The Cairo House

by Samia Serageldin

  ‘Fill it up, please.’ I opened my bag to get ready to pay him and realized that my purse contained no Egyptian currency. ‘No, wait, stop. I’ve changed my mind, I’m in a hurry. Sorry.’

  I drove off, wondering if I shouldn’t just go back home. But I kept going. I was aware of something obsessive about my behavior, coupled with a slight, unreasonable resentment against Tamer.

  I parked a block away and walked over to his building. The doorman looked up briefly as I got into the elevator. I got off at the sixth floor and rang the doorbell of the apartment.

  Tamer opened the door and greeted me with a smile and a peck on the cheek. ‘Glad you made it. Come on in. Are you all right? You look a bit shaky.’

  I told him about the accident. ‘Tamer, I swear I thought it was Om Khalil!’

  ‘It couldn’t have been, Gigi, I heard she died years ago. It must have been someone who looked just like her. Seriously, though – you were lucky. If you had hit the woman –’ He shook his head.

  ‘I know!’ I followed him to the living room.

  ‘Sit down.’ He pointed to an armchair beside a table covered with papers and files.

  I realized the paperwork must be connected to Gina’s estate. ‘I’m so sorry about Gina.’ I brushed my hand along the scar running from his thumb to his wrist.

  ‘It’s all right. Mother left us a long time ago.’

  For a moment I was shocked. Then I realized he meant that she had been too ill to be aware of anyone for a long time, not that she had abandoned her children over twenty years ago.

  We were both quiet for a minute. Then Tamer shook himself. ‘So, all packed and ready?’ He was making an effort to sound brisk and detached, I realized, because I had made my decision to leave and only called him at the last minute.

  ‘Not packed, no, I’ll do that tonight. But other than that, I’m ready.’ I sighed.

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘What do you mean, uh-huh?’

  ‘You don’t sound very enthusiastic.’

  ‘It’s just that I wish I could take Tarek back with me now.’ It was only part of the truth; it wasn’t Tarek alone that I would miss – but I had to take my cue from Tamer’s tone. ‘Anyway, I’ve waited so long, I can wait a few more months for him to join me.’

  ‘Is it decided then?’

  ‘Not yet. But I won’t let myself believe anything other than that he’ll come. Guess where I took him this morning? Riding at the Pyramids. I asked at the stables about Haj Hassan. They said he died last year. Did you know that?’

  ‘No, it’s been years since I went riding there.’

  ‘I’m going to miss everybody so much! Everyone’s been so kind. Leila had a little farewell dinner for me last night.’

  ‘Really? She didn’t tell me. Who was there?’

  ‘Just two other couples, she kept it very low key because of the circumstances. And do you know what the Pasha did yesterday? He sent his driver over with a big dish of Om Ali, because he knows it’s my favorite. I was so touched!’ I looked out of the French doors at the view over the river. ‘It’s going to be so hard to leave.’

  The doorbell rang. A Sudanese suffragi announced the notary.

  ‘Tamer, maybe I’d better go.’

  ‘You just got here. I’ll take the guy into the study. You stay put. I’ll be done in a few minutes.’

  I made myself comfortable on the long sofa in front of the balcony overlooking the Nile. The suffragi came back. ‘Would you like tea or coffee?’

  ‘Tea please.’

  I leaned back against the kilim pillows and closed my eyes. I suddenly felt very tired. I had fallen asleep very late last night, woken up at dawn, couldn’t go back to sleep, gone riding at seven. It was now almost ten o’clock at night. The aftermath of the accident, too, was taking its toll. As soon as the man had brought the tea and left I stretched out on the sofa and closed my eyes.

  The next thing I was aware of was Tamer’s breath on my face. I opened my eyes to see him crouching beside me.

  ‘Shall I get you a blanket?’

  ‘I’ll have to leave soon.’

  ‘Doze off if you want, I’ll wake you when it’s time.’

  ‘Mmm. There’s too much light in here.’

  ‘I can take care of that.’

  He slid his arms under me, scooped me up. The motion made me dizzy and I closed my eyes tighter. He carried me across the living room and through the door.

  ‘Tamer, the suffragi!’

  ‘I sent him home.’

  I kept my eyes shut, aware of him carrying me down the corridor to the bedroom and drawing the curtains of the window with one hand. Then he set me down on the bed. ‘Dark enough?’

  I spread my arms on the slippery satin bedspread. ‘I’m so tired. I wish I didn’t have to leave tomorrow.’

  ‘Then stay.’

  Sometimes you hold your life in your hands like a kaleidoscope you look through; the slightest twist in either direction, a decision that could go either way, and the pattern of your life would be changed forever. But you never know, before you twist the lens ever so slightly one way or another, what that pattern will look like.

  The phone rang, over and over. He reached over to the console and pushed a button and it stopped.

  I drew away from him, kneeling on the bed. ‘You won’t forget me?’

  ‘I’ll try to.’

  I knew he meant it. He had been a boy who learned not to count on anyone being around forever.

  ‘Well, I won’t. Give me something to remember you by? So I can look at it, twenty-four hours from now, in New Hampshire, and think of you?’ I wished I could take some sort of talisman to remind me, in that other world of ice hockey and snow-capped steeples, that this world was just as real.

  ‘Anything you want.’

  But there was nothing, finally, that I could think of to take with me, but memories.

  The phone rang again, but only once this time before the answering machine kicked in. After his recorded greeting, there was a crackling silence, then a hang-up. I slipped away from him, and got up and went to the bathroom.

  My reflection in the mirror was flushed and tousled. I ran my hand through my hair. I looked at my watch, it was one o’clock in the morning. I suddenly felt panicky. I ran out to the living room to find my handbag and keys.

  ‘I’ve got to go.’

  ‘Wait a minute, I’ll walk you to your car.’ He was pulling on a sweater as he headed down the corridor.

  ‘No, you don’t have to. Goodbye.’ I was at the front door.

  ‘Wait a minute, can’t you wait a bloody second?’ He looked back at me, almost angry.

  I waited by the door as he went into the study to pick up his keys. My face felt naked, the lipstick smeared off, my hair tousled. Somehow our roles seemed reversed, as if I were suddenly the younger one.

  He came to me by the door and leaned his back against the wall, spreading his legs apart and sliding down so our eyes were more on a level. ‘We’ll go in a minute.’ He smoothed my hair. ‘Only you’re always running away, Gigi. From places, from people. What are you running away from this time? Me? Do you even know what you’re running to? You have to stop sometime. Stay and find out.’

  There was so much I wanted to say. That I wanted to stay. That he had been an unresolved part of my life, for so long, and that now I would leave, again, and it would never be resolved. That I was afraid to risk the past for the present, to lose the gift of memories. That we could have no future together. That I had come back too late: too late to claim what was mine or could have been. That there was no place for me here now.

  That I had no courage to start over. That I could not trust my instincts. I thought of Gina, stumbling from marriage to marriage, each mistake compounding the one that went before. I thought of Tarek. I thought of Luc, waiting for me in New Hampshire, never doubting my return. I wanted to tell Tamer that he had been right, I would go back because I had made my bed, I must lie in it.

&nbs
p; In my life, endings are marked with a whimper. I nuzzled his chest. ‘I’ll write to you.’

  The phone rang again, and suddenly I was reminded of the world outside, of the late hour. The world of watchful eyes, of Ibrahim and Om Khalil, of the women gossiping at the visit of condolences.

  ‘I’d better go. Tamer? Will you miss me?’

  He hugged me to him impulsively, without lust. ‘Yes, I will.’

  ‘Let’s go then.’ I was glad it was night when it was time to face the street.

  He walked me to my car, and we talked in ordinary voices about the accident earlier that afternoon.

  ‘Will you get back all right?’ he asked. ‘You look tired.’

  ‘I think so. I take a left at the square –’

  ‘No, you take a right at the square, then the next left at the mosque – Never mind. Just follow me. I’ll drive ahead of you till I get you on the overpass.’

  The last I saw of him was his arm pointing to the on-ramp as he veered away in the opposite direction.

  On the plane I buckle my seat belt, relieved to be done with the bleary-eyed, tedious routine of checking in and boarding. Lift-off, finally. I look down through a rare morning mist at the dusty, gray city, the gleaming serpent of the great river, and, just beyond, the desert, always the desert, lapping at the outskirts. From the air it is disconcerting to see how narrow the strip of green is, how precarious Egypt’s hold on civilization. I wonder how much longer the dervish can keep spinning, spinning and praying. I wonder if one day the Khamaseen storm troops will reclaim the city for the sand dunes. I wonder if I will ever be back.

  I close my eyes and recline in my seat. I am thrust back through the familiar passage in limbo. I can neither say that I am going home, nor coming from home. This time, though, there is a difference. This time I am aware of turning a chapter.

  The world is peopled with the walking dead. You rarely recognize them; they may stride about in perfect health and, perversely, live to be ninety. The difficulty is pinpointing the exact moment at which their life is over, years before they are buried. Rarely is that moment a cataclysmic event that others can recognize: a terrible disabling accident, the death of a loved one. More commonly it is an intensely private moment, the moment in which a person gives up hope.

  It is the moment he realizes that nothing will change in his life. There is nothing to look forward to. There is no destination; ‘here’ and ‘there’ are the same. The cards have been dealt, the game has been played, and you are out of it, however long you continue to sit at the table.

  It was over for Papa long before his heart finally gave out; I had felt him give up. I had felt it in the Pasha too, this last time. His formidable will would hold till he was laid in his mausoleum, but it was over for him years ago when he realized that history had passed him by, and that this time, it was too late to catch up. Sadat had called nim a phoenix rising trom the ashes. He had outlived Sadat by over a decade now, but the phoenix would rise no more.

  People die inside, every day, and keep up their routine with hardly a stumble or a break. Duty and obligations keep them going round and round the treadmill. So it will be for me. I will cling to the hope that Tarek will come one day, but I know the little boy I left behind is lost forever. I will write to Tamer, but time and distance will stretch between us like the desert. All we might ever have is the gift of memories.

  Turning a chapter, closing a book. So many metaphors we use for laying the past to rest. I have closed the album of photographs, but the images crowd my head; perhaps one day I will find a way to reconcile my past with my present. Perhaps Egypt, and the Cairo house, will be more real to me, in that town of snow-capped steeples and hockey rinks, than it would have been if I had stayed on in Zamalek. I will find it easier to conjure it from a distance, like Isak Dinesen writing her sun-bleached tales of Africa in the frigid gloom of her drafty Danish castle.

  I know it will be easier, now, to lie in the bed I have made. Perhaps I had never given my life abroad a fair chance, or my relationship with Luc for that matter, as long as, subconsciously, I had always held back, dreaming of going back to Egypt one day. It will be different now. If Luc is still waiting for me with his old easy-going smile, if it is all still waiting for me, that world of snow-hushed woods after a storm, I will give it a fair chance.

  This much I know. I might go back to Egypt, but I will never go home again. One day I will drive past the Cairo house, and it will be flying a foreign flag.

  Glossary

  ‘Abbaya: full-length cloak with loose sleeves worn by Saudi and Gulf Arab men over their robes.

  ‘Abeddin Palace: the King’s residence.

  Albanian dynasty: King Faruk and his predecessors descended from Mohamed Ali Pasha, an Albanian officer in the Ottoman empire who came to power in Egypt in the early 1800s.

  Allah Akbar: God is great.

  Azhar University: at one thousand years old, the oldest surviving Islamic university and one of the foremost authorities in the Muslim world.

  Bayram Feast, also known as the Greater Feast or the Feast of the Sacrifice: the most important feast of the Islamic calendar, it occurs on the tenth day of the month of pilgrimage to Mecca. In commemoration of Abraham’s sacrifice, a sheep or other beast is sacrificed and the meat partly distributed to the poor.

  Belle Hélène: Helen of Troy.

  Bey: Sir.

  C’est pas la mer à boire: it’s no big deal.

  Fellahin: peasants.

  Fresca: small honey and nut pastries.

  Granita: water ices.

  Hamdillah ‘alsalama: expression used to welcome travelers on arrival. Literally: Thank God for your safe return.

  Hanem: Lady.

  Iftar. the meal taken to break the fast at sunset during the month of Ramadan.

  Kosha: bower of flowers on a raised dais on which the bride and groom are enthroned during the wedding.

  Mabruk: congratulations.

  Mahr: dowry the groom gives the bride.

  Mihrem: a close male relative, such as a husband, brother or son, acting as a woman’s chaperone in order for her to be able to travel to Saudi Arabia.

  Minadi: parking attendant.

  Muezzin: mosque attendant who calls for prayer five times a day from the top of the minaret.

  Om Ali: baked pudding made with pastry, cream, raisins and nuts.

  Pasha: Ottoman title for a man of high rank. Bestowed on certain notables in Egypt until 1952, when the revolutionary regime abolished all titles.

  Ritza: sea urchins.

  Roman à l’eau de rose: fluffy romance novel.

  Sainte Nitouche: goody-goody.

  Salamlek: the section of a traditional Muslim household where men who were strangers to the family could visit. In contrast, the haramlek was the quarters reserved for the family. In the Cairo House, the term salamlek was loosely used to refer to the bachelor brothers’ quarters.

  Sitt: Lady, Miss.

  Sohour: a meal taken between midnight and dawn during the month of Ramadan, when Muslims fast from sunup to sundown.

  Suffragi: butler or waiter.

  Tarbouche: a red, felt, fez-like head covering worn by urban Egyptians before 1952, in contrast to the hats worn by Europeans or the turbans worn by rural or traditional folk. The revolution of 1952 banned the wearing of the tarbouche as a cultural and class symbol.

  Wahabi, also known as Salafi: fundamentalist, puritanical Islamic movement that spread over Arabia from the eighteenth century.

  Zaffa: procession of the bride and groom, followed by a retinue bearing candles, and preceded by musicians and belly dancers.

  Zaghruta: a ululating trill of rejoicing.

  P.S.

  Ideas, interviews & features

  About the author

  Seeing with Bifocal Vision

  What inspired you to become a writer?

  You know, the Chinese use the expression ‘May you live in interesting times’ as a curse, but for a writer it can be a bl
essing in disguise. I grew up in Egypt under a revolutionary regime at a time of great political and social upheaval; none were more affected than politically prominent, landowning families like my own. But my memories of early childhood are those of a happily hybrid culture: Egyptian cuisine and French governesses; English schools and Nubian doorkeepers; celebrating the Muslim Feast of the Sacrifice and licking Italian ices on the beach in a swimsuit. Then one day, in the early sixties, this world came to an end. The Nasser regime’s sequestration decrees designated certain families as ‘enemies of the people’; the men were whisked away to a camp for political prisoners; everything we owned was confiscated. The pall of the police state descended upon us. The thousand eyes and ears of the Mukhabarat, the intelligence service, were everywhere; even in the privacy of our own bedrooms, between parent and child, we whispered.

  At the age of twenty I married and left for London to study at university. Around that time, under a new president, Sadat, there was another great reversal, an abrupt about-face toward the West. There were brief expectations of political and economic reform, but the situation deteriorated rapidly until it ended with his assassination ten years later and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism. I left Egypt for good then and emigrated to the States where I have lived for over twenty years now. But there is a saying: he who has drunk of the waters of the Nile will always return. Every time I went back to Egypt to visit my family I saw such far-reaching changes sweeping the country that it seemed to me the world I once knew would soon be gone. And that was the original impetus to set it all down on paper. Ear from being an exercise in ‘recollections in tranquillity’, as Wordsworth put it, writing turned out to be a very personal and soul-searching effort to reconcile my own present with my past.