Hamída A beautiful
Characters Abbas Hilu A medium-height, pallid, slightly heavy barber with yellowish, wavy hair, Abbas has always lived in—and loved—Midaq Alley. He and Uncle Kamil, with whom he shares a flat, breakfast together every day after opening their shops and before working. Abbas is good-natured, gentle, peaceful, tolerant, kind, and conscientious about his religious duties. He has worked as a barber’s helper for ten years before opening his own shop five years ago. He is satisfied with his lot and hates change. When Kamil complains he is so poor that when he dies, he will not be able to afford a burial shroud, Abbas claims to have bought one and laid it away. It is a joke that all but naïve Kamil share. Abbas falls hopelessly in love with Hamida, whom he considers beyond him, but his old friend, Hussain Kirsha, argues he must pursue her. Hussain also pushes Abbas to abandon boring Midaq Alley and seek his fortune, like him, working for the British Army. Abbas gets the nerve to talk to Hamida, tells her of his plans, overcomes her lack of passion, becomes engaged, and goes off to Tell el-Kebir, where he lives frugally and dreams of Hamida. He returns on holiday months later, determined to marry, only to find Hamida has vanished without a trace. Within a day, Abbas crosses paths with Hamida—now a prostitute renamed Titi—and confronts her. She claims to have been seduced by a terrible man and easily gets peace-loving Abbas to swear vengeance. Hussain Kirsha reinforces Abbas’s nerve but does not back him in a clash with British soldiers whom Titi is entertaining, and Abbas is brutally beaten to death.
Hamída A beautiful, shapely, dark-eyed girl in her twenties, Hamida longs for fine clothes and a rich husband, and loves to fight with her foster mother and anyone else within reach. Her black hair, which she combs often, applying kerosene to kill lice, reaches her mid thighs. When angry—which is often—Hamida sets her lips and narrows her eyes in an unfeminine look of strength and determination. Hamida takes daily strolls to Mousky Street, where she meets progressive young Egyptian women working in war factories and Jewish girls. She admires their freedom and affluence. She knows that Abbas the barber is in love with her but disdains him until he declares his intention of working for the British Army to earn money to give her a good life. Feeling little for him, Hamida agrees to marry and forces the enthusiasm to kiss him and promise to pray for him. While Abbas is away, rich, middle-aged businessman Salim Alwan announces his intention to marry Hamida, suffers a heart attack, and thus slips through her fingers. Having forgotten her fiancé, Hamida is vulnerable to the next man who shows interest. Educated, middle-class Ibrahim Faraj shows up during a political rally, and becomes a regular at Kirsha’s Café, sneaking glances up at Hamida’s window. During one of her walks, he approaches, withstands her aggression, and convinces her to visit his home. The next day, she is ready to leave the hateful alley. Soon, Faraj reveals he is a pimp, who teaches Hamida—renamed Titi—the prostitute’s trade. She quickly becomes a
