by Tariq Ali
The journey to the house could be delayed no longer. I went there one day straight from the beach and a fairy princess opened the door. She burst out laughing at the sight of me. I had sand on my clothes and hair, sandals on my feet and a tattered copy of Verlaine in my hand. “Have I come to the right house?” I stammered, unable to stop my eyes from travelling her entire body. “Does Hamid Bey live here?”
She nodded and invited me into the house. She had deep black hair, an olive complexion and small eyes, which made me wonder whether her mother was Japanese. She was wearing a European-style dress, which revealed the lower parts of her legs, but what had delighted me the most was her laugh and the fact that her feet were bare.
“You caught us by surprise,” she said. “My father is taking a bath at the moment. Are you Salman Pasha? We were expecting you one of these days. Can I offer you a drink? I hope you will join us for lunch. If you will excuse me, however, I must go and change my dress. Please feel at home.”
It was my turn to laugh. She disappeared without asking me to explain the cause of my amusement. Do you know why I laughed, Stone Woman? Their house could not have been more unlike home. In Istanbul we lived in the eighteenth century, and here, in Yusuf Pasha’s summer palace by the sea, time lost all meaning. The house in Alexandria was very much ahead of its time. I had never seen such elegant furniture in Istanbul, not even in the house of the Bragadinis. They, too, preferred to live in the past, but here was the latest furniture from Italy. In the hall there was a large Chinese chest. Everything was new. As I was admiring the decorations on the walls, Hamid Bey came down the stairs in a white silk suit and greeted me warmly. He must have been approaching sixty, but was extremely well preserved and surprisingly slender, unlike my father and uncles who were all on the portly side.
I thought it might be best to get our business over with before lunch. I showed him the gift from my uncle. He took it to his desk and inspected it under a microscope. “It is a very good stone. I assume you wish to use it to raise some money for whatever project you are preparing at the moment?” My only project was to enjoy life to the full and it was for that I needed the money, so I nodded and smiled. “I trust Kemal Pasha more than my own brother. You did not need to show me the stone. How much do you need to borrow?” Without thinking I named a figure. He told me to return the next day and collect the money.
When his daughter came down for lunch a transformation had taken place. She looked demure, was far less relaxed and more traditionally attired in a yellow tunic that touched the floor and leather sandals, which, to my great annoyance, hid her naked feet. Her face, if anything, appeared stern. I hoped it was only her father’s presence that was responsible for the change.
“This is my daughter, Mariam. She has managed the affairs of this house ever since her mother’s absence.”
Nothing more was said of the mother and it was not till many months later that Mariam told me the whole story. Our conversation during lunch was polite. My Arabic not being as fluent as that of Hamid Bey and Mariam and their Turkish being non-existent, I lapsed into French. The pleasure on her face was visible. She never had the opportunity to practise and perfect her knowledge of the language and was excited by the fact that I spoke it so well.
Stone Woman, I know that nothing surprises or shocks you. That is why so many have sat in your presence over centuries and spoken to their heart’s content.
On that very first day, while I was having lunch at her father’s table and as his honoured guest, I fell for this creature. Love can never be planned like a book of accounts. You cannot say to yourself: this person meets all the conditions I have laid down for falling in love. She has features that are attractive. She is well-spoken, but will not speak out of turn. She has a reasonable dowry. She will bear me healthy children. I will, therefore, proceed to fall in love with her.
I have known merchants who measure love as they do their trade; physicians who feel their own pulse to make sure they are in love; philosophers who constantly doubt their own love; gardeners who think love grows like a fruit and egotists who can never love anyone else. Don’t misunderstand me, Stone Woman. I am not saying that love does not grow, deepen and become stronger with each passing year. That is all true, but for that to happen it is important how it begins. In my book there is only one true beginning. All others are false. Love must strike one like lightning. That is what happened to me eight years ago on that pleasant summer afternoon as the sea breezes wafted through the house of the Copt merchant, Hamid Bey. Mariam had barely turned eighteen. I was approaching my thirty-second year.
I returned the next day to collect my money. An old woman with a cross hanging ominously from her wrinkled neck opened the door and informed me in a very formal voice that Hamid Bey had left for Cairo on business. He would be away for several days. He had left an envelope, which she would now hand to me, and would I please return in ten days’ time, when her master would be back in the city. The old crone must have seen the disappointment on my face, for it registered a degree of pleasure on her own. I stood there, paralysed and despondent.
Before I could think of saying anything, Mariam came running into the house from the terrace, slightly out of breath, but, Heaven be praised, bare-footed. My heart melted at the sight of her feet.
She shouted at the old woman, “I told you to send for me when Salman Pasha arrived.” The retainer shrugged her shoulders in disgust and left the room.
Mariam turned to me. “Ignore her, Salman Pasha. She is over-protective and impolite. She’s been in my father’s family for centuries and really enjoys being discourteous. She hated my mother. Should we go and sit on the terrace? Would you like a fresh lime drink? Have you brought any French books with you? Why are you laughing?”
I do not have the strength to live through the entire experience again, not even for you, Stone Woman. Some of the memories are so pure and sweet that they would make me weep. I would become weak and love her again and all would be lost. It would be like falling into the abyss, but never hitting the ground—the worst possible nightmare. I am determined, whatever the cost, to avoid such a calamity. For that reason and that alone I will quicken the pace of this narrative.
Hamid Bey’s stay in Cairo was extended beyond a week. Mariam and I would meet every day, but never after sunset. The crone with the cross had expressly forbidden that, and Mariam felt it foolish and unnecessary to defy the restriction. Wherever we were in that large house, I began to feel we were being watched, and Mariam began to feel the same. We were being suffocated. I told her of my secret cove. Her eyes grew large at the thought of an adventure. She would send for Maria, for that is what the crone had been christened, instruct her to make us some coffee and while she was in the kitchen, we would run away from the house like thieves with our French books firmly tucked under our arms. Mariam, too, fell in love with the little cove, where we were completely alone.
We declared our love for each other on that day. She, too, admitted that the sight of me with sand on my hair had touched her greatly though she was sure it must have been the sight of Verlaine that had created the lightning effect. We kissed and caressed each other. We discarded our clothes and swam in the sea. We dried ourselves and read aloud to each other. I delighted in each part of her body described in this verse from Verlaine’s love poem, “Spring”:
Beauteous thighs, upright breasts,
The back, the loins and belly, feast
For the eyes and prying hands
And for the lips and all the senses?
The poem excited us even more, but I did not possess her, even though she was prepared to sacrifice her virginity and I was by now in the grip of a white-hot passion. I ached for her. My testicles were hurting, desperate for the fluid to be released, but I resisted her. Why? Because making love to her would have been a violation of her father’s hospitality. Strange, isn’t it, Stone Woman, how old traditions and habits become so deeply embedded in our minds and how difficult it is to uproot them? She
was enraged when I confessed this to her and began to curse all Pashas and Pashadoms and declared herself to be a free citizen in the Republic of Love. She became cruel in her mockery. She also made me laugh a great deal. I had never met anyone like her.
When Hamid Bey returned to Alexandria, and before Maria could pour poison in his ears, I asked for Mariam’s hand in marriage. I told Hamid Bey I wanted nothing else. I was not interested in a dowry. We would be married and live on our own. I had thought he might ask me to wait a year or, at least, six months and in some other city to determine whether my affection was real or transient, but he had no such doubts. “I felt from the first day you lunched with us that Mariam and you were ideally matched. You have my blessing. As you know I am a Copt. I would like the wedding to be in church. When you take her to Istanbul you can have another ceremony.”
My heart was so filled with joy that I laughed. “Hamid Bey, I would marry her anywhere. As you know, I am not a believer. The actual ceremony is of no consequence to me.”
Hamid Bey did not wish to delay the matter any further. I had no desire to inform any member of my family, with the exception of Uncle Kemal. The telegram I despatched to his office was firm on one point. I told him that the news was for him alone. I did not wish to receive messages from anyone in Istanbul. He sent me a telegram of congratulations and wrote that he accepted my request for secrecy, but in return he insisted that the house I was buying must be a joint wedding gift from Hamid Bey and himself. Stone Woman, I accepted their kindness. After all, it was a house they were offering me, not a camel herd. I did, however, firmly turn down the offer of Maria as our housekeeper. Some sacrifices are simply unacceptable.
Within two weeks Mariam and I were together. These were times of real happiness for both of us, but now when I look back even on that early period I remember episodes that at the time seemed insignificant or even childish.
All of us have different aspects to our character, Stone Woman. It would be unnatural if this was not so, but Mariam was a deeply contradictory woman. In a way I think she really would have preferred Hamid Bey to deny us permission to marry. In her eyes that would have been a test of my love. Would I have run away with her to some other part of the world? My affirmative responses had little real effect on her because it was something that could never be proved. At other times she would say: “I hate it when you’re too happy with me. I prefer you when you’re sad.” I never fully understood why and when I questioned her about this later she denied she had ever said anything of the sort.
It was a long time after the festivities that she explained why Hamid Bey had been in such a hurry. He knew that if there had been a long engagement, it would have been difficult, if not impossible, to prevent her mother’s attendance.
Her mother, Arabella, was the daughter of an English plantation owner and his Chinese mistress, who lived in the British colony of Malaya. Her father, who was unmarried, recognised her and she had grown up in the plantation house, but without her mother, who saw her once or twice a week. Later she was sent to study in Britain. Mariam loved and hated her mother. The words in which she told me the story reflected this duality.
On her way back home from London Arabella was overcome by an urge to see the pyramids at Giza. The ship’s captain telegraphed Singapore and her father agreed. She disembarked at Alexandria. Her father had friends here and had informed them that his headstrong child was on her way. An old couple (now dead) had arrived at the pier to receive her. She was always a spoilt child and took everything for granted. In her photograph she appears to be an Englishwoman. In real life her complexion was slightly darker, but she never wanted to be mistaken for a hybrid. That’s why what happened in Egypt astonished everyone.
Hamid Bey had sighted her at a private dinner, where she confessed her desire to see the Sphinx. He offered to organise her tour and a chaperone. But he was smitten with her and followed her everywhere. Hamid Bey is still a striking man. Twenty years ago, he must have been irresistible. She was flattered by his attention, amused by his jokes, impressed by his wealth and attracted by his body. He proposed. She accepted. Her father sent numerous telegrams forbidding the match, but she was of age and in a defiant mood. Her hosts told her she could not possibly marry an Egyptian. She walked out of their house, declaring that she was half-Chinese and proud of the fact. Everyone knew, of course, but it was never mentioned since everything about her appeared to be English.
Another small problem arose. Hamid Bey comes from a Copt family which traces its descent back over a thousand years. They were already upset that he was defiling the purity of his family by marrying an Englishwoman, but his mother was close to tears when Hamid Bey proudly told his mother that he, too, would have been doubtful if Arabella had been completely English, but the fact she was half Chinese had greatly reassured him.
For Mariam’s grandmother, the Chinese did not exist except as figures that appeared on the screens she sometimes bought from Italian furniture shops. She probably thought that the whole Chinese race was a comic invention. Hamid Bey got very angry. He screamed at his mother. Then he calmed down and gave her a lecture on Chinese civilisation. They had invented the compass, gunpowder, printing, and so on.
They were married quickly. Mariam was born. Her mother was bored. Hamid Bey was travelling a great deal in those days. She led an aimless life. She read little, was not really interested in Egypt or its history and soon began to resent the fact that she was no longer invited to European homes. Soon she started seeing a new set of people. They were non-official Europeans and they met at one club in particular, but usually at each other’s houses to drink gin and play cards. One day she met an Englishman on his way to India. She left her husband and daughter without even a note. Mariam was eleven years old at the time. Her mother wrote to her once saying that she had never really loved Hamid and that true passion was a wonderful experience, which she hoped Mariam would discover one day. Mariam did not see her again, though the two exchanged letters and Arabella sent money every month. She went on to have two more children, whose photographs Mariam has never asked to see, for fear of upsetting Hamid Bey.
It was unbearable for her to witness the decline in her father. He became a mere shadow. They would eat together, discuss books, meet friends, but the joy had gone out of his life. Arabella’s room was left just as it had been on the day she left. Her clothes remained in the cupboard for many years. That dress Mariam wore the first time she and I met, which I liked so much, belonged to Arabella. Later Mariam emptied the room, gave most of her mother’s things away, kept a few for herself and transformed it into a library. She told her father that books were the one item that would never remind him of his wife. He smiled.
Then he went with Uncle Kemal Pasha on a long journey to Japan. He returned a different man. Mariam had no idea what happened or what he experienced, but he became more like his old self. They began to entertain in their house again. Once she tried to speak with him about her mother. His face became lined with pain and he whispered that she had died a long time ago. Mariam never raised the subject again.
The aspect of this story that struck me as peculiar, Stone Woman, did not concern Hamid Bey. His feelings were natural. The only surprise in his case is that he never married again. What puzzled me was Mariam’s own reaction to her mother. In her tone there was always a mixture of anger and admiration. She had been abandoned. That made her angry. But her mother had put love and passion before all else and Mariam had forced herself to admire this side of her mother. I suppose it was the only way she could deal with the betrayal.
The thought that a woman who had done this to her only child was selfish beyond redemption was something that occurred to her but it was always put out of her mind. The result was a deep ambivalence in Mariam’s own character. She developed a real fear of commitment. The experience of losing her mother at a young age had wounded her deeply and the scars never disappeared. To me, who had never known a mother, it was incredible that in all our time t
ogether she never once evinced the slightest desire to see her mother again. I was more curious than she was and offered to take her to India, but she was angry with me for the suggestion. It would, she said, be an act of betraying her father and he had suffered more than enough in a single lifetime.
After a year and a half she had still not conceived and this made her very unhappy. She wanted children for more reasons than a normal woman in her position. Her own family and children would help her forget what her mother had done to her, and she became so desperate that it began to affect our relationship.
One day she said, “Perhaps it is your seed that is defective. I should find another man.” She would start crying after she made remarks of this nature, hug me warmly and plead forgiveness. I was not angry at that time, Stone Woman, just sad. To find a woman whom you love so much that she becomes part of your very being and you learn to share everything—joys, sorrows, victories, defeats, good times and bad—is this not rare for men as well as women?
She became pregnant in our third year together and then again the following year. I have rarely seen her so happy. She became absorbed in the children and would take them to visit Hamid Bey every week, sometimes spending the whole day in the big house. Her interest in me had diminished considerably. I remember on one occasion when Uncle Kemal was passing through Alexandria and stayed as our guest, she became extremely irrational when he kissed the children and gave them each a tiny little purse with a gold coin. It was when he began to speak to them with great affection and as a great-uncle that I first noticed her face. When Uncle Kemal said, “Your grandfather Iskander Baba will be so pleased to see you one day”, I saw Mariam’s face darken with anger and she left the room in a rage. I was genuinely amazed. It was inexplicable.