A Chapter on the names of neighborhoods in Cairo
from the Book of the Sultan's Seal by Youssef Rikha
Nothing happened on Thursday. I thought back on my dream and still tried to analyze it. I didn't have the slightest idea about who exactly was that young sultan named "the conquerer", or where the Byzantine church where he prayed was, or in what era. And just as I had done on Wednesday and Thursday and every other day, I woke up early and showered, ate breakfast, and brushed my teeth. I lit my first cigarette on the way to the office and once there drank a cup of coffee and then worked straight for 6 hours.
*And he taught Adam the names - all of them* (2:31)
This was all on Thursday. You know that ever since I left Ma'adi I've had a map of Cairo in my head that I've wanted to draw. I had brought a bag of books with me from Ma'adi that stayed in my car for weeks during the temporary separation. That night after dinner I took out three of those books which had old maps in them, I brushed through their pages, and collected pens on the dining room table to give drawing a try. I began, naturally, with the Nile; then I tried to arrange the different neighborhoods on it's shore.
I erased what I had drawn five or six times and started again; each time the lines were more simple and the white spaces wider. I wanted something smooth and resembling an abstract board - a board of Arabic script, for example - so I stripped the Nile of its islands and I left only the neighborhoods of Ma'adi, Doqqi, and al-Aas'if. I left off the streets and the bridges. Only five or six lines for each neighborhood and then I completed the drawing like I wanted it. I only had to give these places new names. It was easy to name all of downtown Baab al-Dunya (Door of the World). Then I started to think: if al-Aas'if is the starting point then Doqqi, where Doqqi Bridge and the dock of the dry Nile - yes, I found myself calling the 6th of October bridge the dry Nile, as its houses had begun to make it look like a dock - is the bed that gives me dreams. Doqqi and with is Mohandiseen and Ajouza and the University are all a bridge, yes: a bridge of dreams.
Then I spent more than an hour thinking of names for the other neighborhoods. There is a small street in Ma'adi where you would always see the dogs of Hind Rustam. The dog of the daughter of the owner of the house - "Sandyyyyyyyyyyyy!" - and the dog that was adopted by the daughter of the doorman, as well as lots of other dogs that had would come and chase and walk around all day. I think I will call it....the path, specifically: path of the dogs.
And because there was some secret in me going, along with my Sunni friend Amgad Salleh Abd al-Jaleel, to the Carrefour on the desert road rather than any of the other places we could have gone together, a secret even I didn't know, the name of this place had to include the word secret. Baab al-Zuweila made me think of Khan al-Khalili. The Khan is a covered market of intersecting streets lined with shops, just like a mall like Carrefour. So Carrefour, then, would clearly have to be... the Khan of secrets.
I wrote the names in their places. Then I drew lines between them showing the journeys that I had taken in Cairo since the prophet's birthday in the year 1428 H: from the Path of Dogs to the Bridge of Dreams; from the Bridge of Dreams to the Door of the World ( and back); and thinking about where I would be going sooner or later, I drew a line from the Door of the World to the Khan of dreams.
I then thought that there were important places that weren't shown on the map. I chose four of them which I thought were important for my life, places I went to see my favorite animals, the place where I go to leave the country and to where I come back to it, the place where I had slept with the Japanese woman on the sea (yani in that apartment close to the Nile) and the place where I received the prophecy about Fustuq.
On a new page I drew a camel and an airplane and a tree and I copied the symbol of the Jazeera club from an old card of my mom's and then the logo of Carrefour from a plastic bag then I drew under each drawing the name of the new place.
The suburbs of Giza starting after Faisal street and the pyramids where Birqash village and the camel market was: I wrote the Port of Sand.
The aiport and all that surrounded it from the neighborhoods of Ain al-Shams and Misr al-Jadid and Madinat Nasr: Monster Pilot.
Jazeera and Zamalek I simpley called: The Japanese sea
Nothing happened on Thursday. I thought back on my dream and still tried to analyze it. I didn't have the slightest idea about who exactly was that young sultan named "the conquerer", or where the Byzantine church where he prayed was, or in what era. And just as I had done on Wednesday and Thursday and every other day, I woke up early and showered, ate breakfast, and brushed my teeth. I lit my first cigarette on the way to the office and once there drank a cup of coffee and then worked straight for 6 hours.
*And he taught Adam the names - all of them* (2:31)
This was all on Thursday. You know that ever since I left Ma'adi I've had a map of Cairo in my head that I've wanted to draw. I had brought a bag of books with me from Ma'adi that stayed in my car for weeks during the temporary separation. That night after dinner I took out three of those books which had old maps in them, I brushed through their pages, and collected pens on the dining room table to give drawing a try. I began, naturally, with the Nile; then I tried to arrange the different neighborhoods on it's shore.
I erased what I had drawn five or six times and started again; each time the lines were more simple and the white spaces wider. I wanted something smooth and resembling an abstract board - a board of Arabic script, for example - so I stripped the Nile of its islands and I left only the neighborhoods of Ma'adi, Doqqi, and al-Aas'if. I left off the streets and the bridges. Only five or six lines for each neighborhood and then I completed the drawing like I wanted it. I only had to give these places new names. It was easy to name all of downtown Baab al-Dunya (Door of the World). Then I started to think: if al-Aas'if is the starting point then Doqqi, where Doqqi Bridge and the dock of the dry Nile - yes, I found myself calling the 6th of October bridge the dry Nile, as its houses had begun to make it look like a dock - is the bed that gives me dreams. Doqqi and with is Mohandiseen and Ajouza and the University are all a bridge, yes: a bridge of dreams.
Then I spent more than an hour thinking of names for the other neighborhoods. There is a small street in Ma'adi where you would always see the dogs of Hind Rustam. The dog of the daughter of the owner of the house - "Sandyyyyyyyyyyyy!" - and the dog that was adopted by the daughter of the doorman, as well as lots of other dogs that had would come and chase and walk around all day. I think I will call it....the path, specifically: path of the dogs.
And because there was some secret in me going, along with my Sunni friend Amgad Salleh Abd al-Jaleel, to the Carrefour on the desert road rather than any of the other places we could have gone together, a secret even I didn't know, the name of this place had to include the word secret. Baab al-Zuweila made me think of Khan al-Khalili. The Khan is a covered market of intersecting streets lined with shops, just like a mall like Carrefour. So Carrefour, then, would clearly have to be... the Khan of secrets.
I wrote the names in their places. Then I drew lines between them showing the journeys that I had taken in Cairo since the prophet's birthday in the year 1428 H: from the Path of Dogs to the Bridge of Dreams; from the Bridge of Dreams to the Door of the World ( and back); and thinking about where I would be going sooner or later, I drew a line from the Door of the World to the Khan of dreams.
I then thought that there were important places that weren't shown on the map. I chose four of them which I thought were important for my life, places I went to see my favorite animals, the place where I go to leave the country and to where I come back to it, the place where I had slept with the Japanese woman on the sea (yani in that apartment close to the Nile) and the place where I received the prophecy about Fustuq.
On a new page I drew a camel and an airplane and a tree and I copied the symbol of the Jazeera club from an old card of my mom's and then the logo of Carrefour from a plastic bag then I drew under each drawing the name of the new place.
The suburbs of Giza starting after Faisal street and the pyramids where Birqash village and the camel market was: I wrote the Port of Sand.
The aiport and all that surrounded it from the neighborhoods of Ain al-Shams and Misr al-Jadid and Madinat Nasr: Monster Pilot.
Jazeera and Zamalek I simpley called: The Japanese sea
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