by Ahdaf Soueif
Isabel had sat and listened, trying to make it all out.
Outside in the garden the children were playing at weddings. A little boy and girl sat on the stairs, green branches and palm fronds arranged round them to suggest the kosha, the wedding bower. The little girl had a white cloth on her head and looked down at the ground shyly as the boy reached out to hold her hand. Two girls with scarves drawn tight around what would later become their hips, were dancing in front of them. The rest of the children sat in a circle at their feet. One drummed on a sheet of wood and the others clapped and sang:
My father said Oh pretty dark one
Allah Allah
Don’t ride no more on your donkey
Allah Allah
I’ll up and buy you an aeroplane —
And I want some Pepsi-Cola
For I won’t drink tea
Go get me Pepsi-Cola
No I won’t drink tea
‘Get up, girl, you and her! Get up, you who should be beaten.’
‘Look at the kids in a hurry for themselves.’
‘Kids who can be frightened but not shamed.’
My father said No don’t go out
Allah Allah
You might get black and never be white
Allah Allah
Just keep your whiteness for your groom —
And I want some Pepsi-Cola
No I won’t drink tea
Go get me Pepsi-Cola
For I won’t drink tea
Isabel has never known a silence like this before: a silence that is not merely an absence of sound. ‘Palpable’ — that’s what it was: a silence you could imagine touching, pressing into, as you can imagine pressing into clouds. But here there are no clouds. She throws back the linen sheet and sits up in Layla al-Baroudi’s big brass four-poster. Through the fine gauze of the mosquito netting she can see, on the wall facing her, the portrait of Sharif Basha al-Baroudi. Now she can make it out only dimly, but she has studied it well. From the heavy gilt frame he looks down at her, the fez set squarely above the high forehead, the eyebrows broad and black, almost meeting above the straight nose. The thick moustache covers the upper lip; the lower lip is firm and wide in a strong, square chin. And all the arrogance of the face is perfectly focused in the eyes: proud, aloof and yet, if you look carefully, sad also. A proud man, in control, holding back. And it is in that face, more than in the face of his father out in the hall, that Isabel sees Omar el-Ghamrawi. Sees him and longs for him. How many times had they met? She goes over them again. The dinner at Deborah’s house, the restaurant on Sixth — that was when she had fallen in love: as she watched him cross the room towards her, his hand briefly raised, the smile dawning in his eyes. Then the meeting at college, pausing every three steps to talk to someone, just like Amal on the streets of Cairo. It was there, after he had stopped to speak to a bearded young Arab student, that she had asked, ‘Are you involved with the fundamentalists?’
‘What fundamentalists?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know. Hamas, or Hizbollah. Or in Egypt.’
‘You should get your fundamentalists sorted —’
‘But is it true?’
‘Do I look like a fundamentalist? Act like a fundamentalist?’
‘No. But that is what they say about you.’
‘Not so long ago, Hillary Clinton would have been called a communist for her views on public health.’
‘So you’re not?’
‘My dear child, no. Of course I’m not. Look, there’s Claudia. What an amazing hat —’
The fourth time had been to see Scapin at the Roundabout and dinner afterwards. She couldn’t say he had taken her out for she was the one who’d invited him — but he had been happy to be there. She reruns again the moment in the foyer when she had slipped off her coat and turned to him and he had smiled into her eyes.
‘You look divine.’
The hand at her elbow guiding her to her seat. And when she had driven him to his door, the slight pause — had he been deciding whether to invite her in?
‘Shall I see you before you go?’ he had asked.
‘Yes,’ she’d said, ‘I’ll call you.’ It was better than waiting for him to call. He had leaned towards her, and his quick, dry kiss was over before it had begun.
‘Good night.’
And she had called him, and asked him to come and see her find. She’d made some pasta and a salad, and he looked through the trunk. When she told him that Anna, the woman who had written the journal, was her great-grandmother, he must have put it all together straight away, but he said nothing. Later, when they were having coffee, he said, ‘You know what you should do? Take it to Cairo and show it to my sister. She lives there. She can help you piece it together.’
‘What, the whole thing?’
‘Why not? Put it on the plane. Get someone to carry it for you.’ And she had agreed because it was his sister. Because he was sending her to his sister and that would be a continuing link between them.
‘Do you actually live with her?’ she had asked.
‘Who? Live with who?’
‘Samantha Metcalfe.’
‘No, no, my dear. I don’t live with anyone. Not any more.’
‘How long is it since you’ve been divorced?’ Lightly, making a business of pouring fresh coffee.
‘A long time. Ten years. Why?’
‘I just wondered.’
‘And you? You were married.’
‘Yes. Two. Two years.’
‘Two years married or two years divorced?’
‘Both.’ She had smiled. ‘Two years married and two divorced.’
‘And?’ he asked. ‘Would you do it again? Marry, I mean.’ ‘I don’t know.’ She had looked at him. ‘If I find the right man.’
‘It’s good to have kids,’ he said. ‘Kids are good. I have two. Well, they’re practically grown up now.’
‘I know,’ she had said.
When he got up to go, when he had his coat on, and his scarf, and was at the door, she had walked into his arms. She had raised her face to his and when he kissed her she put her arms round him and would not let go. She had wanted to stay in the warmth and comfort of him for ever and their kiss had deepened and she felt that wonderful rushing melting in her stomach and her breasts and her arms and then he had put her away.
‘Oh, Isabel,’ he said, and shook his head. In his voice there was a note almost of regret. But his hand was still tangled in her hair and he pulled her head back so she had to look up at him as he said, ‘I’m old enough to be your father.’
‘I know,’ she’d said. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Yes, it does,’ he said. His hand had caressed her cheek for a moment, his thumb had brushed over her lip. He murmured, ‘Take care,’ and walked out of the door, leaving her with this ache.
This ache that would not go away. Even though she can feel his lips on hers, though in her mind she makes him unfasten her blouse and against the closed lids of her eyes watches his hands move against the white lace of her bra, fingering it, pulling at it, though she lies with him there on the floor of her apartment and feels his weight on top of her and the hard wood of the floor under her back, though she takes herself to the limit — when it’s over, she still aches for him.
When she lifts her head again, Isabel sees through the netting, through the wire mesh of the screen on the window, the world outside floodlit by the cold, white moon. She pushes aside the gossamer canopy. She opens the mesh screens, closes them behind her, and on weakened legs steps out on the veranda.
All the cushions have been removed in anticipation of the morning dew and Isabel sits on the bare cane of an armchair, her arms drawn tight around her body, and feels the soft night air on her neck and on her face: a pleasant warmth, broken, from time to time, by a breeze bringing with it the scent of the Indian jasmine spiced with a sharp edge of lemon. Out here, the silence is a backdrop to the chirp of the crickets and occasionally, from further away in the depths
of the garden, the throaty croak of a frog.
All around her the house sits, solid and serene in its hundred and twenty years. A house that had grown with the family over four generations. At its heart the spacious hall and the hospitable mandarah, the north wing with the two bedrooms and the guestroom built by Mustafa Bey al-Ghamrawi, the storerooms, bathroom and oven-room. Then the veranda, the bedrooms and bathrooms in the south wing added by Husni al-Ghamrawi. The electricity generator, the plumbing and the new kitchen put in by Ahmad al-Ghamrawi. And the garden, planted and watered and tended over the years. Its trees bearing pears, lemons and oranges. Its bushes heavy with jasmine and roses. And he, what had he done to this house? Nothing. He went to Amreeka.
Isabel looks up: Amal has come out on the veranda. She is in a pale, long nightdress, with a light shawl around her shoulders. ‘I had a feeling you were out here,’ she says. ‘Do you particularly want to be alone?’
‘Oh no, not at all,’ Isabel says.
Amal leans against the wooden railings looking out at the garden, breathing in deep. ‘Isn’t it just beautiful?’ she says.
‘Yes,’ says Isabel.
Amal turns to her. ‘Did you spray yourself with the mosquito stuff?’
‘No,’ says Isabel.
‘Do it then. Go on.’
‘But there aren’t any mosquitoes.’
‘There might be. Just one would be enough. Go on. Go and get it. Where is it? I’ll get it for you.’
‘I’ll get it,’ Isabel says, standing up. She comes back with the canister and they both spray their arms and feet. They spray their hands and wipe the liquid on to their faces.
‘Yuk,’ says Isabel.
‘I know. But in a moment you won’t smell it and the mosquitoes will.’
‘There’s no photograph of you on the walls,’ Isabel says.
‘No.’
‘Well there should be.’
‘Why?’
‘For continuity. You and your boys.’
‘My boys have nothing to do with all this. They’ve made their choice.’ Amal keeps her voice light.
‘They’re young. You don’t know what they might do.’
Amal says nothing.
‘In any case,’ Isabel continues, ‘it would be right. Not a snapshot. A formal portrait, like all the others. We must have one done in Cairo.’
‘I’ll tell you what,’ Amal says, ‘let’s have one of both of us. We are family, aren’t we?’
‘Did you give me this room on purpose?’ Isabel asks.
‘On purpose? Why?’
‘Because of his picture.’
‘Sharif Basha?’
‘He looks exactly like … your brother.’
‘Does he? I never thought of that,’ Amal says.
In the room they stand in front of the photograph.
‘See?’ says Isabel.
Amal studies the man on the wall. ‘Yes,’ she says slowly. ‘He’s more like him than like our father isn’t he?’
‘It’s the eyes and the chin and — it’s more than that,’ Isabel says, ‘it’s the whole — it’s the energy. And the air of not letting on. Of being more than he’s showing.’
‘Isabel?’
‘Yes,’ says Isabel. ‘Is it terribly obvious?’
‘I don’t know about obvious —’
‘I can’t get him out of my head. I think about him all the time. Whatever I am doing, he is like a current running through my mind —’ The relief of talking about it, letting it out. At last.
‘And he — has he — have you …’
‘No. Nothing has actually happened. I don’t even know if he shares my feelings. I think he likes being with me. We’ve been out together and the chemistry is there and it couldn’t be there if he didn’t feel it too. Maybe he thinks the age difference is a problem. He’s fifty-five. It’s hard to believe. It sounds so old, but if you didn’t know, you’d think he was forty, forty-five, wouldn’t you? I mean, he’s so young.’
The two women sit side by side on the sofa facing the portrait.
‘Is it making you unhappy?’ Amal asks.
‘No, I’m not unhappy,’ says Isabel. ‘But I just wish he would — God, I just want him so much!’
‘He probably likes you a lot. He probably doesn’t want you to get hurt.’
‘If he was in love with me as I am with him, he wouldn’t care about that.’
‘Come on —’
‘No. He’d think I wouldn’t get hurt. It wouldn’t occur to him that I might get hurt. I wouldn’t get hurt.’
‘But you’ve been through this before?’ Amal asks after a while.
‘Are you trying —’
‘I just thought —’
‘Why? You know I was married.’
‘I just thought if you’ve been through something like this before, you’ll know that it doesn’t last for ever. I know that sounds —’
‘I’ve not felt like this before — about anyone.’
After a few moments Isabel asks, ‘Has he said anything to you?’
‘No. No, he hasn’t,’ Amal says.
‘But he must have known, the moment he looked through that trunk. He must have known that we’re cousins. That’s why he said to bring it to you.’
‘Yes. He didn’t tell me, though. He left me to find out for myself.’
‘And to tell me.’
‘He must have liked the thought of us here together, working it out.’
‘But it shouldn’t make any difference, should it? Our common ancestry. I mean, it shouldn’t make him not — care for me? If he does.’
‘No. I don’t see why it should.’
‘Amal. Do you think it was meant? It seems so strange. That I should meet him like that, and then find the trunk and then it turns out we’re cousins?’
‘But you might not have met. If you hadn’t gone to that dinner party or if —’
‘Yes, but we did meet.’
‘Yes.’
‘Amal. He’s your brother. Tell me what to do.’
‘Ya habibti, he’s old enough to be your father.’
‘Please — just don’t say that.’
‘It’s the obvious thing.’
‘But it doesn’t matter.’
Amal is silent.
‘I’m going to do something about him,’ Isabel says. ‘This time. When I go back.’
* * *
‘Any success?’ Isabel asks.
Amal kicks off her shoes at the door and sighs as she puts her bare feet down on the cool tiles. ‘No,’ she says, ‘not really. God, it’s hot out there!’
‘Come and sit down,’ Isabel says. ‘Let me get you a cold drink.’ It seems so natural to her now, on just the second day here, she is the one playing the hostess, getting the drinks, looking after Amal, staying in the background when people come to talk.
‘We couldn’t go in,’ Amal says, holding the cold glass to her cheek, to her forehead. ‘They were perfectly civil. But we couldn’t go inside.’
‘What would you have gained anyway, by going in?’
‘I don’t know,’ Amal says. ‘It just seemed a place to start.’ She leans back and tilts her face up to the old wooden ceiling-fan. ‘The place looks practically derelict. They won’t even let them sweep the courtyard.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘I don’t know. I thought of going to see the Chief of Police, but I don’t think that’d be much use.’
On the wall, Husni al-Ghamrawi stands, pleasant and open-faced, his moustache clipped short, his fez straight on his head. His hand rests lightly on the shoulder of his seated wife. Layla al-Baroudi’s black hair is curled and piled on top of her head. Her cloak, fastened by a glittering brooch, falls to the floor about her seat and her dark eyes look straight at the camera. Behind her stands her son, Ahmad al-Ghamrawi. Although he has no moustache yet, he is already as tall as his father. He wears his fez at a slight angle and on his face there is the hopeful confidence of the young.
‘I don’t know. Go see the Governor, I suppose.’
‘Then that’s what you must do.’
‘There’s somebody — the son of an old friend of my father’s. They own land around here too. I’ll go and see him. See what he says.’
For a few minutes the two women sit silently together on the old Assiuti chairs. The only movement in the room is that of the ceiling-fan revolving above them.
‘I’m going to have a shower, then lie down for a bit.’ Amal scoops up her long black hair into a makeshift knot and turns to Isabel. ‘Are you all right? You’re rather cooped up here, aren’t you?’
Isabel smiles. ‘I’m just fine. I feel so amazingly at home in this house.’
‘Good. I’m very glad,’ Amal says, but her smile is tired.
‘They tell me horrid things,’ Amal says after the siesta. ‘They say they just round people up in the mornings. Ordinary people going to work. They have their IDs and everything but they round them up anyway. And you can spend five days in the hold till they decide you’re not the one they want. And it’s not a holiday in there: they beat them and they … They say if the police go looking for someone and they don’t find him, they take his women: his wife, his sister, his mother, whatever. And they hold them till he gives himself up. And the men won’t stand for that and what starts out as one case ends up being a vendetta between the police and the whole village.’
Isabel has nothing to say. Arrest warrants. You have the right to remain silent — nothing of what she knows holds here.
‘It’s all going wrong,’ Amal says. ‘Someone robbed a jeweller’s shop and the jeweller was a Copt and they say the Islamic militants say it’s all right to rob a Copt to fund the Jihad, and so the whole thing turns into a “sectarian” issue. But people — ordinary people — don’t believe it’s OK to rob a Copt, but then the Americans — I’m sorry —’
‘It’s OK,’ Isabel says. ‘Tell me.’
‘Well, they’re trying to pass some bill through Congress about their duty to protect the Christian minority in Egypt, and of course that’s the game the British played a hundred years ago and people know that. It just stirs up bad feeling.’
