The Map of Love

by Ahdaf Soueif

  — and though I demurred on some points — for the Contracts made it appear as though I had not enough confidence in his good faith — Sharif Basha said ‘It is better so’ and so it was done. My Bride-Price he gave me in gold coins in a heavy bag which I begged him to keep for me but he is determined it shall be sent to my Bankers in London.

  My head is in such a muddle of feelings and impressions. Shukri Bey and Husni Bey were very gallant and Layla and Zeinab Hanim were so happy that I was glad — alongside my own happiness — to be the instrument of their joy. Mabrouka kept repeating ‘Did I not see it in the cup?’ and I had not the faintest idea what she meant when she asked it of me but I said yes.

  And my husband? He slipped a broad gold band upon my finger and kissed my hand. ‘Two more days,’ he said, ‘and we shall be together. ‘ And my heart thrilled as though it would leap out and lodge within his breast.

  This is to be my last night in this room which has been my home for more than half a year. I have asked Emily to pack all my things, telling her that I am leaving in the morning and will send for her shortly. She is surprised, but I believe she fancies I am going to Alexandria and that after a short stay there we shall be leaving for England.

  Tonight I must also write to Sir Charles.

  24 May

  This is the last night that I shall sleep alone. A sweet note was delivered to me a half hour ago from my husband: ‘Sleep well, Lady Anna. Tomorrow you and I have serious business to attend to. ‘ And indeed I shall sleep — or attempt to. But I must record the events of this extraordinary day.

  I left the hotel and found my husband’s carriage waiting, as we had arranged, at the corner of rue al-Maghrabi and rue Imad el-Din. We drove to the Agency, him holding my hand the while. He had already sent a note to Lord Cromer ‘to save a certain amount of explanation’, he said. Upon our arrival we were met by a young gentleman from my husband’s office who was to act as translator. I understood it was the first time Sharif Basha had entered the Agency, and the place, once so familiar to me, grew strange as I saw the consternation on the faces of the staff and how they avoided meeting my eye as we were ushered through and into the Lord’s office.

  Lord Cromer stood to greet us and bowed to my husband but did not offer to shake his hand, and as we sat across the desk from him he came immediately to the point:

  ‘I understand you wish to get married?’ He addressed himself to me and he spoke with such obvious distaste that I was stung and replied in French so that my husband could understand:

  ‘We are already married, Lord Cromer. We wish to register the marriage so that it may be recognised in Britain.’

  I saw his colour rise but he mastered his anger and asked when the ceremony had taken place. Our young translator rendered this into Arabic and my husband replied — and throughout the interview Lord Cromer spoke in English, I in French, and Sharif Basha in Arabic. No tea or coffee was offered, no pleasantries exchanged. My husband motioned to his assistant, who brought out a copy of the French marriage contract and placed it in front of Lord Cromer. He studied it briefly and turned to me:

  ‘Lady Anna,’ he said, ‘do you realise what you are doing?’

  If he had been sad or puzzled, I should have warmed to him, but he showed only distaste and anger.

  ‘Does Sir Charles Winterbourne know of this?’ he asked.

  ‘I have written to him,’ I said, ‘and to my other friends.’

  ‘This is nonsense,’ Lord Cromer said. ‘And Muhammad Abdu should have had more sense than to lend himself to it.’

  My husband uttered a few curt words.

  ‘The Basha says,’ said our translator, ‘that our interest is to register the marriage, not to learn Lord Cromer’s opinion of it.’

  ‘Lady Anna,’ Cromer said, ‘I think it would be best if we conversed alone.’

  I placed my hand briefly on Sharif Basha’s arm and said I did not believe I had anything to say that my husband could not hear.

  ‘My dear, you are making a mistake,’ the Lord said, and his voice was sorrowful now, and anxious. ‘My staff will tell you of the young women we find wandering about, having contracted such marriages. They will tell you of their condition —’

  When the translator had stopped murmuring I replied that I had heard those stories already and had felt that there was a certain relish in the telling of them. I did not think they were pertinent to me.

  ‘Lord Cromer —’ my husband spoke slowly, the translator keeping pace with him as he went — ‘I think I understand something of what you feel. It would not have filled me with joy if my sister had wished to marry an Englishman. In fact I would probably have done everything I could to stop her. Whatever mistaken ideas you have, you seem to have a true regard for my wife and you believe that you are acting in her best interest. My assurances — and hers — will mean nothing to you now. But —’

  ‘Sharif Pasha.’ Lord Cromer finally turned to him, his voice gruff but his manner conciliatory. ‘Sharif Pasha, we have not met before, but I have heard of you —’

  My husband bowed.

  ‘Despite everything,’ Cromer continued, ‘I know you are a man of integrity and a man of the world, and I am sure you are aware — to put it bluntly — of all that Lady Anna stands to lose through entering into this … contract. She is a woman of rank and position. As a man of honour surely —’

  ‘Lord Cromer,’ I interrupted, for I felt a sudden fear that his words might find their mark — and now it was my husband’s turn to lay his hand briefly on my arm. When he finished speaking, the translator said:

  ‘The Basha says he is aware of the great honour the lady does him. If she loses position in your society because of this marriage, that will be your society’s fault — and its loss. The Basha is certain that the circles she will be moving in will give her all the consideration due both to her rank and to her position as his wife.’

  ‘What circles?’ Lord Cromer now erupted. ‘I will not countenance this —’

  ‘Milord,’ I said, ‘we are already married. If the marriage cannot be registered, we shall have to do without.’

  At this Lord Cromer left the room. I fancy he must have consulted one of his gentlemen, for he was absent for a few moments. Upon his return he took up his position once more behind his desk. But he did not sit down. He stood and, glaring down at Sharif Basha, he said:

  ‘I want you to sign an undertaking that you will not take another wife while you remain married to Lady Anna.’

  His tone would have not been inappropriate used to a tradesman whom he suspected of shabby dealing. I felt myself go hot with anger. I was angry on behalf of my husband, but I was also angry on behalf of England — that Sharif Basha would think we all did not know how to behave.

  ‘Lord Cromer, this is insulting — I began.

  ‘Lady Anna, I must insist. It is clear that you have no idea —’

  ‘It is already in the contract,’ my husband said quietly, rising. ‘And other clauses too that you should look at. I would be grateful if you could order the finished documents sent round to my office. I believe we have taken enough of your time.’ He turned to me: ‘Madame?’

  We left. I am sure Lord Cromer read the Contract. But I am also sure that the reading of it will not for an instant have shaken his belief that he has the measure of my husband — for he is not a man given to self-doubt. In the carriage I started to apologise, but my husband put his finger on my lip. ‘Hush,’ he said. ‘We are the ones who are happy.’

  I had a similarly dreadful interview with Emily, whom I sent for as soon as I was installed in the house. She was cross with me, I know, although she did not betray it except by a slight tightening of the lips and a ‘So madam won’t be needing my services any more, then?’ I said indeed I wanted her, in the first place to make sure these two letters — putting them into her hand — would be delivered to Mrs Butcher and James Barrington immediately, and for the rest I would need her as long as she cared to stay, but our cir
cumstances would be so changed that I was not sure whether she would be happy. I have given her three days at Shepheard’s to think about it and then I shall send for her again.

  And it is just as well that she has not been here today, for today was my ‘Henna Day’ and even though I have not actually had henna applied to my hands and feet, as Layla tells me it is démodé at the moment, I have had such a scrubbing and a plucking and a pummelling and polishing that I feel as though my bare limbs alone would light up a room. There have been maids rushing around all day — apart from the women who have been attending to me, and Zeinab Hanim busy with more women in the kitchen as they prepare for tomorrow’s feast, and Ahmad in the middle of it all, and other children I do not know who were all stealing bits of fruit and raisins, climbing over sacks of provisions left in the courtyard, blowing jets of water at anyone who passed near the fountains, for they knew that today they might do as they pleased and go unpunished. And all the while the singing and the zaghrudas and from time to time Layla would bring something to show me — a gold ornament, a set of crystal goblets or a silver tea service — and say ‘a gift from so-and-so’ and whisk it off again; and the flowers: baskets and baskets of flowers arriving all day.

  Layla told me with some anxiety that I would find our apartments rather bare, as her brother thought I should enjoy furnishing them myself, and I assured her he was right. I had not thought of it before but now I look forward with great pleasure to the choosing and fashioning of the furnishings — and I can draw on my beloved Frederick Lewis for inspiration.

  For tonight I am in a small guestroom, close to Zeinab Hanim’s apartments. She has already looked in on me several times to ensure I was not lonely or unhappy in my strange surroundings.

  I am happy. With a big, soaring happiness that needs to burst into a great song and fill the whole world around me. And indeed I am not lonely — but that I would have wished to share my present joy with one of my old friends, Caroline perhaps …

  Sharif Basha sleeps in his own house tonight.

  And all his doubts and questionings have disappeared. She is no longer ‘Lady Anna, the Englishwoman’. She is Lady Anna, his wife. ‘Anna Hanim, Haram Sharif Basha al-Baroudi.’ He smiles to himself as he soaks in the bath, as wrapped in a loose white towelling robe he walks around the house he will leave tomorrow, after so many years. It is strange to feel so happy, so calmly happy. Even in that wretched meeting with Cromer he had not found it in his heart to hate the man. Ah, but how Cromer had hated him! And hated having to sit there with the marriage contract in front of him. Sharif Basha grins. And she had been magnificent — not one word of English, not one concession. At every turn she had delighted him. Her wish that had made it possible for him to no longer worry over his mother’s loneliness. Her surprise at the extra clauses he had put in the contract. Her hand on his arm in front of Cromer. In his bedroom he opens once again the black velvet case on the dressing table. Tomorrow night, when he sees her, these sapphires will be shining in her ears and at her throat, and it will be his hands which — later — will unclasp them.

  21

  In the act of love there is decreed for every part a portion of pleasure: so the eyes are for the pleasures of looking, and the nostrils are to smell sweet perfume. The pleasure of the lips lies in kissing, and of the tongue in sipping and sucking and licking. The teeth find their pleasure in biting, and the penis in penetration. The hands love to feel and explore. The lower half of the body is for touching and caressing and the upper half is for holding and embracing — and as for the ears, their pleasure is in listening to the words and sounds of love.

  al-Imam Jalal al-Din al-Sayuti, Cairo, 1495 AD

  5 August 1997

  She is determined that my brother should make love to her.

  ‘I cannot take her on,’ he said. ‘I am too old. Too used to living the way I live. It’s a hell of a juggling act already. I just cannot go through all that again —’

  The operator came on the line: ‘Say goodbye.’

  ‘Your time’s up,’ Omar said. ‘I’ll call you back.’

  ‘Goodbye?’ said the operator.

  ‘And what’s with you anyway?’ my brother said when he came back on. ‘Can’t you get an international line?’

  ‘I don’t want to.’

  ‘So you’d actually rather go and queue in one of those centrale dumps to book a phone call? They are the most depressing —’

  ‘I don’t queue. There’s hardly anyone there. Most people have international lines.’

  ‘So why don’t you get one?’

  ‘I don’t want to.’

  ‘I see. It’s an informed position. Well, OK, what was I saying? Your friend —’

  ‘My friend? You sent her here.’

  ‘I took her out last night. She called me. She is very … I can’t deny that I’m attracted to her.’

  ‘I didn’t phone to ask you to — take her on.’

  ‘No, but you intimated —’

  ‘I just thought you ought to know she’s pretty hard hit.’

  ‘Yes, well. I know that.’

  ‘What modesty, ya Omar!’

  ‘No. Look, come on. What am I supposed to do? I’m fifty-seven. I’ve had all that. I cannot bear …’

  ‘Cannot bear what?’

  ‘Explaining everything all over again — a whole new sadness.’

  ‘Does it have to be sad?’

  ‘It always is.’

  ‘Good. Khalas. You’re free.’

  ‘Free?’ He laughed.

  I did not tell him about her vision, epiphany, whatever, in the old house. Omar has never had patience with old wives’ tales. I can imagine him cutting in before I’ve even finished: ‘And you want me to take her out? No, ya habibti, no. Cousin walla ma cousin, I’m out of this.’ Omar has remained good friends with every woman he’s been involved with. His children adore him. If he is attracted to Isabel, why doesn’t he ‘take her on’? And then I think maybe there isn’t enough time for it to turn sad. A sad thought.

  ‘Tell me,’ he says, ‘what about that trunk I sent you? How are you getting on with your story?’

  ‘Very well. They’re almost married. I’m thinking of taking the whole lot and going up to Tawasi.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I thought I’d stay there for a while. On the land, you know.’

  ‘In August? You must be mad. Listen, I might be coming over in the second half of the month. We can have a couple of days together.’

  ‘That would be wonderful,’ I say. ‘Will you let me know?’

  I did not ask why he would be coming or via where. I knew it was possible — even likely — that his phone was tapped. For thirty years New York had played up his Egyptian ancestry, loved him and congratulated itself on its own broadminded-ness. It had winked at stories of his being in the fighting in Amman in ‘70, at his membership of the Palestine National Council. And then, with the world celebrating another diplomatic triumph, another reluctant handshake on the White House lawn, he broke with the PNC. He was the spectre at the party telling anyone who would listen that Oslo would not work, could not work.

  THAT NIGHT, THE NIGHT OF the 6th of Safar, 1319, she looked like a queen. She glittered and shone as she moved among the ladies and God had touched her with His blessing so that her every word and movement found its true place in the hearts of those around her.

  It was our custom that the bride should sit in her bridal bower where the ladies would salute her as they arrived and then take their seats or walk about conversing with each other. But Anna could not do that for long and soon she rose and began to move among the ladies, conversing with those who could speak French and exchanging smiles with those who could not. And after their first surprise the ladies warmed to this and considered it a mark of her lack of affectation and her desire to find favour in their eyes and they liked her well for it.

  For a wedding gown she wore the long, golden sheath that Madame Marthe had made for her, the low neck
showing off her delicate bosom and shoulders. On her arms were the heavy golden clasps that were my mother’s wedding gift to her. Around her neck and in her ears were the sapphires and diamonds my brother had sent that morning. She had gasped when she opened the box and looked up at me; the sunshine caught her face and I said, ‘They are exactly the colour of your eyes.’ We dressed and pinned her hair into a loose, golden crown in which her tiara was embedded. She wore no veil.

  Mabrouka had lit the best amber incense and carried it round the bridal apartments muttering spells and incantations all day and when Anna was dressed, the old woman circled her with the burner and made her step over it seven times and recited every spell and aya she knew to protect her from the evil eye and from misfortune, and Anna submitted to it all with good grace and rewarded Mabrouka with gold made even sweeter by an embrace.

  All day the trays of sherbet were carried around our quarter and that night the flares were lit in the courtyard and at the entrance of the house, the gifts were laid out for inspection, the baskets of flowers with the cards from my brother’s well-wishers filled the rooms and the carriages rolled up to the door, the men staying in the courtyard and the great reception rooms below, while the women came up to the haramlek drawing rooms and terrace and the children moved perpetually between the two floors.

  From behind the lattice I kept an eye on what was going on downstairs: my brother, in full court dress and flanked by my husband and Shukri Bey, greeting his guests, receiving congratulations. All the Cabinet was in our house that night and the Azhar and Prince Muhammad Ali on behalf of Efendeena and Mukhtar Basha on behalf of the Sublime Porte. My uncle Mahmoud Sami Basha was helped to a seat and made a poets’ corner with Ahmad Shawqi, Hafiz Ibrahim, Ismail Sabri and Ibrahim al-Yaziji. Mustafa Bey al-Ghamrawi was staying in our house with his family. Mustafa Bey Kamel was there and Qasim Bey Amin, but they avoided each other. Cattaouie Basha and his son Henri. Anba Kyrollos and Muhammad Bey Farid, Sheikh Muhammad Abdu, Sheikh Ali Yusuf and Sheikh Rashid Rida and many, many others. In short, all of Cairo celebrated in our house that night. And an English gentleman arrived and I went to Anna and drew her to the lattice and she said, ‘That is James Barrington, so he has come.’ And Mrs Butcher also came and took Anna’s hands in hers and kissed her kindly and wished her happiness.