by André Aciman
“Jews?”
“In retaliation for the Israeli attack.”
“But we’re not Israelis—” Uncle Isaac began to protest.
“Tell that to President Nasser!”
“But then we’re done for. No wonder they’ve closed the banks. If they don’t take everything I’ve got and throw me out of Egypt for being French, then they’ll do it because I’m Jewish.”
“Questa o quella—” added Signor Ugo, alluding to the aria but tactful enough not to sing it.
My uncle said that this was worse than anything he had ever imagined. It was worse than waiting for the Germans to march into Alexandria.
“Ugo, just in case anything happens to me, remember this name. Monsieur Kraus. Geneva. Vili knows.”
Signor Ugo took out a white pack of cigarettes and began scribbling something on the back of it.
“Are you mad, Ugo!” exclaimed my uncle. “Don’t write anything. Just remember it.”
Signor Ugo gave a quiet, significant nod, put away his pen, and, meaning to stop further dark thoughts from clouding his perennially cheerful disposition, put on a lively face, seemingly for the child who was present, and reminded us that tea would be served in the living room. “Che sciagura, what a disaster,” he said, revealing a strangely melodious accent when speaking Italian.
Ugo da Montefeltro was born Hugo Blumberg in Czernowitz. Like many gifted Rumanians of his generation, he had emigrated to Turkey in pursuit of petty business ventures, none of which got him anywhere except to Palestine, where he arrived as a correspondent for a Yiddish publication in the Ukraine that folded before he had even written his first article. His next stop was Egypt. The charming young man had a gift for languages and song, and soon enough became a stockbroker for Egypt’s French and Italian communities. In a matter of four years, he had become a very wealthy man. Always wary of dangers facing Jews, Signor Ugo and his wife changed their surname in the wake of a series of anti-Semitic incidents in Cairo. They had intended to change Blumberg, which in German meant mountain of flowers, to its Italian equivalent, Montefiore, and would have lived quite happily with that name, had a good friend not reminded them that nothing was more Jewish than the House of Montefiore. Ugo shrugged off the borrowed name and soon after picked a French equivalent, to which, this time, he decided to add the ennobling particule. He became Hugo de Montfleury.
But that project did not last long, either, for someone else told him of two French playwrights—a father and son—called Montfleury but whose real names were Antoine and Zacharie Jacob. From this it was inferred that the Montfleurys, the target of Cyrano de Bergerac’s most pernicious satires, probably were “like us.” Blumberg hastily cast off Monsieur de Montfleury and took a name that sounded quite like it, and which had, as he would always say with an amused quiver on his lips, a certain charm and a long lineage to go with it. He became Ugo da Montefeltro, “domiciled,” as his illegally purchased Italian passport showed, not in Leghorn—where most Levantine Jews alleged their ancestral home—but in Montalcino, whose wines he fancied.
To tease him, some of his friends called him Ugolino da Montefeltro, which pleased the Rumanian fop no end, because the name conferred a doubled aristocratic provenance, with brooding reminders from Dante—hence Uncle Isaac’s nickname for him: Dantés de MonteCristo.
In later years, few were the European boys in Alexandria whose path did not cross Signor Ugo’s. In his impoverished old age, he earned a living as a private tutor of history, literature, and mathematics, while his wife, Paulette, worked as a seamstress to emerging Egyptian families. On Sundays both could still be seen at the Sporting Club, walking arm in arm along the main alley or on the polo fields, he always in the same ascot and tweed jacket, and she wearing loud, colorful designs that she cut and sewed herself, after patterns copied from Burda, with the flashy cloth then fashionable in Egypt. My father noticed that the smile was gone from her face, and her husband crooned a bit less when he had us over for dinner, rubbing his hands in excitement before opening an old bottle of Bordeaux that he had cleverly smuggled under the very nose of the Bureau of Nationalization.
“Not the last, but among the last. When these are gone, we’ll go—right, cara?”
“Always so gloomy,” she would say. “Open the wine and let’s enjoy it. Libiam—et après nous le déluge,” she would say, invoking the words of Verdi and Marie-Antoinette, as we all sat in their small pension bedroom-dining room on Rue Djabarti, a far cry now from the opulence of their house in Bulkley. Never one to fail to pick up his cue from Verdi, Signor Ugo would sing one aria and then another and yet another from La Traviata, ending with a male rendition of Addio del passato. On these occasions, my mother, who had no idea what he was singing, would sit with a glass of wine in her hand, half-bored, half-smothering a giggle at the fustian old gentleman who hid his sagging dewlap under all manner of scarves and who she knew would be weeping any moment now. And indeed, having reached the end of his aria, he would burst into a boyish sob, which never failed to steal the most tender and compassionate “Tesoro!” from his wife, who, more than ever now, was forced to liven the atmosphere by holding out her glass to offer a toast: “To the most beautiful soul in the world.”
It occurred to very few that the Signora da Montefeltro had lost her smile not only because she was wretched with grief inside, but because she was ashamed to let people see the deteriorated state of her front teeth, which she could no longer afford to fix. When, on rare occasions, she would run into her old dentist with friends at the club and everyone sat at the same table, he would confront her and ask, “Let me take a look at this.” She would resist, alleging decorum and propriety, calling him an unregenerate rake for asking a woman her age to show him her mouth in public. But, after much resistance, she would finally consent to a peek at her gums. “Just as I imagined. Come tomorrow, understand?”
By being so unusually brusque and peremptory with the ex—grande dame, he was hoping to spare her the embarrassment of hearing that she would never be charged for her visits. “One day, Doctor, one day. But tomorrow I play bridge.”
Tomorrow I play bridge was a famous Montefeltro half-lie intended less to deceive than to display a failed attempt to deceive—a passe-partout phrase everyone quoted when they wanted you to know they were probably lying.
“Tomorrow we’re playing bridge,” Signor Ugo said out loud as soon as he saw Ali walk in with tea and hot chocolate. It was his way of misleading the servant into thinking we had been talking about cards.
“I play for Paulette’s sake. Personally, I hate bridge,” Montefeltro went on, quite pleased at the deftness with which he had changed subjects on hearing the kitchen door open. “Especially when it’s gray, as it’s been these days. And on gray, autumnal days, what better than to drink hot tea and listen to Brahms.” This was a hint to his wife to play something on the piano.
“Not now, Ugo. Put on a record instead.”
Signor Ugo disappeared into the living room, whistling debonairly. Moments later, with a sound that reminded me of a persistent gardener raking dead leaves, came the piercing strain of an old, scratchy 78 recording of the horn trio.
“Here are some little chocolates,” he said, producing a very large box of mini Toblers that were individually wrapped and neatly arranged in a dizzying mosaic of multicolored bars.
“Which will you have?” asked Uncle Isaac.
I took one with a hazelnut on the wrapper, slowly unwrapped it, placed it in my mouth, and, to my dismay, found that, before savoring or thinking about the chocolate or even dropping its crinkled wrapper into the large ashtray that stood next to box—I had already swallowed it. Trying to hide my desire for another as best I could, I pointed out to Signora da Montefeltro that these were really exquisite chocolates. “You must have another, then,” she insisted, and when I had finished that one, “and another yet.” I chewed that one as fast as I could, hoping she would offer me another. But my uncle intervened after the third, saying I had had
three and that was plenty. “Oh, well, if you say so,” said Signora da Montefeltro. “But I want him to take some home with him.”
When my uncle said it was time to leave, Signor Ugo and his wife insisted we stay longer, which we did—for another five minutes—after which my uncle repeated that we really had to leave, though without standing up this time, knowing he would yield to their inducements once again. At his third reminder, however, they too stood up and gradually walked us to the back gate by way of their huge patio. On our way through a narrow corridor toward the French windows, I caught sight of rows upon rows of empty Elmas cigarette boxes lining the entire wall. There must have been thousands of cigarette packages there. Signor Ugo saw me staring at them. “Sometimes an idea pops into my head. And I immediately jot it down on the back of my pack of cigarettes.” He claimed he still remembered exactly where to find each idea, which is why everyone in the house was under strict orders never to touch, move, or even think of dusting what, to most, must have looked like a cemetery of stray thoughts.
“The hooligans can take anything they please, but these, never.”
His empty packs were eventually confiscated and examined by the secret police, and never returned.
On our way out, seeing that Signora da Montefeltro had forgotten, I reminded her that she had promised me some chocolates.
“Oh, what an absentminded fool I am,” she said as she hurried back into the room.
“But that’s appalling behavior,” my uncle scolded. “Whoever taught you manners, Arabs? I’ve never heard of such a thing, never. I’m never taking you anywhere.
“That was humiliating,” he kept repeating as we started to walk away from the Montefeltro house, the blessed pair waving at us with exaggerated, Old World, cruise-ship hand motions.
“Humiliating,” he repeated, stabbing his walking stick into the pavement each time he said the word. He sulked all the way downhill, while I clutched the small chocolates in my hand, not daring to open a single one until his mood had changed. Silently, my uncle and I turned as we had been advised to do by Signora da Montefeltro once we had reached the bottom of the hill. Uncle Isaac had wanted to visit another family, but on our way we ran into two Egyptian youths who sprung out in front of us. “Are you Jews?” one of them sneered, holding a stone in his hand. My uncle, whose sister Elsa had been asked that same question during the Second World War by two policemen in Paris, remembered her reaction. He slapped one of the youths hard on the chest and asked him how dare he think he was Jewish. “Do I look Jewish?” he yelled.
“We thought you were dirty Jews.”
“Look for dirty Jews elsewhere, then.”
Uncle Isaac led me away in silence. “Cammina, keep walking,” he told me in Italian. “I don’t want to turn around,” he said when we were about fifteen paces away, “but you turn, and tell me what they are doing.” I turned around. Both were standing still, as though beginning to doubt my uncle’s words.
We took a shortcut through a back alley and headed to the tramway station as fast as we could. “Don’t worry, we’ll be safe,” said my uncle as we began to walk faster and faster. We sighted a carriage waiting and hailed it at the top of our lungs.
“Sharia Tiba,” said my uncle in Arabic once we sat down, Rue Thèbes. He haggled over the price; the coachman relented. He gave his horse a slight lash on the mane, and the carriage pulled off. As we began to circle back toward Sporting, passing villa after villa, passing even the Montefeltros’ garden with its counterfeit caryatids and its broken fountain spout that had never worked, not a sound could be heard on the empty road except a faraway dog and the rickety squeaks of our carriage, whose horse, for some unknown reason, knew Brahms’s horn trio well enough to let his leisurely footfalls stamp to the rhythm of the music.
Suddenly, far, far beyond Bulkley, from an angle I had never seen before, rose all of Sporting, with its distant polo fields and its endless row of palm trees studding the giant racetrack. The air was thick with the gathering rainstorm, and the buildings and churches lining the tramway tracks as far as the eye could see sat under a darkening sky flecked with scattered orange stains. We heard the familiar gong of the Ambroise Rally church strike five o’clock in imitation Big Ben chimes.
“We’ll be in time for tea,” Uncle Isaac said. Then remembering—“About these chocolates, are you going to hoard them all to yourself?”
I handed him one in a green wrapping. I didn’t like pistachio.
When we arrived, tea was just about to be served.
Latifa had fainted again.
“Each time the siren sounds, she turns as white as aspirin. It scares her,” explained my grandmother.
“Scared of the alarm, scared of men, scared of anyone who raises his voice at her. What isn’t she scared of?” grumbled Uncle Isaac.
My grandmother told how she had brought her to: a rag was placed on top of a flame long enough to stink of smoke and then was brought to her nostrils.
Everyone was gathered in the living room, while Abdou and Latifa brought tea and light pastries. “Latifa, I heard you broke the floor,” jeered Uncle Isaac when Latifa brought in a second round of pastries. Latifa smiled modestly and deposited a large platter on the tea table. My great-grandmother called Latifa back. She liked her ginger biscuits served on a separate dish. Our Abdou had mistakenly lumped them with other petits fours.
I noticed that the windowpanes in the entrance and the living room had been coated with a cobalt-blue dye. Abdou and Ibrahim and two other servants were in the process of lining the remaining shutters in the house with large strips of thick blue paper which they thumbtacked to the wooden sash frames. They had already painted everyone’s headlight covers with the blue dye.
Aunt Elsa rang the buzzer and Latifa’s rounded form appeared behind the glass-paneled door. She walked in and softly began clearing the china. So tea was over, I thought, already missing the spell of that moment when my uncle and I had opened the door to find everyone already seated in the living room, the sun just barely set over the horizon, and everyone hurrying to make room for us. Sitting quietly next to my parents, my cousins, my aunts and uncles, everyone’s thighs cozily glued to mine, I knew that even if I disliked almost everyone in this room, it was good to be with them, good to hear the ritual hubbub of tea, good to look and be looked at.
And then, after everything had been cleared away, and Uncle Isaac had poured out the first scotch of the evening, while his sister Elsa, who held all the keys in the house, had opened the small Chinese cabinet in which peanuts were hidden away from the children, suddenly, punctually, as though this were why we were gathered in the living room all along, we heard it, rising above Sporting, over the city, wailing and warning, as voices immediately started downstairs—“Taffi al-nur! Taffi al-nur!”
Someone would stand up, walk over to the corner of the room, and peek through the curtain, while someone else, just as swiftly, would turn off the lights. A deep, premature night filled the room. When I looked out the window, I saw all the lights of Sporting go out one by one, accentuating the sudden darkness that had settled among us.
“What I don’t understand,” Aunt Marta would say in her shrill voice, “is that there hasn’t been a single bomb dropped on Alexandria.”
“And what I don’t understand is that you keep repeating the same thing each time there’s an air raid,” my grandmother would snap.
And thus, for almost an hour, as we sat together in the dark, occasionally interrupted by an irate “Taffi al-nur!” rising from within the courtyard in our building, or by my great-grandmother asking what someone in the room had just said, or by Latifa who would tiptoe her way in to retrieve some cups ever so discreetly so as not to disturb those listening to the radio, someone would always remind us that our days in Egypt were numbered, that most of us would be spending New Year’s somewhere else in the world, that we would never sit together in this same room again.
For the next day, and the days after that, I would go out wit
h aunts and cousins, sensing that what gave our days their unusual luster was less the walks we took together, or the places we visited, or the peculiar, old-fashioned games we played, or even those improvised visits that made the Saint so happy, but the strangely comforting certainty of coming back to a stuffy room full of stuffy people bound together by the need to huddle in the dark.
One evening, ten days after the beginning of the war, the porter came upstairs with a man wearing a police uniform. Apparently, someone from our apartment had been sending Morse code signals to enemy ships at night. We explained that there must be a mistake; besides, no one in our home knew the Morse code. My grandmother had Uncles Isaac and Nessim swear on their honor.
Latifa’s face was white. My grandmother asked her to sit down and began fanning her head.
“Are you going to faint?” she asked.
“I don’t know, I think so, maybe,” said Latifa.
“She’s fainted,” whispered an exasperated Aunt Elsa, while the policeman looked around one last time and said he was sorry to have disturbed us.
My grandmother immediately called Dr. Alcabès. Minutes later, my mother, who performed injections for everyone in the family and who, when begged, would describe the shape and condition of anyone’s buttocks, administered Latifa with an injection of a certain “revitalizer” of which my great-grandmother had a large supply, jealously guarded by Aunt Elsa. Years later I found out that it had belonged to Uncle Vili and was nothing more than a shady elixir used by nearimpotent men.
“But does she need it, or does she just want the evening off to go cackle with the maids upstairs?” asked my great-grandmother.
“Take a good look at her face and tell me if she doesn’t need it,” snapped my mother.
“You’re sure she’s not exaggerating?” the old woman persisted.
“Old miser,” my mother muttered.
