by Ahdaf Soueif
‘Ah! The poet!’ Yaqub Artin cries. ‘You see! That is true. That is very true.’ He lifts his glass.
‘I have been meaning to ask you,’ Sharif Basha says. ‘Is it not time we had a collected edition? One has to keep pieces of paper in a file —’
‘He refuses,’ Yaqub Artin says. ‘It is too much work.’
‘If you print it I shall buy fifty copies for the school in Tawasi.’
‘I think he is afraid if people see what he is doing he will be attacked —’
‘I’m not afraid!’ Ismail Sabri laughs. ‘I simply haven’t got all my poems —’
‘They will say he is destroying poetry.’ Yaqub Artin leans forward to offer the plates of food to his friends.
‘They are saying that already,’ Sharif Basha says, picking up a small piece of flat bread, twisting it into a miniature shovel and dipping it in the beaten white cheese.
‘Nonsense! If anything, I am preserving poetry. No one has time to read those huge long rambling epics any more. If poetry is to have a place in modern life, the poem has to be short and intense —’
‘Comme l’amour,’ Yaqub Artin says thoughtfully, taking an olive stone out of his mouth with delicacy.
Sharif Basha laughs: ‘he never stops, the old Don Juan.’
Yaqub Artin shrugs. ‘Eh! What do we have to live for? He is lucky —’ gesturing towards Ismail Sabri. ‘He is a poet. He will live for ever. But you and I, mon ami, we live today and are gone tomorrow. Like this —’ he puffs an imaginary fleck from his palm — ‘just a breath and we are gone. You have your practice, the cases you defend. What will they bring you? Joy? Eternal life? Go. Go marry your petite Anglaise. Carpe diem.’
Ismail Sabri hands Sharif Basha a piece of paper on which he has written a few words. Sharif Basha reads out loud:
‘Take your fill of the Moons before they set;
The days of parting are dark and long.
Will you be strong, my Heart, tomorrow?
Or will you follow where her steps are bent?
Did you just write that now?’ he asks his friend in admiration.
Ismail Sabri shrugs. Yaqub Artin says:
‘Promise you will write him a song for his wedding.’
‘I still love that old tune of yours,’ Sharif Basha says.
‘Leave off your coyness and nay-saying
and water the fire of my love
A moment of closeness to you
Is more precious than my whole life —’
The voices of the three men rise gently as they sing together until the last verse:
‘For you sleep has deserted me
For you I’ve lost all my friends
And for the sake of your love
I befriend other than my people.’
There is a silence and then Sharif Basha yawns, throwing his head back. ‘I have to go.’ He rises from his chair. ‘Do I have your support for the school of fine art?’
‘You Muslims will have to fight it out among yourselves.’ Yaqub Artin chuckles. ‘I am only a poor Christian, what do I know? But if you go ahead, yes, you have my support — and some of my money.’
Sharif Basha looks at Ismail Sabri, who nods.
‘And your decision?’ Yaqub Artin asks.
Sharif Basha picks up his tarbush.
‘You are not afraid of displeasing the Lord, are you?’ Artin Basha asks with a mischievous smile.
Sharif Basha places the tarbush carefully on his head. ‘As you see,’ he says, ‘I tremble.’
27 April 1901
This is where he had first seen her properly. He had left a defiant, dishevelled creature in a man’s riding clothes and returned to find a sunny, golden woman, wrapped in his dressing gown, playing with his nephew by the fountain. As they travelled through the Sinai, he had laughed at himself — at the end of his time he would desire a man. A fair young amrad, who rode with grace and skill, who raced him neck to neck — there were times when he would forget that his companion was a woman, she blended so well with the taciturn men, with the silence of the desert. And then he would look at her and remember and the image of her wrapped in blue silk, her feet white and bare on the stone of the courtyard, would spring into his mind.
Sharif Basha strides through the courtyard. He enters the small vestibule at the foot of the back stairs and opens the door that leads to the shrine. Another courtyard and another door. He pauses. In the dark interior, an old man lifts his head slowly. Sharif Basha crosses the room.
‘As-salamu alaykum.’
Alaykumu’s-salam wa rahmatu Allahi wa barakatuh.’
Sharif Basha sits on the wooden bench by his father’s chair. The old man bows his head, his eyes on the prayer beads moving slowly between his fingers. His robes and turban are spotless. His prayer beads shiver slightly with the tremor of his hands.
‘How is your health, father?’
‘Al-hamdu-l-Illah. Al-hamdu-l-Illah.’ The old man nods but does not look up.
What can he talk to him about? What is he thinking about? Is he thinking at all? His father is sixty-six. Only sixty-six. Muhammad Sharif Basha was seventy when he died and look what he was like — look at Tolstoy. The long, stone-flagged room is dim and cool. The only light comes from the small windows set high up in the stone walls and the few candles by the tomb of Sheikh Haroun which stands at the far end of the room covered by a dark cloth. For eighteen years his father has never left this place. At night he sleeps in the small adjoining cell. During the day he sits in this room. Sometimes, in winter, he is persuaded to sit in the courtyard, in the sunshine just outside the door.
‘Your brother, Mahmoud Sami Basha, sends his salaam. He enquires after your health.’
‘Al-hamdu-l-Illah. Al-hamdu-l-Illah.’
Does he even remember his brother? Or Urabi? Does he know who he is? He might as well be — Sharif Basha stands up and paces the length of the room. His father does not move. In St Catherine, in the room of skulls, he had been lost to bitter thoughts. What had become of his life? What would he leave behind? His uncle had rebelled, had made his mark. He would leave a name to be honoured by Egyptians throughout history, he would leave descendants, and poetry. What had he, Sharif al-Baroudi, done that would be remembered? He had led as honourable a life as was possible, had done what good he could — but was that enough? His thoughts had drifted, as they mostly did, into what life would have been like without the Occupation. If the Revolution had been left to run its course. If Tewfiq had been forced to give in to their demands. If they had been free to build their country as they had dreamed they might, to develop its institutions, to reform education, the law, to establish industries — instead their lives had been taken up in this inch-by-inch struggle against the British, the battles to set up a legislative council, to fight each unjust tax the British tried to put in place, to vote more money for education — and always caught between the Sultan, the Khedive and the British. And what had he done about it all? Now it would not be long before he would become even as those ancient monks: a heap of bones and a skull, and it would be as if he had never lived. He might as well have been like his father, content to slide into senility in the shelter of a mad sheikh’s shrine. There was still time, he had thought, there was still time. But time for what?
And thinking these thoughts he had walked out of the chamber of skulls and into the garden — and had come upon her, sitting on a wooden bench. God, or the devil, had presented him with an answer to his question. Time for this. Take her. This beautiful, brave woman who had strayed into his life and who sat looking up at the stars, womanly again in some loose silken thing that shimmered in the moonlight. His impulse then had been to sweep her into his arms. To dispense with all the stuff of language and hold her and forget himself in that fair body that called out to him from under the silk. Then her story and the way she told it had touched his heart. That she should have tried so hard to understand — to offer help — and been turned away so often. Oh, he would not turn her away, he woul
d take what she had to give and count himself rich for it. His father sits silently, the prayer beads trembling in his hand. How many times must his mother have wept in front of him? How many times must she have tried to draw him gently back — to no avail? And had he no thought for him, for the son that he had left to take up his responsibilities? The son who had no longer been able to allow himself his youth but had to calculate his every move with his mother and his sister firmly in mind?
‘Father.’
His father does not look up and Sharif Basha speaks louder:
‘Father.’ When he has his attention he continues, ‘I am thinking of getting married.’
A pleasant smile crosses the old man’s face but he says nothing.
‘Father. What do you say?’
‘ “Marriage is half of religion”,’ his father quotes.
‘To an Englishwoman,’ Sharif Basha says.
The smile vanishes from his father’s face and he looks down again.
‘I am thinking of getting married to an Englishwoman. What do you say?’
The old man, still looking at his prayer beads, quotes, almost in a whisper, ‘ “And we have created you of nations and of tribes that ye may get to know one another. The most honoured among you in the eyes of God are those who fear Him most.” ’
Sharif Basha regards his father sadly. Eventually he speaks: ‘Then I shall consider that I have your blessing.’
He finds his mother in the kitchen with two maids. She is selecting the fruit to go into the bowls which stand ready at her side.
‘Ahlan ya habibi!’ She holds out her arms. She hugs him and he bends to kiss her forehead.
‘Have you had breakfast?’
‘Al-hamdu-l-Illah.’
‘Then I shall peel you an orange. Smell.’ She holds out a smooth, shining orange. ‘The last of the season. From Yafa. A present from Shukri Bey.’ She takes his arm to lead him out of the kitchen. ‘Shall we sit here? It’s not too hot yet,’ she says, leading him to the covered loggia where he sat that first morning with Anna and Layla.
‘Kheir ya habibi,’ she says, when they have sat down. ‘You look tired and the world is still morning?’
‘I’ve just been to see my father. He seems in good health.’
‘Al-hamdu-l-Illah,’ she sighs.
After a pause, Sharif Basha says, ‘What does he think about all day?’
‘Who knows? He recites the Quran.’
‘Does he know you?’
‘I think so. He smiles when I go in.’
Sharif Basha makes an impatient movement and his mother continues:
‘You have to clear your heart towards him. He is your father. And if he has been unjust to anyone, he has been unjust to himself more.’
‘Every time I think of what he has done to you —’
‘He has done nothing to me. He was kind and good to me for twenty-six years and then this catastrophe came to us —’
‘He could have handled it differently.’
His mother shakes her head. ‘What could have happened? We could have been exiled. He could have been (may evil stay far) killed. He could have been in prison for years. You with all your philosophy — can you not see that? Once the revolution was defeated, all of life had to change.’
‘My heart does not forgive him.’
‘Because you feel he shamed you. My son, “God asks of no one except what he can give”. God forgives, and you cannot? Your uncle has brought us honour enough. And you, you have lived an upright life. I know it has been hard on you, but you have borne it and you have made a name and a reputation — even in these difficult times. Don’t carry bad feelings in your heart towards your father.’
Yes, he had made a name and a reputation. But he had always felt that he held himself in abeyance, as though he were negotiating a narrow mountain pass and the day would come when a road, previously unseen, would open before him. He looked at his mother, good-looking still at sixty, her skin smooth and her eyes deep and clear. She had been forty-two when his father had gone into his cloister.
‘It cannot have been easy for you,’ he attempts. ‘You were young —’
A smile of sudden mischief lights up Zeinab Hanim’s eyes. ‘What are you trying to say? That I could have married? When I had a son who was a tall, broad man with mustachios? Oh, what shame!’ She laughs. ‘Ya Sidi, I had Layla and I had you and my family. I had what was ordained for me of this world and more. And as for you who are so anxious about me — look at yourself! You are happy with yourself like this? No son to call you father, no daughter to sit on your knee? Who is going —’
‘Mother —’
‘I know, I know.’ She holds up her hands. ‘A subject we are forbidden to open. But if you are concerned for me, it is more fitting that you should be concerned for yourself. Who is going to look for you when you grow old? All your friends are married —’
‘This is what I wanted to talk to you about.’
‘What?’ Zeinab Hanim’s eyes open wide and she leans forward and puts her hand on her son’s knee. ‘By the Prophet? You have come to talk to me about marriage? What should I do? Ring out a zaghruda? I have even forgotten what the sound is like. Who, ya habibi? Who do you want and I shall go right now and ask for her —’
‘Listen to me, Mother.’ As his mother’s happiness burst forth, Sharif Basha looked more and more troubled. ‘Listen to me well. I need your opinion and your advice. My thoughts have gone to someone — but the matter is full of problems.’
‘Problems? What problems? Every problem has a solution.’ Zeinab Hanim sits back, her eyes still wide and fixed on her son.
‘She — you know her. I am thinking of Lady Anna.’
‘Lady Anna? The Englishwoman?’
He nods, watching her.
She lowers her eyes and lets out a long breath. When she lifts them to his they are full of concern. ‘You don’t have enough problems already?’
‘I told you.’
‘She is English.’
‘I know.’
‘And she is the one you want?’
‘It would seem so.’ He smiles.
‘You have the pick of the girls of Egypt. Any one of them would wish for you.’
‘Yes, but I don’t know them.’
‘You get to know them during the betrothal and —’
‘I am too old for that. And besides, we have had this conversation a hundred times, a thousand times —’
‘Yes, ya habibi, I know, I know. But an Englishwoman …’
Sharif Basha stands up and paces the small distance to the wall and back. ‘I go round and round in the same circle. I wish she were Egyptian, French — anything but English. Then I think of her and I end up thinking, very well, so she is English, there we are, does this mean it is impossible, it cannot work? I don’t know. What I know is that she has entered my heart and she refuses to leave.’
‘Have you spoken to her?’
‘No.’ He shakes his head, sits down and leans back in his chair. But she would probably accept him. And maybe for the wrong reasons. She saw distance and pride in his demeanour and she would imagine what she wished underneath. And she was brave enough and lonely enough to fly in the face of her Establishment. Perhaps even to take pleasure in defying it —
‘Ya habibi. You look so tired.’
‘It is nothing.’
‘Well, there is the “love” you have been waiting for. But you had to go and love an Englishwoman.’
‘Mother, have mercy. Where would I have met an Egyptian woman to love her? Yes, I see them at family occasions, but to sit with one and talk to her — can this happen? Layla was lucky that Husni is her cousin. I have not been so fortunate.’
‘Khalas, khalas. Don’t upset yourself. You love her and you want her. May God do what brings good.’
‘Shall I speak to her?’
‘Do you know who her people are? Her father, her mother — ‘
‘Yes. Her parents are dead.’
&nbs
p; ‘She was married before.’
‘Yes. She is a widow.’
‘And you accept that?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then speak to her with God’s blessing.’
‘She might refuse me, of course, and then all the problems will be solved.’
Refuse her son, the Basha? Zeinab Hanim knows that the monkey, in his mother’s eyes, is a gazelle, but this is not a mother’s fondness; the whole world would agree that her son is a fine man, a true man who fills his clothes. But then, an Englishwoman to marry an Egyptian — even a Basha like him? And it is true, if she will not have him there will be no problems. And now that his thoughts have turned towards marriage, maybe —
‘Wait. Don’t go yet.’ Zeinab Hanim puts a restraining hand on his arm as he moves to stand up. ‘Let’s drink a cup of coffee together while I think a little.’ She calls out and orders the coffee and they sit in silence till it comes.
‘Listen, my son,’ she says, after the first sip. ‘As you know, I have met the lady. Of course we could not speak together, but Layla also has spoken to me of her. She is beautiful, and she seems good and straight. But the problems for her will be even more than the problems for you.’
‘Is that what you see?’
‘Yes.’ Zeinab Hanim nods. ‘For her, her whole life will change. Her people will be angry with her. And the British here will shun her. And even if they soften, it will be difficult for her, as your wife, to visit them or receive visits from them. She will be torn off from her own people. Even her language she will not be able to use —’
Sharif Basha pushes back his chair but his mother holds on to his hand.
‘If she feels for you as you feel for her, she will throw away the world and come to you. But if you take her —’ Zeinab Hanim holds her son’s hand firmly in both her own — ‘you will be everything to her. If you make her unhappy, who will she go to? No mother, no sister, no friend. Nobody. It means if she angers you, you forgive her. If she crosses you, you make it up with her. And whatever the English do, you will never burden her with the guilt of her country. She will be not only your wife and the mother of your children — Insha Allah — but she will be your guest and a stranger under your protection and if you are unjust to her God will never forgive you.’
