Abstract
In a scene in Michal Goldman's documentary film Umm Kulthum: A Voice Like Egypt, two female friends of Umm Kulthum are reminiscing about her decision in the 1930s to purchase land for a villa in Cairo's Zamalek district. At the time, the women relate, Zamalek had very few buildings and was considered a remote location, far from the city center. “What were you thinking about to buy something so far away?” one of the women recalls her mother telling Umm Kulthum. At this point, the other woman, who had been distractedly knitting a scarf on her lap, suddenly brightens up and enters the conversation: “Do you remember the water wheel on the river in front of her house?” she excitedly asks her companion. “There was a waterwheel.” She imitates its high-pitched whirring sound as she turns her hand to trace the circular path of the wheel itself. “People used to say she kept it to remind her of the old days.”
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