* * *
The early-morning train from Luxor to Cairo drew out of the station, jerked, bumped, gathered speed and went racketing along the already hot, shining metal tracks. Though it was only seven o’clock in the morning, the fierce sun poured down on the roofs of the carriages; the air shimmered, silvery, in long waves of heat, and the golden dust of the desert came in through every chink, gritty and stifling.
Crowds of boys and men sat on the roof of the express, and the third-class carriages were packed with people piled in on top of each other with their animals and fowl. Aida sat alone in a large green leather seat in First Class, her window tightly shut, but whereas in other compartments the Venetian shutters were lowered against the sun, hers were pulled up. The false ceiling, with a wide space above it, cut down the sun’s heat, preventing the interior of the carriage from being transformed into a rustic furnace.
Aida could have taken the local Misrair plane that travelled twice a week from Aswan to Cairo, via Luxor and Assiut, which would have reduced the time of the journey to an hour and a half, but she wasn’t in a hurry, and wanted to refamiliarise herself with the colourful Egyptian countryside that she had missed so much during her long years of exile. Along one side of the rails ran a thin canal where women and children squatted in rows, laboriously washing the family clothes; on the other was a dirt road where men on donkey carts laden with newly cut sugarcane or berseem made their way to the fields.
As the train shuddered along the side of palm groves, sugarcane plantations and cotton fields, passing the circling blindfolded buffaloes turning their irrigation wheels while flocks of white cattle egrets trailed in the wake of ox and plough, Aida’s gaze clouded over, her mind distracted.
Two weeks had already passed since her return to Egypt. By now she had recovered from the long hours of plane travel and was happy to be back in the sunshine, but she missed her job and the more hectic life she had led in England. For the first few days she had asked nothing more than simply to wander about the house and grounds, familiarising herself with old corners, gazing at an ancient tree or a hole inhabited by lizards ever since she could remember. Almost every square yard was peopled with the past, with friends who owned the local estates, and the memories of a plain young girl, still burdened with puppy fat and not quite out of the awkward age of her teenage years. Each encounter had its invisible button that opened its window on to the past. As she looked through it in her mind’s eye, she saw little framed scenes which had taken place on that spot, ten, twelve years ago or more, dipped in the dye of pleasure, fear, joy, or deep sadness.
Aida had lost no time in paying a visit to Uncle Naguib and Aunt Nabila at their home in the countryside, Esbat El Fardouz – Paradise Farm, named after Uncle Naguib’s mother. Another place of fond childhood recollections, it was a relaxed and lively house where people were always coming and going, turning up for tea unannounced and staying for dinner. Aunt Nabila had been overjoyed at seeing Aida again and the two women had spent long leisurely hours swapping stories of the past eight years. Nabila Bishara was active in many charities, including the Red Cross and Miss Lillian Trasher’s orphanage in Assiut. She knew a great many people around Luxor, and was therefore a font of knowledge about its old families, particularly when it came to the list of Egyptian women who had landed British servicemen for husbands during the war. There were many times when Aida had spent an entire afternoon at Esbat El Fardouz without realising where the time had gone.
She had deliberately avoided going anywhere near Kasr El Ghoroub and the Pharaony land, in case she ran into Phares again. She had been deeply troubled by her reaction to the young doctor on their first meeting, and hadn’t stopped thinking about him since. It was clear that her feelings towards Phares had merely been numbed for eight years and it had just taken this chance encounter to revive the old flame that had burned silent but constant all this time.
Yet, even at Karawan House, it was almost impossible to escape reminders of Phares. As she ambled through the gardens, Aida recalled the afternoon years ago – she had been perhaps fourteen or so – when Phares had found her curled up under the shagar el jummayz, sycamore tree, with a copy of Colette’s Chéri. Devouring the tale of the affair of a courtesan and younger man and its world of sexuality and desire, Aida, thinking herself alone, had lost herself in the novel. She hadn’t heard him approach and the heat had risen in her cheeks as he swiped the book from her hands, telling her it was hardly suitable reading material for someone her age. His critical but curious gaze had pinned her to the spot.
Acutely embarrassed and self-conscious, Aida sprang to her feet and snatched the book back. ‘And who are you to tell me what is suitable? You’re not my brother.’
‘I’m as good as,’ he replied, scowling at her rebuke.
Looking into the dark depths of his eyes, the feelings Aida had experienced were far from sisterly, as her racing pulse witnessed. ‘You’ll never be anything like a brother to me,’ she blurted out, hardly realising what she had said.
If Phares understood her meaning he hadn’t shown it, but Aida remembered the wounded look that struck his face before he strode off.
Eager not to dwell on such memories, Aida had thrown herself into the task of rebuilding the estate, a necessary job as well as a welcome distraction from her turbulent thoughts of Phares Pharaony. By the end of the week she had realised the scale of the work that needed to be done and suddenly the second week at ‘home’ had become busy and strenuous. The amount of land being cultivated needed to increase if the crop yield was to be revitalised, and that meant more fellahin and better agricultural equipment. All of this would take time to implement. Going over the books and around the estate with Megally, the old estate manager, was not an easy task, especially given that the whole business had to be carried out in Arabic. Although Aida still spoke it well, despite her long absence and it not being her first language, her reading and writing had suffered badly from neglect and were rusty to say the least. Uncle Naguib had come to her rescue a couple of times when she had tried to decipher the estate ledgers, but Aida was determined to prove to everyone, including herself, that she was up to the job and able to stand on her own two feet without help.
Still, she had to admit that she was out of her comfort zone. Managing a large estate was hardly what she was used to. Somehow, although she loved the remote peace of the countryside here, as well as its people, she missed the hustle and bustle of a big city. More than that, she missed nursing. Not only was she used to dealing with people from all walks of life, but the job of caring for the sick and disabled – alleviating pain, monitoring and advising patients – made her feel useful. She enjoyed giving back to society instead of just taking.
During her second week back, a letter had arrived from Princess Nazek, whom she had met on the plane home. They’d been sitting together among the dozen or so passengers, and the two women had immediately taken to each other, even though Princess Nazek was much older than Aida, and they had promised to stay in touch. Not only had she had liked the princess enormously, but the older woman had an air of spirited independence that Aida been drawn to. She might prove the kind of friend Aida sorely needed if she was to try and revive her old friendships in Cairo.
The letter was an invitation to the princess’s annual charity ball in Zamalek on Gezireh Island in Cairo. Aida had immediately responded and accepted, without giving much thought to the fact that she didn’t have an escort, and that it might be frowned upon among her social circle. A woman alone in Egyptian society was a vulnerable target of gossip and opinion, especially one like Aida with her English sense of entitlement to freedom. Still, it was too late to worry about that now, it would work out somehow.
‘I’m going to Cairo on a shopping spree,’ she had announced to Dada Amina one morning.
‘You are not reasonable, ya binti. You will make yourself ill with all this coming and going,’ Dada Amina exclaimed when Aida had asked her to prepare a suitcase.
‘You told me yourself, I haven’t any decent clothes to wear, ya Dada. Besides, I want to get in touch with all my friends. It’s too quiet here.’
‘Quiet is what you need, Sit Aida.’
‘Perhaps I’ve just become too used to chaos and noise, and sleepless nights,’ she said, smiling grimly. Aida still had nightmares about the Blitz … the drone of planes above, the sirens and screams, the terrible wounds she had seen on patients in the hospitals. ‘What I need is a bit of glamour in my life. I haven’t been to a ball in eight years. I’m still young. I want to laugh and dance and have fun to make up for all that lost time … I want to live again! Besides, the spring sales are on and I need a whole new wardrobe.’
Dada Amina shook her head disapprovingly. ‘You need a good rest, that’s what you really need.’
‘I know, but this is also the beginning of the party season and if I want to be on any of the invitation lists, I must start showing myself in public,’ she winked at her old nanny, ‘and a ball given by an eminent princess is a marvellous opportunity.’
Uncle Naguib had also tried to persuade Aida to wait a few more weeks before going to Cairo. ‘The wardrobe can wait, and there will be other balls,’ he’d reasoned.
But Aida didn’t want to miss this occasion; she remembered the balls she’d attended with her father, including one given at Abdeen Palace just a few months before Ayoub’s death. That wonderful evening had left a lasting impression, remaining one of the happiest memories of her life.
‘This one is rather special, Uncle. Princess Nazek and I really hit off. I wouldn’t like to let her down.’
‘You don’t have an escort.’
‘Does it matter?’
‘Not that much nowadays, I suppose,’ he said, grudgingly. ‘I admit, the war has changed some of those old rules and the attitude is certainly more relaxed here, but there are still a few conservative Egyptian and Turkish families that insist on their daughters being escorted or chaperoned by a man.’ He regarded her thoughtfully. ‘Still, you are not a teenager anymore. You’ve lived abroad and you’re a grown woman so perhaps it shouldn’t matter that much.’ So, Aida had left Karawan House with Naguib’s blessing and a request that she call him from Shepheard’s Hotel when she arrived.
As the train travelled steadily on, the river flowing gently beside it, smooth as glass, the land gradually presented the verdant richness of arable pasture. Presently, Aida’s attention was drawn to it, finding that it had a life of its own, feasting her eyes on the placid beauty of the picture. Not an inch of the irrigated land was left uncultivated. They passed groves of date palms, young crops of barley, strips of purple flowering fava beans – the staple food of the fellah – and plots of vegetables and cotton. In every field there were fellahin hoeing, scything, harvesting and planting. A white donkey gambolled excitedly as it was let out of its stable into the noonday sun. A lad was plodding along the bank leading a camel, and a couple of small boys in brown-and-white striped pyjamas chatted as they made their way on the dirt road by the side of the river, carrying loaves of baladi bread and some sort of canister that Aida thought most probably contained lunch for their fathers, who had been toiling away in the fields since dawn. Seeing these colourful scenes of the fellahin at work, their heavily laden animals, and the picturesque mud villages, Aida felt that had it not been for the modern jarring element of the train she might have imagined herself back in the time of the pharaohs.
Soon they were approaching Minieh and the train started to slow down. The old town, with its little white houses and minarets and its palm trees glowed in the sunlight.
The train pulled in at the station with a great shuddering of its old carcass. No sooner had the engine stopped than copper-skinned, half-naked, filthy-looking children, who didn’t bother to brush away the flies swarming all over their faces, ran up to the carriages, smiling and waving their hands at the passengers. Aida’s heart went out to them. In this part of the world the death rate in children was high because of disease spread by dirt. That was one of the reasons why she had decided to become a nurse; it was also why, in the past, she had so admired Phares’s decision to become a general surgeon. In addition, the young man once told her of his dream of some day opening a hospital to cure the many endemic ailments that existed among the poor, caused by the ignorance and the squalor in which some of these people lived.
Rapidly, the train was boarded by a host of sellers carrying fruit, hardboiled eggs, salted almonds, dried sunflower, pumpkin and melon seeds, and biscuit rings covered in sesame seeds known as sammeet, which were threaded hoopla-fashion on sticks protruding from the rim of the seller’s round basket. Aida remembered how delicious they tasted and was tempted to buy herself one to enjoy with her lunch, but refrained. When she was a child Dada Amina bought them from a small bakery in one of the poor quarters of Luxor but heated them in the oven before giving them to Aida to eat – to kill the bacteria.
Looking out of the window, Aida noticed a man hurrying along the platform towards the train. In his beautifully tailored beige suit, trim, soft-collared shirt, striped tie and highly polished shoes, he looked totally out of place among the unkempt medley of individuals milling around the station, and in striking contrast to the exotic, rural scene outside. Aida was intrigued. It was not often one saw such an elegantly turned-out person on the grubby platforms of Upper Egypt’s stations, unless they were foreigners on guided Thomas Cook tours.
She didn’t need to wonder for long as a few minutes later the gentleman walked along the corridor outside Aida’s compartment, stopped and looked in through the open door. He smiled, pointing to the empty seat opposite her. ‘Is that seat free, mademoiselle?’ he asked in a cultured voice. Though he had addressed her in French, the rest of the phrase had been in English, and his command of the language was excellent, with just a trace of fascinating foreign accent.
‘Yes, it is.’
‘Do you mind if I share the compartment with you?’
‘Not at all … please.’
The man bowed, set his small suitcase in the luggage rack above and settled in his seat, facing Aida.
‘Thank you,’ he murmured.
Aida looked up at him with a smile of acknowledgement. The eyes that met hers were so pale that they had a crystalline, luminous quality – in the mottled light of the small compartment she could not tell their colour. They were small and piercing, and set absolutely straight and quite close to each other. It was their expression that caught her attention and for the fraction of an instant made her feel as if she’d been turned to stone. That look held neither enchantment nor malevolence, it was simply steady. Immutably, ruthlessly steady as if he could look through her to the very depths of her soul, and although she had only mentally given a shiver, he asked:
‘Cold?’ Without waiting for her answer he stood up and closed the door of the compartment. ‘I agree,’ he said with a smile. ‘There is a slight draft. The doors in these trains never shut properly.’
‘Thank you,’ she murmured.
He seemed to be in his late thirties or early forties. Tall with a wiry build and dark curly hair, he had a face that was thin and sharply chiselled, dominated by a high, intolerant-looking hooked nose, a nicely shaped goatee encircling beautifully shaped thin lips, and black sideburns that thrust with a dagger-like precision against his jaw. He looked vigorously powerful and in command. No doubt this man was of Arab descent, not a Copt. His bearing had the arrogance of a bird of prey rather than the haughtiness of the proud pharaohs. The face of a red-tailed hawk, and with those eyes!
As a bell rang somewhere and the train started again, she glanced down at the platform to see a one-legged blind beggar come limping towards the train, with a woman in tow carrying a tiny baby. The pair were quickly intercepted by a policeman and Aida felt her heart ache with compassion for these poor people. It was a sight she had almost forgotten in her years away from home.
‘You find Egypt dramatic?’
The question was as
ked in the deep, harsh, yet not unpleasant voice of the man sitting in front of her.
Aida blinked at the question. This stranger had an uncanny way of reading her mind.
She nodded sadly. ‘Yes, I do … so much poverty and squalor.’
He gave a hoarse laugh – a smoker’s laugh. ‘You should say “so much paralysing ignorance and stagnation”.’
Aida couldn’t help but stare back at those glass-bright eyes.
‘Should I?’
The stranger nodded. ‘The dirtier a child, the better, says the average Egyptian parent, and that because they are great believers in what is known here as El Ein, the eye, the evil eye. They believe strangers have El Ein, and mothers, as well as the children themselves, are afraid if you look at them. You will find that many of them are given a charm to wear in the hope that the enviously admiring evil eye will be attracted by it and not the person wearing it. You can see those same charms on donkeys, camels and horses. Foreigners think they’re just ornaments, of course, whereas to the superstitious Egyptian they have a deeper meaning.’ Suddenly, the stranger stopped talking and smiled apologetically. ‘But forgive me, here I am lecturing you and I haven’t even introduced myself.’ He lifted himself out of his seat, inclined his head and stretched out his hand, which was surprising cool as Aida shook it. ‘Shams Sakr El Din, at your service.’
‘Aida El Masri.’
‘El Masri? You are Egyptian? I would have never have thought so. That golden hair, those sea-blue eyes and your beautiful peach complexion say otherwise.’
‘My mother was English and my father, Ayoub El Masri, was Egyptian.’
His already tapered eyes narrowed further to slits and something passed in those small, piercing pupils … Curiosity? Admiration? Surprise?
‘You are the daughter of Ayoub El Masri, the great archaeologist?’
‘Yes.’
Song of the Nile Page 8