‘Where have you been hiding all this time? I am acquainted with most upper-class families of the Said and have never seen you around.’
‘I’ve been away … in England. I’ve just come back.’
‘You grew up there?’
‘No, in Egypt, but after my father passed away before the war I left for England.’
‘So, you spent the war years there?’
‘Yes.’
‘It couldn’t have been easy.’
‘It wasn’t.’
‘And you’ve come back to stay?’
At this point Aida realised that she had been answering this man’s questions automatically, as if the even tone of his deep voice was compelling her to reply. Shams Sakr El Din repeated his question.
‘I have no plans for the time being.’
‘Well, it will be my pleasure to show you around Cairo.’
‘That’s very kind of you.’
He took a card from the inside pocket of his suit and handed it to Aida. ‘You can reach me at my home in Garden City or at my office downtown, next to the Turf Club.’
‘Thank you.’ Aida scrutinised the details on the card. Although there was something about him that made her feel uncomfortable, she was rather curious about this man. His name was printed in a raised elegant font: Prince Shams Sakr El Din and underneath, Director. So, the man was titled. She wasn’t surprised; he was clearly very distinguished, with the confidence that comes automatically to the highborn. She glanced up at him. What was a prince doing on a public train? These people usually travelled by car, if not by plane.
Again, Shams Sakr El Din seemed to guess what Aida was thinking.
‘I like travelling by train from time to time. That way, I get a more realistic view of the people of my country.’
Aida smiled at him. This man was like a figure from the Arabian Nights tales. Phares used to enjoy telling her and Camelia those stories when they were young. Thinking about Phares while talking to this man alone on a train gave her an uneasy thrill. ‘Yes, I feel the same way. That’s why I opted for this longer journey to Cairo instead of taking the plane.’ Her attention returned to the visiting card. In the right-hand corner, over his office details, she read aloud: ‘Chiffons à la Mode.’
The thin lips broadened into a wide smile. ‘I own a chain of fashion boutiques in Cairo, Alexandria and Port Said. We sell haute couture clothes, mainly by Pierre Balmain, Worth and Schiaparelli. The items come to us directly from Paris and America. Our buyers have just returned from France, where they’ve secured some pieces by the new French designer Christian Dior for next year when he’ll launch his latest collection.’ He glanced out of the window at the passing landscape, then his steady gaze returned to Aida. ‘I’ll be giving my annual fashion show at Shepheard’s Hotel in six weeks and I hope you’ll be able to attend. Usually, it’s at the Gezireh Sporting Club but this year it’s a special occasion. Now the war is over, it’s the first collection of the “New Look” so I think the ballroom at Shepheard’s is far more glamorous.’ He gave another glittering smile. ‘If you give me your address in Cairo, I will send you an invitation.’
The annual Cairo fashion show was a major social event and Aida knew immediately that this show of Sakr El Din’s would be one to which Cairo’s beau monde would flock. Even more so if it was at Shepheard’s.
‘I don’t have a flat in Cairo,’ she said in answer to his request. ‘Actually, I’ll be staying at Shepheard’s while I’m there.’
The prince looked outraged. ‘A hotel? A young lady of your status?’
He was right. Even these days it would be slightly unusual for a young woman to stay alone in a hotel in the city, even one as prestigious as Shepheard’s, but as she could no longer stay at the Pharaonys’ house in Gizeh, Aida had little choice.
‘I won’t be staying long,’ she explained with a smile. ‘Less than a week.’
‘No, no, no! That is not at all appropriate. Ayoub El Masri’s daughter staying at a hotel? Your father, I am sure, would have never allowed that. My palace in Garden City is at your disposal, and—’
‘That is very kind of you,’ Aida interrupted quickly, ‘but I’m sure my father would have found it even more inappropriate for me to stay at a gentleman’s home, albeit one belonging to a prince.’
‘Touché,’ he replied with a half smile. ‘I never met Ayoub Bey, but I heard a lot about him and I was a great admirer of his work.’ Sakr El Din took a gold box from his inside jacket pocket. He opened it, offering it to Aida: ‘Do you smoke?’
‘No, thank you.’
‘May I?’
‘Yes, of course, please go ahead,’ she said at once.
The prince chose a cigar, put his gold lighter’s flame to it and then returned the lighter and box to his pocket. He drew on the cigar once or twice, and the aromatic smoke filled the air. For a short moment he sat silently, watching the young woman with narrowed brilliant eyes through the spiral of blue fog, reminding Aida more than ever of a desert predator.
‘If you are at Shepheard’s, will you allow me to call on you during your visit?’
‘That’s very kind of you, but as I said, I’m not staying long. Only a few days to pay my respects to the British Ambassador.’
‘Ah yes, Sir Miles Lampson.’
Aida looked surprised. ‘Do you know him? He used to be a friend of my uncle’s when he was High Commissioner.’
‘I know him well. I’m acquainted with most of the staff at the British Embassy, but I think Sir Miles has gone away. We sometimes shoot wild duck together in the Fayoum, and hunt fennec in the desert.’
‘Fennec?’
The prince laughed, showing almost pointed canines. ‘Desert fox. They’re found all over Egypt, but mostly in the desert. They’re the smallest fox in the world, with very large eyes and ears.’ His own eyes gleamed. ‘Quite a handsome animal really.’
As the train puffed along, Aida and the prince continued to talk. He spoke to her about his business, but mainly his kingdom in the desert, Wahat El Nakheel, Oasis of Palms, and his castle, Kasr El Nawafeer, Palace of Fountains, which aroused her curiousity even further.
‘What romantic names!’
‘The desert is a very romantic place.’
Aida laughed. ‘Hardly! It’s known to be harsh and cruel.’
His lips curled in an enigmatic smile. ‘Only for those who don’t know it, habibti, my dear … The desert has many names, one of them is Paradise. One day we will ride together and I will show you its splendour,’ he said slowly, with a note of meaning in his voice that sent a shiver of apprehension through Aida.
He looked every inch the powerful desert lord, and although she couldn’t deny that he was extremely handsome and charming, there was something about Shams Sakr El Din that made her uncomfortable. The way he spoke to her was far too familiar and those eyes of his made her feel like a butterfly pinned under glass. He was certainly a fascinating character, and doubtless many women would find him irresistible, but the Arab prince left Aida with an uneasy feeling.
It was late when the lights of Cairo came into view and the train slowed to a halt amid the glare and bustle of Ramses Station. The great terminal was alive with hotel touts, who fell upon the alighting throng and enmeshed them like greedy spiders.
‘Hamdellelah all’salama, bon arrivée, we’re finally here,’ said the prince, standing up and lifting down Aida’s suitcase from the luggage rack before reaching for his own. ‘Do you have a car waiting for you?’
‘I have arranged for a taxi from the hotel to pick me up, thank you.’
‘Allow me to give you a lift. Shepheard’s Hotel is on my way. Besides, it will mean I won’t have to say goodbye just yet. The journey from Minieh to Cairo has never seemed so short.’
For a second Aida hesitated, and then graciously accepted the prince’s invitation. A decrepit porter appeared and took their luggage, lifted it on to the shoulder of his blue cotton gown, and flapped away before them in the crowd
of people leaving the train.
As she followed the prince and the shayyal down the high steps to the platform, the young woman caught her breath. Cairo! The bustle, confusion, the shouting of porters, the babble of Arabic … After the slow pace and the relative quiet of the countryside the noise was music to her eager ears. Even the night air here was different: heavy, humid and slightly dusty. She could feel the moisture clinging to her clothes, and it felt thick as she breathed in the damp air, coating the inside of her throat. As in those far-off days, excitement rose in her. Spring in the bandar, in the town! It all came back in a flood of memories as Cairo swept her up in an embrace.
A black and silver Bentley Mark VI saloon was parked in the square in front of the station amid a throng of cabs and swarthy cab drivers in their red tarbooshes. Under the streetlights and in the shadow of tall buildings, a multitude of turbaned and long-robed people bustled in all directions. The porter, having given the suitcases to the uniformed chauffeur, took his fee, blessed the prince several times, then turned and disappeared among the motley masses.
‘Allal Shepheard’s,’ the prince told the driver as the latter held the door open for Aida.
‘The road from here to the hotel is closed, Your Highness,’ the man answered in Arabic. ‘There’s been some sort of student demonstration and there are barricades and police on Opera Square and Abdin Palace. We’ll have to make a long detour to reach Shepheard’s.’
‘That’s fine.’ He turned to Aida and grinned. ‘It seems fate is being kind to me today and I will have the pleasure of your company even longer, Mademoiselle El Masri.’
Aida acknowledged this compliment with a quiet smile and stepped into the car. Sakr El Din took his place beside her, pushing up a little too close for her liking. His keen glinting eyes were now near enough for her to determine their colour clearly: a golden amber, so pale they appeared yellow. A desert prince with pale yellow eyes, she thought. How strange. In this part of the world eyes were usually coal black, like Phares’s. Maybe it was a legacy from a foreign forebear.
The prince regarded the young woman with a sardonic tilt of his eyebrows, as if divining her thoughts about him. His irises made Aida think of the desert sands, but with an arctic flame at the centre; they had a startling brilliance wherein either cruelty or passion could be smouldering. Aida didn’t know a great deal about men, but she suspected if crossed, this one could be a dangerous enemy.
Prince Shams Sakr El Din’s eyes narrowed until their yellow tint was lost in the shadow of his lashes, and Aida was perturbed to realise that she’d been staring at him. ‘My mother, may Allah rest her soul, was French … hence my pale-coloured eyes,’ he explained, his gaze seeming even more penetrating. ‘Isn’t that what you were wondering about, Mademoiselle El Masri?’
‘Yes, absolutely. You have an uncanny way of reading minds.’
‘Only yours. Has no one ever told you that you have a very mobile face?’
Aida smiled with embarrassment. ‘I’m afraid I’m not very good at hiding my thoughts.’
‘A dangerous foible in this day and age … you wouldn’t make a good spy.’
‘I wouldn’t want to be a spy.’
‘I would have thought you had just the right kind of adventurous spirit.’
She shifted uncomfortably. ‘An adventurous spirit, maybe. But disloyalty and deceit, I’m happy to say, have never been in my nature.’
‘Ah, my dear, but life sometimes has a compelling way of forcing you to do things that you wouldn’t think yourself capable of. Il ne faut jamais dire fontaine, je ne boirais pas de ton eau, never say fountain, I will not drink of your water.’ He looked away. ‘In other words, never say never.’
Aida stared for a moment at the strong dark profile of the prince, outlined now and again by the passing light of the tall streetlamps. What did he mean? She didn’t like the turn the conversation was taking and rather than get into an unpleasant argument, she too looked away and focused her attention on the old streets of Cairo.
The long car ride led through a maze of streets lined with tall buildings and across squares aglow with street light. Even though it was past ten at night, the whole place was swarming with a motley crowd. In all the narrow alleys and lanes ckah-wehs, cafés, were open, where a few coloured bulbs suspended here and there lit up the scene only dimly. Near the shops the street became brighter. There, great lanterns set off the brilliant hues of fruit and vegetables, and the magnificent fabrics, carpets, jewellery and nick-nacks of all kinds spread out before the eyes of the customer. Imposing mosques with elegant tall minarets rising up in prayer to the sky stood side by side with old palaces and grand hotels.
Natives, foreigners, soldiers, animals, cars, and hantours, light two-wheeled calashes drawn by a single horse, with a folding hood and seats for two passengers and another for the driver on the splashboard, struggled for supremacy in the streets. Aida wondered at the art with which those native coachmen patiently and adroitly steered their great carriages in that sea of traffic.
There were beggars, sellers, men in rich robes and coloured turbans, and women carrying heavy burdens on their head or a child upon their shoulder, all milling together in this immense human wave where everywhere was movement, brilliancy of colour, noise and agitation. Against this spangling backdrop, the women entirely dressed in black were the most striking; they were still wearing the boorcko, or the habarah, a veil dating from biblical times, which appealed to Aida’s romantic imagination because it gave women’s eyes a mysterious look. It consisted of a piece of linen or black muslin almost the length of the body, attached to a band around the forehead by means of a vertical piece of bamboo placed over the nose and the two outer edges fastened to the sides of the band, leaving the eyes visible. Such traditional figures mingling in the crowd seemed to Aida very much in tune with the old Arabian houses that bordered the roads and the gardens. Leaning against each other in that free and easy Oriental style, these charming houses with their secretive latticed windows and their cool, shady carved wooden mashrabiya balconies that jutted out from the storeys above, and all the characteristic detail of their façades, not yet lopped and trimmed by progress, reminded her of the sketches in her favourite book, One Thousand and One Nights, Arabian Tales from which her father read to her when she was a child.
Entranced, the young woman’s attention was totally captivated by the vibrancy of her surroundings. More than ever, she realised how much she had missed Egypt and her heart was filled with an exhilaration at the thought that she was back in the country she loved, among these people who, despite their poverty, were happy-go-lucky and had always occupied a special place in her heart.
‘You seem as fascinated by the scenes outside as the curious khawagat, foreigners who visit our country.’
Jerked out of her contemplation, Aida turned abruptly and stared up at the prince, whose lips curved in amusement.
‘Yes, I’m so excited to be back. This is where I belong,’ she enthused, eyes shining and her breathing a little faster.
‘Excitement suits you, ya bint el engelizeya, daughter of the Englishwoman. Your eyes shimmer like jewels and your cheeks are coloured with the pink hue of dawn.’ Behind those heavy lashes, Sakr El Din’s gaze slid down over her, his pupils shining like silver blades, flickering with thoughts Aida was knowing enough to guess at, as they raked her face, pausing first on her eyes, then her lips and finally settling hungrily on her naked throat.
A barbarian with a veneer of culture, she told herself. Still, in some singular way – to her as to most women, she presumed – the prince had the mysterious, compelling allure of the desert, and Aida knew she should guard against it.
The car stopped in front of a prestigious three-storey building whose relatively sober façade was set back from the pavement and fronted by a broad set of steps flanked by two dwarf palm trees planted in giant decorated stone pots. The steps led up to the famous Shepheard’s Hotel terrace and beyond that, to its entrance lit by wrought-ir
on wall lamps. These were both sheltered under an intricate mushrabeya canopy set on narrow columns that, during the daytime, protected visitors from the sun, and were guarded by a pair of small stone sphinxes taken from the Temple of Serapis at Memphis. The terrace, tiled with Moorish blue, green and orange motifs, was enclosed by a finely chiselled wrought-iron balustrade and set with rattan chairs and tables. In an elevated position, two metres above street level, it commanded a shaded view of the picturesque ceaseless stream of comings and goings along Sharaa Ibrahim Pasha, Ibrahim Pasha Street, below.
Two imposing doormen in scarlet-and-white uniforms, complete with red fez, stood at the entrance, while a couple of porters in kaftans with the name Shepheard’s embroidered across their chests rushed forward to take care of Aida’s luggage.
Aida turned to thank the prince and take her leave, but he had already stepped out of the car and was holding the door open for her.
‘Thank you for your kind hospitality, Prince.’
He took her hand in both of his. ‘It has been a pleasure to spend time in your company. As for hospitality, I hope that you will find the time to honour me with a visit to one of my palaces during your stay, however short that might be.’
Aida inclined her head slightly and smiled. ‘In shah Allah,’ she said, trying to slowly disengage from his hold.
The prince tightened his grip before releasing her. ‘Yes, as you say, In shah Allah, God willing … but, more often than not, man has to be willing to cooperate in order to make things happen.’ He murmured the second half of the phrase in the caressing, suave tone with which Aida was swiftly becoming familiar, though it was not much to her taste.
‘Thanks again and goodnight.’
‘Goodnight, Mademoiselle El Masri. It has been a pleasure.’ As she started to climb the stairs, Aida heard him say behind her, ‘I will be in touch.’
Aida did not look back and instead felt a familiar thrill of anticipation as she crossed the wide veranda and went through those hospitable doors; she’d enjoyed many happy times in this old hotel. Shepheard’s was an institution, holding its own unique place in the affections of all who knew and loved Egypt.
Song of the Nile Page 9