“Shut up, you son of a bitch!”
We close, slugging each other until the porters separate us.
“I’ll teach you something,” he shouts, “you just wait!”
“Come on, then. It would give me a big kick to relieve you of your dirty rotten life.”
—
It’s early evening and Madame and Tolba Bey are sitting in the living room listening to the radio.
“Come on,” says the lady, “give us your advice. Where shall we spend New Year’s Eve? He thinks we should go to the Monseigneur. But Amer Bey says we should stay at home.”
“Where is Amer Bey?”
“In bed, with a cold.”
“Then let him stay in bed and let’s go to the Monseigneur. We’ll have a really good time drinking till morning.”
I tell her later, “You know, I’ve found it at last.”
“What?”
“The business investment I’ve been looking for.”
She is obviously disappointed at the news. “Don’t be in too much of a hurry,” she advises. “You must think it over.”
“I’ve had enough of thinking.”
“The Miramar Café is a better investment.” She hesitates. “And I was thinking seriously of coming in as a partner.”
“I may have plans later to expand the business.” I grin, suddenly possessed by the desire to enjoy my New Year’s Eve to the full.
I go to see the proprietor of the Genevoise in his office, where we agree as to preliminaries. He invites me to come to his house in Camp de César after closing time. Safeya is there to take part in discussing the details, and they both suggest that I spend New Year’s Eve at the Genevoise: we can come back later to the Frenchman’s house or go somewhere else. In any case I’m delighted at the idea of being rid of the old people’s party.
—
I meet strange looks at breakfast. Madame and Tolba Bey have something queer about their faces. Old Qalawoon is keeping to his room, so is Mansour Bahy, and there’s no sign of Zohra. My table companions are silent, but their expressions suggest something ominous.
“Have you heard the news?” Tolba finally blurts out. “Sarhan al-Beheiry was found dead last night. On the deserted road that goes to the Palma.”
“Dead?”
“Murdered perhaps!”
“But…”
“Here’s the paper,” Madame interrupts. “It’s terrible. I think there’ll be trouble.”
I remember our fighting in the porter’s hall and am seized with depression. Will I get into trouble? I say stupidly, “I wonder who did it.”
“That is the question,” says Madame.
“I suppose they’ll make inquiries about his enemies,” one of the old men says.
“Among us, as it so happens,” I observe ironically, “he certainly had no friends.”
“He may have had other enemies.”
“Sooner or later they’ll find out the truth. God’s will be done!” I feel barely recovered from the impact of the news. Then I ask about Zohra.
“She’s in her room,” says Madame. “In terrible shape.”
I’d meant to give Madame notice of my leaving but decide to postpone it for the moment. When he sees that I’m on the point of going out, Tolba warns me, “We’ll probably be summoned for the investigation.”
“I’ll be there all right,” I say at the door. “Let them call us.”
I ought to clear my head, with a wild drive from one end of Alexandria to the other. White clouds sail slowly above my head, almost within reach, drenched with colors; the air is light and sharp. This is the last day of the old year and my lust for a hectic roaring time goes up a thousand percent. Let them live or die, who cares? I know what I’m going to do. And as I put my car in gear, I tell my reflection in the mirror, “Ferekeeko, don’t blame me.”
3. Mansour Bahy
“So I’m to stay prisoner here in Alexandria, to spend the rest of my life trying to justify myself.” With that I said goodbye to my brother and went straight to the Pension Miramar. The judas opened, showing the face of an old woman, fine-featured in spite of her age.
“Madame Mariana?”
“Yes?”
“I’m Mansour Bahy.”
She opened the door wide. “Welcome. Your brother spoke to me on the phone. Make yourself at home.”
We waited at the door for the porter to bring up my two suitcases. She invited me to take a seat and sat down herself under a statue of the Madonna.
“Your brother is a very distinguished police officer indeed. He used to stay here occasionally before his marriage. Before he was transferred to Cairo. After working here for so many years!” She is very friendly, but examines me closely all the same. “You live with your brother?”
“Yes.”
“Are you a student?”
“No. I work at the Alexandria Broadcasting Service.”
“But you come from Cairo, originally?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Well, make yourself at home and don’t mention the rent.”
I laughed incredulously, but I’d already guessed she would give me a room for nothing, if I wished. Marvelous. The rank breath of corruption everywhere. But who am I to throw stones?
“How long will you stay?”
“Indefinitely.”
“Good. You’ll pay a moderate rent and I won’t raise it in the summer.”
“Thank you, but my brother let me know what I ought to do. In the summer I shall pay at the summer rate.”
She tactfully changed the subject. “You’re not married, are you?”
“No.”
“When do you think you might get married?”
“I haven’t thought about it yet. Not now anyway.”
“What do you think about, then?”
She laughed. So did I, without wanting to.
The doorbell rang and a girl came in with a big parcel of groceries. Very attractive. The housemaid, obviously. Madame spoke to her. Zohra. She was the same age as my friends at the University and that was where she should have been, not running errands for the old lady.
Madame showed me two rooms overlooking the seafront. “This side is not very suitable for winter,” she murmured apologetically, “but all the other rooms are taken.”
“I like winter,” I answered casually.
I stood alone on the balcony. The sea lay there under me, a beautiful clear aquamarine, little wavelets sparkling in the sun; a light cool wind caressed my face and there were a few white clouds in the sky. I felt almost overwhelmed with melancholy.
Then I heard someone move behind me in the room. It was Zohra, making up the bed with fresh sheets, intent on her work, not looking in my direction. I watched her carefully, and was soon aware of her fellaha beauty. “Thank you, Zohra.” My tone was sociable, and she gave me a pleasant smile. I asked her for a cup of coffee, which she came back with in a few minutes. “Wait until I finish, please.” I put the saucer on the parapet and sipped my coffee while she stood waiting on the threshold, looking absently at the sea. “Do you like nature?” She didn’t answer, as if she didn’t understand my question. I wondered what she thought about. As the daughter of this good earth, I thought, her instincts are probably vibrating for the prime creative act of nature.
“I have a lot of books in this trunk,” I said, trying to make conversation. “And there’s no bookcase in this room.”
She looked around at the pieces of furniture. “Keep them in the trunk?”
I smiled at her simplicity. “Have you been here long?”
“No.”
“You…like the place?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t the men annoy you?”
She shrugged.
“They can be quite dangerous, you know.”
She took away the cup. As she finally left the room, she said, “I’m not scared.” I admired her self-assurance.
Then I went back to my own sense of frustration, my habitual thoughts, brooding on how things
are, how they should be, drifting into my usual depression.
I examined the furniture again. I’ll have to buy a little bookcase, I thought, but the little table standing between the wardrobe and the chaise longue would do for writing.
—
I worked for some hours at the studio recording my weekly program, had lunch at Petro’s in Sharia Safeya Zaghloul, then went to Ala Keifak in Ramleh Square for my coffee, where I sat watching the square, busy under an overcast sky.
Raincoats were at the ready and people were hurrying by. All at once my heart gave a thump. That man there—Fawzi! I leaned forward, my forehead touching the window. Was it Fawzi? No. Of course not, not Fawzi, just a very close resemblance. (And then Doreya came to mind—by the law of association, as they say. Though she was always there, in fact, by her own law. Yes. Doreya.) But supposing it were Fawzi and our eyes met? Old friends would naturally have to greet each other with open arms. He was my mentor, after all, my professor. Then let me embrace him fervently, in spite of the thorns. He’s seen me. Here he comes.
I asked him to sit down to a cup of coffee. Politeness demanded no less.
“I’m delighted to see you. What brings you to Alexandria at this time of the year?”
“A family visit.”
Which meant that he was here on Party business, but was keeping the fact from me—as he should.
“Well, I hope you have a pleasant stay.”
“It’s been two years since we saw you last. Not since you graduated, in fact.”
“Yes. You know I was posted to Alexandria.”
“I mean that you seem to have deserted us completely.”
“I had some troubles.”
“Perhaps it was wise to quit working for a cause so uncongenial to you.”
“And perhaps it’s wise to stop working for a cause you no longer have any faith in,” I retorted, blindly, defensively, full of pride.
He paused, weighing his words as he always did. “They say your brother…”
“I’m over twenty-one,” I said irritably.
“I’m sorry. I’ve annoyed you, have I?” He laughed.
My nerves were on edge. (Doreya!) A light shower began and I wished it would come down in torrents, clearing the square and leaving it deserted. (My love, don’t believe them! Some old sage once said that in order to convince each other of the truth we may sometimes have to tell lies.) I looked at my dangerous friend.
“Don’t you care about anything at all?” he asked me.
I almost laughed out loud. “As long as I’m alive, I must care about something.”
“Such as?”
“Can’t you see that I’ve shaved and arranged my tie neatly?”
“And what else?” he said gravely.
“Have you seen the new film at the Metro?”
“Good idea. Let’s go and see a capitalist film!”
—
Madame paid a courtesy visit to my room. “Is there anything you need? Anything I can do for you? Do tell me! Your brother was always very frank with me. And so gallant—a real friend in need! And so big! A giant—but you’re so finely built yourself—and strong too! Consider the Pension Miramar your home. Think of me as a friend, a real friend in every sense of the word.”
It wasn’t courtesy that brought her, but the chance to fulfill herself in an orgy of verbal self-expression. She gave me her life story: her early well-to-do youth, her first love and marriage to an English captain, her second marriage to the Caviar King, the big house at Ibrahimiya, the comedown. Not an ordinary comedown, though: hers was the Pension of Quality, of the Pashas and Beys, of the good old days of the Second World War.
She invited me to tell her in exchange everything about myself. She gushed questions—a strange, tiresome, entertaining woman, a fading female. But even though I was seeing her only as an old ruin clinging to the rag ends of life, it was still quite possible to imagine her—I could picture it all in the light of the old stories of autocrats and famous beauties—as the queen of brilliant salons.
At breakfast I was introduced to the other guests. What a weird assortment! But I needed a pastime, and if I could get the better of my introversion, I thought, I could find some companionship here. Why not? But let’s not even think about Amer Wagdi and Tolba Marzuq; they belong to a dying generation. Then, I wondered, what about Sarhan or Hosny? In Sarhan’s eyes there was a native compatibility. He seemed sympathetic, in spite of his awful voice. But what were his interests? By contrast, Hosny simply got on my nerves—that at least was my first impression of him. He was arrogantly taciturn and reserved and I didn’t like his massive build, his big haughty head, or the way he sat enthroned, sprawling in his chair like a lord, but a lord without any real sovereignty or substance. I presumed he’d feel at conversational ease only with someone he knew to be even more stupid and trifling than himself. He who deserts his monastery, I reminded myself, must be content with the company of the profane. And as usual my introversion got the better of me: They will say…They will think…
Reasoning like that had once made me lose the chance of a lifetime.
—
I was surprised one morning to see Sarhan al-Beheiry come into my office at the studio. Beaming like an old friend, he shook my hand warmly.
“Just passing by. I thought I’d drop in to see you and have a cup of coffee with you.” I said he was welcome, of course, and ordered the coffee. “Someday I’ll want to pick your brain about the secrets of broadcasting.”
With pleasure, I thought, you past master at loafing I’ve never had the luck to be able to enjoy. He talked about his work at the Alexandria Textile Mills, his membership on its board of directors and its ASU Base Unit.
“How wonderfully active you are! You’re a splendid example to the uncommitted.”
He gave me a long searching look. “It’s our path toward building a New World.”
“Did you believe in socialism before the Revolution?”
“Actually, my conviction was born with the Revolution.”
I was aching to query this conviction of his, but thought the better of it. We were soon discussing the pension.
“A most interesting group,” he said. “One never gets enough of their company.”
“What about Hosny Allam?” I asked cautiously.
“A nice chap too.”
“He seems like the Sphinx to me.”
“Not really. He’s a nice chap. He’s got a natural talent for pleasure.” We smiled at each other. Unwittingly he had given me the key to his own character rather than to Allam’s. “He’s a man of property, with no fixed profession. He probably has no degree. Remember that,” he cautioned. “He has a hundred feddans, so he’s entrenched in the front lines of the old regime. And without a degree. I suppose you can guess the rest.”
“Why does he live in Alexandria?”
“He knows what’s what. He’s looking for some business.”
“He’d better wipe that arrogant look off his face or he’ll frighten away his customers.”
I asked Sarhan why he lived in a pension even though he had been so long in Alexandria. He answered, but not spontaneously.
“I preferred a busy guesthouse to a flat of my own in town.”
—
The evening of the Umm Kulthum concert, an evening of drinking and music, during which many a hidden soul was bared. Naturally it was Sarhan al-Beheiry, who probably contributed least to the expense, who was mainly responsible for bringing us together.
I stole a few looks at Tolba Marzuq. No one guessed what he meant to me: old recollections, dreams of bloodshed, of classes in conflict, books and pamphlets studied in secret meetings, a whole edifice of ideas. I was appalled at his flabbiness and humility, the compulsive movements of his cheeks, his abject cowering in his seat, his hypocritical playing up to the Revolution, as if he were not descended from men who had amassed their power from the flesh and blood of the people. It was his turn to play the flattering fool, now that his wi
thered glory had left us with a nation of parasites. And Hosny is just a wing of this broken eagle, I thought, which still flutters with life, and may manage at any moment to limp into some grotesque sort of flight.
“I tell you, all the old class barriers have been wiped out.”
“No. They’ve only given place to other ones. You’ll see.”
Sarhan was the soul of the group, infusing us with constant hilarity. He was kindhearted, candid. Why not? Ambitious, to be sure, since his was basically an opportunist’s interpretation of the Revolution.
Of them all, however, I soon found that Amer Wagdi was the most fascinating and the most worthy of affection and esteem. He was the Amer Wagdi whose articles I had reread for my radio program: “Generations of Revolutionaries.” I had been taken by his progressive but contradictory ideas and charmed by his style, which had developed from conventional rhyming prose into a relatively simple but powerful idiom charged with occasional grandeur. My recognizing him and his writings pleased him so much that I could sense how injured he felt by callous neglect. It touched me deeply. He seized the opportunity like a drowning man clutching at a straw and gave me the story of his life, his long fight for the Nationalist cause, the political waves he had struggled against, the great heroes in whom he had believed.
“And what about Saad Zaghloul? The older generation worshipped him.”
“What good are such idols? He stabbed the true workers’ revolution to death at its birth.”
Why did Tolba Marzuq give me such furtive looks? I caught his eye in the mirror of the hatstand, suspicious, hostile. I poured him a drink and asked his opinion of Amer Wagdi’s glimpses of history.
“Thank you,” he said, as if to excuse himself. “Let bygones be bygones. Let’s listen to the music.”
Zohra served us admirably, but she rarely smiled at our jokes. When she sat next to the folding screen she watched us at a distance, her limpid eyes saying nothing. She was serving Hosny Allam when he asked, “And you, Zohra, how do you like the Revolution?”
She blushed and turned away from our boisterousness, while Madame answered for her at length. But Hosny had apparently wanted to draw her into the conversation; I could see that he was annoyed by Madame’s interruption. “She likes it instinctively,” I told him. He didn’t seem to hear me, though, or perhaps he just ignored me, the pig. Before the end of the concert he disappeared and Zohra said he’d gone out.