The Cairo House

by Samia Serageldin

  ‘In the red folder in the second drawer on the right.’

  ‘Okay. Well, everything else all right? I’ll call you next week around the same time.’

  I hung up. It had been an effort to concentrate on these details. It all seemed so far away, another world. Here and now felt like reality. I checked in on Tarek. He was sleeping, his back to me. I gave him a light kiss on the nape. I felt like a child with a longed-for new toy who has to take it out of the wrapping every few minutes to look at it, not quite believing it’s finally really hers.

  I went to the phone and called Tamer. His home number didn’t answer. I tried the office number. He picked up right away.

  ‘Hey!’

  ‘Working late?’

  ‘No later than usual. So, what have you been up to?’

  ‘Actually I’m supposed to meet Yussef, his wife, and some friends of his for dinner tomorrow night at Le Pasha. I feel awkward going on my own. Can you come with me?’

  He hesitated a minute. ‘Sure. No problem. What time shall I pick you up?’

  ‘Yussef said to meet at nine.’

  ‘Then I’ll pick you up just before nine.’

  ‘Good! Thanks, Tamer.’

  That night I fell asleep around midnight but woke up again at dawn. I heard the faint rumbling of the donkey carts growing fainter. The garbage collectors had come and gone again. I wondered if Ibrahim had put the poison in the cans. I lay there, trying to go back to sleep.

  19

  The Restaurant

  Tamer arrived at fifteen past nine. ‘Sorry, I got caught up at the office. Relax, no one arrives on time in Egypt anyway. You’ve forgotten.’

  I glanced at his profile as I sat next to him in the car. He looked different, somehow, and I realized it was the gold frame glasses he was wearing.

  ‘Since when do you wear glasses? Let me see.’ I reached for them and he let me have them with a smile. I tried them on. As I suspected, the prescription was so weak I could hardly notice a difference.

  ‘These are just for show, aren’t they? To impress clients?’ He didn’t answer but I guessed that he’d worn them tonight to look older, for me.

  ‘So, you’ve been working hard?’

  ‘Yeah. Well, except last night, of course, being the feast. Some friends dragged me off to a party. It was a disaster. I got hit on by two women who were belly dancing – not my type! And two guys – definitely not my type!’

  We drove along the Nile and parked by the embankment across the street from the Gezira Sporting Club, where a houseboat which had been converted into a restaurant was anchored. The strings of lights swayed slightly as the boat bobbed on the water. We walked up the gangplank and a smiling security officer perfunctorily patted down Tamer. He did the same with the other male customers as they came on board, but let me and the other women pass unchecked. Since the restaurant was frequented by tourists, which could make it a target for terrorists, the management was taking precautions, although apparently inadequate ones. The maitre d’hôtel led us downstairs. The large dining room was reasonably busy; there was an even mix of tourists and Cairenes.

  At a table by the window we saw Yussef, Mervat and the Sirdanas. As Yussef stood up to greet us I noticed his hair was even greyer at the temples than the last time I had seen him, but he was still as slim. His smile was reserved. ‘Hello, Gigi. Hi, Tamer. Haven’t seen you in a while.’

  I shook hands and turned to his wife. Tarek had warned me she might be wearing a head scarf; she was actually wearing a sort of loose, crocheted snood which left most of her smooth black hair exposed; it seemed to serve the purpose of a token more than anything else. Apart from that she was wearing a stylish turquoise ensemble and somewhat too much jewelry. She stared at me with large, carefully made-up eyes, a flicker of hostility behind the curiosity. It surprised me.

  Bassil Sirdana was standing up, smiling. ‘Hello, Gigi! It’s been a long time.’

  Since I had last seen him in Jedda his smile had gained the expansiveness of success. I had heard that he had made a fortune in the Gulf States and in Infitah Egypt; he now spent the Fall shooting and hunting at a manor in the Cotswolds, the summers at Marbella and the winters in a villa in Garden City.

  ‘It’s so good to see you again.’ Mona gave me a peck on the cheek. She still wore her auburn hair in a sweep down to her shoulders, but she had put on quite a bit of weight.

  We sat down and the waiter brought the menus. While we debated what to order he set down the mezze, a dozen small dishes of appetizers. I could never resist them, even at the cost of being too full to enjoy the grilled lamb kebab I ordered as a main course.

  Bassil and Mona showed me photos of their two sons, who were a little younger than Tarek. Mervat showed pictures of their little girl; she was cute but already ominously plump around the jowls.

  The conversation turned to politics, as it inevitably does in Egypt, perhaps because the weather is too invariable to offer an alternative. Bassil was optimistic.

  ‘I don’t foresee any major upheavals in the next four years. I don’t think investors have anything to worry about in the immediate future, and in the meantime, with the privatizations, there are some real killings to be made on the stock exchange.’

  ‘Four years!’ Yussef scoffed. ‘Anything can happen in four years.’ He didn’t need to elaborate; since the Revolution, succession of the heads of State had followed one path: death by natural causes or assassination. It was generally suspected that there were more foiled attempts on Mubarak’s life than the press reported.

  ‘Yussef, you never change your tune. Remember how you kept insisting the Egyptian pound would drop in a free fall against the dollar? It’s held its own for years.’

  ‘You know how I’ve heard the Egyptian economy described?’ I piped in. ‘This was by an economist at Dartmouth University who is an expert. He said it was like watching a man walk on water. You wonder how it’s done and how long he can keep it up.’

  ‘Well, it’s not going to keep up much longer,’ Yussef insisted. ‘What with the tourists scared away.’

  Conversation was interrupted while we were served.

  ‘Cheers!’ Bassil raised his glass. He had ordered wine for himself and Mona, and Tamer had ordered a beer. I had mineral water in order not to give Yussef and his wife, neither of whom drank, ammunition against me.

  ‘Well, here’s to time. How it flies!’ Bassil took a sip. ‘It seems like only yesterday we had dinner together in Jedda!’

  ‘When did you leave Saudi?’ I asked.

  ‘Mona and the boys moved back to Egypt eight years ago, when the boys started school. We also bought a home in England. But I shuttled back and forth till the Gulf War started. We got out just in time!’

  Mona spread her napkin on her lap. ‘Can you imagine what the sight of American women G.I.s in shorts and T-shirts must have looked like to the Saudis? I mean, in a society as puritanical as that? I remember the imported magazines at the newsstands with half the pages ripped out by the censors. And the difficulties smuggling in liquor! Some of our expat friends even resorted to making their own – with Welch’s grape juice and tea for tannin – horrible stuff!’

  The waiter brought the main course, and for a few minutes conversation was interrupted.

  ‘Bon appétit!’ Bassil turned to me. ‘How long will you be staying in Cairo, Gigi?’

  ‘Not very long, just a couple of weeks.’

  ‘That’s a pity. The country house we’re building in Mansouriya will be ready in a month or so, and we were planning our first party there. We would have loved to have you come.’

  ‘So would I, it must be lovely.’ I had heard that they were building a splendid mansion on a large estate an hour away from Cairo, complete with Moorish courtyard, swimming pool, tennis courts, Japanese gardens and English rolling lawns. Full-grown trees had been imported from Japan and from England.

  ‘The biggest challenge has been draining the marshes to get rid of the mosquitoes. That
’s one problem our landscape engineer hadn’t had to deal with before! He’s English.’

  ‘He’s expensive,’ Mona complained. ‘You can imagine what it’s costing us to put him up in a first class hotel for the past two years. But he’s worth it. You should see the Japanese bridges over the lily-ponds. And I have my own secret garden just outside the bay window of the Jacuzzi.’

  ‘A window around the hot tub? Aren’t you concerned someone might look in?’ I asked. ‘What about the fellahin?’

  ‘We don’t have any fellahin on the complex. They aren’t allowed inside the walls. The staff and the gardeners are all Filipino. Besides, we’re planting tall bamboo all around the little garden, so it forms a natural screen.’

  ‘I see.’ This was a different world from that I remembered as a child, when visits to the country estate were circumscribed by the precautions taken to accommodate the sensibilities of the fellahin.

  Mona started to discuss the children’s schools with Mervat. ‘Bassil is thinking of sending our boys to boarding school in England, he’s not happy with the schools here. Of course it’s different from the old days when he attended the Jesuit School. What do you think, Gigi?’

  ‘I really don’t know.’ I was trying to listen to the conversation between the men.

  ‘Well, I think it’s a scandal,’ Tamer was saying.

  ‘What is?’ I asked.

  ‘There’s this professor at Cairo University, a professor of law, I think, who wrote a critical book on Islam. I don’t know exactly what he says because I haven’t been able to get hold of a copy. A pirated copy, I mean, because the book is banned, as you can imagine. Anyway some theologians at the Azhar read it and decided it was heresy and pronounced him an apostate. He’s Muslim, of course. Then they took him to court and – get this – they tried to get the courts to rule his marriage to his wife invalid, on the basis that he is an apostate and a Muslim woman can’t stay married to a heretic!’

  ‘I don’t understand. It’s his wife that wants a divorce?’

  ‘Not at all. She’s adamant that she wants to stay married to him. They’ve been married twenty years and have children. But these clerics insist on a divorce against the wishes of both the husband and the wife.’

  ‘Can they do that?’

  ‘Apparently they’re trying!’

  ‘But they’ve no right to do that. That’s awful.’

  ‘You don’t know what he wrote,’ Yussef objected.

  ‘That’s right,’ Mervat agreed. ‘There are limits. You don’t know what he wrote.’

  ‘It shouldn’t matter, should it?’ I was aghast at their reaction. ‘It’s the principle of the thing.’

  ‘You’ve been away too long, Gigi,’ Bassil smiled. ‘There’s no such thing as freedom of opinion here.’

  ‘The only way to fight that is to keep testing the limits over and over,’ Tamer countered.

  ‘You can’t have freedom of opinion here. Free speech is a luxury in a country like Egypt. Who do you think would take advantage of it? The extremists. The fundamentalists.’

  ‘Let them, as long as the moderates get into the arena as well and fight it out. The problem is that too many people have a vested interest in the status quo, they don’t want to rock the boat.’

  The band struck up on the dais at the front of the restaurant, announcing the first of the nightclub acts for the evening. For the occasion of the Feast the restaurant was putting on special entertainment. A male singer in a tuxedo stepped up to the mike and started belting out Arabic pop songs. The volume effectively put an end to all conversation across the table.

  The singer wrapped up his number with a grand flourish. There were a few minutes of merciful quiet while the next act, a belly dancer, was getting ready. The conversation between Mona and Mervat had moved from children’s schools to the relative merits of Filipina maids as opposed to Egyptians. Tamer was lighting a cigarette; Bassil had gotten up to make a phone call. I took the opportunity to broach the subject of Tarek’s schooling with Yussef.

  ‘Tarek looks great! He’s grown so much. He seems happy.’ I wanted to preempt putting Yussef on the defensive by letting him see that my plan to take Tarek to the States was in no way prompted by feeling that he was unhappy with his father and stepmother.

  ‘There’s no reason why he shouldn’t be.’

  ‘No, of course.’ I tried a different tack. ‘He adores his little sister. She’s called Zeina after your mother, isn’t she? How are your parents?’

  ‘Mother is well. Papa had a stroke a few years ago but is still going strong. He’s amazing for his age.’ There was the familiar note of admiration in his voice when he mentioned his father.

  ‘Well, give both of your parents my best.’

  ‘I will. Have you been to see your uncle yet?’

  ‘Yes, I had iftar with him.’

  ‘Was that woman there?’

  ‘You mean Lamia El-Salem? Yes.’

  ‘Did he mention the sale of the house to you?’

  ‘No, the subject didn’t come up.’ I realized the connection. ‘It’s your father who’s involved in the sale, isn’t it?’

  ‘That’s right. He’s representing a buyer with a very good offer. It’s not likely to be repeated. I hope your family sees the advantage in selling now. But with that woman influencing your uncle, there’s no telling what he’ll do. Any time a man his age allows a woman to influence him like that, it can affect his judgement.’

  Yussef always tended to blame the woman in any situation – cherchez la femme. It occurred to me that he really didn’t like women. In the early days of our marriage the naive child I had been had not understood about men like that, physically passionate but with a deep-seated distrust of women. It had confused and chilled me.

  I wondered who the prospective buyer might be. An embassy? A private party? Bassil Sirdana, even? That would be ironic. I looked across the table at Bassil and Mona. How time had passed since I had last seen them. How my situation had changed. I was the outsider now.

  Memories of my stay in Jedda passed through my mind. Prince Bandar serving me a chunk of lamb with his hands. Emira Khadija and her jewelry catalogues. Om Khalil and her red suitcase at Jedda airport.

  ‘Yussef, do you remember Om Khalil and her red suitcase in Jedda?’

  Yussef laughed. I caught Mervat giving me a look. I wanted to reassure her that there was nothing between Yussef and me to cause her concern. That the memories of Jedda, all the memories, were as impersonal as if they had happened to someone else. That the man sitting across the table from me was as much a stranger as if we had never been intimate, never had a child together. That I was sure it was the same for him. I had learned that after a relationship was over, after the passion or the acrimony have burned off, only the essential residue remains. Yussef and I had never liked each other; the residue was a lingering wariness and defensiveness. With Luc, it would be different; we would keep a fundamental respect and affection for each other. The thought had sneaked into my mind before I was aware of it. It shocked me to catch myself thinking of my marriage to Luc as if it were a thing of the past. For a moment I couldn’t breathe.

  The belly dancer had launched into her first number, tossing her hair and clicking her castanets. She was wearing the traditional costume, a sequined silver bikini with a filmy salmon-pink slit skirt. We all sat back and watched. I recognized her face from posters and advertisements for shows at the major hotels all over town. It was Fifi ‘Abdu. She arched her back, her long brown hair whipping her hips as she jiggled her breasts from side to side. The dancer worked the crowd, urging it to clap. The diners, including our table, obliged. The mood was particularly festive after the long month of fasting. Although there was nothing austere about Ramadan, even non-observant Muslims abstained, at least in public, from alcohol and belly-dancing shows.

  Tamer had to talk straight into my ear for me to hear him above the din. ‘Do you know she headed a delegation of belly dancers who went over to Isr
ael as part of the cultural exchange program?’

  ‘You’re kidding!’

  ‘No, seriously. There’s this cultural exchange program between us and Israel, part of the so-called “normalization of relations”, and belly-dancing was considered one of the distinctive performing arts in Egypt. A whole delegation of dancers just finished touring Israel.’

  ‘And what did the Israelis send in return?’

  ‘Agricultural experts in desert cultivation, I think.’

  I laughed. But I thought it was ironic that belly-dancing seemed to be one thing the Islamists hadn’t been able to ban, it was just too deeply entrenched.

  With a deafening roll of the drums the dancer came to the end of the first number and withdrew to change her costume.

  I leaned forward towards Yussef again. ‘Have you thought about where Tarek will go to college?’

  ‘Well, American University, I suppose. Then he can go to graduate school in England, as I did.’

  ‘I was thinking he could go to college in the States.’

  ‘He’s too young.’

  ‘He’ll be seventeen next year. And I would be right there, I would be able to keep an eye on him. He could come home for all the holidays.’

  ‘I don’t know. It would be expensive.’

  ‘Not necessarily. And I’d be glad to do my part. Especially if that sale goes through!’ I leaned back. ‘Anyway we’ve got some time. Talk it over with Mervat.’ I felt sure she would be in favor of the project, if only to get her stepson out of the house. On the other hand, I knew Yussef would not make up his mind without consulting his father, and Kamal Zeitouni was a hard nut to crack.

  But I was counting on Mervat’s influence even more. I could see that she had learned to handle Yussef. Under her self-effacing, pliant exterior I recognized the kind of relentless manipulativeness which nature and nurture combine in women like her. This subtle skill is learned at their mother’s knee and reaches its apotheosis in the capture of the most eligible suitor possible. It is not abandoned in the aftermath. I was willing to wager that Mervat was one of those married women who called her mother every single day to discuss strategy: how to handle a husband’s mood, how to confound a social rival, how to deal with the sudden reappearance of the ex-wife of one’s spouse.