The Automobile Club of Egypt

by Alaa Al Aswany

  After a long discussion, the committee members agreed to accept Egyptians provided that they could furnish letters from two members of the administrative committee to second their applications for membership. Foreigners who provided proof of automobile ownership would receive membership automatically. Thus the committee could prevent Egyptians from becoming members, inasmuch as was possible, in a manner that would not provoke public resentment.

  The other issue was that of the staff. The committee members naturally hoped to employ Europeans. When they studied the matter, however, it became clear that the cost of employing foreign staff would be astronomical. Facing this insurmountable problem, some committee members suggested staffing the club with Egyptians.

  “They’re dirty. Stupid. Filthy. Liars and thieves.” These words were spoken by a French committee member, but they expressed the opinion of the majority.

  The issue of staff continued to be discussed for weeks without resolution. At one of the weekly Tuesday meetings, the managing director, Mr. James Wright, arrived carrying a large manila file. He stood at the head of the board table and announced formally, “Gentleman, members of the administrative committee! I have put together a perfect plan for staffing the Club. I shall present it to you now and then take note of your reactions.”

  SALEHA ABD EL-AZIZ GAAFAR

  I still have my photographs from when I was a child.

  When I look at them now, I find that they reflect an inner peace. How happy and content I appear. I was blessed with an undeniably happy childhood, and except for the irritations caused by my brother Said, I do not remember any childhood traumas. I was the only girl, and everyone spoiled me. I had no worries or frustrations until we left Upper Egypt for Cairo, and it seemed like we were going to live in a better place. Two incidents stand out indelibly as important markers in my life. I was taking a shower when a trickle of blood started flowing down the lower part of my body. I screamed and ran to my mother for help, but to my astonishment, she did not seem particularly bothered and just proceeded to show me how to deal with the bleeding. When I finished my shower, she embraced me and told me that this would happen every month, and it meant that God had now made me into a woman capable of having children.

  The second incident happened when I was a student in the second year at the Sunniya high school. During the last lesson, as Mr. Ma’mun, our Arabic teacher, was busy explaining how to use the adverbs of time and place, the classroom door suddenly opened, and Miss Sawsan, the deputy headmistress, came in. We stood up for her, and she smiled, greeted us and gestured to us to sit down. She whispered a few words to Mr. Ma’mun and then walked to the center of the classroom and announced, “Those girls who hear their name called out are to come with me…”

  She read out three names from a piece of paper: mine and those of Khadiga Abd el-Sattar and Awatef Kamel.

  We had no idea why we had been singled out, but we all felt quite jolly when we left the classroom for the cool air outside. We walked along behind Miss Sawsan, who, as usual, was marching along in an almost military way, with ne’er a look behind her. Soon, we started skipping, and Khadiga was imitating her walk. I exchanged glances with Awatef, and we could hardly contain our laughter. It was rather strange that I got on so well with Awatef, since I usually did not like her. She was pretty but unbearably arrogant. Our classmates used to make comparisons between us—which of us was prettier? I hated those discussions, even though I was sure that I was prettier. I used to list to myself the features of my body that I was proud of: my ink-black hair, the greenish eyes I inherited from my grandmother, the prominent line of my upper chest and my slim thighs. I even loved my small feet!

  We followed Miss Sawsan to the office of the headmistress. It was gloomy in there except for a patch of light from a reading lamp by which she was reading over some papers. I detected the smell of old wood and another pleasant odor, though I could not tell where it was coming from.

  Just standing there in front of her was enough to fill us with dread. We were silent until she raised her head, looked at us with a smile and then, as if she had practiced them, quickly uttered the following sentences, “You are the only girls in the second year who have not yet paid the second installment of your school fees and this was due two months ago. According to school regulations, we cannot allow you to sit the final examinations until the fees have been paid. I am sorry, girls, but the regulations from the Ministry of Information have to be followed.”

  She handed us unsealed envelopes containing letters addressed to our parents. Then, in a firm tone but not one without a hint of compassion, she said, “Off you go now. Good-bye. You are not to attend school until you bring your parents and the fees.”

  The bell rang for the end of the school day. We had to go back to the classroom to pick up our bags before going home. I started to feel a bit odd. It felt like my body was walking along on its own, uncontrolled by my mind, as if some external power was driving me along. Some of the girls stopped us to ask why we had been called to see the headmistress. Awatef said there had been some sort of problem with our names that needed to be corrected before they could fill out the forms for the end-of-year exams. At that moment we felt a sort of solidarity, a silent collusion. We had a secret that united us. Strangely, we did not talk about what had happened. We just chitchatted about other things.

  Suddenly, with no one else near, Awatef said angrily, “The school has no right to stop us taking the exam just because we haven’t paid the fees. I’m not speaking about myself. My family is quite well off, thank God. We don’t have a problem with the fees. I’ll pay the amount due tomorrow, but what if one of us was really poor or her family was having a hard time. Would she lose her whole future just over a few Egyptian pounds?”

  I knew that she was lying, but I made no comment. I was still trying to take in what had happened, and what the headmistress had said kept echoing in my ears: “We cannot allow you to sit the final examinations until the fees have been paid.” I went through the motions of giving Khadiga and Awatef a hug and a kiss, picked up my bag and went out of the school gate, where I found my brother Kamel waiting to walk me home as usual. He smiled, hugged me and then put his hand on my shoulder and asked me, “How was your day?”

  I did not reply, having a hard time controlling my emotions.

  Kamel, now a little worried, said, “What’s the matter, Saleha? Did something happen at school?”

  Because of his gentleness, my tears welled up, and I could taste their saltiness. I handed him the letter. He read it quickly, then folded it again and put it in his pocket.

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  On the way home, Kamel stopped at the juice seller on the square and bought me a big glass of the guava juice I loved. He patted me on the shoulder, smiled and said, “You are too sensitive. It’s a very simple matter. Our father has been busy with his work and forgotten to send the school fees. Tomorrow morning, please God, I’ll go to school with you and give them the fees.”

  I nodded and tried to smile. I wanted to make him happy. I was certain that he was lying, but I pretended to believe him.

  We went home, and I took off my school clothes, had a shower and put on my housedress. Kamel took my mother into the kitchen, and when she came back, I noticed that she looked dejected and was avoiding my gaze. After lunch I told her that I had a lot of homework, and she said I did not have to help her with the washing up. I went to my room and shut the door. I lay on the bed, just wanting to be left alone. For the first time, I felt I did not know what was happening: If my father was really so busy, why hadn’t he sent the school fees along with Kamel? Couldn’t he afford it?

  As far as I knew, we were not poor. I knew that our father came from a great and wealthy family. I still had wonderful memories of my childhood in Daraw, and of when our father sold his land in Upper Egypt and went to Cairo, he did so to provide us with a better education. That’s what my mother said, and with great pride, I used to repeat to my school friends
, “My father has a senior position at the Automobile Club, and he meets the king a lot and speaks to him.”

  How could it be that my father worked with the king but could not afford my school fees? The king must have paid his staff high salaries, so what could have happened? Had there been some incident with my father? Had someone stolen his money or bullied him into handing it over? What would we do in a crisis like that? Thank God I always sailed through school with flying colors and never had to retake any classes like my brothers Said and Mahmud. My marks were good in geography and languages, and I always came top in mathematics. Suddenly, my thoughts turned elsewhere. I started feeling guilty. Perhaps I was the cause of the crisis. How many times had I nagged him to buy me new clothes or take me to the cinema? Had I known he was going through difficult times, I would never have burdened him. All the things I had asked him for now seemed like wasteful trifles.

  A little later, when my mother came into my room, she found me covered up in bed. I muttered that I was worn out and feeling ill. She put her hand on my forehead and sounded worried. “We will have to get the doctor to see you.”

  “No…I just need to rest. I won’t go to school tomorrow.”

  She gave me a baffled look. “If that’s how you feel.”

  Thus I pretended to be ill to give my father the chance to raise the school fees. That was the only way to avoid embarrassing him. I did not dare ask him for the money or even discuss the matter directly. I could not bear to see him in a bind even for a moment.

  My mother brought me a glass of hot lemon juice and left. After a while, I heard my brother Kamel, who came in and sat next to me. “Hello, Saleha!”

  I repeated my symptoms to him, but he can always see right through me. He completely ignored what I was saying and smiled. “Don’t worry. Within two or three days at the most, we will have the fees paid.”

  I was about to try to convince him that I really was ill, but he gave me a little bow, planted a kiss on my forehead and left the room.

  4

  “Alku.” The name itself is a pharyngeal groan sounded through tightly pursed lips. In Nubian it means a leader or important person, but at the Club it took on mythical dimensions. It called to mind some great and legendary winged beast, the subject of fantastic tales passed down over the generations, until one day the monster suddenly takes flesh and casts its toxic shadow over everything. Alku was just such a creation. His full name was Qasem Muhammad Qasem, and he was a Sudanese Nubian in his sixties. When not speaking Nubian, he spoke heavily accented Arabic, mixing up the masculine and feminine suffixes. He could converse fluently in French and Italian but could barely write them. Alku had two jobs: those of servant and master. He’d first been taken on as the king’s valet, and as part of his duties as master of the wardrobe, he dressed and undressed the king. Alku was the palace’s head chamberlain and the most senior servant, and he enjoyed the confidence of His Majesty.

  His relationship with His Majesty greatly overstepped the boundaries of his position. Alku was present at His Majesty’s birth, and he held him in his own hands when the king was just a suckling, and observed with sincere joy his first crawl, his first tottering steps and his first words. When His Majesty was a child, Alku accompanied him on hunting and bicycle trips and horseback-riding lessons. He was the only one who knew whether His Majesty was feigning illness in order to skip torturous lessons with his strict teachers. It was Alku who purloined desserts from the palace kitchen and smuggled them into His Majesty’s suite when his English governess had imposed a harsh dietary regimen upon the boy to make him lose weight. It was also Alku who, with complete discretion, organized His Majesty’s first trysts with beautiful women of the upper class, this to relieve all the adolescent fervor that was affecting his concentration and state of mind. When His Majesty went off to school in England, he insisted upon taking Alku with him, though it was less than two years later that, following his father’s sudden death, the king returned to accede to the throne of Egypt. At that point, Alku gained unprecedented and overwhelming influence at the palace. All royal correspondence, however confidential or important, was opened personally by Alku, who would read it aloud to His Majesty every morning as the latter lay naked in his hot bubble bath, with Iliana, the Greek pedicurist, taking care of his feet, shaving him and trimming his mustache and eyebrows. His Majesty would listen and offer a word or two of comment at most. “We agree” or “later” and so forth. Sometimes, if His Majesty was worried or anxious, he would flip over in the bathtub, and his enormous body would create a huge wave, like that of a great fish. Then he would wag his finger and say, “Qasem Alku! You’d better behave yourself!”

  During such periods, Alku would answer the urgent correspondence as he saw fit. He would write instructions in French, not without grammatical errors. Alku, thus, was the true gateway to the king and much closer to His Majesty than any other individuals of the court or the palace administration. A story has been passed down that serves as a perfect example. When Dabagh Pasha, the prime minister of Egypt, wanted an audience with His Majesty, Alku asked him about the purpose. The prime minister’s face flushed with rage. He found it highly impertinent that he, an Oxford graduate, should have to provide an explanation to a servant. In a delicately sneering patrician tone, he told Alku, “Who has the right to question the prime minister of Egypt when he requests an audience with the king?”

  The next day the king summoned the prime minister and deliberately kept him standing. The king gestured toward Alku and said, “I hope that you understand, Pasha, that this man represents Us. Treating him with respect is the equivalent of treating Us with respect.”

  The prime minister lowered his head deeply and uttered some words of apology. Thus the supreme status of Alku in the palace was confirmed, and ministers and politicians all continued to curry his favor despite deep resentment that they struggled to hide. For them, Alku was no more than a black servant, a simple valet, ignorant, vulgar, riffraff, but they were careful to keep on his good side due to his endless ability both to create mischief and to be useful. Alku, at will, could cause anyone to gain or lose the king’s favor. He held the keys to the king’s personality and could read his state of mind at any moment. Moreover, Alku had enormous life experience as well as a sharp, instinctive brain that enabled him to see right through people with one glance. One might go so far as to say that his manner of presenting facts and personages to His Majesty should be taught in diplomacy courses. He had only to look at the king to know whether his thinking was going to be clear or muddled, and Alku would appropriately choose to present or withhold matters from him accordingly.

  Alku could carry out His Majesty’s orders for days without conferring with him, and at other times he knew by experience that he should ask the king for his opinion. In making his report to the king about a particular person, for example, he never spoke in a straightforward manner but discreetly dropped a fact here and there and repeated certain other people’s views in such a way that the king always ended up reaching a decision that Alku desired. Alku practiced all these skills with the ease and self-assurance of a talented soccer player kicking the ball at the goal from an angle he had practiced a thousand times—and scoring. His role overseeing the king was one side of Alku’s duties, and he had another no less important job: he also oversaw all the servants in all the royal palaces. Second only to God Almighty, he was the sole controller of their lives, their earnings and their fates.

  If the palace needed more servants, Alku would send men dressed in the local galabiyya to Aswan and Nubia in the south of Egypt to scour the area for men who fit the bill: intelligent, in good health, fit and of good name. The promising candidates would then be shipped off to Abdin Palace in Cairo, where Alku would look them over and either take them on or order them to be sent back. Just from looking them up and down and having a few short words with them, Alku could spot an impertinent or angry type, a nervy, obstinate reprobate or one addicted to alcohol or hashish, each of which we
re enough to rule a man right out. The surviving candidates would spend a few months in the two-story school building in the garden of Abdin Palace, learning how to serve in the palace—“l’art du service,” as Alku used to call it in his supercilious French accent. Their training consisted of four rules:

  First: Personal hygiene

  A shower must be taken daily both in summer and in winter, the body scrubbed with particular attention to the neck, the nape and the armpits. Deodorant must be used. Everyone must be clean shaven. Teeth must be brushed with toothpaste morning and night. Hair must be washed and worn with a part. Careful attention must be given to the heels, and nails, both finger and toe, must be kept trimmed.

  Alku imposed the hygiene regulations with such severity that they gradually became second nature to the servants. At any moment he might carry out an inspection, ordering a servant to open his mouth or to show him his neck or fingernails. He would often tell a servant to remove his shoes and socks to check his feet. And woe betide him if Alku thought his toenails too long or if his feet were dirty. He would order that man beaten immediately but not before roaring at him, “How can you serve the king with filthy feet, you animal!”

  Second: Attire

  All work clothes, whatever their type or color, must be clean and well ironed. A chipped button, a wrinkled collar or a spot would result in punishment. Socks must be clean and new and worn uncrumpled. Shoes must be cleaned and polished to perfection. Daily.