Lilith arrives at the Armenian’s shop and Naguib al-Khalili grows flustered and confused like a schoolboy with a crush as he hurriedly wipes down the chair next to him with his handkerchief. Lilith smiles and the tiny wrinkles criss-crossing her small face spring to life. She gropes for words that constantly elude her now that her memory has been snatched away by old age. Al-Khalili describes her with unparalleled zeal: ‘She’s a real lady. There isn’t another woman in this whole country as sweet or as perfect.’ Every day Lilith comes to the shop and sits down opposite him wearing a spotless coat and expensive perfume and jewellery that she changes from one day to the next. She gives off an air of stately elegance and she never gets bored or interrupts his long meandering reminiscences. Her brief comments are always simple, her speech always deliberate and refined. The serious and wistful expression on her face is there thanks to the giant eraser that has wiped away most of her memory. These days she has to make a supreme effort to hold on to essential bits of information like her name, her address, and the name of her only son. She carries all her important papers with her in the pocket of her coat but she’s terrified most of the time that she’ll lose them or forget them, and every few minutes she feels her pocket nervously to make sure they’re still there. She also keeps a small notebook in which she jots down the things she wants to remember, things such as her son and grandchildren’s names and the numbers of her bank accounts. She writes other things in a clear hand on little snippets of paper and then forgets where she’s put them. (‘Erika is my son Omar’s wife.’ ‘My name is Layla al-Sa’id and they call me Lilith.’) But in spite of all her precautions, her memory still fails her, and she wastes hours rummaging in her handbag and her pockets for these stray bits of paper. She is proudly and stubbornly engaged in a running battle with senility. This is why she spends a lot of time making sure every hair on her head is in place and that her coat is always spotlessly clean, and also why she prefers to remain perfectly quiet rather than open her mouth and trip up on her words.
Naguib al-Khalili, who often wonders why he feels so light and happy in Lilith’s presence, watches her approaching from a distance and stands up respectfully as she draws closer. He loves talking to her. He talks and talks and she listens. He talks about the time he spent in Egypt when he was a student at the High Institute of Teachers, and about Professor Hasan Zaza and the boat from Port Said to Cyprus. He says to her, ‘I stayed at the Andalusia Hotel, do you know where it is? It was one of the nicest hotels in Cairo in those days. Hot water and ice-cold water and Sudanese waiters who wore the cleanest clothes I’ve ever seen – cleaner even than the uniforms worn by the king’s servants, madam!’ Lilith smiles a little and stares dreamily into the distance. ‘I went to the spice market – have you been to the spice market before?’ He answers his own question. ‘No, I guess not, you look like a real lady, so why would you frequent those old, dilapidated markets? You see, when I went to Cairo I didn’t know anyone. I went with Narak.’ He points to his friend, bent over the strings of a violin inside the chess shop. ‘He was an artist back then too and as soon as he got to Cairo he started asking everyone where the great composer Muhammad Abd al-Wahhab lived, while I ran around looking for a place for us to rent. Of course, “the stranger’s eye is feeble”, as they say. As soon as I left the hotel I ran into a well-dressed young man who asked me if I wanted to buy an expensive Rado watch. He said that he needed the money badly and that he was willing to part with it for five pounds, even though it was worth five hundred. In those days five pounds was the equivalent of more than forty Lebanese lira – enough money to live on for a whole month! But, like I said, the stranger’s eye is feeble, even if he’s smart as a whip. And so, madam, I bought it. Then Narak came back and said, “Naguib, they’ve cheated you, this watch is worthless.” Being an Armenian, Narak understood absolutely everything, but I scolded him anyway: “You left me all this time to look for Mr Muhammad Abd al-Wahhab’s house,” I said, “and we can’t afford to stay at the Andalusia for much longer. We have to find an apartment.” And so Narak and I starting looking together for an apartment close to the centre of town. We went to an agent on Nawal Street in Dokki and afterwards we drank a fantastic cup of coffee at the Indiana Café. I’ll never forget it my whole life.’
Lilith nods her head and doesn’t say a word. If she says anything, it will be something from left field like, ‘Oh, of course I remember Nawal . . . of course.’ From time to time she dabs at her face with a scented handkerchief. She checks her short, carefully cut grey hair in a little mirror or feels around in her pockets every so often to make sure that she still has the papers with her address and her son’s phone number in case she gets lost. But she never loses her way. She just sits in front of Narak’s shop and doesn’t think of going anywhere else. She listens closely to this man who talks about faraway people and places, and smiles. Her dark pupils shine with pleasure and tears of nostalgia swim in Naguib al-Khalili’s old eyes. He wipes them away with the handkerchief that he keeps in his pocket, and goes on with his stories.
‘And then, madam, when the waiter at the Indiana Café (where only distinguished people used to go) told us that Muhammad Abd al-Wahhab sometimes came there to meet his friends, Narak and I started going there too every day. The waiter said that he came to the café incognito, all bundled up in a black coat and hat, but that we would know him right away. “He’s tall and thin and never greets anyone and doesn’t drink coffee either, only anise.” He told us that he was very paranoid and always pestered the waiters to make sure his glass was clean.’
Layla Murad’s voice comes drifting out of the shop where Narak sits listening to his friend telling the story of their lives to the strange lady called Lilith. He still likes hearing the story from Naguib’s lips. Al-Khalili goes on.
‘We used to spend two whole pounds on a single cup of coffee. Like I said, the Indiana Café was one of the fanciest cafés in Cairo and we were just students back then, but only bees know how to make honey, my good lady, or so I said to Narak, who’s sitting in the shop behind you right now. In those days he looked like Anwar Wagdi, all elegance and shining black hair – and he still does!’ Naguib laughs as he looks at his old friend, then he says, ‘But he can’t hold a candle to you, madam – “though the flower may fade, its perfume lingers on”.’ Lilith smiles again and he can’t tell whether she’s smiling because she’s understood the compliment or simply to share in his own laughter. Her decayed memory has made her shy and quiet and inscrutable. Naguib wonders whether she’s even capable of putting a meaningful sentence together. Whenever she tried to share in his reminiscences about how beautiful Cairo was, for example, she only managed to repeat a random phrase whose ring happened to please her. ‘Beautiful . . . it was beautiful,’ she would murmur, then lapse into a sad silence, or a happy one; she never attempted to add anything else, and her eyes gleamed mournfully. Naguib al-Khalili pauses and smiles gently into the sudden silence, then picks up the thread once again.
‘Next, my good lady, I met a nice man who treated me just like his own son. We started meeting at the Rex Café downtown and going for long walks together through the city he knew so well. One day he invited me to lunch at a local grill house in the old Hussein district. I don’t remember the name of the place any more, but by God, madam, I can still taste the delicious food I ate there on the tip of my tongue. Meanwhile, Narak kept hanging around the Indiana and paying two pounds every day for a cup of coffee in the hope of meeting the great composer. One day a man who fit the waiter’s description – tall, silver-haired, and wearing a black coat – came in and ordered coffee. The waiter came over to tell Narak that the person he was looking for had finally arrived. Lo and behold, Narak gets up, runs over to the tall man in the black coat, covers his hand in kisses, and says, “I’ve been waiting for you for a long time, maestro!” The tall man answers him with exaggerated politeness, “I’m Abdel Warith Assar, son!”’ Naguib laughs as he glances at Narak in the back of the shop, and the
y exchange wry smiles. ‘Of course you know who Abdel Warith Assar was,’ he says to her. ‘A very great actor.’
Lilith smiles that obscure smile of hers again. Perhaps she likes the story, or perhaps she’s just homesick. All that al-Khalili knows about Lilith is that she’s Egyptian – he knows this from the few words that she’s let drop. He also knows that she has a son somewhere or other; he doesn’t know what his name is, but his young American wife, Erica, sometimes comes for her at the end of the day. She wears a heavy hijab and pulls one child by the hand as she pushes a small stroller with sleeping twins in it with the other. Erica is always in a hurry. She rushes about looking for her crazy mother-in-law and declares that she’s losing her mind from always having to follow her around. But Erica doesn’t lose her mind because she always finds Lilith looking cool and calm as a cucumber; only her hands tremble a bit. She waits quietly for her to get up and follow her, and she never looks at Naguib al-Khalili, who watches the back of her long Islamic cloak recede into the distance as she walks away with Lilith in tow.
Lilith’s apartment looks out onto the park. Her house reflects her love of elegance and her obsession with detail: an antique Persian carpet, gaberdine bedspreads, embroidered sheets and Arabian pillows, antique furniture and records of all kinds. Lilith lived by herself for many years, but ever since she began to lose her memory, her son and his wife and their three children are always hovering around. Her son is Omar Azzam, the young man that the Arabs on Fulton Street all talked about. His exemplary piety and the great wealth that God saw fit to give him were legendary. They praised him as an example of filial rectitude, especially Abd al-Karim, who liked to say, ‘A righteous son is the best provision against the ups and downs of this world . . . especially in this damned exile where everything fades – health and beauty and style – and the only thing you’re left with is a lost and wandering mind, like Lilith’s. A good boy is a blessing in those circumstances.’ He swears by God almighty that if it hadn’t been for her son, she would have been reduced to roaming around with the homeless people in the neighbourhood and sleeping in the park.
When people asked Lilith how she came to this country, she would tell them a lot of different stories. She was from an aristocratic family – her grandfather was the Minister of Irrigation in the cabinet of Adli Yakan, the leader of the Liberal Constitutionalists. She had never been what people call a beautiful woman. She was petite and thin and dark-complexioned. She religiously followed all the latest fashions and bought all the latest records, especially Frank Sinatra and Liza Minnelli. She loved to dance too. She married early and got pregnant right away. Her husband was a famous doctor with a big private clinic in Bab al-Luq. His practice was frequented by movie stars and all of Cairo’s elite families. He had been trained in France and was related to Abdul Rahman Hassan Azzam – one of the most important Arab intellectuals of the twentieth century according to many.
Lilith had everything she could possibly want, but happiness is a mysterious and wayward thing. People talk a lot about the particular madness of women, but they had never seen a woman as mad as Lilith before. Lilith lived in a small mansion on the banks of the Nile in the suburb of Garden City. Her life was as ordered and picturesque as an oil painting. Her husband spoiled her no end (he called her his ‘little kitten’) and his family often reproached him for giving her too much freedom. ‘Lilith is an artist and an important society lady,’ he would chuckle on these occasions. ‘She isn’t a little girl any more.’ She would sit in the sun at the Hunting Club wearing her Jackie Kennedy sunglasses, or ride horses and go for long swims in the pool in one of her many designer bathing suits, or go to cocktail parties and mingle with famous actresses at catwalk shows. Then she gave birth to her only son, Omar, whom she named after Omar Sharif in the hope that he too would one day become a famous actor. She had adored his last film with Barbra Streisand, Funny Girl, and like all the girls of her class, she was crazy about anything to do with Hollywood and Broadway.
The birth of her son changed her dramatically, even though she had plenty of help raising him: his paternal grandmother devoted all her time to the boy and there was an army of nannies in the house. Lilith refused to nurse the child in order not to ruin her breasts and she rarely took him in her arms. She grew headstrong and sullen. She smoked a lot and slept all the time, refusing to see her son or her husband or anyone else for that matter. She would rage and cry for no apparent reason. Her husband turned the rooms on the roof of the house into a pretty studio for her to paint in and he pruned the jasmine bush so that its branches would cover the walls with fragrant blossoms. He kept her company every evening and he sent for the latest records to quench her thirst for music. Their life together would have seemed ideal if not for people’s gossip about the husband’s many affairs. Lilith never once discussed this subject with him. She was, after all, a refined society lady who looked down on such trivial matters, but she gradually lost her vivacity, her joy in the world, and a sense of her place in it. One spring evening, when a gentle breeze shook the jasmine blossoms loose and made them fall to the ground and give off their delicate scent, Lilith stood at the window of her room and realised that she could no longer pretend to be happy. A record turned on the gramophone and Frank Sinatra sang about learnin’ the blues.
She had no idea why she suddenly burst into tears or where this feeling of longing that shook her had come from. There was no other man in her life; she never even thought about love any more. Perhaps it was the ache in Sinatra’s voice that moved her so. She smoked cigarette after cigarette and felt her heart breaking. That night she dreamt of a train like the one in Anna Karenina. She had no idea where this train would take her or where its journey would end – a train that never stopped at any stations or complained of its loneliness.
That evening as she stood at the window of her room, her forehead pressed against the glass, listening to the song over and over, she made her decision. Her studio looked out onto the courtyard where the washing and cooking were done. The evening breeze ruffled her son’s little garments hanging out to dry. The line was heavy with clothes – her delicate peignoirs and the nursing brassieres that smelled of milk and bleach. The breeze whispered plaintively and Lilith walked out of her room. Her husband was drinking his coffee on the balcony overlooking the river. She watched him sitting there in his elegant suit, his hair gleaming with health and well-being, then she gazed at the white sails of a felucca passing by on the river. She sat down opposite him silently and his gentle smile made her hesitate for a moment. She lit a cigarette to ward off the melancholy breeze that whispered to her, then she faced him squarely.
‘I’m leaving. I can’t bear this life any more.’
He didn’t ask her where she would go or why. His reply was brief. ‘My son is staying here with me.’
She nodded her head. ‘Understood.’
Lilith packed her bags and disappeared. They say that the husband sent her a generous sum of money every month and that she sent postcards and photos or records and sometimes long letters from New York, or New Orleans, or Los Angeles in return. He sent her snapshots of her son on his birthdays, and later, school photographs so that she could see what he looked like as he grew up. They say that her family was furious with her at first, but that they eventually forgave her as time went by. They say that she saw her son again a few times in different cities; that she was constantly drawing his portrait; that she was studying at Princeton. People said a lot of things about Lilith, but you can’t always believe what people say. Some claimed that they had spotted her in the company of a well-known bohemian painter in New York, or that she had covered her body in tattoos and taken to smoking dope and sleeping on the streets of Harlem and went around calling herself a genius. Others said that she worked as a secretary at a small Jewish press in Williamsburg, designing covers for cheap books and posters for amateur theatre productions. People said all sorts of crazy things to ease their own burning curiosity, but no one knew the truth. Lilith tr
ied to write her memoirs a number of times but she couldn’t. Her memory had already begun to disintegrate and by then no one cared about the truth any more.
Her son Omar came to America years later to study engineering. She opened the door and there he was. He took her in his arms and together they tried to forget a lot of things, as though all those years had never come between them. He lay his head in her lap and called her Lulu. She told him all about her life, which was no longer important or interesting. She told him how she used to paint like a madwoman and go to the theatre and to art openings; she said things like, ‘A long time ago – before your time, Omar – New York was like such and such.’ Lilith no longer did any of the things she told Omar about. Now she preferred to take walks in the nearby park or to watch over the basil and wild mint plants that grew in her window. Her son would come to see her and then disappear for long stretches, and she would say to herself, ‘He’s a young man living his life.’ Sometimes he stayed with his friends or travelled to places she knew nothing about. She believed that it was his life to live as he liked, and she never interfered. She also believed that time changes everything and a person never knows what they want until they know.
The boy who had come to America to study engineering began to experiment with acting and singing. He joined a band and travelled around half the country with them. Lilith didn’t notice when he started to pray all the time because whenever he tried to talk to her, she would gaze off abstractedly into the distance with a strange expression on her face. Omar began to notice that she spoke and moved about less and less. He would lay his head in her lap and say, ‘What’s wrong, Lulu? Why are you so far away?’ If he had understood anything about the way of the world, he would have known that her soul had embarked on a long journey to a place only old people can see. There was no one to explain this to Omar and so her forgetfulness frightened him. Her son still hugs her close. He’s all grown up now and married to a young, fair-skinned girl called Erica who converted at the Islamic Center in Brooklyn. He married her according to the law of God and his Prophet, and now he’s a prosperous entrepreneur in the construction and demolition business and he makes a point of hiring unemployed Arab immigrants. He’s also part-owner of a string of those grocery stores they call ‘delis’, and his partners are mostly Yemenis.
Brooklyn Heights Page 16