Friends Never Need Say Thank You: A Selection from Leila Marshy’s The Philistine (2018)

“‘Friends never need say thank you. Khallas.’ ‘Never?’ ‘Not necessary. Of course I help. Of course I give.’ Nadia knew it to be true. There was a deeply reassuring quality of unconditional generosity and acceptance in Egypt, perhaps the Middle East in general. Sometimes she caught sight of it, a lifting of the burden of individuality and aloneness. In its place was an almost maternal warmth and sharing. Sometimes she wondered if Egyptians possessed a sensitivity and a sight that people in the West did not use, able to feel things, the way some animals see ultraviolet or hear higher pitches. Increasingly, as she walked the busy streets she could feel a connectedness, a common humanity, the veins and branches of the tree of life. Everybody was located somewhere on a stretched fabric, inches from the next. Individual movements—individuals—shook the fabric with every breath. There was no individual without their impact on the whole. One danced, they all danced. It had to be the secret behind the incredibly low rates of crime and violence. A city of sixteen million and yet she’d never felt safer. More harassed, yes, but safer too. And, strangely, seen.”—Leila Marshy, The Philistine (2018)