Cairo Stories

by Anne-Marie Drosso

  ‘We’ll see what happens to Medinet Habu now,’ Omar said ominously.

  The four men were quiet. Tarek’s and Ali’s families were on reasonable terms with the new guard’s family. There was some awkwardness in the air. But it did not last long as Ali suddenly pulled out a big, brown envelope from his galabeyah’s pockets and took from it a thick bundle of letters.

  ‘John,’ he said, ‘will you help me? Can you read some letters for me? You know I speak English better than I read it. It’s alright if the words are printed, but letters written by hand are very difficult to read.’

  Omar pulled out a few letters from his shirt pocket and laughed, ‘I need some help too.’

  Tarek said, ‘Thank God, I have no letters to show! They do, but I don’t!’ And he repeated, ‘Thank God,’ half-jokingly, half-seriously, it seemed to John.

  Ali was the first to hand a letter to John. It said:

  November 16, 2000

  Sweetest Ali,

  When, oh when, will I be back in Luxor? I can’t wait to be with you. Life in Liverpool is so drab. No laughter, no sun, no warmth, and no Ali! At work, my girl friends ask me, with envy, about my Egyptian love story, though they think it’s a passing thing. I don’t bother explaining to them that it is serious, that you are the man for me, and you make me feel I am the woman for you.

  The men I have known before you (I won’t hide that I have known a few men, even though I know you have a jealous streak) were so bland. You’re so full of life. I will do all I can to come for Christmas. I need you. I hope you need me too! Anything you want me to bring along? Anything you want me to send you, if I hear of people going to Luxor?

  Don’t hesitate to tell me. I know that life is a struggle for you, and for your family, and yet you all keep your spirits up and are so cheerful!

  Yours always,

  Rhonda

  Before John could say anything, Ali thrust another letter in his hand:

  Darling Ali,

  I shall never, never forget the ten days we spent together in Luxor. They were, thanks to you, so incredibly good. If only I could find a way of spending part of the year in Luxor! It would be great! Ideally, I would want to spend at least December, January and February in Luxor, with you of course, and, who knows, I might find ways of bringing you over here, though I am sure that you would miss Egypt and your family terribly. Life in Philadelphia is nothing like the life you’re used to. Things follow such a set routine here. It gets me down horribly. I would be worried that you would lose your beautiful smile here.

  Don’t forget your Ingrid.

  Then, a third letter:

  January 2001

  Sunny Ali,

  I’m going crazy. It’s pitch-dark when I go to work. And pitch-dark when I return. I spend lunchtime in an overheated cafeteria. It hasn’t stopped raining for one month. Yes, one whole month! When I get home at night, I play the Um Kulsum tape you gave me. I don’t understand the words. But it’s not important since I know she sings about ‘Hubb’. Love! Love! Love! Love you, sweetie!!! I realise that to talk about love, after spending only a few days with someone, seems ridiculous but my heart tells me I love you and you have to listen to what your heart says. Don’t you? The two weeks we spent together in Luxor taught me so much about love.

  Time in Liverpool drags on and on …

  Do you need anything?

  Many, many kisses.

  Your ‘Basbusa’

  ‘What exactly did you do to these ladies?’ John asked Ali, and the two men laughed good-heartedly.

  ‘They are nice ladies,’ Ali answered without any shyness. ‘They seem so alone. Life seems hard for them. They work hard. They don’t spend time with their families. They are at home alone in the evenings. They travel alone. I don’t understand. They are good ladies.’

  Tarek joked, ‘Ali is a Don Juan, but Omar is one too.’ Then, turning to Omar, Tarek said in Arabic, ‘Shame on you, man. You have a wife and children.’ Then, turning to John, he continued in English, ‘You must tell Omar to be good. Samiha is a good wife.’ This was said in good humour but with a touch of seriousness that John found endearing.

  ‘Now you can read my letters,’ Omar told John. ‘I don’t have many. Then you can go back to Ali’s letters. He’s a bigger Don Juan than I am. He has more time than I do.’

  Omar was definitely the most handsome of the three young men. Tall, broad-shouldered, with high cheekbones, fiery black eyes under bushy eyebrows, full lips, a large forehead and bushy jet black hair. Lovely hands too. A pianist’s hands that were much in evidence when he played the tabla – he played it well.

  The letter he handed to John read:

  January 2001

  My dearest,

  I fell in love with your country the first time I visited it. It was eight years ago. I absolutely loved it, in particular Luxor. Getting to know it through your eyes has made me even fonder of it. No man managed to make me appreciate a place the way you have. There are plenty of ‘experts’ who go to Egypt, but they don’t really know it. They know it with their head. That’s all and that’s not enough. I realise that you are not a free man. You have a wife and children. I admire you for telling me about them. You did not pretend you were a free man. As you know, I come to Luxor often. I have become addicted to the place. I am willing to spend time with you on your terms! I promise not to interfere with your family life. I know family is very important to you, even if you are not happy in your marriage.

  Should I come around Easter time? The heat does not bother me. In fact, I like the heat.

  If you can write a few words back, you’ll make me very happy.

  Your Ulla,

  or Olla as you nicknamed me. I love the sound of Olla It is so much nicer than Ursula, a name I always hated. I keep your real Olla in my kitchen, and drink water from it every morning. It connects me to Luxor and to you.

  ‘Could it be the same Ursula from Copenhagen I had a fling with?’ was John’s immediate thought. ‘Ursula’s not so common a name.’

  He looked at Omar. He saw a man twenty years younger than himself. A man belonging to a totally different world than his, who might have slept with a woman he had slept with. ‘So what?’ he tried to tell himself. If he was entitled to have his flings, so was Omar. ‘But the bastard was likely after her money!’ he caught himself thinking. And was surprised at the strong wave of hostility welling up within him, and at his sudden dislike of Omar, and of Ali too, for that matter. He could not help thinking that the Omars and Alis of the world had no business playing games with the Ursulas, Jeans and Rhondas of the world. But what about his own behaviour? It was not as though he himself had behaved well towards his Ursula. He had asked for her address, had jotted it down on a piece of paper, without meaning ever to get in touch. He remembered now giving her his work e-mail address. She had sent him a brief message he had not even bothered to acknowledge. He always made sure that his flings never got out of hand.

  ‘Have you finished reading it?’ Omar asked him eagerly.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ John replied.

  ‘Can you help me answer, when you have time?’

  ‘Hey, Omar, you’re a married man, as Tarek says,’ John said, trying to sound light-hearted. ‘What would Samiha think about all this?’

  ‘That’s what I’ve been saying to him,’ Tarek exclaimed.

  ‘You’re just envious,’ Ali and Omar said in unison to Tarek. ‘Admit it!’

  ‘Omar, what you’re doing is not right,’ Tarek said gently. Then in English, to John, he said, ‘Don’t you think so?’

  John nodded. He was wondering whether to ask Omar where his Ursula came from – what country, what city. ‘Better not to find out though,’ he concluded. There were many Ursulas in the world, many in Copenhagen.

  ‘You seem tired,’ Ali observed with concern. ‘We have tired you. What time is it in Chicago now?’

  John handed him the letter. ‘Yes, you’re right. I am tired. It’s the time difference. Stopping in Ams
terdam and London to give talks didn’t help. I’ll go to bed very early tonight.’

  After that, the subject of the letters was dropped. Sensing John’s unease, Omar and Ali returned to talking about the Supreme Council for Antiquities. It was not long before John got up and wished the men goodnight. After hugging each one of them, he bought himself a bottle of beer to take to his room.

  ‘He has aged,’ Omar said.

  ‘You think he took offence because of the letters?’ Tarek wondered.

  ‘He might feel we should not get too close to their women. But is it our fault, if they come here desperate for love? And for some tenderness?’ Ali lit another cigarette.

  ‘God be my witness, I felt sorry for this Olla. She’s the one who chased me,’ Omar said.

  ‘Come on, brother! You did not have to go along! You’re not behaving properly towards Samiha,’ Tarek stated.

  ‘You’re right,’ Omar admitted, and he looked suddenly subdued.

  ‘Do you think he’ll help us reply?’ Ali asked.

  ‘He’s a good sort. He probably will,’ Omar said.

  Back in his room, John stretched on his bed, his nerves all jangled. He must be more tired than he thought. All seemed suddenly sordid to him, his life as well as Luxor. His belligerent feelings towards Omar were subsiding. It was not news to him that some Western women came to Luxor in search of some sort of love. He had known about that side of life in Luxor. Wasn’t this what the Ursula he had met had been looking for? And hadn’t he taken advantage of that? Still, the thought of Omar’s intimacy with her did not go down well with him. Whether or not his Ursula was in fact Omar’s ‘Olla’ he would never know.

  Trying to make light of it all, he told himself, ‘Omar is a more handsome man than I am’ – an understatement, as Omar was much, much more handsome than him.

  For the first time, in a long while, John wondered whether his marriage could be salvaged.

  I Want These Pills

  Nora and her mother seemed locked in a struggle of wills of the kind that normally pits a young girl against her mother – except that Nora was forty-six years old and her mother eighty-eight. The argument was taking place in the old lady’s bedroom at nine in the evening, just as Nora was thinking that she ought to start packing her suitcase, as she had to be at the airport at the crack of dawn next day. She was on the eve of returning home – home for her being Montreal and thus miles away from Cairo, where her ailing mother lived.

  The week she had spent in Cairo had been frantic, like all her recent stays in Cairo. Her last couple of trips had been particularly taxing as she had been confronted, from the minute she set foot in her mother’s apartment, with a long list of things to do. Despite having a housekeeper and two part-time carers, her increasingly frail mother needed all the help she could get to carry on living at home. The elderly lady did not want to move into a nursing home. Nora did not want her there either, and so was doing her best to lend a helping hand by visiting her more frequently, squeezing in as many errands as she could during her brief visits, and making sure the carers were happy but not idle. Nora’s handling of her mother’s affairs required tact and deft manoeuvring: it was important that her mother should not be made to feel so diminished as to be powerless. Though very frail, the old lady had retained her intellectual vigour and mental acuity. She was not a difficult person, although, of late, she could become inordinately preoccupied by small matters, and then would not let go of her preoccupation. Whenever that happened, she became a different person from the measured and sensible woman whom people were used to.

  It would have made everything so much easier were Nora’s mother living in Montreal, or Nora living in Cairo. However, Nora’s family and job were in Montreal. Her mother had lived all her life in Cairo. To uproot her, at this stage, would be, to say the least, problematical. Nora had given the matter some thought and reached the conclusion that the present arrangement, though not ideal, was more manageable than transplanting her mother to a new world so late in life. The matter had never been put on the table though: her mother herself had never raised the subject.

  A couple of months had elapsed between Nora’s last visit and this one. Over so short a time, the old lady’s health had visibly deteriorated. There was no single cause for this: it was a generalised decline, which had taken Nora by surprise. On the phone her mother had sounded in good health; face-to-face she appeared about to break, so frail had she become.

  Nora was her only child. There had been a son who had died in a car crash at the age of twenty-eight. Nora and her mother rarely spoke of him. It seemed to Nora that her mother had never much wanted to share her grief.

  During the week of frantic errands for her mother, just about every day Nora would ask herself ‘How am I going to manage to say goodbye this time?’ On the day she was to fly back to Montreal, this was on her mind all day long.

  Completely saturated with taking and giving instructions, going over old lists and making new ones, Nora was hoping that, right after she had finished packing, she would have time to sit down with her mother and have a leisurely talk, as had been their habit in the past, on the eve of her leaving. But her mother had other plans. She had made up her mind that she needed a certain kind of antibiotic, for which she happened to have an old prescription. She wanted Nora to go to the pharmacy to pick it up.

  Gently, Nora tried to dissuade her mother from getting the medication: ‘But why get this antibiotic now? You don’t know whether you have an infection. I didn’t hear you complain about any symptoms earlier in the day.’

  Already in bed, her mother replied in a tone that made it clear she did not consider the matter to be open to discussion, ‘I may not start taking them today. But I want them handy.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s advisable for you to take them without having some tests first,’ Nora suggested. ‘Besides, I noticed that you tend to take antibiotics without completing the whole course. That’s not good, Mother. You’re too casual about this.’

  ‘Oh!’ her mother exclaimed, and turned her face away from Nora. ‘At my age, does it matter? Please, go to the pharmacy now, before it’s too late!’

  ‘Mother, I see no reason to get these pills now! I’m against your self-medicating yourself that way. Knowing you, you will take them, then stop mid-course.’ Why she was adopting this superior tone was not clear to Nora; but she had, and was now carried along by it. The expression on her face mirrored the self-righteous tone.

  Her mother did not answer, slowly got out of bed, and put on her slippers and house-coat.

  ‘Bewildered, Nora asked her sharply, ‘What are you doing?’

  Again without answering, her mother walked out of the bedroom. Following her, Nora almost shouted, ‘But where are you going?’

  With a blank look her mother answered: ‘Since you’re not willing to go to the pharmacy, I’ll ask a neighbour to go for me.’

  ‘This is ridiculous!’ Nora screamed, past trying to be gentle. ‘Why not wait till tomorrow? Till you have the tests? Talk to the doctor first thing in the morning, and then, if he thinks you need the pills, Soad can get them for you.’

  With astonishing force for someone so frail, the elderly lady barked at Nora, ‘You go now! I want these pills!’

  Nora was dumbfounded. It was uncharacteristic of her mother to be giving – let alone shouting – orders. ‘I won’t go! It makes no sense to get them now. You shouldn’t be taking pills on a whim.’ This time Nora managed to avoid screaming, but the look she threw in her mother’s direction was brimming with hostility.

  Her mother walked towards the apartment’s entrance door.

  ‘It’s nine o’clock, Mother!’ Nora was shouting again. And, even louder, ‘It makes no sense! No sense whatsoever!’ She sat down in the livingroom, hung her head, and put her hands first on her forehead and then on her cheeks. She could feel her cheeks burning. ‘My face must be all red,’ she thought. Her neck and shoulders felt like one big knot.

  When
Nora saw her mother walk back to her bedroom a few minutes later, she did not ask her whether the neighbours would get her the pills. Without uttering a word, her mother went straight back to bed, although she did not lie down. She propped herself against her pillows and sat with the same empty look she had had at the height of their argument.

  Nora joined her and sat on the bed, thinking that may be now was the time to have their leisurely talk, although it did not look promising. ‘So,’ Nora asked, ‘will you be going out a bit this week?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ her mother answered without looking at Nora.

  ‘I wonder what will be waiting for me at work,’ Nora stated, hoping that this would capture her mother’s interest.

  Ignoring Nora’s question, her mother said, ‘I’ve just remembered that I’ve been wanting you to check the silverware in the safe, and also to find the second key to the safe. I seem to have misplaced it.’

  ‘Now?’ Nora exclaimed.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Mother, you can’t be serious! Do you realise that I’m leaving at dawn tomorrow morning?’ Nora shook her head.

  ‘I do! I do! The last thing I need is for you to remind me! That’s why I’m asking you to do it now,’ her mother cried, sounding suddenly panicky. Really panicky.

  ‘But why didn’t you tell me earlier?’ Nora looked furious.

  ‘I only just remembered now! What do you expect at my age?’ her mother said, more calmly. ‘You should be glad I’m managing as well as I am. It could be worse, you know!’

  ‘Frankly Mother, you don’t seem to allow for the fact that I’m getting up at four-thirty tomorrow morning,’ Nora said, although what she really wanted to say was ‘I would like to talk with you Mother, the way we usually do – the way we’ve not had much of a chance to, this time round.’

  The elderly lady looked as if she was about to reply, but did not.