City of the Sun

by Juliana Maio

“We can win without it. Killing on this scale would be like nothing we have ever seen,” Erik replied, “tens of thousands of people, just like that.” He snapped his fingers. “And not just soldiers, everybody. Young, old, women, men, animals. Everybody. And for years the radiation from it would remain deadly.”

  “But Einstein shares your humanitarian views, and he’s helping us,” Mickey continued to argue, an edge of panic in his voice. “And not only him, but your mentor, Niels Bohr, and many of your colleagues are joining the cause. I understand what you’re saying, but please come to Cairo and speak to our people first. They’ll explain the whole program to you much better than I can. Besides, even if we create such a bomb, we might never have to use it. It will be deterrent enough to stop Hitler. You must come to Cairo.”

  “I am sorry,” Erik said. “But at this moment I want to create, not destroy. I want to devote my life to building a nation.”

  “You can go to Palestine later and still do great things there,” Mickey insisted, his face starting to redden. “Maya, please talk some sense into your brother.”

  Maya was frozen. She couldn’t believe that her brother was bringing this up at the eleventh hour—just as the train was about to leave. Her head was spinning, and her heart was pounding. A tempest of thoughts assailed her.

  “The decisive moment was seeing the boy killed right in front of my eyes on that farm outside of Poitier,” Erik explained. He leaned forward and took Maya’s hands into his own. “I know it was never your dream to go to Palestine.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Who will take care of you?” Maya cried.

  “Maya, I don’t need you to be my nursemaid. The university people are going to take very good care of me, and in case you haven’t noticed, I’m doing pretty well on my own.”

  “Oh, Erik, please. That’s not what I meant. You are my brother. I love you.”

  “And I love you, which is why I don’t want you to come with me,” he said. His eyes were watering.

  She was at a loss for words. She looked at Mickey with a lump in her throat.

  “I’m going to leave you two alone,” Mickey said. “I’ll be waiting by the ticket booth.”

  “You should stay with Mickey,” Erik said after Mickey was gone. “I may be infirm, but I’m not blind. I see the way you look at each other … I hear the love in your voices.”

  “Shush,” Maya said, starting to tear up herself.

  “Maya, this man loves you. I watched him risk his life for you. Even Vater could see that.”

  “Stop it,” she protested. “Mickey and I will figure things out.”

  “No,” he said firmly. “It’s time to start your own life. I will be fine.” He stroked her arm, reaching awkwardly toward her.

  “I cannot be at peace unless I know you are well.”

  “You can be at peace. Nothing will make me happier than seeing you happy. Maya, it’s time for you to think about yourself. You love him, don’t you?”

  She lowered her eyes. “But I worry about you.”

  “There is no need for that. I can’t wait to get there and start working. I have lots of ideas. Maybe I’ll meet a girl.”

  “A girl?” Maya asked, surprised.

  “Why not? I’m not so bad looking.”

  She allowed herself a smile.

  “Here.” He handed her the violin he’d been carrying. “Take this with you. Give it to Soussou Levi. I know Vater would have liked that.”

  She shook her head and bit her lip, her eyes overflowing now.

  “I think it best to say good-bye now,” Erik said. “I can make it alone from here.” He waved Mickey over to them and picked up his suitcase.

  “He’s going to Palestine,” Maya told Mickey when he arrived. “Alone.” She covered her mouth with her hand to prevent herself from sobbing.

  “Take care of her. She’s the dearest thing to me,” Erik said, offering Mickey his hand.

  “And to me,” Mickey said as he reached out and embraced him.

  Erik turned to Maya and took a step forward.

  Maya stopped him with a raised hand. “Go,” she choked, unable to contain her tears any longer. “Go!”

  After a moment of hesitation, Erik started limping away.

  Maya turned her head, unable to watch him go while Mickey held her tight. Her heart was sinking. Suddenly she looked back. “Erik!” she shouted at him in desperation. “When will we see each other again?”

  He turned around and raised his clenched fist in the air. “Next year in Jerusalem!”

  THE END

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Born into the second generation of a comfortable community of European Jews living in Heliopolis, a suburb of Cairo, I found myself abruptly expelled from Egypt at the age of three during the Suez Crisis of 1956 because of my mother’s French nationality. My family took refuge in Paris, where I grew up feeling perfectly French and readily assuming that the Gauls were my ancestors. When I was seventeen my family moved to California, and I embraced the American dream: I went to college, then to law school, and got married. I was reconciled with the fact that somehow I was French, American, and Jewish, all at the same time. But shortly after my daughter was born, my Egyptian roots started gnawing at me.

  Who was I? Who were my parents, and what had they been doing in Egypt? Who were the Jews of Egypt? Thus began my ten-year journey into the past. I started voraciously reading about the modern history of the country. What I learned was so compelling that I started to write what would become this novel.

  During my research, I grew especially intrigued by the Egypt that existed during the early years of World War II, when Cairo was considered the Paris on the Nile. This was a pivotal moment in history, yet curiously, generally not well understood in America. Not only did the Allied victory at El Alamein help determine the ultimate outcome of the war, but Britain’s iron grip on the country exacerbated the deteriorating relations between the Arabs and the West and laid the foundation for many of the constructs of today’s Middle East. I discovered a host of fascinating historical characters that I incorporated into my novel: Sir Miles Lampson and Alexander Kirk, the British and American ambassadors; William Donovan, the head of the Office of the Coordinator of Information and later director of the Office of Strategic Services; Anwar Sadat, the army officer who collaborated with the Nazis and later went on to become president of Egypt and the author of the first Arab peace agreement with Israel; King Farouk, who was overthrown in 1952 by a military coup led by Sadat and Gamal Abdel Nasser; Hassan al-Banna, the founder and leader of the Muslim Brotherhood; and Johannes Eppler and Hekmet Fahmy, the Nazi spy in Cairo and his Egyptian belly dancer collaborator, who were the inspiration for the characters of Heinrich Kesler and Madame Samina in the novel. I was so very pleased at how well all these real-life people’s experiences meshed with my fictional story.

  For dramatic purposes I have compressed the timing of some of the historical events in the novel: Rommels Afrika Korps actually first crossed the Egyptian border on April 14, 1941; his troops took over Tobruk on June 21, 1942, but were defeated at the Battle of El Alamein on November 11, 1942. The Egyptian army was notified by the British to hand over their weapons on November 20, 1940, and then again in April 1941. Sadat was arrested for collaborating with Johannes Eppler on October 8, 1942; three days after the German spy’s arrest. Churchill and Roosevelt announced the Atlantic Charter on August 14, 1941. The British ambassador gave King Farouk an ultimatum to accede to British demands or be deposed on February 4, 1942; outrage and social boycotts ensued but it wasn’t until January 26, 1952, that angry mobs burned down British institutions in Cairo, including the Shepheard’s Hotel.

  The research for this book was extensive and I conducted many interviews and read countless books and articles. But I was most fortunate to have had access to the vast diaries of the British Ambassador in Egypt, Sir Miles Lampson, who was at the epicenter of that world. Short of divulging state secrets, he wrote about everything and everyone in C
airo with extraordinary detail. Artemis Cooper’s Cairo in the War as well as Anwar Sadat’s Revolt on the Nile, William Stadiem’s Too Rich, the High life and Tragic Death of King Farouk, and Gudrun Kramer’s The Jews in Modern Egypt, 1914-1952 also proved to be invaluable.

  Most gratifying on a personal level, my research shed light on Egypt’s Jews and put into context the stories my parents had told me of their lives there. I was surprised to learn of the deep amity that had existed between the Jews and the Arabs, and that it dissolved largely for political reasons related to the creation of the state of Israel. While my quest to learn about the Jews of Egypt impelled me to write this novel, they did not emerge as the central subject. Nevertheless it is important to me that the world knows that this community of wanderers, rich in traditions, who combined the savoir faire of the Europeans with the soul and warmth of the Arabs, once existed and flourished in an Arab land. Of the 80,000 Jews that lived in Egypt in 1941, only about forty remain today.

  Juliana Maio

  Los Angeles,

  California

  2014

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  If it takes a village to raise a child, it took an army of incredibly supportive and generous people to give birth to this novel, and I will be forever indebted to them for the gift of their time, support, trust, and knowledge. Sadly, a number of them have passed, but their light shines brightly in these pages. They are John Waller, one of the first OSS operatives recruited by William Donovan and sent to Egypt after America entered the war; psychologist Victor Sanua, who devoted his later years to retrieving the heritage of the Egyptian Jewish community; novelist Michael Crichton, who encouraged me in the meticulous research that it took to write this book; my father-in-law, Lawrence Phillips, a war hero who liberated the first concentration camp in Germany and advised me on military matters; my mother, Sheila Maio, the strongest and most giving woman I’ve ever known, who shared with me her tales of growing up in Egypt. This book is in their memory and in the memory of my father, Fernando Maio, whose joie de vivre surely emanated from the life he lived in Cairo.

  I started this book with only one key phrase in mind—The Jews of Egypt—and I cannot express my gratitude enough to Hugh Miles, who was with me at the beginning of this journey and helped shape this unwieldy epic before he went on to become an award-winning journalist and author. I’m also very grateful to historian Afaf Lutfi al-Sayyid-Marsot, professor emeritus of history at UCLA, for her suggestions as to the story’s framework within Egypt’s political theater.

  Many authors can boast a guardian angel behind their work, but I was blessed with three: my magical and amazing editors, Jane Cavolina and Maggie Crawford, and Phoebe Larmore, who lent me her keen ear for story development. I owe so much to each of these women for their friendship, dedication, nurturing, and respect, and most of all for their tenacious belief in this book.

  I also would like to thank Agatha Dominik, for reading draft after draft and standing by me through the whole process; Nicholas Meyer, for his generous advice and support; Jamie deBlanc, for gently coaching me in the art of writing prose; Gunther Schiff, my mentor, for sharing with me his traumatic experience of growing up as a Jew in prewar Germany; my mother-in-law, Sherry Phillips, for loving every single sentence I’ve ever written; my sister, Joyce Maio, for providing invaluable introductions for my research and joining me on an unforgettable trip back to Egypt; my brother, Léo Maio, for his undiluted love, depth, and intellect. Also, I’d like to thank Lucinda Karter, Amy Williams, and Elaine Markson for loving the book and for all their efforts on my behalf.

  And to my two greatest loves—my daughter, Natasha, and my husband, Michael—a special thanks for their infinite patience and love. Their gift of love was so large that rather than letting me take this journey alone, they both plunged in with me, with my daughter taking special interest in all things Arabic, and my husband completely immersing himself in the pages of this book as I wrote them and giving me notes every night with his dreaded red pencil. He’s been my rock, my lighthouse, and my knight in shining armor. Thank you both for sharing the nostalgia of once upon a time in Cairo …

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Juliana Maio was born in Egypt but expelled from the country with her family during the Suez Crisis. She was raised in France and completed her higher education in the United States, receiving a BA from the University of California, Berkeley, and her Juris Doctor degree from UC Hastings.

  Juliana practices entertainment law in Los Angeles and has represented internationally renowned filmmakers. Prior to practicing law she served as vice president of worldwide corporate and business affairs for Triumph Films, a joint venture between Columbia Pictures and Gaumont Films.

  Juliana is the cofounder of Lighthouse Productions, an independent film and television company. She speaks both domestically and abroad about the Arab Spring. She lives with her husband and daughter in Los Angeles.

  Visit JulianaMaio.com to find a conversation with the author and to download a reader’s guide for book group discussions.

  Connect online:

  @julianamaio1

  facebook.com/JulianaMaioAuthor