‘No,’ agreed Camelia, pointedly ignoring her father’s gentle mockery. ‘In fact, the people now loath him for his foolish excesses and empty gestures. Throwing gold coins at the poor during his royal visits won’t make them love him. If we don’t want the fellahin to revolt, then we must give them proper living conditions, not grinding poverty.’
Kamel raised his eyebrows. ‘What, you would have us give up our land?’ He pulled the bottle from the ice bucket and refilled their empty glasses.
‘We don’t have to sacrifice the land, Papa. Not if we can invest our wealth in education programmes and charitable work. Isn’t the privilege of our class also to be guardians of the nation? Do we not have a duty to protect our own people?’
It seemed that Camelia had become a much deeper thinker now that she was older, Aida thought approvingly. ‘There’s also the question of diseases caused by contaminated drinking water,’ she threw in. ‘Diseases that are entirely preventable with decent sanitation.’
Camelia nodded as she picked up her glass. ‘Yes, all part of the reforms the King has been promising and not delivering.’
Kamel lit a cigar. ‘Farouk might not be as popular as he was when he was young, but as I’ve said to you before, he is Egypt’s righteous king.’
Camelia sent her father an exasperated look. ‘Righteous king? He’s a puppet of the British!’
‘Farouk knows he must play a long game, my child. He wants independence from the British as much as all of these radical nationalists who are demonstrating and rioting in the streets of Cairo and placing bombs in cinemas.’
‘Papa, if he was a stronger leader and had a government who stood up to the British, those nationalists wouldn’t need to resort to such things.’
‘So, what are you saying? We should have a violent revolution, like the communists want?’ Kamel shook his head emphatically. ‘No, no. I want the British out of Egypt as much as the next man, but there are ways of making them leave without violence.’ He regarded Camelia with a mixture of concern and disapproval. ‘I’m all for women’s education, habibti, but I’m not sure I like the idea of you reading Marx. And it has not escaped my notice that you’ve been seen at the Mena House Hotel having tea with Fatma Morsy and Naima Said. Feminists and communist intellectuals, both of them, by all accounts.’
Camelia gave a laugh which to Aida sounded a little forced. ‘Fatma and Naima are old schoolfriends. You know that, Papa.’
Kamel drew on his cigarette, peering at her through the wafting smoke. ‘I don’t remember you seeing much of them until recently. I don’t want them filling your head with ideas that will get you in trouble, that’s all.’
Camelia sipped her wine quickly. ‘Anyway, Papa, at a time like this how can you mix with the British and have them as your friends at the Turf Club, but then say you also want the British out?’
‘It’s not that simple, habibti. Wanting Egypt to govern her own affairs doesn’t mean one can’t have British friends.’
‘And having tea with feminists and intellectuals, Papa, doesn’t mean one wants to start a revolution.’
Kamel took one look at Camelia and burst out laughing, a deep, rumbling infectious sound. ‘Touché, habibti. Well, I’m glad at least that my little girl has grown into a woman who can think for herself!’
Aida saw the undisguised fondness for his daughter in Kamel’s expression, and the way his dark eyes glittered so warmly reminded her once more of Phares. He turned to Aida, the laughter lines in his face etched strongly; she didn’t want to like his smile but she couldn’t help finding it genuine and kindly. ‘Come, let’s go and eat,’ he said. ‘All this talk has made me hungry.’
They graduated to the great dining room furnished just as Aida remembered it, in Louis XV highly ornamental but tasteful style. In the middle of the room an extending table, raised on cabriolet legs and normally seating eighteen people, was greatly reduced in size for the evening and was surrounded by jade leather upholstered chairs, which echoed the striped jade-green and silver-grey curtains of the French windows running along three sides of the room. Tall mirrors above two curved side buffets made the room look even larger and airier.
Aida glanced around the room. The only other ornament on the walls was still the full-length portrait of Kamel’s grandfather, Samweel Pharaony, who, just before dying, had bought from Khedive Ismail the land on which Kasr El Ghoroub was built in 1880, when urbanisation of that part of Cairo began. As she took her seat on one of the dining chairs, the beautiful silverware and crystal glasses laid out before her, Aida was reminded how lucky she was to be part of the rich upper class in Egypt.
Dinner was served, beginning with cold mezzeh, and Aida’s thoughts were interrupted by Kamel’s voice again: ‘So, Aida, I am glad we will all be attending Princess Nazek’s ball together.’
Aida glanced up quickly to see Camelia flash her a knowing grin as if to say, I told you so. She ate a tiny piece of baladi bread dipped in tahina and replied nonchalantly, ‘Yes, it was lucky that Camelia and I bumped into each other so soon.’
‘I wasn’t planning to go myself but Camelia needs a chaperone of course, and unfortunately, Phares can’t commit to coming. He might be needed at the hospital. It’s a shame if the two of you don’t get the chance to catch up on such a marvellous occasion.’ Kamel smiled broadly at Aida and raised his glass of red wine as if in a toast to their friendship.
There it was. It was inevitable that the conversation would eventually come round to Phares. Aida took in a silent breath. ‘I hear that Princess Nazek has invited more than a thousand people,’ she said, attempting to deviate. ‘All the jet set, that’s for sure – foreigners as well as locals. It seems as though most of Cairo will be there.’
‘Let’s hope so,’ said Camelia. ‘Then I can have fun telling you all the latest gossip about each of them.’
Kamel chuckled. ‘In that case, Aida, my dear, you are in for a long evening.’
Despite herself, her mouth curved into a smile as Camelia caught her eye. She was finding it increasingly difficult to be the frosty adversary of Kamel Pharaony.
At that moment a different suffragi entered the dining room, carrying a refilled carafe of wine. His face was long-featured with a small moustache, and after a moment Aida recognised him as Mohamed, one of the young men who had helped in the kitchen when Aida was a teenager. Judging by his appearance serving at table in his white robe and red sash, he now had a more elevated position in the house.
Kamel smiled at him as the suffragi refilled his glass. ‘Ah, Mohamed, how is your father doing?’
‘Rabbena yakoun fi ounoh, may God help him, he is still sick, ya Bey,’ he answered.
Kamel looked pensive. ‘I’ve known Abdel Razek most of my life. He may be getting on now but he’s still always full of health and good spirits. This is not good. Where is he now?’
Mohamed’s eyes looked sorrowfully at his employer but his demeanour remained dignified. ‘At home, ya Bey. He has taken to his bed.’
Kamel wiped his mouth and put down his napkin. ‘We will move him. He must go to my son’s hospital, I will see to it.’
Mohamed looked suddenly wide-eyed. ‘Hospital …?’
Kamel patted the man’s arm. ‘Do not worry about the money. Your father has been part of this household since I was a boy. I will pay for his medicine and hospital bills.’
Aida saw relief flood the man’s face. Mohamed nodded vigorously. ‘Thank you, ya Bey. May God keep you and reward you for your generosity.’
‘And may God look over Abdel Razek,’ answered Kamel with a nod.
Mohamed clasped his hands together and bowed deeply to Kamel, a broad smile transforming his face as he left the room.
Aida exchanged looks with Camelia, whose eyes sparkled with unspoken meaning as her gaze moved from Aida to her father, who had become lost in thought as he continued to eat.
Aida cleared her throat apprehensively and after a moment said, ‘No doubt you will be in his prayers.’
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Kamel looked up from his food. He frowned slightly, his dark eyes filling with sorrow as they met her own. ‘Your father would have done the same. It is our custom, have you forgotten?’
A shadow of emotion and regret moved clearly over his face. Was it guilt? Shame, perhaps? No. Aida was forced to admit that Kamel Pharaony had the look of a man who missed his old friend, and for whom the ebb and flow of genuine grief was still present. Aida lowered her confused gaze to the array of dishes in front of her, unable to find any words in response.
The rest of dinner went smoothly. The food was delicious, and Aida made a supreme effort to join in the conversation. Kamel did not try to engage her in conversation about her father, but seemed to sense that for the time being it was a subject to be delicately circumnavigated. Nor did he attempt to quiz Aida about her personal life or push her into discussing marriage to Phares. Though his son was mentioned on many occasions, it was only in the context of how hard the young surgeon was working, or in relation to the latest news regarding the rest of the Pharaony family. Indeed, Kamel was naturally charming and pleasant for the entire evening, and Aida listened carefully to his views on social reform, acknowledging that his dealings with the fellahin on his Luxor estate seemed fair and compassionate, like that of a benevolent patriarch. He was not the brute she had painted him; there was no hint of any dishonesty or greed. In fact, Aida found him more and more difficult to hate. Still, until she knew the truth of who had framed her father, she would never be able to totally relax in his company.
The evening was finally over and after she and Camelia said goodnight in the corridor outside their rooms, Aida breathed a sigh of relief. She was her own mistress again. The hardest moment, when she had come face to face with Kamel Pharaony, had passed … and it had not been the ordeal she had imagined. In fact, nothing about coming home was as she had thought. All she knew was that the whole mystery and trauma of the past had to come to some sort of resolution, and she’d need to go with it as the truths surfaced, as they surely would. She had little choice in the matter anyway.
* * *
It was dusk when they left for the ball next day in Kamel Pharaony’s Rolls-Royce. The car glided slowly alongside the canal, the surface of which was as placid as glass, reflecting the golden sunset. Against the glowing light of the west the pyramids stood huge and purple in the distance, their inverted images smiling up from the watery mirror of the canal.
The high-wheeled carts, so out of place in urban, cosmopolitan Cairo, belonged here naturally, clattering over the uneven road, a stone’s throw from the canal; there, the billowing sails of feluccas crowded with sheep were moving towards the bridge, creaking open slowly with the help of the most antique of machinery to let the high masts pass through.
As the Rolls-Royce turned the corner on to the main road, the three giants came clearly into view. They looked ruddy and appallingly steep, towering majestically in the sky like gigantic ghosts, their shadows lying sharp across the sands. Long caravans of weary camels strode silently by in the twilight, while a host of shrouded figures, some accompanied by their beasts, hurried on the way to their mud houses where, for most of them, a dinner of foul, tomatoes and gargueer, wild rocket, awaited them.
The broad, straight Pyramids Road that led back into the centre of Cairo was a legendary highway with a tramway cutting through it. Built in the 1860s as a showpiece boulevard – part of the ambitious and idealistic Khedive Ismail’s dream of making Cairo the ‘Paris of the Nile’ – the well-kept road thronged daily with private cars, camels, donkeys and charabancs. The sides of the beautiful avenue were planted with lebbek trees, or ‘woman’s tongue’, named for the sound the seeds make rattling inside the pods like gossiping women. Rough-barked with twisted branches, their slender leaves flung a dapple of shadow upon the ground during the heat of the day. In the distance, green and fertile plains stretched out of sight.
As they journeyed to Gezireh Island, Aida was freshly struck by the beauty of Cairo. The romance of Egypt’s own belle époque was so evident here.
Camelia nudged her friend. ‘A penny for your thoughts. You seem so far away.’
Aida glanced back from the window and smiled. ‘Perhaps it’s because I’ve been gone a long time, but I was thinking about Ismail Pasha, and what an incredible feat it was to transform the whole of Egypt the way he did. … The Suez Canal, of course, but also the schools, irrigation, agriculture, railways, roads.’
‘Yes, it’s true,’ Camelia agreed. ‘Khedive Ismail transformed our country. We have him to thank for Egypt being dragged out of the Dark Ages almost overnight.’
Aida gazed out of the car at a passing tram crowded with passengers, some hanging off the sides while holding on to the window bars as it headed into the centre of town. ‘I’d forgotten how very European Cairo feels.’
‘I love that about it too. Well, it’s hardly surprising, I suppose. The Khedive was a well-travelled man, educated in Paris, of course. He was the most dashing of Egypt’s rulers and a true Francophile. This road, for example, was built in honour of the last of the Empresses of France. Thanks to him, we can travel from the pyramids directly to the centre in no time.’
Aida gave a small sigh. ‘Yes, but look at the consequences. I wonder how many people remember that this road was also built in twenty-four hours, with no heed paid to the human and financial cost. The debts he ran up to pay for Egypt’s modernisation were crippling. He may have been the most dashing of our khedives, but he was also the most reckless.’
‘Reckless or not, it was a wonderful idea, and without Khedive Ismail’s dreams we wouldn’t have all the things you talk about. Or the beautiful palaces, the opera, theatre. We certainly wouldn’t have our house at the pyramids today.’
‘True, but there was a price to pay.’
Camelia smiled ruefully. ‘There is always a price to pay for progress, habibti, don’t you think?’
Soon they were crossing the Kasr El Nil bridge, one of the four that connected Gezireh Island to the rest of Cairo. This ‘garden island’, renowned for its beautiful public parks planted with exotic species from all over the world, had been another spectacular experiment by Khedive Ismail. It was home to the famous Gezireh Sporting Club, the Anglo-American Hospital, numerous mansions, lofty civic buildings and various royal palaces, including Saraya’t El Gummyz, Princess Nazek’s Palace of Sycamores, now only minutes away.
The two young women were sitting in the back, each looking every inch the high society debutante. Aida was in her fabulous Balenciaga midnight-blue dress which needed no adornment, except for the small sapphire, gold and diamond crescent earrings her father had given her on her sixteenth birthday and a Victorian matching bracelet that had belonged to her mother, a copy of which was in the Victoria and Albert Museum’s collection in London. Her hair was parted in the middle, the soft waves pulled back and up from her forehead and held in place with combs. A dark blue silk shawl embroidered with gold and silver thread was wrapped around her shoulders and her Charles Jourdan high-heeled slip-on satin navy shoes gave the finishing touch to her elegant Parisian look.
Camelia’s gown was of pale peach chiffon organdie, which set off her amazing dark eyes and glossy black hair. The bodice and long skirt were plain but relieved by a deep pleated frill around the shoulders and another deeper one at the bottom of the skirt. The frills were stiffened, the one on the bodice standing out like wings, the other foaming about her feet as she moved. She wore a striking parure of diamonds which, she told Aida, Mounir had given to her on their wedding day.
The gilded wrought-iron gates of Saraya’t El Gummyz were open and the Pharaonys’ Rolls-Royce joined the queue of cars proceeding at a snail’s pace up the long driveway overarched by old sycamore trees. The approach to the saraya ended in a platform flanked with two vast car parks, where a couple of porters in dark-green and gold kaftans, and other men in black suits and tarbouches helped guests out of their cars. Aida, Camelia and Kamel finally reached the platfo
rm and were directed to a magnificent pergola-walk covered with flowering creepers, which led to a courtyard at the front of the saraya, where croton shrubs were planted in an array of colours, with leaves that went from deep green with yellow speckles to flame red and blue-black. In the middle of the courtyard warbled a beautiful octagonal fisqiya, a fountain decorated with arabesque tiles and mounted with a blue dome ribbed with gold.
The palace itself was lavishly built, in a style reminiscent of medieval Turkey. The bronze double doors of the entrance were set in a high archway adorned with jewels and decorated on either side with Princess Nazek’s family’s coat of arms. The trio were ushered into the grandiose hall by two black Nubian colossi dressed in gold embroidered liveries. The central part of the marble paved hall was over fifteen metres high and lit from above by a most beautiful Bohemian pale-green opaline chandelier of enormous circumference, with tiers and tiers of lights going upwards in diminishing circles. The walls were decorated with calligraphic sheets of wise sayings or verses from the Koran, set in ornate blue-and-ochre panels with gilded frames, an adornment influenced by the ancient belief that whoever wrote the bismillah – ‘in the name of God, the Beneficent, the Merciful’ – in beautiful calligraphic script would enter Paradise without judgement.
A wide granite stairway inlaid with a dark-green carpet led up to the ballroom on the first floor. At the top of the steps a major-domo wearing the Turkish stambouline, a smart black frock coat, was announcing the guests. As she reached the top, Aida could see him bowing in a deep téménah, signalling that the couple in front were obviously of royal blood. Aida had always found that form of Turkish curtsey elegant when properly done. It consisted of bending downwards with the right arm making a sweeping gesture towards the ground and then up over the head, enacting in mime the ancient oriental idea of putting ashes on the head as a sign of humility.
‘Kamel Pharaony Pasha, Mrs Camelia Abel Sayed and Miss Aida El Masri,’ announced the master of ceremonies as the trio approached the ballroom, which for the occasion shone in all its glory. Both young women glanced at each other, their radiant faces slightly flushed, eyes glittering like jewels with excitement. It had been years since Aida had mixed with the grandees of Cairo society and she took in everything with wide-eyed fascination.
Song of the Nile Page 14
