Thirty years have passed since the absence of the Egyptian composer Baligh Hamdi. However, it is rare for his name to be mentioned without the name of the Algerian singer Warda being brought with him. They lived together for seven years, during which she sang her most beautiful songs composed by him. Then one day he traveled to the Emirates to record tunes for an emerging young singer. He was gone for a long time, and jealousy flared up in Warda’s heart and she asked for a divorce. A decision I later regretted. The wound of love in their hearts did not heal until their last breath.
I met Warda during one of her stays in Paris. She saw the light in the capital of light. I visited her in her apartment near Trocadero Square. She opened the door herself and was like any housewife. She wears a green galabiya, and her hair is pulled back, revealing a face clean of makeup. The “Black Eyes” singer sat on the white leather sofa, holding her cat, “Macho,” on her lap, while her cat, “Kaline,” of Persian-Berman origin, was napping at the doorstep.
Her first husband, the father of her son and daughter, was an officer in the Algerian army, and her second husband was a crazy music artist. I asked her about the difference between the two experiences, and she let out the longest and most delicious laugh and continued laughing, and I was with her. She said: “Like the difference between heaven and earth… and I will not say which of them is earth!”
Baligh described Hamdi as the most bohemian man in the world. While her first husband was a “serious man.” Each of the two experiences had its drawbacks. She said she was happy at times, and depressed at other times. With the father of her two children, there was happiness, but of a different kind. Motherhood occupied her and she maintained a good relationship with her first ex-husband, as well as with her second. She broke up with the first one because he refused to let her return to singing after a break. Her wounded pride stood between her and Baligh. Pride is the cause of separation; No jealousy of the emerging singer whose name was Samira Bint Saeed at that time. She says: “The press used that girl’s weapon to hurt me, and she was almost innocent. him too. But put yourself in my place. I was in the hospital on my death bed. I have a fetus outside the uterus. The doctors are performing surgery on me. And eloquent in Dubai. He did not travel to his wife.” The first thing she did after waking up from the anesthesia was to call a lawyer and ask for a divorce. There were many and continuous rumors about them, but this time she said: “Stop!”
You tried to hate him but you couldn’t. Art linked her to Baligh even after their separation. She forgave him since he presented her with the song “Among Thousands.” He would call her at four in the morning to ask her opinion about a melody he was working on. The melody was not hers, but by Abdel Halim, or by Mrs. Umm Kulthum. After the woman’s departure, some of them saw “Umm Kulthum’s second rose.” She loved to remain the first rose. She says that the woman was a miracle that will not be repeated. A sonic, cultural and humanitarian escape.
The pleasant exchange between her and Baligh remained. When he was forced to move away from Egypt, all of Egypt followed his news and felt sorry for him. Was he the biggest love of her life? There is no point in evading the question. Warda praises her Lord, who created the blessing of forgetfulness. Forgetting Baligh was not easy. A husband wakes her up every morning with roses. He wakes up before her and goes to the office, and the first thing he does there is send her a basket of flowers. He did not abandon this habit during the seven years of their shared life…except when he was travelling. White or yellow roses because she doesn’t like red. Consider it available. Whoever sends red roses will not search for long.
