by Rasha Adly
“Please, Yasmine. It’s been a long time. You’re old enough to understand now. Just give me a chance to speak with you, and then make your decision.”
She didn’t know what to say. She felt a strong resistance to meeting him; still, some shred of nostalgia told her to say yes.
“Please.”
Hearing the entreaty, the pleading in his voice, she gave in. “Okay. Tomorrow at eight at Café du Monde.”
His delight was clear and his voice was transformed now he had what he wanted. “Thank you! I’ll be there early.”
She ended the call and lay down on the bed. Picking up the receiver had lifted the lid on every memory she had tried to keep suppressed.
She had always had a special relationship with her father. She had adored him and he had always spoiled her. She remembered how her little hand used to disappear completely inside his big one as they walked from place to place. He took her to museums and libraries and, during school holidays, planned trips for them to historical sites. He was deeply cultured and widely read, and she was not too young for him to supply her with culture and knowledge. She was a little girl with long braids and big questions, always greedy for information: thanks to his large library, she had become a bookworm at a very young age. She never tired of being with him and listening to his conversation and anecdotes. To her, he was as deep as the sea: she imagined that however much she took, the source would never dry up. He was never just a father to her: he was the lighthouse that lit up her life. To her, he had been a god who could do no wrong, a man above suspicion, above sin. Then suddenly, without warning, it had all been scattered to the winds. Her idol crumbled like the sandcastles they had built by the seaside, washed away by the waves without a trace. She had been doubly betrayed by him, doubly bereft.
She needed to close the door of memory and get ready to go to dinner with her old colleagues. She found them already waiting for her at a café on the Champs-Élysées, at the same table where they used to sit when she had been a student in this city. At this café, built some three hundred years ago, everything retained its original form: even the customers seemed to be part of it. Only the electronic devices in the hands of the patrons betrayed the old-world charm.
Her friends greeted her with warm hugs, arriving one after the other. Their table filled up and long conversations started. They spoke of who had come and gone, who had gone into academia and who had pursued art as a hobby; the one thing everyone had in common was a passion for the history of art, for its tales and myths. They plunged into long discussions about the latest discoveries in the field. She knew that if she told them about the painting, they would be full of curiosity and seek to help her in any way they could: they might even take her on an expedition to find the home of the artist. But something made her clutch the secret jealously to her heart, for herself alone.
Cairo: June 1799
That morning, the sun was veiled in mist. Thick clouds soon obscured it completely. The rooftops of Cairo, now within sight, looked like a row of teeth. Whether the houses were of stone or wood, the meshrabiyehs were locked and the doors barred, the dogs hungry and the cats dead, the stench of rotting flesh filling everyone’s nostrils.
Death loomed over Cairo like a fog that would not dissipate. It permeated every nook and cranny, carried on the wind and mingling with our breath. No one left their houses. The voices of itinerant vendors crying their wares no longer rang out through the streets. The water carriers no longer came knocking every morning, and footsteps were no longer heard in the streets and alleyways. Everyone stayed where they were. Heavy curtains covered the windows of every house and thick fabric blocked the gaps under the doors. People stayed at home praying. The women had removed their finery, the men let their beards grow, and everyone abandoned luxuries and frivolities in the face of the waiting specter of death.
They said that the wind brings the disease, or the water, or perhaps it was a contagion from the food, or from prostitutes, or from the French, who never washed properly. The carts bearing corpses passed by day and night. The squeaking of the wheels over the stones of the city was enough to strike fear into one’s heart, and the carter himself was a fearsome sight. Wrapped in a caftan of rough sackcloth, he had his head covered with a cap and a black mask over his face; the only things showing were his cruel black eyes. His passage was an ill omen. If he went into some street of a morning to take a corpse or two, he would come back at night to take more than ten or twenty.
That morning, Zeinab went outside, ignoring the warnings. She wrapped herself up well and washed in vinegar and lime, then passed from street to street until she arrived at the house where Alton was staying. It had been barricaded with bolts and chains since the campaign had left for the Levant. Conflicting feelings filled her with worry and trepidation, and the silence that pressed down upon every part of the city made her even more afraid. Where was the friendly noise of the people? She nearly returned home, but at the last minute it occurred to her to drive her mule to Beit al-Alfi, the seat of Napoleon.
“Who do you want?” asked the guard.
“I wish to see Bonaparte.”
“He’s not yet back from his campaign in the Levant,” the guard told her.
“Then I wish to see Madame Pauline.”
The guard, who was used to seeing her coming and going, asked her to follow him. He left her waiting in the hall for a few moments, then gestured her over to a room at the end of the hall. “She’s waiting for you.”
Impeccably dressed and coiffed, Pauline sat at a round table surrounded by several of her friends, Frenchwomen and Egyptian wives of the aristocracy. There were glasses on the table, and a tray piled high with all kinds of fruit. The woman looked at her curiously, examining her from head to toe. The few times she had seen Zeinab, the latter had been dressed up in French finery, but today she had abandoned her smart attire, wrapped in a faded black burka and the signs of sorrow and exhaustion clear on her face, like one burdened with the weight of the world. “There you are!” said Pauline. “So this is how you really are. How could you set foot in this place looking like that? What if the general saw you looking like a beggar? You’d turn his stomach! He’d never touch you again.”
The women tittered and some laughed outright at Pauline’s mockery, but Zeinab remained still as a statue. The woman’s words didn’t hurt her and she did not care about her mockery. “I’m here to ask after a painter, Alton,” she said.
The woman’s jaw dropped. “Alton? What do you want with him? How long have you known him?”
She was taken aback by the woman’s questions coming in quick succession, and stammered, “He was doing a painting of me. I wanted to see it.”
Pauline let out a peal of laughter. “Alton, paint you?” she said, pointing at her with a manicured fingertip. “An artist who paints noblewomen and countesses and the cream of Parisian society, paint you? Who do you think you are?” She snorted. “If Napoleon has taken you to his bed, it was a dalliance to him, no more. A bit of fun. But you need to know that you mean nothing to anyone.”
Zeinab gave no answer. She turned and left, her footsteps heavier than before.
“Zeinab!” Rostom, who had seen what happened, chased after her. He caught up with her in the garden. “Wait!”
She paused. “Yes, Rostom.”
“You were asking about Alton, weren’t you?”
Her eyes shone with hope and she nodded.
“I heard that he’s being held in hospital in quarantine.”
“Hospital? What? Why? Was he wounded in the war?”
“No,” Rostom sighed, “it’s nothing to do with the war. Plague broke out among the soldiers and more than half the army died. He was infected.”
Time stopped. A veil seemed to fall over her sight. “Can you take me to him?” she whispered. “Or just tell me where he is. I want to see him.”
“You could get infected,” warned Rostom.
“I don’t care,” she begged. “Please. Tell me where he is.”
>
Rostom nodded. “I will. Come with me.”
She traveled there through a veil of her tears, which flowed incessantly. The carriage passed through narrow streets, and she looked out onto the deserted alleys and squares. Even the tree branches were bowed with grief. They rode quite a distance, through many streets and various neighborhoods, until it seemed unending. Finally, they stopped at the outskirts of the city. The guards hurried toward Napoleon’s grand carriage, imagining that some high-ranking visitor was in it, perhaps a friend of Bonaparte’s there to visit someone he knew. “Wait in the carriage a minute,” said Rostom, “while I obtain permission for you to enter.”
He spoke to the guards for a long time: Zeinab watched them from behind the curtain of the carriage. From the tones of their voices, she could tell that they were unwilling to let her in.
A great crowd was gathered outside the quarantine hospital: mothers awaiting the return of their sons, friends waiting for friends, traders waiting for their suppliers coming from abroad with goods, and envoys and translators waiting for their fellow countrymen. The wind bore snatches of conversation in every language. Everyone who had come across the sea or across the desert to the town was held in the quarantine hospital for examination. Only those not infected with the plague could pass. The sick were made to go back whence they had come, or stay in the hospital until they were cured and could pass. Since recovery from the plague was unlikely, the only place most of them passed on to was the grave.
The guard scrutinized her from head to toe, as if to ask, “Who is this girl, come in Bonaparte’s personal carriage to visit a Frenchman at death’s door?”
He asked her, “Do you not fear contagion?”
She shook her head. He led her inside and another man, a nurse, handed her a mask. She put it on, although it would not keep out the unbearable stench. A soldier motioned her over to a ward. “That’s the ward where the Campaign men are.”
The hallway was full to bursting with dying men, their groans filling the air. With difficulty, she managed to step among the men lying on the floor until she got to the ward that the guard had pointed out. She stood there, a curtain between them. Her hand trembled as she pushed it aside.
Cairo: June 1799
Suddenly, between sleep and waking, I saw her. Was she a dream, or was she real? I knew not. I saw her draw closer. She was wearing a mask, but that would not keep me from recognizing her. Her footsteps, graceful as a gazelle’s, were enough for me to know her.
I did not wish her to see me in such a state. I knew precisely how horrifying the sight of men with this affliction was, especially in the final stages of the disease. She sat close to me and whispered, “What has befallen you?” She was weeping.
“Zeinab,” I managed to croak. “Why are you here? You’ll contract the disease.”
“Please don’t leave me,” she entreated. “Please don’t go. There is no life for me without you.”
“Your life lies ahead of you, my love,” I whispered.
“What good is it without you?”
I wanted to see her, to look my fill of her, to print her image on my eyes and keep it within always; but I did not want to ask her to remove her mask, fearing for her life. As though she had heard my unspoken thoughts, she lifted it off her face.
I drank in the sight of her with the certainty of one who knows he is about to leave this world, knowing it would be the last time I laid eyes upon her. Her eyes filled with tears. If only I could have extended my hand and wiped away her tears. I wished my illness were not contagious, that I might press her close in my embrace and take my final leave of her. I had come here in the stead of another; I had come to know what love was, the love that would not have touched my heart without seeing her; I had come here to give up the ghost on this soil, as though this narrow corner of the world was where I was fated to experience life’s two greatest truths: love and death.
I took my final message out from under the pillow and held it out to her. I looked my fill of her and closed my eyes to the sight of her.
Paris: Spring 2012
At last the sun came out that day after a week of clouds, filling her with an uplifting sense of hope. But then she thought of that evening’s date, and her heart twisted, her serenity shattered.
After the conference was over, she went straight to the Musée de l’Armée. Andrea welcomed her with a polite smile, but his once-over of her was more intent this time. “What is the secret of Egyptian women?” he smiled.
She didn’t understand. “What secret?”
“The secret of your charm. Egyptian women possess an attraction that captivates even the world’s strongest men. Look at Antony and Cleopatra. He gave up his kingdom and his throne for her. And the common girl who captured the heart of Napoleon Bonaparte himself.”
“Military men,” Yasmine shot back, “often have an overabundance of sentimentality to balance out their warlike tendencies. Bonaparte is proof of that, writing love letters to his Josephine as he was planning his military campaigns.” Then she blinked. “What Egyptian girl who captured Napoleon’s heart?”
He smiled slyly, then motioned to the painting she was carrying. “Show me the painting.”
She laid it out on the table. He looked at it for a long time, then picked up the phone on his desk and asked someone to come to his office. He handed him the painting, asking the man to take both the painting of Zeinab and another painting, located in Exhibition Hall No. 4—he scrawled some instructions on a scrap of paper detailing the latter painting—to the art viewing room for testing to see if the same artist had painted them both. The employee left to carry out his orders.
Andrea moved to sit in the seat facing Yasmine’s. “May I smoke?”
Her eyes flickered to the No Smoking sign, and she made a feeble gesture toward it. “But you’ve put up a sign. . . .”
“I must confess,” said Andrea, “when it comes to smoking and women, it is hard to stay on the straight and narrow.”
“Who,” she asked again, “is the girl Napoleon loved?”
Andrea nodded slowly. “Napoleon had an affair with an Egyptian girl. We don’t know if it was love or just a passing fancy, or how far it went—if it was truly an affair or just overblown by rumors. There are no definite answers, but what is certain is that he took a fancy to a girl whose father was an Azharite imam.”
“Even though,” Yasmine interrupted, “Napoleon was deeply in love with Josephine in that period?”
“Napoleon met Josephine at a party and fell in love with her,” Andrea conceded, “and she found in him what she was looking for: power, influence, and authority; and he was sure to provide her with the social position and protection she craved. That was why she broke it off with all other men and accepted his proposal of marriage. They had such happiness together that Napoleon is said to have declared, “Vivre en Joséphine, c’est vivre au Paradis.” He spoke slowly, clearly enjoying his subject. He opened a desk drawer and took out a box of chocolates, placing it on a small table between them. He plucked out a chocolate from the box, unwrapped it slowly, and bit into it with languid pleasure. Yasmine watched, hoping he would stop eating and resume speaking. “A short while after their marriage, he settled upon a campaign in the East. Josephine wanted to come to Egypt with him, to be a queen of the Orient; she was unconvinced of Napoleon’s excuse that she was too spoiled and delicate to endure the hardships of the journey. When she saw his ship and the preparations they had made for the campaign before departure, she saw that Napoleon’s bedroom was luxurious and well-appointed. It even had a bed with special wheels to prevent him getting seasick. She laughed and said, “What hardships? Look at this place!” But for the first time, Napoleon did not weaken to her pleas and insistence; he stood firm, as he knew how dangerous the campaign would be.”
He held out the box. “Chocolate?”
“I. . . .”
“You’ll like it. It has candied chestnuts inside.”
Yasmine took one and Andr
ea went on. “Napoleon had a small library on his ship. His best friend, Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne, used to read to him all the time, mostly on the history of the Islamic world. One day, Napoleon conducted a surprise inspection of his troops, and found them reading novels and poetry. He rebuked them, saying, “This is reading for chambermaids! Men should only read history.” In the evenings, he would spend time with his generals and speak to them without shame of his love for Josephine.” Andrea chuckled. “Imagine that! A few days after they had set sail, he missed her so much that he sent a frigate to have her brought to him, but funnily enough, she had left Paris for Plombières-les-Bains, to bathe in a lake said to cure childlessness. Unfortunately, the old boarding house where she had rented a room collapsed, and she was seriously injured with several broken bones. Before this accident, Napoleon had been overcome with unease because a locket had broken that he used to keep her picture in. He supposedly cried out, feeling it was an ill omen, ‘Either something has befallen her, or she is being unfaithful!’ It turns out it was both.”
Andrea leaned forward. “One day in July 1798, Bonaparte was marching in the desert with General Jean-Andoche Junot, who told him that his wife was being unfaithful to him with a man called Hippolyte Charles. He went into hysterics, screaming and yelling, and then fell into a deep depression. He refused to see anyone. He stopped talking to the others and joining in their soirées. He had loved her madly and had been faithful to her, and thought only of her during their separation. He sat down to write long letters to her, telling her how much he loved her and missed her, while she was in the arms of another man. And since he believed in an eye for an eye, he decided to be unfaithful to her as well, so as to forget her and entertain himself and perhaps escape his depression.”
“Just like that?”
“Yes,” shrugged Andrea, “and he became preoccupied with the idea and determined to carry it out. But how? In a country like Egypt, women were not permitted to mingle with men—except for prostitutes and belly dancers in the streets and cafés, and that kind of cheap woman would never appeal to Bonaparte. When he resolved to be unfaithful to Josephine, he was determined to choose a woman who would be her equal—if not in beauty and elegance, then at least a woman of good family, not some tawdry lady of the night. He looked for a woman all over Egypt, and came up with quite a few girls, the daughters of merchants from Malta and Greece, or of ambassadors and consuls—men who would not object to their daughter being Napoleon’s mistress, and on the contrary welcomed it. It was an unrepeatable opportunity in their eyes: all their dreams would come true through their daughter’s lover!” He shrugged. “But none of those girls truly pleased him: they were too fat, too thin, too boring, too plain, or too smelly.”