Social alienation seems to be the keynote of Mostafa Zaki's selection of short stories, "Mashhad Min Layl al-Qahira” (A Scene from Cairo's Night), recently published by Dar al-Ain. The young Alexandrian writer was born in 1980 and raised in the seaside city; still, most of the protagonists in his stories dream of moving to the capital in search of a better future. Only two hours away from home, the crowded capital was no good for any of the dreamy arrivals. The Alexandrian protagonist of the titular story is a college student who leaves his family and those he loves to move to Cairo. He feels lucky and that he does not need to finish school to attain his dreams, yet when he reaches Cairo he struggles to find employment and ends up working as a cinema usher. Crushed with disappointment, the protagonist sees Cairo as a sun that evaporates the blue sea of his childhood. "He was losing part of his sea everyday…[it was] evaporating...going with no return.... he misses the smell of iodine... yesterday he felt the texture of sand inside him… he realized that the bottom was near… and the sea was able to escape… leaving him alone." Zaki uses the classic narrator style to tell stories of his fellow Alexandrians in Cairo. He sometimes relays present events, at other times using flashbacks. His language is poetic and descriptive, though some of his stories are mysterious and, at times, unclear. The influence of Latin American magic realism, blending the fantastic into real life, on Zaki's writing is strongly felt in his story "Khalas” (Escape), in which a man and a woman engage in a forbidden love affair. Right before they get caught, the woman begins to say mysterious words and flies away in sight of the whole town. "He suddenly felt the light shining in the air around him… he saw her rise off the ground… mesmerized, he is fixed in his place… the room's ceiling splits open slowly… and a great white light expands to surround her body as she continues to rise up." This scene seems reminiscent of that of Remedios the Beauty as she flies into the heavens while folding linen in her backyard in "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez. A significant theme in “A Scene from Cairo's Night” is that most of the main characters are female victims of social injustice. In "Ere'ashat Ghorob Khafet" (Tremors of the Sunset), a woman is raped by a man with a prayer mark on his forehead as she walks down the street; her male friend runs away, leaving her behind. The book also reflects on some real events. In “Influenza,” Zaki discusses avian flu through the eyes of a rural boy, who urinates on his mother's birds, till the birds become ill and his mother dies from the disease. “A Scene from Cairo's Night” comprises 16 stories, divided into two sections by a short poem. As the author's first book, it is an interesting read, captivating its readers by offering a melodious mood full of mystery. In "Salawat Temthal Hagary" (Prayers for a Stone Statue), one cannot identify the place or time of the events, yet is caught up in feelings of sympathy for the protagonist, who is punished for criticizing a god that wishes to marry his loved one. Still, the element of mystery is exaggerated in some stories like “Wossol” (Arrival), in which a man is obsessed with switching off his cell phone but can't, so he hopes that the battery will die or the network fail. No insight, however, is provided as to his fears or a storyline.
