The Arrogant Years

by Lucette Lagnado

  In her walks around the city, Alexandra had never dared enter the hotel; she could only stare in her usual distracted way, taking in the British officers sitting on the comfortable bamboo chairs on the terrace and looking so imperious as they were served by one of the silent, intensely elegant Nubian waiters in their flowing white robes with a red sash and matching red tarboush. It was a man’s world, that terrace. The women tended to congregate more discreetly indoors, in the parlors and dining rooms. Watching all the Rolls-Royces pulling up one after the other—including on occasion King Farouk’s red cars—was a full-fledged spectacle, like going to the cinema.

  As the war raged, it was one of the few places in Cairo that still served first-class champagne.

  And that was where Alexandra and Edith and Félix were headed that afternoon when they boarded the tramway on Sakakini Street, their relatives having gleaned a bit more information over the intervening days from my grandmother. She had filled in the gaps in her usual anxious, telegraphic style.

  A chance encounter at La Parisiana, the popular café downtown. A handsome man in white—white sharkskin—had made their acquaintance. Très distingué (terribly distinguished). He had sent a note over to their table. “I find you very beautiful—Would it be possible for us to meet?” His name was Leon. He was much older than Edith. A businessman.

  “What kind of business?” Alexandra hadn’t the foggiest. How old was he exactly? She didn’t know that, either. Those were all petty details, and my grandmother was never ever able to size up real-life men and women the way she expertly judged the characters in the books that she devoured.

  “Ça sera un marriage de rêves,” she told her brother and his wife as she left. It will be a dream wedding.

  When Edgar and Marie, dressed in their afternoon finest, arrived at Shepheard’s, they were swept up in a world of tall granite pillars, Persian rugs, stained glass, and the waiters, always the waiters, scurrying past them so silently in their slippers they seemed to float through the rarefied air of the hotel instead of walking like ordinary humans.

  My father usually favored the American Bar or else the Long Bar. Its legendary waiter Joe knew so many people in Egypt everyone assumed he was a spy. But for this occasion only a cozy parlor would do. About a dozen relatives gathered at the appointed time for tea, a perfectly civilized way for the two families to get to know one another. My father was there with several of his siblings and their spouses. Edith arrived with Rosée, her half sister, who was almost like a mother to her, and Edouard, her half brother, who was also very protective. Edouard was the most worldly member of the family, the only one who felt at ease in Shepheard’s. Edouard boosted my mom’s confidence as no one else could, giving her the sense that she was equal to anyone and everyone in this opulent Orientalist drawing room. He was there to remind her that she needn’t be intimidated.

  When Marie, my grandmother’s sister-in-law, saw Leon, she did a double take. Though she hadn’t remembered his name, she recognized him at once. Marie was a veteran poker player, a habitué of card games all over Cairo. A passionate gambler, she was one of those women who felt perfectly at ease playing with—and beating—a table full of men, whether at poker, baccarat, or rami, Egypt’s version of gin rummy. Card games were one of the few intellectual outlets for women in the Levant, and Marie approached every round with a zeal and ferocity that surpassed that of the men.

  The two had a startling reunion: “Mais qu’est-ce-que tu fais la?” she asked Leon. What are you doing here?

  “Je suis le fiancé,” he replied—I am the fiancé.

  Marie was genuinely stunned. In her years playing cards, she knew Leon to be un coureur, someone fond of the ladies. Cairo was both an international city and a small town—everyone knew everyone, everyone was constantly running into everyone. It was also a culture that thrived on gossip. If you happened to be on the “night circuit”—going to the same favored set of nightclubs, casinos, and cabarets, playing at the same popular poker tables—it didn’t matter if you were a gambler or a king, people watched you, observed you, noticed who was with you and who wasn’t.

  As members of both families sipped tea and traded niceties and wished each other well, Marie found herself that afternoon trying to solve two mysteries at once: why her old poker buddy had decided to marry, and why her sister-in-law was allowing Edith to be his bride.

  After the Shepheard’s tea, Marie decided to confront Alexandra with what she knew. Leon wasn’t a suitable prospect for her daughter, she told her—he was known to run around and he was notorious for dating des actrices—actresses. That was a shorthand way to convey the kind of women my father was famous for squiring, women who weren’t remotely like Edith—experienced, which my mother was not, and free, which my mother was not, and worldly, which my mother most certainly was not.

  “Non—ce n’est pas vrai,” my grandmother insisted when Marie had finished—It is not true.

  Alexandra, who had always lived in her own world, poised somewhere between her favorite novels and her most cherished fantasies, had constructed a new reality for herself, one featuring a noble and wealthy son-in-law.

  Nothing her blunt-spoken relative could say would dissuade her. She and Edith had waited too long, had prayed too intently, and the answer to their prayers had come in the form of this tall dashing man in white. In her excitement, Alexandra had forgotten her own disastrous past.

  And what did Edith think? She was in a state of confusion—swept away by my father and his grand courtship, her first, since Alexandra hadn’t permitted any others. She was also heavily under my grandmother’s influence—and Alexandra seemed determined, obsessed even, that this match take place.

  Edith was twenty; Leon was forty-two. In that sense Alexandra was turning out to be very similar to other parents of the era, intent on marrying off their daughters as fast as possible. Rich or poor, girls were considered a burden to their families and an aging, unmarried daughter could only bring dishonor. It was critical to find husbands who would support them.

  It was the mind-set known as Yalla.

  “Yalla,” a typical parent would tell their daughter when a prospective suitor showed up at the door. Yalla was the Arabic expression that suggested impatience, the single word that meant come on, get going, make up your mind, hurry up already. Like a thousand other mothers around her, Alexandra was ready to give her daughter away, beguiled by the promise of money and stature from men who were far too old.

  When it came to marriage, a young woman in Cairo was in the same boat whether she came from an alleyway in Sakakini or a grand villa in Heliopolis or Garden City—none had much to say in the matter. The decisions, down to what type of bonbonnières—silver or porcelain?—were going to be given to guests as keepsakes, were made without her input, between her parents and the groom to be and his family. The young women were kept docile by the promise of a lovely wedding, an elegant trousseau, new clothes. Off they went, often in a state of abject terror, to their new lives.

  Though marriages to older men were common, some young brides still stood out. Sixteen-year-old Camille Wahba greeted her new husband holding her dolls in her arms. There was also the thirteen-year-old girl who was married off to a Syrian Jew in his thirties, a pastry salesman from Aleppo who sold sweets in the street. Whenever they boarded the tramway together at Sakakini, she rode for free: The conductor assumed she was his child.

  Many of these young Levantine brides found themselves trapped, unable to escape. They learned to make their peace or, in a few cases, they got out but only after paying an excruciating price for a divorce. The majority stayed put. They grew up fast, were mothers within the first year, and in some cases became fond of their older spouses.

  Some unions had nightmarish denouements—none more so than that of Ninette Toussoun, a blond, blue-eyed beauty and perfume salesgirl at Orozdi-Back, one of Cairo’s great department stores. She married a coworker when she was only a teenager, but the marriage soured. Her husband liked to
go out gambling and would leave his young wife night after night. Ninette was said to wander from one Cairo building to another, possibly having dalliances. When her husband threatened to leave her, she said she would kill herself, and then she did.

  In an ultimate gesture of despair, Ninette threw oil over her body and set herself on fire in front of him, leaving her Jewish neighbors stunned and anguished and determined to make sense of what on earth had taken place. Did he have affairs? Did she? Had he been unkind? Had she gone mad? No one knew for sure. For years to come, the community couldn’t stop talking about the burning of the Toussoun bride and tried to grasp what had led a young woman—one of their own, not from the Muslim community—to feel so unhappy that she preferred to burn to death.

  None of these morbid prospects were on my mother’s mind as she prepared for her wedding. On the contrary, she was as excited as Alexandra, swept up in the same grand illusion as her mother. Leon had wanted a fancy affair, black tie. He was willing to pay for the ceremony to be held at the Gates of Heaven and had arranged for the chief rabbi of Egypt, Rabbi Haim Nahum himself, to preside—which meant that he was going to pay a great deal.

  There was only one sad note to the affair: Edith had to abandon her cherished position at L’École Cattaui. She would no longer be working as a teacher or as a librarian: Leon had made it clear she would have to stop working.

  It was a condition not simply of this marriage but of nearly any marriage in Egypt. C’était la loi du pays—it was the law of the land—as people liked to say, the Oriental way, probably more reflective of an Arab than a European mentality. Once she had a husband to support her, a woman simply wasn’t supposed to work.

  And so while my mother had profound qualms about leaving a position she loved with all her heart and that had been not only her salvation but that of her family—in her five years as a teacher she had ably supported Alexandra as well as her little brother—it didn’t even occur to her to challenge the need to abandon her profession. For all of her talents, my mother was a creature of her time. To resist my father’s wish that she leave her job would mean going up against an entire culture.

  Madame Cattaui was shocked by the news. As long as she had known her, Edith had been completely devoted to her work at the Cattaui school. Her young protégé had not expressed any interest in settling down, had never even had a romantic involvement of any kind. Yet there she was suddenly leaving to be married. Alice had lost a daughter once and now it was as if she were losing her all over again. But the pasha’s wife was her usual composed, stoic self as she wished her well in her new life.

  For Mom, the loss was far greater. Leaving Cattaui was akin to shedding her identity. She had been among colleagues who respected her despite her youth and inexperience, was idolized by any number of young children, and basked in the admiration and support of the magnificent pasha’s wife. Yet she was leaving all that behind and more, for the promise of wealth and domestic stability that her new fiancé emblemized.

  She wasn’t asked to give back the key—that would surely have been unbearable. But with her departure from Cattaui she had effectively lost entry to the pasha’s library and the entire magical world it conjured, and the promise it signified, and that fact alone cast a shadow over a period that should only have been joyful.

  On the day of the wedding, Alexandra and Edith made their way to the downtown apartment of Oncle Edouard. Although my father had originally said he would make do without a dowry, Edouard insisted on paying at least a symbolic amount, to show that Edith came from an honorable family that met its obligations. Edouard would be the one to accompany Edith down the aisle, and he was there, of course, for the signing of the ketubah, the religious marriage contract. On that day, as on so many days, he became the father and protector she’d never really had.

  There was to be much pageantry and fanfare; close relatives were all assigned important roles. Lily, the fourteen-year-old daughter of Tante Rosée, was the demoiselle d’honneur—the maid of honor—given the coveted task of carrying the bridal veil. She was going to walk a few steps behind Edith and gently lift the veil off the floor. Two other young cousins were picked to hold the tall white votive candles, each child flanking the bride as she marched down the aisle.

  That was always the most haunting part of the ceremony, the children holding candles that symbolized a long and blessed life.

  Edith finally emerged from the room where Tante Rosée was helping her dress. No one was prepared for what they saw—it wasn’t simply her beauty brought into high relief by her exquisite gown, which Tante Rosée had sewn by hand.

  On dirait un ange, Lily thought, as she practiced holding Mom’s veil—It is as if she were an angel.

  By the time my mother’s family arrived at the Gates of Heaven, most of the guests had already gathered. During weekly Sabbath prayers, men and women sat separately, the men in the large main sanctuary, the women high above in their own separate section on the balcony. But on this day, everyone sat together downstairs, chatting amiably as they waited for the ceremony to begin. The choir—a group of little boys dressed all in white—was singing softly, beckoning the bride to enter God’s house. Many of the men, my father included, were in fracs—top hats and tails—the women in floor-length gowns. And there was Rabbi Nahum—the most hallowed man in Egypt except for the king—praying silently as he prepared to deliver the benediction.

  The newlyweds left for their honeymoon in Ras el-Bar, the resort in the north, where they posed for a portrait shortly after they arrived—one single black-and-white picture that showed Edith looking lovely and carefree in a long white kimono and jaunty beret, while Leon, wearing luxuriant white pajamas, towered over her, his arm draped around her shoulder protectively.

  What a perfect couple they seemed—so attractive, so happy.

  Alexandra, alone in her apartment on the alleyway, paced up and down the balcony, puffing on her cigarettes. It wasn’t going well, the marriage. The couple had only been back from their honeymoon a few weeks and already, my grandmother had grasped a deep unhappiness from what Edith said and didn’t say in their brief visits together. There was the Syrian mother-in-law who was invasive and bossy and insisted on speaking only in Arabic.

  Leon was turning out to be demanding and authoritarian and Edith—meek by nature, très douce—was afraid of him. And he was also set in his ways. He was a man in his forties, after all, used to a certain kind of lifestyle. Once they had returned from Ras el-Bar he had simply resumed his old ways, picking up where he left off.

  Un mariage de rêves?

  Edith was left stranded. There she was without a job, without any means of supporting herself, without even her identity—Mademoiselle Matalon, teacher, librarian—stuck in that apartment all day with that old Syrian woman who wouldn’t even speak to her in French. She was utterly dependent on whatever little spending money her husband gave her. Leon would vanish every morning to synagogue, and then to his business affairs, and then leave again at night.

  Alexandra decided to walk over to Tante Rosée’s house in Daher. There, at least she could think clearly, seek advice over a café turc. Her family was terribly upset—the more they heard these stories about Edith, the angrier they became. When Alexandra briefed Oncle Edouard about the goings-on, he was beside himself. But while both my grandmother and Rosée felt he should have a talk with Leon, admonish him, set him straight, as a man of the world Edouard knew that it was too late.

  An annulment was out of the question and divorce was unthinkable. Leon could say that his wife had all she needed—food, clothing, and a fine apartment on Malaka Nazli, one of the grandest street in Cairo.

  A month or two into the marriage, Edith informed my grandmother that she was expecting a baby.

  · 4 ·

  The Bonesetter of Mouski

  Although Mom tried to protect us from the evil eye, she believed that we were more susceptible to it than other children, certainly when she surveyed the rash of calamities that c
onstantly seemed to befall us, starting with that summer night in 1951 when my brother Isaac got bitten by a rat while the family was away on holiday.

  A few years into her marriage, Edith was overwhelmed trying to raise three small children. Her duties as a mother left her no time to dwell on the life she had left behind—her work as a teacher, her bond with the pasha’s wife. My sister Suzette, the oldest, was born less than a year after the marriage, a disappointment to Dad who was counting on a son, only a son.

  The marriage, rocky from the start, almost didn’t recover.

  Then two years later, César came and was cherished by my parents as the boy both had wanted and there was a tenuous peace. Isaac, the baby, was born in 1950. There was a semblance of a family life, especially in the summer.

  Edith with baby Suzette, Cairo, 1946.

  In those days the family vacationed in Ras el-Bar, a small town in the north, preferring its rustic charms to the urban pleasures of Alexandria. Ras el-Bar was famous for its clean streets and magnificent vistas, especially at the point where the Nile flows into the Mediterranean. Most people rented simple wooden cabanas called huttes that were put up at the start of the season and taken down at the end.

  Finicky travelers who craved more comforts vacationed in the Aslan, the lone Jewish hotel. It was especially popular for its romantic evening dances on the terrace. Every night, a small orchestra would play waltzes, tangos, and fox-trots, and it felt at times as if all the Jews of Egypt were converging on the dance floor, the men in their white suits, the women in low-cut dresses and the highest heels they could manage.