He’d believed her. Had she been lying to him? Had she been putting on a show for him all this time? It was possible, of course…but what clear proof was there that she’d been in cahoots with Mansour? Just because he’d come in the morning and not the evening? Mansour was addicted to pills and injections of Max and couldn’t be expected to think straight. Plus, at the end of the day, he hadn’t caught them red-handed and hadn’t accused them of anything. He’d come to Ikram so she could give him the price of the drugs and hadn’t been able to wait till she returned to the house because he couldn’t delay the fix. Hashish wasn’t to be considered a drug because it didn’t cause addiction, or impair your judgment. But when someone was addicted to Max, or pills, like Mansour, he’d do anything to get his fix.
Ashraf decided to talk to Ikram. He had to give her a chance to defend herself. Either her innocence would be proven or her guilt confirmed. He drank his coffee, smoked another joint, then went to the kitchen, where he found her standing at the sink, as usual. He went up to her and said, “Good morning.”
She mumbled a reply he couldn’t make out, so he went on, in a friendly tone of voice, “I’d like to talk to you, please.”
She turned towards him challengingly and said, “You want me to do something for you, sir?”
He looked at her glowering face and, without realising what he was doing, touched her cheek, at which she pushed away his hand and said, “Please. I just work here as a maid, that’s all.”
She turned her back to him and resumed washing the glasses. He couldn’t stand being so close to her beloved, soft backside, so he stuck himself against her, but she pushed him away, violently this time, and shouted, “Ashraf Bey! Please let’s be decent!”
Her tone brooked no refusal, so he withdrew to his study feeling angry and humiliated. He couldn’t go on with these ridiculous theatricals. He couldn’t do a thing. He couldn’t write or read or think about anything except this problem. Even his little pleasures had lost their taste. He’d stopped watching a black-and-white film every night and no longer sat on the balcony at sunset to watch the people and the cars. He didn’t even have an appetite for his morning clotted-cream-and-honey sandwich.
He spent the day in the dumps and an hour before Magda’s return time, aware that this would be his last chance, he looked for Ikram and found her in the dining room ironing the household’s clothes. “Ikram,” he said. “We have to talk.”
Quietly she replied, “We don’t have anything to talk about.”
“There’s something important I have to tell you,” he responded heatedly.
Pressing the iron down on the pyjama jacket, she said, “Ashraf Bey, please leave me alone to get on with my work.”
He stood there for a few moments, but she went on with her ironing without turning towards him, so he left, slamming the door. Guilty or maligned, it was inappropriate for her to treat him like that. How could she refuse even to talk to him? Who did she think she was? Whatever she was, she wasn’t the Princess of Wales! At the end of the day, she was a maid, no more, no less. Madame Ikram could go to hell! He wouldn’t die without her. He could easily find another better-looking maid who didn’t come with problems or headaches. Along with the anger and humiliation there was another painful feeling that he didn’t care to acknowledge. He missed her. He longed for her wonderful, smooth, delicious body. He remembered with yearning their beautiful post-lovemaking sessions. She’d kept him company. She’d made everything seem easy and consoled him when anything made him sad. He’d only realised how important she was to his life when their relationship had been broken.
All the same, in spite of how much he longed for her, he decided that he’d treat her the way she did him. He stopped trying to talk to her and began to ignore her completely. He’d ask her for whatever he wanted and thank her curtly, avoiding looking at her.
At the beginning of the month he was surprised to find on his desk an envelope with the words THANK YOU written on it in large, crooked letters. When he opened it, he found five hundred pounds inside. This was more than he could bear. He was seized by rage and for a few minutes couldn’t think what to do. Then he decided he’d give her a severe rebuke. He was seized by the desire to humiliate her. It crossed his mind that he might slap her. He opened the door and called her in a loud voice, and when she came, gave her no opportunity to resist but took a firm grip of her hand, dragged her into the room, and closed the door. He went towards her until they were face-to-face, and the smell of scented soap stole into his nostrils. Suddenly, he found himself saying to her, “I’m sorry, Ikram.” His voice sounded strange to him, as though it were coming from someone else. She remained where she was, seeming not to have heard. He whispered, “I’m telling you I made a mistake. Please, accept my apology.”
She looked at him and opened her mouth to speak, but he didn’t give her a chance. He swept her into his arms and clung to her as though afraid she would escape. He covered her in kisses, and when he felt the warmth of her body that he had missed so much, he whispered into her ear, “I love you.”
She softened and went slack in his arms, as though she’d been waiting for him, and they surrendered to a wave of passion that threw them with joyful violence onto the shores of pleasure. They lay on the ground next to one another, naked. He closed his eyes, thrust his nose into her neck, and whispered, “I’ve missed you so much,” then touched her face and realised that his fingers were wet. He opened his eyes and found that she was crying. Tenderly he whispered, “That’s enough, Ikram. Please.” She hugged him hard and whispered, “I beg you, Ashraf Bey, don’t do that again. Don’t doubt me. I’ve always had bad luck with men. You’re the only decent one to come my way. I couldn’t bear it if I lost you.”
They put their clothes back on, before Magda could return, and got rid of any trace of their lovemaking, as usual. The next day, he tried to give her back the envelope with the money but she refused. Looking annoyed, she asked him, “You want me to take the money?”
He nodded and she planted a quick kiss on his lips, then ran her hand through his smooth white hair and said gaily, “How about we make a deal? You do something to make me happy and I’ll take the money.”
He looked at her questioningly, and she went on, with childlike enthusiasm, “I really want to go out with you, Ashraf Bey, even if it’s only once. We can go anywhere. Then I’ll take the money and I’ll do anything you want me to.”
14
Dear Mazen,
Are you back home or spending the night at the factory? I phone you but you don’t answer. Please put my mind at rest. May the Lord protect you.
Asmaa
15
On important occasions, Uncle Madany wore the smart outfit Essam Shaalan had bought for him—grey suit, white shirt, and a blue tie with a design on it. Despite his elegance, however, he somehow continued at such times to retain the appearance of a servant. This showed in his repeated bows and hurried steps, which made no sound; in his apologetic, expectant smile, the disciplined, submissive expression on his face and the subdued tone of his voice; and in the searching glances that he directed around him to see if there was anything he should be doing. This often happens with those who work in service, for the polite and submissive appearance that they affect at the beginning transforms itself with time into an inseparable part of their character. Madany’s obedient and obliging mien was, however, simply a mask behind which hid a courageous warrior blessed with a will of steel and the persistence of an ant. From the time of the morning prayer, with which he began his day, till he went to bed at the end of the evening, Madany worked relentlessly, never tiring, never flagging, and not turning aside for even an instant, towards his one and only goal, that of earning his daily bread. He didn’t sit in cafés, he had no friends, and he didn’t spend a single pound on personal amusements. Even smoking, which he had been unable to give up, he practised within the strictest limits. He never
took a day off from work and every year he asked Eng. Essam to convert his accumulated annual leave into cash.
Madany had attended school to the preparatory stage, then left to work and help his family. He had moved between numerous jobs before learning to drive while doing his military service, after which he’d worked for many years as a taxi driver until a police officer he knew pulled strings and got him a job as a driver at the cement factory. At first, he’d driven the cement trucks, then the factory’s ambulances, and then one day Eng. Essam had seen him and chosen Madany to drive for him. At the beginning, Madany had treated his new boss with care, so as not to commit any mistakes, and was ill at ease with Essam’s temperament. He had soon realised, however, that behind the stony face, the gruff voice, the mercurial temperament, and the dangerous bouts of irritability, an exceedingly good-hearted person was to be found—so much so, indeed, that it sometimes seemed to Madany that Eng. Essam put on that harsh exterior to hide his excessively delicate feelings, which might be inappropriate to the dignity of the manager of a factory.
Essam had given him everything that the factory’s regulations allowed by way of raises, bonuses, and medical expenses, in addition to numerous cash gifts that he paid from his own pocket. When he gave him money, Essam didn’t assume the air of either the generous master or the alms-giving, God-fearing believer. He behaved, rather, as one who had been poor himself and knew very well what it meant to love one’s family and be unable to provide for their needs. Essam would come up to Madany, place his hand on his shoulder, and then thrust the money into his pocket and say in a low voice, “Here, Madany. This is a little something towards the family’s expenses,” or he’d smile affectionately and say, “Your daughter Hind has entered university. I’m sure she needs a laptop. Go and buy her one and tell her, ‘Your uncle Essam says hi.’ ”
Over time, a manly comradeship had grown up between Essam and Madany, a deep mutual understanding with regard to the essentials—an alternative, unspoken language of winks and glances which meant that Essam needed only a few words to convey his requests, to which Madany would respond immediately, like a private carrying out the orders of a general.
From Essam’s perspective, Madany possessed positive qualities it would be difficult to find in any other driver: he was honest, active, and discreet, didn’t complain if there was a lot of work or interfere in things that didn’t concern him, and he spoke only when necessary. At the same time, his role went far beyond that of a driver. Madany was the only person who had the key to Essam’s flat and could enter at any time. It was he who checked the maid’s twice-weekly cleaning of it and he who agreed with the cook on what vegetables to buy and strictly checked their prices and quality. It was he who waited for the ironing man on Mondays, got the clothes that he was going to iron ready, and made him iron them again if he wasn’t satisfied. It was he, too, who bought the whisky from Zamalek and presented it to Essam with the same respect with which he carried his briefcase, bulging with files from work. Madany’s participation in such forbidden rites in no way offended his own religious sensibilities. It may be that he regarded them as a combat mission in his righteous war for his daily bread, or perhaps he found in them an opportunity to show his gratitude to his employer, as though he were saying to Essam, “In return for your generosity to me, I shall serve you in sin without annoyance or extortion.”
When Essam went up to Nourhan’s flat, it was Madany’s job to stay in the street for a minimum of two hours. When these were up, he would park the car somewhere safe, get permission from the doorkeeper of Nourhan’s building and enter the latter’s room, where he would wash the plates and glasses that Essam used, then perform his ablutions and pray the evening prayer (at the stipulated time) and the sunset prayer (with retroactive effect). After this, he would go back to the car, push back the front seat and lie down to catch a bit of sleep until Essam left the love nest. Then he would drive him to Maadi, leave the car in the garage, and take a minibus to his home in Maasara.
Madany would push open the ancient iron gate, which would emit its familiar groan, then, in the darkness, climb the stairway, each of whose steps he knew by heart, and only then resume his natural rhythm and abandon his tense self-discipline, his face appearing relaxed and almost jolly, as though he were an actor who had played his part on the stage and gone back to his ordinary life, or a warrior who had put his weapons aside to enjoy a short rest.
This flat, which he’d been renting for a paltry sum for the past quarter of a century, held everything that mattered in his life: the members of his family, for whose sake he bore the exhausting work, resisted fatigue, and forced his ageing body to rise each morning, refusing to allow it to let him down; for whose sake he went to such lengths to please his employer, keep his head down, and put up with slights; and for whose sake his mind would transform itself into an implacable calculating machine that prescribed, with precision, what the boy and the girl needed, how to come up with the money for it, and the most appropriate place to shop for it. Nothing on this earth gave Madany greater pleasure than to sit in the middle of his family on the sofa in the main room, wearing his galabiya and sipping tea with mint while listening to Khaled and Hind and commenting on what they had to say with a sweetness of manner he never employed outside the house.
This deep loyalty to the family, which was almost a religious belief, had transferred itself from Madany to the other members of his family, making each feel responsible for the others.
When she entered secondary school, Hind had taken her first physics class and had understood nothing. She had come home from school feeling sad and burst into tears, but had refused her father’s offer to pay for private lessons, saying, “I might take the lessons and then get a low score on the exam, but Khaled’s at medical college, so he deserves the money more than I do.”
In spite of this, Madany, with the help of a gift from Essam, was able to get her into the review classes at the neighbouring mosque, and she made a decent enough score to get her into commercial college.
For the past two years, the family had been missing one essential member. The mother had been stricken with breast cancer and soon died, as though she hadn’t wanted to be a burden on them. Madany had mourned her and felt that a painful vacuum had been created by her absence, but had decided all the same not to remarry. He would never tolerate the existence of a stepmother who might hate, or be a source of harm to, his son and daughter, and at his age he no longer needed a woman the way he had when young. In addition, his daughter Hind had automatically, after her mother’s death, transformed herself into the woman of the house. She’d started cooking, washing the clothes and ironing them, and had, in fact, manifested an amazing capacity to take care of the needs of the household out of the salary that her father turned over to her in its entirety, as he had done to her late mother.
It would be hard to describe the expression that appeared on Madany’s face whenever he talked of his son, or the proud tone of voice in which he uttered his name, accompanied by his title—“Dr. Khaled.” He was Madany’s pride and glory, his reward for the years of toil. Khaled had been such a quiet, obedient child that Madany had sometimes said to his colleagues, to make fun of him, “The only one I raised was Hind. Khaled, God bless him, came out properly brought up all on his own.”
Madany couldn’t remember ever having struck Khaled for being naughty, the way one does with small children. When he’d noticed his love of reading, he’d got him a subscription to the Palaces of Culture’s Maasara branch, allowing him to borrow whatever books he liked and read them. At school, Khaled had been an untalkative, shy student who didn’t make trouble or get into scrapes. He would sit quietly, always in the front row, and follow the teacher’s explanations from behind his spectacles, always with the same look, focused and mixed with a slight amazement, as though fixing the lesson in his mind, once and for all. He had been top of the class in everything. He took first place in th
e district at the elementary and intermediate levels, and thirteenth in the whole country at the secondary level. His mother, God rest her soul, had been worried about the costs involved in studying medicine and suggested he should study something easier so that he could graduate faster and help with the family’s expenses. She’d spoken in a low voice and short sentences as she folded the wash, while Madany sat on the sofa in the main room in the galabiya he wore at home. He’d looked at her for a second as though he didn’t understand, then said, angrily, “Shame on you! God has bestowed on us a clever son and you’re going to begrudge what we spend on him? I’ll get the money to send him to medical college even if I have to beg on the streets!”
The Republic of False Truths Page 12