by Ahdaf Soueif
Prince Yusuf Kamal is a slight man with a sensitive, intelligent face. He has a passion for art and intends personally to fund the school if no other money can be found. ‘Where has it all gone?’ he is fond of saying. ‘Look at the statues, look at the temples our grandfathers built. Look at the mosques of the Fatimids, the book-bindings and the glass of the Mamelukes — and now? The Ottomans have a lot to answer for.’ But at this moment it would appear another opposition is gathering force.
‘Would you believe,’ the Prince says sadly, ‘they are accusing me of encouraging kufr?’
‘Kufr, your Highness?’
‘Drawing! Sculpture! Here —’ He takes out an envelope from his pocket, draws out a letter and shakes it open. ‘Read this.’
Sharif Basha reads:
… and doubt does not enter into our hearts regarding the elevated nature of your Highness’s intentions and the nobility of your aims, but we find it our duty to remind you, with all the respect that is due to … of the clear injunction against the activities that you propose to foster in the establishment Your Highness intends to set up. This injunction is expressed in the sound Hadith of the Messenger of God — the prayers and peace of God be upon him: ‘Those who will be most severely tormented on the Day of Judgement are the image-makers.’ Therefore, we now request that you reconsider … money can be better used to promote and strengthen our Faith which is being daily eroded by the presence in our land of the unjust and infidel Occupier …
Sharif Basha hands back the letter. ‘Your Highness can hardly give weight —’
‘I have to take them seriously,’ Prince Yusuf says. ‘They could incite the people. Ya Basha, all they would have to say is that I am in collusion with the British to import evil European arts into the country, to train our young men into them …’
Harry Boyle strolls into the room and Sharif Basha places a hand on his friend’s arm. ‘Shall we go and get something to eat?’ he suggests.
In the dining room the two men pause to greet Milton Bey and Prince Gamil Tusun. They take a corner table and order grilled pigeon and salad. A pitcher of lemonade sits in its silver castor between them.
‘What do you propose to do?’ Sharif Basha asks.
‘I don’t know. Give me your opinion.’
‘Set up a public debate. You can wipe the floor with them.’
‘What’s the use —’
‘Accuse them of conspiring with the British to hold us back.’ Sharif Basha laughs at his own idea, but Prince Yusuf is troubled.
‘You cannot convince these people with logic. You have to speak to them in their own language.’
The waiters appear with the food and the two men shake out their napkins. Prince Yusuf pours olive oil and vinegar on the salad.
‘If you speak to them in their own language, you have already agreed to fight on their ground,’ Sharif Basha says, picking up his fork. ‘Our position should be that faith is one thing and colleges — civil institutions — are another.’
‘They will never accept that,’ Prince Yusuf Kamal objects.
‘But we shall have this problem with the university, with the education of women, with banking — with everything. This is the question that has to be decided once and for all: to what extent should these people interfere in the practical development of the country? And notice that their interventions are always in a negative direction — everything in their book is haraam —’
‘Ya Sharif Basha, this is a debate we cannot enter into now. With the British here, people will not say of us, “These men are patriots who think differently from us.” They will say, “These men are in the pay of the British”, and they will conspire even more with the Sublime Porte to tie us closer to Turkey. For the moment, we keep our eye on our target, our limited target: the School of Fine Art.’
‘Let me speak to Sheikh Muhammad Abdu,’ Sharif Basha says impatiently, taking his napkin off his knee, crumpling it on the table by his plate. ‘He supports the school. He can give us arguments for it — arguments that they would find convincing.’
‘If he would declare his support,’ Prince Yusuf says hopefully, ‘that would be the end of it. After all, he is the Mufti and the highest religious authority.’
‘I shall speak to him,’ Sharif Basha says. Then, after a moment: ‘As soon as he gets back from Istanbul. And if he’s for it, and willing to declare himself, you reply to this letter by asking them to put the question to the Mufti. Say you will abide by his decision.’ He pushes back his chair. ‘But these are piecemeal solutions in the end.’
No question that needs settling can be settled now. There is always a reason to avoid confrontation. Sharif Basha orders his driver to go slowly over Ismail Bridge and back before returning home. He wants to look at the Nile. He would have liked to walk home: a long, brisk walk in the crisp air. But now, at one o’clock in the morning, it would be asking for trouble. He was bound to come across some British soldiers and if challenged in any way he could not trust himself to keep his temper. Sharif Basha leans back in his carriage as the horses turn and wheel to recross the bridge. On the right he can see the low-lying form and the lights of the Agency. Even if she has been to dinner there, she will be back in her room at Shepheard’s by now. And something tells him she is not happy. He imagines her walking into her room, dressed in European clothes. She pauses by a mirror and raises her arms to take the pins out of her hat. Sharif Basha sees his own image in the mirror behind her. He stands so close that he can feel the warmth of her body, can smell the scent rising from her liberated hair …
Sharif Basha has neglected his heart for so long that it had fallen silent. And now it speaks. It lies in wait for him and chooses its moment: as he enters his house where the servants are all asleep. As he walks into his library Anna lets the curtain fall, turns from the window and smiles at him. ‘Tu es en retard. Je commençais à m’inquiéter.’ ‘Tu!’ He grimaces; he already has her calling him ‘tu’. He checks his desk to see if any messages have arrived while he was out. There is a copy of al-Mu’ayyad with a note from Sheikh Ali Yusuf pinned to it. There is also a large embossed card, an invitation to attend the opening of Mustafa Kamel’s new school in Breem on the 15th. He turns off the lamp and walks from the room and up the stairs. Mustafa Kamel is a patriot, absolutely. He is rousing people against the Occupation. He is establishing schools. Why then is Sharif Basha not comfortable with him? As he dries his face he frowns into the bathroom mirror. Is he jealous? Because Mustafa Kamel is young and fiery and a good rhetorician? No. He detects something in the younger man, something on the make, something too fond of itself. And he is too close to the Sultan. He does not wish for the end of Turkish rule in Egypt. And he invests too much trust in the French. He thinks that because they are the traditional enemies of Britain, they will stand by Egypt. He did not live through the Joint Note, the ultimatums. He goes to Paris and they fete him and spoil him and call him Caramel Pasha behind his back and he believes whatever Madame Juliette Adams chooses to tell him. But traditional enmity is not enough. Britain and France are both European countries in any case and sooner or later they will do a deal. They will unite as they had done for the Crusades and the Caisse de la Dette and the Joint Note. An alliance between Britain and France is more natural, after all, than an alliance between Egypt and France. But at least Mustafa Kamel has started a newspaper and what has he, Sharif al-Baroudi, done? Now in its forty-fifth year, what did his life amount to?
In the bedroom he lights a cigarette, pushes aside the curtains and stands out on the balcony. The moon is in its last quarter. A few more days and when you look at the sky you will see no moon at all, only darkness. But now, if he looks hard enough, Sharif Basha can make out the shape of the whole moon, the dark bulk made visible by the shining crescent. If his mother were here now perhaps he would speak with her. Ask her what she thought. She has met her, he knows that. And Layla has told her the whole story, what she knows of it — possibly what she guesses as well. The sycamore closest
to the house rustles with sudden movement. He wonders if the gardener has cut the figs — a delicate incision to allow the fruit to breathe and grow. He will remind him tomorrow. Perhaps he should speak with his mother anyway. She knows him well enough to judge.
On the train back from Minya he had been mostly silent. Because he felt bad about her — as he always does — but particularly when he has to take her home after she has spent time in the country. The bustle of her brother’s house. Her nieces’ children coming and going. And this time Shukri’s visit. God has blessed Shukri with acceptance. He lights up any room he enters and he is comfortable instantly with whatever new person he meets. Sharif Basha has promised to introduce him to Muhammad Abdu and the owners of the major newspapers and anybody else he wishes to meet. Cromer he will have to do for himself and get from him what help he can. He had not even commented on Shukri’s wish to see Cromer, although he could see his mother expected him to make some unpleasant remark and she had hurried to change the subject. Walking with her in the garden later he had said, ‘I have no problem with Shukri seeing Cromer. It would be good if he could get his help.’
She had glanced up anxiously. ‘I don’t want you falling out with your cousin. Who do we have except each other?’
‘Why are you so worried? Who have I fallen out with?’
‘Your father.’
‘My father is not even there to fall out with.’
To be locked up in a house with a husband who has turned into a magzub. Sharif Basha throws the cigarette butt on the floor and grinds it with the heel of his slipper. When his father went into hiding in the shrine they thought it would be a few weeks, at most a month or two, and then he would come out. But the months went by. Mahmoud Sami, Urabi and the other six had been exiled. Sulayman Basha Sami had been hanged and his father — probably in shame at having hidden in the first place, although he never said so — held fast to his shrine. There was no shame in it, they had told him; Abdallah al-Nadim had gone to ground and he was no coward. But he would not even talk about it — ‘When God permits’ was all he would say. Eventually Tewfiq had summoned him, Sharif, to an audience and said, in front of Riyadh and Malet, ‘We know about your father. Tell him he can come out of hiding. As long as he stays silent, no harm will befall him. And as for you, your youth and the bad example set by your uncle intercede for you. But we shall be watching you — so take care.’ And all he had been able to do was to draw himself up and say, ‘I am proud to call Mahmoud Sami Basha my uncle. And I would be happier following him into exile than living in my country under foreign rule.’ And the Khedive had merely dismissed him with a wave of his hand and a repeated ‘We shall be watching you’. He still smarts at the memory of that interview — now, when Tewfiq is dead and almost twenty years have passed. He had reported this to his mother, with tears of anger and shame burning in his eyes, and she had said, ‘Well, since they know where he is, there is no harm now in us moving to the old house until we can persuade him to come back.’ But he had refused to go. Despite her tears and her entreaties, he had refused to go. He had wished, oh, how he had wished then that he had not been the son of that father! And she had left next day, taking Layla with her and leaving him with that poor young woman who was meant to be his wife and who was forever visiting her mother and returning to sit silently in the house with clear traces of weeping on her face and starting in fright every time he entered a room so that in the end he could not come near her at all. Well, he had set her free and she had been happy to go and what was he doing now thinking of starting again after the best of his life had gone by? Ah, but she would not be like that. If it had been her he was married to he would lay odds she would have stayed by his side, perhaps more so because it was her country that — supposing he had been married to a Sudanese woman, say, and a battalion of Egyptian soldiers had attacked her village and burned it down. Would that not have made him hold her even closer to his heart?
Sharif Basha paces to the end of his balcony and back. Did she have to be English, this woman who has made him think once again of love? She steals up on him at unguarded moments, looking up, her candid face ready to break into a smile across the breakfast table. What would it be like to leave her, knowing she would be there when he returned, at home in his home and happy? What would it be like if she was standing close beside him now, if they looked out at the dark garden together while he told her about Yusuf Kamal’s school of art? She would throw herself into that — she who had come to Egypt because of a painting. And how would he explain today’s events? Tell her about the letter? How much explaining would that take? That you should need a religious fatwa to open a school of fine art? It would sound medieval. Could he trust her to understand?
Sharif Basha feels in his pocket, then goes back into the bedroom for his cigarettes. And there is the high, carved, curtained edifice of his bed. The bed he has shared with no one for twenty years. He has his arrangements — abroad. But here, in his own house, to make love to her with no corner of his heart knowing he is doing wrong, to watch her eyes cloud with desire, to hope for a child, to be tender with her as she grows big — he turns away. How much of this is simple lust? If he had met her in Italy, in France, would they have had an affair and thought no more of it? He thinks not. There is a seriousness and a depth to her. See how she spoke of her dead husband, her fool of a husband who had everything a man could desire — who had her and lived a free life in a free and powerful country, governed by a parliament he had elected, who rode through streets policed by his own people — who could have done anything he wished, and who chose to go and fight half a world away so that Kitchener might have the Sudan and grow cotton there to make the Manchester manufacturers wealthier than they were already. Had he even asked himself why Britain should conquer the Sudan? Had he asked himself, what of his old father? What of his young wife? To be fair, he probably had not planned on letting it kill him — just thought he would go and see some action and teach the heathens a lesson and come back to cut a fine figure and tell tales of his exploits at his London club. In any case, he, Sharif al-Baroudi, ought to be glad Captain Winterbourne was dead. Will it trouble him that she had been married to another man? He would wipe him out — burn him out of her body and her mind. No, it will not trouble him. He will not allow it to trouble him. What does he have left? Ten, fifteen years maybe — just enough time to make something of a life if he keeps it in focus, keeps it simple. And yet, how can it be simple? An Englishwoman. Sharif Basha turns abruptly from the garden. There will be no sleep for him tonight.
20 April 1901
‘Enfin, what is the problem if you are inventing her? We all invent each other to an extent.’ Yaqub Artin Basha bends forward offering a cigar. His plump, compact body is wrapped in a silk robe de chambre with a brown, red and green paisley design. A deep green silk cravat is at his neck. Under the black trousers his Moroccan slippers are of green chamois. Sharif Basha selects a cigar and sits back, rolling it between his fingers before he reaches for the cutter.
‘Our poet here will tell you that.’ Yaqub Artin gestures towards Ismail Sabri. The three friends are sitting in deep easy chairs in Yaqub Artin’s library. A low marble-topped table between them carries tomatoes, cucumbers, olives, cheeses, cold meats and bread. The french windows are open to the terrace.
‘I have some good, excellent whisky. Here —’ Yaqub Artin gets up again. He goes to a sideboard in the far corner of the room. ‘And since our friend will not drink, there is more for the two of us.’ He upends the bottle over the two glasses. ‘It is almost a crime to put water in it, mais alors —’ He carries a glass over to his friend. ‘Let us drink to your dawning happiness!’
Ismail Sabri toasts his friend in lemonade. ‘You need children,’ he says. ‘We all need children.’
‘I could see that she was inventing me. Piecing me together as we travelled.’ Sharif Basha places a match to the tip of his cigar and takes several short, strong puffs.
‘Ah! The Hero of the Roman
ce! The Corsair! And why not, my friend? You have the looks —’
The desert and the stars and an ancient monastery with a mosque nestling within its walls. Those were his settings. Those and the old house out of the paintings that had brought her to Egypt in the first place. And what would she make of his doubt, his despair? Of how he sometimes hated himself for piecing a life together under a rule not of his choosing? ‘A citizen life, ruled by an alien lord.’ Could she ever know him? Could he ever know her? Or would they always hold fast to what they imagined of each other so that life together would for each be more lonely than life alone?
‘We cannot speak each other’s language. We have to use French.’
‘Well,’ Ismail Sabri reflects, ‘perhaps that is better. You make more effort, you make sure you understand — and are understood. Sometimes I think, because we use the same words, we assume we mean the same things —’