“I do,” said Blanche. “Would you like to ask me to dance, Mr. Hamdi-Ali?”
Silence.
“He can’t d—” David began, but his father waved him off, stood up, took the young woman in his arms and danced. Raphael felt a deep hatred for the man, and Emilie smiled at him empathetically, as if to say, When you’re my age you’ll have more tolerance for this kind of thing.
“Raphaelo! Raphaelo! Raphaelo!”
The host announced, “I see him, in our audience, our friend Raphaelo with the angelic voice! Such a bashful tenor! It is our custom here at the Auberge Bleue to showcase talent from the audience, and so I truly hope Raphael Vital will be willing to sing a few songs from his repertoire, the songs of Andalusia.”
Applause. The patrons all knew Raphael, or as they lovingly called him, Raphaelo. His voice had a rugged intensity and sensitivity. All the ladies shed a tear as he began singing the songs of España, the gentlemen awkwardly cleared their throats. Only Blanche sat there, shooting quizzical green arrows from her eyes to his. Never before had Raphael sung the suffering of the toreador captivated by the beautiful gypsy as emphatically as he did that day. Applause shook the walls. He smiled graciously at the audience, but looked at Blanche with concern. What does he care about the excitement of this audience if he doesn’t have the support of his future wife? Blanche ran to him, kissed him in front of everybody and announced, “Raphaelo and I are getting married. À la vôtre! ”
Everyone cheered, and Raphael looked at his fiancée gratefully.
38. TO DIE
Victor lay in bed, feverish, moaning, complaining, his stomach in knots. From time to time, he flew down the hallway to the bathroom; everyone hoped he made it there in time. For three days and three nights, there was a volcano in his stomach. The doctor came and wrote various prescriptions but the malady seemed to dance to the beat of its own rebellious drum.
Joseph stood at his son’s side like a punished child. When Victor ran to the bathroom, Joseph ran after him, hoping he could help him, and thus repent for his sin. Ever forgiving, patient Emilie stared at her husband accusingly. Who gives a child a gallon of ice cream? And what if it was spoiled or poisoned, and who knows, the child could have … God forbid … she didn’t dare complete the thought. But thoughts such as these had become harder to suppress ever since the cholera epidemic a few years back. She blamed herself, too. She should have made them stop after the first bowl.
Joseph walked out of the apartment. His wife ran to the balcony to follow him with her eyes; she didn’t dare call after him to ask where he was going. She knew this did not bode well. Joseph quickly disappeared up the street.
An hour went by. The eruptions became less frequent. The child even managed to sleep for a while. His mother stood at his side, watching his face as it twisted with pain from time to time, and felt a surge of love for this boy. She swore that if he recovered, she’d give him much more attention than in the past. David was all grown up and would soon marry, and his wife would be there to take care of him. He won’t want her, Emilie, with them anyway. Such is the way of the world. And this little one, who would he have left, other than her? And his father, she quickly added with alarm.
When Victor awoke there was a large, curious package at his side. He looked around quizzically and saw everyone surrounding him, smiling and gesturing for him to open the package. Quickly and enthusiastically, Victor began fussing with the ribbons and wrapping paper, finally removing the lid of the box and revealing the great wonder to one and all.
It truly was a wonder. Even Robby couldn’t believe his eyes. He’d never seen anything like it.
Purring with joy, Victor hopped around on the rug like an excited monkey, not allowing anyone to come close. Victor made a special point of keeping Robby, Salem, Thérèse and Juliette away, for the adults posed no real threat to the shiny toy sprawled over the rug.
Train cars scampered over shiny metal tracks with something between a rattle and a hum, passed through artificial tunnels, stopped at stations and intersections with red lights, attached themselves to locomotives, detached again, returned to their starting point, and embarked all over again, in mesmerizing circuitry. An imported train set, electric-powered, a world in and of itself. The user, the child, need only find a socket, flip the switch, and the busy system would come to life. Victor was ecstatic. His food poisoning faded into the background.
“Tell them! Tell them how much it cost!” Victor called out to his father.
Joseph looked at his son with pleasure and embarrassment. “Twenty. Twenty pounds.”
And they all repeated with amazement: “Twenty pounds!”
Salem the servant stood in the corner and thought, how many times does two pounds eighty—Robby’s father added thirty piasters to his monthly salary, despite Grandma’s protests—how many times does that sum go into twenty pounds? He thought and thought, and when he couldn’t calculate the answer, he concluded that if he could have done such math by himself, he would already be earning twenty pounds per month … but … seven! Seven was the answer. Two pounds eighty goes into twenty seven times, seven times his salary! Salem was proud to have solved the problem so quickly, but when the reality of the numbers sank in, his humiliation was overpowering. Salem was practical, a realist, like most other servants he knew. The fact that the world contained masters and servants was perceived by him as the moral foundation of a normal society, the way of the world, just like rising sun and the flow of the Nile. Nevertheless, there it was: a toy cost more than he earned in seven months? Would he ever be able to buy such a toy for his own son? Would his son end up a servant, just like him? His grandson?
Victor grabbed his father’s neck once more and kissed his cheek. His father stood there, exhilarated, as if having achieved some spectacular feat. All the children were envious of his son, the little outcast. Just then Claude, the bespectacled mama’s boy with the newsboy cap, appeared. He saw the train and begged Victor to let him play with it, but Victor wouldn’t. Joseph caressed his happy son with his eyes, and suddenly, once again, but this time—how shameful it was!—in front of everyone, even the children and the servant and the two Coptic girls, tears burst from his eyes. The children stared at the crying old man and couldn’t figure out what was happening. No one dared say a word.
Victor stopped his convulsions of joy and stood silently in front of his father. Then he jumped up at him once more and screeched, “You’re the best father in the world. The best!”
Joseph wanted to die.
As simple as that, to die. His son was hanging on his neck, shouting into his ear that he was the best father in the world, and at that very moment Joseph felt that he wanted to die. Not for shame at having shed tears in spite of himself, not for rage at the things that had befallen him in recent days, not for desperation at the downfall of his career, not for disappointment in himself and his eldest son and his withering body, not for any clear, known reason. Just to die. For no reason at all. To cease …
Then, again for no clear or known reason, the train cars began changing directions, crashing into each other, making terrible noises, running off the tracks … running off the tracks … running off the tracks …
A short circuit ignited a white flash of light in the dimness of the hall, and the entire system shut down and died. In an instant, the complex web of trains turned into a heap of junk.
39. I’LL PRAY FOR YOU
Joseph was acquitted in the court of law, but not on the racetrack. Al-Tal’ooni was now the hero of the track, a national symbol. His wind-swept face, his deep, throaty voice, his unrestrained existence awoke deep yearning in a mob oppressed by an indifferent king who was surrounded by corrupt advisers, leaning on a crumbling empire, yearning for days of power and heroism in the free air of the scorching desert. Ishmael shall live on his sword! No more of Farouk’s stockpiling, his paunch, his European suits, his fez and beads, his impotency. Al-Tal’ooni reminded the public of the days when Muhammad rode from Mecca
to Medina and initiated a new calendar, of the days when Omar and Abu Bakr excited the imaginations of believers with the cry, “Din Muhammad bi’l seif— the law of Muhammad will be enforced with the sword!”
Al-Tal’ooni ruled the track, and his name resounded beyond the white fences and green grass of the Sporting Club.
Joseph didn’t return to the track, despite his wife’s and son’s pleas. He knew he did not belong there anymore. You go, he told David. You go and take hold of your career, without your father’s help, liberated from that dark shadow I cast around myself. Joseph snickered. Go, ya ibni, go… but he never believed his cowardly boy would go on his own.
David went. He trained alone, his Arab groom at his side. He slowly regained his previous form after a three-week break. He registered for the Sunday race, the final one that marked the end of the season in Alexandria.
“I’ll participate in the final race,” David said.
“The final race,” Joseph repeated, his eyes glowing.
“I’ll break that Arab,” David said, enraged. “The whole world will know that the Hamdi-Ali name is the greatest of all!”
Joseph was happy. The zeal in his son’s eyes—this is the boy he’d hoped for, this ambition, this determination. He could finally pass the torch in this inter-generational relay. He closed his eyes and said gravely, “I’ll pray for you.”
“You’ll what?”
“I’ll pray to our God that you win,” said Joseph. “At the synagogue. I’ll say … I can’t remember the words from the last time that …” He went quiet. His conversion was an untouchable subject in the Hamdi-Ali family. They were all to pretend that Joseph had been born Jewish. He’d never come so close, dangerously close to stepping out of bounds, but he held his tongue just in time. Especially since little Victor knew nothing of the matter. That’s what they thought, anyway, in fact, there was nothing Victor didn’t know. “Still, I’ll pray,” he said, squeezed David’s shoulder, sighed and stood up.
40. HAKHAM FERRERA
Rabbi Ferrera, in a fez and with a goatee, sat on the balcony sipping coffee with his eyes almost shut. In the tradition of Sephardic rabbis, he was known as “Hakham Ferrera”—“Ferrera the Wise.” He fiddled with his prayer beads, and when his lips weren’t touching the cup, they moved in a ceaseless mumble—the Psalms?—and his large Adam’s apple, poking out of a thin, slightly twisted throat, went back and forth like a piston.
“Who’s he waiting for over there, like a bird on a branch?” Madame Marika asked.
“You won’t believe it: he’s waiting for Joseph Hamdi-Ali,” Robby’s grandma whispered.
“Joseph Hamdi-Ali with Hakham Ferrera? Tsk tsk tsk. Now that’s something!”
“And where is Monsieur Hamdi-Ali?” asked Alice, all atwitter for the early Saturday game (she told Isidore she was going to visit a sick friend).
“Went downstairs for a newspaper,” said Grandma, then added the startling news: “David’s going to ride in the race tomorrow. Joseph’s getting a paper to see what the betting situation is. He’ll be right back.” Not that she knew for certain what Joseph was reading in the paper about the race, and what the “betting situation” meant exactly, but she pretended to be fully informed.
“Why didn’t he send the servant?” wondered Madame Marika.
“Joseph Hamdi-Ali goes to get the paper himself each morning.”
“Those people from Cairo are strange!”
The ladies shook their heads and went to greet the rabbi. The wise man jumped up on his feet to honor ces dames, all smiles, and in his lyrical, chivalrous French, which contained some archaic vocabulary from past centuries, asked how their husbands were, and why they weren’t also attending this friendly get-together, blessed by the sanctity of the Sabbath. The ladies admitted with downcast eyes that they’d convened to play cards.
“On a Saturday?” the rabbi said, shaking a reproachful finger at them. Then he sighed and continued: “Must you play cards on the Sabbath, too? It’s forbidden.”
He didn’t expect an answer. Since he’d done his duty, he allowed himself to return to his coffee cup. He knew very well that his words made no impression on the ladies craving their card game. When his father, God have mercy on his soul, was the head rabbi of the community, people would be ashamed to be seen taking part in sacrilege. Times have changed, and Jews have changed. He was different from his father, too. He, who as a young man in his parents’ house was more fanatical than his wise, tolerant father, had adjusted against his will, compromising, dragged after his flock, afraid he might lose it. He glanced at the women once more and sighed. In the meantime, Geena and Livia joined the group. The table was crowded. Including Robby’s mother and grandmother, there were six women playing, while the maximum for each game was five. The hostesses decided to play associées instead, until a few more women showed up and they could fill a second table, with at least four in each game.
While they played, the rabbi finished his coffee, opened his eyes a slit and saw Robby. “Robbico, take this empty cup and tell your mother yisalem ida, bless her hands.”
Robby took the cup, though he was angry at the rabbi for not summoning a servant for such an inferior task. While he was walking to the kitchen, the rabbi called him back again. “Robby, come here, Robby. Viens ici.”
Robby returned to the old man.
“You want to be a mezamer at the synagogue?” he asked, fixing his brown and kindly smiling eyes on the boy.
“What’s a mezamer?”
“A mezamer is a choir boy.”
“And what do they sing?”
“Prayers, Psalms, things from the Bible.” The rabbi knew how to speak to laymen.
“But I don’t know the words. I don’t even know any prayers.”
“You’ll learn. Come to the synagogue next Saturday and we’ll teach you everything. But you know what? Wear nice Sabbath clothes. That’s a mitzvah!”
Robby wanted to ask what a mitzvah was, but said instead: “But I can’t sing.”
“Do you think the other children can?” the wise Ferrera winked. “They don’t know how to sing either. You move your lips in time. The main thing is to make them think you’re singing. We need a lot of kids in the choir, you see? As many as possible. And maybe this will bring your parents to the synagogue. Here, have a piece of candy.” He fished a sour candy wrapped in cellophane from his pocket.
Robby didn’t like sour candy, but he didn’t want to hurt the kind old man’s feelings, especially since a career as a singer appealed to him in spite of his shyness. He could picture himself in a white suit and a loud red tie, a newsboy cap atop his head (because your head must be covered in the house of prayer), standing there, singing. Singing, yes. He was no longer ashamed, and promised himself to sing loud and clear, his voice rising above the rest. Nonetheless, one thing was certain—this would not draw his atheist father to the synagogue!
Joseph walked in with the newspaper under his arm. Seeing the rabbi, he hurried to put down the paper and walk over. “Rabbi, I’m sorry to make you wait.”
“I was early, Yusef, ya habibi,” the rabbi said good-naturedly. “Besides, I wasn’t wasting my time. I was recruiting for our new choir. Here, Robby’s going to join us as a mezamer.”
Joseph turned to Robby, smiling. “Good boy, good boy.”
It was one of the few times that Joseph Hamdi-Ali spoke to Robby. For a moment, the boy saw the old man’s smiling eyes, two islands lost in a storm of wrinkles. Not the appeasing wrinkles of old age, those little ditches channeling intelligence and experience, but cracks in the heart of boiling lava, the geyser of tears about to erupt.
Joseph turned to the rabbi and said, “Rabbi, I thank you for agreeing to see me. I see you were already served coffee. I’ll get straight to the point then.” He shot Robby a quick look.
Robby, well-raised boy that he was, took the hint and left.
41. A SPECIAL PRAYER
“I need your help, Rabbi,” Joseph said gravely.
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The rabbi nodded. It was his habit to help those in need, and so he was all the more attentive to Joseph Hamdi-Ali, the convert who contributed regularly to the community. He smiled and whispered, “How many years has it been, Yusef, my brother?”
Joseph did not respond. It was clear he didn’t wish to touch upon this subject. He waited patiently.
The rabbi, oblivious, continued, “Thirty years, maybe more. Who can say? It goes by like a gust of wind.” For a moment, Hakham Ferrera closed his eyes. A white room in Muharam Bey, Alexandria of the 1920s. His father, the rabbi, sitting on a low stool, flipping through the pages of the Talmud with quick, expert fingers, and the rapid movements of a professional swimmer. Once in a while he raises his eyes with a happy smile, removes his glasses and dives into the interpretation of a difficult topic. His son, having just stepped out of the realm of boyhood, drinks in his words thirstily.
At that moment, a skinny young man in a fez appears in the doorway. He turns to the old rabbi immediately and says in Turkish, “Sir Hakham, I want to become a Jew. How much?”
The shock on the old rabbi’s face is slowly replaced with a merciful smile. “Before we discuss money, you must tell me why you want to become a Jew. Do you know how hard it is to be one?”
“I know,” says the young man.
The excited rabbi’s son jumps up and says, “Why do you need to even ask, ya baba? His eyes have obviously opened to the —”
His father glances at him and he quiets down immediately. Then the rabbi turns to the Muslim and says, “Well?”
The man answers without hesitation, “I love a Jewish girl and I want to marry her. Her parents would never let her marry a Muslim, that’s why I want to be Jewish.”
The romantic motive raises protest in the heart of the rabbi’s son. “And where’s the faith? The epiphany? All for a girl?”
Once more, his father looks at him admonishingly, and once more he quiets down. The old man asks, “What’s your name, ya ibni?”
Alexandrian Summer Page 16
