The Map of Love

by Ahdaf Soueif

  Sheikh Yusuf al-Manyalawi had sent word that he would sing for us and the takht was set up and he sang two beautiful turns, and just as he had finished ‘b’iftikarak eih yefidak’ we heard a noise and a stirring and voices raised and I looked and saw that Abdu Efendi al-Hamuli had arrived, and Sheikh Yusuf was insisting that he would sing no more but give up his place to Abdu Efendi and sing behind him with the chorus. And soon that wonderful voice rose up to the haramlek and to the sky and all talk and movement ceased and I remember that I looked around the room and I saw the young women transported with tarab, and I saw them become grandmothers and I heard them say to their grandchildren, many years from now, ‘That was the night I heard Si Abdu Efendi: at the wedding of Sharif Basha al-Baroudi and his English bride.’

  How do I translate ‘tarab’? How do I, without sounding weird or exotic, describe to Isabel that particular emotional, spiritual, even physical condition into which one enters when the soul is penetrated by good Oriental music? A condition so specific that it has a root all to itself: t/r/b. Anyone can be a singer — a ‘mughanni’ — but to be a ‘mutrib’ takes an extra quality. Abdu Efendi al-Hamuli’s recognised title was ‘the Mutrib of Kings and Princes’, and that night, in the old house in Touloun, his gift kindled joy and sorrow in the hearts of his audience. What did Anna make of this strange music? My guess is that she opened her heart to it as she did to everything in her new, strange life.

  IT WAS AFTER MIDNIGHT WHEN we heard the relay of zagharid and the beat of the drums that told us my brother was coming up to claim his bride. There was a general movement as the ladies found their seats, some drawing their silk veils across their faces and fastening them with golden pins. Anna returned to her throne in the bridal bower. The drumming and zagharid grew louder and louder until they were at the door, then all was silent as my brother stood alone in the doorway. In my whole life I never saw him look more handsome than he did at that moment. His eyes found Anna and they lit up with a smile that found its answer shining in hers. Slowly he crossed the room while she sat waiting for him, still and straight.

  He took his seat at her side in their bower and the drumming started up again, joined now by the women musicians and singers in the songs of the zaffa and after a while my mother, whose happiness was overflowing and who had long sworn that the day her son married she would dance at his wedding, stood up and danced for them the slow, stately dance of the hanim. Presently she was joined by Jalila Hanim, Husni’s mother, with the waving handkerchief and the rhythmic, dignified steps of the Palestinian dance. Abeih had covered Anna’s hand with his and Anna had tears in her eyes as she noted the great honour these two elderly ladies were doing her.

  My mother never danced her Palestinian dance at any of our weddings. Omar’s first marriage was the only one that took place in her lifetime, in ‘66 — the year after my father died -and it was such a hurried affair that we did not even have time to go to New York for it. ‘God have mercy on your father,’ my mother said. ‘If he was still with us, this could not have happened: your brother is sitting in Amreeka getting betrothed and marrying with his own head as if he has no kin.’ And when the marriage ended with the war in ‘67, my mother was even more bewildered that such momentous events should take place with such seeming casualness. I remember her sitting in the drawing room of our old house in Hilmiyya, saying, ‘It’s good I did not meet the girl’s people; where would I have hidden my face from them now?’ And I remember looking at her helplessly, for how could I begin to tell her how out of touch she was? When Omar came to visit after the war she reproached him as if his American bride had been a friend’s daughter:

  ‘How will she be regarded now? What will people think of her?’

  ‘It was a joint decision, ya Ummi,’ he said. ‘It’s better for both of us like this.’

  ‘But what could have happened so soon?’ she asked. ‘In a year?’

  ‘The war,’ he said.

  ‘The war? A war makes a husband divorce his wife?’

  ‘We both discovered I was an Arab,’ he said lightly.

  I THINK OF THAT TIME and of how that night our happiness was complete. For my father, we had grown accustomed to his state and those closest to us among our guests had visited him and saluted him and he was not unhappy. I believe, in a way, I was happier that night than on the night of my own wedding. For although I loved Husni as my cousin, on that night six years before, I knew that by marrying him and going with him to France, I was entering into an unknown world. And leaving my mother alone in the old house weighed heavily also on my mind. But now, my happiness with my husband and my delight in Ahmad were secure, my brother was at last marrying, and marrying a woman he loved, and my mother’s happiness was twofold, for her son was getting married and he was coming back to fill her house once again with life.

  My brother stood up. In front of the assembled guests he kissed our mother’s hands and her head and held out his hand to Anna. And with her on his arm he made their way slowly through the zagharid and the drumbeats and the singing and the shower of wafer-thin golden sequins thrown upon him and his bride by us all. And I would swear by all that I hold dear that there was not a heart in that room that did not wish them well that night.

  Sharif Basha took his bride to her new quarters and the closed door behind them did not quite shut out the sounds of the house and the street humming with the noise of their wedding party and their guests.

  26 May

  My husband has taken his leave, for urgent business calls him to his office. I do not know its precise nature but I know it is to do with the news he received last night of the Khedive’s pardoning Urabi Basha. When he told me this, I informed him that I had heard that the Duke of Cornwall had visited Urabi Basha in Ceylon some two weeks ago, and I thought he looked at me somewhat oddly. Then he said, ‘Come. We have better things to do than to talk about politics.’

  And indeed we did. For I have had — as the late Queen said so famously half a century ago — a most bewildering and gratifying night. And now, today, I feel as if — I hardly know how to describe it, but it is as if my body had been absent and now it is present. As though I am for the first time present in my own body.

  Before he left, I went with my husband to meet my new beau-père. He is a very gentle man and appears far older than his sixty-six years. My husband kissed his hand and I followed suit and old Baroudi Bey smiled and nodded.

  The house is very quiet today and — apart from a visit from Zeinab Hanim and Mabrouka, who came to wish us a ‘happy bridal morning’ as we were seated at breakfast — I have been left quite alone. I imagine Zeinab Hanim and the servants are in need of a rest after their labours of the last few days. And Layla is naturally occupied with her house guests. And I am content. I am content just to be. To perform my toilette slowly and lie on the divan under the mashrabiyya watching diamonds of sunshine change form on my hands and my clothing. To sleep and wake and wait for his return.

  10 August 1997

  Isabel calls me and says, I’m missing you.

  ‘I’m missing you too,’ I say. ‘How are you getting on?’

  ‘My mother is — I think she’s going. She’s very, very thin, and she hardly speaks.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘She’s quite calm. She’s not unhappy. But she’s not there.’

  ‘What do the doctors say?’

  ‘Nothing much. I keep looking at her and wishing I knew more about her life. Not as I saw it. As she saw it.’

  ‘It’s all this stuff we’ve been doing with Anna.’

  ‘Yes. Why didn’t I speak to her — ask her, when I still could?’

  ‘One tends not to,’ I said.

  ‘God, you sound so British!’ She laughs. ‘One tends not to,’ she mimics, putting on her version of a posh English accent.

  ‘Well,’ I say, ‘you’re the American. Ask her to share her feelings with you — or better: to share your feelings with you —’

  ‘I’ve seen Omar a co
uple of times.’ ‘And?’

  ‘He’s very — sweet to me. He’s terribly busy and always in a rush. We went to an exhibition of photographs of China at the ICP and he just whizzes past the photos — just takes them in as he passes. He stopped a couple of times and said — for my sake — ‘Shall we linger?’ But when he’s waiting like I’m taking a really long time to work things out, I can’t even think about the photograph because I’m thinking about him waiting. I just followed him round at high speed. But he bought me a wonderful dinner afterwards.’

  ‘Isabel. Are you all right? You sound a bit hyper.’

  ‘Yeah, sure. No. No, I’m not. I just want him to be in love with me.’

  ‘Oh, Isabel!’

  ‘I do. I can’t help it. Honestly. I’ve tried. It’s like I know it could be wonderful. It’s almost as if —’ she pauses, searching for her words — ‘It’s almost as if it’s already there and already wonderful, only he won’t look. I know that sounds crazy.’

  ‘Isabel —’

  ‘That is what it feels like. I can’t believe he doesn’t feel it.’

  ‘He’s older. He’s been through a lot.’

  ‘And Amal

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’ll tell you something crazier.’

  ‘What?’ I said again.

  ‘You know that thing with the Hidden Sheikh and how we agreed it couldn’t have happened? Or you said it couldn’t have happened?’

  ‘Yes?’ My heart sinks. Her mother is dying. She has built this thing up round my brother. I have drawn her into an obsession with Anna and our history —

  ‘Well, listen. I opened my laundry bag today, just now, for the first time after I’d been in there. In the house. That’s where I put the clothes I was wearing that day. And you know what I found?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘They smell of orange blossom.’

  ‘Isabel!’

  ‘It’s true. I swear to you. Where would I get a scent of orange blossom?’

  I can think of nothing to say.

  ‘Amal?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Listen, Isabel, you know you shouldn’t talk about this to Omar?’

  ‘He’ll think I’m nuts.’

  ‘Yes, he will. And he’ll run. That’ll be it.’

  ‘I know. I know I shouldn’t. He has to go away anyway. In a week.’

  For a moment I almost say I’ll go over. But if Omar is coming — ‘Are you going to be all right?’ I ask.

  ‘Yes, of course I am.’

  ‘You sound a bit fraught.’

  ‘No, it’s just — I’ll be fine.’

  ‘How about your work?’

  ‘I saw my programme director yesterday. She’s quite happy.’

  ‘Look. Concentrate on your mother. And your work. The rest will come.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘And call me soon.’

  ‘Of course I will.’

  I sit on the edge of my bed. I do not believe in the sudden and miraculous opening of sealed doors, but I have always tried to keep an open mind. After a moment I carry on dressing. I look at myself in the mirror with more interest than I have done for a long time. I look like one of my school-friends’ mothers. Passable, I decide. Nothing like what I used to be, but passable. When the buzzer rings and Tahiyya calls out, ‘Tareq Bey says he’s waiting for you in the car’, I dim the lights, pick up my handbag and go.

  Over our drinks in the sky-high bar of the Rameses Hilton we look down at the necklaces of lights twined about the banks of the Nile, the bridges, the squares of Khedive Ismail’s Cairo. There is Qasr el-Nil Bridge, and beyond it the gracious lines of the British embassy and beyond that the fortress of the American embassy in the heart of Garden City.

  ‘You know, I was wrong that day,’ Tareq says. ‘You have changed.’

  ‘Hardly surprising.’ I smile.

  ‘You have grown even more beautiful.’

  When I make a face, he says:

  ‘No, seriously. You were always beautiful. But now there’s something more. Something very special about you.’

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘The past.’

  ‘We should have got married,’ he says.

  ‘Sure,’ I say. ‘Then you would have been saying these pretty things to someone else right now.’

  ‘Since when are you so cynical?’

  ‘Me? You’re the one who’s thinking of doing business with the Israelis.’

  ‘Forget about the Israelis,’ he says, ‘I’m talking personal.’

  ‘The personal is the political,’ I quote.

  ‘OK then,’ he says. Tell me. What are you doing about all those things you say you care so much about?’

  ‘What’s in my hands I’ll do,’ I say. ‘I shall go live in Tawasi and look after the land myself —’

  ‘You believe that will help Egypt?’ He looks incredulous. ‘Looking after a bit of land and keeping a few fallaheen happy?’

  ‘I’ll activate the health unit —’

  ‘Now you’ll say you’ll teach them to do their own weaving —’

  ‘And I’ll get the school going.’

  ‘Have you found teachers?’ ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because nobody will give lists of names to the government. And your friend Muhyi Bey knew that very well.’

  ‘So what will you do?’

  ‘I don’t know. Man the school myself

  ‘You’ll go sit there every evening?’

  ‘If I have to.’

  ‘Nonsense! You can’t do that. I’ll send you a couple of young men from my farm.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’ll send you a couple of men. I’ll guarantee them to the Governor.’

  ‘Would you really do that?’

  ‘I’ve just said I will.’

  ‘Egyptians?’

  ‘Come on, ya Amal —’

  ‘I’m sorry. It’s just — why? Why would you do that?’

  ‘Because I don’t want you sitting there. Because you want the school opened. Because it’s right that it should be opened.’

  ‘We can’t pay them proper salaries.’

  ‘It’s all right. I’ll look after that.’

  Is he taking over my life? It is so long since anyone has told me what I can or cannot do. So long since anyone has intervened in my life. But he is considering doing business with Israel. And he is married. But he is also my friend, isn’t he?

  ‘Tareq,’ I say, ‘you said ideologies are dead. Is there any idea that you believe in?’

  ‘Justice,’ he says, without a moment’s hesitation. ‘I believe in justice.’

  I cannot quarrel with that. I do not say, What about justice for the Palestinians? I’ll save that for another time. I think of telling him about Isabel and her orange blossom. I think of telling him about my marriage and its end. I look out at the river and the lights below us and I say:

  ‘Isn’t it just heartbreakingly beautiful?’

  ‘There’s nothing like it in the world,’ he says.

  ‘You’d think it deserved a better deal,’ I say.

  He tips the car-park attendant five pounds.

  ‘That’s just to make you happy,’ he says and grins at me.

  In the low-slung Mercedes, looking straight ahead, he asks, ‘Shall I kidnap you?’

  ‘No, please,’ I say, ‘I’m expecting my brother.’

  18 August 1997

  Tahiyya and I are working in the guestroom. We have removed the dustsheets from the furniture. I am taking the books out of the bookcase and dusting them while she polishes the mirror above the dressing table with old newspaper and water. We have the radio on and the news is coming through of the Southern Lebanon Army Militias turning their artillery on Saida. The count so far is six killed and thirty wounded. All of them civilians. Tahiyya is tutting ‘Ya Sattar ya Rabb’ and asking, is this destruction never going to stop? I am thinking of a time back in ‘63 when my father wa
s still alive and we had gone to Lebanon for a week, and visited cousins and visited also Saida and Tyre and climbed into the ruins of the old Crusader castles and looked out at the sea, shimmering away into the distance, leading to Africa on the left, to Europe on the right, and straight ahead into the broad blue of the Atlantic.

  It was around six when the telephone rang — eleven in the morning in New York.

  ‘I’ve just seen your brother off at the airport,’ Isabel said. And then she told me about yesterday.

  Jasmine had been lucid, coherent, but in another time and another language: she would only speak French.

  ‘Mama is so sad,’ Jasmine says. ‘And Papa keeps reminding her England is her home after all and telling her it is only for a while, but she will not go without him —’ It’s 1940. Paris is about to fall to the Nazis and Nur is desperate for Jean-Marie to leave. She fears that once she and the sixteen-year-old Jasmine are safely in England, her husband might stay and take his chances. She will not let that happen.

  ‘Then she started going on about getting her out safely,’ Isabel said. ‘And it was really spooky when I realised she was talking about me

  ‘I’ve been ill, very ill,’ Jasmine says. ‘That’s why I’ve been in here so long. I don’t know how Jonathan is managing. I truly don’t. He can’t do a thing for himself. Such a sweet man! And he dotes on the baby already. I have to make sure I get her out safely —’