BEARDS

Alexandria is beard city – it is  the headquarters of  the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice party and the Al Nour party of the ultra-conservative Salafi. Beards have  been sprouting on chins  like weeds. There's   the uncut version, the running-wild look, the trimmed bush and the beard that can't seem to make up its mind whether to come or go.  

Posters and banners still  festoon  the city like decorations left in a room long after the party is over. The  Islamist candidates continue to gaze at us with benign  authority and reassuring smiles. Not all of them are bearded, but  all of them have the  middle of their foreheads  marked by the zebeeba which means ‘dehydrated grape.’  The dark mark indicates the amount of times their foreheads have hit the floor praying.

    

The  Islamist’s campaigning was slick, pumped with money and included free handouts in the name of charity. Their success  in the first leg of Egypt's three-stage parliamentary vote has surprised and alarmed those Egyptians worried about what this might mean for freedoms and tolerance.  The Muslim Brotherhood party and the  Salafis are likely to emerge as a vocal bloc in the first legislature since Hosni Mubarak was deposed by the Egyptian people. The Salafis are predicted to come second to the  more moderate Muslim Brotherhood.

Many Muslim scholars do not believe beards are compulsory.  Mohammed never stipulated facial hair was must for his followers in the Quran, although he himself is believed to have sported one – probably   because  he was so busy  being a prophet he didn’t have time to shave.

Sayings of Mohammed reported  after his death give the impression he was a militant beardist. ‘Trim the moustache closely but let the beard flow,’ he is reported to have said. One Muslim scholar states, ‘No one has called it permissible to trim it (the beard) less than fist-length as is being done by some westernized Muslims and hermaphrodites.'  In a statement that could   put barber’s out of business, he stated ‘It is  forbidden for a man to shave another’s beard.

Beards themselves are not the issue. George Clooney looks great in one. The 25^th January Revolution was led by young people most  of whom wanted to see Egypt become a  modern leading nation  in the 21^st century. Instead, a large group of bearded men (and a few covered women) will be a major influence, viewing the world from the 8th and 9th centuries.

When Salafist leader and Alexandrian parliament candidate, Abdel-Moneim El-Shahat  recently described the literature of the late Egyptian Nobel prize winner, Naguib Mahfouz, as ‘inciting promiscuity, prostitution and atheism,’ he sent shivers through the artistic community.

In a television  interview, El-Shahat  (who looks like a gnome with a third eye) said, Mahfouz’s novels ‘are mostly set in areas involving brothels and drugs,' and that his  acclaimed,  Awlad Harretna (Children of our Alley),  was a novel 'whose symbols promoted atheism.’

The  beardless bartender at the Four Seasons Hotel says he voted for the Salafis and for the Muslim Brotherhood as they  ‘will be fair and just.’

When I pointed out that he would be out of a job if the Salafis   succeeded in banning all alcohol, he merely shrugged his shoulders.

‘I’ll find another job,” he said, apparently  oblivious of Egypt’s high unemployment rate.  

 When asked if he knew what Al Nour  would do for the economy, he shook his head. In conservative Egypt, moral rectitude is taking priority over economic sense.

I recently watched a television  interview with  a Salafist who clearly had his eye on the Ministry of Tourism. He said that all female tourists arriving in Egypt should be given a uniform on arrival which would cover them from head to toe. The Pharonic statues they had come to see, would also be covered. He also promised to increase the revenue coming into the country from tourism.

Mahfouz once said, ‘If you want to move people, you look for a point of sensitivity, and in Egypt nothing  moves people as much as religion.’ He also said, ‘It is clearly more important to treat one’s fellow man well, than to be always praying and fasting and touching one’s head to a prayer mat.’

TOXIC GAS

 Ahmed rings me. I can hear gun shots and a helicopter in the background.

 “It’s a battle ground here. It’s terrible,” he says in a fragmented voice.

A friend seizes the phone and tells him what to do if he breathes in any of the toxic gas the police   are firing on the demonstrators.   Ahmed suddenly rings off.

He and Abdul have been attending every demonstration in Alexandria. Their demands for  Field Marshal Tintawi, leader of the  Supreme Council of the Armed Forces  to resign, is gaining momentum.  The moment they thought would never come, has arrived. For months they’ve been  attending daily meetings with other activists  around Alexandria – mostly in cafes or in gardens. The last time I saw them, Abdul had  opened up a bag revealing several cans of spray paint and rolls of  black and white photo copied posters. He held one up. ‘We need our rights, our health, our money, our blood,’ it reads.

He was preparing for a late night  session of spreading the message around  the city. I thought of offering to help until Abdul said they would start at 3.00 am.

 “You’d be safe,” he said. ‘We have lookouts posted everywhere.’

It’s not illegal to put up political posters if they are part of the election campaign. Ahmed and Abdul do not have a party – but  are part of a coalition of activists who believe that any  elected government will be  illegal.

‘We haven’t  even got a proper constitution. The Revolution has been stolen from us.  The military are scum,’ Abdul says.

 Every morning in the micro bus I see evidence of their nightly missions. Their posters are plastered all over the granite walls of Haturam Gardens. A huge version dangles from a statue outside the Alexandria Library. Heads turn in the bus. The posters are everywhere.

More recently, travelling to school each morning  has been like turning the page of a book. Ahmed’s black and white  photo-copied posters are soon covered  by the slick posters  of the Muslim Brotherhood party.  By the following morning they, in turn, have been obliterated by the bright  new posters of another party.

For  several months Ahmed and Abdul have tirelessly devoted themselves to keeping alive  the spirit of the 25^th January Revolution. “We were cleaning the streets together. ' Abdul says. 'For the first time, I got to know  my neighbours. We were one big community, helping each other, Now it’s gone back to what it was. ' 

Moments later he is in the  middle of junction trying to sort out a traffic jam. 

“This is what we did during the revolution. There was no one to control the traffic.’ Ahmed says.

We pass a parked car belching steam. Abdul rushes over and starts trying to force open the bonnet. The owner is nowhere to be seen . A crowd gathers. Ahmed and Abdul are now pulling so hard on the bonnet, the car is bouncing.  The owner appears.

“We thought it might blow up,” Abdul says peering into the engine. Ahmed examines the battery and gives up.

There’s no time for any of this any more.  Their moment has come – again. Their objective – to rid the country of military rule – looks increasingly likely. 

At a  demonstration in Alexandria, thousands poured through the streets towards the main police station. Flags waved. Voices chanted ‘Mother Egypt we are you sons. We shall relieve you of your burden,' and  called  for freedom.  Families, the elderly, and above all the young,  pushed bravely through the city aware of the risks they were taking.  

Shoes were held aloft when Field Marshal Tantawi, head of SCAF, announced his concessions. (To show someone the sole of a shoe here is an insult) .The crowd jeered and continued their calls   for  him to stand down.

“It’s Mubarak all over again,” someone says.

A candy floss man pushes past us, his bags of pink sugar fluttering from a pole.  A car creates a path  through the crowds. A young woman  in the back is bent double from toxic gas. A small field hospital has been set up under some trees. Further down the road a deadly mist rises above the demonstrators.

I walk back to the apartment block where I live. It’s just across from The Four seasons, a $700 a night hotel.  Attached to it, like an incubus, is the shopping mall.  This is the place where rich kids hang out. Costa Coffee is packed, women buy handbags and shoes, people queue for KFC, Macdonalds, and Pizza Hut.   Outside, someone has pulled down a  large Muslim Brotherhood banner, and slashed the rest. In a shop   people huddle around a television. A presenter announces that the toxic gas cylinders being fired  on the demonstrators, are manufactured in America.

COME BACK?

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Nabi Daniel Street was once the heart of  Alexandria's  thriving Jewish community. Set back from the shops  lining the street, is number 69 -  Elayahu Hanavi synagogue. The imposing baroque building  can be viewed from the street.  In front of its  high  iron gate security men and police lounge on chairs  drinking tea.  I hand my passport through the railings to a guard. Several minutes later a key turns in the lock and I step into synagogues peaceful  courtyard. For the first time in a long time, I can hear birds singing.   

The 130 year old synagogue is the largest in the middle east outside Israel, and was once one of 16 synagogues in the city. Most of them have been torn down or converted to other use. Elayanu Hanavi   is an enduring testimony to a community that  until the middle of the 20^th century once numbered over  40,000. There are now only 20 elderly Jews remaining, some of whom are married to Muslims. 

My guide is  Rasha  Nabi, whose father, Abdul Nabi, is the synagogue’s caretaker. She is a Muslim, and wears a multi layered jhijab which is fashionable with young Egyptian girls. She understands very well the incongruity of her presence in a Jewish house of worship.  Her father has taken care of the building and its gardens for 26 years and she has lived in its grounds  all her life.  

“I love this place," Rasha says,  as we walk through the tree filled gardens, “It’s like  home to me,”  

Inside the bright interior, rows of polished wooden benches stretch from the dais. Each one bears a name etched onto brass plaques reflecting Alexandria’s cosmopolitan history. Jews  from Egypt, the Maghreb, France , Greece, Britain, Italy, Armenia  all sat together in  the grand pillared interior.  

“You can’t even smell dust, ” Rasha says proudly. “It’s as if  there’s just been a prayer.”

We turn back to the doors of the synagogue as if expecting the congregation to enter. But most of Alexandria’s remaining Jews  are too old to travel.

 The history of the Jews of Alexandria dates from the foundation of the city by Alexander the Great. They continued to form  a very large portion of the population under his successors. A separate section of the city was assigned to them by the first Ptolemies,  They set up hospitals, homes for the aged and charity programmes and they ran many of the city’s successful businesses.  Today’s ramshackle and run down department stores still bear the names of their Jewish founders; Cicurel, Benizon, Chamla. The creation of the state of Israel, the rise of  Arab nationalism  and a series of Arab Israeli wars  led to their mass expulsion. Properties and businesses were confiscated, bank accounts frozen.

But many of the relatives of those who left, return to find their roots and connect to the city that is their ancestral home. 

“It is very emotional when people find the seat their great-grandfather  used to sit in,” Rasha says. “I have seen many Jewish tears.”

Two years ago the synagogue was renovated by the Cairo University Ventre for Antiquities and Environmental Studies. At the time, Ali Hilal, project manager at the Supreme Council for Antiquities said the synagogue was the most notable of preservation plans for Egyptian monuments. 

Rasha admits that  once her fellow Muslims discover what she does and where she lives, she is asked what Jews are like.  “I tell them they are like everyone else.," she says." Egypt has had Jewish communities in its major cities for centuries, and we are not anti-Jewish people.  It’s Zionism  and the state of Israel that is the problem. It’s politics that causes all the trouble. ”

As a Muslim, Rasha believes that Islam is the conclusion to all Abrahamic religions. “It makes sense of it all, but the fundamental basics between Jews, Christians and Muslims are the same. We are  brothers and sisters.”

Light pours down from the high windows as we approach the bimah, the table from which the prayers are read.  Silver candelabra shine upon the dais and books rest upon the rabbi’s desk. It’s as if everyone has left in a hurry, leaving everything behind as it was.  Behind the bimah hangs the curtain of the Torah Ark, behind which  the old religious scrolls are kept. It is a long time since a service was held, but visiting Jews often address the empty synagogue with prayers. 

“One woman came from America," Rasha says.  "Her ancestors  had been Egyptian Jews for centuries.  She considered herself Egyptian although she has never lived here. She started to pray in Hebrew. She was crying and she kept waving her arms about. Afterwards, I asked her what she was saying. She said, ‘I was calling, ‘Come back. Come back. Come back.' "

A WRITER'S FOOTSTEPS

Vinous cafe has the air of a mausoleum. Two people sit leagues apart at separate tables. Its high ceilings, art nouveau mirrors and empty carved glass cabinets give the impression of an English country house waiting for new occupants to move in. Its last Greek owner died several years ago, and its Egyptian owner can't afford to return it to the thriving cafe and patisserie it once was, despite the nostalgic charm of its interior   On the corner of Nabi Daniel street and Tariq-al-Horreya, Vinous  is ideally situated to catch the late night audiences of the nearby Opera House and the Arts Creative Centre, formerly a private club.  All of them were frequented by Durrell and were within a short walk from his office at the British Council in Seios Stias street.   

He was a regular Vinous customer. Surrounded by empty chairs and tables, I  imagine him  staring out into the busy streets, mining  material for the four novels about the city and its inhabitants that he would not write until he  left. An open notebook lies  beside his  Turkish coffee. His companions would have reflected the cosmopolitan character of the city - Greeks, Egyptians,  Greeks, British, French, Italian, Armenian,  Jews - all of them recreated in his four novels. 

Vinous

Durrell drew inspiration from his immediate neighbourhood, Midan Saad Zaghlul. It remains the entertainment heart of Alexandria with cinemas, the Opera House, restaurants and busy coffee houses.  It was a small world, boundaried by  several streets in the heart of the city.  His main artery both in life, and in the Quartet, was Nabi Daniel street which ran through  what  was once a thriving  Jewish quarter.

"At that epoch, George Gaston Pombal, a minor consular official, shares a small flat with me in the Rue Nebi Daniel. He is a rare figure among the diplomats in that he appears to possess a vertebral column."
Alexandria Quarter/Justine

Durrell, did in fact, live in Nabi Daniel street, but no one knows where. Neither do we know for  sure, if, like the narrator in the Quartet,  he was shaved every morning in a  Babylonian barber's shop on the corner of Nabi Daniel Street and Sesostris Street. If so, was the barber anything like the odious Mnemjian - a dwarf 'with a violet eye that has never lost its childhood.'?

'....every morning Pombal lay down beside me in the mirrors.  We were lifted simultaneously and swung smoothly down into the ground wrapped like dead Pharoahs, only to reappear at the same instant on the ceiling, spread out like specimens. White cloths had been spread over us by a small black boy, while in a great Victorian moustache-cup the barber thwacked up his dense and sweet smelling lather before applying it in direct, considered brush strokes to our cheeks. The first covering complete he surrendered his task to an assistant while he went to the great strop hanging among the flypapers on the end wall of the shop and began to sweet the edge of an English razor.'

What might have been Mnemjian's barber shop, is now a small garish  shop selling cameras and mobile phones.

The Arts Creativity Centre, is a pillared masterpiece that was once a private club frequented by E.M Forster and Durrell. I stand across the road from the building. Painted cream, it makes the surrounding buildings appear more  dingy and neglected  than they already are.  Once a royal palace, the Centre  now promotes contemporary arts in Alexandria and houses a theatre,  art galleries, cinema and library. Above the passing traffic I can see the building's terrace, where Durrell and Forster first met. Forster was a Red Cross volunteer in Alexandria during the First World War. At first he did not like  the city.....“what had begun as an outpost turned into something suspiciously like a funk-hole." He made his peace with it when he fell in love with a tram car conductor and  began  researching for Alexandria: A History and a Guide.  In a later preface to  the guide  Durrell wrote:

'The book has an added appeal for me because it was a work of exile. I understood that E.M. Forster had been marooned in Alexandria by the first World War, as I had been by the second. In wartime, with all its confusions and despairs it is more than ever necessary for the artist to keep his spirit alive and his writing-machine well-oiled and in practice; and this is what the book stands for -- the survival values of an artist far from home. It is also a work of deep affection and a noble monument raised to this most haunting of cities.'

Durrell's old British Council office

Walking directly down the busy  Nabi Daniel Street,  Durrell would head for  the Hotel Cecil overlooking the sea front. There he sat with  Forster and Noel Coward (when he was in town), gazing out to sea. There was no  wide road in front of the hotel then, and no traffic  to obstruct a view of the Mediteranean and the harbour.   The narrator of the  Alexandrian Quartet and the beautiful and mysterious Justine  could walk directly onto the beach in the dark and make love, unaware of her approaching husband. Not any more.They'd have to dice with death to cross the four lane road, climb over a sea wall and drop six feet onto a wrack of concrete blocks.

The Hotel Cecil is now The Sofitel, and a thorough refurbishment has taken away what Vinous has managed to retain. The Montgomery bar is a dark wood lined nod to  General Montgomery. In the hotel he plotted  the Allies last stand against Rommell  in North Africa.   Durrell had not yet arrived in Alexandria.   The only indication that he  ever did, is his words. 
I accompanied Al Zaharaa Adel Awed on her  literary tour of Alexandria: tourguide_egypt@yahoo.com

CITY OF MEMORY

'Leaving them there, fitted so clumsily together, I stepped laughing out into the street once more to make a circuit of the quarter which still hummed with the derisive concrete life of men and women. The rain had stopped, and the damp ground exhaled the tormentingly lovely scent of clay, bodies and stale jasmine. I began to walk slowly, deeply bemused, and to describe to myself in words this whole quarter of Alexandria for I knew that soon it would be forgotten and revisited only by those  whose memories had been appropriated by the fevered city, clinging to the minds of old men like traces of perfume upon a sleeve: Alexandria, the capital of memory.'
Alexandria Quartet/Justine

DOGS OF WAR

 Beneath a full moon, a crown of Coptic Christians gather outside Alexandria's library to protest at the previous night's violence. Egypt has had its Black Sunday - 26 dead in Cairo following confrontations between Christians, Muslims and the military. There was fighting too, in Alexandria, the heart of Coptic Christianity. 

The bloodshed  occurred just over a week after the burning of a Coptic Christian church in southern Egypt. Christians and some Muslims had gathered together in a peaceful protest  demanding equality and protection of Coptic places of worship.On the evening of the violence 

I had been due to meet Ahmed at Sidi Girbir station, but he had called to say, "Don't come. It's dangerous here." In the background I could hear shouting and sirens. He hung up. I walked home past  people gathering  to watch  their Revolution unravel on the television.

 The next day  Ahmed tells me how he attended what started out as a peaceful rally outside Sidi Girbir station. “There were mainly Christians, but plenty of Muslims in support.’ he says. ‘Some young boys suddenly started throwing stones and it turned ugly. Afterwards I went to my sisters. I didn’t feel well. I woke up in the morning  and saw  what had happened in Cairo. I’ve been feeling bad all day.”

He is unusually subdued and doesn’t want to go to the library to photograph the demonstration, even though it just across the road.   “I feel ashamed. I don’t know what to say to the Christians. We tried to protect them, but failed. This is very bad  for Egypt.’

His phone rings and he is suddenly animated. “Lets go to the demonstration” he says, snapping the  moon.  When we reach the library the Christians have gone. Ahmed makes a call. “My friend is coming. I met him last night at the demonstration. He’s a Christian.”
Imeen  meets us at the petrol station. He drifts out of the shadows clutching a mobile. After greeting him, Ahmed turns to me and says, “I don’t trust him. Do you? He says his brother was killed in Cairo last night.”

For someone who has just lost a brother, Imeen is unnaturally nonchalant. And why is he in Alexandria? Ahmed might be right. ‘He’s from Upper Egypt, they always  say prayers immediately after a death, but he says they haven’t done this  yet for his brother.  If they don’t pray it means they are waiting until they have revenge.’

According to Imeen’s sources, the demonstration has moved to a church in Mencheya district. “They are going to fast in protest,’ Ahmed says. We spend an hour looking for the church. Imeen evaporates into a side street.  Ahmed walks ahead, mobile pressed to his ear with one hand and  combing his hair with the other.

“I’m going to the Cap d’Or for a drink,” I insist, desperate to escape the traffic, noise, and dust.  We step into another world – French boudoir almost – full of memorabilia from Alexandria’s own Belle Epoque.  A large man stands at the bar with a bling crucifix. Ahmed calls him over. Francis is a Catholic.  “It’s a conspiracy,” he says. ‘The military want to cause trouble before the elections. They want an excuse to delay them and keep the Emergency Laws in place so they can control us. This is not about Christians and Muslims. We live very well together. But now, now it is dangerous. “ 

He says he has heard  that bodies were being thrown into the Nile by the police . Ahmed looks as though he will burst into tears.

When we leave, we pass Francis sitting alone in his shop. He makes and sells school uniforms and is surrounded by  shelves of gingham blouses, white shirts, and  maroon cardigans. He waves at us, and I suddenly want to rush over and cover his crucifix.  It makes him look vulnerable.

Ahmed’s phone rings and we are off again. “I am meeting a friend. We meet up nearly every day  for discussions, but in secret places.  You never know who’s around.”

We wade through rubbish (Alexandria’s dustmen are on strike) and into a small haven of grass and palms away from the city centre.  Couples and groups of women cluster in the darkness. Ahmed walks  around waving  his arms and calling out to his friend. We head towards   the sound of someone whistling.  Abdul is sitting on a bench with a glass of tea, smoking a cigarette. He is tall,  and his eyes are red rimmed and anxious. He is probably in his late twenties.  He invites me to sit on the bench as  if I am a guest in his home.  

Abdul worked as a business development consultant until the Revolution. “I had my own office. It was a good job. But after the revolution the business went bust. Now I work for the Revolution. For freedom, bread and justice. I’m not in any party, but I support the liberals.”
He  wasn’t interested in politics until 25^th January. ‘Now, it’s my life.’ 

I am beginning to understand that for many Egyptians, the Revolution has  birthed an inner revolution.

“You know Pink Floyd’s The Wall? That’s where we are now,” Abdul says, and together  we  sing an offkey rendering of, ‘We don’t need no education…teacher, leave the kids alone.’

A tea lady  collects Abdul’s glass. Ahmed orders more tea. ‘Her son has just been jailed for five years by the  military. He’s 21.”  Arabic pours from the tea lady as she tells Ahmed that her son was charged with trying to burn down a police station. (All the police stations in Alexandria were burnt down during the revolution.)

“His friends got away, and he was caught. But he swears he is innocent,” she says.

“He’s a civilian. He shouldn’t have been   tried in a military court,” Abdul says, and mutters ‘Dogs of war’ under his breath. He does this often .

We sip our tea staring up at the moon. “Israel’s Massod  and the military are behind this together,” Abdul says. Ahmed nods his head vigorously. “No one cares about the poor people and how they are suffering. But we won’t allow them to take the Revolution from us. Never.”

We sit in silence for a long time until Abdul whispers into the night.

'Dogs of war.'
 

SEX AND THE CITY

Alexandria’s demonstrations keep popping up all over the place. Ahmed can’t keep up, and is clearly exhausted. HIs camera remains in his pocket while we watch a small group of young men punch the air with their fists and call for an end to military rule. “The trouble with this country,” he says, “is sex.”

Has he been reading my mind? You can’t help thinking about sex in Alexandria.

There is an erotic charge to the city, which Durrell inculcated in all four of his books that make up the Alexandria Quartet.

“Alexandria is a town of sects and gospels. And for every ascetic, she has always thrown up one religious libertine – Carpocrates, Anthony – who was prepared to founder in the senses as deeply and truly as any desert father in the mind.”

In today’s moral climate, sex is no longer the wanton creature of Durrell’s time. The seductive arts are stifled and desire has created its own distorted path in a country where  women are held responsible for male desire, and female virginity holds the honour of an entire family. The charge of unmet desire spins upon the axis of the intact hymen.

Ahmed’s eyes follow a passing girl. She wears a hijab, but her jeans and top are tight. He sighs. “Girls breasts are bigger these days. When I was young they were smaller. It’s because of the Israeli’s and vegetables.”

Not for the first time, Ahmed has rendered me speechless.

“Israel is the best in the world for fertiliser and agriculture. They are the experts. They are involved with the fertiliser and seed companies. We buy from them, but the stuff they give us has hormones in it, or is out of date. The Israeli’s are making Egyptian breasts bigger. Even men are getting breasts these days. “

Mohammed, a student, does not have breasts, but as a testosterone charged 22 year old, he realises he has to find an outlet. He boxes, jogs and tries not to stand too close to his fellow female students. “The only way to have sex is to get married. Many of my friends – men and women - have married just to have sex . They can’t stand it any longer. This is not a good foundation for marriage. “

In Egypt, men must buy an apartment for his bride. She buys the furniture. These days, few people can afford it. Hormones are impatient: boys and girls make out at night under the concrete slabs that line the city’s sea wall. Hymens are surgically replaced.

My landlady is a retired Madam and former prostitute. She travels from Cairo to collect her rent. Prostitutes are said to own half of Alexandria. “I have drunk, smoked and fucked too much,” she says. Her frankness is unexpected and shocking, especially as she is covered in a black hijab and long coat . “The man who owns the café downstairs is married.He came to me. I knew what he wanted. I said, 'I don’t want to fuck you, I can fuck myself.'

She once had seven girls working for her. “You can find every vice here, but it is hidden. You have to know where to find it. If there is a market, it will be catered for. I made a lot of money. Alexandrian men like sex too much. I bought property. But I am not happy. “

Isabelle, a French friend, has fallen in love with Cherif, a handsome Egyptian. They want to make love, but they can’t find anywhere to be alone together. As Public Displays of Affection (PDAs) are a criminal offence, she is too nervous to hold his hand in public, even though some couples do.  Unable to afford his own accommodation, Cherif continues to live with his parents. Even as a European she is not allowed to have an Egyptian man in her hotel room unless she is married to him. In desperation, she rented an apartment for a month so they could be together. After their first night, the landlord knocked on the door and asked if Cherif was her husband. She said, no, and he asked Cherif to leave immediately. They packed their bags. They now go for midnight walks along the Corniche, checking out the concrete slabs.

"No wonder people get aggressive and irritable and ill," Isabelle says. "I've come out in spots."

“Sometimes I wish I was gay, “ Mohammed says, “I could have as many men as I want visiting my room at home. I could even walk down the street holding a man’s hand. A lot of men have sex with men because they can’t have sex with women. Perhaps women do the same.  Or, we use pornography, which is not good. What we need is a sexual revolution.”