by Rasha Adly
We were forced to march over burning sands under the broiling sun, in addition to the privations of lack of food and water. Many soldiers despaired and fell ill, unable to bear it; suicide took several forms, and appeared to spread like a contagion. Many shot themselves. I saw with my own eyes two brothers taking hold of one another and casting themselves into the Nile. Everyone wished their suffering to end. Death, to them, was more merciful than fulfilling the orders of a mad general. One night, exhausted by heat and relentless fatigue, we threw ourselves down upon our packs, but no sooner had we fallen into sleep than we heard the familiar call, “To arms! To arms!” It was a massacre, a battle between us and the Mamluks. It ended quickly in our favor. Then we went on to Wardan, a region filled with watermelon patches, to which I owe my life along with the Nile, indeed, my life and that of the soldiers. This beautiful, moist, and delicious fruit quenched our thirst and made up for the weakness and frailty that had afflicted us. We not only ate our fill of it, but threw it at each other like cannonballs, laughing hysterically, for we had been close to death or insanity, and if not for this fruit, so like a ball, we would have perished for certain and been only bodies dead upon the road.
I sat upon a high rock, carving a piece of wood with a knife in the shape of an exhausted soldier. The news spread that the general had arrived to inspect the troops. I glimpsed him from afar, walking among the ranks of the exhausted soldiers overcome with despair. He could see it as well, and realized that he would not be able to accomplish his goal with things as they were. He walked among their ranks, speaking to them and conversing with each in turn, encouraging them with phrases such as, “Just a few more days and you shall find much of everything in the capital of Egypt! White bread, tender meats, and fine wines!” Napoleon’s words worked like magic on the poor soldiers: no sooner had he spoken than they were filled with renewed life. I cannot overstate his confidence, and the ease with which he infused it into those around him. His boundless enthusiasm was infectious and impossible to escape, especially in these hard times: we were like drowning men clutching at any life raft.
18
Through the windowpane, she watched the rain, listening to the weather report on the radio. “Autumn has arrived,” the newscaster proclaimed, “with scattered rainfall and chilly winds throughout the country.”
She dressed and picked up her bag, bulging with papers. She said good morning to her grandmother, who was sitting in the hall wrapped in a woolen shawl, lips trembling as Fatima fed her yogurt. Watching the scene, she thought miserably of what makes a person what they are, and the stages of life. From a child being fed by its mother to a mother feeding her children to an old person being fed by their children, it was a continual cycle in which everyone played the same parts. The pathways of our life diverge and separate into passageways, but in the end we meet on the same road.
The ringing of her phone brought her out of her melancholic reverie, so like the autumnal weather today. His smile on her screen made her life cheerful once again. Of course she knew why he was calling so early in the morning: he was usually grumpy in the mornings and usually preferred to avoid talking to anyone right after waking up. He most probably wanted to apologize. She slyly let the phone ring and did not answer.
The window of her office on the ground floor overlooked the college garden. She had always hated offices with locked doors and windows, hermetically sealed away from everything that went on outside. For that reason, she was always careful to open the window and look out onto the world: the congregations and movements of the students, their liveliness and laughter, all of this inspired her and renewed her zest for life.
A knock on her window jolted her out of the grading she was engrossed in. She looked up and saw him waving to her from behind the glass. He traced out her name in the dust on the part of the window untouched by the rain and then, under it, “Miss You.” Then he disappeared. She was filled with joy, and it made her confused. She fumbled for her hand mirror in her bag and glanced into it to make sure she looked all right. She put on some lipstick and perfume, and not a moment too soon, for in seconds he was standing there, handsome in a linen jacket the color of the sea and a white shirt with a button open, over which some of his chest hair pushed, like grass climbing the fences of his walled garden. She glimpsed that he was hiding a bouquet of lilies, which she loved, behind his back. “Thank you,” she said with a smile when he gave them to her, found a vase, and started to arrange them. “Shall I order you some coffee?”
“It’s two-thirty, which means it’s lunchtime, not time for coffee. Let’s eat.”
“But . . .”
“But what? Let’s not waste time. I only have two hours before I need to go to a meeting that will go on for several hours.”
He took her by the hand and they walked side by side out of the college under the students’ curious stares. They took his black luxury car and, with a fleeting glance at the man next to her, smartly dressed and elegant, she said, “I can’t believe that the man sitting next to me is the same man who wears a skirt and headdress and spins around and around.”
“That’s when I shed my skin,” he quirked a smile, “like a reptile. I take off these clothes and with them everything they represent, everything they are connected to. The Pierre Cardin and Rolex and Mercedes-Benz you see are only for appearance’s sake, a social thing. I am only really me when I take off all this and find myself in that simple skirt: nothing is wider or more welcoming.”
“But all these brands and this bling are the opposite of the simplicity you were talking about.”
“Unfortunately,” he said, “in this town, people judge you by appearances, and calculate your worth by these ‘things.’ If I had this position in Europe, I could have biked to work. Besides, simple doesn’t mean tasteless. Or do you want me to live like a wandering dervish?” he chuckled. “In any case, it’s not about what we wear, but what’s in here.” He placed a hand over his heart.
She was completely convinced. At her favorite restaurant on the Nile, the waiter gave them a corner table for two, with a white lace-edged tablecloth, a lit candle, and a bud vase with a single red rose. Moments passed in companionable silence, each of them looking at the view around them. The mood music was dreamy. Both of them felt at peace and a sense of calm stole over them in the cool breeze springing up from the river. More quietly, he apologized for what had happened the night before.
“I should be the one apologizing,” she said. “I lost track of time completely. I had no clue that it was any time even close to three o’clock.”
“What’s the name of the site?” he said, unfolding his iPad. In a few minutes, he had opened her an account, allowing her to see the paintings behind the paywall. “But why this artist in particular?” he asked. “What’s so special about him? Do you really think he’s the one who painted that portrait?”
“I couldn’t swear to it,” she said, “but I definitely suspect it. My gut tells me it’s him.”
“How so?”
“Every artist has their own style,” she explained, “like a fingerprint. Like your voice, or mine. You can recognize a person singing from the sound of their voice, and it’s the same with painting, or sculpture. You can recognize an artist by their brushstrokes and style.”
“It needs a lot of experience.”
“Experience, and instinct, too,” she explained. “You get it from years working in the field. This artist’s style is the same as the one who painted the portrait. I get the same feelings and emotions from his work. The most important thing is what I call the artist’s spirit, something that comes out of them and fills the painting. It’s what makes each artwork different.” She went on, “Some artists have the ability to put themselves into their work, and that makes it always feel like it’s full of some sort of life.”
Their waiter arrived with a smile. They had been so engrossed in conversation that they had not even thought to look at the menu. He quickly ordered a veal piccata with vegetables a
nd she ordered an escalope: there was hardly any need to look at the menu, it had all the usual things.
“That man came to Egypt with Napoleon’s campaign,” she said, “and the dates of the paintings of his I found fit this theory.”
“Is there any information on his visit to Egypt?”
“I’m trying to get more information on the paintings I found,” she told him, “a painting of the mule market in Cairo, but I haven’t found anything yet. Still,” she mused, “the painting itself is enough. It was of two French soldiers getting on a pair of mules. They wore the French Campaign’s uniform.” She reached for his iPad. “I just remembered something.”
The waiter arrived with their orders and put them on the table, but she didn’t notice. The delicious aroma of the food went ignored. He tapped the edge of his fork against his plate. “Could you possibly see your way to leaving your research long enough to eat something?” he smiled.
“Of course.” She smiled back and set the device aside.
“Do you know,” he said, “I only have a good appetite when we’re together?”
“Me too.”
His phone rang and he put it on speaker. A mellifluous feminine voice came through. “Hi, how are you doing?”
“I’m good, and you?”
“I’m good as long as you’re good.”
He smiled. “Where are you now?”
“On my way to the office. I thought I’d come early so we could have a coffee and talk.”
“I’m sorry, I’m having lunch out.”
“I’ll expect you then. Bye.”
She watched him speak, trying to read in his face any feelings that would betray the nature of his relationship with this girl, but he put on a smooth smile that revealed nothing. He was clearly expecting her to ask him who the woman was, but she didn’t. He answered the question she was thinking, but didn’t ask. “Nirmine is a student in her final year of architecture school. She’s doing her graduation project and needed some help. A relative of hers, a good friend of mine, asked me to help her.”
“She seems very invested in her . . . project.”
“Yes.”
“Sometimes,” she said, “I get students who are . . . enthusiastic about me, but it’s just a crush. That’s why I always advise them, and try to be kind to them.”
He understood what she was getting at and said with a sly smile, “Usually we don’t like a woman to be older or more experienced than a man, but it’s different when it’s the man who’s older.”
She averted her eyes, not wanting him to see that she was jealous, so she pretended to be engrossed in her food. They remained silent all the way back. He was thinking: did she have any right to be jealous, she who had once come to tell him straight out that there was another man? She was wondering: could he really be starting to fall for this girl? And if he did care for her, then why was he with her, Yasmine, now?
They arrived at her car. “See you later. Take care of yourself,” he said with a smile. He watched her go in the rearview mirror. Her body was full and curvy, her buttocks high and round. Her intelligence and success only made her more attractive, a beauty in every sense of the word. She was the last person in the world he wanted to hurt, even peripherally. He loved her to his dying breath, and she remained within him. He would not deny that the young Nirmine piqued his interest, but it had nothing to do with love: his attraction to her was based on her enthusiasm for the work and her passion for life. Only Yasmine owned his heart, leaving no space, however small, for anyone else to take her place.
From the first day he had seen her, his feelings for her had not changed. When she had come to him that day, swaying confidently as she walked with the air of one who knows her own worth, tall and graceful, captivating in every sense, enveloped in a warm, mysterious perfume, he had been confused and flustered, which in itself had been exciting, alluring. He rarely felt that way toward any woman. A woman like this, natural in every sense of the word, was different from every other woman he had known in his previous life. She was frank and truthful, with no trace of pretension, her allure lying in her childlike simplicity. When they talked, she tilted her head back to toss a persistent lock of hair back that had a habit of falling into her face. He remembered wishing back then that he could reach out and push it away himself. It was a shock to him that he fell for her in this way.
Cairo: July 1798
Finally, we came to Cairo and the soldiers saw the great city on the banks of the Nile. They rushed to the water, desperate with thirst. We had known that the enemy held the keys to the Nile, and was lying in wait for us on either side: but thirst, heat, and exhaustion made us mad. No sooner did the enemy glimpse the soldiers drinking, bathing, swimming, and splashing themselves with water, than they beat the drums of war. They beat the drums seven times: the city itself seemed to vibrate and our hearts trembled along with it in fear.
Suddenly, the Egyptian people all seemed to have turned into soldiers defending their land, all unskilled in the arts of war as they were. The pashas had saddled their steeds and rode in on them; the tradesmen bore arms; the gardeners, bakers, painters, carpenters, tanners, grocers, builders, teachers, salesmen all, all, came out to fight. We found ourselves face to face with a mass of humanity of every stripe and color, their cries filling the place. The sunlight reflecting off the Mamluks’ weaponry and clothing blinded us. Everyone attacked us, calling out “Allahu akbar!” which means “Glory to God!”
A mounted division galloped toward us, and their leader, Murad Bey, attacked us, followed by his men. But our eagle-eyed artillery division was already upon them, and they fell with the first salvo. Many of them ran away, while others fell wounded. After a long and fierce battle that went on for hours and where many were killed and those who were not remained at death’s door, General Bonaparte asked them to surrender and told them that they would be treated as prisoners of war: in other words, their lives would be spared and they would be treated with dignity. But they refused, and kept fighting.
I was close to the battle, with no choice but to watch helplessly. I was horrified by the sheer loss of life in what seemed like the blink of an eye. The battle finally over, it left behind decapitated heads, severed arms and legs, and a stench of gunpowder that stopped the noses of thousands, a cloud of black smoke belching up toward the sky and obscuring the eye of the sun.
The ground was littered with bodies, and a foul stench pervaded the place. The faint moans of the wounded filled the air, and owls hooted mournfully. Wherever you turned your eyes, you could see a horse tottering without a rider or a piece of wood burning. I was asked to draw the battle: I was certain that no matter how I tried, I would never be able to capture its thunderous roar or depict the scale of the destruction.
The battle had raged close to the Pyramids of Giza, next to which we stood like dwarves, asking ourselves, ‘Will we be able to vanquish the descendants of the geniuses who built these towering monuments?’ Our battle was not, in point of fact, with the descendants of the pharaohs, but with the alien invaders, the Mamluks. Still, the entire Egyptian populace, of every sect and division, came out to assist them. Everyone fought bravely to the best of their abilities, all untrained for war as they were. We crossed the Nile and arrived at the opposite bank after more hours of battle with the enemy, who was concentrated on the other side to defend Cairo. After some resistance, we entered Cairo, taking it and doing away with the rule of the Mamluks. When we came in, Napoleon, as was his habit, gave a speech to reassure the people of Egypt: but was the scene we had just left in our wake any cause for reassurance? Who could have possibly trusted him or believed him?
He stood upon a high hill, which made him appear small, and tried to combine harshness and leniency in his tones. “Let everyone who fears be calm. Let everyone who has left their homes return there. I have only come to free you from the line of the Mamluks. Hold your prayers as usual. Fear not for your homes, moneys, and women. Fear not for your religion,” he said, “for wh
ich I have the greatest affection and respect.”
Several people from the town gathered around him, and their voices rose in yells of both support and rejection. Those who had benefited from the Mamluks and their running of the country would have stood to gain from their continued rule, so they cried out in dissent, whereas those who hated the Mamluks cried out in welcome of Napoleon and his soldiers; there was a third class, one that had no power and held no sway, and all they wanted was to live in peace, to eat, drink, and sleep in safety. Despite the humiliations they endured under the rule of the Mamluks, they had been more merciful, or so they thought, than the cruel invader Napoleon. This third class constituted the vast majority of the populace.
The foreign community welcomed us: to them, we were saviors from the abuses of the ignorant Mamluk soldiers. At last, they could expect to be treated with humanity, after living under a list of prohibitions and regulations that seemed endless. Many of these joined the army, and some offered their services to the Campaign. To bear the title “a man of the Campaign,” one had to perform many services, not least among which were spying and bringing news to Napoleon in exchange for full protection.
We despaired when we entered Cairo. Contrary to our expectations, the streets were narrow, the roadways unpaved, and lighting at night nonexistent. Refuse and waste piled up in every corner, and most of the houses were mere dismal huts. When they collapsed, their inhabitants did not trouble themselves to rebuild them, merely building new ones in another location, and leaving the ruins of the old one to lie where they had fallen.
Wherever I walked, you could see the miseries of poverty and the opulence of wealth. It was enough to walk through the places the Mamluks had built for themselves by the Ezbekiya Lake, the opulent palatial mansions, and actual palaces with their walled gardens loud with the screeching of peacocks and the gobbling of turkeys. It was enough for a Mamluk to walk next to a common man in the street to see the injustice in the country by means of a speedy comparison between the two.