One city is as different from another as the past is from its present
Alright in Alexandria
The receptionist has throat cancer and must keep a finger on the tiny hole at the top of his chest when he speaks, “Welcome to...” and as his fingertip slips there’s a deflated wheeze instead of “Alexandria”. My room is one of those typical budget accommodations with a ‘sideways sea view’, meaning that I glimpse a strip of the Mediterranean from behind the back of the more posh 1920s’ Hotel Cecil (where a literary hero of mine, Somerset Maugham, once stayed). My head is boiling over with preconceived imagery of the colourful city.
“A fecund desert of human loves littered with the whitening bones of its exile,” wrote Lawrence Durrell in his Alexandria Quartet. Michael Palin referred to it as “Cannes with acne”. E.M. Forster confessed, “It is only at sunset that Egypt surpasses India — at all other hours it is flat, unromantic, un-mysterious and godless.” Perhaps the last time anybody said anything nice about Alexandria was in antiquity when Strabo described a magnificent city that rivalled Rome itself.
Each was, of course, motivated by his times. The Roman geographer Strabo, for example, moved to Alexandria to work at the famous library in the 20s BCE, shortly after Cleopatra’s suicide, when Egypt was added to the Roman kitty. He described the licentiousness of the Ptolemies that ruled prior to the takeover, everything that Egypt had to offer from Nile fishes to barley beer, and how Alexandrian streets were crowded with Ibis birds — a great nuisance. The British wits had their agendas too, as their empire had a commercial and strategic interest in the Suez Channel. So Forster was a Red Cross volunteer in the First World War and Durrell a press attaché during the second. Forster wrote the intriguing Alexandria: A History and a Guide (1922), which concerns itself with the sights that aren’t visible to the eye, or as he said, “I’m constructing by archaeological and other reading an immense ghost city.” Durrell described the city’s underbelly and his four novels are understandably not so popular here; none of the bookshops I visit have copies.
Forster’s guidebook project seems to have been a bit of a cover so that he could stalk a handsome tram-conductor, travelling miles by night trams, hanging around the Ramel Station hoping for a glimpse of Mohammed. Eventually the affair bloomed to be the only full-fledged one he ever experienced. Towards the end, Mohammed fell ill with consumption (and died in 1922). Forster — keeping one tram-ticket as a cherished memento — returned to Dewas, in present-day Madhya Pradesh, to work on his masterpiece A Passage to India. One of the central characters in the novel, Aziz, is apparently based on the tram-conductor.
The city centre remains pleasantly old-fashioned. Unlike other Egyptian cities, where souks are geared towards pushing souvenirs, the bazaars are very traditional. If you wish to carry home Arabic style-caviar, go to Sultan al-Fasigh, the little fish shop on Sharia Ismai’l al-Mohafza (near the railway station). The battered trams central to Forster’s love life are the oldest in Africa; horse-carriages are still common, and not just as a tourist thing; and patisseries retain Art Deco interiors.
My most satisfactory meal in Egypt is served in a tiny mess near the railway station. The Akher Sa’a is run by a veiled woman and her jolly husband; she cooks, he serves. But what catches my attention are the fish pots stewing slowly on the grill. They’re served with Egyptian pulao, flat breads, salads and some delicious Arabic mush. When I ask for a recipe, aunty says it’s nothing special, just a mix of fish, vegetables and ‘Egyptian masala.’ Her choice of words reminds me that the Indian spice route passed through here, and probably affected Egyptian cuisine.
Quseir is centred on a rundown harbour, where boats lie capsized in the mud. The minuscule Corniche seaside promenade has a handful of deserted cafes and two rental shops for diving equipment bearing witness to more ambitious times. There’s a crossroads with a petrol pump and a café where unemployed Egyptians smoke hookahs all day. In the next street there are souvenir shops surrounding the only tourist site in town, the 16th century Ottoman citadel. The tourism information booth is deserted but there’s a museum with some basic data about Quseir.
(This story appears in the 12 August, 2011 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)