“Wy-di-mi-no!” Grandma calls, prepared to lament, but her son-in-law stops her by raising his voice, and indeed the next sentence is more encouraging: “‘But all in all, the atmosphere is cheerful and we’re happy! Except that we miss you. Come join us!’”
“You see?” Robby’s mother rebukes her mother. “No need to worry. They’re young, they’ll be all right.”
“They say that people work in construction in Palestine. Yes, even educated boys. A grandson of mine, putting his hand inside the cemento? Wy-di-mi-no!”
“Bass-ba’ah! Enough, Grandma, knock it off!” This time Robby’s father is forced to explicitly demand silence in Arabic. Grandma swallows her insult along with her tears and makes a face like a punished baby’s.
Near the end of the letter, Father reads: “‘Is it true what people here are saying, that David Hamdi-Ali is going to marry Lilly Elhadeff?’”
All goes quiet. Even in Tel Aviv, where people buy meat for food points, David Hamdi-Ali’s love life is a conversation. All eyes turn to Robby’s sister, but she just shrugs. A blush spreads across her cheeks and contradicts her indifferent expression. It’s true, she does not fancy Hamdi-Ali the son, but neither is she prepared to release him from her leash. And the idea that Lilly Elhadeff … of all people … who doesn’t even have any tits … no matter, justice will be done …
While she ponders this new discovery, trying to draft up a revised action plan, Grandma’s response already sings through the air: “I’m glad. I’m glad! You see, bovica, you fool. How long do you think he’ll wait for you? By the time you move your como-se-yama, he’ll be married to that Madame Ouevo, that egg-face.”
Robby’s sister blows out an indulgent exhale and announces that she’s going to get dressed, because she is invited to a cruise at the Nautical Club.
“With David Hamdi-Ali?” Grandma asks, all atwitter. But “Miss Anabella” feels no urge to satisfy her grandmother’s curiosity and turns to leave with a mysterious smile. Grandma nevertheless appeases the others: “It’s with him, it’s with him!”
“Why are you meddling?” Robby’s father asks her reproachfully and shakes his head. His motto, “Never interfere”—in English—goes for his sons and even his daughter. One cannot expect, of course, that Grandma also adopt this sort of inglese habit. His eyes fall on La Faute de l’Abbé Mouret, rolling around between the folds of the blanket, like a raft lost among waves. His eyes reflect a yearning for faraway worlds he’s never visited. How did the ambitions of the past sink into oblivion? How did the taste for adventure that pulsed through him in his youth become so dulled? Travels to foreign, mysterious lands, dabbling in writing… everything evaporated inside this lovely, loosening comfort. This Alexandria … this laziness … this Kudjoocome.
He looks at his youngest son, at Robby, and says nothing. Wordlessly, Robby wraps his arms around his father’s neck and kisses the cologne on his cheek.
9. ANOTHER BABA AU RHUM
“Well then, it’s true!” Robby’s sister sticks the fork in the spongy flesh of a plump baba au rhum cake with a white crest of whipped cream. Her large, light-brown eyes fix David with an accusatory gaze. He turns away from her. They’ve just returned from a cruise on a rented sailboat, and David proudly proved that he could control not only a horse’s reins, but also the ropes of a vessel, all the while maintaining a smiling energy as Robby’s sister sat in the stern, staring at him with the ridiculing smile of the Sphinx.
She always makes me feel like an idiot! David says to himself as they sit in the café of the Nautical Club. For a moment, a hint of hatred flits through his heart. If she only said yes, simply, with a delicate smile and lowered eyes, with gratitude, with modesty …
“Well then, it’s true,” she repeats. She eats her baba au rhum lustily, as if to make him jealous. He cannot eat any, on account of his strict diet. Instead he sits there, watching the whipped cream disappear between her lips.
“You know that if you only say yes … if you only give me a sign …”
“Meaning, it’s true, Lilly Elhadeff, huh? You’ve made a laughingstock out of me!” she says, pushing away her empty plate. The fork scrapes the china in protest.
“I’ll make you a queen, if you only say yes. That’s all I ask!”
“How can I say yes while Lilly Elhadeff is waiting with bridesmaids and bouquets?” she asks with a half-smile. Simultaneously, she wonders: Will this cheapskate offer me another baba au rhum?
“Just give me a sign and I’ll tell Lilly Elhadeff to go to hell!”
“You don’t tell a girl to go to hell, my dear gentleman,” Robby’s sister admonishes. “And I won’t tell you what to do, David Hamdi-Ali!”
“I’m going crazy! Because of you I can’t even focus during races. Yesterday I nearly flew off the horse …”
“Soon you’ll blame me for all your failures, huh? What do you want from me? Go marry Lilly Elhadeff. Poor guy! I pity you, mon chouchou.”
“You’re suggesting that I marry her? You’re pushing me into her arms?”
“Look, if you don’t have anything better, even Lilly Elhadeff is something. Not the brightest, but she knows how to cook, which I don’t. She isn’t exactly Cleopatra, but her father has a big store in Heliopolis. My father is only a clerk at Ford. And if she isn’t a dream girl for someone like you, at least …”
“At least she isn’t capricious!” David finishes her sentence, his patience about to run out. “What do you want? What do you want? Tell me!”
“Thanks for asking, David. I want … I want … another baba au rhum. Will you get me one, please?”
10. I’LL MAKE YOU A QUEEN
Sunday, the day the racing season commences, is to be David Hamdi-Ali’s day to shine.
All day Saturday David was seen striking any and all athletic poses that a strong, agile body can show off. In shiny white shorts and a blinding undershirt that accentuated his muscular chest, he pranced around the house, hopping and leaping and inhaling and exhaling and massaging himself, his fair eyes turned inward in introspection, as if saying, “There could be no other.”
He was so preoccupied, he hadn’t even noticed Robby’s sister as she ran to the balcony in a thin batiste dress and waved down to the Coptic lawyer, Maître Habib Ramzi, who waited downstairs in a black Citroën. David didn’t seem to even notice her about to go out with his chubby competitor, his skin the shade of café-au-lait.
“I’ll be right down,” Robby’s sister called to the lawyer, leaning against the railing. But when she returned to the hall she looked distractedly at the boy shaking his limbs every which way, the boy who could be hers if she only gave him a sign. Perhaps she recalled his declaration, made only a week before, at the casino in the San Stefano neighborhood: “I’ll make you a queen. A queen!” That’s what he repeated at the nautical club. She might have even thought at that moment, “Why not?” Perhaps she expected something to happen, for him to wave his hand, bat his lashes, show her she was more important than the Sunday race. But whether because this wasn’t the case, or because he was distracted, or maybe even due to a vengeful cockiness, this small, tender, fluttering moment was missed. Another honk from the Citroën, a stroke of sunlight from the balcony, eliminating the dimness of the hall, and the moment was gone.
Robby’s sister turned to the door, smiling to herself. Walking down the stairs, she might have been thinking, “What a lucky break, that was a close one. I almost got myself into trouble.” With rollicking laughter, she walked out to the sidewalk. Maître Ramzi saw her mirth as a good sign and his face beamed. His features always reminded Robby of the Reclining Scribe, an ancient Egyptian sculpture of the pharaonic age.
From the balcony, Robby watched his white sister being swallowed up inside the black car. For a moment he wondered how she could go out with such a fat, ugly specimen, and a Christian to boot! He looked at the sky and recalled the iron cross pointing from the church tower in the Camp César neighborhood, and remembered his fanatical declaratio
n, which shocked his parents: “One day I’ll climb to the top of that tower and break that cross!”
This didn’t stop him from loving the two Coptic sisters Thérèse and Juliette Murad, who, along with their mother, Angélique, rented the large room facing the sea. Thérèse with her white skin and black hair, and Juliette with her blond braids: on both chests—one round and the other boyish and flat—hung small golden crosses that pierced Robby’s flesh when the high school girls hugged him with motherly affection.
Suddenly he heard David’s tenor voice rumble from the cavernous hall, “Get out of here! Get out!”
Robby ran to the hall and saw a white figure in the dark: David Hamdi-Ali in his workout clothes. Slowly, from the darkness, rose two rows of white teeth, as big as a horse’s, a mane of mop-like blond hair and finally two watery eyes, groveling and rebelling at once, their lashes fluttering. Victor stood before his brother, as stiff as a martyr, only his protruding Adam’s apple bobbing, working to block the humiliation of oncoming tears. He stood there in his loose, slightly soiled underwear, a dry pee stain (Robby could not know at the time that it might have been something else) forming a strange halo around his crotch. For a moment, Robby’s heart was also filled with disdain toward the rebuked child. How different was this gangly, mean satyr from his virile, white Apollo of a brother. Without caring to find out the matter at hand, Robby immediately took the older brother’s side. He wanted to stomp the vermin, but his father had taught him never to intervene in others’ business, and especially not in familial feuds. Still, his presence seemed to encourage David, who stood up from his workout pose, walked over to his brother and muttered, “You’ll get out of here, or I’ll …”
But Victor stood his ground, and Robby was already expecting the whack of the slap. His friend’s pointless stand annoyed him, and he couldn’t wait to see him defeated. That moment, Emilie walked in and called out in a soft, fearful voice, “Why do you want to hit him, David?”
Her fragile voice seemed to have popped his balloon of aggression. David put his hands on his head and said in a childlike voice that Robby had never heard coming from the lips of a man, “Mama, he’s annoying me. He brings me bad luck. Mama, I’m going to lose the race tomorrow because of him! Mama …” He ran to her, perhaps to bury his head in her bosom, but then thought better of it and went into his room. Emilie looked at her two sons for a moment and seemed to understand nothing. To her, life was so simple!
“Come have lunch,” she told Victor and was immediately relieved. For Emilie, just like for Robby’s grandmother, food was a cure-all. Her eyes lit up and she went to the kitchen.
Victor stayed in place, looking at Robby triumphantly. Without further ado, he pounced on him with fists pumping. The two boys rolled around on the rug for a while, and Robby could feel Victor’s sharp bones pushing against his body. Suddenly he felt his friend’s erect penis knocking persistently against his body. Chills of shame shook his entire being, and he tried to pull away from this embrace. His heart whispered to him that this was a new thing, entirely new. He’d never known such a feeling, not even when Thérèse and Juliette hugged him. Finally, he pulled out of Victor’s grasp. The two of them stood before each other, silent and breathing heavily.
11. NEFERTITI
Sunday, the day of the beginning of racing season, would be a very busy day at the apartment on 24 Rue Delta. Apart from the race, which was scheduled for four in the afternoon, and from which children were banned, Robby planned a big party that evening. The program was full: Thérèse would play a piece on the antique German piano, maybe La danse du feu, as well as background music for the dance of Nefertiti, to be performed by no other than Robby himself. Endless debates were held in an attempt to re-create the sounds of ancient Egyptian music. Juliette would recite two fables by the beloved La Fontaine. Even Marcel, Robby’s cousin, who could play Monti’s Csárdás on the violin as fast as an express train, would do his part. And finally, Raphael, Robby’s other cousin, would close the program with songs in Spanish, and would be the star of the evening, because, unlike the other performers, Raphael was a grownup, and performed regularly at the Auberge Bleue.
After the entertainment, the drinking would commence, arak or liquor for the grownups, Pepsi or Coke for the kids, in celebration of David’s victory (no one even considered the possibility of a loss).
The morning was spent in preparation. Thérèse and Juliette hung up colorful garlands and Chinese lanterns. Robby and his mother joined forces to prepare his Nefertiti costume. Robby’s grandmother and Emilie supervised the kitchen, where the servants were hard at work, preparing a range of Balkan refreshments, passed from Jewish mothers to their daughters for generations: the square boyos and the triangular burekitas, the donut shaped bisco-chicos and even baklava. The kunafah, that sweet, thin-asa-wisp kadaif delicacy, would be bought from the vendor on the street corner.
Only Victor seemed to purposefully avoid participating, walking around the house with his underwear hanging over his sunken gut, looking at everybody with derision and not lifting a finger. He didn’t hand the scissors to Thérèse who stood on the chair, hanging garlands from the curtain rods to the chandelier, and didn’t help Robby tie Nefertiti’s upside-down bucket crown around his head, and refused to even go downstairs to buy some string at Hamis’s store for the decorations. Everyone was cross with him at first, but they quickly learned to ignore him.
The house was full of hustle and bustle and the radio played and the sun was shining. A festive feeling was in the air. Tino Rossi swept everyone up with his Tar-antelle Belle-belle, and the two Coptic sisters laughed happily after whispering among themselves. Robby was in high spirits. Suddenly, Victor called him over and he followed. Victor signaled to him to keep quiet and pulled him into one of the back rooms of the apartment, where the ruckus from the hall sounded like a strange, distant hum. Victor chuckled and pointed at the heavy wine-colored velvet curtain. There was nothing in that old curtain to justify Victor’s glee. Not a cigarette hole or a bug or a gecko. Victor nudged him toward the window and pushed the curtain slightly open. A thin blade of golden dust cleaved the darkness of the room in two, and Robby brought his eye closer to the crack. At first he saw nothing. The sun’s reflection on the window across the way blinded him. It was the window of the Abarbanell apartment, where Louis Abarbanell, Robby’s best friend, lived. His eyes gradually adjusted to the blinding beams of the scorching glass. Suddenly he could see clearly: by the window stood a woman of middle age, naked from the waist up. The woman lifted her left breast to examine some pink mark that had formed there. She then picked up a satchel and sprinkled some talcum powder on the aroused skin. Robby wished to escape. “That’s … That’s Dora Abarbanell, Louis’s mother …” He was as hurt as if his own mother had been standing there, prey to Victor Hamdi-Ali’s covetous eyes. But Victor’s heavy, hot breath weighed down the back of his neck like a stifling burden, and his hard member knocked on the doors of his body, trying to push in. Cold sweat covered his face. The sight of the large breasts growing before his eyes like a pair of balloons, and the sensation of the persistent force, striving restlessly to invade him, enveloped him with breathless confusion. The two giant nipples twinkled at him lecherously from their pink halo. Suddenly he imagined Michel Abarbanell, Dora’s ex-husband, whom she divorced years ago, when Louis was just a baby; a shrunken man, his gray face resembling that of the pharaoh mummies in the museum in Cairo, and his hair, also done-up in Golden Age Egyptian style, combed back carefully and treated with brilliantine. He always wore a pressed suit, and did not look like a divorced man who’d spent the past eight years without the care of a woman. When Robby saw the hidden treasures of the ex-wife’s breasts, he pitied him, this Michel, who was so small and shriveled in comparison to the full, udder-like flesh that filled the window frame. The lump in his throat grew. Suddenly he was scared that Dora might raise her eyes and look at him accusingly. A false fear, of course, since he was standing in the darkness, protect
ed by the heavy curtain. After what felt like an eternity he managed to free himself of Victor’s grip and escape to the hall, where no one had even noticed his absence.
Grandma’s friends started to arrive. Grandma demanded that the center of the hall be cleared for the card table.
“Robby, come show the ladies your Nefertiti costume!”
“But it’s a surprise for tonight.”
“Yes, but we won’t be here tonight,” said Madame Marika, and added with an offended air, “We weren’t invited.”
“You … you’re invited,” Robby mumbled, not even trying to sound sincere.
“But there’s an entrance fee,” Grandma warned them. “This is no regular party. There are going to be live shows.”
“A fee!” the ladies exclaimed. “How much? How much is it, Robby?”
“One piaster per person.”
“With one piaster you can buy two portions of falafel in pita,” Madame Marika protested loudly and immediately burst into a thousand shreds of laughter.
“Or take the tram to Place Muhammad-Ali,” Madame Geena added, laughing as well.
“No, that’s too rich for my taste. If I spend this piaster, Isidore, my husband, will kill me!” Alice called, and now the women who hadn’t been laughing joined in on the merriment; they despised Isidore for his objecting to Alice’s card playing. A man like Isidore was a risk for all of them, since other husbands might decide to follow suit and question the women over their addiction to the seductions of the joker. Alice herself was glad to have elicited her friends’ sympathies, and saw their laughter as support in her brave battle against the tyrant.
Robby stood before them and thought, They’re speaking to me like I’m a baby. This kind of fake seriousness is used with babies. They don’t even see how ridiculous they are. They also have a pair of hanging breasts, just like Dora Abarbanell’s, so what have they got to be so happy about?
Alexandrian Summer Page 4