The Cairo House

by Samia Serageldin

The smallest fish can be caught in the slipstream of a whale. Although Gigi did not go to Cyprus, the bloody events there nevertheless had a domino effect on her life. She would not go back to Yussef, and she now knew he had no intention of going through with the divorce. Now that the Pasha was incarcerated along with hundreds of others in Sadat’s blind panic following Siba’yi’s assassination, her last hope of putting pressure on Yussef was gone. The only way out seemed to be for her to leave the country before the deadline for revoking the divorce ruling. It was a calculated risk: that once Yussef realized there was no hope of getting her back, he would let the ruling stand. She fled to France.

  She had miscalculated. He had the ruling revoked. She was still his wife in the eyes of the law. Now there was no going back before she was divorced and free. To go back, a runaway wife returned, would be to put herself at Yussef’s mercy. The scandal she had caused by leaving as she did put her beyond the pale. Even her nearest and dearest found it hard to defend her conduct.

  Her mother had disapproved but finally had not tried to stop her. For Mama, there was no salvation outside the court of social judgment: to flaunt convention, no matter what the provocation, was to run an unacceptable risk. She faulted Gigi for her reluctance to enlist general sympathy in her dispute with Yussef, for acting on her own counsel, for her stubbornness in pursuing this drastic course of action. She refrained from blaming Gigi for the failure of the marriage itself, but the unspoken reproach strained the cord of civility between them nearly to the breaking point.

  Gigi saw no choice now but to stay abroad. She enrolled at the University of Paris to study. Yussef could take his time about divorcing her, but she would not languish forever at home in Egypt. She would come back when she was divorced and no longer at his mercy.

  The price she had to pay was to leave Tarek behind. It had been difficult enough, even with the connivance of Tante Zohra’s Mukhabarat man, for her to leave the country without her husband’s signature on the passport. Taking Tarek without his father’s authorization on the passport would have been unthinkable.

  But she had not realized how hard it would be, nor that it would take so long. She had believed that Yussef would make up his mind to divorce her when he realized there was no point in going on with the cat and mouse game. But Kamal Zeitouni had been wrong when he had deplored the fact that his son did not take after him: Yussef had his father’s vindictiveness. With Papa gone, and the Pasha incarcerated, there was no one who could shame him into doing the right thing by her.

  When she had left, she had fled as if she were escaping a trap about to close on her. Now she felt as if she were in exile, waiting for her sentence to be commuted in order to return.

  Gigi watched Sadat’s funeral on television in Paris. She saw Carter and other heads of state pay their respects. The camera panned over the largely indifferent crowd of Egyptians following the procession. The commentator pointed out that it was a very different scene from the mass hysteria of Nasser’s funeral ten years earlier. He found that inexplicable.

  Gigi switched off the television set and looked out of the window. It was a sunny October late afternoon and she needed to get out of the cramped apartment. She locked the door and made her way carefully down the worn stairs of the old apartment building. She pushed open the tall, heavy door to the street and blinked in the afternoon sunshine. She walked past the tables set outside the café, where the first regulars were drifting in after work.

  It was a five-minute walk to the Parc Monceau. Gigi strolled past the ice-cream stand and the carousel with its old-fashioned horses. She found a bench in the shade and settled down to watch the parade of people walking dogs and babies up and down the promenade. Some babies slumped in strollers but most infants surveyed the world around them in solemn splendor from the height of their stately carriages. Little girls in jumpers played hopscotch and skipped rope while boys in buckled shoes kicked balls around and rode bicycles.

  One boy on a bike rode back and forth in front of Gigi. He had rumpled dark brown curls and flushed cheeks. She took a deep breath, trying to fight down the surge of hot tears, the wave of emptiness that washed over her every time she saw a child that reminded her of Tarek. It still blind-sided her every time, the sudden unbearable longing to hold him in her arms, to nuzzle his warm little neck and sniff his chewing-gum minty breath. When it hit her sometimes it propelled her to the nearest telephone just to hear his voice. But in her last letter Mama had written: ‘Gigi, it’s best if you only call on Fridays, as we agreed. When you call at odd times it disrupts him, he cries because he misses you. He jumps whenever the phone rings, and sometimes he won’t go out or go to bed because he thinks you might call. It’s best if he knows you’ll only call at pre-arranged times.’

  Gigi lived by the postman’s schedule. Sometimes in the middle of the day she rushed back to the apartment to check if there was any mail from Egypt. Mama wrote painstaking, detailed letters about Tarek, but however long they were, they always left Gigi hungry. Tarek’s scribbles, with his shaky block printing, made her cry. The letters that contained photos of him were a feast, and she pored over them for hours. The last photo had been a heartache: his bouncy curls were gone and his round cheeks looked slimmer; he had changed so much in only a few months.

  The little boy on the bike rode past Gigi again. One of his shoelaces was untied and dragging. She wiped her blotchy face with a tissue and got up. As he rode back in her direction she signaled to him. He came to a skidding stop.

  ‘Let me tie your shoelaces for you before you get them caught in the spokes.’ She tied the laces and straightened up, brushing her hand over his curls.

  ‘Emmanuel! Viens ici!’ A voice called sharply. ‘Laisse la dame tranquille.’

  She looked over to the woman who had called, the boy’s mother, presumably. Gigi tried to smile at her reassuringly as the child rode off. She couldn’t blame her for being suspicious of a tearful woman gazing hungrily at her child.

  Gigi turned around and started to walk home. She tried to focus on tomorrow: tomorrow there might be a letter in the mail. The last one had been a week ago. Tomorrow, after class, she would go to the bank and see if there was another transfer for her from Mama.

  When Gigi had heard the newsflash about Sadat’s assassination, she had tried to call home right away, but could not get through. She felt very isolated. Suddenly she thought of Luc. She had seen his name as a contributor to a report in the Evènement du jeudi magazine a month ago. He had told her – it seemed so long ago now – that he shared an apartment in Paris with a friend, but he was on the road a lot. The day she had seen his name in the magazine she had looked up his number in the phone book. But she had not called. She felt a strange reluctance to contact anyone connected to the world of her past. It was too painful.

  But the day she heard the news of Sadat’s assassination she needed to talk to someone. She called Luc’s number. The man who answered the phone told her that Luc was out of town. She left her name, number and address. That was two days ago.

  She picked up a newspaper at the tabac, and a baguette at the bakery. The café by her apartment building was full now, the tables busy with people smoking, chatting, sipping drinks. The street door to her building was locked after five o’clock and could only be opened by entering a code on the metal plaque on the wall. As she punched in the code and heard the buzz and click of the door being released, a man who had been sitting at a table in front of the café got up and came towards her. She was taken aback for a minute. Then she recognized the smiling face under the thatch of hair. It was Luc.

  ‘It’s high time you met Maman, really.’ Luc shifted into fifth gear and the little Renault responded noisily, speeding along the highway south from Paris. ‘I’ve talked so much about you over the past – what has it been? Five months now. And of course she knew all about “la petite Gigi” from Hélène’s letters, all those years ago.’

  They drove through the early summer countryside with its rose bushes
and cherry trees in bloom; the uncertain sunshine looked likely to yield to the first threat of showers. They made good time and reached Lyons early for their lunchtime rendezvous with Luc’s mother. Luc parked across from the café where they were to meet, a quiet little place on a pedestrian side street off a square in the old quarter.

  ‘Luc, I’d like to have something to offer your mother; can we go around the shops? We have time, don’t we?’

  They strolled through the streets, gazing at window displays and stepping in and out of shops. At a confiserie Gigi was struck by the display of green velvet, pillowshaped boxes of marzipan-covered chocolates.

  ‘They’re called coussins de Lyon, cushions of Lyons, in commemoration of the offerings made to the Notre Dame of Fourvières for saving the city from the something or other, I forget just what.’

  Gigi bought the chocolates and white tulips for Luc’s mother. Their last stop was a bookstore, where Luc chose two of the latest novels.

  ‘Maman’s a great reader. All right, I think that’s everything. Ready, Gigi?’

  ‘Ready. Where’s the car? We must be miles away from the café.’

  The bookseller overheard them. ‘Where is it that you parked? Rue du Boeuf? You can take a shortcut. Go through the door at the back of my store, it leads to a traboule. Just keep going till you exit on the street at the other end. It tunnels right under two blocks of houses to rue du Boeuf.’

  Gigi followed Luc through the back of the store and into a dim, covered passageway.

  ‘What were these used for? To hide from enemies? Or from religious persecution?’

  ‘Not at all. There’s a warren of passages like this running under the buildings in this old part of the city where the textile factories used to be. When it rained the silk workers used them to carry the bolts of cloth from one square to another without getting the silk wet.’

  Filtered sunlight dappled the mauve-washed walls in the quiet corridor. Luc turned towards her and she felt his moustache brush her cheek and the corner of her mouth. It was the first time he had kissed her, apart from the customary peck on the cheek that they exchanged on greeting. He drew back and paused a minute, gauging her ambivalent response, then he shifted the packages in his arms and winked at her.

  ‘Lucky for you I have both arms full, isn’t it?’

  She laughed; it was easy to be comfortable with Luc, he was so non-threatening. She followed him down the passageway to a door that opened to the sunshine outside.

  They hurried back to the café but when they turned the corner Luc’s mother was still not in sight and they slowed down to a more leisurely pace.

  ‘Inside or outside?’ the waiter asked as he led them to a table.

  ‘Gigi?’

  ‘Whatever you like. Outside if it’s the same to you.’

  ‘I knew you’d say that. You’re like a Mediterranean sunflower.’

  From their seats at a small table on the narrow cobblestone sidewalk of the shady alley they were all but jostled by the passers-by. Gigi leaned back in her chair to catch the sun on her face. Luc turned his attention to the wine list with an utter absorption that, she suspected, she would never truly understand. In a few minutes they were joined by a small, sturdily built woman with short, fair hair.

  ‘Maman!’ Luc got up and kissed her. ‘This is Gihan. Gigi, my mother, Mathilde.’

  Mathilde’s blue eyes in a tan face appraised Gigi for a moment, then she smiled, a reserved smile. ‘It’s nice to meet you. Oh, how thoughtful, thank you.’ She admired the bouquet and the box of marzipan chocolates for a moment. ‘Couldn’t you find a table inside? Oh, I see, no, no, this is perfectly fine.’

  They studied the menu posted on a chalkboard.

  ‘Ah, tête de veau! Maman, shall we order that for you? Gigi, will you try some?’

  ‘No thank you!’

  ‘You don’t know what you’re missing. You’re very squeamish about some things, you know,’ Luc teased.

  ‘Perhaps we should have gone somewhere else?’ Mathilde looked concerned. ‘The menu here tends to typical traditional dishes, quite heavy, a lot of charcuterie. You might be homesick for a good couscous, Gigi?’

  ‘Maman, couscous is a Moroccan dish, they don’t eat it in Egypt.’

  ‘I’ll have the salad with the baked brie, that sounds perfect,’ Gigi interposed quickly.

  Luc ordered and the waiter took away their menus.

  ‘Well, you can’t imagine some of the things I had to eat when I was in Niger during my coopération, my national service.’ Luc crossed his arms and leaned across the table. ‘I was posted in a dirt hut village, supposedly to teach the children to read. I ended up teaching the adults about hygiene and birth control. But it wasn’t all bad. Sometimes another coopérant friend drove over from another village and we toured the countryside together. We’d get lost and spend the night in hammocks. You couldn’t sleep on the ground in a sleeping bag because of the giant insects. Ah, here come the aperitifs! I have quite an appetite, don’t you?’

  Luc seemed even more talkative than usual, as if he were trying to fill any awkward pauses. But mother and son soon fell into their familiar rhythm of conversation and Gigi felt free to follow or join in, without pressure. After lunch they ordered coffee and Luc excused himself to go to the post office before it closed.

  Mathilde lit a cigarette. ‘Do you smoke, Gigi? No?’ She took a long drag. ‘Well, I’m sorry neither of Luc’s sisters could join us, I know they wanted to meet you. Lucienne lives too far away, of course, but Catherine would have driven down from St Etienne if the baby hadn’t been colicky today. You’re an only child, aren’t you, Gigi? I remember that from Hélène’s letters. She was my mother’s generation, really, her best friend from school. She left for Egypt when I was very young. But all those years, she always wrote regularly, long letters, and sent pictures. When Luc was born, she insisted on being his marraine, even though she’d never seen him.’ Mathilde took a sip of her espresso and another drag on her cigarette. ‘You have a son in Egypt, Gigi, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes. Tarek. He’s with my mother back home.’ To her mortification, Gigi felt the tears come to her eyes.

  ‘Forgive me for asking this, ma petite, but how could you leave him? Why didn’t you try to bring him with you?’

  The question startled Gigi. ‘But it was out of the question. There was no way I could have taken him out of the country without his father’s permission on the passport; if I had tried I could have been arrested for kidnapping.’

  ‘Couldn’t your family have helped you?’

  ‘They wouldn’t help me kidnap my child out of the country even if they could. No one would have condoned that. I know it’s hard for you to understand, but these things are seen differently over there. Most people see a child as belonging with his father. The mother gets custody of a young child up to a certain age, but not if she remarries, and certainly not if she leaves the country.’

  ‘But if you knew that, how could you leave him? Didn’t you know how much you would miss him?’

  ‘I thought it would only be for a short time, a month or two, I had no idea things would turn out like this. I didn’t think it through, it was a mistake.’ Gigi felt her face flush and her chest constrict.

  ‘And now you’re too stubborn to go back? Or too afraid? And Luc. How does he fit into all this? I’m sorry, ma petite, but you must understand I have to think of my son first. Does he know what your feelings for him are?’

  ‘I like him so much, I don’t know what I would have done without him over the past few months…’

  ‘But you don’t love him?’

  ‘Well, what have I missed?’ Luc came around the corner and pulled up his chair. ‘Anyone for a second coffee?’

  ‘I’m glad you had a tête à tête with Maman. I think she likes you.’

  They were driving back to Paris; it had started to rain, a hard, steady rain that showed no signs of abating for the rest of the trip.

  ‘I don’t k
now about that.’

  ‘She’d let herself like you even more if she didn’t suspect that – well, that I intend to marry you some day.’

  ‘Luc! You know that’s not serious.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Because, she thought, it’s not the grand passion. Yet in the past few months her world had shrunk; she could not imagine her life here without Luc.

  ‘I’m not even divorced yet.’

  ‘You’ll be getting your divorce soon. Didn’t you tell me Yussef has been seeing someone else?’

  ‘That’s what Mama writes. A woman who works for his father. Apparently she’s from a decent enough background that she would insist on his divorcing me before he marries her.’

  ‘Well, there you are. Once you’re free, we can get married.’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Why? You mean the problem of religion? I’ll become a Muslim on paper, if that’s what it takes.’

  ‘I couldn’t ask you to do that!’

  ‘It’s not as if I were a practicing Catholic. And I believe there’s good in all religions; there are many teachings in Islam I can subscribe to. Besides, it’s only pour la forme.’

  Gigi shook her head and looked out of the window.

  Three months to the day after Yussef had the divorce papers served to Gigi’s home in Zamalek, she sat with Luc in a waiting room in the Paris mosque, around the corner from the Jardin des Plantes.

  Gigi’s first impulse when she knew the divorce had gone through was to go home. But Mama had written: ‘Be patient. Yussef is content to let me keep Tarek, he knows it’s best for him. But if you come back now to claim him, Yussef will exercise his right to sole custody. He insists he won’t let you raise the boy. He’s been saying that you’re an unfit mother, that you abandoned your child. His parents have even been spreading rumors about your reasons for leaving, hinting that there was someone else. It’s sheer vindictiveness on their part. But time will heal Yussef’s sores, he’ll get remarried eventually, and have other children. Then you can expect him to be much more mellow and reasonable, you’ll see. Only you have to be patient. It was a mistake to leave as you did, Gigi, but it’s no use going over that now. It’s Allah’s will. Now you need to do what’s right for Tarek. If you come back now Yussef will take him, and it would be traumatic for this poor child to go through another separation. Be patient.’