The Cairo House

by Samia Serageldin

  But there is nothing to hold me there. The past ten years seem like an interlude, a sharp zigzag in the flat line of experience, a detour around an insurmountable bump in the road. It’s only when I think of Luc that I feel a pang; I am too fond of him to ever want to hurt him. We burned our bridges together. But we have led separate lives for a long time now; he would be all right without me. Perhaps I would even be setting him free to pick up the unraveled threads of his own life and weave them into a new pattern? Or am I only deluding myself to ease my conscience? But is it not my turn, now or never, to seize the fleeting chance of happiness? How can I give up what I have been looking for, waiting for, for so long? How can I leave, now that I feel I have come home?

  In my life, endings and beginnings seem to be marked, not with a bang, but with a whimper. I know that it would be just as easy for me to stay in Egypt as to go back. The curse of the chameleon is that, once it has blended into a new environment, it cannot imagine itself anywhere else.

  That Sunday I wouldn’t be seeing Tarek, as he had a lot of studying to do. I thought of dropping in on Leila for lunch.

  ‘Gigi darling! I was just wondering if you were coming. The driver went to fetch the girls from school half an hour ago, but with traffic as bad as it is, there’s no telling how long they’ll be. Come and tell me what you think of my new dress for this wedding next month. The dressmaker just sent it over, I haven’t had a chance to try it on since she made the alterations.’

  I followed Leila to her bedroom, and made myself comfortable on the chaise longue. She tried on a seashell grey chiffon dress with tiny seed pearls embroidered on the neckline.

  ‘Leila, it’s stunning! Turn around, let me see if the hem drags in the back. No, it’s fine.’

  The doorbell rang, and in a minute Leila’s nine-year-old twins burst into the room, still wearing the navy jumpers and blazers of the Sacré Coeur school uniform. Leila cried out in alarm as she fended them off her delicate chiffon, and they flung themselves down on the chaise longue on either side of me. Leila slipped out of the dress and looked at her watch.

  ‘Two-thirty. Amin is picking up his mother on his way home from the clinic. They should be here any minute. You two –’ She eyed her daughters critically. ‘Go wash up before lunch. And brush your hair, your barrettes are sliding off. There’s Amin now. Come on, Gigi.’

  We joined Leila’s husband and her mother-in-law in the salon. ‘Hello, Gigi, what a nice surprise. Mother, you remember Gihan Seif-el-Islam? Leila’s cousin?’

  Amin’s mother, like her son, was on the stocky side and good-natured. ‘Of course, dear, I knew your late mother quite well, Allah rest her soul. But you have more of the Seif-el-Islam about you.’

  Amin looked at his watch. ‘Is lunch ready, Leila?’

  ‘Well, I’ll tell the suffragi to serve lunch, but I just wanted to check if Tamer’s on his way. I told him Gigi might be coming. Gigi, would you call him for me?’ She headed for the kitchen.

  I went over to the phone and tried Tamer’s office number, then his home number. I put down the receiver and shook my head. ‘There’s no answer.’

  Leila reappeared. ‘Did you try the office?’

  ‘There was no answer there either.’

  ‘Good thing you know both his numbers by heart.’ She looked at me with a curious smile. ‘Well, let’s go to table then. You know how Tamer is, he might not show up at all.’

  At table the twins kept interrupting each other in their eagerness to tell their grandmother and me how they had participated with the other twenty-odd girls in their class at school in sponsoring an iftar at a ‘Table of the Compassionate’ during Ramadan.

  ‘Each girl had to bring two kilos of beef stew and ten loaves of pita bread and –’

  ‘And a dessert! The cook prepared the meat but Mummy ordered the dessert from Koweider –’

  ‘Palace bread with the thick clotted cream. I cut it with a knife when I served it –’

  ‘We helped serve the whole meal ourselves! There were so many people –’

  ‘But at the end it got kind of scary, they wouldn’t leave, they sort of mobbed around the table, asking for a cash handout –’

  ‘So the teacher took over and –’

  ‘Times are hard for the poor,’ Amin pointed out.

  It occurred to me that there was something incongruous about Muslim students in a Catholic girls’ school performing acts of Islamic charity under school supervision. But Egypt had always been a country of anomalies; I was the one who had been gone too long.

  We were half-way through lunch when the doorbell rang. As soon as the twins heard Tamer’s voice greeting the suffragi they pushed back their chairs and scrambled for the door. When he appeared in the doorway of the dining room one of them was hanging on his back and the other was hopping up and down at his side.

  He went around the table greeting everyone in turn. When he came to me he gave me the usual peck on the cheek, but I wondered if anyone had noticed anything awkward about it. He sat down and helped himself.

  ‘Oh, before I forget, Tamer,’ Leila passed him the chicken in walnut sauce, ‘I was in Khan Khalili this morning, and Haj Zein said to tell you he has a lantern you might be interested in. He says it’s the same style as the one you bought last week.’

  ‘What kind of lantern?’ I asked Tamer.

  ‘It’s an original brass mosque lantern; I had it wired as a lamp. You’ve seen it, Gigi. The one in the living room, on the table closest to the bookcase.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘I must say, Gigi, you seem to be seeing a lot more of Tamer than I do!’ Leila’s tone was slightly brittle.

  I changed the subject. ‘So, tell me about the wedding, Leila! Your dress will really stand out.’

  ‘You really should come, Tamer.’ Leila served him a piece of biftek panné.

  ‘You know I don’t care for these big fussy weddings.’

  ‘Well, at least come and look around. There will be any number of young women you should meet.’

  ‘Leila, you’re unbelievable! You’re almost as bad as Nana Zohra. Even she’s given up match-making for me. Don’t you know by now I do things my own way?’

  ‘All I’m saying is come and meet them. Then make up your own mind if somebody interests you. Gigi, don’t you agree with me he should at least come to the wedding?’

  ‘Absolutely!’

  ‘I especially want him to meet a friend of mine who recently got divorced. Camelia Bindari. Tamer, don’t you remember her? She used to have a thing for you, only at the time you were going with Dina, and she married someone else.’

  ‘I don’t remember her at all.’

  ‘Really, Tamer.’ Amin pushed his chair back and lit a cigarette. ‘All the women your age are married, or else divorced, usually with children. If you want to start a family –’

  ‘That’s putting the cart before the horse, isn’t it? I’ve told you enough times, I’m not interested. Now can we drop this?’

  ‘But she’s just your type, tall, with long hair,’ Leila insisted. ‘Don’t you think that’s just his type, Gigi?’

  ‘Absolutely! You should go to this wedding, really, Tamer.’

  ‘I have no intention of going. And if you’ll excuse me, I’ll leave you to discuss this fascinating subject without me. I have to get back to work.’

  He left the table abruptly. The twins accompanied him to the door, chattering all the way. Leila’s mother-in-law got up and went to a bedroom to perform the afternoon prayers. In the few minutes before the girls rejoined us Leila took the opportunity to confide to me: ‘He’s still as wary as a cat that’s been singed after that experience with the Sirry girl. You wouldn’t know about that, Gigi. This girl turned out to be really neurotic, and she put him through the worst kind of emotional blackmail. He just shies away from involvement now.’

  ‘That was just before he up and married Lorenza – his Italian wife,’ Amin explained. ‘I think it was a sort of reaction, really, to
get everyone off his back. Even after the marriage she stayed in Milan. She only came to Egypt twice, and both times she caused quite a stir.’

  ‘She’s so outspoken and unconventional! I think that’s what attracted Tamer most, that she was so outrageous. But it didn’t last.’ Leila sighed. ‘I wish he’d settle down.’

  I called him that evening. ‘Hi, Tamer.’

  ‘Hey.’ He sounded strained.

  ‘That was awkward at lunch today.’

  ‘Really? I hadn’t noticed.’

  ‘I’m sorry I sort of chimed in about your meeting women, and all that. I didn’t mean to tease you. Don’t you see, it would have looked odd if I hadn’t? They expected me to.’

  ‘And you always do what’s expected of you, don’t you? That’s your business, as long as you stay out of mine.’

  ‘Oh, I will!’ From apologetic I was now on the defensive, and passed to the offensive. ‘But I’d appreciate it if you were a little more discreet where I’m concerned, too. Did you have to make it clear that I’d been to your apartment so often?’

  ‘Don’t be silly! Besides, what’s the harm in that? Who do you think is going to read anything into it? And what do you care if they do?’

  ‘Your sister, for one! And I do care.’

  Tamer sounded exasperated. ‘Does it matter that much what people think any more?’

  ‘It’s easy for you, you have nothing to lose. I’m married. You forget that.’

  ‘You don’t always seem to remember, yourself.’

  I was taken aback for a minute.

  ‘Tamer, I’m just saying perhaps we should avoid awkward situations like that in future.’

  ‘That’s fine by me. I can’t stand all this hypocrisy anyway.’

  ‘What hypocrisy?’

  ‘I don’t know. Acting like nothing’s changed.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Like nothing’s changed between us. Acting like nothing’s changed since you went away ten years ago. You think you can come home and weave yourself back into the fabric of everybody’s life, then rip it out again when you leave.’

  I was quiet. I had done that to him before, years ago, when I had left for France. He would not let me do it again.

  Gina died in Lebanon on Wednesday. Her body was flown to Egypt and she was buried in the Makhlouf family mausoleum. Leila sounded numb over the phone: ‘She was suffering so much; Allah rest her soul.’ I wasn’t able to reach Tamer.

  Thursday was the first of the three days of official visits of condolences for women – the men paid their respects in separate ceremonies. I dressed in black and went to Tante Zohra’s. Her two salons were packed with women in mourning. Her three daughters presided over the proceedings, greeting guests and directing the flow of sugarless Turkish coffee. Dark Nazli, who had always been considered the plainest, was now a striking, elegant woman in her fifties, married to a highly successful man. Mimi, the youngest, had never married; it was said she had been unstable since that day the fellahin had torched the Makhlouf’s country house and she had been smuggled out hidden in the trunk of the car.

  Leila sat in the outer salon, surrounded by the younger women. I hugged her as I murmured the customary formula of condolences. She seemed composed and dry-eyed, much as I must have seemed during Papa’s three days of mourning.

  I looked for Tante Zohra in the inner salon. She was slumped in a chaise longue, propped up with pillows, her legs covered with shawls. She seemed dazed, as if sedated, and only focused momentarily as each new visitor came up to her and offered condolences. From time to time she released a long, shuddering sigh, and wiped her eyes. I was sure she must have guessed about Gina’s condition, and that the news had not been a total shock to her.

  ‘Ah, Gigi,’ she murmured as I leaned over to kiss her, ‘my poor Gigi.’ I couldn’t decide whether it was a slip of the tongue or her slurred speech that made ‘Gina’ sound like ‘Gigi’.

  I turned away from Tante Zohra, fumbling in my pockets for a tissue, and looked around for a place to sit. I saw a vacant chair in a far corner and headed for it. It was right behind a small loveseat occupied by Lamia El-Salem and Zeina, my ex-mother-in-law. I murmured a brief greeting; the fikki had started to chant verses from the Koran. The two women responded with the reserved nods that befitted the circumstances, but in Zeina’s eyes there was a chilly curiosity. I took my place behind them. I closed my eyes and listened to the fikki’s powerful singsong rise and fall.

  ‘Seek refuge with the Lord of Mankind

  The ruler of Mankind, the God of Mankind

  From the mischief of the evil Whisperer

  Who whispers in the bosom of Mankind

  Among the Djinn and among Men.’

  In the pauses I could hear Lamia and Zeina gossiping in the effective but undisruptive whisper perfected over years of practice at visits of condolences.

  ‘Of course Zohra knew. Zohra always knows much more than they tell her.’

  ‘Well, it’s a mercy Gina finally died, she was suffering so much. They tried everything, you know – clinics in Switzerland, everything. It was her second husband who paid for it all.’

  ‘Really? Weren’t they divorced years ago?’

  ‘Of course, at least ten years before. But he still cared for her, I suppose, so when she fell ill –’

  ‘Didn’t I hear that she had remarried a third time?’

  ‘Yes, although very briefly, and the family has always tried to keep it quiet. You wouldn’t think Gina would fall for a man like that, a much younger man, absolutely the wrong sort. But then I suppose she must have been depressed and lonely. Anyway she soon realized that she’d made a mistake, but it was too late, she’d married him, and she couldn’t get out of it. He wouldn’t divorce her.’

  ‘I see. I suppose he had to be bought off?’

  ‘Exactly. It was done very quietly, I’m not sure how. I heard her son was involved somehow.’

  ‘That can’t be right, he would have been too young then. Twenty, twenty-one. He wouldn’t have come into his father’s trust fund yet.’

  No, I thought, the only thing Tamer would have had in his own name would have been the new car his grandmother had bought him as a graduation present. He would have sold it and pretended he had wrecked it, in order to have the cash to buy off his mother’s cad of a husband. And Tante Zohra must have guessed.

  ‘Speaking of Tamer Tobia, Hala Bindari was asking me about him just now,’ Zeina picked up the conversation as the fikki paused for breath. ‘I’m sure she was thinking he’d be a suitable match for her daughter Camelia. But she’d heard the rumors. You know, about his reputation with women.’

  ‘So what did you tell her?’

  ‘Well, Hala’s a friend of mine, so I didn’t beat about the bush. Did you hear about the Sirry girl a few years ago? She lost her head over him completely and started to make a fool of herself. I heard that old Wassif Sirry – Allah rest his soul – practically begged Tamer to marry his daughter! So I warned Hala, but I don’t know, he’s quite a catch –’

  ‘In any case once a man has a reputation like that, deserved or not, just being associated with him is compromising enough. Why –’

  ‘Shhh!’ Zeina hissed suddenly.

  ‘Hmm? Oh.’ Lamia El-Salem darted a glance over her shoulder at me then turned around quickly. I realized that Zeina had remembered my presence and silenced her friend on the subject of Tamer.

  I sat there, digesting what I had heard. I hadn’t known that Tamer had a ‘reputation with women’, but then I had been gone so long, I wouldn’t have. When I came back it had seemed the most natural thing in the world to pick up our relationship where it left off. It never occurred to me that being seen with him might set tongues wagging. I had forgotten the relentless, insidious gossip, that hydra-headed monster which the old crones used to keep their society in check. I had forgotten the imperative it imposed of circumscribing one’s every move within the confines of ‘what would people say’. I felt cl
austrophobic, suddenly. Nothing had changed since I had been a girl. It was depressing.

  All my girlhood I had been protected from ‘men like that’. It was against that unspoken danger that I and my peers had been watched over by mothers and chaperones and been raised like little princesses by those formidable authority figures, our moustache-twirling, chain-smoking papas. Unlike less sheltered girls, we were never exposed to the risks of pitting our charms and wits in the matrimonial game against possibly unscrupulous men who did not play by the rules. From the initial encounter to the wedding trousseau, every detail was discreetly arranged and orchestrated so that we were spared the faintest blush or the slightest taint of unseemly strife.

  But the tone of the gossiping women reminded me that the old double standard still held. Whatever a man did, after all, was in his nature, rather like a domesticated wolf could be understood, if not excused, for preying on the chicken in the coop. For the chicken, however, or the farmer who left the coop unlocked, there was no sympathy. The same antediluvian dynamics still held sway.

  The Tamer I had glimpsed through the eyes of the gossip-mongers was a total stranger to me. But after all I knew nothing of him as a man, as an adult. I had never asked myself what psychic scars he may have carried all these years, a boy abandoned by the mother he adored. But I had sensed his cynicism.

  Suddenly I thought of Tarek. I wondered what psychic scars he might be carrying around, a boy abandoned by his mother. I wondered what they told him about me, his father, his stepmother, his grandmother Zeina. I still had a chance to redefine my relationship with him, if only he came to stay with me. But my being seen with Tamer could jeopardize that.

  During the pause in the fikki’s recitation I got up and made the round of subdued goodbyes. I was nearly at the door when I heard a voice I didn’t recognize whisper from somewhere behind me in the salon: ‘Well, it’s a mercy Gina finally died. She suffered for such a long time. Maybe it was Allah’s way of giving her a chance to atone for her sins on earth.’