A Cloudy Day on the Western Shore

by Mohamed Mansi Qandil

  A few minutes later, however, she found al-Rafiy standing before her, smiling kindly at her, though he looked exhausted. He gathered up the papers she had finished, shaking his head as he leafed through them. He looked her in the eye and said, “You’ve had a full day. But you’re not going to spend the night at this desk, are you?”

  The color rose in Aisha’s cheeks and she lowered her head. “I haven’t any place to go,” she said.

  “That is a problem,” he replied. “Why didn’t you say something when it was still light outside?”

  He thought for a bit and shook his head in perplexity. Then he spoke. “Wait here,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”

  She picked up her bag and tried to arrange the papers cluttering her desk, to move them away from the older piles. Al-Rafiy returned, wearing his coat, and made ready to leave. As they descended the stairs, he told her in a merry tone, “I can’t take you to my house—my wife would evict me. We’ll sort something out.”

  She walked with him along Noubar Street, which stretched before them, while the sky darkened and the streetlights were illuminated slowly, as if they were waking up. He asked her where she had learned English. When she told him it was in Asyout, he exclaimed with a laugh, “Good heavens—in the midst of all those Saïdis?”

  He knew the city well, and he knew where her former school was, too. He had practiced law in Asyout immediately after graduating from law school. He spent a full year in the offices of Alouba Bey, the most famous attorney in Upper Egypt, but when the Leader, Mustafa Kamil, founded al-Liwa, he invited al-Rafiy to serve as its editorial director, and since he had been a dedicated member of the Nationalist Party from the time of its inception, he left his legal post and with it the city of Asyout, and went straight to Cairo. He could not disappoint his leader, but he did disappoint his father, who had wanted to see him follow in his footsteps and become a judge. He feared for his son, subject to the capricious winds of politics. Al-Rafiy, however, had no regrets about leaving the legal profession behind—he was confident that he would return to it one day, for the commoners all around him were too ignorant to know their rights, and would be in need of someone to guide and instruct them in these matters. He would write a book on the subject, but only after he had rested a bit from the exertions of the nationalist cause.

  They stopped before a small building with glass doors. “The owner of this hotel,” he said, “is Greek, and he has a good reputation. You won’t run into any trouble if you spend the night here.”

  The Greek peered at her, puzzled. It was rare for a young Egyptian woman to come to the hotel alone. Al-Rafiy talked to him, assuring him that he was responsible for her, and that he would look after her. All around her in the hotel lobby she could see residents of various nationalities, none of them Egyptian, and she was afraid the owner of the place would not receive her, but at last he nodded his assent. Al-Rafiy turned to her, and drew a whole sovereign from his pocket. Aisha shook her head no, but al-Rafiy insisted she take it. “It’s part of your salary,” he said, adding, “Consider it an advance. I’ll come back in the morning and take you to a housing agent who can help you find lodgings.”

  At last she was alone, sitting in her hotel room, which was small and clean, presided over by a large picture of the Acropolis, which crowned the hills of Athens. She locked the door securely behind her, but the voices coming from the corridor and the adjacent rooms still unsettled her. She was hungry, having eaten nothing all day, but she didn’t dare leave the room. She sighed, stretched out upon the bed, and lifted her feet high in the air—the sense of liberty that possessed her was stronger than her hunger. She had reclaimed her name and hidden the sign of the cross beneath her clothing. Thus began a new life in a new city, and yet she felt at this moment the most pressing need of her mother. Here in such a vast city the two of them might hide together. Surely Aisha would one day find some means of contacting her mother—but first she must find a place to live, and settle down.

  The following day, however, was an exhausting one for her. Al-Rafiy came by for her in the morning, punctual as the clock. He took her to a housing agent’s office, but he hadn’t time to stay with her; he left her with the agent and went to the newspaper office. The search began by winding through the tortuous streets and alleyways. She was ill at ease with the agent, who gestured with his hands, and spoke in a loud voice, cursing everyone. Her only option, though, was to follow him meekly. On the other hand, this did not sit well with the landlords she met, who looked askance at her, plainly suspicious, and shook their heads in flat refusal. They knew that a young girl alone, dwelling amidst families, would turn men’s heads and arouse the ire of their wives, stirring up gossip.

  She went with the agent to the boardinghouses and apartment blocks in the neighborhood that were reserved for unmarried women, but the rent was high, nearly equivalent to her salary, and all of them were full of Greek or Jewish women. These were shopgirls, waitresses, and entertainers: independent women who enjoyed their unmarried lives. They had no use for a prim Egyptian girl, imposing herself upon their world. He took her to the rooftops of the great houses, where the smell of soap and carbolic acid wafted from every corner, and the washing lines, laden with clean linens, obscured the sky. Here were servant girls, house cleaners, doormen, and unemployed country folk, who alarmed her. He descended with her to the basements, small, foul-smelling rooms squashed in among the old cheese factories and cheap wine presses, the tailors’ and cobblers’ workshops. Suddenly, the city loomed large before her—she could no longer face it on her own.

  “Why don’t you just marry someone, anyone,” the agent said to her, “and solve the problem of where to live?”

  She didn’t answer him. She was tired and overcome, and there was no time to go to the newspaper. At the end of the day she returned, with an effort, to the hotel. The Greek eyed her doubtfully as she requested a second night. As she had done the previous night, she locked the door to her room and confined herself there until morning.

  The accommodations proposed by the agent today were even worse than those of the day before. He conducted Aisha on a series of frenzied expeditions through the city, while her lungs filled with dust and her chest contracted in the isolated rooms into which no sunlight penetrated. She was upset by the leering doormen and the servant girls’ obscene gestures. The locales shifted, the streets growing narrow and dusty, the houses more squalid and crowded. She was assaulted by the odor of feces, the remains of pickled vegetables, and bodily decay. Aisha begged the agent to take her away from this nightmare.

  She couldn’t believe her eyes when Noubar Street appeared before her once more, and she saw the sign bearing the legend al-Liwa Publishing—it was like a life ring. She was worn out and in despair. “No more,” she said to the agent, and with that she turned and left him.

  “But miss,” he called after her, “I want my fee!”

  She didn’t turn around—she was afraid she might burst into tears. She didn’t know where she would go. She went quickly through the door of the building, then stopped. She couldn’t let them see her in such an abysmal state. She sank down upon the stairs and took off her shoes. What if the Leader should see her in this condition? She sat on all the same, paralyzed with exhaustion.

  Then she heard a voice calling to her. “Why are you sitting there like that? Are you all right?”

  She drew her bare feet back hastily and hid them under her skirts. She brushed the traces of tears from her eyes and lifted her face to him. It wasn’t the Leader—it was the tall, brown-skinned young man with the small beard and the familiar eyes. In his hand he held some folded papers. He continued down the stairs until he was next to her, and smiled as though he hadn’t noticed her disheveled appearance.

  “I was asking after you today,” he said simply. “They said you’d been gone since yesterday.”

  She felt the blood rise to her face. “Why?” she exclaimed.

  All at once he was at a loss, as if he hadn’t e
xpected such a question. At last he said, “I wanted to explain what happened between me and the Pasha. I haven’t abandoned my principles. Al-Siyaasa is not so bad as he imagines.”

  He knew, and of course she knew as well, that he was trying to find a pretext for talking to her. That was all right. “I’m happy to listen,” she said. “I’m very good at listening—only I’m so tired just now.”

  “So I see,” he replied. “You look as if you’d been lost in all the streets of the city.”

  He had noticed her discarded shoes and her bare feet, and she was mortified. “I’m a stranger to this city,” she said. “I was looking for a place to live, but so far I’ve failed.”

  His face lit up. “So that’s how it is,” he said. “You’re spent from making the rounds of the city—you must be hungry as well. I’ll take you straightaway to al-Rakib’s shop, and then to Umm Abbas, who can rent you a room. Once you’ve had enough to eat all your problems will be solved.”

  There was something so compelling in his manner that she could not object—perhaps it was the charming simplicity with which he spoke, or perhaps his mysterious promise that all her problems would be solved was what overcame her shyness and her fatigue. She stood up to join him, and he waited for her, smiling, as she put her shoes back on.

  They walked together in the street, which was thronged with people. He was taller than she was and she had to strain to hear clearly what he was saying, observing his little black beard wagging as he spoke. He had a long stride, and she was out of breath with trying to keep up with him. He waved his long-fingered hands in the air, emphasizing his words—he was determined to explain to her his passing dispute with the Leader. Thanks to the time she had spent in the high commissioner’s palace, she knew that Egyptian Pashas quarreled with one another constantly, and that many who declared their hostility toward the English went furtively to meet with Lord Cromer and inform him of their fealty, trying to assert their own rights with him over those of others, but she was certain that the Leader had done no such thing.

  They entered al-Rakib’s restaurant in Sayyida Zaynab Square. She had let Mukhtar take the lead—there was nothing for it but to trust him. The proprietor seated them behind a wooden partition, to prevent men from stealing furtive glances at her. Aisha felt at ease: after the period of exile and rootlessness she had endured, things could now settle down a little. The broth was hot, and as they let it sit for a while a layer of fat formed on the surface, keeping it warm. She burned her tongue a few times, Mukhtar laughing out loud when he saw her confusion. The restaurant was filled with diners, and the Sayyida Zaynab Mosque, which was opposite, was filled with supplicant worshippers.

  “Who is this Umm Abbas?” asked Aisha.

  “She is the proprietress of the house where I live, in Gamamiz Lane. Since she was willing to accommodate a nuisance of an artist like me, a man with a hammer and chisel in his hand day and night, surely she’ll look after a girl on her own, like you.”

  He didn’t ask her about herself, or inquire as to the reasons she found herself alone as she was in the streets of Cairo. He kept talking about everything else, all the while devouring chunks of meat and breaking a loaf of bread into large pieces as if he hadn’t eaten in years. Aisha remembered Rizq’s manner of eating, and felt a lump in her throat. She studied Mukhtar’s narrow face and his foolish beard. He wasn’t much older than she was, and yet he talked as if he were the master of all creation.

  She had never heard of the village of Tanbara, from which he came. Perhaps it resembled her own distant hamlet, now lost to her, with its houses of mud brick and straw, its sprawling fields and thriving crops, the berry bushes and sycamore and willow trees, its intersecting irrigation canals and heaps of manure, waterwheels that never stopped turning, and frogs that strained their voices with their croaking. His father was the mayor of his village, a man of dignity, whose status derived from his ascetic and God-fearing ancestors, who had come from the distant lands of the Maghreb. They had been on their way to perform the hajj in the house of God, but they had settled in the rural heart of the Delta.

  Mukhtar was born the only son of the mayor’s second wife. His mother was pretty and delicate, unsuited to the harshness of life in the village. What made that life the more difficult for the two of them was the hostility of the mayor’s older sons, from his first wife, who saw in the new baby a rival for their father’s fortune. They hated him from the first moment, and declared their enmity to him before he was even weaned. His helpless mother was unable to take them on. She feared for him while he was still a tender little parcel of flesh and blood. She removed him from his father’s house, taking him to the home of her brothers in a nearby town. He came to feel lonely and wretched, his father ignoring his existence, while his mother’s visits became few and far between. He spent his days sitting quietly by the edge of the canal.

  “One day I was playing in the mud as usual, when all at once the clay in my hands spoke to me, yielding to my fingers and taking shape. It assumed the form of the animals in the village: the lowly donkey, the water buffalo incessantly chewing its cud, and the bull, staring into space. The clay spoke, addressing itself to me and revealing the secrets of creation. The children of the village left their games and gathered around me. A little girl cried, staring at the figures of ducks and geese, for she had expected them to come to life.”

  Al-Rakib placed before them small dishes containing varieties of organ meats—tongue and lungs and spleen. She ate little, still listening to him. His words were more delectable than the food.

  “My mother returned to her brothers’ village after my father died. She came back to me—I was her sole remaining comfort. She tried to get me to attend the kuttab, to learn the Qur’an, but the sheikh of the kuttab was hard and cruel, and in her absence I had changed—I had become a free spirit that could not bear sitting in an enclosed space. I would run off into the fields and make for the banks of the canals, where the clay was. When I grew up a bit, I discovered that the village was no longer a fit place to live in, for clay was all it had—that, and one kind uncle, as well as a great many hateful ones. It was necessary for my mother and me to move to Cairo, and in this city I began to be educated, and to draw and to make my way.”

  They left the restaurant and crossed the square to the Sayyida Zaynab Mosque. They recited al-Fatiha, then plunged into the tangled neighborhoods behind the mosque. She was dazzled by the rows of little shops—the merchants selling colorful clothing and turbans, the saddlers, hatters, sellers of pickled vegetables, fava beans, and cereal—all beneath the blazing lights of the gas lamps, familiar and soft; it was as if their proximity to the mosque bestowed upon them an air of unreality. Mukhtar never stopped talking. He wanted to pursue an education, to study the fundamentals of sculpture in Europe, but this was beyond his reach. He pointed to a building with a high wall, which looked different from the other structures in the vicinity. Workers were still painting it and cleaning it at this late hour.

  “This,” he said, “is the building I dream about: the school I’m waiting to see open its doors.”

  She looked at the long, white wall in puzzlement. It bore no sign, but workers were toiling hard at it.

  “What school is this?” she said.

  “The School of Fine Arts,” he replied. “French and Italian professors will come to teach here—so said Prince Yusuf Kamal, who’s overseeing its construction. It will be a home for the arts, and it will take me in, which will be a bit of solace for the fact that I can’t go to Europe.”

  Aisha smiled. “What makes you think they’ll accept you?” she said.

  “As soon as I meet the director of the school,” said Mukhtar, “I’ll make him a clay statue, and he’ll admit me on the spot.”

  They walked through the alleyways, which had grown dark, apart from the dim light of the oil lamps that were set upon the doorsteps of the houses. The house bore the number five. Meeting Umm Abbas was the most difficult moment. They mounted the steps a
nd knocked on the door of the second-floor apartment. They waited for some time, and then an enormous woman appeared; clearly it was only with difficulty that she was able to move about. She stared doubtfully at Aisha, trying to guess who she might be and from where she had come.

  “She is a relative of mine,” Mukhtar lied, “a distant one.”

  Umm Abbas did not appear to believe this. She fixed Aisha with a shrewd eye and said, “Where are your people, girl?”

  Aisha swallowed hard, then spoke with the conviction of one who had expected such a question. “They all died in the flooding of the Nile two years ago.”

  Startled, Umm Abbas now spoke a little more gently. “How will you pay the rent?” she asked. “Is your kinsman here going to support you? He can scarcely pay his own way.”

  Aisha responded decisively. She took out the note al-Rafiy had given her and presented it to Umm Abbas. “This is the first of my wages from my job.”

  Umm Abbas’s mouth fell open in surprise. “God almighty!” she said. “A whole pound in one go . . . where do you work?”

  “At al-Liwa—with the Leader, Mustafa Kamil.”