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sent down from the clouds. She spoke to Labib about it the next time he visited. The man thought for a long time. His cousin was not short of money but …? He put the question to his sister and met with consent. Was it despair? Was it the love from long ago? Was it fear of loneliness? The marriage the family had long joked about took place one night as Cairo suffered a major air raid and convulsed with the sound of antiaircraft fire. Bahiga moved to her uncle’s house as Qasim decreed he would not leave home. Years went by, but there was no sign of children.
    “You will give birth to a boy when the moon is content,” Qasim assured her.
    In 1945 she gave birth to a son, who his father named al-Naqshabandi. He started school after the July Revolution and drank of splendor and glory throughout his education. He was blessed with a radiant face, slender body, and shining intellect. He graduated as an engineer in 1967 and was sent on a delegation. Radia was in her final days when she said goodbye. His father said to him, “God is with you. I bid you farewell without tears.” Al-Naqshabandi traveled to West Germany a few months after June 5, crestfallen and somber. He learned there of the death of the leader, but did not mourn. When he obtained his doctorate he decided against ever returning to Egypt. Heworked in Germany, married a German, and took up German nationality. When his father learned of this he said once more, “God is with you. I bid you farewell without tears.”
    After Radia died, Qasim and Bahiga remained in the old house behind the walnut tree that had witnessed their love long ago. Their hearts still beat with love and solitude.

Galila Mursi al-Tarabishi
    S HE WAS BORN A QUARTER OF THE WAY through the nineteenth century in Bab al-Sha‘riya to a father who worked in a tarboosh factory that was set up, along with other factories, by Muhammad Ali. Her father was a relative of Shaykh al-Qalyubi and lived near his house in Suq al-Zalat, so he betrothed his daughter, Galila, to his neighbor’s son, Shaykh Mu‘awiya, who at that time was starting out as a novice teacher at al-Azhar. Thus, Galila became mistress of the old house in Suq al-Zalat and was known about the quarter as Galila al-Tarabishi. She was so tall she towered over the shaykh, for which he never forgave her. She was dark skinned, slim, had a high forehead and wide brown eyes. With the passing years, she gave birth to Radia, Shahira, Sadiqa, and Baligh. She was renowned for her encyclopedic knowledge of mysteries, miracles, and popular remedies; it was as though she had taken something from every religion from the time of the pharaohs to the Middle Ages. Shaykh Mu‘awiya tried his best to teach her the principles of Islam but through their many years together he took from her more than he gave. He obeyed her when he was sick and, when a mishap befell him, would bow his head for her magic spells, surrender to her incense, and repeat incantations after her. She was stubborn and, if the need arose, aggressive, hence the neighbors wereextremely careful around her. She imparted all her knowledge and experience to her daughters and they responded to her variously. Radia embraced her bequest more wholeheartedly than the others and claimed more of her love than the other children, including Baligh.
    Whenever Shaykh Mu‘awiya tried to assert authority over her she would defy him stubbornly; even the threat of divorce did not frighten her. He was aware of her moral strength and superior domestic skills so would back off and be content with armistice and co-partnership. She was utterly dedicated and rigid in her beliefs and this was made plain the day her husband, Shaykh Mu‘awiya, died during the Occupation. The engagement of Radia and Amr had been announced according to an agreement reached between Shaykh Mu‘awiya and his friend Aziz Yazid, Amr’s father. An hour after his death, as Sitt Galila’s cries broadcast the bad news, the bride’s hamper