by Ahdaf Soueif
‘Why, madam, whatever is the matter? You’ll make me pull your hair like this.’
‘It’s enough, Emily, you’ve brushed it enough —’ shaking her head impatiently — ‘I’ll just braid it now, and you go to bed. Oh and Emily, don’t pack any more. Let’s wait a while. Oh, and is my blue silk not packed?’
‘Not yet, madam.’
‘Good. I shall want it in the morning. Thank you, Emily. Good night.’
He loves her. Circumstances and considerations — what are those? The whole world recedes and there is room for only one thought: he loves her. She had not misunderstood him. She is not an eccentric and a burden. He has been thinking of her as she has of him. Above her bed the broad fins whirl gently; the night will pass and morning will come and he loves her.
18
Wandering between two worlds … one dead
The other powerless to be born.
Matthew Arnold
I sit here, holding my great-uncle’s letter in my hand. I imagine him sitting at his desk to write it. He has been standing at the window of his study in his house at Hilmiyya — the house that had stood next to ours. What is he wearing? I can only imagine him in European dress, for that is how both Anna and his sister describe him, and that is what he wears in the portrait hanging in Tawasi. Besides, I have never seen my father or my brother in the old costume of an Egyptian gentleman. I lay his letter out on the table and wonder once again at the things that survive us. He was my age when he wrote it: a man, tall and vigorous and alive, a man who filled a room when he entered, who thought and spoke and suffered and loved and — all that is gone and this piece of paper remains. The paper that he smoothed out and wrote on, fast and deliberately, with a broad-nibbed pen. The ink is brown now but you can see the strength and control in the hand: the letters upright, the strokes sharp, the words each within its definite space. I am half in love with him, I believe — with my own great-uncle.
I have heard his story from my father, who more or less worshipped him as a child, and from my mother, who never met him but heard of him from our cousins in Ein el-Mansi. His history is there in al-Rafi and Hussein Amin and other chronicles of the times and his own writings are in al-Ahram, al-Liwa and, later, al-Garidah. In Layla’s account of him I see my own brother, and in Anna’s I find the dark, enigmatic hero of Romance. And now it falls to me to weave all these strands together and write Sharif Basha al-Baroudi as the man I imagine he must have been.
My great-uncle Sharif Basha al-Baroudi made his move, as this letter in front of me testifies, but he did not make it without misgiving. For five weeks — no, seven (for the two weeks in the Sinai should be counted as well) — he pulled away from the impulse that drew him towards Anna. He had distrusted impulse for so long now — oh, he had thrown it the odd, appeasing crumb: a purchase here, a trip abroad there, but on the main road of his life, as it were, he had held himself in check. His friend Sheikh Muhammad Abdu had done the same and had grown into a staid, measured man whose pronouncements showed wisdom not uncoloured by diplomacy. What was left of that fiery, black-eyed young Azhari who had been prepared to consider assassinating Tewfiq for the cause of Egypt’s freedom? Time was when it had seemed that courage was all you needed: the belief that what you wanted was yours by right — and the courage to take it. They had been taught that that was not true. They had seen lives ended on the scaffold, cut down on the battlefield, destroyed by exile and by retreat. Caution and calculation became a habit.
But in the Sinai, in the garden of the monastery of St Catherine, Anna — and his feelings — had taken him by surprise. And even though next day he withdrew into formal politeness, away from the desert, when she was no longer at his side, she took root in his mind and would not be shaken.
Tawasi, 7 April 1901
Sharif Basha crumbles the rich black soil thoughtfully in his hand. He sits back on his haunches and looks around at his fields. The cries of the children playing by the canal reach him from a distance. When he was last here, in the month of Toubah, the sugar cane had just been harvested and the land set ablaze to burn away the stubble. Bare and charred and desolate it was then. And yet now, less than three months later, in Baramhat, the old roots, vigorous in the earth, are pushing the new crop through. Sharif Basha stands up, stamps his feet, stretches. Here he is away, away from thoughts of her. He wipes his hands on his cotton trousers. Beyond the sugar cane, the last rays of the setting sun catch the fields of kittan and burnish them into a sea of purple, blue and gold. Two, three, four thousand years ago, men stood as he is standing now and looked at this same scene, these same colours, felt this same light gust of breeze that brushes the heads of the flowers and sends a slow wave rippling from end to end of the shining field. To his mind, the magic of this scene equals that of the desert. Perhaps surpasses it. Would she be moved by it as he is? She has land in her own country, he knows. But is it farms or forests or meadows? He does not know. In the middle distance a young girl untethers an ox from the water wheel, removes the blindfold from its eyes, and child and beast start ambling slowly towards home. He walks over to the water wheel, takes off his shoes and socks and starts to wash.
In the village mosque, the men make room for him in the front row and when the sunset prayers are over he walks with the Umdah through the darkening lanes. They sit in the Umdah’s mandarah with the door open to the road. Men come and men go, the tea tray goes round and round again, and always, in the distance, there are the sounds of children playing. Landlord and Umdah talk of the new school Sharif Basha and his uncle Ghamrawi Bey are putting up in the village. The children will still have to go to the kuttab of course, the sheikh need not worry about that. But in the new school they will learn to add and subtract. They will learn the geography of the whole world and the history of their country. The fallaheen will be persuaded to spare their children (boys and girls, Sharif Basha repeats) from the fields for two hours every day that they might learn. Not that they should become afandiyyah, but that they should be educated citizens more able to look after their own interests.
‘You are right, ya Basha.’ The Umdah sighs. ‘Nobody knows what the days will bring.’
‘All good, Insha Allah, ya Umdah. But we should do what we can.’
‘Every day there’s something new. First it was the wine shop and we put our hands on our hearts and said may God protect us, but people were wise and it was only the bad lot who went there anyway. Now it’s the moneylenders and it’s not enough for them that they set up shop in the town, they have to come to the villages and try to hook people —’
‘We’ve talked about this and you said our people here are comfortable?’
‘Comfortable, yes, ya Basha, al-hamdu-l-Illah, but a man gets cornered, he wants to get his daughter married, he has sudden circumstances — and they charge a lot for their money. Greeks, all Greek —’
‘Tell them to come to me. To come to Hasib Efendi, my agent. I’ll speak to him. We’ll forward the money, in an emergency, with one per cent interest and the crop as surety.’
‘May God give you light, ya Basha. The village will rejoice.’
‘Tell them.’
‘I’ll tell them on Friday. Will you pray with us?’
‘If I’m still here.’
They should set up a cooperative, Sharif Basha thinks. If each man puts by a little money, after the harvest, they can draw on it when they need to. Other villages have started to do that. Hasib Efendi can look after it. Bank it for them. He’ll speak to him — and promise him a pay rise to make up for the extra work. Sharif Basha walks from the village to his house, exchanging easy greetings with the men he meets on the way. It’s simple living on the land. The Ibrahimiyyah gives them water all the year round and he has persuaded the fallaheen not to shift wholesale into cotton as Cromer would have them do and put themselves at the mercy of a market over which they have no control. Some cotton, yes, but they still plant their beans and their peas, their wheat and barley. Their watermelons, each now lyi
ng like a queen in her bed of yellow flowers. The worst that can happen is misguided British officers following a fox. Here on his land the problems are problems he can solve.
He washes and changes, then rides out to the house of his uncle Mustafa Bey al-Ghamrawi for dinner. Here, a man could forget about Cairo, about the Occupation, about the world. And yet, for him, it had never been an option. He loves the land, but he loves the city too: the lights, the noise, the speed and action of it. Living on the land is too much like retiring — giving up.
Sharif Basha sees a horseman cantering towards him from the direction of his uncle’s house. As he draws near, the greeting rings out in a familiar voice: ‘Ya misa’ al-khairat!’
Shukri al-Asali, the nephew of his uncle’s wife, and his childhood friend. The two men leap from their horses and embrace. Back in the Sixties and the Seventies there had been long visits between their two households. The children spent the winter months together here on the land in Tawasi and the summer months there on the land in ‘Ein el-Mansi between al-Nasirah and Jenin. They still write to each other, and when they visit from time to time they find their old friendship still strong in their hearts.
‘When did you arrive?’ Sharif Basha asks.
‘Just now, an hour ago. And they told me you were here and they were expecting you for dinner. We had better go. They are all waiting for you.’
‘How’s everything with you?’ Sharif Basha asks, as the two men mount and set off together at an easy pace.
‘Well, well, all well. Apart from the usual problems. You should come and visit us. It’s been a long time.’
‘It is the same problem everywhere.’ Shukri Bey al-Asali is fairer-skinned than his Egyptian cousins. His hair is a lighter brown and he wears it in a slightly longer style. But like Sharif Basha, like Mustafa Bey, he has the air of confidence and gallantry that comes from being assured since birth of the love of his womenfolk. Some years later — in 1915 — the Turks will hang him for his part in the Arab Revolution. But now, in April 1901, he sits at the dinner table of his aunt’s house in Tawasi and says, ‘The Turks are weak and cannot protect us against Europe. But they are our rulers and we are only allowed to protect ourselves through them. Here, they could not protect Egypt against the British. With us, they cannot protect us against the Zionists.’
‘But Abd el-Hamid has stood up to them so far?’ Mustafa Bey al-Ghamrawi says, taking the plate that Jalila Hanim, his wife, has handed to him.
‘So far. But they tempt his court with money. Huge sums. They want to imitate Cecil Rhodes. When he was given the charter to colonise the Zambesi, they asked the Kaiser to give them a German charter to colonise Palestine.’ Shukri Bey reaches for the jug of water. He fills the glass of his aunt sitting next to him, then his own.
‘But what about the people?’ Jalila Hanim asks. ‘The people on the land. What happens to them?’
‘Exactly.’ Shukri Bey looks at his aunt. ‘And they have been told, the Zionists. Abraham Shlomo Bey travelled to their congress and told them, in case they had not noticed, that 650,000 Arabs — Muslims, Christians and Jews — have lived for centuries on the land they propose to colonise. So they sent a special commission to investigate. And the commission went back and said the same thing, so they put the report in a drawer and forgot about it.’
‘But you have restrictions in place, have you not? They can only come in on pilgrimage for three months, hand in their passports and all that?’ Sharif Basha says.
‘Yes. For twenty years we’ve had restrictions. But they get around them. Governors who enforce them — like Tevfik Bey — don’t last long. And the Powers, and the United States, are constantly sending their ambassadors to object to this “discrimination” —’
‘But the settlers are not from the Powers or the United States?’
‘No. They’re coming from Russia, Rumania, some from Germany —’
‘So what’s the interest of the United States in this?’
Shukri Bey shrugs. ‘My guess is as good as yours. Pressure from influential people. Dislike of Turkey —’
‘Turkey has to be got rid of. For all of us,’ Sharif Basha says. ‘It has had its day.’
Zeinab Hanim looks at her son anxiously. Her brother smiles at her. ‘Don’t worry, sister. Abd el-Hamid has no spies here.’
‘I’m going to talk to people,’ Shukri Bey says, ‘in Cairo and Alexandria. I shall meet Rafiq Bey el-Azm and others with family ties in Palestine. Whip up some public opinion. And I shall speak to the newspapers —’
‘Al-Ahram has already printed several letters,’ Mustafa Bey says, ‘describing how the settlers plough the common grazing land and confiscate livestock they find there —’
‘They have a variety of ways,’ Shukri Bey says, ‘all aiming to possess the land and make life uncomfortable for the fallaheen. I might try to meet Cromer — I know you hate him, but Britain is the most powerful of the Powers. If they get her backing, the matter will be practically finished.’
‘Enough. Enough politics,’ Zeinab Hanim says, before her son can speak. ‘Our whole life is politics. Tell us about our people. Your children — may God preserve them for you — and their mother. How are they all?’
Cairo, 12 April 1901
Sharif Basha puts aside his papers.
‘Have the ‘Isha prayers been called?’ he asks Mirghani, and when the man says yes he asks him to prepare his horses; he will be going out after he has prayed.
He drives through Darb el-Gamamiz and out into the open space of Midan Abdin. A glance at the palace — but Efendeena must be home in Qubba by now. He resists the impulse to veer into Shari Abdin, which would lead him eventually to Shepheard’s Hotel. Instead, he drives up Shari al-Bustan.
The Club Muhammad Ali is ablaze with lights. The doorman steps forward to greet him: ‘You’ve absented yourself from us, ya Basha.’
‘I was away. Who’s here tonight?’
‘Everybody, ya Basha: Mustafa Fahmi Basha, Boutros Basha, and Hussein Basha Rushdi. Milton Bey and Prince Gamil Tusun are in the dining room. Prince Ahmad Fuad and Prince Yusuf Kamal are in the billiard room. And —’ dropping his voice — ‘Mr Boyle arrived ten minutes ago.’
Sharif Basha looks in on the main lounge, he greets Mustafa Fahmi, Boutros Ghali and Hussein Rushdi but does not sit down. He notes Harry Boyle sitting nearby with a newspaper. Boyle makes a habit of dropping in for half an hour every few days.
In the billiard room, Prince Ahmad Fuad is winning. This does not prevent him looking dour. It was in this same room that Prince Ahmad Sayf-el-Din shot him a couple of years ago and, had it not been for Milton Bey, he would have been dead. As it was, he was ill for a long time and that did not improve his habitual moroseness. Yusuf Kamal is completely the opposite: quick and nervous, perpetually worried, but a man of vision and enthusiasm.
Sharif Basha lights a cigarette and settles down to wait. He wants to talk to Prince Yusuf about the new art school. Work on the museum is going more or less to schedule. The university is a slow business — mainly because of Cromer’s opposition. The art-school project is still in its beginnings. Well, these are good things to be working on. But it all takes so much time. Raising the money is not easy. All of it private. Not one piastre of state money will they get as long as Cromer is in power. ‘The budget does not permit …’ the British Agent repeats and repeats. But the budget permitted more than one and a half million pounds of Egypt’s money to be spent on the Sudan Expedition and another quarter of a million every year to make up the Sudan deficits, and what was the benefit to Egypt in this? The budget permits the employment of British officials in Egypt at triple the salaries of the equivalent Egyptians. But it does not permit an extra piastre for any project to do with culture or education. Technical education Cromer is coming round to; schools to produce clerks and workers. British brains and Arab hands is Cromer’s recipe for Egypt. Sharif Basha stands up, stubs out his cigarette and walks over to the window. Over there lies Qasr el-Dubara,
where even now ‘el-Lord’ is making his plans for the country. ‘Come, come, man. He’s probably eating his dinner.’ A brief smile touches the corner of Sharif Basha’s mouth as he imagines what his friend Yaqub Artin would say if he could hear his thoughts. ‘Even Cromer has to stop scheming sometimes. You’ll find he has guests there now and they’re not thinking of Egypt at all. They’re talking about the latest news from London —’ Anna. She might be there. Sitting at the table. Dressed in her own clothes. Speaking her own language. Her eyes raised to some young officer — Sharif Basha reaches in his pocket for his prayer beads. He stands at the window, his hands clasped behind him, the beads going round and round between the fingers of his right hand. How can he permit himself to think that an understanding might be possible between them? It cannot be. In any case she would have forgotten him by now. Or, if not forgotten, he would have receded into an exotic part — a remote part — of her Egyptian journey. A better kind of ‘Native’ she had travelled with in the desert and spoken with one night in a moonlit garden. And now she is back where she belongs: at the Club in Ghezira, the donkey races and paper chases, the fancy-dress balls and Agency dinners with her own people. There are men out there, younger than he, who would shoot Cromer and hang for it and consider their lives well spent. And what would be the use? The Qasr el-Nil Barracks are right there: five minutes’ walk away. The British will not go. They will never go of their own free will. The only force that will make them go will be the force of arms — or interest. And they know that. Hence the disbanding of Egypt’s elite forces; the scattering of the army, the British officers at the head of every regiment. And meanwhile the British Army of Occupation costs one million pounds every year. A million pounds that could go towards paying the country’s debt and setting her free of her foreign masters. And the people will not fight. Cannot fight. Oh, he held back the hot-heads and talked about due process of law. That was one point on which he was in agreement with Cromer: ‘due process of law’. Cromer also wanted an end to the Capitulations by which every foreigner in Egypt was tried by his own consul, not by the Egyptian courts. But Cromer had shown bad faith by bringing in the Special Laws to deal with ‘Natives’ confronting British personnel. He had brought them in after the Gelgel case that he, Sharif Basha, had defended. Ending the Capitulations would only deliver Egypt more completely into Cromer’s hands. They should hold on to them, even though they placed every foreign national above the law. To barricade your soul against the thousand indignities you suffered as a man ruled by outsiders — And meanwhile time was being lost. The generations that should have been educated, the industries that should have been introduced, the laws that should have been reformed, and worse, the ascendance of those who curried favour with the British, how would you dislodge those when the occupier had gone? The distrust sown between Muslim and Copt — A hand on his shoulder and he turns —
