by Rasha Adly
Sheikh al-Bakri mounted his horse and Zeinab a mule, while Rostom dragged his feet weakly in their wake—Rostom, who used to run like the wind—his sack of clothes in hand. His tears flowed more copiously with every step he took away from the house, toward an unknown fate with this man who killed and slaughtered without compassion or mercy.
They turned toward Ezbekiya and crossed the bridge leading to Harat al-Ifrinj, the Alley of the Franks. On the way, they saw the Mamluk palaces and mansions that the French had appropriated for themselves, plundering their precious booty. Here the Mamluks had lived; here was the house where Rostom had lived with Ibrahim Bey, one of the most famous Mamluks, the center of attention in every street and marketplace. No sooner did he set foot outside than everyone would start to stare at his opulent clothing, his horse adorned with silk and gold. His spacious mansion had been transformed into a restaurant for the French, a sign on the door saying, “All French dishes are prepared by a French chef.” He peered inside to see the tables and chairs laid out in the garden with peerless elegance—an elegance unknown in Egypt at that time, where people ate with their hands, dipped their fingers in dishes, chewed loudly, and were not ashamed to release the occasional loud belch.
They stopped at the place where Napoleon lived, by the lake Berkat al-Rathle. Guards in military uniform surrounded the palace on all sides, wearing feathered hats, weapons hanging at their sides. They looked incongruous, as though they had been placed in this location by mistake. Sheikh al-Bakri received permission from the guards to enter. They told him to leave the horse and mule outside, which he did, and they entered on foot.
They walked through the gates into a spacious garden filled with flowers whose perfume wafted everywhere. In the center was a mosaic fountain inlaid with Damascene tiles. The instant Zeinab and Rostom stepped into the garden, they trembled, and their heartbeats sped up with fear and trepidation. Neither knew what fate awaited them within the palace walls.
The place was labyrinthine: rooms within rooms, corridors leading onto corridors, entrance halls that were alternately broad and narrow. The floors were smooth marble and the windows were inlaid glass. In the central atrium, soft seats had been placed all around to receive guests, while in one corner was the large conference room where Bonaparte held his meetings.
The palace was bustling with activity, busy as a hive of bees, filled with soldiers coming and going in shiny black boots, footfalls loud where they trod on wooden floors. Her father perched on the edge of the couch, while she stood at his side like a frightened squirrel, Rostom behind them. They were not the only people awaiting an audience with the great man; a great many Azharite imams and religious scholars were lined up in rows, some barely concealing their resentment and hatred behind the mask of a false smile. Their eyes raked over her, one question evidently in their minds: What brings her here? She looked at the floor and shuffled behind her father’s bulk.
A loud noise burst through the atrium, and Napoleon strode in, flanked by his officers. He greeted everyone in French, whereupon some of those present remained silent and others tripped over their own tongues. Catching himself, Bonaparte made a visible effort to recall the few words of Arabic he had memorized and, in a French accent, said, “al-Salam alaykum wa rahmat Allah wa barakatu,” peace be upon you, and the Lord’s mercy and His blessing. Zeinab could hardly keep herself from laughing, and she could not suppress a small giggle.
Bonaparte went to her, took her by the chin and raised her face to his. The murmurings of the men grew loud and resentful as if to say, “Have some decency! You have an audience!” Bonaparte’s eyes then fell upon Rostom.
“This is the boy I told you about,” said Sheikh al-Bakri.
Napoleon nodded without speaking. He spoke softly to one of his guards, then turned and headed for the conference room, the assembled crowd following him. Zeinab was so confused she had no idea what to do, so she followed them with hesitant steps. When she tried to enter the conference room, the guard to whom Napoleon had spoken barred her way and told her to wait outside.
The guard disappeared for a moment down the corridors of the great palace, then reappeared in the company of a Frenchwoman. Her face betrayed nothing of her age. She appeared serious and stern, looking Zeinab up and down from head to toe. Then she let loose a torrent of incomprehensible French, as though something had irked her. Zeinab had no idea why the woman was speaking, but a look at her face was enough to tell that she was displeased. With a haughty gesture, the Frenchwoman motioned to Zeinab to follow her.
Zeinab followed the woman down a set of marble stairs that led to a long corridor, to the right and left of which were closed doors, rooms concealing their secrets. The woman took her into one of these: inside were several sewing machines and long tables with sewing equipment on them: scissors, needles and thread, fabrics of every type and description, and a boxful of the feathers used to decorate the soldiers’ hats. If one fell off, Zeinab thought, they would have no trouble finding a replacement.
Zeinab stood before the woman, who took her measurements without saying a word. Zeinab loved to joke and laugh, and she knew that if she had been at her own seamstress’ place, she would have filled the room with giggles and good-natured fun. But with this woman, it was different. She finished taking her measurements and commanded her to go. The guard was still waiting for her. All Zeinab could think about was the clothes the woman would make for her. Would she make them like the ones worn by the French women, the long, puffy dresses that made them seem as if they were floating? Could her dream really be this close to coming true? She had only recently been wishing to be rid of this hateful gallabiya she was draped in, and wear a dress like theirs!
The French soldier marched on, and she followed him to what fate she knew not. What was Bonaparte preparing her for? The guard led her into a room with bookshelves lining the length and breadth of the walls, laden with Arabic and French books and magazines. The air smelled of books and burnt pig-tallow candles. Several Frenchmen were sitting at a large reading table, half-hidden behind stacks of books. In a corner was a desk with an elderly man sitting at it. He appeared to be a man of great knowledge, dressed in the French style, what was left of his white hair tied back in a ponytail. He appeared both serious and kindly. The guard launched into a long conversation with him, and when he finished speaking, the man looked long and hard at Zeinab. Then he smiled. “Welcome,” he greeted her in Arabic.
“Thank you,” she replied.
He motioned her to a seat. “What is your name?”
“Zeinab.”
“Do you know any French words?”
“No.”
“Right. You’re here because General Bonaparte has asked me to teach you French, at least a few words, so that you can speak with him.”
Her jaw dropped. “So you can speak with him”? She repeated the phrase over and over in her head, asking herself, Am I going to speak with him?
The kindly old gentleman seemed to notice that the girl was perturbed, and smiled to calm her down. “Don’t be afraid. French is simple and easy. You’ll like it. Now, come on, we’ll start our first lesson.”
Meanwhile, Rostom was still waiting outside the conference room, bundle in hand, just as the guard had told him to. Everyone who came and went stared at him, for his incongruous clothing, the sack in his hand, and the place he was standing in were all conspicuous and piqued their curiosity. Hours later, when the meeting was over and everyone had left, Napoleon sent for a guard to bring Rostom in. He was still standing in place, not having moved an inch.
Rostom stepped into the conference room, finding the great man standing at his desk with Sheikh al-Bakri. Napoleon examined Rostom carefully, then asked, “What’s your name?”
“Rostom.”
“Where are you from, Rostom?”
“I’m from Georgia. I was kidnapped as a child from my family, and sold and resold several times, until I wound up in Egypt.”
“Are you an adept fighter and h
orseman, Rostom?”
“I am a Mamluk of the class that is trained in the arts of battle. You are aware that ordinary Egyptians are not permitted to bear arms, but I am. My specialty is mounted combat.”
Napoleon went to a closet and took out a magnificent sword with a diamond-studded hilt, and two pistols with worked gold handles. “From now on, you shall be my personal slave and my loyal guard.”
Rostom nodded without speaking: his trepidation had swallowed up his words. Sheikh al-Bakri rose and patted him on the shoulder. “I hope you won’t let me down,” he said.
That was their first meeting, Napoleon with his low, soft voice and perpetually furrowed brow, and Rostom with all the questions he kept locked inside as to the mysterious fate that had propelled him through time from place to place, to finally bring him face to face with the most powerful man in the world—to be given a diamond-studded sword the like of which he had never imagined to own in all his life, and what was more, to be his personal guard and protector.
Napoleon left his tent, and Rostom exited to be initiated into his new profession by a guard, while Sheikh al-Bakri sat in the atrium waiting for his daughter, swallowed up somewhere, he did not know where, in this wonderful palace.
More than three hours passed with Zeinab in the company of the elderly gentleman, absorbed in teaching her French. He wrote out the letters of the alphabet and read them to her, asking her to repeat after him; he had her copy out each letter; then he asked her to try and pronounce his name. She was a quick study in copying the letters, although it took her a long time to learn how to hold the quill and dip it into the inkwell, then use it to write. The strange thing was that, although she was usually by no means patient, the hours did not drag on her and she felt no tedium; on the contrary, she felt full of enthusiasm. Her eyes shone with an unusual light, and her smile broadened whenever he said to her, “Bravo!”
Finally, the man folded up the papers and held them out to her, together with the quill and the inkwell, and asked her to memorize them like her own name. “I’ll expect you in three days, same time, same place.”
She thanked him and walked out of the library, weighed down under her pride. She was on her way to being special, and the knowledge filled her with delight. The guard, who had been waiting outside the library, took her back to the atrium, where her father waited. She looked around, searching for the emperor, but he was nowhere to be found.
On their way out, Sheikh al-Bakri asked her what had taken place while she had been away, and she told him everything that had transpired. He smiled, then said something under his breath that she couldn’t make out. “Do you know,” he said, “that the man teaching you French was Venture de Paradis, the chief translator for the French Campaign? He is Bonaparte’s personal interpreter.” He became more expansive as they walked through the garden. “He lived his life between Istanbul and Syria, then moved on to Egypt and Marrakech. He speaks Arabic, Persian, and Turkish in addition to his native language, and he was a French interpreter for a long time at the Turkish Embassy. He is an important man indeed, respected and feared by Napoleon himself.” They arrived at their mounts. “Do you know what it means for Napoleon to entrust your teaching of French to a man of such stature?”
Naturally, she knew what it meant for Monsieur Venture de Paradis himself to be teaching her French. She gave a sly smile at knowing just how taken Napoleon was with her.
That evening, the moon was bright and the weather unbearably hot. From time to time, a cool breeze blew. Zeinab’s mother asked the slave woman to set the table for dinner in the courtyard, which she did on a big brass tray upon a central table. Everyone gathered around the table, set richly with birds and meats and the duck soup that was Zeinab’s favorite. She ate with great appetite, which was unusual for her: but her unaccustomed appetite was not due only to the duck soup. The day she had had was enough to give her an appetite, not only for food, but for life. She chattered away to her family about everything that had taken place in euphoric tones bursting with joy, and they listened, enthralled. The only one who plied her with questions was her mother. “Didn’t the woman who took your measurements ask you what you wanted your new dress to look like?”
“I don’t remember hearing her voice. Perhaps she’s dumb?” Zeinab shrugged. “She was quite different from the French teacher. He never stopped talking. And he smiled at me! And he said ‘Bravo’ to me several times!”
In their bedroom, her mother sat on the edge of the bed while Sheikh al-Bakri lay on his back in bed. Suspiciously, she asked him, “What does Bonaparte want with our daughter?” She narrowed her eyes. “What is that invader preparing her for?”
“Fortune,” chuckled al-Bakri, “has smiled upon our daughter.”
“Fortune? What fortune? What ill-luck awaits us with that infidel?”
“An invader,” he mocked, “and an infidel?”
“What else should I call him?”
“I’m tired,” he said, “and not up to discussions right now. You’d best go to sleep.” And with that, he turned his back on her, and a few moments later was snoring loudly. But his wife’s rest was uneasy, plagued with suspicions and doubts, and she could not sleep a wink.
She was not the only one who couldn’t sleep that night. In the next room, Zeinab lay awake as well; but unlike her mother, she could not sleep for joy. By candlelight, she pored over her notebook, dipping the quill into the inkwell and copying out the letters. This was the language that would open closed doors to her—the doors of a new world. A world brighter and more spacious, more beautiful and more wonderful, than anything she had heard of, nor yet imagined, not even in her dreams.
*
At nine every morning, a magnificent carriage crunched over the gravel, its horses beating the ground with their hooves, cutting through the narrow alleyway and raising a cloud of dust in its wake that blocked all sight. It was Bonaparte’s personal carriage, driven by a special coachman, next to whom sat a French guard in a cap with a feather in it that fluttered in the wind, come to pick up a fifteen-year-old girl, a girl with braids that lay over her shoulders and a shy smile set in innocent, childlike features. From there, it took her to Bonaparte’s imperial seat, where she resumed her French lessons with Monsieur de Paradis, the kindly old man who was patient with her to an unimaginable degree. He never begrudged the time it took her to learn to pronounce the sounds and spell the words, patting her gently and kindly on the shoulder, and never tiring of repeating the words over and over again. She could not remember a single time he lost his patience with her.
One day, when her lesson was over, the guard took her, not to the carriage as he did every time, but commanded her to follow him to the room where the seamstresses worked. Could her dreams be coming true? It was all she could think as the seamstress turned her this way and that, adjusting the cut and drape of the dresses over her slim figure, for the design of the gowns seemed to resemble those she had seen on the women at the ball Napoleon had hosted a few weeks ago, the one she had watched from behind the meshrabiyeh, wishing so desperately to be like them, to wear what they wore, and speak their foreign language.
The seamstress folded the dresses and placed them into boxes, then gave them to Zeinab. She looked at her, and for the first time, Zeinab heard her voice. It was dry and hoarse, like the touch of an autumn leaf. “There are accessories to bring out the dresses,” she said, and spent some moments demonstrating how to wear corsets and heels. Then she gestured to the traditional Egyptian crescent-shaped gold necklace at Zeinab’s throat. With some haughtiness, she went on, “This type of jewelry does not suit them. Also, these braids have to go. Please, don’t spoil what I’ve worked so hard to create.” Then she straightened. “The next time you come to the palace, you must wear these clothes.” Then she left Zeinab and disappeared into the bowels of the dressmaking workshop.
Zeinab shook her head: would it kill the woman to smile? Still, she staggered out of the room under a pile of boxes, helped with her burden
s by the guard who supervised her while within the palace. They arrived at the carriage that was waiting for her outside, and he placed the boxes into it. They set off for home.
The boxes did not contain dresses only, but the other necessities of smart attire, without which the look would be ruined, as the stick-dry woman had said. There were high-heeled shoes, big hats of different shapes and sizes and colors, and most importantly, the wire crinoline that must be worn under the skirts to give them their shape. Zeinab ran and jumped for joy like a little girl, opening each package, putting on the hats each in turn, wrapping each dress around herself and swaying to the left and right, putting on and taking off the gloves—but she stopped at the high-heeled shoes, looking at them with fear and awe. She had no idea how she could walk in them. She avoided even the high clogs in public bathhouses, made of a broad, high platform of wood to keep women from slipping and falling. How would she manage these thin, too-high heels?
Her father could not wipe the sly smile off his face, while her brothers looked on in astonished curiosity. Only her mother, preoccupied and upset, retreated into a corner of the courtyard. Eager to show off her new dress, Zeinab ran to her. “What do you think, Mother? What do you think?”
“Of what?” her mother said dolefully. “Where do you think you can go, dressed like that?”
Zeinab wasn’t listening. The sound of her happiness drowned out her mother’s sorrow. But the next morning, the answer to her mother’s question became apparent.