by Rasha Adly
The old woman’s face filled with astonishment. “Well, do let him come in—no, wait! Do I look presentable?”
“Yes, Grandma.”
The old woman wrapped her shawl around her shoulders tightly and touched her braids to make sure they were straight. “This is Sherif, he’s an architect, Grandma.”
He bent to shake her hand: she peered at him with the unabashed curiosity of old age, scrutinizing him from head to toe. Yasmine went to the kitchen and came back with a glass of orange juice. “Here you are.”
Her grandmother looked disapproving. “Go and put on a nice dress and some makeup!”
“There’s no need.”
“But your fiancé shouldn’t see you like that!”
“My fiancé?”
They exchanged a smile while the old woman went on. “You’re over thirty! And you, young man, how old are you? You look over thirty too. What are you waiting for? In our time, folks your age had grandchildren.”
He smiled. “I’m quite happy to go ahead right now, but Yasmine is otherwise occupied. When she’s free, we can decide on a wedding date.”
“I’m taking our guest to my room,” said Yasmine, having had enough of this, “to look at the painting.”
Her grandmother didn’t look too pleased at the idea of her granddaughter taking a strange man into her room, even her future husband, but finally agreed.
Yasmine walked ahead of Sherif, heels clicking tensely on the wooden floor, down the long corridor that led to her room. “Why did you tell her that?”
“Tell her what?”
“That we were going to get married.”
“Because she wouldn’t have listened to anything else.”
Yasmine opened the door and stood facing him. “You don’t know Grandma. Starting this minute, she’ll be planning the wedding. And she’s not going to stop asking me about you, day after day after day.”
“You can just tell her anything. . . .”
“Anything like what?”
“Uh, that you found out I was a lowlife. That I dumped you and left the country. Or found another woman. Or told you it wouldn’t work out between us.”
She could see what he was getting at, so she cut off the conversation so as not to start a fight; she had quite enough going on. Standing directly opposite the painting, she gestured to it. “Here, look.”
He looked at it for a few minutes. “It’s quite unremarkable,” he said, “if you look at it like a regular viewer. One of the Orientalist paintings they left behind to show they were here. A girl, like hundreds of girls.” After a moment, he added, “Maybe a touch of something . . . in her eyes. Like a glow. Makes you feel she’s still alive and looking back at you.”
Yasmine listened to him, nodding, certain that what he said was true: there was nothing about the portrait that would strike the fancy of an ordinary viewer. Just a girl in a black gallabiya with vertical stripes, a lace scarf covering the front of her head and shoulders, braids emerging from beneath, hands folded over her midriff.
Sherif stepped closer to the painting and reached out to touch the girl’s braid. “If it wasn’t for that lock of hair,” he murmured, “I would have said you were imagining things.”
“The minute I saw that painting,” Yasmine nodded, “something told me there was a secret behind it.”
She was still gazing at the portrait, while Sherif looked around him. Her room was different from the others in the house, a thing apart: everything in it seemed to belong to a girl of fourteen. The white furniture, the patterned wallpaper, the pink curtains, the giant dolls, everything was as cheerful as she could possibly make it. Nothing about the room said ‘Art History Professor.’ Still, it was the other face of her, the child inside.
He reached out and picked up a photograph from the bedside table. It was a picture of Yasmine with her family when she was about ten years old. Next to her stood her sister Shaza, the height difference making it clear that the latter was several years older. Behind them, their parents stood, her father’s arm around their mother, both smiling. “You look a lot like your mother,” said Sherif. She said nothing, but gave him a wan smile. “Your eyes are the same, and you have the same smile.” He replaced the photograph. “You never talk about your family.”
“You know all there is to know,” she snapped. “My mother died years ago. My father left to go work abroad not long after. Shaza went to study in England and eventually found work there. Is that enough or do you want more?”
“Well . . .”
She rounded on him. “Let me tell you.” She stomped over to the picture and snatched it from him. “To see him like this,” she stabbed a finger at her father, “his arm around her like that, you’d say they were the perfect couple. To see her smiling like that, you’d say she was the happiest woman in the world. And you’d call me and Shaza lucky girls with a bright future ahead of us. That’s always what the pictures tell you.” He opened his mouth, but she plowed on. “The reality isn’t quite like the photos. That man in the photo,” she gestured violently, “made that woman kill herself. He made her slit her wrists with a razor because he cheated on her with her best friend. She died. He left. These two girls were left with nothing but grief. One of them couldn’t stand to live in this country any longer, so she packed up and left for somewhere far away where she knows nobody and nobody knows her. The other is . . . as you can see.”
He stood there, speechless. He knew that all the words in the universe could not take away her grief or console her. He felt an overpowering urge to hold her close and make it up to her, all the years of unhappiness. Taking the photograph from her hand, he gently replaced it. Then he put his arms around her. Her body was warm and fragile, her heart beating an anxious tattoo. She stayed in his arms for a while, trembling as he tried to comfort her. Then, with a quick kiss on the cheek, he left.
Cairo: August 1798
Zeinab could hardly believe it. Had she been sitting next to Bonaparte himself? The man whose very name made the strongest men quake in their boots? Had she been sitting side by side with him? Had the man himself taken her hand and closed her fingers around the gold coins he had given her? And what was more, he had asked her father to bring her with him the next day! Had that really happened, or was she dreaming?
She strutted proudly as she walked: and why not? She was the woman who had sat next to Napoleon in his seat in the royal marquee, watched by the aristocracy, the mayors of all the towns, the imams of al-Azhar, the most important merchants, the common folk, and everyone, all of them asking, “Who’s that girl sitting at Bonaparte’s side?” When she stepped into the horse-drawn cart that would take her and her father back to their street that day, the men glared at them with envious resentment, while the women gathered behind the meshrabiyehs watching the girl who had captivated the emperor. All of a sudden, for the first time, Zeinab felt that she had left her childhood behind and become a lovely young woman, capable of charming men and making them admire her. At home, her clogs beat a tattoo on the wooden floor as she repeated a poem someone had composed especially for him:
The chivalrous Bonaparte, leonine and most capable in the land
Has conquered kingdoms and his will is done with a wave of his hand.
After the afternoon prayer, she went out with some of her girlfriends. Her mother put the gold coins that Napoleon had given her into a burlap purse which she bound with strong thread and secreted inside her gallabiya, and she went shopping. Now she could shop at the stores that only sold European wares, imported and brought in on ships over the Mediterranean from Spain, France, and Greece: wool, carpets, shawls, gold watches, perfumes—the gold coins gave her the right to purchase from such stores, not only browse regretfully as she had used to.
Since Napoleon’s campaign, the stores had taken to hanging out their shingles in French, and the narrow alleys were bursting with French soldiers, some of whom enjoyed taking walks on foot, looking around at everything warily, and some of whom hurried by on th
e backs of mules, which occasionally crashed into each other. It was impossible to deny that conditions in the country had improved under the French compared to the Mamluks: the streets were clean, thanks to the first decree issued by Napoleon, that the streets were to be swept and watered down every day. The folk who used to throw their refuse and the remains of the animals and birds they slaughtered into the street were now careful to throw them away in a remote location reserved for the purpose. The brawls that used to break out every moment throughout the day were completely extinct now, thanks to the powers of the French troops in breaking up fights between ex-convicts, carters, and those who rented beasts of burden. Anyone fighting would be immediately taken off to the police station to receive a stern punishment. Suddenly, the tradesmen kept to posted prices and were careful to provide quality goods. It was a truth that could not be denied: things had changed for the better under the French.
With pride, Zeinab said to her friends, “Look around you! Can you say we’re not better off under the French than the Mamluks? It’s enough that it doesn’t stink and there aren’t piles of garbage at every street corner.” She waved a hand. “Look, everyone seems more cheerful and their clothes are cleaner.”
“Do you think it can go on? People won’t keep doing a thing if they’ve been frightened into it,” a friend replied. “It just breeds resentment. Someday, it’ll all blow up.”
Zeinab laughed mockingly. “Since when have we not been frightened into doing things? At least being afraid has actually gotten us something useful, for once. Before, all we had was ignorance and disease.”
“I don’t understand you, Zeinab! Are you really on the side of the invaders? Can’t you see how unfair and cruel the Frenchmen are to us Egyptians? Haven’t you heard of the massacres that happen every day, of them cutting off people’s heads and mounting them on pikes on the walls of the Citadel? What about the bodies in sacks that they throw into the river?”
Zeinab ignored her: she had caught sight of a shop displaying velvet and silk imported from Malta and France. Darting inside, she touched the fabrics, wrapping them around her body. “How gorgeous. I’m going to buy it.”
When she came home, laden with her purchases, a crowd of people was there: clerics, imams, instructors from kuttab Qur’an schools, and blind Qur’an reciters, all standing outside the house of Sheikh al-Bakri to complain. Apparently, they had been fired and their salaries cut off because the Ministry of Religious Endowments had been taken over by the Copts and Levantines appointed by the French. “Now what do you have to say?” asked her friend, gesturing to the throng outside the door. “Now that’s injustice if ever I saw it.”
Zeinab ignored what was happening, so thrilled was she with her purchases from the market that she had bought with the gold coins Napoleon had pressed into her small hand. Wonder of wonders! She had bought everything she had been longing for and still had money left to spare.
She kept rubbing her palm, remembering how he had touched her hand. She couldn’t sleep at night, wondering: had she really been touched by the Emperor of the East? Had the look in his eyes, which had held so many words and so much meaning, truly been for her? Was it possible that he had come to conquer Egypt so that fate might bring the two of them together? Were the distances he had traversed to reach this land and all the cities he had conquered on his way, all the battles he had planned, stepping stones to her fate to meet him, pressing gold coins into her hand, enfolding her with his smile?
She hardly noticed her mother opening the door to her room: she was soaring in the world of her fancies. “What’s come over you, Zeinab? It’s like you’re not even here.”
“What happened to me isn’t just any old thing. Bonaparte the Commander put gold coins into my hand and smiled at me. He told Father to bring me along when he goes to meet him tomorrow.” She sighed. “And then you ask what’s come over me?”
“So what?” her mother said. “Don’t let your imagination carry you to flights of fancy. Next you’ll be telling me you think he fell for you. You’re nothing but a child to him. You’re the child of the man he trusts.”
But she did not let her mother’s words quell her joy. “Poor Mother!” she murmured under her breath. “You didn’t see the way he looked at me.”
Ponderously, her mother waddled to the bed where Zeinab had piled up her purchases, and began to look them over. “Lord, what glaring colors!” she rebuked. “And this fabric’s transparent! Have you lost your mind? Zeinab, daughter of Sheikh al-Bakri, wear something like this? Do you want tongues to wag?”
“Mother!” Zeinab groaned. “Please, just for once, forget, or pretend to forget, that I’m Sheikh al-Bakri’s daughter! I’m Zeinab! I can do what I like and wear what I please!” She straightened. “Besides, people will talk no matter what you do or don’t do. Everyone loves to gossip.”
“Well, I’ll tell your father, and he’ll deal with you.”
That night, in a spacious bedroom on a brass bed, the portly body of the Sheikh’s wife tossed and turned, sleepless. The bed wobbled and squeaked. “Lord,” she groaned in disgust, “I’m drowning in a soup of sweat.” She heaved herself up and went to open the meshrabiyeh a little, hoping to let in a cool summer breeze for some relief from the stifling air of the room. A little before dawn, she heard the sound of her husband’s sandals sliding across the reed mat. She raised her head and watched as he took off his large green turban and hung it on the clothes rack, then got up to help him take off his caftan—the new one that Napoleon had given him.
“You should discipline your daughter. She’s too impulsive,” she started. “I don’t know what’s come over her, but suddenly she can’t be controlled.”
He guffawed. “Let her do what she wants,” he reassured her.
“What’s that you’re saying? How can I let her do what she wants?”
“Have some discernment,” he smiled, “don’t be thick-headed, there’s a good woman. I have something in mind. If it comes to pass. . . .” He stroked his beard, which grew down to his stomach.
“What’s that supposed to mean? What are you talking about?”
Maliha, the slave, walked in with a jug of warm salt water, and placed it at his feet. She washed them, then dried them with a towel. “When the time is right, I’ll tell you everything.”
His words only perplexed her more. She could not fathom what her husband could possibly be thinking.
The next morning, Zeinab woke early. She had only slept a little that night, preoccupied. Maliha prepared a bath for her: she placed the urn of water on the brick oven and, when the steam rose from it, scrubbed Zeinab’s body with a rough loofah made of sheep’s wool, poured water over her head, and massaged her scalp and hair with a bar of soap made from olive oil to make it smooth and silky. Then she rinsed her off with clean water and perfumed her with musk and ambergris, and finally sat braiding cloves into her hair to make it smell sweet. When she was done, she smiled at her and spat at her side three times for luck, spraying granules of salt around and saying, “Lord protect you from the Evil Eye!”
To Zeinab’s eyes, there was something odd about Maliha today: she seemed to be sad for some reason. Usually, she never stopped talking and joking, but today she had hardly said a word. “What’s wrong, Maliha?” she asked when they had finished.
“My master Sheikh al-Bakri told Rostom to pack. He’s going to make a present of him to Commander Bonaparte. He doesn’t want to go. But my master the sheikh insists on it.” Her tone turned pleading. “Could you speak to him, Miss Zeinab? He won’t say no to you.”
Does Father really want to give our Rostom to Bonaparte? Zeinab thought to herself. He has been indispensable to Father since the moment he set foot in the house—he does everything, from going to market and taking care of my brothers and doing the carpentry and plumbing work in the house and even helping with the baking, to gardening and overseeing the vegetable garden, and he guards the house at night as well. She drummed her fingers against her chin. Beside
s, he’s my father’s most trusted servant and keeps all his secrets. Could her father sacrifice all of this and present Rostom to Napoleon?
“I’ll speak to him,” Zeinab finally said. “Now let’s see what I’m going to wear.”
Zeinab stood at her closet. It was made of beech wood, designed by a carpenter from Malta, and ornately decorated, with brass handles. She wondered what to wear to such an occasion: even if it was just a routine meeting like the ones Napoleon held every day for the important men, the guild masters, and the Azharite imams, it was enough that she was to be a guest in the house of Napoleon, who had insisted that her father bring her with him.
She selected a gallabiya with vertical stripes, tight and alluring around the contours of her body. She put on her curl-toed slippers and perfumed herself. The sobs of Rostom rang out loudly as he stood in the courtyard holding his clothing in a sack and saying goodbye to everyone. Zeinab approached her father and whispered in his ear, “Can’t you leave him be?”
Angrily, he swept his caftan up over his other shoulder. “No. He’s my gift to Bonaparte, who needs him more than I do.”
“But I don’t know anyone here but you,” sobbed Rostom. “I served you with everything I had. You were my family.”
“Your star shall rise in the house of Bonaparte, believe me,” said her father. “You are a slave trained to be a professional warrior. It’s a shame for your talents to be wasted in buying vegetables from the market and watering the garden.”
It was clear that Sheikh al-Bakri had made up his mind, and Rostom could see that it was no use arguing. He had not the right to decide his own fate: his destiny had always been in the hands of others, since the long-ago day he had been loaded onto a ship to be taken to Constantinople and sold at the slave market. There, he had been bought by a rich merchant who had gifted him to a friend of his a few months later, and that man in turn had taken him to Egypt and gifted him to Ibrahim Bey, a Mamluk prince. The latter had trained him to fight in his division, teaching him the art of mounted combat, until he rose to be a formidable warrior in the Mamluk army. But fate is fickle: the winds of change arrived in the form of the French Campaign, blowing away everything in their path. The Mamluks ran away and dispersed through the cities of Egypt, and Rostom ended up with Sheikh al-Bakri, who had been friends with his owner, the prince. He had promised the latter to make Rostom his servant and faithful guardian—and Rostom was faithful and loyal in every sense of the words.