Arms full of things: Souq Al-Imam Al-Shafei at the Southern Cemetery.

The stock--padlocks without keys, limbs of broken plastic dolls, half a pair of earrings, used ketchup bottles, an anonymous photo album filled with family photos--of many of the stalls at Souq Al-Imam Al-Shafei, located in the City of the Dead, are not obviously saleable. Selling, one might therefore deduce, is only one function, and not necessarily the most important, of Souq Al-Imam. More gathering place than shopping mall, Souq Al-Imam provides an often needed pretext for passing time. If the passing of time is one defining characteristic of life, then a cemetery is as good a place as any for a market. Items plucked from the rubbish bins of affluent neighborhoods are recycled, given a new life at the City of the Dead. When counted in piastres, money can be thrown away and, in being thrown away, it can prevent things from being discarded. Because it is cheap, the life of objects in this market can be prolonged. To be all but worthless brings salvation. In a cemetery life cannot be other than mutable; to be at home in the Southern Cemetery is to acknowledge this mutability. And to trade in this Cairo cemetery is less a reaching of the end of the line than an exploration of the innumerable sidings that constitute that supposed end.

Nur Elmessiri received her B.A. and M.A. in English and Comparative Literature from the American University in Cairo and her Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of Cambridge. She taught at the American University in Cairo from 1991 to 1997 during which time she met her late husband Tom Lamont. She now writes and edits at Al-Ahram Weekly.

Nigel Ryan attended the London School of Economics followed by the University of St. Andrews. He is now an art critic and cultural editor at Al-Abram Weekly.