‘I don’t want you to stay up for me next time, Ibrahim. Will you make me a copy of the key to the padlock of the gate? That way I can let myself in if I’m late. Oh, Ibrahim, would you please put the garbage in plastic bags instead of just wrapping it in newspaper and tossing it in the trash cans? This morning there was melon rind and bits of paper strewn around the cans.’
He nodded. ‘Will there be anything else tonight?’
I rummaged around in my head for the correct reply rather than a curt dismissal. Like someone remembering a forgotten language I found the formula from my childhood: the gracious and untranslatable, ‘Not that we can do without you, but not right now.’
These formulaic greetings, requests and responses were second nature. Each formula required its conventional response, each action an equal and opposite reaction, like a law of physics. To fail to provide the proper response was an awkward lapse of social skills. That sort of automatic courtesy would be easy enough to relearn; far harder to master, for me, would be the intricate minefield of arcane social dictates governing everything from hospitality to visits of condolences.
I tried to fall asleep but it was no use. It would soon be daybreak. I listened for the clip-clop of the donkey carts. The garbage collectors come at dawn, but so early I never see them.
16
The Pasha
That evening I was invited for Ramadan iftar at the Pasha’s. I left twenty minutes before sunset. I calculated that there would be lighter traffic on the road just before the breaking of the fast, whereas if I left earlier I would get caught in the frenzied rush of irritable motorists hurrying to get home in time. At any rate Ramadan etiquette requires the guest to arrive just as the call to sunset prayers is sounded, or a few minutes before, no earlier.
I drove along the Nile Corniche as the sinking sun splashed ochre on the broad expanse of water. I turned the corner of the long wall of the British Embassy, once white and now a dingy gray. The call to sunset prayers rang out against a chorus of twittering birds flocking home to the thick foliage of the old banyan trees. I pulled up at the gate to the Cairo House. The doorkeeper asked me who I was before letting me park inside the grounds; ten years ago he would have recognized me. I went in by the side door and hurried up the marble staircase.
Fangali met me at the top of the stairs and knew me immediately. ‘Ahlan, Sitt Gigi, what a long time it’s been.’
His high-pitched whine had not changed. Yet I knew that, shortly after I had left for Europe, there had been a great transformation in Fangali’s life. He had apparently visited a medical specialist who had recommended an operation. Subsequently, much to everyone’s consternation, Fangali, at the age of forty, had married and in short order fathered two children. There were mixed feelings about Fangali’s good fortune. It was felt that he had somehow pulled the wool over everyone’s eyes. ‘Will Allah’s miracles never cease! And all these years when we all thought he wasn’t a man! Why, he was even allowed to massage the Grandmother’s legs!’
Fangali headed down the upstairs gallery. ‘This way, Sitt Gigi. Let me just tell the Pasha you’re here.’
The vast downstairs dining room, with its twenty-four chairs, was hardly ever used any more. A smaller dining room set, seating twelve, was set up at the far end of the upstairs gallery, in front of the tall French windows leading out to the terrace. Today it was set for only three people.
I saw my uncle shuffling slowly from his bedroom, supported by Fangali on one side and an elegant woman in black on the other. I recognized Lamia El-Salem, the widow of a Lebanese prime minister, and for some years now the Pasha’s companion.
‘Gigi!’ The Pasha stopped and freed his arm to greet me and kissed me on both cheeks. He waved away Fangali and made it to the head of the table on his own. I sat down on one side of him and Lamia El-Salem on the other.
‘Don’t forget your pills,’ she fussed in her lilting Lebanese accent. She had changed nothing about her style since I saw her last. She was still in elegant mourning for her husband, assassinated over twenty years ago. The same black lace scarf was draped dramatically over her jet black, meticulously styled hair. She had to be at least seventy years old.
When she had first come to Egypt she had kept a suite at the Nile Hotel across from the British Embassy, a three-minute walk from the Pasha’s house. As the years passed she spent more and more time at the house until one day her presence there became a fait accompli. For appearance’s sake she and the Pasha maintained the fiction that she was only occasionally a houseguest, but everyone knew better.
Two waiters filled the glasses with qammar-eddin, apricot nectar, the traditional Ramadan beverage for breaking the fast. I was somewhat taken aback that the two suffragis were wearing pants and shirts, rather than the caftan and turban of traditional Egyptian butlers. The table was set correctly but the china and flatware were of a cheap, everyday kind I did not expect. Apparently the good china and silver were locked away. But the suffragis, in spite of their unconventional attire, seemed to be well trained. One of them brought the soup tureen around to my left, and when he had ladled the lentil cream into my plate, the other followed with the croutons. The next dish was one of my favorites, imam bayaldi: tiny, elongated aubergine stuffed with meat, raisins and pine nuts. By the time the lamb cutlets came around I shook my head.
‘You should eat, you’ve lost weight,’ the Pasha remonstrated. ‘I know you’ll like dessert. Nobody makes Om Ali like my cook. I remember you always liked that.’
I was touched that my uncle had remembered my favorite Ramadan dessert. He served me himself, a large helping of flaky pastry baked with cream, nuts and raisins, still warm from the oven. I finished more of it than I really wanted.
The thoughtfulness was so like him. Yet he was otherwise very much changed. Before he roused himself for this gesture he had been absorbed in his own thoughts, chewing silently and without relish. I tried to make conversation but it was heavy going. I could no longer draw him into a discussion of politics. He had been so different in the hey-day of the new party, those short-lived days of heady optimism. I avoided mentioning the sale of the house, racking my brains for a neutral topic. Then I remembered the old gentleman I had met at a conference in Montreal last Fall.
‘Uncle, do you remember a man named Paulus Hanna?’
‘It’s a fairly common name, dear. Give me the particulars.’
‘He’s the dean of the Egyptian Coptic community in Montreal. When he heard my surname he asked me if I were related to you. Then he told me how, in the years before the Revolution, when the Coptic community in Egypt was trying to build a church in a particular spot in downtown Cairo, they couldn’t get anyone to sell them the land. So he – this Paulus Hanna – was delegated to speak to you about the problem. He says you were very sympathetic, and that you helped them out. I understood that you bought the land in your own name and then turned it over to them for the church, is that what happened?’
‘I don’t remember the details, but I remember helping them to get their church. Even in those days, there was some intolerance. But nothing like the religious polarization which exists today.’
Imposing new churches figured prominently now in the cityscape of downtown Cairo, a legacy of Sadat’s years of rapprochement with the West. But a rift had grown between the majority and minority religious communities in Egypt during those years. The backlash from the Islamic fundamentalists had been fierce.
More than a decade after Sadat’s assassination, the fundamentalist menace loomed over the horizon like sandstorms in a perpetual Khamaseen season. The parties of the opposition, both to the right and to the left, were effectively paralyzed by the threat of an Islamist takeover. No one dared rock the ship of state. The Pasha had the defeated shoulders of a man who was no longer so much concerned that his movement might not outlive him, as that he would outlive his movement.
Lamia, one hand on his arm, was telling him something in an urgent, insistent undertone. She seemed to be askin
g for a pension for some retired retainer. He nodded, but she persisted, trying to get him to commit to a specific sum. ‘All right,’ he muttered impatiently, ‘I said I’d take care of it.’
Yet I could understand why he needed a woman around. The three place settings at table told it all. In the old days there would have been relatives, people from the party, journalists dropping in. Now there must have been days when he dined alone. How lonely this vast house must seem, echoing now with the footfalls of the brothers outlived, the ghosts of faithful companions mourned and fair weather friends flown away.
I was relieved when dinner was over. It had been a strain to try to keep up the semblance of a conversation. I wondered if it had been simply distraction on his part, or deliberate reserve because he thought my visit was connected to the sale of the house. He had not taken an explicit position on this particular offer, but it was hard to see how it could be in his interest to support it.
I followed my uncle back to his bedroom. It was the same: piles of documents, newspapers and books neatly stacked on chairs, tables and dressers all around the huge high-ceilinged room with its panels of faded blue brocade on the walls.
‘You know, it may look disorganized, but I can lay my finger on a letter or a clipping in a minute.’ He settled in his club chair.
‘Of course, I know.’ It surprised me that he felt the need to justify anything to me; it occurred to me for the first time that he saw me differently now, a grown woman with the acquired glamor of a life abroad.
Fangali set the demitasse cups of Turkish coffee on the table in front of us. He brought the telephone round to the end table within reach of the Pasha and left, closing the door behind him. Lamia had retired to the adjoining room.
I showed my uncle a clipping of an article in a French newspaper mentioning the party, and a letter from the Moroccan ambassador, whom I had met in Washington the summer before, asking me to send his best regards to the Pasha. He was visibly pleased.
He lit a cigar carefully. ‘So tell me, Gigi, how are you finding things here in Egypt?’
I talked about this and that, about Tante Zohra’s failing health, about the police sweeps on the bridges at night. He probed gently and I realized that he was trying to find out if there was something I needed from him, some special favor, some intercession. It saddened me.
‘Uncle, I know you must be tired. I have to be going. Can I take a photo of you before I go?’
‘Well, I’m hardly dressed for the occasion,’ he protested.
‘That’s all right, it’s just a souvenir for me.’
He straightened up and turned down his collar and allowed himself to be photographed, unsmiling. The first time Luc had seen photos of my family at engagements and weddings he had commented on how glum everyone looked. ‘Only in photos,’ I had explained.
I made my way down the sweeping staircase, sliding my hand along the cold marble banister till it rested on the head of the griffon at the bottom. I sneaked a quick photo of the shadowy hall, knowing the flash would be completely inadequate to light its expanse. I would have liked to turn on the lights in the monstrous crystal chandeliers, to photograph the marble staircase, to unlock the double doors to the salon on one end of the hall and the dining room on the other.
I thought of all the weddings and the laughter, the
funerals and the tears, the politics and the intrigue, the passion and promise this house had known. The murmurs and the shouts, the song and the prayer, now all silenced.
I heard the trilling zaghrutas and the drumbeats of the scores of zaffas that had made their way down this same double staircase over the years. I thought of the generations of flower girls tossing thin gilded coins, growing into maids of honor carrying long white tapers, and finally, in their turn, bashful brides carrying bouquets. I had been one of these ghosts in white.
In my mind I conjured photos of my parents’ wedding and those of other relatives. Against that very marble pillar the legendary singer Om Kalthoum had stood, belting out song after song in her powerful voice as the nights of celebration wore on.
I thought of all the feast days, year after year, when the double doors were left open from morning to night to welcome guests, and of the shiny new coins children were given for good luck.
I thought of these same doors left open from morning to night to receive mourners when there had been a death in the family. I heard once more the blind fikki’s resounding voice reciting the familiar, haunting verses from the Koran, the day my father was buried.
I heard the footfalls, heavy or furtive, triumphant or urgent, of the men who had once hurried to gather behind the closed doors of the study to discuss matters of state with my uncle. I thought of the Pasha holding court in this house, in power or out of it, in the limelight or as an eminence grise in the shadows; of the princes in their sweeping abayas who paid informal visits after dark and the opposition leaders who came secretly through the back door.
I remembered the day my uncle announced the formation of his new party, and the optimism and the trepidation with which we greeted a new dawn that was to prove so short-lived. I remembered, only two years later, standing on this very spot in the hall, leaning against my uncle’s bergère as he made the announcement that he was dissolving the party. I remembered the assembled press, the power cables winding around the bases of the thick rose marble columns, the cameras and the lights in my eyes. I remembered making a slip of the tongue, and my uncle’s affectionate gesture to cover up for it. Odd to think that Luc had been standing there at that moment, somewhere behind the lights. Could the Gigi leaning against her uncle’s chair that day ever have imagined that her life would one day be intertwined with that of this stranger?
I wished that my inadequate camera could capture these halls, these walls that had seen so much history. I wanted to commit to memory this house that I might never see again. It was the last private home in this row of houses that had once belonged to friends and relatives and had now been turned into embassies, one after the other. One day soon I would only be able to drive past the Cairo house, and it would be flying a foreign flag.
17
Tamer
‘So, what did you do today?’ Tamer leaned back in his chair and pushed away his bowl of creamy yoghurt. We were having sohour at the Gezira Club in the glass-enclosed restaurant. The restaurant served a traditional, home-style sohour, rounding it off with thick, fresh yoghurt and the ubiquitous Om Ali served in individual earthenware ramekins.
‘I went to see the Pasha in Garden City.’
‘How is he?’
‘Older. Detached. It was depressing. How’s Tante Zohra?’
‘Dear old Nana. Her body may be failing but her spirit is holding up, thank God. Whenever I go see her the first thing she asks me is if I’ve heard any new jokes. She likes the political jokes best but I throw in some off-color ones because it makes her sit up and pretend to be angry with me.’ He lit a cigarette. ‘Have you seen Tarek yet?’
‘No, he’s still in Hurghada. He’ll be back tomorrow. I can’t wait to sound him out about going to college in the States next fall. I just hope he’ll want to go.’
‘How does Luc feel about that?’
The mention of Luc took me aback. No one else had asked me about him since my arrival; it was as if I weren’t married. I was used to that while I was in Cairo. The fact that I was always introduced and referred to by my maiden name was perfectly natural, since in Egypt even married women go by their maiden name.
I debated my answer. I had mentioned my plan to Luc, just before I left, but more in passing, to make sure he would have no objections. It had been a long time since I had felt the need to discuss anything with him in order to make up my mind. ‘Well, I’m sure he doesn’t have any objections. I mean, of course I told him about it, but we haven’t actually discussed the details. It’s not as if Tarek’s agreed yet, or Yussef.’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Wouldn’t it be wonderful, though? Especially i
f Tarek went to college at the university in town, so he can live at home – or if he insists on living on campus, at least he could be home every weekend. I’ve missed him so much.’
‘You never thought of having another child? With Luc?’
‘No.’ I avoided his eyes.
‘What do you do with yourself all day? I mean, it sounds like you live in a pretty remote place.’
‘It is. I’m working on a dissertation, I volunteer a fair amount, I do some cross-country skiing in the woods nearby…’ I shrugged. ‘Look, I think the waiter is trying to hint that they’re closing.’
The restaurant was nearly deserted. The waiter was pulling down the shades and turning the chairs upended on the tables.
‘Yeah, let’s go.’
The night air was chilly outside. The trees were rustling in the breeze. We got into the car.
‘What would you like to do?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know – park somewhere and talk?’
‘Not in this country, Gigi, you’ve forgotten. The vice squad would be on top of us in a minute. But I know lots of places we can go that are open till dawn.’
‘No, I’d rather not be seen out in public so late.’
‘I can drive around. I can drive around for hours, you know. Or we could go to my place.’
‘All right.’
Tamer had an apartment in a newish building with a florist and newspaper stand in the lobby, both closed at that hour. As we passed the doorkeeper on our way to the elevator the man looked up and saluted. The elevator stopped with a hiccup at the sixth floor. The apartment wasn’t big but it had a rare view of the Nile. I headed straight to the balcony and leaned out, looking down at the broad expanse of black water, the boats bobbing in the marina of the Yacht Club, and further down the house-boats and showboats anchored at their docks. The brightly lit hotels and high-rises with neon advertisements winking on the roof lined the far shore. The headlights of cars glimmered as the traffic looped up and around the bridges and overpasses of the Sixth of October Bridge like a gigantic Ferris wheel. Cairo at night acquired a glamor it lacked in the dusty, clamorous, congested hours of daylight.
The Cairo House Page 19