As her limousine threaded its way through the congested streets of Cairo, her bodyguard sitting up front with the chauffeur, Camelia looked through the darkly tinted window and marveled at how schoolgirlish this afternoon errand was making her feel. When was the last time she had felt so excited, so giddy? She was actually on her way to Yacob's newspaper office off Al Bustan Street; she was going there on legitimate business, and it had taken her three hours to get ready.
She shook her head and thought: I am thirty-five years old and have never been intimate with a man. I am as nervous as I used to be as a girl, when Hassan came to the house and I thought I would die of love. Hassan al-Sabir, whose murder was still on the police books, unsolved, and who, in Camelia's opinion, deserved what he got for what he had done to Yasmina.
She pushed the dark memory away as the limousine pulled up in front of a large gray edifice from which scores of girls in blue uniforms were emerging. Ever since Camelia had read a news story about a Muslim girl being kidnapped by Coptic Christians, she had personally come to collect her daughter every day after school.
Zeinab was outside the gate, saying good-bye to a red-haired girl. Except for the leg brace, she looked like any other energetic adolescent, a bit gawky, with two long braids down her back. Only the walk, as she limped toward the limousine, set her apart from the others. "Hello, Mama!" she said, kissing Camelia as she got into the car.
"Who was that you were talking to, darling?"
"She's my best friend, Angelina! She wants me to go to her house tomorrow. May I?"
"Angelina? Is she a foreigner?"
Zeinab laughed. "She's Egyptian, Mama! And she's the only girl in school who's nice to me and doesn't make fun of me."
Camelia's heart went out to her daughter, and she was sharply reminded that, in two months, Zeinab would be fifteen, and two years after that would be graduating from secondary school. What then? What was Zeinab's future? How was a crippled girl supposed to go through life? Zeinab would surely never marry, and she would need a protector. Hakim Raouf, though a wonderful uncle to Zeinab, was getting on in years.
She needs a father, Camelia thought.
"Mama?" Zeinab said as the limousine joined the heavy traffic on Al Bustan Street, the chauffeur pounding on the horn instead of his brakes, Egyptian fashion. "May I go to Angelina's house?"
"Where does she live?"
"In Shubra."
Camelia frowned. "That is a heavily Christian neighborhood. It might not be safe."
"Oh, I'll be safe! Angelina's a Christian!"
Camelia looked out the window. What should she say now? She had tried to protect her daughter from the hatred that was dividing Cairo, that Camelia herself was starting to feel toward the people who had hurt Uncle Hakim. Within the secure walls of her eighteenth-story penthouse, Camelia had watched terrifying news films of burning mosques and slain Copts in a feud that was kept alive and escalating by the laws of revenge. When President Sadat had asked the Coptic pope, Shenouda, to take part in a peace conference, and Shenouda had refused, the Copts had emerged as the villains, and Camelia had thought: They want to continue the killing. And her distrust and fear of them grew.
"I don't want you to go to Angelina's, darling," she said, sweeping a few strands of hair from Zeinab's face. "It isn't safe these days."
Zeinab had been afraid her mother would say that. Ever since poor Uncle Hakim had been hurt, everyone was saying bad things about the Christians. But Angelina wasn't bad, she was kind and she was funny, and she had a marvelously handsome brother who sometimes came to the school to walk Angelina home.
"You don't like the Christians, do you, Mama?" she asked.
Camelia carefully chose her words, trying not to infect her daughter with her own prejudice. "It's not a question of like or dislike, darling, it's a fact of life. Until the authorities settle this dispute between the Copts and the Muslims, no one is safe.
You are not to have anything to do with Angelina or any other Christians until it is safe. Do you understand?"
When Camelia saw Zeinab's crestfallen look, she put an arm around her daughter's thin shoulders and gave her a squeeze. Poor Zeinab, so self-conscious that she had a hard time making friends at school. Camelia understood the hunger in the girl's eyes, her quiet yearning for acceptance and friendship. We are alike, Camelia thought, my daughter and I. Zeinab wants to be friends with a Christian, and I am in love with a Jew.
"I tell you what. I have a quick stop to make, and then we'll go to Groppi's for dessert. Would you like that? We'll indulge ourselves, just the two of us!"
Zeinab said, "That would be wonderful," and fell silent. It wasn't fair that a few bad people were ruining things for everyone else. She so desperately wanted to visit Angelina's house that, even though she had promised she wouldn't, she was already trying to think of a way to go. Surely, Zeinab reasoned, it wouldn't hurt her mother if she didn't know.
Arriving at the alley, the chauffeur skillfully squeezed the big car into a space between a falafel vendor and a donkey cart loaded with oranges. Camelia hesitated before getting out.
She told herself that she was doing this for Dahiba, whose latest essay was in her purse. She was doing it for social justice and reform, to help her oppressed sisters. But as she checked her makeup one more time and felt her heart race, Camelia knew the real reason why she had offered to bring Dahiba's article in person to Mansour.
Radwan opened the door and pedestrians stared at her when she got out. When she asked the bodyguard to stay at the car, because of Zeinab, he frowned; Camelia knew Radwan was not comfortable with the idea of letting her walk down the narrow lane unescorted. Folding his massive arms, he planted himself against the car and watched her head down the alley, a tall, expensively dressed modern woman in high heels, with red lips and a cloud of black hair that drew stares from men and women alike.
The front window of the newspaper office was still patched with cardboard, but Camelia noticed with alarm that the door had been torn off its hinges. And when she stepped inside, she saw that the desks had been attacked with an ax; there were papers strewn everywhere, paint poured over them.
She found Yacob in the back room, sifting through some sodden pages. "Are you all right?" she said.
He looked up. "Miss Rasheed!"
"Who did this? Was it the Copts?"
He shrugged. "It could have been. Both sides would like to put me out of business. And it looks as if they have succeeded, for a while anyway. They stole our files and our typewriters."
Camelia felt her anger flare. First Hakim, and now Yacob. She most certainly would not permit Zeinab to visit Angelina and her Christian family. "Perhaps you should stop publishing your newspaper for a while," she said. "Your life is in danger. You must think about your family—your wife and children."
"No children," he said. He looked at her for a moment, and readjusted his glasses, as if trying to believe that she really stood there, that he really was seeing her. "I am not married."
Camelia suddenly found herself inspecting the photograph of President Sadat on the wall. She thought, how unpredictable are God's mysterious ways. Hadn't she just moments ago been thinking that Zeinab needed a father? And was there not something happening right now between herself and this man? She looked again at Mansour and noticed that the top button of his shirt was missing. He was hardly one of the rich businessmen and Saudi princes she was used to.
Could I marry such a man?
Yes. Yes.
"I won't give up, Miss Rasheed," he was saying. "I love this country. Egypt was great once, she can be great again. If you had an unruly child, you would correct it, wouldn't you? You wouldn't abandon it, even if that child might turn on you." He picked up a chair, tried to right it, but saw that a leg was broken. "I have a degree in journalism, Miss Rasheed," he said, as he looked to find a place for her to sit. "And I worked for a while on the big papers in Cairo. But I was told what to write, and I wouldn't do that. There are things that must be voic
ed." He regarded her in the dim light that filtered in from the outer room. "You understand this. You were forced to publish your essay in Lebanon. But as an Egyptian, I will publish my writing in Egypt."
She felt the intimacy of the small cluttered room, was aware of how close Yacob stood to her. "Even at risk to your life?" she asked.
"What good is my life if I do not follow my beliefs? As long as I can write and there is a printer who will print my words, I shall keep trying."
She nodded. "Then I'll help," she said. "You said you survive on donations. I shall make a donation. Tomorrow, you will have new typewriters and new desks, and you will be in business again."
Their eyes met, and for just a moment the noisy, ancient city around them vanished.
"But I am forgetting my manners," he said quietly. "Come, I'll send for tea," and he offered his arm to lead her into the outer office.
His sleeve rode up and Camelia said, "There's a bruise on your wrist—" But when she looked again, she received a shock. It was not a bruise, but a tattoo.
Of a Coptic cross.
Amira did not want to do what she was about to do, but she had no choice. She reached under the folded white garments, still waiting for the pilgrimage to Mecca she was soon going to make, and brought out the wooden box inlaid with ivory, its lid inscribed: God, the Compassionate.
God's anger with Ibrahim was evident in the daughter Huda had just given birth to, her fifth; in Fadilla's miscarriage; in Amira's failure to find a suitable second wife for Ibrahim; in her lack of success in finding a husband for Camelia; and finally, in Ibrahim's insane plan to divide the house, converting one half into rental units, leaving the other half for the family.
Amira was not going to allow that to happen.
Which was why a stranger was due to arrive at any moment, and for whom she must be prepared. With a sigh she closed the drawer that contained her pilgrim's robes and carried the box into the small, private parlor off the grand salon, a tastefully decorated room set aside for entertaining special guests without interference from the family. Amira had tidied the room and prepared the refreshments herself—this was a meeting the family must not know about. As she inspected the brass coffee urn, the platter of pastries and fresh fruit, she heard the doorbell ring. A moment later, a servant brought Amira's visitor into the small parlor, and left, closing the door.
Amira assessed Nabil el-Fahed in an instant: a man in his fifties, elegant, she thought, with not much gray in the dark hair, of a fine build that carried his tailored suit well, a good-looking man who reminded her of the late President Nasser, with a large nose and determined jaw. Wealthy, she thought, very wealthy. And unburdened, therefore, by financial troubles. "Peace to you and the compassion of God, Mr. Fahed," she said, enjoining him to take a seat as she poured the coffee. "You honor my house."
"And to you peace and the compassion of God and his blessings," he said, sitting down. "The honor is mine, Sayyida."
Amira had first heard of Nabil el-Fahed through Mrs. Abdel Rahman, who had spoken his praises after she purchased an antique sofa and chair from him. He was one of the best antiques experts in Cairo, everyone said, also an appraiser of rare and fine jewelry. And on top of that, honest. And so, in her desperation to save the house from being carved up and rented to strangers, Amira had decided that it was time to part with the jewelry she had once sworn would never leave the family—among it, the antique carnelian ring Andreas Skouras had given her as a token of his love.
"The khamsins will be starting soon," Amira said, as she handed Fahed coffee and a plate.
"Indeed they will, Sayyida," he said, helping himself to a square of baklava, an orange.
She sighed. "Then we will have dust and sand all over the house."
He shook his head in pity. "The khamsins are truly the housewife's scourge."
Being a professional appraiser, Nabil el-Fahed did a rapid assessment of his own. In Amira Rasheed, sitting on her gilt brocaded chair like a queen, he saw a woman of strength and will, her beauty coming from an inner power. Her clothes were costly and well cut; jewelry not excessive, just enough to speak of taste and class; a member of that older generation of noble, aristocratic women who had known the harem and the veil—a vanishing breed whose passing Nabil el-Fahed, lover of antiques and the older, better days, mourned.
When he had first walked in, Fahed had been quick to catch, on the opposite wall, a photograph of King Farouk in the company of a handsome young man. The woman's son, Fahed deduced, judging by the family resemblance. The antiques dealer mentally rubbed his hands together in delicious anticipation of viewing the items Mrs. Amira had no doubt invited him to appraise, most likely with the intention of selling. Judging by the size, age, and magnificence of the house, the age of the woman herself, the photo of the king, Fahed knew he could look forward to seeing something rare and priceless. Relics from the royal family perhaps? Such trophies were becoming scarce, their value skyrocketing as every collector was avid to own a remnant from Egypt's scandalous, glorious past. As he bit into the sticky-sweet baklava and followed it with sweet coffee, Nabil el-Fahed wondered what treasure Mrs. Amira was going to be dazzling him with.
While they continued to follow proper etiquette and discuss everything but the purpose of this meeting, Fahed discreetly scanned the rest of the photographs on the wall. And when he came to a picture of Camelia, he blurted, "Al hamdu lillah!" which he quickly followed with, "A thousand apologies, Sayyida, but is this woman your relation?"
"She is my granddaughter," Amira said with pride.
He shook his head in admiration. "She is the light that illuminates your family, Sayyida."
Amira's eyebrows rose. "You have seen my granddaughter dance, Mr. Fahed?"
"God has blessed me with such good fortune. And forgive my forwardness, as you and I have only just met, but have you ever seen sunlight dance on the Nile, or birds dance among the clouds? They are nothing compared to the dancing of the
Camelia."
Amira stared at him. The Camelia, he called her.
"I understand her husband died a hero in the Six-Day War, may God make heaven his abode. And left the lovely Camelia alone with a daughter."
"Praise God, Zeinab is a good child," Amira said slowly, a little taken aback by his rather improper introduction of Camelia into the conversation. There were set rules and etiquette for every dialogue, and Mr. Fahed was veering from propriety.
"It has long been my wish to meet the lady, but I would not offend her by approaching her without a proper introduction."
Amira blinked. Was the man saying what she thought he was? Amira smoothly recovered herself and, following his unexpected lead, said, "What an understanding wife you must have, Mr. Fahed, not to be jealous."
"My wife is a wonderful woman, Sayyida, but I am no longer married to her. We mutually agreed to a divorce five years ago, when the eldest of my sons got married and set his bride up in a place of their own. God blessed me with eight beautiful children, but they are on their own. And now that that part of my life is complete, and I am enjoying excellent health, praise God, I devote my time to collecting beautiful objects." He put down his empty coffee cup and shook his head. "It is astounding to me that your beautiful granddaughter has not remarried, Sayyida."
So, Amira thought, she was right. Mr. Fahed had just opened up a dialogue for marriage negotiation. As she replaced her cup in its saucer, she counted off the essential points Mr. Fahed had just proffered: he was not married, not looking for a childbearer, had his health, was financially established, wanted Camelia. Still, she said, "Men might appreciate watching a dancer, Mr. Fahed, but few wish to marry one."
"A weakness of the jealous, my dear lady! By the Prophet, God's blessings upon him, I am not such a man! When I possess an object of rare beauty, I show it off to the world!"
With a gracious smile Amira reached for the coffee urn, mentally adding two more favorable points to Mr. Fahed's list: not a jealous man, would permit Camelia to contin
ue her career.
His eyes strayed again to Camelia's picture, and when he added, "Of course, a woman of Camelia's beauty and impeccable reputation, the widow of a war hero, would command a high bride-price. Anything less would be an insult," Amira poured coffee into the delicate china cups and thought: the final point, he will pay handsomely.
And then, wondering what star Mr. Fahed had been born under, she gently tucked the jewelry box behind a satin pillow and said, "My dear Mr. Fahed, if you wish, it would be my great pleasure to arrange an introduction between my granddaughter and yourself—"
Yacob saw the shocked look on Camelia's face. "You didn't know I was Christian?" he said.
They were still standing in the small back room, Camelia frozen to the spot. "I ... thought you were Jewish."
"Does it make a difference?"
She hesitated a moment too long before saying, "No. Of course not. Such things should never get in the way of business."
"Business?"
Camelia reached into her purse with a trembling hand. How could she have been so wrong! "This isn't a social call, Mr. Mansour. My aunt asked me to show you an essay she had written, to see if you would print it in your paper."
Because she wouldn't look at him, she missed the disappointment in his eyes. "I shall be glad to read it," he said softly, taking it from her.
Camelia kept her eyes averted as she tried to adjust to this new, terrible fact: that Yacob Mansour was a member of the hatemongers who had tried to kill Uncle Hakim.
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