The Arrogant Years

by Lucette Lagnado

  The evening suddenly took on a nightmarish cast. Surely you have to keep reading, I said, distraught, and you won’t think this way as you read on.

  But he wasn’t listening, and I realized his mind was made up. I was, to him, the errant child, the silly, silly little girl of Mrs. Menachem’s invectives who had wandered out of the women’s section into a forbidden world and become so lost in it that I’d broken one of God’s most sacred and essential laws.

  I felt more triste than angry. I had journeyed thousands of miles, compelled to find a man who had made an indelible impression on my childhood, someone Edith had genuinely loved and respected, and whose lively sermons had been a crucial part of our lives in the women’s section. I had felt sure I would be greeted and embraced as an old friend by him and his daughters. Instead, I had encountered a strange suspicion and hostility that vanished only when we could recall fragments of our shared past—Gladys’s delicious sandwiches, the wonderful bond we had all felt at the Shield of Young David.

  As I thought of the divide between me and the Ruben girls, the chasm between my world as a professional woman in New York and theirs as mothers and grandmothers tending to large extended families in this secluded Hasidic enclave in Jerusalem, I realized that theirs was the life I could have led—that would have been mine had I listened to Mrs. Menachem. And as I pondered the absence of children and grandchildren, along with the loss of community and all the sustenance it can provide, I felt shaken and no longer sure I had picked well and not at all confident in my chosen path.

  Still trembling from my encounter with my old rabbi, I wasn’t sure what to expect as I made my way to the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Sefer—the Town of the Book—where I had come to meet Celia’s younger brother, Moshe.

  As I stepped out of my taxi, I was met by a tall man in rabbinical garb. Moshe Garzon had an amiable smile and while he couldn’t hug me—not in his culture—he managed to be embracing in his manner and greeted me enthusiastically. As Moshe took me inside the home he shared with his wife and family, I felt none of the wariness I’d detected in Rabbi Ruben’s household. Occasionally, I’d catch glimpses of some of Moshe’s eleven children scampering about, obviously curious about me.

  There was even a Celia look-alike, a pretty little girl with dark hair and a mischievous smile who kept running over to us.

  Moshe seemed very excited as he spoke—he, too, was an author he told me proudly, pointing to shelves lined with his books. He divided his time between his scholarly research and the rabbinical school he helped run. His wife who joined us was a serious, soft-spoken woman; she worked with Orthodox victims of spousal abuse.

  Without any prompting from me, Moshe began to talk about our childhood synagogue and one of the central incidents of my life.

  I was “the girl who made the rebellion” at the Shield of Young David, he said, conjuring up those long-ago Saturday mornings when my siege began. “You made a plan, you were going to sit in the men’s section,” he said. “I remember as if it were yesterday, because I was thinking, wow, this is unbelievable, those girls.”

  He had watched on the sidelines as Sabbath after Sabbath we’d move our chairs a bit more aggressively inside the men’s sanctuary. He’d wondered if we were actually going to get away with it—he even recalled thinking there was a chance we would pull off the impossible. But then came the morning of the hue and cry, when we’d penetrated too far into the sanctuary, and the men had yelled, “That’s it, girls, go back.” He had seen us as we marched despondently back into the women’s section.

  Moshe spoke lucidly, thoughtfully, analytically, like the great rabbi I realized he had become. He wasn’t in the least bit judgmental—he didn’t condemn me or suggest I had transgressed any laws. Rather, he simply offered his own assessment of what went wrong.

  “I will tell you why your plan didn’t work,” he said, growing excited, as if on the verge of solving an old Talmudic riddle. “You went too fast.” Perhaps if I hadn’t grown overly confident, he suggested, if I hadn’t insisted on going too deeply inside the sanctuary, my scheme could have worked. The men at the Shield of Young David could potentially have made their peace with a group of little girls sitting in their midst. I listened to him, amazed: I had no illusions that Moshe believed in a synagogue without dividers, and I was sure that if I pressed him, he could have explained to me the intricacies of the laws governing the separation of men and women. But he also struck me as profoundly sweet, almost childlike, willing to go along with my girlhood fantasy. I also felt that he was trying to console me somehow for that long-ago debacle, perhaps rid me of the trauma I still felt.

  I had only one more question: What had he thought all those years ago when he was watching, watching?

  “I thought that you were a very courageous little girl,” he replied, and he was smiling.

  I said good-bye to Moshe and embraced his wife and children, including the adorable Celia look-alike. As I walked out into the balmy night air of the Town of the Book, I realized that I was feeling both elated and at peace. I had found a measure of solace at last at the hands of this gentle rabbi and childhood friend. It was as if he had sung to me the Verse of Consolation, that passage we recite when the Fast of Lamentation is over—Rejoice, Rejoice and be comforted—and we have ceased our mourning over the destruction of Jerusalem and have begun to rebuild our broken city.

  As a little girl, the divider had been the most visible, jarring aspect of a way of life filled with hundreds of strictures and ordinances—not simply where to sit and where not to sit inside a house of worship, but also what to eat, what to wear, when to work and when to stop all work.

  There was a simple premise to my life as it unfolded behind the magical little barrier that seemed to shield me from all harm. As long as I sat in that women’s section—as long as I didn’t wander outside of it—I remained miraculously safe.

  It never occurred to me to wonder if the men might be looking our way and wishing they could be with us in our haven.

  The divider was long gone and with it, that feeling of complete serenity, the deep, abiding conviction that all would be well. Since its collapse I had come to see the world as a place of extraordinary, breathtaking peril. Without a divider to protect me, I was plagued by a perpetual feeling of danger—of fearfulness and timidity—all qualities that were foreign to me during my years at the Shield of Young David.

  I had once felt supremely invulnerable. When I had stormed the men’s section, I had been certain that I could change an ordained system in place for generations, even centuries. I saw myself as the avenger of the weak and downtrodden prisoners of the wooden enclosure.

  To my shock and bewilderment, I found the world beyond the divider deeply wanting in comparison to the world I had left behind.

  What I’d failed to realize was that for the women of my childhood, the world within our closed-off area was every bit as rich and vivid as the universe beyond it; and the barrier in fact fostered and intensified feelings of kinship and intimacy. Inside was a world that was remarkably collegial and embracing and kind.

  I would find myself forever yearning for that sense of absolute protection, that feeling of being watched over and loved that I had experienced, I realized, only once—only in those years when I sat with Mom at the Shield of Young David in its women’s section.

  · EPILOGUE ·

  Inside the Pasha’s Library

  Head straight to Sakakini Palace and then cross over to Ibn Khaldoum Street. It will lead you to Sakakini Street. But BE CAREFUL—there are not one but two Sakakini Streets. You want the Sakakini that has the tramway. Your mother’s alleyway should be on the left.”

  Sarah Naggar, who as a little girl loved to watch my mom walking down the street every morning on her way to work, had been meticulous and painfully precise in the way that only the old can be: She’d repeated the directions to me over and over again, and always with the same warning.

  I had to get to the street with the tram.
If I wasn’t careful, I would end up in the wrong Sakakini Street, the wrong alleyway.

  Now that Edith was gone, I yearned for any trace of her. By returning to Cairo, I hoped to discover some remnant of the life she had loved. I had been back in search of my father’s lost city, traveling to Egypt after an absence of more than forty years. Now, I hoped to find elements of the very different Cairo Mom had known, far removed from the cabarets and casinos my father had relished in his sharkskin suits, a world of humble alleyways and quiet libraries and schools. I was also curious as to what had become of the pasha’s wife, the woman who had beguiled Mom’s youth and haunted her old age. I intended to visit L’École Cattaui, where Mom had taught and the pasha’s wife had presided. Who knows, maybe I will see what is left of the library my mother built, I thought hopefully. I planned to stop by Le Sebil. And I was going to hunt for the Cattaui Pashas: Surely, this grand Cairene family had left its imprint.

  Most important of all, with the help of Sarah Naggar, now nearly eighty, I was going back to my mother’s house.

  I walked up and down Sakakini, searching for L’École Cattaui. But there wasn’t so much as a trace of the school left—not even the original building. When I asked neighbors about the school, they looked at me blankly. Several blocks away, in the Abbassiyah section, I came across the tall imposing structure that had once housed the Sebil, the Jewish communal school where my mother had begun her teaching career and Alice Cattaui had supervised meals and handed out pairs of sandalettes to needy children.

  I climbed up the steep flight of stairs, pushed open the door, and was greeted by men in long robes. They were imams—Muslim preachers—and they were now in charge of the building. They peered at me curiously. Yes, they said vaguely, they’d heard that years back, this had been a school for Jews, but it was a school for Muslims now.

  Disconsolate, I circled back to Sakakini and the palace. From afar, it looked as grand—and rococo—as ever, but when I made my way to its front gate, I realized it was as faded and decayed as the rest of Cairo. No one lived there anymore. The magnificent palazzo was abandoned. I’d heard there had been plans to turn it into a museum, but like so much in Egypt, that dream was never realized.

  When I crossed back to Sakakini Street, I remembered Sarah Naggar’s admonition: I stopped and asked an amiable storekeeper, a man who sold ballpoint pens—only pens—in a shop the size of a broom closet, if this was indeed the street of the tram. I couldn’t see any trams. He smiled broadly and nodded. He had grown up in the neighborhood and fondly remembered the tram. Cairo was more modern now, he said sadly.

  Only Mom’s little alleyway had stayed the same. Dusty, forgotten, the Alley of the Pretty One—Haret el-Helwa—still had the low-lying houses dating back to the early twentieth century, with balconies that looked unchanged from the years when Edith and Alexandra would sit back and savor their café turc while chatting with neighbors and passersby.

  Loulou on a visit to Haret el-Helwa, the Alley of the Pretty One, where Edith had lived, Cairo, 2010.

  I lingered, transfixed, in front of my mother’s girlhood dwelling, suddenly filled with the hope that at any moment, she and my grandmother would emerge, that I’d see them strolling arm in arm on their way toward Sakakini Palace for their evening walk.

  “Blessed be the Lord who revives the dead,” devout Jews pray every morning and every afternoon and every night.

  Here in Cairo it was possible to take the prayer literally.

  From Sakakini I made the pilgrimage to Garden City, as Mom had done that day Alice Cattaui had extended the invitation of a lifetime: to come see the pasha’s library and browse through its wondrous collection of books. Although the taxi ride took only minutes, it was still like crossing into a different world, a quiet rarefied universe distinct from the grimy bustle of Sakakini.

  Garden City had retained elements of its former splendor. Although many villas had been torn down and replaced by ugly concrete modern buildings, there were still streets lined with the dreamy palatial mansions of old. I peered one by one at the ancient villas and crumbling palaces. I consulted local scholars and historians and guides to help me: Where was Villa Cattaui? What happened to 8 Ibrahim Pasha Street?

  The villa had vanished. A tall building stood in its stead.

  I also tried to inquire about the Cattaui family cemetery, where Indji was buried near the pasha and his wife. It, too, didn’t exist anymore, I was told. The explanations were vague and unsatisfactory. It had been torn down. It had been replaced by a new urban project. It had simply disappeared.

  It was as if every trace of this great family that had once dominated the life of the city had been expunged. There was nothing left of the Cattauis in Cairo.

  Or next to nothing. While wandering around the cool marble sanctuary of the Gates of Heaven, the synagogue designed and funded by the Cattauis where my parents were married, I noticed a plaque or two bearing their name, along with lavishly sentimental tributes to the family.

  And that was it; all I could find of the storied Cattaui Pashas were a couple of square slabs of pale gray marble, like headstones, inscribed with the Cattaui name as well as some sentences in gold letters extolling their extraordinary love and devotion to the Jewish community.

  The Cattauis, it turned out, were also victims. As with my own family, as with tens of thousands of Jews of every economic and social strata, the ferocious revolution hadn’t viewed them as true Egyptians either. Stripped of their standing, their homes, their titles, and many of their holdings, they hung on at first, then painfully made their way out of Egypt, settling in Paris and London, Geneva and Lausanne. Some married into European nobility while others found spouses in the haute bourgeoisie.

  They had means, of course—far more than my family ever would. They were able to lead comfortable lives and befriend other expatriates.

  And yet they, too, mourned their lost life. The grace and elegance of their new homes wasn’t enough to console them for their loss. Perhaps as a way to adapt, to be a part of a new culture that was so much less tolerant than Cairo had once been, one by one the Cattaui children and grandchildren relinquished their Judaism. Once the leaders and protectors of all the Jews of Egypt, the Cattauis no longer considered themselves Jewish. It was as if the keepers of the flame had chosen to extinguish their own inner flame.

  Of course, once upon a time in old Cairo, it was possible to be Jewish and a pasha. You could be Jewish and an aristocrat, Jewish and a friend to ministers and kings. But the world beyond was far less embracing—and far more contemptuous—of Jews than this ancient, devout Muslim city.

  For the Cattauis to take their place among European nobility, it seemed prudent simply to surrender their Judaism. Some flourished in France in part because they forfeited their identity. Georges Cattaui, a nephew of the pasha, was a French diplomat and distinguished literary critic who gained renown for his studies of Marcel Proust. Georges fashioned himself as a devout Catholic and, at the end, quietly requested a Christian burial.

  But there was one Cattaui who didn’t leave Egypt and didn’t abandon Judaism and remained faithful to both to the end. The pasha’s wife never left Garden City. She stayed even after the Cattaui name had lost its luster and the new regime had decreed it had no use for pashas or their wives.

  In her final years, Madame Cattaui, so stoic and independent throughout her life, needed help to get by. Nearly blind in her old age, she found it hard to function in that enormous house, although the cook and several of the maids and even her faithful chauffeur remained by her side.

  Odette Harari, a Jewish housewife who had grown up across the street from Villa Cattaui, was hired as her companion. Every day, Odette would arrive at the mansion to meet with Madame Cattaui. Typically, the chauffeur would drive the two women to the Gezirah Sporting Club, a magical enclave of gardens and flowers and tennis courts located in Zamalek, an island in the middle of the Nile. In the blissful seclusion of the Sporting Club, where once upon a time high soc
iety had reigned and the pasha’s wife had reigned over high society, the two women would sit and enjoy a cup of tea and some quiet conversation.

  Back at the Villa, Madame Cattaui would have Odette read the papers out loud to her: She was especially fond of the society column that chronicled births, deaths, weddings, and engagements. She always listened carefully to the obituaries, and when a friend from her old circles died, she would dictate a graceful condolence note to their family. She used the dead person’s honorifics, referring to them as Pasha or Bey or Effendi—no matter that the revolutionary government had banned all royal monikers.

  Once in a while, as Madame Cattaui held on to Odette’s arm, the chauffeur drove to the small family cemetery on the other side of Cairo. Even in her eighties, the pasha’s wife had continued her pilgrimages to Indji’s grave and she was still mourning the daughter she had lost half a century earlier. Alice Cattaui was so frail by then, barely able to walk from the automobile to the gravesite.

  As her strength failed her, the pasha’s wife didn’t leave the villa, and the beautiful sofas and armchairs where duchesses and queens had once sat and paid homage were covered by ghostly dustcovers: There were rarely any visitors anymore.

  Only her granddaughter Nimet stopped by on occasion. Ever the contrarian, Nimet had returned from abroad and settled in Egypt even as Jews were leaving in droves. Her marriage to another Egyptian Jew, the son of a pasha, had ended badly. She returned to Cairo, married a Copt, and tried to keep an eye on the woman who had always counseled her, “Never give in to despair.”

  In the end, the pasha’s wife was confined to her bed. One afternoon in 1955, Odette arrived to find Madame Cattaui was dying. Her granddaughter was at her side and understandably distraught.