment of her is very abusive, and because he loves women very much, he will not believe (Sara) and lies that, and worst of all, he will be convinced With the woman's words and agrees with her, then it is clear that he will beat his young daughter without an iota of mercy.And one day, when that grim woman disappeared from existence with that man who came to the house like thieves constantly in her father's absence, her father healed all his anger from his daughter-in-law:"Come here, girl!" To answer him in glory:"Yes, papa."

He turns his face and asks her:"My wife...that woman, they say she used to bring a man into the house in secret...Is that true?"

I answered:"Yes, she was entering it, Daddy..."

muttering in rage:"I'm not your father, so stop calling me Papa!"

It is stated in patent:"Yes, Daddy..."

gets angry:" Oh world, huh , she still saysBaba ! ".

shouted in fear :"I won't say it again, Daddy!"

He grabbed her wrists tightly and contained her in his arms. His mouth smelled of bad wine and leftover food, he looked at her with strange looks, laughed, and murmured with words. Sarah was terrified."do not look at me like that... ".

His eyes twinkle with greed."How? ".

hesitating fearfully:"So. I'm afraid...".

He says in a strange tone: "What are you afraid of? Don't be afraid, I won't eat you. But your body has grown all of a sudden, girl... and your chest too... you... who will squeeze these two?"

It was night time.It was late at night. She could not let her wrists escape from the man's strong hands, but she understood his intent. She could fill the world with screams, and she could pound the earth violently. It seems that the man realized this, so he pushed her away from him, saying: "Why are you fighting like this, insect? Wouldn't you let the son of people do everything to you tomorrow?"

She was still thirteen years old. I left school a long time ago, with no mother, no stepmother. She cooks food, polishes utensils, washes clothes, and wipes wood in the house. And most of the nights, her father would bring home with him women of various kinds, young, slender-eyed, with lewd giggles. They weren't laughing when they looked at Sarah, and when they laughed they were mumbling and mumbling.I heard one of them speak scandalously to her father: "Why do you keep her in your house, as long as she is not your daughter of your own?" Her father laughed and replied:"You turn fifteen..."

Perplexed, she asked:"And what will happen then?"

He giggled with lust: "What doesn't happen? She's still rude now, and if she turns fifteen..."

The woman pursed her lips and said:"Pig. You only know the taste of your mouth!"

He laughed, "Is it my fault?"

She replied sarcastically: "Is it my fault?"

He did not understand and said:"Who's fault?"

She said, drawing with her hands the shape of Sarah's chubby chest:"You're raising him..."

When Sarah turned fifteen, she woke up one night to grooves on her thighs under the blanket. He's her father, her stepfather. He was shivering with his dirty red face that was worn down by the wine.whispered in glee:"But, Daddy!"

He cut her off sharply, "Shut up!"

She muttered, "Okay but I, I..."

"Don't you know that you're not really my daughter?" he said in a hoarse voice.

I murmured in fear, "But are you scaring me like that?"

He said bluntly: "Either you say yes, or you say no. If I say no, then leave my house... And if I say yes... I'm not a monster, don't be afraid. Just foreplay...".

Weeping and begging were of no use, and since he was very drunk, I pushed him with a strong thrust, and then, with her bare feet, her bare-footed cloak of her loose sleep, she climbed the stairs, to the upper floor, where the owners of the house lived, and they were an old couple, both of them old .

Were they awake? Or did they perform Tarawih prayers and just returned home?

I found them and they received (Sara) tenderly and tenderly. She told them she would like to be with them as of this night, so the two old men understood, for she is a mature, plump girl who is pleasing to the eye, and the man is not her real father, and then he is a drunk, so they said, "Okay, my daughter, stay here..."

She said, "I don't want to see that man's face!"

The two old men only exchanged looks, and they did not ask why until after that day, especially since her stepfather had gone into hiding with a playful woman of his mistresses.

One morning, the young husband she had been dreaming and imagining stood before her. He was coming from afar to work, a seasonal worker in one of the city's factories. His eyebrows, his eyes, his build.He quickly occupied Sarah's soul and invaded her very being. He also marveled at her. Sarah was going down to this big village-town, to work, so why not tie her destiny and destiny to that of this young man?And one day, by signing a large register in the marriage department in the city, and with the testimony of the owners of the house... they got married. But she could not travel with her husband right away.

They rented the basement house, which became empty with her stepfather's passing. The young husband placed in the womb of his young wife his son (Samir), who is now slumbering beside her, and he went to his new work, and came to her every week with full of boxes, and he stayed with her for a day or two and then returned to his work again.

Weeks and months passed like this. Sarah could not accompany her husband until after she gave birth to (Samir).They are now three on the face of the earth, Sarah, her young husband, and their newborn son!

Her young husband was eight years older than her, and he worked all day, and every night rushing back to his wife and son, there was no alcohol, nor strange, immoral women. And as soon as he holds his young wife in his arms at night, he takes her to the realm of legends, and tales colorful with joyful colors, that world that (Sara) missed for a very long time.

As for her, she would spend her day nursing and cleaning her child, cooking and preparing food for her husband, polishing utensils, and washing clothes, and she did all of this with ecstasy and happiness. Except that there is (Anwar) Al-Araj, the nephew of (Hashem Bey), the owner of the cotton ginning factory in which her husband works. And (Anwar) was claiming to be her husband's best friend, but the man's looks did not mean that. Sarah was not comfortable with his familiar looks from women, especially young women. She became afraid that he would seize any opportunity to cling to her and hear her say something.

The land bordering a city was filled with the sick with daydreams before closing an eye, and among the tall mountains that cut the thick clouds in the summer sky, at the chest of one of the wide beaches that spread along the eastern bank of the sea, where the edge of the sea widened, creating a vast space called by ancient sailors (the tongue of thirst who always slowed down their sailing boatsThen, begging for the blessing of (Sheikh Al-Gharib), a small trading town arose, a small rural port called Al-Shatt Al-Kabir! ! termed it (the tongue); or sea cityIt was also called by the women of the houses in the neighboring towns, where their husbands used to linger there for a while and frolic in the tavern on the days of trading, and two miles from that town there is a small hollow among the high hills that you can consider one of the quietest places in the world .A small creek crossed it, and this residing calm was shattered only by the whistling of sparrows or the chirping of frogs in the devilish grass at the edge of the sea and the inland marshes .

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valley was known as (Wadi Al-Shatt), as some say that this place was enchanted during the first days of the settlement of sailors in it, and others say that a skilled Sufi is the master of his clan who carried his followers there before the discovery of the townBecause of that, the place remained under the influence of some magical forces that control the perception of the healthy residents of the town, making them wander in continuous daydreams, strange thoughts, and multiple visions of strange scenes, and they hear music and voices resounding in the air. Everyone in the neighboring cities tells many local stories and tales about them. Talking about inhabited placesWith spirits and gables of dusk .

It is remarkable that this predictive tendency and illusions do not only affect childrenThe original town, but it catches up with everyone who settles there for some time, and who assure that they fall under the influence of those magical powers, as soon as they enter that area and inhale the enchanted air, their imagination begins to grow and drown inDaydream. In the arms of this beautiful nature, for nearly thirty yearsFamous House (Al Hamdan)Coming from Upper Egypt and his family, who were keen to provide the union with school administrators to teach the sons and good woodcutters for forest work, he presented(Ali Hamdan) to (Wadi al-Shatt) to teach his children, he was (Ali Hamdan) with a body resembling the Egyptian writer, sitting cross-legged with his round head and his strange sitting on the bench in front of the house as if he was watching the direction of the wind in the fields where he was tall and very fat with broad shoulders and his arms extending out His long shovel-like sleeves and paws, his little head flat on top, his long ears, his honey-glass eyes, and his long pointy nose, you see him walking on a windy day in his baggy clothes in which his body sinks, you think of him as a scarecrow fleeing from a field of reeds.

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