Beer in the Snooker Club

by Waguih Ghali

  Although Didi is very sophisticated and frequents sophisticated circles, this part of her life, this essence, has to be unfulfilled unless she is married. It was nearly by force I took her, that first time in London. Now she lay in bed, her serenity ruffled, and a naïve, helpless expression on her face.

  ‘I am in love with you,’ she said.

  And this omnipotence a man feels usually makes him cruel. Smug, as I said. And the crueller he is, the more helpless and defeated is his companion.

  ‘First,’ I said, ‘you should never tell a man you love him in this way. It makes him cruel. Second, if you had the courage to give yourself to someone else, you would also fall in love with him.’

  ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘My Aunt Noumi,’ I told her, ‘is arranging a match between you and my cousin Mounir.’

  She shook her head.

  I turned over and lay face downwards, putting my head under the pillow.

  ‘Or,’ I said, ‘if you don’t like Mounir, you might as well marry me.’

  She ran her hand up and down my shoulders and back.

  ‘Don’t make fun of me, Ram.’

  ‘I am very serious.’ I turned round and faced her. ‘Will you marry me?’

  ‘But …’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘But … but …’

  ‘But but but but,’ I mimicked. ‘If you love someone, you marry him.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘But,’ I repeated.

  ‘But …’

  ‘But,’ I said and laughed.

  ‘But, Ram, you have no job, no money.’

  ‘That’s right; that’s why you’ll get married to Mounir.’

  ‘Besides …’

  ‘Besides nothing. Mounir has a set of books he bought in America about love-making. I saw them; with figures and positions. One chapter is entitled “The Perfect Five Minutes”. The designs are drawn on a background of a clock with a second’s hand. For the first four minutes he “arouses” you, and for another full minute he benefits from his “arousation”, if there is such a word. Besides, you can always shove a cushion in your place if you’re not inclined. It will remind him of his days of training. He has shown me the books: “You sure pick up some information there, boy.” ’

  ‘And Edna,’ Didi asked.

  ‘I am finished with Edna,’ I said.

  ‘Besides …’

  ‘What, another besides?’

  ‘Be serious. How did you get all this literature and pictures of the concentration camps?’

  ‘A hobby of mine,’ I said.

  ‘Through Font?’

  ‘Font? Font. Can you see these things in Font’s hand? He’d have rushed in the street and given a copy to everyone he saw; and before they even shot him, he’d have gone mad. No,’ I said, ‘leave Font in his snooker heaven out of harm’s way.’

  ‘Do you belong to the Communist Party?’

  ‘There is no such thing, I tell you. Together with the liberals, social democrats, pacifists and idealists; they’re on the shores of the Red Sea. We have a lot of Ex-SS Germans here who know what to do with such people.’

  ‘Say the truth, Ram.’

  ‘I tell you, it’s only a hobby of mine. You know me better than to think I’d sacrifice my comfort or life for anything.’

  ‘But you don’t love me, Ram. Why did you want to marry me?’

  I pulled her against me and kissed her. ‘I shall love you,’ I said. ‘There were times in London I was madly in love with you. You are terribly beautiful. I want to live with you in a beautiful house with lots of books bound in leather. To take you out each evening to the poshest places. To go for drives in the desert in our car. To caress you and make love to you every night. To buy you the most beautiful clothes, jewels, perfumes in existence …’ and I involuntarily laughed – this tic of mine of suddenly laughing – ‘with your own money of course. Because you are very rich.’

  ‘So you are joking.’

  ‘No. I’d have been joking if I hadn’t mentioned you are rich. You don’t think I’d have asked you to marry me if you were poor? How could we have lived? Precisely because you are rich, I am serious.’ I held her closer and when she began to speak again, I covered her mouth with mine. We lay in silence for a while, until I felt passion stirring within me again. ‘I want you to endow our house with serenity,’ I said. ‘With serenity and peacefulness. To go about the house humming tunes, both of us.’

  ‘I have always been in love with you,’ she said.

  ‘It’s me Didi is marrying,’ I told my mother, ‘not Mounir.’

  ‘C’est le comble,’ my mother started. ‘Ça c’est le comble …’

  ‘Didi and I are going to get married,’ I repeated.

  ‘You are joking. Ce n’est pas possible.’

  ‘I am not joking’. I said. ‘Unless you want me to give her up for Mounir.’

  ‘I can’t believe it.’

  ‘It is true. We got engaged in London,’ I lied.

  ‘But what will your aunt say?’

  ‘I’ll tell you when I see her this afternoon.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Didi is going with them to Kirka. I am meeting them there.’

  ‘But she has arranged everything.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The new villa in Heliopolis for them, and Nackla Pasha was delighted …’

  ‘What about Didi?’ I asked.

  ‘She gave no definite answer. I swear she never said she was engaged to you or to anyone else; all she said was that she would think about it … et nous avons tous cru …’

  ‘Or don’t you want your son to marry Didi?’ I said. ‘This charming person … this millionairess? Of course I shall not marry against your wishes.’

  The situation was too much for her. She took her handkerchief out and started rubbing her eyes.

  ‘Buy her an expensive present,’ she said after a while. ‘Let them send the bill here and not to your aunt.’

  ‘La Edna’ was anyhow much too old for me, she added.

  This shop. You enter it and the croquet lawn at the club comes to mind. It’s the sort of shop which has a mile-long window with nothing in it but a black beret and a rose.

  Gaston was walking in the entrance hall with his hands behind his back. Gaston is maître de cérémonie in that shop. He is one of the people called Gaston but who are a bit Maltese, a bit Italian, some Greek and probably something East European. He came towards me.

  ‘Bonjour, bonjour, monsieur,’ he said. ‘The family is upstairs. May I congratulate you on the engagement of your cousin?’

  ‘You may,’ I said. Gaston, as I said, is a mixture of many races, but he and his parents were born in Egypt. Yet he doesn’t speak a word of Arabic. This shop is going to be ‘nationalized’. I put nationalized in inverted commas because I don’t think it has any economic significance here, except to enrich the army somewhat. But this business of nationalization will be significant as far as Gaston is concerned, because he will have to stop using about the only Arabic word he knows, which is ‘go away’, and which he has been allowed to use all his life to ninety-five per cent of the Egyptian population. I remember when the Suez Canal was nationalized and a lot of share-owners and blimps were furious. It is a very good thing this canal was nationalized, particularly to those who knew the French club in Port Fouad and saw the French having cushy jobs and being arrogant to everyone. (A British blimp is very often a figure of fun and his entourage of horsy young women and nasal, public-school nincompoops doesn’t look so bad when you compare it to a crowd of French middle-class bourgeois.) This Suez Canal Company was a heaven for the very worst type of French string-pulling good-for-nothings. They sat in the club doing nothing all day long, and once Font and I parked a car in front of that club – a battered old car we had used for a Suez expedition, from which we had thrown some inefficient bombs at the British army camp. We stopped the car in front of that French club and went in for a drink of whisky.

&
nbsp; ‘Psssst … vous là-bas,’ a Frenchman shouted and pointed to the exit.

  ‘Allez vous faire foutre,’ Font said. We went to the bar and ordered a whisky.

  ‘No,’ said the barman. Suddenly about five Frenchmen popped up with sticks – they actually drove us out with sticks, big, fat, wooden sticks. But that was not all. While we were having a fight outside on the balcony, another group of Frenchmen bodily removed our small Fiat and threw it on the beach. When the police came, it was us they took away. I tell you, when that canal was nationalized, Font and I could have kissed the Colonel’s feet in admiration.

  But back to the shop. Gaston led me to the lift and spared me climbing about eight steps. This shop. People go to it as a sort of apéritif; I mean they don’t go there to buy anything, or because they need something or other: no. They have a coffee with the director, and they talk about Paris and Rome and New York, and then they remember Budapest in the old days and wonder what happened to La Comtesse Ozbensky … what a delightful creature, that Nina! And Luigi, the director, tells them ‘c’était une reine …’ and they all shake their heads sadly: what is happening in the world, they ask. Finally they remember that even with them things are not quite the same. It’s increasingly difficult to travel, Luigi, and even then, with all the worry about making arrangements for adequate money to be waiting for them there … it’s not only Budapest and Prague, mon cher, and they all nod knowingly. Then Sousou tells them about Tata who is very ‘débrouillarde, ma chère’, and officially sends seventy pounds a month to an imaginary student-son in Switzerland … with this she has enough money for a few weeks in Lausanne each year. Luigi laughs at this, then puts his finger in front of his mouth and tells them to be careful … one never knows. Finally he suddenly remembers something. ‘Have I told you?’ he asks. ‘I have four new Diors I haven’t: yet opened.’ – ‘Pas possible! Do show us, Luigi, ne sois pas méchant.’ ‘Yes, yes,’ he tells them; ‘but not today.’ ‘Ouf, Luigi, ne sois pas antipathique … we’re only going to have a look at them.’ Then they fight over the dresses amongst themselves; and when Luigi shows them the new shoes he has received from Italy, they furnish their entire family with shoes from Italy to last them five years. An hour or so later, Luigi is giving orders to pack the three or four thousand pounds’ worth of stuff he has just sold. Then he rings up Madame Abdulla – better known as Fifi. ‘Have I told you,’ he says, ‘about the things I have just received from Vienna?’

  I went out of the lift and stood with my hand in my pocket. I looked round and then saw my aunt. She was holding court.

  I know this court business well. Now and then she has all the family to spend the day at her villa. All of us, rich, poor, and genuinely poor; priests, clerks, poor girls saving for their dowry, second and third cousins, great aunts and uncles.

  ‘Now, Samia,’ she will start, ‘I want you to get married to Fathy. Do you hear, Fathy?’

  ‘Yes, my aunt.’

  ‘Next month or so. I don’t want any more nonsense now. Age makes no difference. He has a good job and that’s all that matters.’ This Fathy would be about twenty-five years older than the miserable girl.

  ‘Yes, my aunt.’ Then she will give Samia a dozen of Mounir’s silk shirts and tell her to embroider Mounir’s initials as recompense for having forced her to marry repulsive-looking Fathy.

  ‘Yes, my aunt … thank you my aunt, thank you.’

  ‘Aziz, you are to stick to that job you have. If I hear once more that you arrive late or smell of alcohol, you shall never enter this house again. Do you hear?’

  ‘Yes, my aunt.’

  ‘Now look here, Amin. The church is in a filthy state, you must increase the price of the Holy Bread; I am not a one-woman charitable organization to pay for everything. If you don’t increase the price of the bread, I shall talk to the Patriarch. That’s final. Another thing; place two or three ten-piastres notes in the offering-plate before passing it round.’

  ‘Yes, my aunt.’

  Having settled the affairs of these, she will start moving up the scale until she reaches my mother and speaks in French.

  ‘You must sell your car, Vivi.’

  ‘I shall see,’ my mother will say.

  Now she was filling a large sofa. My girl-cousin Mado was getting married and my aunt was there to see she bought the right things.

  ‘Nonsense,’ her squeaky voice jetted, ‘you’ll throw it away at the end of a week. Show me that crêpe-de-Chine again, Luigi.’ He hurried away. ‘No, no. I’ve said no, and Mado it means no.’ My cousin Mado is as rich as my aunt, but has no courage.

  My aunt’s eyes are large, protruding globes, hanging, it seems, from underneath her eybrows. I saw them flash me a glance, sideways, a fraction of a second, then back again to the cloth Marie was holding in front of her.

  I shook myself and sat about ten yards away from them. Luigi nodded to me and I nodded back. I heard him order a young man to bring me a coffee. Didi Nackla sat on a sofa opposite that of my aunt, with Mounir by her side. She glanced at me now and then. My coffee came, and was placed on an antique table by my side. I lit a cigarette. I was thinking about Edna’s husband and idly wondering what he looked like, when the people around my aunt dispersed a bit. She was getting up. First a hand on a servile shoulder, then up, and a little bend on one side, pulling that side of her corset down. Then another bend on the other side, pulling that side of her corset down; then a quick grimace, and she was ready to walk. She wobbled up to me, searched in her handbag for a handkerchief, blew her nose, and calmly sat next to me.

  ‘Give me one of your Egyptian cigarettes,’ she said, ‘Mounir’s Americans are too strong for me.’

  I gave her a cigarette and lit it for her. She waved her hand in a ‘go away’ sign to some cousins and others who were edging towards us to hear the conversation.

  ‘What is this I hear about you and Didi Nackla?’

  ‘We are going to get married,’ I said.

  ‘So, so,’ she mused.

  ‘So, so,’ I repeated.

  ‘There is no point in being either rude or arrogant.’

  ‘I am sorry,’ I said, depressed and miserable.

  ‘And how are you going to support your wife?’

  ‘She is rich enough,’ I said.

  ‘Aha. It is the money that is attracting you?’

  ‘Money is attractive,’ I said.

  ‘Aha …’

  I put my cigarette out and folded my arms.

  ‘And your mother?’

  ‘What about my mother?’

  ‘How is she going to live?’

  ‘What do you mean,’ I asked.

  ‘Your father lost all he had on the bourse and I am supporting your mother – not to mention you. There is no question of me giving her a penny if Didi does not marry Mounir.’

  ‘Didi has enough money.’

  ‘And did you tell Didi that?’

  ‘I shall,’ I sighed.

  ‘Aha.’ She took her handkerchief out once more and blew her nose.

  ‘How far did you get with your studies here and in England?’

  ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘Just answer me.’

  ‘Oh, I can get a degree any time I want.’

  ‘So, so.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘It is your last chance, Ram. I shall never repeat this offer. You can go to Cook’s or some other travel agency and book a ticket on a plane or a ship to London, or anywhere else you want. I shall pay for yet another four years of studies. You will get an adequate monthly allowance; you can also buy a small car. So there. Don’t stretch my patience and generosity too far.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘But I shall marry Didi Nackla all the same.’

  ‘So, so.’

  ‘So, so,’ I repeated.

  She nodded to Mounir and he came towards us, his hand outstretched.

  ‘Sure needed some drying out, cousin,’ he said, shaking hands. ‘But I guess I got no hard feelings.’<
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  ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘It was an accident.’

  ‘We sure did drink quite a bit, eh?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘Boy, it’s great having two beautiful women at home. I guess there is something doing there, buddy.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ I said.

  ‘C was asking about you. Sure made a hit, there.’

  ‘Who’s C,’ I asked.

  ‘Caroline.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Hey, Ram. How about you going to the States for a while, eh?’

  ‘No thanks, Mounir.’

  ‘You don’t wanna worry about anything. I’ve got it all here.’ He tapped his wallet-pocket.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Look, I wanna talk to you, man to man, eh?’

  ‘All right,’ I said. We left his mother and went to another sofa.

  ‘I guess I’m pretty keen on Didi, and boy, it sure came as a surprise about you and her. Well, I said to myself; that guy Ram’s had a hard deal; his pop losing that cash on the bourse. Well, I said to myself, what would you have done in his place, Mounir? And d’you know, boy? I’d have done exactly like you.’ He tapped me on the shoulder. ‘You gotta have a standard of living, boy; a car, money, get around. Didi’s Ai, eh? Boy, look at those curves.’ He winked. ‘Well, I gotta proposition right here …’

  ‘Mounir,’ I said. ‘Didi Nackla is sitting there. If she wants to marry you, she marries you; if she wants to marry me, she marries me. That’s all there is to it.’

  ‘I’ve sure been talking to her.’

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘Well …’

  ‘Did you tell her I was marrying her for her money?’

  ‘I guess I did, cousin.’

  ‘And what did she say?’

  ‘I guess she gave no answer.’

  ‘Well,’ I said. ‘I shall go and talk to her myself.’

  She was sitting alone in a corner.

  ‘Didi, I’m fed up with all this. You know they’re trying to bribe me. I’ve told you before I wouldn’t have asked you to marry me if you were poor. I also forgot to tell you we’ll have to support my mother.’