The Map of Love

by Ahdaf Soueif

  ‘Where will you get a national project now?’ Dr Ramzi asks. ‘You think you can sit here and design a national project? And what is the end of Nasser’s project anyway? What is the outcome?’

  ‘Ya Doctor, a national project comes about as an embodiment of the will of the people,’ Arwa says. ‘Nasser’s project finally did not work because for the people to have a will it has to have a certain amount of space and freedom, freedom to question everything: religion, politics, sex —’

  ‘So the sans-culottes had freedom and space?’

  ‘No, and your revolution here will be an Islamist radical one. Because every other ideology is bankrupt. And capitalism isn’t an ideology, it isn’t something that people can live by — and in our case it just makes people discontented. Look at the advertisements on television. Advertisements for things people can’t have if they saved up for ten lifetimes —’

  ‘They’re for the ones with palaces in ‘Agami,’ Mahgoub says. People, I think, like Tareq Atiyya.

  ‘You know,’ Isabel says, ‘we have that problem in the States: the widening gap between rich and poor. Some people see it as a threat already. I read an article that compared life in America now to the last years of the Roman Empire.’

  ‘Capitalism,’ Arwa smiles. ‘In a word.’

  ‘It seems to me,’ says Isabel, after a moment, ‘that people are completely caught up in trying to analyse the situation. But no one says, “This is what we should do.” ’

  ‘I don’t think anyone knows what we should do,’ I say.

  ‘I know some things we should do,’ Deena says. ‘We should speak out against the sanctions on Iraq. We should put a time limit on this so-called peace process. What’s the use of sitting around talking peace when the Israelis are constantly changing the landscape — putting things on the ground that will be impossible to dismantle?’

  ‘And when the time came, you’d go to war?’ Isabel asks.

  ‘If we had to. And I would stop this charade of “normalisation”. What normalisation is possible with a neighbour who continues to build settlements and drive people off the land? Who has an arsenal of nuclear weapons and screams wolf when someone else is suspected of having a few missiles? And it is our business — because what’s happening to the Iraqis or the Palestinians today will happen to us tomorrow.’

  ‘And when America cuts off your aid?’ Mahgoub says, with a mischievous glance at Isabel.

  ‘What aid? Do you know that 70 per cent of what they give us feeds directly back into the American economy? Directly, mind you. You think they give us aid because they want to help us? Personally, I’d close the door anyway. I’d mobilise the people to get our economy straight —’

  ‘They can’t do that. Too many powerful people have links to the West now. Money links. Big business.’

  ‘There you have it!’ Deena sits back. ‘The interests of the governing class are different — are practically opposed to the interests of the majority of the people.’

  ‘Ya Deena ya ‘Ulama!’ A man stands by the phone, waving the receiver at Deena. She jumps up. ‘It’s my son,’ she says. ‘I told him he could call me here.’

  ‘Khalas ya Mahgoub,’ Arwa says. ‘It’s either Israeli domination — backed by America — or the Islamist radicals. Take your pick.’

  ‘Neither this nor that. We’ll keep both out,’ Mahgoub says. He turns to Isabel. ‘You know, your government,’ he says; ‘all the Americans I meet are good people, but your government’s foreign policy is so bad. It’s not good, you know, for a country to be hated by so many people.’

  ‘Well,’ Isabel says, ‘as I said, some people think we are already in decline. Moral decline.’

  ‘History,’ Dr Ramzi says. ‘This is all —’ he waves his hand — ‘nothing. Egypt has been here so long. It has seen many things. In the next millennium — it will still be Egypt.’

  17

  But we, like sentries, are obliged to stand

  In starless nights and wait the ’pointed hour.

  John Dryden

  It can’t be that bad. Surely it can’t be that bad. There must be a way, only we can’t see it yet. A way of making a space for ourselves where we can make the best of ourselves — we just can’t quite see it yet. But things move on and by the time you’ve plotted your position the world around you has changed and you’re running — panting — to catch up. How can you think clearly when you’re running? That is the beauty of the past; there it lies on the table: journals, pictures, a candle-glass, a few books of history. You leave it and come back to it and it waits for you — unchanged. You can turn back the pages, look again at the beginning. You can leaf forward and know the end. And you tell the story that they, the people who lived it, could only tell in part.

  3 April 1901

  No message. No note. Nothing. We have been back three days.

  James Barrington knows something — enough. I deemed it best to remain as faithful as possible to the truth. Indeed, now that I have made the journey I do not see how an account depicting myself and Sabir travelling alone into the Sinai would be in the least believable. I did, however, omit the first section of our adventures and had us meet Sharif Pasha’s party in the Eastern Desert where, learning of our destination and being bound that way themselves, they took us under their protection.

  I relayed this amended version to Sabir, who grasped it with agility, and we rode together to James’s house better friends — I fancy — than when we started out. James was touchingly relieved to see us, although how much of that relief was due to his fear of having to face the Lord’s music had some ill befallen us, I cannot tell. However, he forgot himself so far as to put his arm round Sabir’s shoulder and punch him playfully a few times. And having changed back into my usual costume (how strange that seemed with all the lacing and fastening and fuss) and sent word to Emily of my return, I sat down — without a chaperone — and told him of our adventures. And perhaps my account showed something more than I intended for as I came to leave he took hold of my hands and said, ‘You won’t let it go to your head now, Anna, will you?’ And I laughed and asked, ‘Let what go to my head?’ ‘All that desert and stars business,’ he said. ‘You know it won’t do.’

  As for our earlier return to the old Baroudi house, it was so like a homecoming that tears of joy were in my eyes. It happened that our return coincided with the first day of the Festival marking the end of the Pilgrimage, and under what different circumstances we rattled up to the great door this time. As I slipped inside and threw off my veils, Layla came running to greet me. We embraced as sisters and she held me at arm’s length and surveyed my appearance. ‘What a handsome young man you have become — and so brown! You will have to put on lots of powder for your next English party.’ She laughed. And little Ahmad called out my name and would not be content but I had to carry him and sit him on my knee while I drank my cold sherbet and told his mother about the journey. But when I was dressed again in my Englishman’s clothes with my hat clamped firmly down on my head, Layla became uneasy.

  ‘It’s still me,’ I cried.

  ‘Oh, I know,’ she said. ‘But all the same …’

  So I did a pantomime, clicked my heels and kissed the tips of her fingers, and she promised to send me a note; and indeed she has, and I am due to go with her on a visit tomorrow to some ladies of her acquaintance.

  Tomorrow I may hear some news of him.

  Cairo

  5 April 1901

  My dear Sir Charles,

  I have now been back in Shepheard’s Hotel for almost a week and while it is pleasant enough to have a bathroom, a feather bed and a wardrobe full of clothes, I still miss the simplicity and the grandeur of life in the desert. I am conscious that I have not yet given you a full account of that life I enjoyed for some two weeks — but it was so different from anything that has come within my experience, the scope of it so vast and grand, that I fear my letters will not do it justice.

  Now that I am returned to Cairo I fi
nd it harder than ever to sit back and listen to the complacencies uttered so uncaringly at the Agency — I fear I am becoming more prickly than is found becoming in a woman.

  But on a happier subject: my new friends only improve with further acquaintance. Yesterday I went out with Layla al-Baroudi to call on a lady named Nur al-Huda Hanim. I have heard the ladies at the Agency speak of the boredom of the visits they have to pay on occasion to the High Harem, and how after the greetings all the ladies sit silent in a circle and sip coffee until it is time to leave. Well, nothing could be more different from the gathering I was admitted into yesterday in a small jewel-like palace by the Nile. Nur al-Huda Hanim (being barely twenty-two) is younger than both myself and Layla, but she is very serious and formidably well educated. I found nothing in her, though, of that lightness of spirit that I treasure so much in Layla. In fact, she seemed rather sad. I learned later that she had recently consented to return to her husband after a seven-year estrangement and that this was an unwilling return undertaken only because her brother (who is older than she and whom she adores) had taken a vow not to marry until he saw her ‘safe in her husband’s house’.

  In her company we found two ladies from France: one a Madame Richard, who is the widow of a French engineer who worked on the irrigation projects. She had elected to remain in Egypt after his death and has apparently been a companion and a kind of tutor to Nur al-Huda Hanim since then. The other is a most interesting lady by the name of Eugénie le Brun who is married to an Egyptian Pasha (well, a Turkish Pasha really) by the name of Hussein Rushdi. They make a distinction here between the Notables descended from Turkish lineage and those of Egyptian origin. She has made her home here in Cairo and, I understand, become a Moslem. The occasion of this gathering was a visit from a certain Zeinab Fawwaz who normally resides in Alexandria. She is originally Syrian and is very well thought of and has published several articles on the ‘woman question’ — I see you grow restless immediately but I do assure you, dear Sir Charles, that you would find these ladies congenial. They uphold the idea that a woman’s first duty is to her family, merely arguing that she can perform this duty better if she is better educated. They also write articles arguing against the enforced seclusion of women and point out that women of the fellah class have always worked side by side with their menfolk and no harm has come to society as a result. Madame Fawwaz has published a book which is a collection of short biographies of ladies of note — apparently our own Queens Elizabeth and Victoria are among them!

  All in all, I do confess, I found the company and conversation most pleasing and quite contrary to the prevailing view of the life of the harem being one of indolence and torpor.

  I shall stop now for I feel I am running on and you will start to think I am now become a ‘feminist’ while I am in truth, as ever, your loving daughter,

  I find a changed and invigorated Anna now. Each morning she expects something new and good from the day. The ‘something at the heart of it’ which had eluded her now beckons her in. As a friend of Layla Hanim al-Baroudi and Madame Hussein Rushdi she is welcomed into the homes and gatherings of the ladies of Cairo. Emily notices the change and is glad to have a happier mistress but concerned that there seems to be no prospect of going home. And indeed, there is no prospect of going home — yet. For, while her mind is busy with all the new perceptions crowding into it, Anna’s heart is waiting for something more.

  4 April

  Today, in the carriage, I took the occasion to ask Layla whether Sharif Pasha had returned well from the Sinai and to hope that his work had not suffered too much as a result of his absence. She replied that he was indeed back and that she was sure he could manage his work — in any case he did not seem troubled by it. ‘He said you rode extremely well and showed no sign of weariness,’ she reported. And that was all. But later I understood that he travels tomorrow to Upper Egypt to accompany his mother on her journey home. So now I know there is no possibility of hearing from him for the coming four or five days.

  Cairo

  8 April 1901

  Dear Sir Charles,

  I have received yours of 23 March and am glad that you are well and in good spirits and so hopeful of Irish Affairs — at their best, you say, since Parnell died. I hope that makes it up for you — a little — for the events in South Africa. I own when I hear the news from there my immediate concern is for the effect I know it must have on you.

  We have had a sand-storm here yesterday and today and it is worse, to my mind, than our London fog. For at least with that you can take refuge in your home and forget its existence. Here, the sand has found its way everywhere, through the most firmly shuttered windows and into the papers and garments in every one of my cabinets. Emily was tutting as she brushed it out of my hair. I find myself thinking longingly of England. For now it is April and everything will be in bloom. I Can see the smooth green of the lawns, shimmering with moisture, and I can smell the freshness of the first mowing. I find myself thinking particularly of the magnolia — for its blossoming is so short that I have now missed it for a whole year.

  On our last drive I noticed a beautiful tall tree with almost horizontal branches. It had no leaves but the branches were covered with large, solitary red flowers. I asked Layla its name, to my surprise she did not know but said that presently the red flowers would be sunounded by leaves. Mr S, on the other hand, told me immediately that the tree is a Bombax malabricum, also known as a Red Silk-Cotton Tree, and has been imported from tropical Asia. He did not know its name in Arabic. What I find most strange is that he — and others — seem to love this country as much as they dislike its inhabitants. They have a very clear separation in their minds between the two.

  I had a somewhat unfriendly exchange two days ago with Mr S. We were walking along the rue Qasr el-Nil and we chanced to pass a coffee-shop where a group of Native gentlemen were engaged in a discussion of something in a newspaper: I saw one of them hand the paper to another, folded as though at a specific article. They paused as we drew near and glanced up at us, resuming their conversation when we had passed. Mr S took this as an occasion to inveigh against ‘the older type of Nationalist’ to be seen sitting at cafés, indulging in ‘seditious talk’ and ‘embarrassing every passing European gentlewoman’ with his ‘bold and libidinous stare’. I said, quite gently, that I had not been aware of anything untoward in the gentlemen’s looks and he told me — more or less — that I had not the ability to judge the ‘Native character’ and that it was my good fortune that I could not understand what they were saying about me even then and that he had it on good authority that they were all rascals who desired nothing more fervently than to dishonour a European gentlewoman — particularly, I suppose, if she be English. I did not point out that he knows even less Arabic than I, but I asked if he knew any Egyptians personally and he said most decidedly not of ‘this type’ but he was acquainted with Mr Faris Nimr, the Editor of al-Muqattam, who is ‘a true gentleman and an anglophile’, and he has based his views on his conversations with Mr Nimr. I confess that as I have not met Mr Nimr, I do not know what to make of this.

  On Thursday I shall go to the Opera with Madame Rushdi to see Sarah Bernhardt in La Dame aux camélias. I shall be in a harem box and I am looking forward to it enormously and you may be sure I shall report on the evening at length. Till then, I remain,

  10 April

  Still nothing. But word from Layla that her Mama is back and would be happy to receive me. So I shall call on them tomorrow.

  We had a musical evening at James Barrington’s yesterday and Temple Gairdner was in fine form. He has a true feeling for music and plays the piano like one inspired. Mrs Butcher remarked to me privately that he does indeed have soul, she only wished it were occupied in something more to the general good than trying to convert Moslems.

  I had a curious conversation with James. Among all the people here, he is the one I feel closest to, in part because he knows of my ‘adventures’ (although I have promised not to
indulge in any more. It was hardly a difficult undertaking, as I have not any longer the need, for — since knowing Layla — I have so many more opportunities to learn about Egypt than wandering round dressed as a man could ever have afforded me) but mostly, I think, because he has a sympathy with people and is not so ready with his judgements and pronouncements. He said that I should be more careful and that I was becoming quite outspoken in defence of the Egyptians and that it would be noticed. ‘For example,’ he said, ‘you were quite nasty to Mr S the other day, and you stopped only because I pinched your arm.’ I said I had been sorely tempted to tell Mr S that I had spent sixteen nights under the protection of one of those ‘rascals’ of whom he spoke and only wished I could expect the same chivalry in an English country house as that I had received from him. ‘It won’t do, Anna,’ he said again, shaking his head. ‘You know it won’t do. I thought you were sensible.’

  And I do believe I am sensible — only I am sensible too of the wrong being done here and that there is a living world which people are refusing to see or even hear about. I know that this sensibility is born of my affection for my new friends but it is none the less trustworthy for that.

  Cairo

  13 April 1901

  My dear Caroline,

  You have been much in my mind tonight for I have spent the evening at the Cairo Opera House watching the Divine Bernhardt — a memorable experience and one you would truly have enjoyed. I went as the guest of Madame Hussein Rushdi, a French lady married to an Egyptian Pasha, and we were both guests of a ‘Princess Ingie’ (although the Princess herself was not there) and so we sat in one of the boxes set aside for the Royal Harem, all red plush and red velvet with the softest wall-light and at the front a delicate wrought-iron screen decorated with gilded flowers to hide us from all eyes while not impeding our view of the House and the Stage. To watch the play and the people while so exquisitely cocooned was — I cannot quite find the words but it was delightful. I did so wish you could have been with me.